Stranger in a Strange Place

Greene

She was cold.

She didn't know how long she'd been cold. Trapped in this place without time and space, without fury or calm, of silence and deafening noise, beyond life and death, time had no meaning. She couldn't see anything in her prison beyond a web of red and black tendrils, ones that shimmered and realigned every time she turned her head. Or at least she thought she turned her head. She could feel the movement, certainly, but it didn't seem like she ever changed location. Same with walking. She didn't even know if she was truly standing, or sitting.

She had the impression she wasn't the only one in this prison, that there were many others, impossibly far and impossibly close. She wondered if they too were cold. Most likely. This was such a cold place. No life to it, not like her Home.

Her Home. She wondered what had happened to her Home, now that she was in this prison, locked somewhere outside the cycle of life and death. Existing but not existing, a forgotten memory that wouldn't fade. She wondered if her children had returned to her Home, if the Bad Air had left it. The Bad Air that had forced her to retreat and face her Wayward Child, and then be sent to this prison within him.

Her Wayward Child.

Oh, how her heart ached and her blood boiled at the thought of him. The son they had taken from her, poisoned his mind and twisted his body, then sent after her and her children. The one who had taken her, Cursed her, and placed her into this prison for... she didn't know how long, but it was for far-too-long.

She settled her thoughts. She could have drifted thoughtless for a second or for a thousand years. The laws of time had no hold on her Wayward Child, and had even less influence inside this prison.

She'd long ago given up trying to escape this prison, whose walls were not walls and whose floor was no floor, where no matter how much she ran she never moved. Where no matter how loud she screamed she was silent and no matter how quiet she was she roared. So she'd settled for sitting here and whispering to herself, reliving her life a hundred thousand times over, endlessly going over her failure to protect her family and her children from the Similars.

Her Holy Child, taken from her so early-early-early and placed so far she could not hear him, feel him, help him.

Her Wayward Child, his Blessing twisted into a Curse and sent against her. She always heard him while she'd been free. Always heard him roaring and fighting, an engine of constant anger and hunger that rebuffed all her attempts to soothe him and help him, his fury making her sick to her stomach.

Her Strange Child, born of her Blessing and of the Awful Poison that had nearly taken her Wayward Child's life. He'd feared her, and that made her sad sad sad. Furthermore, he'd been obsessed with her Wayward Child, obsessed with afflicting him with his Curse. She wondered what had happened to him.

Another time of no thoughts.

She was cold.

Her thoughts turned to her other children. How lost they must be without their mother to guide them, in this world that sought to reject her Blessing, her gift to the masses. How scared they must be, without her to shield them from having to make their own decisions. And then there were the children here with her, trapped in this cold prison. Close enough to touch but so far, far, too far to comfort with her presence, too far to ever touch.

She wondered what she did wrong. Both times she had been free-free-free to share her Blessing, she'd been rebuked. First time, she'd lost hundreds of her children, her Holy Child taken from her, and had been locked away for a long long long time. The second time, she lost children by the thousands, her Wayward Child breaking them and Cursing them, Cursing her. She'd erred in how she'd raised her family; her presence in this prison was proof of that. But what could she have possibly done different? Where had she gone wrong?

If she'd had her Holy Child with her, then maybe he could've helped her. He was doubtless so pure, so smart and so very strong. He could've helped her, the Purpose to her Reason. But it wasn't to be.

She was cold.

Except she wasn't.

That was very strange for her. She'd been cold for as long as she'd been in this prison. Far colder than the prison she'd been held in during the Time for Waiting, which was longer and shorter than her stay in this prison. Why was it suddenly not-cold?

The tendrils before her began to part around a central point in her vision. Where they retreated, blazing white light shone through, growing in a star burst as they continued to unravel. She realized she was still cold, just not as cold as before.

A smile graced her lips. Was her Wayward Child coming around? Had he decided and found out how to free her from his prison? Oh, that would be splendid splendid splendid!

The last of the tentacles faded from sight, and her vision was awash in white, tinted with blue flame. She felt herself moving, moving, movingmovingmovingmovingmoving -

- and then, she was -

Awake.

Her eyes adjusted. Where was she? Was she still in the streets, fighting against her Wayward Child in a frenzy of blood and fury? No, she was in a room. Was she in the place she'd been captured, where she had patiently bid her time? No. This was different. So very different; even the air tasted different.

Something was horribly wrong wrong wrong. It was so quiet. She could hear no children. Feel no children. See no children. It was as if her entire family had simply... ceased to exist. It was the Time for Waiting all over again, but so much worse because of the uncertainty of why she had no children.

She was standing. Had she been standing when she was freed? She didn't remember. It didn't matter. She needed a plan for what to do after so long and short a time of doing nothing. And she could make a plan, make so many plans because she was ever so smart.

She needed to assess her situation. She had failed, that was obvious to all. Her Wayward Child had Cursed her and sealed her in a timeless prison. She was no longer in that prison. Which meant she'd either been freed, or her Wayward Child had broken and the prison broke with him. She had no means of figuring out which had happened, but that didn't matter because she was free to spread her Blessing, to touch and bestow her gift and raise a family!

Patience. She had to be patient.

Where was she? She was in a room, obviously. It was a fairly large room and, like all rooms not touched by her gift, it was cold. It was colorful, but not like the colors Similars used in their designs. There were columns on the sides, made of wood and filled with books. There were a lot of them. She couldn't see any Similars. It was very dark, and further inspection revealed she was in fact in a hallway, with her back to a wall. Further down the hall, it turned to the left.

There were a lot of books.

She didn't feel good. She felt so weak and tired, exactly how she'd felt laying at her Wayward Child's feet before being Cursed, and though she was getting stronger she was still so hurt. Kneeling and moving a finger over the ground, she realized she was very weak indeed, too weak to warm up the floor with her Blessing.

She heard voices.

Not the chattering chittering language of the Similars that she knew all too well. It was different, so very different, smooth and braying and accompanied by heavy footfalls. Four Similars coming her way. She raised herself back up, fingers flexing as she waited for them to appear, staring intently down the hall.

She was quite surprised when no Similars appeared. Instead, a group of what appeared to be equines walked in, noticably shorter than her. No, not even a group. Only two. They were both stark white, blue eyes, with golden plates on them with a pair of wings jutting out of their sides. They looked quite identical, and seemed surprised to see her.

They approached her, speaking rapidly in that strange language. Suddenly, she jerked her head towards them and narrowed her eyes. Fire bloomed inside of her. All of a sudden she Wanted that language. Wanted to speak it and hear it ripple and echo around her long after her lips stop moving, Wanted it so much it hurt. She Wanted it, and she knew just how to get it.

She leaped forward and reached the equine on the right. They both jerked backwards in surprise, but from what? How fast she moved? It wasn't her fault that she and her family were so much faster than everything else. Before they could take action she reached out with her right hand and pressed it against the equine's head.

“Guh!” It dropped like a stone, a sharp spike of pain flaring in her own head. She withdrew the hand and held both to her head as the memories fluncutated in her. She'd done something similar with her Wayward Child, but that was to give him memories of her own. The reverse process, on something so much weaker than her child, was clearly more taxing. On both of them.

“What did you do to him?!” the other one – male? - shouted. Ah, at least now she could understand.

She leaned her head back. “Beautiful language,” she whispered, lowering her hands, closing her eyes and smiling when it continued to echo. She opened her eyes and frowned when the other equine, apparently angered at her memory transfer on the other, made to strike her.

It felt like a gentle tap when its armored hooves made contact, but it roused her ire nevertheless. Her pale green eyes locked with its own blue ones, and narrowed dangerously. It had struck her. It had touched her.

How.

Dare.

It.

She was still horrendously weak, but that didn't stop her from curling her left arm under her right and striking out with it. The equine tried to block her with a foreleg, but went sailing back regardless, smashing into a bookshelf and falling limply to the ground, a shower of literature peppering the area near the body.

She frowned. These equines had language. They were not Similars, and their armor was different. Were these two guards? Civilians? Leaders? It was so needlessly complicated, her family was so so so simple. Her, and her children. End of story. But if they were anything like the Similars, they would fear her and imprison her and take things out of her.

She didn't know where she was. She'd never heard of equines with speech; she'd barely heard of equines period. But language meant some order, and if these weren't leaders their fellows would notice they went missing and alert their leaders. She'd be imprisoned and experimented on yet again.

That was fine.

She was weak, and they'd strengthen her; otherwise she'd be of no use to them. She needed to learn, and what sort of mother raises children without knowing what sort of world they'd be subjected to? She'd let them experiment on her and take their little samples. She'd listen to them talk of the world beyond, listen to them when they thought she wasn't thinking. She could wait. She was oh so patient, and she wouldn't make the same mistakes as last time.

Giving no glance to the two unconscious equines, Elizabeth Greene slowly sat down and drew her knees to her chest. She linked her hands beneath them and bowed her head.

Once more, the Time for Waiting had begun.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Celestia

Magic filled the air in abundance. The very air was filled with the energy, undulating and writhing around a central figure in vast silvery blue filaments. But however much there was located around this figure, the amount around the actual targets of the spell was simply incomprehensible. The caster continued to cast, magic surging from their horn into the various configurations, taking hold of a vast number of tiny pinpricks of light before completing the first stage of the spell.

Like a hundred thousand candles in a hurricane, the stars went out.

The spell continued, and the bluish light intensified. Now, the spell focused only on one singular, massive, solid object, and gave it a single command, a direction.

As if on a rusted pulley system, the moon dropped below the horizon, leaving the sky empty and black, and the glowing silver magic vanished.

Princess Celestia looked at Luna, and smiled. She'd missed this. A millenium was a long time to go without the little things, such as raising and lowering the heavenly bodies together. She had so much catching up to do.

Her little sister looked up at her and nodded, smiling gently. She returned the nod and focused her own magic. Her task was far simpler, yet involved an order of magnitude more power. Her own magic swelled around her and her sister in a steady, blazing yellow glow. The heat increased significantly, and as it did a subtle tint of red appeared on the horizon opposite to where the moon had set. It grew larger and larger, until it began to shift towards orange and yellow and blue...

The sun rose.

Princess Celestia extinguished her horn's glow and glanced down at her sister. “This was nice, sister.”

Princess Luna nodded. The two began to head back inside. “Indeed, Tia. We shall endeavour to perform more raisings and settings at thy side. We hath forgotten just what it is like.”

“Language, Luna." The younger alicorn rolled her eyes. "Though I agree with you, Lulu,"she said, teasing her in kind with the old nickname. "I still feel I don't spend enough time with you as I should.”

The younger alicorn shrugged, coming to a pause inside the sealed room, patterned with images of the sun and moon. “It's not as if thou has many opportunities. We are, after all, nocturnal as opposed to thy being diurnal. Tis only to be expected.”

The Daybringer shook her head. “That's no excuse for not being with my only family.”

“We wouldn't say 'only' family. Thy student and our friend, she looks to thee as a mother. Surely thou knows?”

Princess Celestia smiled, thinking warmly of the unicorn in question. “Indeed, and I see her so much as a daughter. But it's another thing to actually have the bond in blood.”

“Indeed, we suppose. Speaking of thy student, we hear she and her friends have recently met success in the Crystal Empire?”

“Yes, it's heartwarming to see her perform so marvelously. Twilight and her friends, their accomplishments never cease to amaze me.” Celestia smiled hopefully towards Luna. “Would you like to join me for breakfast?”

Luna shook her head, and Celestia's hopes wilted. “Neigh, Tia. As much as we would wish to, we feel we shall turn in early this day.”

Taking care to hide her frown, Celestia nodded. “Of course, sister.” She leaned over and the two siblings shared a nuzzle. “I shall see you at dusk, then.”

“Take care of thyself, sister. After all - “

The doors burst open, and a rather disheveled looking guard dashed in. To say 'burst', 'disheveled' and 'dashed' may be over the top – the doors smoothly sailed open without smashing into the walls, the only defect in the guard's appearance was a half degree tilt to his helmet, and by dashed he trotted in at a brisk yet controlled pace.

“Your Majesties! There is an intruder in the Royal Library!” he said after quickly bowing.

Luna and Celestia both blinked. Celestia stifled a sigh. It was going to be one of those days, wasn't it? “We take back what we said about turning in early, then.” She narrowed her gaze at the guard. “Where is this intruder? And why would anypony be fool enough to -”

“Forgive me Princess, but it's not a pony. We... we don't know what it is. It assaulted Vanguard and Unbreakable Shield while they were patrolling in the Library.”

Princess Celestia pondered this, and came across a course of action. “Come, lead us to this creature. Explain the situation on our way, Slow Yield.” She made it a point to know each of her guards by name.

Slow Yield bowed again. “Of course, Your Majesty. This way.” He turned tail and began trotting down the halls, both Princesses in tow. The guards that had been posted at the door saluted, as did the other guards they passed. The few servants up at this hour – either heading to rest from the night shift or waking to the day shift – hurriedly bowed as the Royal Sisters passed.

“Vanguard and Unbreakable Shield were patrolling the Royal Library. They found the creature in the Medicine and Biology section, and moved to question it. There was a skirmish, during which the creature rendered them both unconscious. Vanguard has awoken - “

“What were the injuries?” Princess Celestia asked as they turned a corner. She needed to make sure her subjects were as healthy as possible, above all else.

“Vanguard suffered a concussion, a few broken ribs, a shattered left foreleg, and some internal trauma. Unbreakable Shield, however, shows no signs of physical or magical injuries.”

Princess Luna frowned. “And yet he takes longer to awaken? How long ago was this?”

“Approximetly two hours ago, by our guess. Vanguard and Unbreakable Shield were only found when they didn't report in when they should've, and others went to look for them. They have been placed in medical care.”

“We see. What was Vanguard's description of this battle?”

“He said that after asking what the creature was doing there, it charged them without hesitation. It reached them before they could react – he describes it as having superpony speed – and placed a limb on Unbreakable Shield's head. Instantly, he fell unconscious, and the creature began rambling to itself. He made to detain it, but it struck him. We found him lying next to a damaged bookshelf with a few dozen novels around him. Vanguard says he doesn't even remember hitting the wall.”

Celestia brought a hoof to her chin. “This creature knocked out two of the Royal Guard with a single blow each. Where is it now?”

“Well, Your Highness, it's... still there. It hasn't moved at all.”

“What doest thou mean?”

“Exactly that. It makes no reaction to our threats or advisements. It makes no reaction to anything. It just... sits there, completely unresponsive. We've got four guards watching over it, in case it tries anything.”

Celestia was confused by this. A strange creature shows up, renders two of her guards unconscious with, if the story was correct, next to no effort, and then just sits in the library while other guards accost it? It didn't make much sense. Still, however questionable its actions were (And she would be sure to make it understand that you do not assault her little ponies) it was a member of a new, apparently sapient species. And that meant, unless it passed a serious line that couldn't be attributed to cultural differences, they had to be at least hospitable to them, lest its fellows learn of its situation. Equestria prided itself on hospitality.

They arrived in the Royal Library, which had been closed before it opened by the Royal Guard. Slow Yield brought them into the Medicine and Biology section, where four other guards were facing, spears ready, at a figure near the end of the library wing.

Celestia had seen many things in her long, long life. Things that would make others break down in tears, of awe or horror depending. Things that broke the laws of physics, and bent reality to their will. Creatures large and small, wide and thin, predators and prey, but nothing like this.

The closest she could compare it to was a minotaur, and that was being generous, given it had no horns and nowhere near the musculature of minotaurs. It was sitting down, with its gangly knees drawn to its chest, where developed mammary glands indicated it was a female. It – her - forelimbs were locked underneath her knees, making it hard to make out the digits of the clearly bipedal being. For the most part, she was covered in clothing, a single full-piece gray plastic that covered its feet, legs, chest and arms. The single article went up her neck and ended in a wide-rimmed collar just under her head. It didn't look comfortable, but who was she to judge another species's ways? For all she knew, their nervous systems differed enough to make such a collar pleasing.

Her left shoulder was covered in a thin film of blood, which gave the illusion that instead of clothes, the shoulder was exposed and the skin rubbed raw. The only bits of skin exposed were the creature's head and hands.

It had next to no fur. Just a thin, nearly invisible coating of hair along its skin. It had a thicker red mane on top, but it was ragged, short, and unkept. Any more details, Celestia couldn't make out, as its head was bowed, obscuring the face.

Celestia and Luna stopped before the guards. “You may return to your posts,” the older alicorn said kindly. “Thank you for detaining her, we will handle it from here.”

One of them – she recognized him as Undented Shield – looked at her worriedly. “Are you certain, Princess? It is dangerous.”

“I am quite certain. However dangerous it is, it is not more dangerous than the two of us.”

“We do not know, sister. Art thou certain? Remember, it incapicated one of thy guards with but a touch.”

She nodded. “I'm certain, Luna. If it even makes a move towards us, we have magic, telekinesis. And besides, it would not do to scare her anymore than is neccesary.”

“Suit thyself. Guards, thou art dismissed.” With bows, the five Royal Guards left, leaving the two alicorns with the creature. Now that she could look more carefully, Celestia was taken aback.

“Luna,” she began. “I believe I've seen this type of being before.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“Understand, they're just ancient mythology, from before even Discord. But it does look surprisingly... human.”

Luna barked a laugh. “Human? Do not be foalish, Tia. They were bedtime stories for fillies when we were fillies. Myths, legends!”

“Yet tell me she does not look like one?” Luna had no response. “Of course, we shouldn't jump to conclusions. It may merely resemble a human; after all, it could be said changelings resemble ponies.”

“In which case, we should not be talking as though it is not present.” Luna fixed the creature – human? - a look. “Unidentified being, thou hast intruded upon Canterlot Castle grounds and assaulted two members of our sister's Guard. Speak for thyself and defend thyself upon these charges, lest we imprison thee in the Royal Dungeons!”

She didn't move.

Celestia brushed Luna with a wing. “Perhaps I should attempt the diplomacy, sister?” She had to be careful. As an unknown race, any of its customs that it found natural could be outright repulsive to her. She didn't want to accidentally offend her; she'd be treading on eggshells.

The Night Goddess rolled her eyes. “Thou never did appreciate the benefits of intimidation. Very well, attempt thy 'diplomacy'.”

Celestia stepped forward, and bowed her head once to the creature. “I apologize for my sister's less than hospitable introduction.”

“Hmph!”

“I understand you have assaulted two of my guards, however I also understand this was more likely than not a result of miscommunication on our part. Please, I would simply like to negotiate with you.”

No response.

Celestia narrowed her eyes. Slow Yield wasn't lying when he said unresponsive. “I would appreciate it if you did not ignore me, and returned the same courtosy I am extending you. We can make no progress without conversation, so it would be appreciable if you were to talk. Please. You are not in trouble; as diarch of Equestria I assure you of that. But just speak with me.”

The human didn't respond. She kept her head bowed and hands locked. Celestia strained her ears, but couldn't even hear her breathing. An ember of anger flared inside her chest. Why wouldn't this being speak to her? Was it catatonic? Brain dead? Simply terrified of her? As horrible as it was, she disliked the thought of the last one most. So many of her little ponies were already afraid of her, add to that the person who would, all things considered, be the ambassador for her race...

“Why do you not respond? I only want to help you.”

Nothing.

Luna, already tired and wanting to go to sleep, exploded. “How dare thou ignore our sister in such a manner? After thou hast intruded upon our castle, assaulted our subjects and ignored all methods of their interrogation, thou now refuses to acknowledge our sister's benevolent requests for parlay? What hast thou to say for thyself, for so brashley ignoring those who wish to perhaps aid thee?”

After a few moments, Celestia gathered her wits and forced her ears to stop ringing. “Thank you, Luna, but I'm afraid you may have just - “

The creature stirred.

She lifted her head, and Celestia got a good glimpse. It had strange rounded ears on the sides of its head, and a thin mouth with the nostrils located on a seperate, beakish protusion. Its eyes were very small, with faded green irises that bespoke of curiosity, and promised slaughter. She had bloodstains on her face; a large one to the left of her left eye that reached her ears, and another to the right of her lips. The human's eyes locked with Celestia's.

“Aid me?” she asked in a low voice. Her Equestrian was accented; it was clipped and short, the sounds ending sharper than they should've. But however quiet she was, Celestia knew she could easily overshadow all other noise, because her voice echoed and rasped with a thousand similar yet different voices, long after her lips stopped moving.

Celestia grimaced. That voice was nothing if not haunting, but she'd be a foal to judge somepony based on their voice. “Yes, aid you, if needed. I believe introductions are in order. I am Princess Celestia, Bringer of the Day and diarch of Equestria. This is my sister, Princess Luna, Bringer of the Night and also diarch of Equestria. May we know your name?”

She blinked. “Name. Name.” She closed her eyes. “Name name name.” Opened them again. “Elizabeth Greene.” Celestia wondered what the meaning behind that name was. If there even was any.

Luna shared an unnerved glance with Celestia. She's crazy, Luna mouthed, before speaking to the being. “Um, indeed. Greetings, Elizabeth Greene. Thou must understand, we have never seen thy kind in the flesh before. Thou resemble the humans, in stories of old. Is that what thou art?”

Elizabeth Greene narrowed her eyes. In a flash, she was on her feet, hissing, five strange fingers on each hand clenching. She was quite tall, almost as tall as Celestia herself. “Humans. Humans, they call themselves.”

“Are you saying you aren't a human?” Celestia asked. Elizabeth's behavior was strange. Unstable. Every move she made unnerved her heavily. And it took a lot to unnerve Celestia.

“Was a human. Was a Similar. Not anymore, better than the Similars.” She growled. “Hate them. Hate them for what they did.” She locked eyes with the Royal Sisters, and smiled. “You're different,” she rasped. “Kinder. Not like the Similars. Not going to imprison me, break and cut and burn burn burn my children.”

Celestia's heart dropped like a stone. Elizabeth Greene had been a human once, but she wasn't anymore. And whatever she was now, she'd been punished for it. She was a mother, and she'd lost her children. She felt there was some part of the story missing, but to that, she could relate...

“I am deeply sorry for your loss, Elizabeth. However, your presence in my kingdom does present several... challenges. For starters, where are the humans? We've mapped the entire world, and nowhere are there any hints of humanity outside of ancient fairy tails.”

Greene frowned. “Entire world. Entire world, no Similars. Saw Similars, saw so many many many. Listened to them. Maybe... different world? Yes. Different world.” She smiled, bringing her hands below her chin and gleefully interlacing the fingers. “Can't chase me. Can't reach.”

Luna cocked her head. “We admit, we have been curious over the possibility of different worlds with life upon them. It seems humans come from another planet entirely. Of course, that then raises the question as to how their myth got to our world.” She shook her head. “However, there art other priorities. Thou hast assaulted two of the Royal Guard. What hast thou to say for thyself?”

She blinked. “They spoke. I didn't understand. I Wanted your language, so I took it. The other struck me.” Her gaze hardened, hands returning to clench at her sides. “His nerve.”

Celestia's gaze hardened. Took it? “What do you mean by taking our language?”

“Memory transfer. Did it...” Her gaze fell. “Did it on my son. Showed him some of my story, but it hurt him oh I'm so sorry my poor poor son I'm sorry...” Celestia and Luna shared a pained look. They'd both seen this sort of behavior before, even if it was on such an alien creature. Severe emotional trauma. Post traumatic stress disorder. Poor dear.

Elizabeth Greene's head snapped up. “Reverse process, guard weaker than my son. Much more painful. To us both.” She rubbed her forehead with her left hand. “Unexpected.”

Luna cocked a brow. “We see. Well, Tia, it appears as though Elizabeth Greene is not a grave threat. Powerful, certainly, to do such things, but so long as she remains docile -” She shot the 'human' a glare. “- she's little threat. We shall take our leave.” Luna stifled a yawn. “We shall see thee at dusk, Tia.”

Celestia smiled warmly and nuzzled her sister. “Good day, Lulu.” They pulled apart, and with a crack of blue and black, Princess Luna vanished.

Elizabeth Greene leaped up and back, latching onto the bookshelves and hissing. She grasped the frames so hard the wood splintered and cracked, and the books tore. Celestia's eyes widened, not just at her reaction, but at how absurdley high Greene had jumped. “Is there something wrong, Elizabeth?”

“Gone,” she hissed.

Suddenly, Celestia understood. The myths had said that humans were unable to use magic, and if Elizabeth had been one, come from a world filled with them, who was to say she had ever seen magic at all? But, then how had she done a memory transfer? Such was very powerful magic. Few ponies beyond her, Luna, and Twilight could perform them.

“Do not worry, Elizabeth Greene. We ponies are magical creatures. Of them, my sister and I are the rare subreed known as 'alicorns'." She flared her wings to show a point. “Unicorns and alicorns are both able to channel focused magic. What my sister performed was a simple teleportation cantrip.” She cracked a smile. “You may come down now. There's no telling how much more abuse that bookshelf can take.”

Greene hesitated, and instead of climbing down like Celestia had expected, she jumped. Before she could move to catch her with telekinesis, she hit the ground with a thud, and stood as if nothing had happened. “Magic?” she rasped and echoed.

Celestia nodded. “Yes, magic.” She lit her horn and pulled a dozen books from their shelves. She made them orbit her in her golden grip for a few moments before returning them to their shelves. “As you are clearly new to our world, I should outline the basics of our world for you. However, that may come later.” She gave Elizabeth her warmest smile, the very one that stopped conflict in its tracks, that had ended wars. Greene's tense posture softened. “I was just on my way to breakfast when I was alerted to your arrival. Would you care to join me?”

She could deal with the fallout dealt by assaulting the Guard later. At the moment, there was a potential interplanetary catastrophe in the making, and she was going to stop it.

“Breakfast? Join?” she asked uncertainly.

Celestia raised a hoof to her chest. “Of course. You are the first of your kind here, and regardless of our... initially unpleasant circumstances, that makes you, by default, ambassador to your race, and our guest.”

Greene closed her eyes. “Guest. Guest.” She opened her eyes again, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at her lips. “I think... I think I like that. Breakfast. Food?” She placed a hand to her stomach. “Weak.”

“Right this way, please,” Celestia said, motioning with a wing. She turned around, waited for Elizabeth to come next to her, and began trotting towards her and Luna's private breakfast hall. The guards posted at the entrance to the library saluted to her as she passed. Her presence next to Elizabeth spoke volumes. She's all right. She worried about Vanguard and Unbreakable Shield's health, but the Royal Guard was nothing if not ressilient. Still...

“Your memory transfer. How permanent is the damage?” she asked as they trotted and walked through a hall. Now that Elizabeth didn't have her back to a wall, Celestia could see a series of tubes down her spine, seemingly designed to have something stuck into them. She was warm, too, radiating a terrible amount of body heat that made even the Princess of the Sun uncomfortable.

“Don't know. Second time done.”

Celestia frowned. That was unfortunate. Still, they were headed towards breakfast, so it would do well to get this out of the way. Perhaps leave such talk for later. “I do have to ask you, Elizabeth. We are heading to breakfast, and I do not know what your kind eats. We ponies are strictly herbivores, but...”

“Flesh,” Elizabeth said hastily. “Similars eat all. I need flesh.”

Celestia nodded, more than a little unnerved. It wasn't like she'd never entertained carnivores at her court; griffons were strictly meat eaters, and minotaurs liked a mixed diet. But alicorn she may be, goddess she may be, she was still a pony at heart, and that instinct did not like being with a predator.

She and Elizabeth entered her and her sister's private breakfast quarters. An alien being that resembled the humans of ancient myth. Traumatized, predatory, assaulted two guards, and a carnivore to boot.

One of those days indeed.

Devour

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Greene

She didn't fully understand her situation, but she liked it.

She didn't need to wait! She wasn't going to be an experiment! And so many advantages to boot! Another world, another world where the Similars couldn't find her and trap her and hurt her. She didn't understand much of the concept of 'planets' and 'other worlds', only what she could overhear, but what she did know was enough.

She was, now and forever, free of the Similars.

And that thought alone was enough to make her so happy happy happy! These equines were kind to her, the white one, Celestia, was going to share a meal with her! Such a thing was unprecedented. All her meals thus far had been either scavenged creatures when she'd been free, or simple injections in captivity that kept her alive and subdued, but left horrendous gnawing hunger hunger hunger in her. The idea of being invited to a meal with the leader of these equines, as a guest, not an experiment, was simply divine.

Of course, there were... other things to worry about, things that made her frown.

For starters, she still knew next to nothing of this new world. While basic titles and names of the two rulers were good (Bringer of the Day and Night? That sounded bad), she needed to know more. How large it was, the population, various population densities, so many things to know so she could plan.

Second, this 'magic' that the sister Princesses shared. She didn't know what it could do, not the full extent. But teleporting and move-thought (There was a word for that, she was certain) already were worrying. If they decided to grip her with move-thought, or teleport her elsewhere, what could she do? And the white one had hinted that many others could perform magic.

Third, these equines were almost as broken as the Similars. Independent, and no doubt so worried worried worried about their lives. She longed to bestow her Blessing upon them, to take away their pain, but she needed to wait. She didn't know enough, she wasn't strong enough yet to do so; she had a meal to attend to first. Then she could spread her gift.

And lastly, it was still cold. Oh, how she longed to make it warm, but she was Celestia and Luna's guest. She didn't exactly understand the role of 'guest', but she was fairly certain she needed to ask permission before changing what was so clearly their Home. After all, she admittedly wasn't the most artistic of people, and those colored window pictures were pleasing.

Before too long, Celestia brought her past another pair of guarded doors –the guards there were also identical, how curious – and into another large, decorative room.

She stiffled a hiss, but some still escaped into the air.

“Is something wrong, Elizabeth?” Celestia asked kindly.

“Bright,” she whispered, shielding her eyes.

“I see. My apologies, let me get that.” Celestia's horn lit up with golden energy again, making Greene bristle. It wasn't that she didn't trust Celestia – okay, maybe she didn't, not entirely – but the mere concept of magic alarmed her. Still, something off to the side moved, and the room darkened wonderfully. She didn't bother turning her head to see what had moved. It didn't matter; it moved, and where before it had been bright bright bright, it was now dark. She felt she should say something to Celestia, but couldn't quite figure out what.

She sat down with Celestia at a large table. Before her was a silvery dish, with several sharp utensils next to it. Were weapons usually a part of breakfast?

“So, Elizabeth,” Celestia began. “You must understand. While we do not regularly prepare meat, we have had to entertain members of different species who do require it.” Greene turned her gaze to the alicorn. Other species? There were others besides equines? Celestia's voice turned up in mirth. “Why, we even have a magical device that can conjure meat products. Needed to, ever since that incident with the griffon ambassador.”

“Point?” Elizabeth asked. She wanted flesh already. She was weak, and she needed to get her strength back if she was to spread her Blessing. She didn't want to hear about mindless, nonsensical politicking, like the kind Similars partook in.

“Ah, yes.” Her horn lit up for a moment. A second later, a new equine trotted in. This one was much shorter than either of the sisters, the height of the guards that had attacked her. It looked... different though. Not just in the red fur or longer orange fur around its head, and the orange tail and bone on its head. She just couldn't quite put her finger on it.

The new equine bowed and spoke. “Your Majesty.” She got back up, fixing Elizabeth with a look. That was it. This one was female. “What... would you two... like?”

“I'll have just a salad this morning, Emerald Fields, and some tea. I really do need to watch the sugar.” Celestia looked to the Runner. “Elizabeth, what would you like?”

She'd never been asked what she wanted before. She rather liked it. “Flesh,” she responded again.

She didn't miss how the equine's posture tensed at her echoing words. “R-right, miss Elizabeth. Do you have any preferences?”

“A lot of flesh.”

“R-right.” The one named Emerald Fields looked at Celestia. “Your Majesty, I hope you don't mind me asking, but why is it so dark in here?”

“Of course I don't mind, Emerald,” the white one said in that gentle voice that... stirred something inside Elizabeth. She didn't like that feeling, that sinking drowning choking feeling – it was the same one she got when she thought of Before. “My guest here simply has very sensitive eyes, so I closed the blinds.”

“I understand, Your Highness. I'll go tell the chefs right away.” Emerald Fields turned around and trotted out of the room, closing a door behind her.

The two sat there in silence for a moment before Celestia turned to her. “So Elizabeth. I should start by asking what the name for your kind is.”

Elizabeth stiffened. “The name?”

She'd never thought about a name for her kind. The Similars had one, of course, they had names for everything, as well as alternative names, names to use when on fire, names to use when they were well fed so many many absurd names. But she hated the name they'd given her. She hated everything about them.

She realized her mouth was forming the word. “Ru -” She clamped down on herself. She could come up with her own name. “No. Nononono, that's not it.” She raised her head and locked eyes with Celestia. “Evolved. Evolved. Name, Evolved.”

Celestia quirked an eyebrow, but nodded. “I see, Evolved. How many of you are there?”

“Three at most. Myself at least.”

The white equine sucked in a breath. “Might I ask... what happened that there are so few of you?”

She shrugged. “Nothing.” She tapped her chest. “First. Two sons, Special Sons.” She tilted her head. “Don't need more than one of us.”

“I... see.” A pause. “Elizabeth, do you mind if I clean you up? I won't question why you have them, but your bloodstains are unnerving my subjects.”

She raised a hand to the right of her lips, tapping the blood there. “Clean how?”

“With your permission, using my magic.”

Elizabeth Greene tensed. She gripped the table suddenly, making gentle cracks fill the air before she forced herself to let go. She meant well. She meant well she meant well she meant well - “Do it.”

“You'll feel a light tingling,” she said, her horn lighting up again. Elizabeth froze as she felt just that – a tingling around her head and left shoulder – along with golden light engulfing her. It persisted for a few moments, and the tingling at the left side of her head intensified as it encountered trouble, but then just as quick as it had come, it ended. Celestia nodded. “Much better.”

Elizabeth glanced down to her left, seeing that her shoulder was no longer drenched in a thin layer of the precious precious ever so precious fluid.

'How?' she almost – almost – asked. Instead she settled for looking blankly at Celestia. “Next?” she inquired.

“Indeed, next.” Her gaze turned hard. “Now, your arrival provides several questions. Some good, some bad. Since you can breathe our air, that means our basic chemistry is much the same, so you are likely able to eat food here. However, you do come from foreign – very foreign, might I add – lands, so you carry some risks with you. After breakfast, we must conduct some tests -”

“TESTS!?” she snarled, leaping out of her chair, sinking to the ground and snarling at Celestia. Tests, tests! The tests the Similars had conducted on her, poking her and stabbing her and draining her! Trickery! Betrayal! Treaso -

Simply by flaring out her wings, Princess Celestia cowed Elizabeth Greene. “Elizabeth, relax. Is there something wrong?”

“Tests, tests. Similars tested. Tried to break, twisted my Blessing, turned it...” She choked down a sob. “Turned it against me.”

Celestia seemed to ponder this for a moment, her wings slowly relaxing to their positions at her sides. “I... see. I promise you, Elizabeth, these tests will be benign in nature. If you'd like, I'll explain the purpose and procedures to you. I'll even stay in the room with you while it's being conducted, if you like?”

“What's the purpose?” she asked hesitantly, rising back to two legs.

“You may very well carry foreign contaminents on your body. We need to make sure you don't carry any diseases or poisons on you, ones that you wouldn't even notice but would kill us.”

Watching for death. Stopping death. She could understand that. “How?”

“A magic screening for toxins, and a blood-and-tissue sample for diseases. The magic screening will be similar to the cleaning I just performed on you, the blood sample will be taken via needle, and we would scrape a very small amount of flesh from a place you can choose for us. You are good with needles, yes?”

“I can... tolerate,” she said hesitatantly, still frowning.

“Excellent. As I was saying, after the tests have been performed, we'll need to wait a few hours while my top doctors and scientists analyze it to make sure you are safe. As it stands now, I'm passively sterilizing your environment, but that's a temporary solution.”

She cocked her head. “Unaware.”

Celestia smiled. “It is very subtle magic, indeed, but one invaluable for medical purposes. And of course, all magic can be adapted for different uses. Anyway, as we're waiting I shall instruct you on the basic history of our world. Should the tests show that you are safe – ah, here we go. Thank you, Emerald Fields.”

Elizabeth wheeled around to see that the other equine had returned, carrying two silver platters with hemispheres on top of them, one larger than the other. They were both new enough that the smell had not yet reached her though, and both were also enveloped in a rusty glow as they hovered through the air with – probably the smaller equine's – move-thought. One landed before Celestia, and the larger one before the seat Elizabeth had occupied before leaping out of it.

After depositing the plates, the small equine bowed, prompting a small smile from the larger one. “Thank you very much, Emerald Fields. That will be all.”

She got up. “Of course, Your Highness,” she said before turning around. Elizabeth looked after her for a while, before turning to the plate before her seat.

“What are those?” she asked.

“Food platters. Please, Elizabeth, sit. We're all friends here.”

“Friends,” she murmured as she sat back down. She couldn't remember having friends. Family yes, such a wonderful wonderful family with whom she shared her joy and shielded from sorrow. Friends, though. None; there were no equals beyond her family. Until she could endow children again... she decided she could use a friend.

She inspected the silver hemispheres curiously. “Eat metal?”

Celestia laughed, a chiming sound that Elizabeth didn't know how to feel about. “Oh, no no no my dear.” Her horn lit up, and the metal hemisphere before her lifted, revealing several green plants and ivory tea cups full of liquid. “Go on, lift yours. The food is beneath.”

Elizabeth Greene frowned. “Pointless metal.”

“I'm tempted to agree with you, actually. But it's one of the things that comes with being royalty, I suppose.” She lifted a cup of some-liquid to her lips with move-thought and drank briefly, before lowering it and eyeing the green plants with something like distaste. “Please, don't let me stop you.”

Still baffled by the idea of putting a dome of metal over their food – these equines were so strange strange strange – Greene lifted hers and put it to the side, revealing a large piece of orangish flesh with several cups next to it that vaguely resembled poultry. At least she thought it did. Then she didn't care because the smell hit her and nothing else mattered.

She dove into it like a woman starved – she was wasn't she? She thought so – and began to devour it, knocking the cups over. Flesh! Meat! It tasted so good! She never thought it was possible for anything to taste oh so very wonderful! It wasn't raw, it seemed to have been burned which was almost disgusting to her but it pleased some small part of her that it was burned-cooked because it tasted so good and she'd never in her life eaten anything so wonderful, with flesh that tore apart in her mouth and bones that crunched and shattered in her powerful jaws to let her taste the sweet sweet sweet marrow inside and mmph!

All too soon she realized there was nothing left, and she reclined back in her seat – she realized she'd leaned over the table to better access the flesh – and frowned.

To her left, Celestia's jaw hung and her pupils had shrunk to pinpricks. “Merciful heavens,” she whispered. “She's like me with cake.” She shook her head, returning to her meal and slipping back into composure, her magic cleaning up the mess wrought by the spilled beverages. “I trust you liked it?”

Elizabeth smiled, feeling her body already going to work at turning the flesh into strength, adding it to her mass and might. “Greatest. Never had burnt flesh before.”

“Burnt? Ah, you mean cooked," she said, picking at her salad. "It's just... you consumed a meal that would've left a family of griffons stuffed, in a matter of minutes. How is your stomach not distended?”

Elizabeth took a moment to decipher the sentence's meaning. “Compress flesh. Density.”

“Right. Now, um.” She took another bite from her salad. “As I was saying before your meal arrived, should the tests show you are safe to be around, I shall give you a room to stay at in the castle, and summon ambassadors from the neighboring countries. Your existence raises a notable question; if one ancient myth may be true, how about the others? And also, as a member of another world, where would you stay here? Would you need aid in returning home? Are there others coming? We'll need to discuss those.” She shook her head. “To say nothing of the time for me to attend my regular duties. Tell me, Elizabeth, how amicable are you to staying up at night?”

She tilted her head. “Amicable?”

“Would you be too tired, or can you forego sleep?”

“Need no sleep. Better than Similars that way.” She shuffled in her seat. Already she could feel warmth spreading in her, her Blessing stirring in her veins and yearning to create her family anew. Not yet, she told herself. She didn't know enough. Not yet.

“Excellent, then you'll be able to converse with my sister as well.”

The remainder of the meal passed in silence, with Celestia slowly working away at her salad, while Elizabeth Greene sat and watched her like a hawk. However, instead of watching her, she was actually thinking.

What had she agreed to? Being poked and prodded again? She could understand Celestia's reasoning; Greene had no idea what weaknesses the equines had, and as their ruler it was Celestia's duty to er on the side of caution. But the idea of being stabbed with needles and having her blood taken out of her again made her want to scream and roar and shatter and tear and -

"Elizabeth?" Celestia asked insistently, like she'd been repeating it. Had she? Greene didn't know.

"What?" she asked, blinking.

"I'm finished with my breakfast," she said, though Elizabeth noted there was still a lot of the plants there. Was it common to be so wasteful, or was it just Celestia, or was it just this once? So confusing. "Would you like something to drink before we depart? You spilled your cups when you, ahem, were eating."

She shivered, her insides squirming at the thought of putting something wet to her lips and drinking it. "I'm fine. Let's go," she insisted, leaping from her seat and crashing down onto the floor. She smiled. No crater, not enough mass for that, but it was a solid landing. When she decided she knew enough, she could begin to bestow her Blessing upon the equines.

"Very well," the Princess said as she also rose. "The maids will clean these up." She looked at Greene and frowned, her eyes narrowing. "However, Elizabeth, I do have to tell you this. I understand you were hungry, and I don't know what custom is back where you are from, but here simply ravaging your meal is looked down upon. Next time, I suggest you eat at a more relaxed pace. Understand?"

Elizabeth frowned as they exited the chamber, walking through more halls, all of them cold. "Looked down?"

"It is considered noisy, disgusting, and all around rude," the equine asserted.

She growled. "Fine. When do tests happen?"

"We are almost to the Infirmary," Celestia said. Greene noticed some of the armored equines gave her wary glances, more so than the others had. Why was that?

"There we shall have you tested. Remember, Elizabeth. Whatever happened back on your world, you have my word it will not happen here. You shall be treated with the same respect and dignity all sentient beings deserve."

This actually managed to soothe Elizabeth. She found herself believing Celestia's word. And why wouldn't she? She had shown such kindness to her. They entered the infirmary, a white place with strange machines, equines moving about with devices with them. Now that she paid more attention, she noticed that some of them had bony protrusions from their heads, others had tightly coiled muscles beneath their skin, and still others had wings.

Celestia and Luna had all three. Very curious.

She lost focus on the world around her, thinking. The Princess had called her and the other Princess 'alicorns' and alluded to the existence of 'unicorns', also capable of magic. There was no doubt in Greene's mind; the glow of the horns proved beyond a doubt which of the equine types 'magic' was relegated to. The winged ones - also a word for that she was sure! - might've been able to fly. Their wings certainly seemed large enough, but then again, what did she know about flight? Perhaps they were just an extra pair of limbs. The strong ones... she could only imagine. Strong, that went without saying. Perhaps durable? She didn't know.

" -ctor Lymph. Elizabeth?"

She forced herself back to the present, however unpleasant she knew it was about to be. She was in a little room, closed behind her via a door. There was all sorts of medical equipment around her, none of which she could identify, and the walls were white and violet. "Yes?" she asked, looking at the new equine. This one was a male, it seemed, with dark brown fur and a similarly colored bony protrusion, with a white layer of clothing on his upper body. Its secondary fur color, on its head and tail, was a pale gray. A far cry from the radiant, almost blinding color of Celestia. Also, similar to Celestia's emblazoned images of the sun, this one had some sort of spiked white glob on him.

"This is Doctor Lymph, head of my pathogen and vaccine research branch. He will be performing the poison analysis spell and taking the samples for inspection."

She eyed him warily. She'd never liked doctors. Oh sure, the word meant healing the injured, but it was never-ever-ever that. There was always something more. Something sinister. She'd learned. Then again, those were Similar doctors. She was no idiot; she couldn't have been, to have fended off their armies as well as she had. She had to assume, until proven otherwise, that there were great differences between Similars and equines.

After all, the leader of the Similars had trapped her and hurt her children. The leader of the equines shared a meal with her.

"Pleased to... meet you," she said at last, looking into the doctor's vibrant yet tired green eyes.

He lifted a front hoof to her. "Pleasure's all mine, miss Greene." Greene looked at his hoof. What was she to do with it?

As if reading her mind - the very thought! - Lymph said, "I'm aware you may not know of our customs. You shake my hoof, it's a form of greeting." Without waiting an instant longer, Elizabeth shot out her right hand and wrapped it around the equine's extended leg, moving it up and down once before letting it go. Doctor Lymph grimaced, tapping the hoof against the ground once. He winced, and then kept it up lightly. "Wow. That's, um, some grip you've got there."

"Elizabeth, are you ready for the poison analysis test?"

"Yes," she responded after a moment, eyeing the doctor warily. Bad.

"Very well. The sterilization spell is released. You may begin, Doctor."

Elizabeth tensed as a dark, murky wave of color engulfed her entire body. She forced down a hiss as her entire body tingled fiercely for several long-long-long seconds that stretched into minutes. Finally it ended, and she finally released her hiss as a dull murmur.

"There's nothing poisonous about her, Your Highness," Doctor Lymph said with confidence. He turned to Elizabeth, horn lighting up again to move-thought a scalpel and what looked like a glass cylinder over to him, both engulfed in the same muddy aura. "Whenever you're ready, we can take the flesh sample. I must warn you, I do have to cut you slightly for this."

"Not needed," Elizabeth said, grabbing the scalpel - no sharp objects for them, nonono - and pressed her right index finger to the flat of its blade. She willed her warmth to bubble forth from within, and moved her finger across the blade. Wherever it went, a thick red substance covered it. Once both ends of the blade were engulfed in her Blessing-endowed flesh, she pulled her finger away. After a moment, Doctor Lymph grabbed it again with his 'magic' and moved it gently until it rested over the cylinder.

The aura shrunk, rippled along it, and pushed the red off the blade and into the glass, while Elizabeth watched in awe - and more than a little fear - at how accurate their magic was. If all of the 'unicorns' had such control with their magic, then they could be very, very dangerous.

"E-Excellent," the unicorn said, placing the glass onto a metal tray. "We'll get this petri dish to analysis as soon as we're finished here." He levitated something else, something that made Elizabeth stiffen and growl low in her throat. An iron and glass needle.

Princess Celestia turned to her. "Elizabeth, relax. No harm shall come to you, I promise. Our intents are benign. You can trust me."

"Trust you," Elizabeth whispered as the needle closed in. Lymph's move-thought brought the needle over to her right hand, the point jabbing into her palm.

"Don't worry, I'm a professional. This won't hurt a bit." The equine got closer to her. Greene bristled. Don't touch me don't touch me don't touch me! "Alright, there's a vein," he murmured, adjusting the position of the needle. The brown magic thickened around the needle's edge, and it began to push at her skin.

Greene's eyes widened.

Suddenly she wasn't on a different world free of Similars. She was back in the Cold Dark Place, laid back along the cold metal table with chilling things running through her veins as Similars clad in yellow suits stood before her. She tried to panic, tried to scream and breathe heavily but she was too cold to move. They spoke idly among themselves, hiding behind their alien masks, as they operated a needle, its sharp point bypassing her weakened skin and drawing blood blood too much blood! out of her, laughing at her, laughing at her pain, laughing laughing laughing!

A part of her body tensed, coiling up. An organ wrapped around her spinal column tingled. That tingle passed into her right arm, and down into her hand.

She blinked, and she was back with Princess Celestia and Doctor Lymph, her breathing heavy as the tingle in her right hand reached its peak, and then...

CRACK!

It was gone in a flash, but there was no mistaking the arc of brilliant emerald lightning that arced into the metal of the needle and leaped through the air to strike at the brown unicorn's horn. It didn't even appear to do that, rather there was a bridge of blinding green lightning between her, the needle, and the doctor, and then it was gone, replaced by a soft thunderclap. The tingle in her hand vanished as if it had never been there.

Doctor Lymph flew back, giving a short cry of pain while Elizabeth jerked back, but she didn't get far. A brilliant golden aura surrounded her, like there was a wall around every part of her body.

Princess Celestia's gaze was stern and cold, all traces of sympathy gone. "What did you do?" she demanded.

"Panic," Greene rasped. That was just it, wasn't it? She'd panicked, and had struck at Doctor Lymph with some of her electricity. Very little, luckily; reducing him to ash would mean she could never Bless him.

After another moment of being held in the alicorn's move-thought, Celestia released her, trotting over to where Doctor Lymph lay on the ground, shaking his head. He was splayed out on all fours on the floor, obviously dazed, horn giving off dark brown sparks. She helped him up with a slippered hoof. He stood on his own weight after a moment, though still wobbled from side to side dizzily. "I'm f-fine, Princess. Just a b-bit shaken, is all." He shook his head, mane flying. "That's... quite a shock, really."

This time, it was Celestia's golden move-thought that engulfed the needle where it had fallen, moving it towards Elizabeth again, who shied back. "Doctor Lymph, I will take the blood sample lest she lose control again. Can you show me the vein you intended to use?"

"Of course, Your Highness." Lymph walked forward, approaching her again! She stepped back, but another golden aura surrounded her, forcing her to be immobile.

"I apologize for these measures, Elizabeth, but I need to make sure you don't accidentally lash out again." And, with Doctor Lymph's guidance, Celestia pushed the needle to Elizabeth's hand and stabbed the point in.

Elizabeth stiffened even under the move-thought, though she forced the point of stabbing to soften so it could be punctured. Then there was that awful awful awful draining sensation as she lost her precious life fluid, but rather quickly, it stopped. The needle removed itself from her, the minor puncture healing instantly, and Celestia released her.

The radiant glow around the needle, filled with a surprisingly small amount of her blood, turned muddy brown as Lymph pulled it, setting it on the tray that the dish holding the sample of her flesh laid. "R-right," he said, still wobbling from the previous blast. Elizabeth Greene could barely believe her eyes. Such a small amount of charge disoriented him so? How weak were these equines?

... or was that bony protrusion a weak spot? She resolved to find out later.

"We'll get these samples looked at post haste. I'm assuming you want to keep news of her existence classified, Your Highness?"

"That won't be needed, doctor. I see no reason to hide Elizabeth from the public eye excessively; I shall make a statement later today after Noon Court. When you come to a conclusion about the samples, contact either myself or my sister post haste."

He bowed. "I understand, Princess. Unless you have objections, I shall take my leave immediately," he said, the tray glowing and following after him as he opened the door and walked through.

Celestia looked down at Elizabeth. "That was rather eventful." Her voice acquired an undertone of steel. "Elizabeth, I will say this once and only once, so listen very closely. Panic or no, do not assault my subjects. I could let the Royal Guard slide, as you were new, didn't know our language, and weren't aware of the effects of your memory transfer. This is your only warning. Control yourself."

"Panic," Elizabeth hissed. "Wasn't here then."

"Be that as it may, I suggest you begin to work on those issues. Now come, let's walk and talk. There is much to tell you about Equestria, and we have a little time before I must begin Noon Court."

"Noon Court?"

"Noon Court is, you could say, a time for me to listen. My subjects come before me with an issue, I do my best to address it, and then they move for the next query. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes," Greene mused. "Where to go during?"

"There are a few books on Equestrian history it would do well for you to read. I'll do my best to go over the basics with you, of course. Come, the Royal Library is this way."

The two walked and trotted down the halls. Elizabeth tried to remember which ways they went, but it was all so labyrinthine. Elizabeth, once again, soon lost track. She could memorize it, she knew, but not all at once. Not so fast. Either way, she soon found herself in the chambers filled with books books books again. There were more guards here than she remembered, none of them happy to see her.

Poor things.

"Where are we?" she asked at length as they stopped next to a row of books. Celestia sat down, and motioned for Elizabeth to do the same. She hesitated a moment, but did so.

"This is the Royal Library, where you appeared. However, this is another section. Specifically, the Historical Section. Now, Noon Court is coming soon; during it I shall not be with you, neither shall I be after, since I will be handling the diplomatic issues your arrival presents. I'll have you take several books from here and begin reading them in the time we are to be separate." Celestia frowned. "You are capable of reading Equestrian, right?"

Elizabeth sorted through her memories briefly. "Yes," she said.

Celestia clapped her hooves excitedly, making several of the guards that had followed her and Greene stiffen momentarily. "Excellent." Her horn glowed, and several choice novels levitated down. Elizabeth shrank back from them, fearing that Celestia, like her, might slip and throw them at her.

Not like books would hurt, but it's the thought that counts.

"Once we're done here, you can take these novels back to the guest room I'll arrange for you. Any immediate questions will most likely be answered by one, and either myself or my sister can answer any that they do not." The books arranged themselves in a stack next to Elizabeth.

"Now, let's start at the beginning..."

For the next she didn't know how long, Celestia went over the history of Equestria, and it was... interesting for Elizabeth to say the least.

Pegasus and Earth Pony, those were the names for the winged and the strong. These equines... ponies... equines had an early history disgustingly similar to the Similars. Conflict, war, enslavement, and nearly falling. And then? Well, something had happened. She didn't quite understand Celestia's explanation, something about fire and ice, but as best she understood it they changed and removed their volatility. They became happier, and while she intended to make them happier than they ever could be on their own she was giddy they managed so well on their own. However...

"Seems wrong," she rasped.

"What does?" Celestia inquired.

"Sun and moon, raised and lowered by unicorns." She frowned. "Don't know why, but seems impossible. Wrong." There it was again, that sinking drowning choking feeling.

"Strange. How are the sun and moon operated on your world, Elizabeth?"

"Aren't. Move on their own," she said. "Feel like... sun doesn't move. Relative." She shrugged. "Unsure."

The Princess tilted her head, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Our worlds truly do operate in vastly different ways. However, this is just something you'll have to accept, Elizabeth. It is how it works."

Her story continued, reaching the usurping of power by something known as 'Discord'.

The way Celestia described Discord terrified Greene. Not just his power-madness and chaos, the way he played havoc with the day and night, or corrupted the equines into shadows of their former selves. No, it was the way she said he could 'twist' things to his will. Her blood ran cold at the thought of him finding her, taking her Blessing and on a whim, where it had taken the Similars years, twisting it into a Curse, or worse.

"Not coming back?" she asked hopefully.

Celestia shook her head. "My sister and I imprisoned Discord a long time ago with the Elements of Harmony. He broke out of his stony prison recently." Greene froze, terror flooding her veins. "But he's been subdued again. Though, I wonder if perhaps he may be changed..."

"Don't!" Greene hastily said, standing up instantly, her echoes buzzing loudly around her. "Don't take the risk. Don't take it, can't let it happen again the risk is too great DON'T DO IT!" She'd never even seen this 'Discord', hadn't known of his existence for more than a few minutes, yet he terrified her like her Wayward Child had in that uphill battle, so recent and so long ago.

"I shall take your concerns into consideration, Elizabeth," Celestia said after a pregnant pause, coupled with intent staring from both parties. She tilted her head, an ear flicking. "I'm sorry to cut this short, but it's time for me to hold court. However, let me first escort you to your room." Her horn lit up and lifted the stack of books. Elizabeth stepped in and grabbed them with her own power. Celestia let go, understanding, and let Greene balance them expertly on one hand. Celestia stepped forward, her gilded hooves clicking on the floor, and Elizabeth followed, keeping an easy pace.

Once again, Elizabeth tried to follow the path, but there seemed to be no pattern to the castle's layout. She knew there was, otherwise equines would always get lost, but it wasn't any pattern she'd have ever come up with on her own. Before too long, Celestia opened a door with a gentle nudge of her magic, and Elizabeth stepped inside.

She didn't know much about equine accommodations, but she still recognized a few things. There was a bed, sized large for an equine and slightly small for her. It was a soothing mixture of gold and violet, with some traces of ivory. There was a desk with a mirror, though she knew not for what. A doorway lead away, and she could smell moisture from it, making her wrinkle her nose. There were also large windows, letting her look out for the first time.

"Oh," she said simply.

There was a city beyond. It wasn't as... developed as the city she'd been in, filled with so many Similars, so close together that her Blessing practically spread itself, but it was still quite a city, purple and white and filled. Her wonderful wonderful eyes could pick out thousands of equines from her position high above them. She couldn't see which subtypes there were, or what they were doing, but it didn't really matter, did it? The sky was clear blue, more so than she had ever seen in her life, and the blinding sun beat down with a certain mixture of ferocity and gentleness that seeped through the windows and nearly made Elizabeth hiss in delight.

It was no Home, but... this was nice. Once again, she felt she should say something to Celestia for the room, but the words escaped her. She knew it started with a 'T', though.

"I hope this is suitable for you, Elizabeth?"

"It is," she said softly enough to almost conceal her echo, left hand playing with one of her suit's straps on her right arm. She walked forward and placed the half dozen or so books on the bed. It looked soft, with its gold and blue covers. It also, like everything else in the room, looked cold.

"Very well. I shall head to Noon Court now, and afterward send the appropriate diplomatic envoys considering an... alien species's arrival. When that's done, I shall send a servant to fetch you for dinner."

"Acceptable," Elizabeth said. She looked at the books. One of them was bound to have a map, bound to have population centers. She needed to know those sort of things if she wanted to succeed. She couldn't handle another failure; it may be her end for real this time.

She didn't want to die.

"Then for now, we depart. I advise you stay in this room; you are unfamiliar with the castle's layout, and I would hate for you to get lost." Celestia paused, seeming to consider something. "If you would like, I can post guards outside your door for your protection."

"Protect myself," she hissed. Did Celestia think her unable? The white alicorn knew what she'd done to those guards and she'd do it a thousand times again if they ever got the gall to touch her, warning or not!

If she was intimidated, she didn't show it. "Then I shall leave you to your reading." Celestia gave her a short little bow, which Greene was confused at, crossing one foreleg before her golden chest piece. "I shall see you for dinner." And with that, Celestia left, the tip of her multicolored tail flicking across the door as a golden aura closed it.

Elizabeth looked at her books, at her her her room, and shivered. Reading could wait for just a few more minutes. Just a few.

Warmth blossoming inside of her, she leaned forward with her left hand, and gently put her fingers to the bed sheets. The warmth moved, a web of red and white tendrils weaving and expanding over the bed, under the books, over the covers and pillow, like a rapidly growing fungus. She could feel herself lightening as she moved her flesh out of her body, and she stopped once the bed was covered, a 'splatter' of the webbing on the floor immediately around it. She drew her hand back, the warmth settling again.

She sat down on it, grinning like a maniac when her nest accepted her with a gentle bounce that didn't make it to the books.

Warm.

Red Spread

View Online

Luna

The Evolved was staring at her.

It wasn't much surprise. After all, it had spent much of the morning with her sister, and its associations with her lasted from her use of the Royal Canterlot Voice to her going to sleep. So it made sense that Elizabeth would be interested in her, and at least she wasn't covered in blood anymore.

But why in the name of all that was holy was it still staring at her? Even with Celestia between them?

She nibbled at her delicately cut sandwich, tasting the various flowers inside of it, staring intently back at the alien. She, not even blinking, raised the leg of some animal - she did not care to know - and bit down, her teeth tearing through the bone like it was paper with a skin-prickling ka-crunch.

Finally, Luna turned from her meal, looking to her side. "So sister," she began. Said sister froze where she was, which happened to be in the middle of chewing a chocolate chip cookie. "How hast thy day been?"

She rolled her eyes before swallowing. "You should've heard some of the requests I got in court. There was this stallion, from some salt farming company, requesting pegasi to help with farming the salt. Pegasi!"

Luna rolled her eyes. She mostly got sensible requests in Midnight Court, since nopony with a foalish request came when their biology demanded sleep, but every now and then she understood her sister's pain. "What did thou do?"

"He's not getting pegasi, that's for sure. Hardly even my place to hire ponies for him."

"Indeed, that way layeth tyranny. Let us speak of more exciting news. For starters, we hath not yet been informed as to our guest's understanding of Equestrian culture."

"Three main types," the guest rasped, her voice echoing eerily around the dinner table. The blinds were open, revealing the beauty of her night sky, raised mere minutes before. "Dangerous early history, improved." She frowned. "Could be better."

Luna nodded. "Indeed, it is a terrible shame that despite our best efforts, some of our subjects insist on judging their fellows based on tribe. It is most fortunate such ponies are few and far between."

Elizabeth kept frowning. "Could be none," she mused, ripping apart another chunk of meat in her jaws. "Discord bad, you two good. Still... don't understand. Sun and moon, seems wrong."

Luna cocked her head. "What dost thou mean? Art thou somehow offended by the way we operate them? Art it done in a different way where thou art from?"

"No operation," she said, eyes flicking about curiously. "Move on their own."

Luna chuckled. "Ah, we see. Do not worry, Elizabeth. We assure thou, it is perfectly natural for it to operate thusly here."

"Very well," Elizabeth said, finishing her meat with a few choice chomps.

"So Elizabeth," her sister said, swallowing her 'meal'. "I hope your room is to your liking?"

"Yes," she said. "Bed is warm."

"We believe that may be thy doing," Luna said wryly. "Thou radiates immense heat."

"It is my doing," she confirmed. "Rest of room is... nice." She frowned, tapping at her plate with the tiny claws on her fingers. Then she smiled. "Read books. Map. Canterlot, right?"

"Thou art correct. This is indeed Canterlot Castle."

"Plans after meal?" she asked, tilting her head to the side in a manner that was somewhat... adorable, actually. Just how old was Greene? "Celestia goes to sleep, you sleep during day. Plans?"

Luna chuckled. "Straight to the point, Elizabeth? Very well. We hath, after dining, several hours before we must tend to Midnight Court." She tapped a hoof to her chin in thought. "Perhaps we may tour the castle ramparts and become acquainted with each other. Would be most useful for the upcoming diplomatic talks."

Greene scowled. "Useless politics," she spat.

Luna narrowed her eyes. "As tedious as they may be, ambassadors from allied countries are not useless. Thy existence can not be hidden forever, nor shall it be attempted. Thou art the greatest discovery of our world in ages, the discovery that we art not alone in the cosmos. When news of thy presence becomes widespread, there shalt be those who fear thee and those who seek to take advantage of thou to further their own goals. Among them would be politicians with no small amount of power, and it is the duty of the ambassadors from Equestria's neighbors to aid in controlling them via peaceful negotiation to set boundaries."

"Take care of myself," Greene insisted.

"Thou art on, what is to thee, an alien world. A few hours of reading material shall not prepare thee adequately for the maneuvering of politicians. Thou may not even be aware of their machinations when they occur."

Greene stayed silent, staring at her in that statue-like manner she'd proven herself expert at. The awkward pause in the conversation was mercifully ended by Celestia. "So sister, is anything going on tonight?"

Luna smiled. "As a matter of fact, we art finalizing the plans for our newest constellation."

Celestia smiled. "That's wonderful! What's it going to be?"

"Thou shalt see, sister," she said slyly. "Though we must say, we feel it is our best work yet."

Celestia yawned, inhaling another cookie as she did so, thus clearing her plate. "I look forward to seeing it. Good night, Luna. I'll see you in the morning."

"Fare thee well, sister. We shalt send thee pleasant dreams."

"Thank you sister. Have a pleasant night." With that, Celestia engulfed herself in a corona of light, and vanished, to the sound of a hissing Evolved.

"Relax, Elizabeth. Tis simply teleportation." Luna drew out of her own seat, having finished with her sandwich and coffee. She was ready to begin the night. "Follow us, we shalt show thee to our destination." With a shuffle of her wings and the padding of suited feet, the two left the private dining hall.

As soon as they did, two of Luna's Night Guard filed beside her, Elizabeth behind them. She turned her head towards each. "We thank thee for thy vigilance, but we art going alone with our guest tonight."

They bowed. "As you wish, Your Highness," said the one on the left, Aurora Falls. The two thestrals left her.

"Please, Elizabeth. Walk beside us." Faster than she could blink, the Evolved was next to her, Greene's intense heat making her sweat. "What art the nights like where thou art from?" she asked casually as they stepped out of the castle onto a balcony.

Elizabeth wasn't speaking. She was looking at the night sky. Luna smiled. It was always nice, as an artist, to find a new fan. Elizabeth Greene placed her hands on the railing, looking up at the stars and constellations, losing herself in the crescent moon.

"Thou enjoyeth our night?"

"Stars," she whispered. "So many stars," she said, her echos lost in the night.

"There art fewer stars where thou comes from, Elizabeth?" Luna asked. This wasn't even one of her best nights. She could do so much better and yet even this rendered Greene speechless?

"First home... no time to see stars. Then, no stars in the cold dark place. Second home... I enjoyed the night, but it was always so bright bright bright, few stars visible."

"Thy former home was rife with light pollution?"

"Light pollution..." Greene mused. "Seems right." Greene reclined, pulling away from the balcony. Luna noticed that where her hands were, there were two red blobs, films of blood-colored jelly clinging to the rails.

"Elizabeth," she deadpanned. "What hast thou done to the balcony?"

"Warm," she insisted. "Night good, dark, but cold. Warm."

"May thou remove that? Tis most unsightly."

She placed a finger on each of the blotches, and they receded, shrinking as she absorbed them. Luna raised a brow. "A most unusual power. At any rate, we hath a few hours before we must attend to the court. What is there thou wishes to know that thou does not already?"

"High population," she rasped.

"Couldst thou clarify?"

"Where is there high population?"

Luna narrowed her eyes. As much as she was overjoyed to see somepony who enjoyed the night more than the day, Elizabeth was still an alien creature and there was still a chance, however minute, that she was the scout for an invasion. "And why would thou like to know?"

"Crowded places easier to bless." She said it so simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Easy to bless," she repeated needlessly.

"We see..." What was this 'blessing' she spoke of? She asked her as much.

"Blessing lifts me above Similars. Stronger. Better. Don't weaken over years. Give it to others."

"We think we understand. How doest thou spread thy 'blessing'?"

"Show?" she asked forcefully. The inflection on her voice made her feel as though denying her would be like slapping a foal, the ominous echoes doing nothing to detract from that.

Luna considered this. The 'blessing' Elizabeth claimed to have was what undoubtedly changed her from a human to an Evolved. It supposedly made her stronger, immortal, and able to spread the blessing at will. It was likely also the source of her ability to control the red slime. Luna was confident that she could control its effects. After all, she'd been through much worse. What could a 'blessing' do to her?

"Go ahead, Elizabeth."

Luna prepared herself for the worst. Greene came to her and held out a hand, firmly pressing her fingers to her coat. There was a rush of warmth from the Evolved, sticking to Luna's fur and sinking to her skin. It was unbearably hot, like a scorching summer's day - which she, as the Princess of the Night, hated with a passion - worming under her skin and through her veins. Greene pulled away, smiling like a filly who just got their cutie mark. The warmth faded, and Greene frowned.

"Not blessed," she murmured, holding out her hand again. Luna allowed it a second time. There was the same heat, the fire flowing through her veins, and then nothing. "Can't bless," she hissed, stepping back in some mixture of fear and revulsion.

Luna ruffled her wings, her gaze meeting Elizabeth's horrified eyes. "Tis no surprise. Our sister and us are quite resistant to all manner of change."

"Can't bless alicorns. Too powerful. Reject blessing," she murmured. She lit back up. "Gods, though. Gods don't... work as others."

"Tis true," Luna said. "We assume thou wishes to spread thy blessing?" Greene nodded vigorously. "Well, we are afraid we do not yet know of the effects thy blessing shall have. We may yet study it, but until then we ask for thee to refrain."

Greene scowled, but said nothing as she returned to gazing at Luna's night. Blessing others must've mean so much to her. Though it left to question what exactly her 'blessing' was. It certainly didn't feel like any magic she'd ever encountered. Perhaps the humans of her world had stumbled upon a form of magic and, not knowing what it was, used it on her. Perhaps she discovered it, and that would make sense. In a world without magic, suddenly gaining such powers was bound to be seen as a gift from the gods. But she'd reportedly been attacked for it...

Elizabeth suddenly looked behind her, at the more lofty spires of Canterlot Castle. "Climb," she whispered excitedly, determination burning in her eyes.

"Thou wish to ascend to the highest tower? Very well; as the ambassador to the Evolved, thou art entitled to certain privileges. Follow us," Luna said, turning back towards the door. She twisted her head back to look at Greene. "The stairs art this - "

Elizabeth knelt, then shot up like a rocket, dozens of feet into the air. She alighted on a wall and began to sprint up the side of the castle.

" - way," Luna finished weakly, watching the crazed Evolved running a vertical serpentine pattern to avoid the Night Guards attempting to catch her. Groaning, she took wing herself. In a few short wingstrokes, she caught up to Elizabeth's former location, because by then the Evolved had gotten even further.

"Stand down!" she bellowed. The Night Guards immediately did so, hovering in a ring before her.

"Your Highness, there is an unknown intruder climbing the castle!" said one, his bat-like wings beating fiercely at the air.

"We art aware of this. However, it is not an unknown intruder, but rather the ambassador for the Evolved. She commutes in strange ways," she improvised flawlessly.

"Are you certain, Your Majesty?"

"Quite. Thou art to be commended for thy vigilance, however there is no need for it here. Thou may return to thy patrols."

"As you command, Princess," they said together, before departing to continue their night time patrols around the castle, leaving Luna to continue flying.

She alighted upon the highest balcony, where Elizabeth was already sitting on a tiny web of red and white tendrils.

"City large. City nice," she whispered, playing with some of her suit's straps.

Luna glared. "Yes. Very nice. Elizabeth, do try to not be assaulted by our guards. Knowledge of thy existence is not secret, however it can only spread so fast, especially between the nocturnal and diurnal. We may not be there next time, and we do not need for thee to repeat your initial encounter with the guard. Understood?"

Elizabeth frowned, the mat of flesh beneath her receding. "Understood," she hissed, baring her unimpressive canines. She tilted her head, and drooped. Even her ragged, mangled mane - hair? - seemed to fray. Luna blinked. No, that was just a trick of the shadows.

"Want to go back," she rasped. "Want to read. Want to be warm."

Luna frowned, even as a chill wind blew away Greene's stifling heat. She'd only just got here, and she wanted to go back already? "Thou wishes to go to sleep so early in the night?"

"Not sleep. Read." Elizabeth was evidently sharper than she seemed, because even though Luna hadn't mentioned why she was disappointed by this she continued by saying, "Have windows, see stars through windows." She shivered. "Sleep bad."

Luna perked up, her ears raising themselves. "Excellent." She felt a presence flicker in her mind, signaling that Tia had just fallen asleep. She briefly flared her horn, bestowing pleasant dreams upon her. They involved a lot of cake. "Then we shalt bring thee to thy chambers. Prepare thyself, Elizabeth Greene! Thy first teleportation awaits!"

Blue magic began to circle around Luna's horn as she built up the matrices. Celestia had, of course, confided in her the location of Greene's room during the raising and setting of the heavenly orbs. She knew the room well, it was a guest room usually reserved for the griffon ambassador. She could teleport there easily.

Elizabeth stepped back warily. "Wait," she began to say. " - unsafe!"

"Perfectly safe," Luna said, engulfing both herself and Greene. She tugged them, slipping through the folds of space and time, and re-emerging on the other side with a crack of lunar magic.

Elizabeth stumbled, and fell to the ground with an unusually deep whumph. She recovered instantly, rising back to her full, intimidating height, and glared at Luna. "Scared me!" she shouted accusingly.

Luna couldn't help but smirk triumphantly. Tia wasn't the only one with a prankster streak. "Thou art safe, Elizabeth, relax." She looked around the guest chamber. "We would never... harm... thee." Her eyes settled on the bed, which was completely enshrouded in red and white tendrils. There were a few books on it. They were all open to various pages, arranged in a circle around a central spot. The tendrils spilled over onto the ground, reaching outwards a short distance. "What hast thou done, Elizabeth?"

"Nest, warm," she said.

Luna frowned. "Is the process at least reversible?"

"When I wish," Elizabeth said.

"Very well then. We shalt leave thee to thy reading." Luna turned around and headed to the door. She paused and craned her head back, expecting a 'goodbye'. None came; Elizabeth was hunting for something through some book or another. Luna sighed dejectedly, reminding herself this was an alien creature. Its customs may be and indeed were very different. She flicked open the door with her telekinesis, stepped out, closed the door, turned around and -

"Oof!"

Luna stumbled backwards, looking down at the pony who had galloped into her full tilt, and promptly fallen on her backside as a result.

The mare was clearly getting on in her years, judging by the streaks of gray in her otherwise sky blue mane and tail. Her red eyes, with bags beneath them, were at odds with her azure coat, and they widened exponentially when she realized just who she had galloped into. Instantly, she flipped over and lowered herself, lab coat billowing and obscuring her cutie mark, prostrating herself before Luna.

"Y-Y-Your Majesty! I am so dreadfully sorry! I swear I shall be more cautious whenever I walk, and, and, a-and - "

"Please, cease panicking," Luna said. "Rise, and continue on thy way."

The mare rose, but didn't continue. "A-Actually, I was looking for you, Your Highness."

Luna's stern look softened. "Ah, then it was most fortuitous for thou to find us, despite the... impact. What hast thou to say?"

"Doctor Lymph is requesting your presence regarding the blood and tissue analysis of, um, Elizabeth Greene?"

Speaking of which...

"Yes?" Greene asked, opening the door.

The pony jumped. "Guh! H-How did you - "

"Ears," she rasped. "Samples?"

"U-Um, yes." The pony returned her gaze to Luna. "If you'll follow me, Princess, I can bring you to him." She looked at Elizabeth Greene. "You can, uh, go back to whatever it is you were doing."

Instead, Greene stepped out of her room and knelt down to the mare's level. She raised a hand and brushed it along the mare's cheek, who shivered at the touch. "You have done a good job," she whispered, pulling back and standing. Without further hint that she knew they existed, Elizabeth Greene went back into her room and closed the door.

The earth pony stammered, "T-T-That was, that was - "

"The alien creature, yes. Her name is Elizabeth Greene, she is ambassador to the Evolved." Luna didn't bother adding that, if what Celestia said was true, there were at most two other Evolved in all of existence. "Now, miss..."

"Ribo Coil, Your Highness," she said, rubbing the spot Elizabeth had touched her with a hoof.

"Ribo Coil, please bring us to Doctor Lymph."

"R-Right away, Princess Luna."

Without further ado, Ribo Coil began to lead Luna through the castle, taking twists and turns and stairs. Before too long, Luna's nose picked up the smell of doctors, antiseptic, and nutritional broths. The Pathogen and Vaccine research branch was a relatively new addition to the castle, at least by Luna's standards. It was truly the marvel of modern Equestrian medicine, using magic to analyze disease causing agents and create both cures and vaccines for them.

The door was easily passed, Luna ignoring the 'Caution! Disease causing agents and ponies do NOT mix!' sign. It was sterile white, with lab benches lining all the walls. She'd been here several times (Since vaccines were something that would've been nothing short of miraculous back before her banishment) and was surprised by the level of activity.

Doctors were rushing too and fro, levitating and carrying vials, checking off lists on clipboards and talking excitedly. Ribo Coil maneuvered between them easily, and while those who noticed Luna were quick to give a bow and give her space, whatever had happened with Greene's samples rendered those few and far between. Before too long, Doctor Lymph found them, his mane frazzled and fur matted with sweat. He seemed... jittery, as if he'd had one too many cups of coffee.

He gave a hurried bow. "Your Majesty, thank you so much for coming on such short notice. Please, let's get to someplace less crowded." He took a deep breath. "Alright everypony, clear a path! Royalty coming through!"

With his shout, the doctors around Luna took notice of her, gave worried bows, and made plenty of space for her and Doctor Lymph to pass through. Before too long, they reached an isolated corner of the Pathogen and Vaccine branch, where there was nopony but her and the doctor. Even the lab bench was clear except for several sheets of notes.

"We art most impressed, doctor," Luna said. "To analyze samples from what is, after all, an alien species so rapidly, and so against thy natural sleep cycles, does credit to thou and thy colleagues. What hast thou found? Is Elizabeth Greene free of disease?"

"Well, that's the thing, Your Highness." His horn lit up with a muddy aura and lifted a seemingly random paper to before his face. "She is rife with viruses. The sample of her blood that we took contained no less than three dozen various types of virus."

"Three dozen?" Luna whispered in awe. "How harmful art they?"

"Actually, they're mostly inert. I'll come back to the 'mostly' later, but they couldn't cause a sniffle, let alone anything dangerous."

"Interesting."

"It gets more so. The flesh sample we took is also rife with disease, but it's all one strain. We analyzed it with a basic Viral Classification Spell, and the diseases in her blood appear to all be mutations of the one in her flesh."

"We believe we follow. Her illness is in her tissue, and it mutates when it reaches her blood."

"That's just the thing, Your Highness. We don't think - I don't think she is sick at all. This strain in her flesh, we believe she depends on it. It is our belief that she exists in mutualistic symbiosis with this virus; she gives it a place to reside, and in return it... well, we don't know what it does for her; we'd need to perform more tests. But the way this relates to her blood is fascinating."

"How so?"

"She's not just mutating the virus. Her body is a factory. It's creating new strains of what we call the Greene Virus - creative, I know - at a dizzying pace. It's likely an ongoing process; were we to take another blood sample, I doubt we'd find even a single strain matching the ones we have now."

"And the original strain in her flesh? Is it dangerous?"

He shrugged. "We don't think so. It's not like anything we've ever seen, being from an alien world, but it doesn't seem to be contagious, or any worse than a weak version of the flu. But this brings me to my next point; you know how I said most of the blood strains were inert?" he asked, changing the paper for another.

"Indeed we do."

"There was one that wasn't inert. We actually analyzed it, and you wouldn't believe what we found." Doctor Lymph beamed. "Your Majesty, using that strain - Greene Strain 17, we're calling it - we believe we've created a cure for wing cancer. Not just pegasi cancer, either! Griffon and dragon wing cancer as well, in all likelihood! Maybe even changeling wing cancer, if that's a thing."

Luna's eyes widened. "Incredible. Wing cancer hast been a scourge for longer than we hath been alive. And now Greene arrives and, in the span of a day, gives you a lead to a possible cure?"

"That's what I'm saying, Your Majesty. And it's not just a possible cure; we've implemented it on a volunteer, and already he's showing signs of tremendous recovery from what would've been terminal wing cancer. The strains she's creating... they could cure every disease on the planet, given time!" He froze, frowning. "Or, possibly, cause them. Most of the thirty-eight strains, not including the original, are inert, and seventeen was benign. It's not a stretch to assume that, just by shear luck, she may produce an apocalypse strain of her virus."

"So she has the potential to be dangerous," Luna said.

"Only if her blood gets out, and only if she happens to have a malignant strain in it at the time. We have no way of knowing how often she produces disease-inducing strains. But Princess Luna, think about it! With just one sample of her blood, we've cured one of the worst diseases in history! Repeated samples - !"

"Hold thy tongue, Doctor!" Luna bellowed. "Our sister hath expressed concerns to us regarding Elizabeth Greene's mental health. From what she hath revealed, Elizabeth Greene appears to suffer post traumatic stress disorder regarding needles and doctors, as thou well knows." Doctor Lymph lightly tapped his horn with a hoof, grimacing. "We will not have her come to give you more of her blood, we will not influence her and we forbid thee from doing the same. If she wishes to provide more donations, that is her decision alone."

Doctor Lymph looked down, hoofing at the ground with his ears splaid back. He looked like he wanted to put forth an argument, but decided that would be most unwise. "O-Of course, Your Majesty. So, what do you think about Elizabeth's health-safety factor?"

Luna considered this. She wondered if maybe this 'Greene Strain' was her blessing, and not some form of magic like she'd initially thought. If that was so, then Greene's intention to 'bless' others translated to spreading a disease. However, Doctor Lymph had said that the virus was nearly harmless, and it did appear to grant Elizabeth a great deal of fortitude.

"She's harmless," Luna decided. "We thank thee for thy diligence. Now, we highly suggest thou and thy colleagues get to sleep." Luna smiled. "We suspect thou shalt have a great deal of work to do on this cure for wing cancer."

"O-Of course, Princess. I'll get some sleep immediately."

"Sweet dreams, good doctor." Luna closed her eyes, and trotted across the space-time continuum, reappearing in her private quarters.

To tell the truth she wasn't certain what to think about Elizabeth Greene. She was filled with disease, and her blood could, if she understood, switch between toxic and harmless at a moment's notice. She desired to spread her infection to others, but the problem was Luna had no idea what that infection would even do. Doctor Lymph had said her base strain, likely the one she spread, was nearly harmless. However, it was still against her duty as a ruler to allow anypony - or anyevolved as it may be - to cause suffering, however minor, to her subjects.

Perhaps Greene thought it would strengthen ponies the way it strengthened her. Perhaps it was like an itch; she had to 'bless' others periodically, or the urge built up.

There was only one who could answer her, but Luna had Midnight Court to attend to in the meanwhile.

Perhaps she could get somepony to help her investigate Elizabeth. She had an idea who could, as well.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

Oh what wonder! What joy joy joy!

She hummed a tune as she walked through the castle walls, one hand tracing a thin line of red along the left wall so she could find her way back. She didn't know where she knew the tune from, but it must've been from Before because whenever she tried to remember it felt like she was being crushed beneath the weight of the world. But the tune hardly mattered.

She could feel her Blessing in the equines she had touched, had gifted. Feel it thrumming in her veins, sense their positions in her mind. It was there, struggling through their veins. It wasn't spreading rapidly through them like it would in a Similar, but it was still there, she could feel it, and soon she would have children again!

Canterlot, Manehatten. Those had the highest populations. She'd Bless those areas first before spreading to the rest of Equestria. Then she could probably multitask several nations. The capitol of the Zebran Plains, Savarah. The capitol of the Griffon Kingdom, Aviona. So on, so forth.

She kept humming as she reached a patrol of guards, the night-time variety that Luna seemed to command. "Halt!" said the one on the left. "What are you doing here?"

"Guest, ambassador," she rasped, continuing to stride forwards, her hand leaking more of her warmth. "Went for walk."

"What in the name of the Princesses are you doing to the wall?!" the other asked, wings spread open aggressively as he took in the half-hoof wide stream of red... stuff she'd left behind her.

"Find my way back," she said truthfully, coming to a stop right before them. "Walking, pull trail back once returning to Home. Good of you to be concerned," she said. "Good for guards." She patted one on the head, then the other, Blessing each of them as she did so. They pulled back, shaking their heads, but didn't seem to realize the gift she'd bestowed upon them. It hardly mattered; they'd realize soon enough.

"Very well, then," said the one who'd accosted her first. "Continue on your way, just don't get lost."

"Won't," she said, smiling. Sure, they'd be in pain soon. Her Blessing's transitional phase was never pleasant; vomiting blood, disorientation, among other things. It was part of the process to begin letting them Listen to her, and the moment the process began she'd make them as happy happy happy as she could, ease the pain of the transition as best she could. They were, after all, her children.

She kept humming, walking forward and Blessing another patrol of guards, and a few servants of the royal sisters.

... oh, the sisters.

She couldn't Bless them, and that made her want to scream and shout and rip things from the unfairness of it all! They'd been so kind to her, and she couldn't give them her gift as payment! Their bodies couldn't be Blessed; when she gave Luna her gift, the alicorn's body - her raw power - incinerated her Blessing within seconds. That they should be forced to live independent for the rest of their immortal lives, forced to rely on themselves for happiness, that was a cruel cruel cruel fate she wouldn't wish upon her worst enemy.

Furthermore, she wasn't even certain if she should Bless them. As much as the idea didn't agree with her, they did seem to control the sun and the moon of this world. If she were to Bless them, she wasn't certain they could continue their roles, and either heavenly object being suspended forever would be bad bad bad. She could always Bless one, so that the other could continue the duties of both, but she'd have to ask them to know which one, and the one left behind would still lose their sister.

That was if she could Bless them at all, and Elizabeth wasn't sure she could.

She also had to be diplomatic about this. She didn't want to fight against the equines like she had the Similars; they'd been so kind kind kind to her! Surely, once Celestia and Luna saw how happy their subjects were after being Blessed, they'd understand. Surely...

... but those were sad sad sad worry-thoughts for a worry-time. She could feel her Blessing growing within a dozen and a half of the equines, and she was feeling weak. Greene stopped walking forward and turned around. She placed her right hand to the wall that had previously been on her left and began tracing her path back, absorbing the red warmth she'd left behind as she retraced her footsteps, her strength and mass returning.

Everything was going according to plan. The Blessings she'd bestowed weren't spreading quickly, but that wasn't important because the Blessing was there! She knew where to go, she knew how she could do this. The books told her enough.

She soon found her way back to her room and slipped inside. She sat down on her nest, crossing her legs, and gently touched it with her left fingers. The web began to grow, until soon she'd engulfed the entire guest room in her warmth, making it a proper Home.

Yes, Elizabeth Greene thought. Everything is going to be just. Fine.

Ambassadors and Elements

View Online

Twilight Sparkle

"So, um, Twilight," began the pegasus next to her. "Where exactly is this creature?"

"It's in the castle," she said. "The ambassadors are supposed to arrive later in the afternoon, so we should be able to squeeze in a few hours of study on the alien."

"Just, um, please just remember that's it's a living being, like you or me. I mean, if you could... ? Please?" Fluttershy said, steadily growing quieter as she spoke.

Twilight nodded. "Of course I will. I promise you, I won't go overboard." Suddenly, the unicorn beamed. "But, I mean, imagine it! A creature from an alien world, Fluttershy! Do you know what this means?! There may be countless other worlds out there with life! I mean, if there's one alien world, who's to say there aren't two? Or ten? Or a hundred? Or billions?! Just think of all the scientific advances some of them have made! The studies they have into magic theory! Billions, Fluttershy!"

Suddenly, Twilight froze, her body stiffening up as they approached the castle. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks.

"Um, Twilight?" Fluttershy asked nervously. "Are you... are you okay?"

"But... if there are billions of them... then some of them have to be malicious, don't they?" she whispered to herself. "There might be an intergalactic empire based on the foundations of fear and hatred, and we aren't even aware of it because we are as ants to them!"

"Well, ants are nice..."

"What if they decide not to look where they're stepping? What if they slip their hooves and annihilate the planet?! Oh Celestia! What if this creature's just a scout?! What if they decide to invade us like in those horrible, horrible science fiction novels and, and, and..."

"Twilight?" the pegasus squeaked, her friend shaking and trembling. Thinking fast, she threw her hooves around her neck. "Twilight, Twilight calm down, please. If that's okay, I mean - "

"The breathing exercise!" the panicked mare shouted, now fully hyperventilating. "Fluttershy, how did Cadance's breathing exercise go?! I can't remember!"

"Shh, shh. Calm down, Twilight," she said soothingly, both of them ignoring the ponies around them giving odd looks. "It's okay. They aren't going to invade us. Elizabeth's here alone. Shh, shh."

Eventually, Twilight managed to calm down, her breathing returning to normal. Fluttershy let go of her neck. "Right. Right. Thank you. Let's keep going."

The two mares continued trotting into the castle grounds. None of the guards gave them trouble, largely in part due to them recognizing Twilight. Of course, they had to get stopped for a changeling revealing check, but other than that everything went smoothly.

Once inside the main hall, they were greeted by a surprisingly woozy-looking Solar Guard. He looked identical to all the others, courtesy of an illusory enchantment, but that didn't cover the slight shaking of the pegasus's hoofsteps or the way his eyes had trouble staying on Twilight Sparkle.

"Miss Sparkle," he greeted. "It is good you made it. I assume you understand why you are here?"

"Princess Luna wanted to see me about studying the alien creature," she said. "I got her note last night."

"Excellent," he said, his eye wandering to Twilight's left to settle on Fluttershy, then to her right, then back to her. "If you'll follow me, I'll lead you to the Evolved."

"Thank you. Are you, um, alright?"

He shook his head, though it didn't seem to cause any improvement. "I'm fine. I had a run in with the alien when she first arrived, and apparently she did some sort of 'memory transfer' on me so she could know Equestrian, and - "

"Memory transfer?" Twilight asked, intrigued. "The alien can perform a memory transfer? That is incredibly high-level magic! Think of all the things we could learn from them! Think of - "

"Um, Twilight?" Fluttershy timidly interjected. "Maybe you could, well, ask her yourself? Well, if she wants to answer, of course."

Twilight nodded. "Right, right. I'm sorry, um..."

"Unbreakable Shield, miss. Follow me." Unbreakable Shield turned around and, from the main hall, started towards a seemingly random corridor that Twilight knew led to the guest chambers. She couldn't help but notice the wobble in Unbreakable Shield's step, but the rest of her formidable mind was elsewhere.

Mind magic was very difficult. The memory spell she'd performed on her friends to free them from Discord was no simple matter; she had to find her memories, taper out the thoughts she'd had personally leaving just the events, and find 'empty space' in her friends to put it. The way Unbreakable Shield had trouble focusing led her to believe that this 'Elizabeth Greene' (As Luna's letter called her, and what kind of name was that? Didn't mean anything.) was either unskilled with mental magic, used a different variant due to being an offworlder, or was, at the time, too panicked for safety measures.

"So Fluttershy, what do you think you can talk to the alien about?" Twilight heard, in the background, somepony arguing with the guards about 'seeing the alien' and a 'conspiracy' and 'open your eyes you blind foals'.

"Well, um. I know my special talent is working with animals, and oh I know it's wrong to think of her that way, but, um, from what Luna said in your letter, well, she's very hurt. And confused. And hurt. And aliens are technically animals, even if they are, um, uh, self aware. So, I thought, oh dear..."

"I understand," she said as they continued to walk. Abruptly, Unbreakable Shield stopped, and turned around to him. The slightly goofy grin that'd been on his face was gone. Twilight licked her lips, and noticed the air was a little dry.

"Her room is the second on the left," he said. "Do be wary, though. She's... not all there, if you know what I mean."

"That's a very rude thing to say, um, if I can say that."

"Fluttershy has a point. What's neurotic to us may be perfectly normal for an alien. Celestia's sake, griffons and ponies have such differences in their nature, and we at least share a planet. In any case..."

"... I should get back to my patrol. Good evening to you, Miss Sparkle, Miss Fluttershy," he said, walking back the way they'd come.

"Eep!"

"Okay. Checklist. Checklist." Twilight closed her eyes, bracing herself with her first encounter with an alien. She needed to go over what scant little she knew, including and mostly limited to:

One: The alien, an 'Elizabeth Greene', was female.

Two: It was bipedal and carnivorous, though not aggressive unless touched without permission.

Three:It had some sort of electric attack.

Four:It was symbiotic with a virus, though it seemed mostly harmless.

Five:She used to be something called a 'human' (Whatever that was) and refered to them as Similars. It was believed her infection with the virus turned her into an 'Evolved'.

Alright, she had that down. There was likely so much more she didn't know, but Princess Luna had been scarce when it came to details in her letter. She already had her plan of attack, and her route of questions. The first thing she'd done upon reading the Night Goddess's letter was what any sane pony would do when given the chance to converse with and study the first alien to ever visit Equus: she made lists, and had brought them with her; her saddle bags had quite a bulge.

She approached the appropriate door, licking her lips from the unusual dryness in the air. There was a servant right outside, a unicorn controlling a broom with her magic, sweeping up dust.

"Oh my," Fluttershy said, her sympathy overriding her crippling anxiety. "Are you alright?"

She nodded, and Twilight saw that her green eyes were bloodshot. She had a wobble in her steps, but unlike Unbreakable Shield, for whom it seemed to be a lack of balance, she just didn't seem to have the strength to stay on all fours correctly.

"Thank you for the concern miss." She interrupted herself with a cough. "I'm fine, just a bug. It's going around the castle, so I wouldn't shake hooves with anypony for a while." Twilight frowned. Might this have something to do with the alien's symbiotic virus?

"Oh, why are you working if you're sick?" Fluttershy asked. "Shouldn't you be resting?"

She scoffed, coughing again. "Please. I get enough of that from Their Majesties and the guards. I'm fine, somepony's gotta do this."

"Oh, alright. But please, please don't work yourself too hard. It would be awful if you never got better."

The sick unicorn nodded, the broom still operating in a halo of orange magic. "Thank you, Miss Fluttershy."

Fluttershy froze, blushing as she realized the servant knew her name, even as she continued past them.

Twilight couldn't help but smile. "It seems our reputation precedes us. Well, let's go. Science awaits!"

Twilight manipulated her magic around the door to push it in, trotting forwards and expecting to walk in on a two-legged alien deep in learning about Equestrian norms, sitting on a castle guest bed. Instead, a most curious noise tore from her's and Fluttershy's throats.

"AHH!"

What she found inside was instead something out of a horror book. The only part of the suite that had been untouched were the windows looking down upon Canterlot. Everything else had been engulfed in a thick mesh of fleshy red and white tendrils, so thick that Twilight could not see beneath them in any spot. They clung to the bed, to the floors, the vanity mirror, the walls, even the ceiling. With unmitigated horror Twilight realized she was standing on the mesh. The webbing beneath her hooves was hot like stones under the summer sun, and it was squirming back and forth like it was alive. She took in a breath to replace the air she'd lost screaming, and realized that the air here was impossibly dry, a sharp contrast to the organic look of the mesh.

Suddenly, Fluttershy was next to her, trembling like a leaf in an Everfree storm.

Sitting on what used to be a bed was the alien. Even with the knowledge she had, Twilight was wholly unprepared for its appearance.

She was tall and lanky, nothing like the few bipedal species Equus had. Most of her body was covered in a skin-tight gray suit with straps and tubes hanging from it in seemingly random spots; around her wrists, her waist, the upper left arm. The suit went up the short, stocky neck, and ended in a ring just beneath her head.

There was very little skin exposed, but what little there was was almost entirely devoid of fur, colored a pale tan that bordered on white. The arms ended in strangely shaped five-fingered hands, with pathetically tiny claws at the end of each admittedly-nimble looking finger. One hand was tracing rings on the nest that used to be a bed, sending tiny pulses through the nearest tendrils, as if the alien was stirring water.

Its head was strange. She had some equine features, but that was pushing it: a mouth, eyes, and ears. Her nostrils were located on the underside of her sharp, pointy muzzle, which was entirely separate from her mouth! Her ears were rounded and on the very sides of her head, unnervingly motionless. Her mane was a ragged mess of red, like somepony had taken a weed-whacker to it. Her eyes, slammed shut, were very, very small.

It was then that Twilight realized, even though both Fluttershy and her (Mostly her) had screamed, the alien didn't so much as acknowledge their existence. She let out a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding.

"It's ok, Fluttershy. I think it's sleeping."

The Evolved's eyes snapped open, making Twilight leap back with a shriek.

Her eyes were, again, very small, and the pupils blacker than night. The sclera dominated the eyes, but Twilight Sparkle could still see that her eyes were a pale green. It wasn't pale like somepony had mixed white and green paint together. It was as if somepony had taken the most brilliant emerald in all the land and covered it in centuries worth of dust. Elizabeth Greene fixed Twilight in a stare with all the intensity of Fluttershy's own, and she froze up. She was a carnivore. Twilight was an herbivore. She was a predator, and Twilight was the prey.

Elizabeth Greene leaped from her sitting position to standing on her hind legs - no, just legs, a non-petrified part of Twilight's mind noted - right in front of the bed. She radiated aggression. And it wasn't that Twilight could interpret the alien's body language well enough to tell that; she literally emitted the urge to cause violence, but... tempered with something else. Something she'd felt often when she was a foal in the care of her parents, of her mother.

"H-Hello," Twilight stammered. Vaguely, she noticed Fluttershy was frozen like a statue, blue eyes wide.

Elizabeth stopped, staring down - so high! - at Twilight. Slowly, her frown morphed to a tense smile, and the aura of aggression faded.

"Hello," she said, her mouth revealing a strange missmatch of incisors, canines, and molars, not at all the fang-filled mouth Twilight had expected. Twilight shivered, because her voice, even after her lips stopped moving, echoed several times, the repeats sounding eerily like buzzing insects.

"M-My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is my friend Fluttershy," she said, gesturing to the near-fainting pegasus.

"Ambassadors?" she asked, the echoes not abating for a moment.

Twilight shook her head. "A-Actually, I'm Princess Celestia's personal student and Element of Magic, and Fluttershy here is the Element of Kindness - "

"Elements rocks," she rasped in her heavily accented Equestrian. "Sisters use."

Twilight took a moment to decipher her speech. "W-Well, that used to be the case, but after Nightmare Moon the elements unbound themselves from Celestia and Luna. Me and my friends are the new Bearers."

"Nightmare Moon?" she asked curiously, tilting her head. "What is a Nightmare Moon?"

Twilight shook her head. "Um, that's a story for another time. Long story short, Luna turned into Nightmare Moon, but changed back. She did some... questionable things during that time."

Greene frowned, but then returned to her neutral look. She walked past Twilight and knelt to Fluttershy's level. "Hello," she greeted.

"U-Um, hello, Miss Greene. H-How're you liking Equestria so far?"

She tilted her head back and smiled. "Good. Colorful. No similars." She smiled. "Like you." Twilight breathed out a sigh of relief. That confirmed that Elizabeth Greene was not in fact, a heartless monster. Otherwise it was impossible to not like Fluttershy.

"Oh! Um... eep!" Fluttershy bolted, placing Twilight between herself and Elizabeth.

Twilight gave the towering Evolved a nervous grin. She felt so cornered, and she was beginning to sweat through her coat just by the raw heat Elizabeth radiated. Not even Celestia was so burning hot. "So, now that we have the introductions done, I was thinking we may get down to business? I have a lot of questions for you, regarding your world," Twilight said, pulling out a quill and Checklist 32-B. She eyed the overgrown bed. "If it's not too much to ask, may I clear a spot on the bed? That webbing... scares me."

"No need," she said. Before Twilight could do anything with her magic, Greene knelt and placed one hand to the webbing on the floor. After a moment the mesh, with a wet slithering sound, retreated off the bed, looking as if nopony had touched it. Greene rose and looked at her. "Good?"

"R-Right. Thank you, Elizabeth." Twilight flopped down on the toasty-warm bed, levitating the list and quill before her.

Fluttershy also joined her, wiggling into a comfortable position and closing the door - whose back was also overgrown - behind her. "Are you alright, Miss Greene? You look sad. I mean, that's only if you want to say. I-If you don't, that's perfectly understandable."

Greene sighed, flexing her fingers. "Spread my blessing to your kind. Something... something wrong with it. Broken." She shook briefly. "Can't find out what's wrong."

"Well, maybe you can talk to Twilight about it? She's really, um, really smart. If you don't mind me saying, Twilight. If anypony can help you figure it out, it's her."

"Right. So, Elizabeth, I have several questions for you. Um, let's start with the easy ones. Full name, please?"

She considered this for a moment, like she barely remembered her own name. "Elizabeth Anne Greene," she whispered.

"Alright. Species? Former species, if applicable?"

"Evolved. Formerly Similar."

"Do the 'Similars' call themselves such?"

"... no. Humans."

"Great! Now, how did you come to Equestria?"

"Don't know. Was in cold curse prison. Then it became so bright, and then I was here." Fluttershy gasped at the mention of a 'prison'.

Twilight frowned. That didn't help much, but it was a start. "Where was this prison located?"

Greene shivered. "Nowhere. Everywhere. Outside of time and space, inside my wayward child."

Twilight stopped writing. "A prison... inside your child?"

She nodded. "Took my blessing, made it a curse. Made it his curse. He cursed me, and trapped me in his prison."

"For how long?"

"Don't know. No time there... long time though. Too long."

"Alright. So, beyond yourself and humans, what other races were there?"

"None. Just animals," she rasped.

Twilight paused. "Nothing else? At all? Just you and humans?"

"Correct," she murmured.

"Wow," Fluttershy whispered. Twilight agreed with her. She tried to imagine what it would be like. Tried to imagine a world without griffons, without zebras, without cows and dragons and changelings. A world populated only by ponies. She couldn't do it.

"Well, can you tell me the magical level of humans? Considering that the evolved, there... um... aren't many of you?"

"No magic," she said. "None on world. Different here."

This was even harder for Twilight to imagine. A world with no magic, where her talent was useless. Where clouds could not be manipulated, the sun and moon would be required by the law of nothing-else-working to rise and set on their own. Without levitation, without accelerated plant growth. A world... like the Everfree. A planet sized Everfree devoid of all magic.

Once more, she couldn't imagine it. How would anything get done? As much as it pained her to deviate from the checklist, she asked just that.

"Had... had technology." She frowned, rubbing a spot on her forearms. "They were good at burning and shaping. Especially shaping. Took their cold cold world of wood and dirt and made it a cold cold world of metal and glass." She shook her head. "Changed nothing."

"I... see. But then, how did you perform a memory transfer? That's magic."

"Not for me," she said simply, and that was that.

Twilight continued, going through her questions and writing down Elizabeth's answers, sometimes changing them when her terminology became slightly... odd. She learned what she could, yet so much of it was missing. Elizabeth wasn't nearly the font of knowledge she'd wished for. She didn't know much about humans other than they were physically pathetic compared to her, had advanced technology, and were skilled terraformers.

She painted them in a bad light, one filled with war and suffering and hatred, but Twilight wondered if there was more to them than Elizabeth let on, more than Greene knew. Whenever she asked about Elizabeth herself, she clammed up. Twilight might've been social inept on most occasions, but even she could tell a touchy-as-hay subject when it slapped her in the face.

Far too quickly for Twilight's taste, Elizabeth Greene grew tired of the questions. "Too much. Like a scientist," she spat.

"Um, it is for science," she said.

Greene's eyes narrowed, and Twilight could once again feel the waves of fury rolling off of her. "Scientists bad."

"T-That's not true! Without science, we would never know as much about magic as we do now. There'd be so many things we don't know, so many problems we couldn't - "

"Bad!" she shouted, her echoes rising in intensity. "Bad bad bad!"

Twilight scrambled back, her ears flattening on her head. "S-S-Sorry," she squeaked, closing her eyes. Instinct told her to fear. She had antagonized a predator. When she opened her eyes back up, she was treated to a most unusual sight. Fluttershy was soothing the alien, speaking in the tone she reserved for her animals. It seemed to be working, because Greene's emotion bleed was gone, her eyes had ceased to be narrow, and she seemed all around relaxed.

" - to make you angry. I'm sure she's very sorry. Now, you don't have to answer any more questions if you don't want. If you like, I could help you get caught up on Equestrian History? Nightmare Moon is very important to know about."

"Yes. Thank you, Fluttershy." Greene bowed her head, then fixed Twilight with a look out of one eye. "Go," she rasped to her. With a start, Twilight noticed that the red and white tendrils had begun growing over the bed again. They reached her before she could react, and she squeaked as they squeezed beneath her to continue their movement.

Twilight hastily nodded and vacated the premises, grimacing when her hooves squished on the fleshy floor. Once outside, she took several deep breaths of refreshingly humid air, thanking the royal sisters she'd remember to bring her stuff with her. Most importantly, her precious notes. She made her way to find Princess Luna swiftly, and it only took her a few questions directed towards the guard to find the appropriate balcony.

The Nightbringer was sitting on her haunches, eyes closed in meditation and wings extended to their full length.

Twilight coughed nervously. "Your Majesty?"

With a suddenness that startled Twilight, Luna turned around, wings settling to her sides. Her eyes were bloodshot and tired, clearly indicative of how 'early' she'd gotten up. "Twilight Sparkle, our dear friend! Hast thou interrogated Elizabeth Greene?"

"Well, I wouldn't say 'interrogated' so much as 'timidly questioned', Pri - " Twilight caught herself, remembering how Luna wished her to be informal with her. " - Luna. She's a predator. She really, really scares me, even when she isn't trying to."

Luna nodded, "Indeed, she hath a presence. Let's start with her abilities. Hast thou gleaned any information regarding them?"

"She speaks of being able to 'bless' others, though she seems to be worried about that for some reason. She can also control this organic mesh in her room by touching it, ordering it to, to expand and recede. I theorize it drains moisture from the air; her guest room was very dry. It leads me to believe she's originally from a desert."

Luna nodded. "Indeed, she hath engulfed her bed in such webbing. She claims it to be warm."

The unicorn blinked. "Um, just her bed? Her entire room was completely ensnared. The only part that was even recognizable were the windows."

Luna blinked. "Oh. That is... an interesting development, we suppose. What else hast thou gleaned? We know of her strength and electric discharge capabilities."

"She can leak emotions," Twilight said without hesitation. "She transferred aggression into me before realizing I wasn't hostile."

Luna's eyes widened. "Most odd. It appears her mind magic extends beyond memory transfers; we had not even noticed such an emotional leak." She placed a hoof to her chin. "She either did not perform it, or it occurs without her say and we art simply immune to it. Her blessing also failed to take hold of us."

"Luna, what exactly is her 'blessing'? I mean, she claims she can do all that she does without magic, but - "

"True. The blessing she spreads is more likely than not a viral infection, the same one she is symbiotic with. It appears to be harmless. She did not infect thou, did she?"

"I - I don't think so, Luna."

The alicorn's horn glowed for a moment. "She did not. Alright. What hast thou learned about her home world, and her former species?"

"Well, apparently these 'humans', before her kind existed, are the only sentient species on their planet. They have no magic and are physically weak, forcing them to make up for it with advanced technology." Twilight pulled out her notes on the matter and began reading over it. "She really, really has a grudge against them. She claims that they constantly war among themselves, waste their machines on burning and hurting, and hold no value in family. That last one bothered her the most, strangely enough."

"Dost thou believe humans art truly so wicked?"

Twilight shrugged. "I don't know. She quickly grew tired of my questions. Claimed they were too scientific, and that scientists were bad. Then I left. I feel like she's leaving out a lot about humans. Not on purpose, I don't think, but I believe there's a lot about her former species that simply doesn't register for her."

"Yet another sign of emotional trauma," Luna mused. She nodded. "Very well, that shall conclude thy investigations for the day, and we shalt send for thee when we wish for thou to continue. The ambassadors shall be arriving shortly at any rate. Where is Elizabeth now?"

"She's in her room with Fluttershy, I think. Learning about - " Twilight caught herself before a Catastrophically Awkward Moment could ensue. " - Equestrian History."

Luna's brow elevated itself. "Gentle Fluttershy is here as well? What for?"

"Taking care of Elizabeth. She feels she can help her with the trauma you mentioned. And Spike is watching her animals, so all should be well." A cold chill instantly ran down Twilight's spine as her words registered.

All should be well.

She'd just doomed her number one assistant, hadn't she?

"We shall commend her for her initiative. For now, thou knows where thy room is. We assume Fluttershy shall bunk with thee?"

Twilight shrugged. "Possibly, but knowing her, she might just move in with Elizabeth. New animal, very hurt inside, you understand."

She smiled. "Thy friend truly doth have a heart of purest gold." Luna's left ear flicked. "Take care of thyself, friend Twilight. We must be off to join our sister in greeting the ambassadors."

Twilight dipped her head as Luna's wings flared out. With a gust of wind she took to the air, circling around to the front of the palace.

Twilight Sparkle sighed.

This was going to be a most interesting research project.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

Elizabeth sat on a roof, looking down the castle courtyard as the ambassadors finally filed in. Celestia and Luna, with both day and night guards next to their respective leaders, stood side by side. The arrival of the ambassadors was slow. She had time to muse, and so she mused.

The two new equines were a curiosity. Twilight Sparkle was... threatening. She made Elizabeth feel like she was in a corner, like she was in the Cold Dark Place again with all her pointless questions-questions-questions that never seemed to cease. What purpose could there be to asking so many questions, about the Similars no less? The Similars had nothing to offer! Their technology was second to magic that could lift the sun and the moon so why would the equines even care? It made no sense! Especially with - even though they had no way of knowing - her Blessing slowly spreading among them.

"Make way for Tearwing!" shouted an equine. Greene's keen eyes made out three figures flying through the air. They weren't pegasi, she could tell that much. As they flew closer, Elizabeth could make out more details.

Those must've been griffons. They had the upper bodies of crows - or some kind of bird, she only remembered crows - and the lower bodies of felines. The two on the side had white plumage and golden fur, with sharp talons, razored claws, and armor on their heads patterned white, gray, and pale blue.

They settled. The middle one had jet black plumage, but the fur color was the same as what were evidently guards. He - certainly a he, Elizabeth was starting to gain skill in alien gender identi... identi... noticing - carried himself with grace, and though he was too far for her to make out eye color she could still see that they were much more predatory eyes than that of equines.

A fellow flesh eater if she'd ever seen one.

"Greetings, Ambassador Tearwing of the Griffon Kingdoms," Celestia said, her voice clear to Greene's hearing. "I hope your flight was a pleasant one?"

Tearwing and his guards folded their wings away. "Very much so, though we had a headwind leaving and arriving. Where is this alien your missive spoke of?"

"All in due time, ambassador," Luna said. "Let us wait for the others first; our guest shall undoubtedly have many questions to ask and answer, and it would do well for her not to repeat herself."

Elizabeth's throat tightened. More questions? She should've stayed with Fluttershy. That female... mare... female was ever so kind to her, even moreso than Celestia and Luna had been. Elizabeth didn't quite understand why but there was just something about that pegasus, something that made her feel like she understood and would listen and not ask questions instead, unlike that scientist unicorn friend of hers. She'd been so patient explaining the history of Nightmare Moon to her, and of how she and her friends came to acquire the Elements of Harmony.

She would've liked to stay with her forever, but she needed to meet these ambassadors. They were from different lands, different species. If there was such a view difference between Similars and equines, who knew what other information she could get from them?

She focused back on the arrivals when the next ones came. The griffon ambassador and his guards had taken up place before Celestia and Luna, who still towered over all like the gods they were.

From a carriage colored alternating gray and dark gray, pulled by black and white earth ponies, the next ambassador arrived. She was a female equine, but seemed quite different. Elizabeth realized that this was a zebra, an equine similar to the ponies. This one had eyes so bright that, even in the distance, the Evolved could make out their maroon tint. She had the mark of an exploding dust cloud on her hind legs, a black mane cropped backwards in a single line, and multiple pieces of silver jewelry. Greene felt the metal had some significance, but had no idea what. She realized she missed this one's introduction.

The zebra bowed before both Celestia and Luna. "Greetings to you, sisters one and two. Judging by Tearwing here, we must wait for the others to have the alien's ear?"

"Greetings to thou as well, Ambassador Sokara. Thou art correct in thy assumptions. Sister, remind us. Who art we waiting for?"

"Ambassador Tungsten Mind of the minotaurs, and Ambassador Fiamma of the dragons. I hear she's taking control of her daughter for this meeting."

Sokara's eyes seemed to narrow, but Elizabeth wasn't sure. "The dragon would do well to come in person. Manipulating her offspring is bound to eventually cause some situation to worsen."

Tearwing shook his head. "Relax, Sokara. Fiamma's been assuming control of willing participants for ten times longer than both of us have lived, combined. She knows what she's doing."

"Well," she said, sounding sly. "If you say it, it must be true. Please, forgive my insult, it was most undue."

"Hmmph."

The equine herald that had announced Tearwing and presumably Sokara raised his voice again. "Presenting Ambassador Tungsten Mind of the Minotaurian Republic!"

Elizabeth Greene's grip on the castle roof she sat on tightened dangerously. Tungsten Mind arrived in a mechanical contraption that looked far, far too identical to something the Similars would've made. Lined with brass tubes, parts belching smoke, moving under its own power. Arriving, pausing shortly, and then driving off while its passenger leaped out, vanishing into the streets of Canterlot without anymore pause.

Tungsten Mind was tall, very tall, Elizabeth realized. Muscled as well, through his dark gray fur. He wore a suit instead of the armor and jewelry the previous two ambassadors did. He also had fingers, something Elizabeth had noted there was a severe lack of on this planet. He had horns, and eyes that Elizabeth couldn't make out.

"Well then," he said in a booming voice. "Hello there Princess Luna, Princess Celestia. Looking as radiant as ever!" He turned to Sokara, gave a curt hello, and then looked towards Tearwing. "You still owe me fifty dorans."

"Yes yes, I'll get them to you after we've spoken with the alien being from another planet."

Elizabeth's mind turned from the political jibber-jabber of the ambassadors to relevant worries. Her Blessing... there was something wrong with her Blessing. Not taking hold of Luna, she could understand. But the seeds she had sown upon the regular equines... something was dreadfully wrong. It had gotten to a certain point in their bodies, very sluggishly at that, and then just... stopped. No matter how hard she coaxed them, they didn't begin the transition to being her children, never even got the slightest ability to Listen. She didn't Bless the new equines for that reason; she had to figure out what was wrong-wrong-wrong before moving on to them. If something was wrong with her Blessing, if being devoured by her Wayward Child had broken it somehow...

... she didn't dare try to imagine that.

But that was impossible! She knew what her son's Curse felt like, and she knew very well what her Blessing felt like. Her gift hadn't changed a bit! So why wasn't it freeing the equines from their misery like it was supposed to?!

The sound of flapping wings brought her out of her sad-thoughts. She looked up at the almost-setting sun to see a figure approaching. It too had wings, but they weren't feathered like the others. It looked more like the wings of Luna's night guards. As it continued, Elizabeth realized it was a reptilian figure, with red scales. The underbelly was a brilliant blue, like the noon sky, matching the webbing of its large wings and the fins down its neck, which ran all the way to its barbed tail. With a resonating thud, the being that had to be Fiamma landed, her glowing yellow eyes instantly drawing Elizabeth's attention. They reminded her so much of her Strange Child.

Fiamma was tall, a time and a half Celestia's height when sitting.

"Ah, Fiamma. I see you're helping Ember stretch her wings. How has she been, may I ask?"

The dragon placed claws to her underbelly. "Quite fine, my thanks for asking, Celestia." She looked at the other alicorn. "Oh, dear Luna! It's been so long! We simply must catch up sometime. I haven't written as much as I should. But first, to business!"

"Indeed," said Tearwing. "We are all here, where is this alien creature you claim has appeared within your borders.

"Last we checked," Luna said. "She was in the guest room we appointed her. Apologies to thee, Tearwing. Unless thou wishes to take it up with the alien, we must find thee another room."

The griffon groaned. "Oh wonderful. Wonderful! Please tell me it hasn't broken anything."

"Thou shalt have to ask her that. In anycase, let us go find her."

Elizabeth suddenly realized that was her time. She had kept the ambassadors, those poor broken individuals, waiting long enough. Who knew? Maybe one of them knew why her Blessing wasn't working as it should've. She gathered strength in her legs, adjusted her angle, calculated the distance. She drew on knowledge from Before that had been amplified by her Blessing, and leaped into the air in a thought-out arc. She noticed the eyes of all figures be drawn to her at the apex of her jump, and then she began to descend, towards right in front and between Celestia and Luna.

As she landed she knelt down, slamming her right fist into the ground with a slam. A small burst of air surged away from her, and the stone beneath her rippled and warped in a perfect circle, cracking like glass. She drew herself up, looking at the griffon, zebra, minotaur, and dragon with her best smile that for some reason made them back off.

"The time for waiting," she said, instantly making each of them freeze. "Is over."

Aliens and Predators

View Online

Greene

Tearwing was the first to make a move. "I hear you've moved into my room," he said.

"Yours?" she asked curiously. She shook her head. "Irrelevant. Ambassadors. Talk." She shivered briefly. It was so cold.

Fiamma - Ember? - nodded. "She is correct, let us have these talks over dinner, as is custom."

Celestia and Luna both nodded, before the latter spoke. "Tis a most intelligent suggestion. Come ambassadors, let us be off! We wilt be with thee shortly after we lower the sun and raise the moon."

In short order, they all filed into the castle and headed to a dining room. Elizabeth wondered where Fluttershy and Twilight were staying. They weren't here, she knew that. But then... where? Fluttershy had fallen asleep in her bed, but as for the unicorn...

She decided she didn't care. She had more important things to be concerned about, at present. Far more important things.

The sister alicorns, after vanishing briefly to perform their cosmic duty, sat side by side, as always. Elizabeth got the seat next to the solar diarch, while Sokara found herself next to Luna, and Tearwing next to the zebra. Tearwing's guards were dismissed and told by their charge to get something to eat, something about 'safer place for griffons than ponyland'. She didn't fully understand what that meant, but decided not to worry about it. One of those 'individual' things. Next to Elizabeth sat the minotaur Tungsten Mind, and Fiamma had pushed aside a row of seats next to him to sit on her haunches. They didn't have to wait long for their meals, as servants - including the Emerald Fields equine - came trotting in, move-thoughting or carrying platters of food, without the metal domes they'd had on Elizabeth's first day.

Both the griffon and herself received a slab of cooked meat. She frowned upon noticing that it wasn't anywhere near the portions she had been used to getting during her stay, but she could make due. After all, she could go a long time without food, and if she was really in a bad spot she always had the warmth of her Home to absorb. She was tempted to tear into it, but a look from Celestia stayed her hunger.

Sokara, Luna, and Celestia all got a salad, each looking less enthusiastic about it than the last. Tungsten Mind had orbs of flesh mixed in with pasty yellow strands - her memories of Before whispered pasta, and she crushed them to end the sinking drowning choking - that revolted Elizabeth. Fiamma had the strangest meal of all; her plate was loaded with a heap of colored rocks. Green ones, red ones, blue ones, even a few black ones.

Their glasses were all filled with water, with pitchers of the stuff located within arm's reach. Elizabeth eyed each of them warily. She swore, if any of those water-holders moved so much as an inch towards her...

"A toast," Celestia said, lifting her glass with magic. "To the sharing of knowledge between worlds, and the forging of new bonds of trust."

"Here here!" the minotaur boomed, all the others raising a glass in their own way. Elizabeth eyed hers nervously. It was wet wet wet.

Before long, the ambassadors were tearing into their meal. Elizabeth downed her flesh almost instantly, and set herself to staring intently at Tearwing as he quite literally pecked away at his meal. After a while the novelty of that faded, and she looked over at Fiamma, eating gems. Her powerful jaws crunched and shattered the minerals into jagged shards that didn't seem to puncture the inside of her throat when she swallowed. Greene was quite impressed by that. She wondered if she could do that.

... she probably could, but she doubted that rocks would make her any less hungry.

"Well now," Tearwing said as the silent meal began wrapping up. "Let us begin. I'll start with the first question; Elizabeth Greene, are you here to invade our world and enslave and/or exterminate its races?"

"Tearwing, you foal! Watch your questions, surely that is not her goal!"

"Isn't," Greene rasped in response. What a silly question. What would griffons possibly have that she wanted? "How invade?"

"My apologies for the rash question, though I hope you can all understand the rationale behind it. Best to get the unpleasant business out of the way first, wouldn't you all agree?" There was a chorus of affirmatives from around Elizabeth. Her skin was crawling. All these... politics made her feel ill. But it was needed if she was to get information. She had to figure out why her Blessing wasn't working. "Now that that's out of the way, let me ask the question we are all wondering; how are you here?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. Was in... a horrible place, and then it was bright white and blue and I was here."

Tungsten Mind rubbed his chin. "That's certainly magic. What kind of magic can do something like that? Just accidentally pluck an alien from another world and drop it here?" He paused, letting that sink in. "Or, perhaps, intentionally."

He let that settle, before Luna spoke, her eyes narrowing. "What art thou suggesting?"

"It's not out of the realm of possibility that someone cast a spell to deliberately whisk Elizabeth from her home world to here. Now, we don't even know if it's the case, but what are we going to do if we find this person? Better to have a plan now and not need it, than need one and not have one."

Greene pondered this. "Thank them," she said. "Took me from bad place, saved me. Second chance. Thank them." Bless them, she thought. Though seeing as she wasn't certain about that, she didn't speak of her greatest gift.

"Was your situation truly so bad?" the griffon ambassador asked.

"Dark and cold," she said, her echos turning even more ominous with her word choice. "Could not move, could not be still. Could not shout and could not be quiet. Forgotten, but remembered." She hissed at the memories. That had truly been a bad place. How far gone was her Wayward Child to have done that to her? Did he even know what she suffered at his hand? "Good to be free."

"And why were you in this prison?" the dragon asked. "From how you describe it, it sounds like a punishment for criminal activity."

"Our old friend hath a valid point, Elizabeth," Luna said with steel in her voice. "Why was thou suffering so?"

"Wayward Child," she said simply. "Turned against me. Cursed me. Tried to help him but wouldn't reason." She sighed at the memory. She had failed her son.

"We see," the Night Princess said, her voice suddenly turning weary. "Thou had to fight one thy loved, but betrayed you." Others with poorer eyesight would've missed it, but Elizabeth noticed the tiny tear in the alicorn's right eye that she blinked away almost instantly. "At the very least, thy story is not at an end yet."

"Hold up!" Tungsten Mind said. "What exactly would drive your son to do that?"

"Blessing turned to Curse," she rasped. "Driven mad. Beyond help."

"Well then," Sokara said after a tense silence as the others digested the information, no doubt coming up with silly little political viewpoints to take on it. "Enough sorrow and woe. Now that you're on our world, where will you go?"

"Go?" Elizabeth asked.

"What the good ambassador means," Celestia said. "Is that while you appeared on Equestrian soil, you represent a valuable - and I apologize for referring to you in such a manner - resource. You have great knowledge, more than you may think, given your vastly different home. My sister and I can hardly keep you all to ourselves, yet it would not be in our best interest to let you loose either. Same goes for all others. So it simply comes down to this; where do you plan to take up residence?"

Elizabeth pondered this. Where would she make her Home? There were advantages to all the places. Equestria had high population centers. The Minotaurian Republic and Griffon Kingdoms both had large stores of flesh, due to their omnivorous and carnivorous residents. The Zebran Plains were large and wide open, but they were also dry, which was a plus. And while she knew little of the Dragon Highlands, there was bound to be something beneficial there.

But to spread her Blessing, population was priority. "Stay in Equestria for time," she said. She looked at each of the ambassadors in turn. "Visit other countries when finished here."

"And when you've visited all our nations?" Tearwing asked.

She shrugged. "See then."

"I see. May I recommend Aviona? It's quite lovely this time of year."

"Shameless self pedaling, I see," the zebra ambassador said. "Do now even extraequustrials need be subject to the arrogance of thee?"

Tearwing rolled his blue eyes. "Thee, Sokara? And it's not arrogance. I just feel she could relate very well to us. After all, there aren't that many sentient carnivores around. Maybe we could learn from each other. Swap hunting techniques and the like."

Tungsten Mind huffed, crossing his massive forearms, his suit tightening. "And what, pray tell, is wrong with being omnivorous?"

"Nothing," he said. "But it's just not the same." The griffon smirked, a great accomplishment with a beak. "But between us, make up your mind and start losing friends like the rest of us."

That, for some reason, caused a spell of light chuckles to pass through the table. Elizabeth had no idea why. She turned to Fiamma, a question burning in her mind.

"Fiamma or Ember?" she asked. "Language?"

Fiamma chuckled, her blazing eyes upturned with mirth. Greene stiffened. Laughing at her laughing laughing laughing! "Oh, no. I can see how you can make that mistake. You see, I'm much too large to come visit Canterlot properly. However, my daughter Ember was kind enough to let me possess her for the meetings. She's smaller than me by... quite a lot."

Greene thought she understood. Fiamma could make her children Listen to her. She instantly liked the dragon.

The proceedings continued, and Elizabeth quickly found herself hating hating hating it! While she got her own questions in, more than she had hoped to (Being the center of attention had some benefits) ask, the answers never satisfied her. She simply could not figure out why her Blessing, which even then stewed in the corners of her mind, trying its hardest to endow children but failing, was not working on the equines. Even worse was when the ambassadors argued with each other. It would be so easy to just Bless them, make them stop arguing, stop fighting, but she couldn't. She couldn't.

Finally, as the night carried on and the majority of the ambassadors grew weary, the meeting finally adjourned.

"Well then," Celestia said, magically holding a scroll of paper before her. "I hope the following terms regarding Elizabeth Anne Greene's stay on Equus will be satisfactory. She is not obligated to follow the customs of any country she is in, such as bowing or formal addresses, but is to follow their laws. She is granted the freedom of movement in any country as if she were a citizen of said country. As per her insistence regarding her self reliance, she shall not receive any form of government financial aid."

Celestia took a breath before continuing, most of her words going right over Elizabeth's head. "She may answer questions of any country's representatives, but unless those questions are matters of national security, the countries are obliged to share them, as are any scientific advances that come about because of her presence."

"We shalt," Luna said, interjecting and giving a look towards Tearwing and Fiamma. "Mention that the notes regarding a potential cure for wing cancer derived from an analysis of her blood shalt be sent to thy respective countries upon conclusion of this event."

Tearwing and Fiamma froze. The griffon's eyes watered.

"Thank you, sister. As I was saying, for final matters, Elizabeth Greene shall have full sanctuary in any country from any other. Is everyp - everyone here in agreement with these terms as I have read them?"

"Yes."

"Indeed, we shall follow this creed."

"Full steam ahead!"

"Certainly."

"Then this meeting of the Allied Nations is adjourned. You've all been informed as to where you are staying for the night. A good night to you all." She turned to her sister. "Especially you, Luna," she said, sharing a warm nuzzle.

As the alicorns and the ambassadors began to depart, Elizabeth sat still, going over what she had learned. Which was essentially, nothing. All of this had been for nothing.

She noticed a feathered and furred body remain behind, making his way to her. The griffon pulled up a seat next to her, placing it where Tungsten Mind had been before. His eyes were still wet-wet-wet, which made Elizabeth nervous.

"Is it true?"

"What true?" she asked.

"Your blood, the cure derived from it. Is it... possibly a cure?"

"Know not. Not informed," she said. "Know not what wing cancer is."

"It's a horrible disease. It affects dragons, griffons, and pegasi. Basically, the victims get tumorous growths in their wings. They are almost impossible to treat even early on and completely impossible to treat safely. If they aren't caught in time, or the currently available treatments don't work, the lumps spread through their bodies. Often into the lungs and heart, causing death."

"Bad death," she murmured. While she understood what tumors were, she never knew they could be so harmful. After all, her Blessing induced those, yet her children had no ill effects. Though, it would make sense the tumors brought by her Blessing would be benign. "Blood is cure?"

"I don't think your blood is specifically a cure. I assume the ponies took a sample of it?" Tearwing ruffled his wings by his sides.

"Did," she rasped. "Make sure I won't make ponies sick."

"Well, they must've found something in it to let them on a path to a cure. If... if it's true..." Ambassador Tearwing locked eyes with Elizabeth Greene. "My sister died from wing cancer when I was a cub. Now, my eldest daughter has it. It's still in the early stages, but the typical chemical and magical therapy only seems to be slowing it down. I don't want to get my hopes up, but if you really have brought a cure for this scourge upon griffons, then let me be the first to say this." He slouched, losing the predatory elegance and noble posture he'd held until now. "Thank you. Thank you so, so much. My door will always be open to you."

Elizabeth smiled, and brought a hand to the griffon's cheek, feeling the smooth feathers. Perhaps it was just an issue with equines? "I intend to help much more, when the time comes," she said, Blessing the ambassador and pulling away her hand.

Tearwing nodded. "Thank you, Elizabeth. One predator to another, you're not all that bad for an alien from another planet with a creepy bucking voice. Ever feel like going on a hunt together, just send me a message." With that, the griffon turned and headed to his new guest room, unaware of the gift bestowed upon him...

Elizabeth frowned. Her Blessing was having an even harder time with the griffon. Not much harder, but it was still slower than with the equines. This worried worried worried her but she had no idea what she could do, nothing was making itself known to her!

She needed to clear her mind. There was one way of doing that that never failed.

She was stopped on her way outside by none other than the zebra ambassador. "Elizabeth Greene, please hold. There is something you must be told."

Funny funny funny way of talking. She was sure there was a word for that pattern. "That so?" she asked, tilting her head and locking green eyes with maroon.

"I can see it in you," Sokara said. "See it in your eyes. There is great hunger in you, and to give in to it would not be wise."

"Hunger," Greene said simply. How could she be hungry? She'd just had a meal.

"I do not know your goals, but take care. Such hunger may consume you, lest you beware."

She narrowed her eyes. "Not hungry."

"Perhaps not a literal sense," she admitted. "But take it in context. I have never seen such desire. You shall be wise not to let the world rouse your ire."

"You haven't seen hunger," Elizabeth said. "Until you have seen my Wayward Child." With that, she brushed past the smaller equine, heading outside to finally clear her head.

She found her way outside after quick directions from a night guard. She tensed her legs, and went sailing up in a single bound. Her foot caught on the edge of the roof, prompting Elizabeth to flip upside down and back over, her momentum carrying her far forward. She knelt down upon landing, then sprung up again. She flipped and turned, running up walls and careening over spires.

She delighted in this feeling of freedom, of the wind blowing through her hair and gravity falling away. The ground came up to her with a slam, and then rushed away just as fast. There was nothing quite like it. As she flipped and twirled, her worries faded away. She wasn't on an alien world. Her Blessing worked just fine. She had a loving family. Nothing real mattered, because up here nothing could touch her. While she may not have had her Wayward Child's ability to surge through the air or to glide like a bird, not even he could hope to ever match the sheer speed and grace with which she danced in the face of gravity.

There wasn't much she remembered from Before, but this was one of the few things she did. She remembered learning how to flip through the air, how to tuck and roll from a fall. She learned how to leap across gaps and redirect her momentum. All skills that had been amplified by several orders of magnitude thanks to her Blessing. Many of her children inherited the skills she had. All of them had it to some degree; even the most common of her family could roll. Her Strange Child was an impressive jumper, and her Wayward Child was probably the only one who could challenge her in a race, his Curse granting him agility beyond even Greene's own.

She gritted her teeth, forcing back the tide of memories. She soared through the air, flipping upside down and sideways partway through. She hit the nearest tower with her feet, still sideways, and propelled herself straight up. She latched her feet onto the wall and, in defiance of gravity, began to sprint straight up. Red and white flickers around her feet let her do so by grabbing onto the wall and keeping her from pushing herself off.

Above her, the tower balcony stretched out; if she continued like this, she'd hit her head. Tensing her legs, she leaped outward and upward at an angle and grabbed the edge of the balcony with one hand. She pulled herself up and over, flipping onto the balcony and rolling inside.

The tower's occupant, a purple unicorn, fell out of her bed with a startled whinny. In a bundle of blankets, the equine flailed about randomly for a few moments before calming down. A head poked out of the bundle, and Elizabeth frowned. Oh. That one.

"Hello, Elizabeth," Twilight Sparkle greeted. "W-What brings you here?"

"Wander," she rasped. Already with the questions. "Don't sleep." She sighed. Perhaps Fluttershy was right. There was something wrong with her Blessing, and she didn't know what! She couldn't do this on her own. She had tried and failed twice to raise her family alone, and she'd be damned to try again. As much as she hated-hated-hated the idea, she needed the scientist's help. "Need help," she admitted.

"Of course!" Twilight said, still in the process of move-thoughting her way out of the blankets. Greene noticed her eyes had bags under them. "What do you need help with?"

"Fluttershy said, help me fix Blessing. Can't figure out what's wrong!"

The unicorn was at her side instantly. "Well then we need to experiment! What is your Blessing, how does it normally operate, and what's different this time? What could have caused it? I need to make a table for this! No, a graph!" She zipped off and found her belongings, magically rummaging through them.

"Perhaps a Venn Diagram. Ooh, or maybe a line graph? Pictograph? No no, stem and leaf! What am I saying? This clearly calls for tables, not graphs." The unicorn magically pulled out a sheet of plain paper, a quill, and a sealed inkwell that she promptly opened. The unicorn, completely forgetting she was supposed to be asleep, flopped onto her sheet-less bed, dipping the quill in ink. "Alright, so. Column one. What does your Blessing normally do?"

"Grows inside, gains power. Painful transition. Then... happy. Strong."

Scribbling quill. "Um, I'm afraid that's not much to go on. Can you give me any more details? Like, can you make it do other things? How the recipient feels?"

"Warm touch, spreads through veins. Transition, then strengthened." Greene flexed her hands, and willed strands of fire and frost to coil around them. "Make them strong. Make them fast. So happy, so large."

"I... see. Column two. How do you spread this 'Blessing' of yours?"

"Touch," she said. "Spreads itself through air and touch. Same here, but not spreading itself." Greene pouted. "Can't help others."

"So, what races did you Bless on your home world? I mean, I know humans were the only sentient ones, but did you Bless animals?"

"No," she said. "Never needed my help." And that was true. Animals were, generally, simply too stupid to have worries about their lives. They didn't think, they just... did. Though that might be different on this world. After all, talking equines.

"I see. Column three, how has your 'Blessing' differed on this world?"

"Doesn't spread itself. Doesn't give strength, or speed, or joy. Just suffering," she murmured, looking down at her hands as they fiddled with the strap around her waist. "Sits in bodies. Not doing much."

Twilight stopped scribbling. "I see. Now that we have the differences, we need to go over what might've changed your Blessing to be ineffectual."

"Magic in air?" Greene half asked, half suggested. "Turbulence in arrival. Broken by my son's Curse. All I imagine."

"Hmm. If you truly come from a world with no magic, then I can see how Equus's magical field can interfere with your abilities. If that's the case, then you'll simply have to wait for your body to adjust to the magic. Nopony knows anything about how you arrived, however if it's just being shaken up by it then that too should pass. But whatever this 'Curse' that your son gave you is, well, if we can't analyze it directly there's not much we can do. We can't exactly compare how you were before and after, you see." She shrugged. "Sorry, but our hooves are tied here."

Greene sighed. "Wait or doomed." She tightened her fists. "Not good, not good! Need to solve it!"

"Elizabeth," Twilight said soothingly. Not as soothingly as Fluttershy though. She had an... aura around her that Greene quite liked. "You have been in Equestria for all of two days. You're not going to solve all your problems in that span of time. I'm a terrible hypocrite for saying this, but don't worry about it, just relax. If we can, we'll help you. It wouldn't be right not to help you, alien or not."

The unicorn sighed. "I'm really sorry, but without more information there's really nothing I can do to help you." Twilight's eyes shifted to the right, then back to the left. Elizabeth glanced in those directions as well. There was nothing there, so why did she look?

She growled. "You tried." She turned around and headed back to the tower's opening.

"Hold on," the equine said behind her.

She whirled around. "Yes?"

"How did you even get up here?"

"Jump, run up the wall," she replied simply. She continued, easily stepping off the edge to the sound of Twilight's sputtering. Wind whistled through her hair as she fell weightlessly, before slamming into the castle roof and continuing.

Nobody could help her. She just had to wait, and that tore at her! The longer she waited to fix her Blessing, the more of the equines would die of some cause or another and never know family! There had to be something she could do! There had to! Had to had to had to...

She looked up at the moon, leaping from point to point, swiftly making her way back to her room.

... right?

It didn't take her long to enter Home again. Fluttershy was in the same spot she had been in when Elizabeth left her, laying upon the bed after she had retracted her warmth from it. She had nestled beneath the covers, a peaceful smile on her face. Greene sat next to her, drawing warmth to beneath her, and gently stroked her mane.

She'd been wrong. Twilight couldn't help her. The only possibilities for her Blessing not working were either ones that she couldn't hope to change, or ones that she could only wait to be resolved. Not being able to do anything hurt her. She'd been unable to do anything for so long long long! She wanted to do something! She wanted to Bless equines and feed children and love them and tear apart any who hurt them and she wanted wanted wanted!

She let out a resigned sigh, and Fluttershy shifted in her sleep, murmuring as she turned on her side to face Elizabeth, eyes still closed and twitching lightly under their lids. Greene pondered that curiously. She didn't know when she'd last slept. That was literal; she'd gone through the Time for Waiting without sleeping once, since she didn't exactly need it. The thought of being unconscious, of being defenseless, displeased her on a very primal level. Though the idea of escaping her worries for even a few hours...

The equine turned again, presenting Greene with the back of her head.

No, she couldn't go to sleep. She needed all her brainpower. There had to be something Twilight Sparkle overlooked. She was a mere equine, and she was the first Evolved. If anyone knew her Blessing inside and out, if anyone could figure out what was wrong, it would be her.

She closed her eyes and focused. She could sense her Blessing out there. There was one node of it in what she assumed was the griffon ambassador, a spot of warmth in a sea of cold, struggling to grow outwards but unable to. There were the seeds in the equines, some dozen or so with the Blessing coursing through their veins and flesh. But their bodies, like that of the griffon ambassador, fought the Blessing to a stalemate.

Why?

She'd never experienced a person fighting her Blessing. The Similars accepted it readily, knowing deep down it was for the best to burn away their corrupt personalities. Luna simply annihilated it, but that was just pure magic. These others, though... there was no magic at work.

Elizabeth opened her eyes back up. The world was awash in a sea of red, what little noise there was diluted. Her warmth pulsed a gentle yellow, and she herself burned bright white. She could see, through the walls, yellow spots where there were those she had Blessed, and as if they were right next to her, she could make out their shapes.

She noticed the 'earth ponies' were fighting her Blessing with far greater strength than the pegasi and unicorns she'd touched. All were at stalemate, yet the earth ponies didn't let her Blessing spread as far as the others. Was it conscious? No, they had no knowledge of what she'd done. So it had to be their bodies. Why? Why would they fight off her Blessing? It was nothing harmful; it was to make them stronger and all around better than ever before!

She focused on one unicorn, urging the Blessing within him - she thought it was a male, she couldn't really tell - to grow and propagate. It squirmed about inside his body faster, yet nothing changed. Her command over her Blessing was as strong as ever, yet it seemed the bodies of the equines were just as strong.

The equines.

That was it. She had to look at the variables, and see what changed, and despite that being scientist thinking it made sense.

She had not changed, she'd be able to feel that. Her Blessing had not changed. Her control over it had not changed. The only things that had changed were her location (And more importantly, the magic that came with it) and those she was Blessing.

But she wasn't destined to get far with that train of thought because suddenly things were going bad bad bad! Her Blessings began to fall back. The griffon, the equines, their bodies began to fight off her Blessing, driving it out from them, the yellow spots dimming. She panicked. No. No! What are they doing?! Stop! She focused her will on them, fighting with all her mental might to keep them Blessed. Their bodies ceased driving her gift to oblivion, but she made no actual headway.

Her focus slipped for a moment to wonder what had changed, had their bodies acclim... acclim... gotten strong enough? Then she was back to fighting, because with just that momentary lapse of concentration her Blessing began to vanish again.

It was to be a long, busy night.

Immunity Contigency

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Fluttershy

The first thing she did upon waking up was lick her lips.

The air was very hot. Why was her cottage so very hot? She was parched. And if she was parched, then no doubt her animal friends were as well! It would be rude to keep them waiting for water.

Fluttershy opened her eyes and stifled a squeak when she realized she was not in her cottage at all.

Red flesh clung tightly to the roof, pulsing with an irregular heartbeat. She started, hiding beneath the covers and shivering while she got her bearings back. After a few minutes of tense tremors, she poked her head back out.

Right. Elizabeth Greene's guest room. She licked her lips again. At least it was a dry heat. It really... wasn't all that bad, really. It was just how she made her home. Sort of like birds making nests from twigs. Except, these weren't twigs. To be honest, Fluttershy really didn't know what it was and she really really really didn't want to know.

She noticed that the tendrils weren't on the bed, which was a relief. But... this was Elizabeth's bed. What was she doing here? And more importantly, what wasn't Elizabeth doing here?

Worry spurring her, Fluttershy got out of bed, grimacing when her hooves squelched on the floor. Where was Elizabeth? Oh, she hoped the poor dear didn't get lost in the castle. That would be awful! She looked out the window, where Celestia's sun was rising.

She fretted nervously for a few moments, wondering what she could possibly do if the Evolved was lost in the castle, when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. There was Elizabeth, huddled against a wall. She had sunk to the floor, her knees raised and head bowed into them, with her hands linked beneath them. She was so deathly still, Fluttershy might've mistook her for a statue if it wasn't the fact that an Evolved stood out no matter how active they were.

"Oh! H-Hello, Elizabeth," Fluttershy said, hiding an eye behind her mane. "I-I'm sorry if I scared you, waking up."

Elizabeth didn't react. She remained there. Fluttershy wondered if maybe she was asleep. That would make sense. She'd never actually seen the Evolved sleeping before.

"Um, Elizabeth?" she asked gently. "Are you asleep? I mean, you don't have to answer if you don't want to. But, um, if you are asleep... oh no, if she were asleep she wouldn't be able to answer," Fluttershy muttered to herself. What if Elizabeth woke up after breakfast? Oh, the poor dear wouldn't have anything to eat! Fluttershy resolved not to let that be the case.

"Well, if you're there, just, um, I'm going to go get you something to eat. Anything you want?"

Nothing.

"A-Alright, I'll just trust the, um, the chefs." She felt so awful leaving Elizabeth here like that. Something was clearly wrong with her, but she didn't know what because she wouldn't tell her! She felt so useless. Her talent was with animals, and technically speaking everypony, from mice to griffons to ponies to bears to evolved were all animals. And if she couldn't even help Elizabeth, what good was she? Oh, but she had to be patient with her. She was fine yesterday, if somewhat worried about her blessing. Though she didn't know how aliens worked. So, really, all she could do was try.

She opened the door, flinching at the feel of the flesh that had overgrown it, and stepped outside, closing it behind her.

Once outside, she quickly spotted a servant, the same one from yesterday actually, whistling a merry tune as she coordinated a broom and dust pan. "Hello, Miss Fluttershy," she greeted heartily.

Fluttershy's nerves clenched, making her draw back into herself. "Oh. Um. Hi. You're looking, um, better." Her eyes widened. Oh no, what if she misunderstood her? "I mean, not that you looked bad yesterday, but you're not looking sick anymore, so - "

She tossed her fiery red mane. "Oh, think nothing of it! Yep, I'm better now. So's everypony else, actually. The bug's cleared up, so all's well." The servant paused. "Wait a second. Did you sleep in the alien's room?"

"Um, yes?" she squeaked. Did she do something wrong?

"Huh. Strange. Never would've thought that Elizabeth would let you in so easily."

"You've met her."

The unicorn mare shrugged. "Not even once, but word gets around fast. Ah, but look at me, holding you up. You must be hungry. Their Majesties and Miss Sparkle are already in the private dining room. I can ask a guard to escort you, if you wish?"

"O-Oh, you don't need to trouble yourself. I can find the way. Um, thanks for the, um, offer." Before she could ruin the conversation anymore - that was what she was doing, surely - Fluttershy departed and headed for the Princess's dining hall. The guards gave her a little trouble, but that was okay because they were just doing their jobs. Inside, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were already speaking with Twilight about, well, something.

"So she's been infecting members of the castle?"

"She never said it outright, Luna," Twilight said. "But she heavily implied it. It's strange, though. Nopony's sick at all. Though some servants were yesterday, so it must've cleared up since then."

"It was good of you to bring this to our attention, Twilight," the solar goddess said. "I shall have choice words with Elizabeth regarding her... activities."

"Um, everypony?

"Hold on, sister on ours. It is very likely Elizabeth believes her virus to be a good thing. After all, if she is to be believed - and we hath sensed no lies on her - it is this virus that gave her strength beyond that of the humans. Though if it has not done so, if it has already cleared up, then it leads us to wonder what her motivations truly are."

"E-Excuse me?"

"Be that as it may, Lulu, we can not simply sit back and wait for her next move. We must be proactive. For all we know, at this very moment she may be - Oh, hello Fluttershy."

"Um, h-hello, Princesses. Hello, Twilight."

"Hi! Fluttershy, do you know where Elizabeth is?" Twilight asked. "I think we need to talk with her."

"Oh, I heard. She's, um, she's not exactly feeling well. I don't think." She suddenly felt she needed to be defensive. Elizabeth almost certainly wasn't feeling well, she didn't need to be scolded on top of that! "Um, if I may ask, can I have my meal and hers brought to her room? I'll try and, um, talk with her. She's been making ponies sick, right?" They nodded. "Well, if you want, I could ask her not to do that?"

Her friend pondered this. "Well, if anypony could convince an alien creature not to do something, it'd be you, Shy."

"Yes, we hath heard of thy dealings with even a dragon, gentle Fluttershy. If anypony is suited for the task of cowing Elizabeth Greene, it shalt be thou."

"Um, alright. Can I, um, bring her food there for her?"

"Indeed!" Luna's horn lit up, levitating two platters of food towards Fluttershy. "These are thou and Greene's meals," she said, the smell of a daisy sandwich and fish wafting to Fluttershy's nose. "We shalt accompany thou to deliver them."

"Thank you, Princess Luna," Fluttershy said with a nervous bow of her head, waiting for Luna to pass her before turning around to follow the alicorn. She was so close she could actually feel the air crackle around her ethereal mane and tail. They quickly found their way back to Greene's room, the inside of which, including the occupant, were completely unchanged. Luna levitated the platters to the bed, looking around the nest with a frown.

"Well. This is certainly interesting," she said, lifting a horseshoe off the ground. "Disgusting as well. Very well then. As much as we would have harsh words with the alien for making our subjects ill, we shalt leave her to thee. Take care, Fluttershy."

"Oh, um, thank you, Princess Luna. You too." Luna left, her telekinesis closing the door behind her with a wet squelch.

Tentatively, Fluttershy took the platter with fish onto her back and walked next to the still-immobile Elizabeth Greene. She sat next to her, ignoring the stomach-churning scent of meat, placing it before her. "Hello, Elizabeth," she said as cheerfully as she could. "I brought you breakfast."

Nothing.

She sighed. Scolding her for making ponies sick could wait. Something was clearly very wrong with her. "Elizabeth, you know you can talk to me if something's wrong. I-If you want to, that is. I promise I won't laugh or anything."

She continued. "I understand if you don't want to talk about it. I mean, there so many things I have trouble talking with my friends. B-But I've gotten better at it, really! I-I know there's something troubling you. So if you want to talk about it, I'm here."

Fluttershy smiled, but Greene couldn't see her thanks to her posture. After a moment, she frowned, and trotted over to the bed. She grabbed her own plate in her mouth and carried it back, sitting next to Elizabeth, ignoring the way the tendrils squirmed against her coat. She lifted her daisy sandwich and nibbled from it, looking at Elizabeth. She sighed. She was being even more stubborn than Angel. At least he acknowledged her existence when he was being difficult. Where to start, where to start. How does a pony get through to a clearly depressed alien being?

She took a hoof and gently laid it on Greene's legs. If being around Elizabeth was warm, then touching directly was hot. She was so hot she nearly burned to the touch. The pegasus could feel a her tense a tiny bit, but otherwise the Evolved did nothing. "You don't need to talk about it if you don't want to, but I want you to know I'm here if you need me. Understand?" She pulled her hoof back.

Greene didn't respond, but Fluttershy did notice something. The red and white tendrils beneath her pulsed once.

"So you can hear me?"

Pulse. Was Elizabeth even aware of the pulses she was sending out, or was it something she did by reflex? A tell, similar to an ear flick or eyes looking back and forth? Fluttershy decided it didn't matter. She now had a way to make progress.

"Is there something wrong?"

Pulse.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

The web under her rippled violently. She guessed that was a no.

"Is it something embarrassing?"

Ripple.

"Something that makes you sad?"

Pulse.

Fluttershy bit her lip. "You do know that you'll feel better if you talk about it?"

Ripple-pulse. She guessed that amounted to an 'I don't know'.

"I promise. Talking about it always helps. You know you can trust me, right? If you don't want me to tell anypony, I won't."

Pulse.

"Will you please talk to me, Elizabeth? I want to help you," she said, her voice beginning to crack. What if she was trying too hard? What if she made Greene uncomfortable?

Ripple.

"Please, Elizabeth? For me? I'm worried about you. I really, really want to help you. Whatever's wrong, you can talk to me about it," she said, tears beginning to form in the corner of her eyes. She was failing. It was the Gala all over again. She wasn't able to help, she wasn't able to -

Greene lifted her head and inclined it towards Fluttershy, each locking their one visible eye. "Help," she whispered. "Can't help. Can't help, can't aid. Can't can't can't."

"I can try," Fluttershy said.

She shook her head, her orange mane flying back and forth the short distance it could. "Can't can't can't!" she hissed. "Nothing to control."

"Can you at least tell me what's wrong? You never know I can't help until I know what the problem is."

She pursed her lips, which to Fluttershy looked almost funny. Like a fish. "Tried to bless your kind. Did bless them. Tried to make them so happy happy happy and family and listen but it didn't work! Bodies fought it. Killed it. Tried to stop it but failed failed failed! Blessing doesn't make ponies happy." She clenched her fists beneath her knees. "Only suffer. Only suffer." She bowed her head again. "Worthless. Am worthless."

Fluttershy's heart just about broke once she deciphered what happened. So she thought that her infection would make ponies happy, but was heartbroken when they got better, and while they had it it didn't make them happy at all? That was so horrible! She tried to help but only caused pain. "You're not worthless, Elizabeth. I'm sure there's plenty else you can do."

"None of it matters," she hissed. "Blessing or nothing. No reason."

"No reason for what?"

She raised her head again, her predatory, wilted green eyes burrowing into Fluttershy, who couldn't help but shiver. "Anything." Another ripple tore throughout the webbing. "Blessing is worthless. Am worthless. Worthless worthless worthless!"

"You're not worthless," Fluttershy said quietly. "I'm sure you've got all sorts of wonderful qualities to you. I haven't known you for two days, Elizabeth. Give it some time. Nopony's just their abilities. Just because your, um, blessing doesn't make ponies happy, that doesn't make you worthless."

She held Fluttershy's gaze without a single blink. "All I have," she rasped. "All I have."

"That's not true," Fluttershy insisted. "You have us. You have friends here, Elizabeth. Please, don't beat yourself up over something like this." She looked down, breaking eye contact. "I don't like seeing anypony beat themselves up." She paused to take another nibble from her sandwich. "Don't you want to eat? I mean, the castle chefs prepared it just for you, though if you don't want to I'm sure they'll under - "

Faster than Fluttershy could track, Greene lashed out with a hand, grabbed the fish, and brought it to her mouth. In a ravenous flurry of chomping, chewing and swallowing, the meat was gone. Fluttershy blinked awkwardly. "Um, okay. T-That's perfectly fine too!"

"Still nothing to do. No blessing. No family. No purpose in world. None none none," she muttered to herself.

"Are you saying there's nothing on our planet for you?"

"None," she repeated.

"How do you know that?"

"Nothing home. Nothing outside of family. Cut and hurt and burn burn burn - "

"But," Fluttershy said. "Oh please forgive me for interrupting, I am so so so sorry. But, um, you're saying that there's nothing for you on your home world. This isn't your home world." Her eyes widened. "I mean, I don't want to make you feel bad about that! But how do you know there's nothing for you to do here besides, um, bless ponies?"

"Worlds similar," she said. She scowled. "Similar."

"But they aren't the same," Fluttershy pointed out. "You'll never know if you never look. I mean, you can't just keep yourself locked up in here forever. Believe me, I know how good that sounds. Celestia knows how many times I've wanted to just stay home and never come out. But, then there's so much you'll miss out on! I never would have made such good friends with the girls. And then, um, I guess we couldn't have helped Princess Luna when she came back... or stopped Discord... oh but please don't feel I'm bragging!"

"No point," she said. "Nothing." But she didn't sound as confident in that as before.

"Elizabeth," Fluttershy whispered. "Would you like to take a walk around the castle with me? So I can, you know, show you around? I'm sure the Princesses would let Twilight and I give you a tour. I mean, you're the ambassador, right? A-And you said there were two others, so if they ever came here, you could, um, help them get settled?"

Suddenly, there was light behind Elizabeth's eyes. "Holy child," she whispered. Then just as quick as it came, it was gone. "Never to come."

"N-Now, you don't know that. I mean, nopony knows what brought you here so, so whatever it is may bring your, um, holy child here too. And even if that doesn't happen, there's a lot to see." She smiled. "Maybe I could introduce you to Angel Bunny."

"Maybe," she whispered. She rose to her feet. "Go. Walk. Tour." She hesitated, then flexed her fingers. "No Twilight," she insisted.

She smiled at Greene. It was a start. "Sure." Fluttershy, finishing off her sandwich, also stood. "Follow me. I-If you want to, that is."

"Yes," she mused, following Fluttershy. She had an idea about what she could show Elizabeth. She didn't know if she'd like it, but she really hoped she would. She timidly asked directions from the guard, towing a still frowning and morose alien with her. From time to time Fluttershy could feel a sliver of sorrow slip into her, of sadness and heart-wrenching depression as Elizabeth haphazardly gave them off.

Her blessing really does mean the world to her, she thought sadly. She could only hope that she'd find something else in her life.

"Do you like it?" Fluttershy said, stopping once she reached her destination.

"Hallway," Greene said. "Nothing to like. Empty."

"W-Well, what about the window?"

"Hmm?" she asked, looking at it. She paused, taking in the scene of the Royal Sisters petrifying Discord. "Celestia. Luna. Who?"

"Oh. T-That's the sisters using the Elements against Discor - "

Greene leaped backwards, bending over and hissing, her fingers flexing like claws. "Bad! Bad! Bad bad bad bad bad!" Fluttershy shivered, anger and hatred and fear filling her and bubbling over like a boiling soup.

"R-Relax, Elizabeth. It's just a picture. I-It's not actually Discord."

She relaxed, rising. The emotion aura stopped. "Picture?"

"It's to commemorate it. I mean, it was really important. Um, very. So the castle's designers, um, sort of made this to, um, honor them imprisoning him. Oh, and look! Over here, it's, um. Well, this one's not really too happy. It's Princess Celestia banishing Nightmare Moon. I mean, she wanted to take it down, but Princess Luna insisted that some things shouldn't be forgotten, and so, well, here it is."

Fluttershy and Elizabeth walked down the hall, going over each of the stained glass window pictures. Elizabeth's mood seemed to elevate with each picture. She'd just gotten to the one about her and her friends, well mostly Twilight because the rest of them had all been corrupted, sealing Discord away again. As she finished explaining it, Elizabeth's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Changed variables, changed you," she said excitedly. "Twilight changed back. Adapted to problem. Got better better better." She interlaced her fingers. "Need to... yes."

"Are you alright, Elizabeth?"

"Fine fine fine," she rambled, then suddenly held a hand to her stomach. "Hunger," she said. "Lunch. Time."

"R-Right. Let's go find the others," Fluttershy said, realizing how much time she'd spent consoling Elizabeth. Inwardly she grinned. She was so happy that Greene was out and about again. It made her feel good to help others, however alien they were. No matter what they might've done, everypony deserved to have a kind hoof to help them.

They found Twilight wandering the halls as well, though not at all aimlessly. Her saddlebags were filled with books, including some on immunology, science fiction books by both well known and obscure authors, biology, astrobiology, and astronomy. To speak of the ones poking out.

"O-Oh, hello Twilight. We were just headed to lunch. Are you coming to join us?"

She blinked owlishly. "It's lunch already? Oh ponyfeathers! I thought I could squeeze in some more reading to advise us about Elizabeth Greene and any of her potential conditions, but - " She cut herself off. "Um, Fluttershy, speaking of Elizabeth." She eyed said alien. "How'd your talk go?"

She smiled, tilted her head, and nodded once. "Well, it was a bit hard to get her to open up at first, but after that..."

"Reason," she rasped next to her. "Things to do. Places to go." She smiled. "Won't repeat mistakes."

Twilight smiled. "That's great to hear, Elizabeth! Let's head get some lunch. I don't think the Princesses will be joining us, though. Luna's asleep, and Celestia's going to be holding noon court, so I'll ask the chefs to bring stuff to my room if you want to join me. What would you like Fluttershy?"

Her ears flattened. "Oh, um, just a daffodil sandwich will be okay. A-And some water, if they're okay with it."

"Alright. Elizabeth?"

"Flesh," she said simply.

"Um, okay. Anything to drink?"

"No," she hastily said, stepping back, shaking her head. "No no no no no no no."

"Alright then. You two go on ahead, I'll catch up. Fluttershy, you know the way to my old room?"

"Um, I think so," she squeaked. "Should Elizabeth and I go there? I mean, I don't know if she'll look at anything, or if I will. Do you want me to not look at anything?" she asked tentatively. After all, who knew what precious memories Twilight had in her old castle room? She didn't want to intrude or anything like that.

"Oh no, it's fine," Twilight said, trotting past them. She paused, looked over her shoulder at Greene one more time, and went on her way.

Fluttershy breathed out, looking up at Elizabeth. "Well, let's get going. I mean, there's gotta be a lot you want to do in Equestria before... um. What was it you told the ambassadors before they went home? Before you go to the other countries?"

"Yes," Elizabeth said, looking out a window that overlooked Canterlot. "A lot to do."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

When the morning rolled around, she had lost hope. After all, those she had Blessed were no longer Blessed. They had been scoured, purged, and that horrified her because she'd never witnessed anything like that before in her life. Her greatest gift, her only gift, all that she had to give, the Reason for everything, was useless and therefore she was useless-useless-useless. She would never be a mother. She would never never never save the equines from themselves, and she may as well have remained Cursed by her Wayward Child.

She understood why her Blessing didn't work, of course. Not even she knew the origins of her Blessing, and she really didn't care because it worked and that was all she needed to know about it! But now, several things had been made painfully clear to her.

Her Blessing was created for the sole purpose of aiding Similars. It worked with them to make them Listen and chase away their curse, their burden, of free will. But it was not created to aid equines or griffons or anything on this new world, and that was so so so unfair because they deserved her Blessing more than the ungrateful Similars ever did! Still, it changed no facts. Her Blessing on this world, she on this world, could only ever cause suffering through her touch.

She'd lost all hope. There was nothing she could do here. There was nothing for her to do here. And so she'd done the thing she had greatest practice with, and waited. She waited for a way back home. She waited for the equines to change so they could accept her Blessing. She waited, because she was so sad sad sad she didn't know what else she could do!

"Here we are," Fluttershy said, leading her into Twilight Sparkle's room. She didn't pay much attention to it because it didn't really matter, but oh she may as well because... because... she didn't fully understand herself. It was a nice room, with a bed that had not been made, curtains, carpets, and many many many books. Charts and sheets lined the walls, with scribbling on them that she could read but not understand. She was smart, but she didn't understand any of the magic-related topics the unicorn's writing described. Though there was a - poorly? - drawn picture of her with body parts labeled. Flattering, she decided at length.

She'd been unprepared for Fluttershy's help. She hadn't expected her to know her thought-answers when she didn't speak them, could the pegasus somehow read her thoughts? It didn't matter, because Fluttershy had been right right right. She couldn't just sit there. She couldn't just wait for the world to help her. She had to help herself.

She laid herself down on the unicorn's bed, letting a small patch of warmth seep out from under her to warm her seat. Fluttershy sat next to her, eyeing her... sadly? Happily? She didn't quite know. It was hard to tell with only one eye visible. "Waiting," she told the equine.

Fluttershy nodded. "Yes, we are. Don't worry, Twilight will be here soon. She doesn't like to be late with anything."

"Food," she said, anticipating it. She supposed even scientists had their uses.

Fluttershy had been right, talking to her. Just because she couldn't share her Blessing... there had to be something else she could do. She had to try try try because she'd been waiting for long enough and she hadn't come back from being Cursed just to return to the Time for Waiting! Not when the people in this world were so kind to her. Not when they were so good to her. She didn't know what she could do, but the absolute least she could do was see how far they had come without her Blessing to aid them. Of course, that had been relatively little comfort to the fact that she couldn't spread her gift but it was enough to get her moving.

She'd spent time with her... friend. Yes. She decided she liked that name for Fluttershy. Her friend. She'd spent time with her friend looking at the window pictures in the castle, listening to the stories behind them. She didn't fully understand the idea behind putting important things into something breakable like glass. What was ever the point? She tried to wrap her mind around it, but she wasn't able to. She chalked it up to them being individuals. However better they were than the Similars, they were still broken.

Then she'd reached the latest picture of... of Discord. The horrible scary horrible bad bad bad being that scared her with just his stories, of the mentions of his power. But as she looked at his picture, her thoughts went to work. The dracone... draconeq... draginek... creature in the painting had emerged in a world where the six Harmony Elements were individuals, not rocks. He had to change his plan to counter his weakness. He had changed.

Her Blessing was made to purify the essence of Similars. It could not purify the essence of equines; it simply didn't know where to begin! The recipient species of her Blessing had changed, and if she wanted to fix this world her Blessing would have to change as well.

Twilight came back soon, levitating three trays. One had delicious tasty good-burnt flesh, and two of them had unappetizing plant-things on them that she gathered were appealing to the equines. She imagined they saw her own food as unappealing, though it really didn't matter what they thought because she was suddenly so hungry and it tasted so good going down her throat and it was warm and nice and filled her despite being small and it was good good good!

She wiped her mouth with a hand after her frenzy subsided, and smiled. "Good food," she said as Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle both stared. Fluttershy caught herself and, with a squeak, hid even further beneath her mane. The equines soon turned to their meals.

"I'm glad you liked it, Elizabeth," Twilight said, wrinkling her snout.

Yes, her Blessing had to change. She had to make it able to purify the essence of equines, but in order to do that she needed, well, the essence of equines!

She found herself irrationally envying her Wayward Child and her Strange Child, because this would've been easy for them. They could grab an equine and as horrible as the thought was, devour them, body mind and essence, and change their Curse to affect them, all in less than ten seconds.

Greene was not her Wayward or Strange Child, she was their mother. She was not Cursed, she was Blessed. She could not fill someone with so much of her gift that they melted into slop, then pull them in and combine their essence to hers. It was simply something she could not do but as she thought about it, Elizabeth realized that she didn't need to, which was a good good good thing because if she did that then the poor poor poor victim would not be able to be Blessed by her. They'd suffer the same fate she had.

She only needed a tiny bit of essence from an equine. Just a piece of their fur. She could manipulate the reaching grasp of her warmth to take it without them even noticing. But she wouldn't be able to work with just one equine's essence. She needed the essence of many equines, the more the better, but she also didn't want to take so long because she feared her patience was, after so many years, running out! But where would she go? Which equines would she take from?

"So Elizabeth, where are you planning on going here? I mean, Canterlot's fine, but there's a lot more to Equestria than the capitol," Twilight asked. Fluttershy was still eating, ashamed at having been caught staring at her. Why, Greene couldn't imagine.

"What else?"

"Well, Fluttershy and I are headed back home to Ponyville once we're done here, which won't be too much longer. I'm going home tomorrow actually." Good. No need to have that scientist around. However...

"Ponyville?" she asked.

Twilight nodded. "I moved there just a few years ago. It's an earth pony village not too far from Canterlot. I met Fluttershy and the rest of my friends there." She smiled. "I love it there. I'm the local librarian."

Elizabeth scratched her chin once, twice, then moved her hand back to her lap. "Where else?"

"Well, there's always Manehatten, which is almost as crowded as Canterlot. There's also Stalliongrad, really cold there. Oh, um, there's the pegasus city Cloudsdale..."

"Pegasus city?" she asked.

"Yeah, made of clouds. Floats in the sky. Non-pegasus visitors need a cloud-walking enchantment if they want to go there. I don't mean to brag, really I don't, but I know the spell almost well enough to create a permanent version."

"Hmm. Will think." And indeed she would. She needed a wide sample of equine essence so that she could adapt her Blessing. Also, the idea of a floating city was strange strange strange. With a frown, Elizabeth Greene realized that just adapting her Blessing to them wouldn't be enough; she'd also have to adapt it to dragons, griffons, and who-knew what else lived on this world. But they could wait until she'd Blessed all the equines; they'd waited for this long, they could wait a little longer.

... well, almost all the equines. She couldn't Bless the alicorn sisters. Even if she found a way, she wouldn't. She didn't want to Bless them both and have them - heavens forbid! - unable to move the bodies through the sky and what a strange thought that was but it was how things worked here...

She didn't want them unable to move the sun and moon because the world would either freeze or burn. And if she only Blessed one, then what? The other would be left behind, and though their sibling would be happy and family and not-broken, they themselves would be without a sibling. No, as much as the thought tore at her inside, she could not afford to take the risk of Blessing Celestia and Luna. She'd just have to find another way to express her gratitude to them.

She needed to think. What equines would she take essence from? It went without saying she needed to take from all three 'tribes' to make sure she could Bless them all, but how much would she need to account for the entire species? Especially given things like variation-by-distance. Would she have to visit every equine nest, or could she just compare the change between two places, and figure out how much it changed over distance that way? She didn't know. She just didn't know.

During her pondering, the two equines beside her finished their meals. "Um, Elizabeth? Are you okay? You're being very quiet. I mean, there's nothing wrong with being quiet! Celestia knows I know that," Fluttershy said. "But, um..."

"Thinking," she rasped. She looked at Fluttershy and smiled. "Think... look around Canterlot. Fluttershy guide?"

The yellow pegasus blushed through her fur so as to become orange. "O-Oh! Me? I don't know. I don't know Canterlot n-nearly as well as Twilight does. I guess I've been here a few times before, but Twilight lived here for so long. I don't want to impose on the princesses either, or leave my animals for so long."

"Trust you," Elizabeth said, ignoring the way Twilight's ears flattened against her skull. "Helped me. Friend."

Orange turned to red. "Eep! Well, i-if you really want me to, I g-guess I could. If you don't mind, that is. But, oh you wouldn't ask if you did, so sorry for thinking you minded. Unless that's against your culture! In which case, sorry for being sorry. Um. Oh dear."

Greene smiled, and the unicorn spoke. "Okay, well, I suppose it would be a good idea for Elizabeth to be seen by more ponies than those at the castle. Help calm down some of those conspiracy theorists. I mean, have you heard some of the things they're saying in tabloids? Celestia's always held Greene, and she's escaped, forcing her to reveal her existence? What kind of nonsense is that?"

"Nonsense," Greene said, smiling gently. She didn't know why, but the idea of whatever-these-tabloids-were saying such a thing... amused her.

The two equines and the Evolved slowly descended into friendly conversation, and since the ambassadors had long since left Greene could calm calm calm down from the politics. Elizabeth tuned out several times, courtesy of her racing jumping tripping thoughts before she pulled herself back, trying to pay attention, learn where she may go to collect essence samples. She had a clear-ish goal in mind, but that was no reason to ignore everything else. Fluttershy had been right.

She could raise her family on this world, she could make herself and everyone else one. But that was no reason to ignore everything else. The yellow pegasus had had a point; this was not the Similar world. There was very likely to be beauty here, beautiful in its own way. She'd never know if she didn't look. She could spread her Blessing when the time came, but in the meantime there was no reason not to - what was that saying she'd heard Similars use during the Time for Waiting? - slow down and smell the roses.

Who knew? She may even enjoy herself. Maybe she could even give sleeping a try.

Open Conspiracy

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Greene

"Higher, mommy!" she laughed, going back and forth on the swing. Her mommy grabbed her as she reached the tip of her backswing, then pushed her forwards. She laughed even louder. "Higher!" Another push and she went even higher. But after that, she started to go slower and lower. She kicked her legs. "Noooo. Higherrrrr!" she pouted.

Behind her, her mommy laughed merrily. "Alright, honey," she said before pushing harder. "But just a few more swings, we have to get back home, remember?"

Elizabeth giggled as her swings reached their great heights again. Her hair flopped infront of her. She could see the rest of the playground around her, children running around with their parents and giggling. Playing on the jungle gym, sliding down the slides.

She laughed again as she flew back, only to be caught by her mommy and sent forward again. She kicked her feet wildly in the air as she once again reached the tip of her swing, watching the blue sky dotted with clouds, the identical rows of white houses down the streets...

... and promptly fell out of her seat. Elizabeth didn't have time to utter a shriek before she found herself landing on her hands and knees. Fire exploded on her knees and made her eyes water. Shaking, she got to her feet and found her mommy already there, wrapping her arms around her.

"Oh Elizabeth, are you alright?"

Still fighting back tears, she wordlessly nodded. Though the falling itself had been really, really fun. If only she could fall without getting hurt at the end. That would be really really nice.

"Do you want to go home so I can make dinner? Get your dress cleaned up?"

Again she nodded, letting her mommy lead her away from the playground. They walked through the streets, filled with ladies in dresses chatting with each other, cars buzzing down the streets, and a few older boys on their bicycles. Sillies. Shouldn't they be doing homework?

She ran into her home excitedly. She had the home, white picket fence and all, aaaall to herself, since daddy was currently off fighting the commies. Well, herself and mommy had the house.

She skipped up to her room to change her dress. She lifted the white gown off of her - certainly not with mommy's aid, she was a big girl! - and admired her orange curls. She lifted a hand to poke one, giggled, and then changed into a new dress, an exact duplicate of the one that had dirt and grass stains all over it now.

She flopped down on her bed and smiled. Getting an idea, she stood, and then jumped off her bed onto the floor. There it was again! Falling was so much fun, why didn't she notice it sooner?

She sighed at the prospect of what she had to do next, but it had to be done. She went to her battle station. She grabbed her weapon. She eyed her mortal enemy warily, and it unwaveringly stared back. This would be a battle of wits. Who could think clearest? Only by matching her mind against the enemy's would she be victorious, and earn the spoils.

She sat down at her desk and, pencil in hand, began scribbling the answers on the sheet of arithmetic questions before her. She wanted dinner. She didn't know why she had to do stupid math from stupid school. Only boys had to learn to become engineers and scientists and... and... other smart people. She didn't want to do that. She wanted to learn to cook and clean like mommy! But she insisted that 'girls should be just as smart as boys' so, math. And daddy wasn't around to tell her any different.

But like any big, responsible first grader, she plowed on, finishing problem after problem until there were none left. With a smile, she slammed her pencil down, dangle-kicked her legs against her chair one more time before hopping out of it, and ran downstairs for dinner. The smell of pasta and meatsauce filled the air, making her mouth water. Yum!

"Hey there Lizzy," her mommy said in that pet name that made her so mad she stuck her tongue right out! Ha! "Now Elizabeth, that's rude."

She pulled her tongue back in, wilting under her fierce brown eyes. "Sorry, mommy."

She smiled, lighting up the world. "It's alright. Come on, dinner's ready."

Their dining room wasn't too particular. There were a few pictures of daddy, a tall man with... with muscles! And his hair buzz-cut! Oh, oh! And a suit! His suit made him look so... military! Elizabeth missed him, but he'd come back of course! He always came back for visits! Ooh, ooh, like on Christmas. Daddy never missed Christmas.

The pasta and sauce was soooo good. Mommy sat at the other end of the square table. Her legs didn't kick because they were so long. Grownups never kicked.

Mommy said grace, though she felt it was with a little less enthusi... enthus... happiness than usual, and then they dug in. She smiled as she ate the pasta. Her eyes glanced up at mommy. Mommy looked back. Elizabeth got a strand of pasta in her mouth. She swallowed that which was already in the back of her throat. She focused, puckered her lips around the noodle hanging out onto the plate, and...

Slurrrrrp!

Mommy burst into laughter. "Oh, oh Lizzy. Don't do that. Women don't slurp their food."

Elizabeth pouted. "I'm not a woman. I'm a girl."

"Girls don't slurp either."

"Mooommyyyy!" she whined.

"Oh relax, Elizabeth. I'm just teasing you." Elizabeth pouted. She hated being teased. She got enough of that in school anyway.

The rest of the meal passed in silence, with the two family members occasionally trading smirks, daring the other to slurp. Elizabeth finished first, scooting away from the dinner table and jumping down from the chair onto her own two feet. "Mommy, can I go to my room to play?"

She nodded, blonde hair flopping up and down in a way that mesmerized her. "Alright, Lizzy." Her mommy also got out of her chair, leaving her pasta for later. She got next to her and knelt to her level, ruffling her hair. "You know, Lizzy," she said. "One day, you're gonna be just as smart as any boy."

"Mommy, I don't wanna be that smart."

She poked her nose. "You already are. You know, I've spoken with Mrs. Reiling, your grades are top of the class."

"I'm only in first grade," she said playfully. "I get points for being cute."

"And the fact that you know that only proves my point." Mommy sighed. "Oh Elizabeth, how can you change between six and sixteen so quick?"

"But if I did that I'd be tall a lot of the time!" Elizabeth countered. Ha! Let mommy try to argue that!

To her satisfaction, she didn't. "One day, Elizabeth, you're gonna be the smartest girl in town."

She smiled, looking at the picture of her daddy, then back at her. "One day, you're going to change the world into a better place."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene's eyes snapped open. She sucked in a desperate breath. Not for the air itself, but to fill her lungs and lift off the heavy weight that seemed to be resting on her chest. What... what had that been? Was that a 'dream'? She'd heard of those things, of course, but never experienced one. She didn't even remember the dream anymore, but judging by the sinking drowning choking feeling, it had been about Before.

In that case, she was glad she didn't remember.

She'd decided to give sleep a try, and while she couldn't exactly say she liked the feeling of being defenseless, she decided that since there was nobody going to hurt her, she could see what it was like. The feeling of suddenly having lost several hours, hours she could never get back, was so weird.

The warmth she had cocooned herself in, standing up, fell away according to her will, sinking back to the ground. She looked out the window; morning, closing in on noon. She wasn't hungry. Once the final pieces of her cocoon were gone, she was leaning against a wall, watching Fluttershy sleep. She was still on the bed, none of her warmth there, napping peacefully after breakfast. They had stayed up late last night talking, Elizabeth half listening, half trying to forget her failure failure failure from before. Apparently, after the two equines had gone to breakfast Fluttershy came back for a quick nap. It made Greene happy happy happy that Fluttershy came to her room to rest instead of the one that the alicorns had given her.

"Fluttershy," she whispered. Her voice was quiet in and of itself, but as it echoed and bounced around her room, the pegasus awoke.

"Guh!" she exclaimed softly, still clearly startled by her surroundings. "O-Oh. Hello, Elizabeth. What time is it?"

"Almost noon," she rasped. "Twilight leaving soon."

"Oh!" Fluttershy squeaked, getting out of bed, hooves squishing on her warmth. "We should probably go see her off, then. It'd be rude to just let her go without saying goodbye." She put on her saddlebags, though why Elizabeth didn't know.

"Goodbye," Elizabeth repeated. "Thank you for staying."

"Oh, well, I couldn't just leave you here. I'm sure my animal friends will understand." She smiled, opening the door. "Maybe you can visit them someday?"

"Maybe," Greene said. After all, if these animals too were broken, she'd eventually have to Bless them too. "Wait," she said.

Elizabeth knelt to the ground and gently touched the warmth with her left hand. With a flick of her will, she began drawing it back into her. The red and white tendrils enshrouding the room retreated with a wet slithering sound, filling her with blazing heat and strength, like a spool having thread wound onto it sinking drowning choking. Before long, the room was cold cold cold again, but that was alright. She didn't plan on staying there anyway. It had been a nice Home, but she didn't need shelter like Similars did. It was nice, but she knew that the equines found her warmth unsightly. Until she could Bless them, she'd make them as happy as she could otherwise.

Fluttershy's eyes were wide. "Um, okay. That's, um, normal for you I guess."

She followed after Fluttershy, until they reconvened in the main hall of the castle. Celestia and Twilight Sparkle were there as well.

The alicorn smiled at Fluttershy, and the grin changed slightly when her gaze turned to Greene. How odd. "Ah, I see you two are awake. Elizabeth, are you certain you are not hungry?"

"Not hungry," she insisted. "Long without food."

"Ah. I understand, then. You must've been very hungry when you came to Equestria, then, if you can go a long time without food," Celestia said.

"Very hungry," she rasped. "Better now."

"Indeed. Elizabeth, have you come to a conclusion?"

"Canterlot," she rasped. "With Fluttershy. Watch. Sample. Unicorn nest. Then Ponyville, earth pony nest. Cloudsdale, pegasus nest."

The solar alicorn cocked a brow. "I have never in my life heard pony cities and towns referred to as nests, though it would be foalish of me to argue that, considering, well, you. Have you any place to stay in Canterlot? You know the castle's always open to you."

"Don't need shelter," she said. "Don't get expo... expo..." What was was was that word? Ah, there it was. "Exposure."

"If that is your wish, then I will abide by it, Elizabeth." She smirked. "Though, when you go out, do be careful not to terrorize the locals. My little ponies can be..." She eyed Twilight Sparkle. "Skittish, at times." The unicorn pawed at the ground with a forehoof. "Twilight, is it alright if Fluttershy stays in your room during Elizabeth's stay?"

"Oh, it's no trouble." The unicorn smiled. "I mean, somepony should use it."

"Oh, t-thanks, Twilight. You didn't need to do that..."

Elizabeth watched the proceedings with a modicum of interest. Apparently, Twilight was giving her former Home to Fluttershy for the time being while she returned to her current Home. Fluttershy was hesitant about it, yet willing to accept the generous gesture. It warmed Greene's heart. It reminded her that, even broken, the equines could give each other little spots of happiness.

"Bye, Princess!" Twilight said, sharing one last nuzzle with the alicorn. "Bye Fluttershy. Any idea when I'll see you in Ponyville next? Gotta tell Pinkie so she can plan the welcome-back-party she'll throw," she said with an eyeroll.

"Um, Elizabeth?" she asked, looking up at her.

The Evolved realized she was being asked a question she didn't know the answer to. How long would she stay in Canterlot? How long would it take for her to get enough samples? She certainly couldn't sample the entire nest, but...

"Two days," she rasped.

Twilight smiled. "Alright. See you in two days, Flutters," she said, finally departing.

"W-Wait!" Fluttershy said. "Don't you want me to, um, come with you to the, um, train? I-I mean, if you don't want me to then, that's, um, that's fine too."

"You're gonna have our resident alien hanging off your tail. Having me there as well would just make things even more crowded," she said, before vanishing in a flash of light. Elizabeth leaped backwards, hissing in shock. She flinched again when Fluttershy laid a 'comforting' hoof on her. Don't touch me don't touch me how dare you touch me get away get away!

She jerked back, hissing, and Fluttershy cowered with an 'eep', ears folding back. "S-S-Sorry, Elizabeth," she whispered almost inaudibly.

"Don't touch," she hissed, her echoes buzzing loudly with her anger. "Don't touch!"

"Elizabeth," Celestia said, flaring her wings briefly and, once again, cowing Greene. "She meant no harm, let up on her."

Elizabeth relaxed, and the tension seemed to flood out of Fluttershy's body. "R-Right. So, where do you want to go first, Elizabeth? I-I mean, anything's fine with me."

"Out," she said, heading towards the doors. She effortlessly swung them open...

... and leaped far enough back to land on Celestia's throne. Bright bright bright! The sun shot in unrestrained, scorching her eyes. She slid down Celestia's throne, eyes shut tight. She ignored the worried braying of the equines around her, focusing. Slowly, steadily, she opened her eyes, accustoming them to the light. The searing yellow faded, and she could see once more.

Good.

"Bright, better," she said, dashing back to Fluttershy, who eeped at her rapid movement. "Go out," she rasped.

Celestia smiled. "I shan't keep you. There are a few things I need to take care of before Noon Court. However, after you're done, don't be hesitant to visit." With a smile and another scary scary scary flash of teleportation, the alicorn vanished.

"Go out," Greene repeated, starting outside the castle. Fluttershy tentatively followed her, whispering some sort of warning.

Elizabeth hadn't gotten far out of the castle before she'd been... ambushed? Surrounded? Confronted? She wasn't entirely sure of the word.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a group of clothed equines materialized around her, forming a ring held back by the day guards. For the first time, Elizabeth truly got an impression as to just how many colors the equines came in. Many of them held pads of paper in move-thought auras, with writing utensils close by. Others had strange contraptions that occasionally let out a brief bright bright bright light.

They were all talking.

"Is it true that you're an alien from another world?"

"Do you come in peace?"

"Have you been imprisoned by Celestia? Or by Luna?"

"Is this an invasion?"

"Do you have any connections to the return of Discord?"

"Can you speak Equestrian?"

"Can you shoot lasers out of your eyes?"

On and on and on! Elizabeth stood there, as if petrified. Should she answer them? Or would only more questions come? Could she even do that when there were so many coming? She didn't know, so she decided to wait wait wait for them to stop. Sure enough, the equines slowed down and eventually stopped their frantic barrage of questions. They looked at one another, displaying some emotion Greene couldn't quite place, then looked back at her.

One of them raised a hoof. "Um, can you speak Equestrian?" he repeated.

"Yes," she said simply, making the equines step back as her voice rippled around them.

Another one raised their hoof, and Elizabeth's eyes snapped over to her. "What is your name?"

"Elizabeth Greene," she said after a moment's hesitation. That made the equines mutter among themselves about 'What a strange name' and 'Does it even mean anything?. But after a moment, the questions continued, now one at a time.

"Are the rumors true that you have been in Equestria for years, held prisoner by the Princesses?"

"No."

"Do you come in peace, or do you want to enslave us all?"

She tilted her head sideways. "Not enslave, nothing bad. Peace means... do nothing. Bless. Want to Bless." She frowned, irritated at her inability to help them. "Can't yet."

"What do you mean by Blessing?"

She was getting tired of explaining this over and over and over-over-over again. Maybe she'd just neglect to speak of it. "Touch, give of myself. Period of pain. Then, better." She sighed. "Tried already. Doesn't work. Won't try before it works."

The equines shared nervous looks. Why? Were they disappointed her Blessing didn't work anymore? She knew she was.

Greene stood her ground as the questions kept on, but very, very quickly she lost the will to answer. At least Twilight Sparkle's questions all served some purpose. These equines on the other hand...

"Stop," she hissed, and all at once the equines fell silent. "Go," she said irately.

They didn't have to Listen to her, but they left anyway, tails between their legs.

Elizabeth looked around. Where was Fluttershy? There were several of the day guards here, looking at her in some form of what she supposed was admiration. She looked around, backtracked, and found Fluttershy hiding behind the doors Elizabeth had earlier opened.

"A-Are they g-gone?" she asked timidly, hesitating to meet Elizabeth's eyes.

"Gone," Elizabeth confirmed. "Who were they? Foolish questions."

"They," said one of the guards behind her. Elizabeth didn't bother to turn around, instead staring intensely at Fluttershy. "Were the media. Newspapers, tabloids, gossip. Nopony's seen you outside of the castle, so you're a big curiosity. Nicely done handling them, by the way. Never seen anypony just sit there through the initial barrage until they get nervous. All the same, if you're gonna be taking a walk, you'll be crowded."

Fluttershy whimpered.

"Luckily, Her Majesty has assigned us to protect you," the guard continued behind her.

That made Elizabeth whirl around. Standing in a triangle, with the one that had been talking, were three of the identicle equines, one of each type. Talking to her was the earth pony one. "Don't need," she rasped, eyebrows narrowed angrily. Celestia did think her incapable. "Protect self!"

"And Fluttershy too?" the guard countered. "She's leading you around, yes? The Element of Kindness, she doesn't like crowds. Will you protect her from them too?'

"Protect," Elizabeth insisted, fury painting her vision. Would this equine just Listen to her already... "Strong," she said.

"Sorry ma'am, but orders are orders. If you like, we'll stay out of your sight. But do be aware that you'll draw a lot of attention."

Greene muttered under her breath. "Take care of self," she hissed lightly. But the guards were already moving away, closing the doors to the palace and leaving her alone with Fluttershy. She turned back to the yellow equine. "Alright?"

She, no longer having the doors to hide behind, nodded. "Yeah. Let's just, let's just go. Um, if you want. I could show you the gardens, maybe?" She lowered her head. "Oh, but nothing good happened there at the Gala."

"Streets," she said, turning to look at Canterlot. "Ponies there. Streets."

"O-Oh, are you sure?" Fluttershy asked pleadingly. "I mean, you'll encounter a lot of the nobility, a-and I don't think they'll take too kindly to seeing an alien - oh please don't think I'm making fun of you I am so sorry. But. Um..."

"Not worried," Greene said. Though she did not have any idea what 'nobility' were, she wasn't too afraid. The only one who could hurt hurt hurt her was a world away...

"Oh, alright." Fluttershy started walking towards the city. "Follow me, um, if you want to." Elizabeth did just that, following Fluttershy into Canterlot proper.

Elizabeth turned her head back and forth, watching the equines. Most of them, as she had expected, were unicorns, and quite a few wore clothes. As she walked among them, everything froze. Trades stopped. Conversations paused. A pegasus with their hoof in the air kept it suspended as such. They all turned to face her and Fluttershy, and she could see the yellow pegasus shaking under their combined glares.

"What in Equestria is that?"

"It calls that a mane?"

"Is that the Element of Kindness? What is she doing with that... thing?"

"Honey, I believe that's the alien."

"Celestia, why is it ever so hot all of a sudden?"

They all whispered, and Elizabeth looked intrigued. These equines seemed to have their snouts permanently oriented upwards, except for two; a male with a monocle and a pinkish-white female. All of them were staring at Elizabeth, but she supposed that was fine. After all, she was staring at them. Though Fluttershy drew close to her legs, nervous and making Elizabeth prickle because she was almost touching her, she let her. After all, she'd decided that if she was going to be friends with these equines before Blessing them, having them lose what was left of their sanity would not be good.

"Stop staring," she said, her low voice carrying and instantly silencing the muttering equines, which she assumed were the 'nobles' Fluttershy mentioned earlier. "Bothers Kindness Element," she rasped, hoping the showing of authority would help dissuade the equines from bothering them.

That worked on some of them; they continued on their ways, but far more hesitantly. The other continued to stare at her. Her fists clenched. "Stop staring!" she hissed, startling them into leaving them alone. She saw a guard trying to hide from her in an alley smile.

Fluttershy looked up at her, moved away from her legs, and gave a tentative smile. "Thanks. I really don't like being the center of attention."

"Stand out," Greene mused. "Scare away solves. Continue?"

"Oh, yes. Um, there's this sandwich shop Twilight likes nearby."

"Can't eat," she rasped. "Not flesh." She tilted her head. "Not hungry anyway."

"Oh, that's alright then. So, um, do you just want to wander the streets? See what there is to see?"

"Works," she rasped.

Elizabeth Greene frowned. She had not collected a single essence sample yet. She needed to get to it. But she realized that in order to do that, she needed physical contact with an equine. They were scared of her, and simply grabbing them one at a time would rapidly earn her the ire of the alicorn gods. She had to be subtle about this. She had to be sneaky. She needed a place where the equines would not be able to back away from her, but that meant... that they'd probably touch her inadvertently anyway. That made her uneasy, but... it was something she had to do. She'd experienced worse than some equine accidentally brushing up against her. This was something she could do.

"Change mind," she said. "Sandwich shop. Not eat, but watch."

"Alright. Um, if you change your mind and want anything, I'll happily pay. It's this way. Follow me. I-If you want to, that is."

"Want to - wait." Greene's keen eyes noticed something out of the corner of her vision. She turned to view them. Sure enough, it was a pegasus female. She sat on a nearby rooftop, head tilted as she examined Greene. Her fur was gray, the secondary fur color being steely green. Her eyes, a blend between the former two colors, were wide with some emotion Greene didn't recognize, and she had the mark of a closed eye on her hind legs.

She really had to ask about those marks.

The equine's eyes widened, and it scrambled back upon realizing Greene had noticed it. How very strange.

"What was it?" Fluttershy asked timidly.

Greene turned back to her, and they began walking. "Pegasus, watching. Seemed surprised." She considered her situation. "Normal?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "Oh, um. No. That's not normal. I hope you didn't scare the poor dear but... I don't know. Sorry for not being useful."

"No matter. Sandwich shop?"

"Oh! Right. This way, if you want to."

Elizabeth and Fluttershy walked through the streets of Canterlot. Many of the equines, if not all, turned to look at her as they passed, which terrified the yellow pegasus beside Greene to no end. Several times she had to hiss at them to back-back-back away from her, which shamefully was not aiding in collecting essence but there was a time and a place and this was not the time or place.

Eventually, they came to a building - a short rustic one with a black rectangle hanging over its doors, and on that door letters in the strange equine language she had torn from the guard's mind, which spelled 'Subneigh'. There were a lot of equines there, packed closely together. There were tables, some of which had groups of equines sitting there. She noticed the line moving forwards, and they would either go to a table, or leave out through another set of doors. The air was thick with the scent of food, though none of it smelled appealing. Plant eaters.

Of course, the instant Elizabeth entered, the equines turned to her, all action stopping. She had to diffuse this quickly. "Continue," she rasped, and they obediently returned. She hatched a plan, watching the equines move. She figured out quickly how the process of buying a sandwich worked. Most importantly, those returning with their purchases passed right by the line moving to purchase.

She turned to Fluttershy. "Find table. What sandwich do you want? Will buy."

"O-Oh. Would you do that for me?"

Elizabeth nodded.

"Okay. Um. Can you get me the plain bread? Not toasted, and, um, with daffodils and hay." She leaned over to her side and fished around with her mouth in a saddlebag. Elizabeth watched with fascination as the equine expertly maneuvered out a small brown bag and held it out with a hoof. "This should be enough bits. Um, do you know how to use bits? It's alright if you don't but - "

"Don't," she rasped.

"Well, it's, um. Currency." Elizabeth bristled at the term. She knew of currency. The Similars assigned value to nearly everything by how much currency it was worth. Little pieces of paper, smaller pieces of metal, sometimes just limitless currency on rectangles. She didn't understand any of the logic behind it. A thing was a thing, not some value of currency. Regardless, she held the bag, careful to avoid where Fluttershy's mouth had held it and made it wet wet wet. "I'll find us a table. If that's, um, alright with you."

Elizabeth nodded, and got into line. The equines around her were clearly unnerved, but something about her herself kept them quiet quiet quiet and that was nice. She made certain to move a step forward, her leg brushing against the tail of the male before her. She extended small tendrils of her warmth from her suit, wrapping around one of the tail's fur strange and with zero effort, snipping off part of it. The equine didn't even notice as she pulled the purple strand against her suit, wrapping it in red and white tendrils that analyzed its essence before grinding it up and expelled the remains.

Greene focused internally. She saw the pegasus's essence stored, a purple shifting ball with spikes and loops that formed arches. She smiled, and the line moved forward. As that happened, another equine, with a white paper bag in their mouth, accidentally brushed past her.

Greene froze as if petrified. How dare it how dare it how dare it! But she focused regardless, painlessly snipping a single fur and absorbing its essence. She kept repeating this process, and by the time she got to the counter, she'd collected a good dozen samples of essence.

The unicorn at the counter shook nervously as she approached. "H-H-Hello, miss," he stammered.

"Plain bread," she said, her echoes quiet. "Not toasted. Daffodils. Hay."

"W-What?" he asked nervously, sweating through his hat.

Greene narrowed her eyes, her ripples rising in intensity with her irritation. "Plain bread, not toasted. Daffodils, hay. Sandwich."

"Oh. R-Right away, miss," he said, turning away from the counter to nervously relay the orders. He turned back to her. "T-That'll be ten b-bits."

Elizabeth reached into the bag, which thankfully had dried since. She felt something cool and small inside, and pulled out a round golden disk. It had the picture of Celestia on one side, and flipping it over, she saw it had the image of Luna on the other. She handed it out, then rapidly did the same for another nine. She still didn't understand the idea of currency, but decided not to argue it. It was, after all, to get food for a friend.

Elizabeth watched as the equines behind the counter-equine worked at separate stations, moving foodstuff around with practiced precision, each a part of a whole that almost fooled her into thinking they weren't broken. After a short wait, the counter-equine received a white package of paper. As he slid it across to her and she grabbed it, Elizabeth made sure to snatch a fur from his hoof. It was curious. The equines here weren't overly concerned about her presence like Celestia had warned. Or perhaps her insistence to 'continue' scared them into acting normal.

She frowned. She didn't like to be feared feared feared. She wanted them to obey because they wanted to. Either way, the equine took the strange strange strange pieces of metal to do... something with, and she took the plant-food. As she passed the equines in the line, staring fearfully at her, she was sure to bump into them (It was quite crowded, after all) and sample each one's essence. Before long, she made it to where Fluttershy had taken a seat at a table, far off in the corner, as out of sight as possible. She handed the equine both her food and her... currency.

Ugh. She just used currency. Like a Similar. That made her feel sick sick sick.

"Thank you, Elizabeth." Fluttershy looked down. "I, um, hope it wasn't too much trouble?"

Elizabeth shook her head no.

"Well, y-you can sit down. If you want to, that is." Elizabeth sat down, staring across the table at Fluttershy as she unwrapped the sandwich and took a small bite from it, nervously looking around, then growing orange. Elizabeth soon realized why; they were being stared at again! Could these equines not understand her?!

She hissed at them loudly. "Stop staring!" They quickly stopped staring, leaving the Kindness Element to her meal.

While Fluttershy ate, she mentally reviewed the essences she had collected. Each of them had their own color, ever so slightly different from the next but still a deep shade of purple. She looked closer. As she'd collected, she'd ordered. The ones in group Pegasus all had slightly different structures from groups Earth Pony and Unicorn, and those two from each other. Unicorn structures had three loops and one spike on the essence orb, earth ponies had three spikes and one loop, pegasi had two of each. In each, the structures were in slightly different places, and held slightly different shapes. There were differences, certainly, but not enough to draw any definitive conclusions.

She'd need more essence to adapt her Blessing.

Much more.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Covert Confidence

Covert Confidence ran.

She had never been so terrified in her life. The alien had seen her. It had noticed her rooftop perch, and she was good at rooftop perching. She was good at keeping things, including herself, secret. That was the whole purpose behind her cutie mark. But the alien had just noticed her, and that made no sense! She'd hid in the sun's glare, kept quiet, stayed in just that innocuous position, everything! But it saw her.

Immediately she had felt uncertainty and worry inundating her. It filled her to the brim until those were the only emotions she could feel. The alien's faint emerald eyes locked with her own, and her bravery and will absolutely crumbled under the predatory gaze. Then she ran. She flew and dashed through the air, getting as far away as she possibly could, coughing and swearing. She had to report this. This could change everything! The alien was controlling the Element of Kindness! Tin Foil needed to know this right away!

She found the familiar yellow and red building in an out-of-the-way neighbor hood with nopony around and nearly crashed into it from her dive. She began pounding it with both front hooves. The alien was right behind her she was sure of it!

"Let me in! Let me in! The earth falls under shadows let me in!" The door flew open, and she stumbled inside, a stallion closing the door right behind her before light could get in.

The stallion was a darker gray than her, his mane and tail steely blue and both cut short. His cutie mark was a piece of tin foil, crumpled into a ball, with pieces of string latching out from it to invisible points. His eyes roamed over her rapidly, then nodded. "What've you got?"

"The alien is in Canterlot," she whispered breathlessly, slumping down on the well-worn couch in the single-roomed home. "I saw it walking down the streets with somepony. Damn it, it saw me." She lifted a hoof to her neck. She could've sworn, she felt its claws wrapping around her throat and choking the life out of her...

"How could you let it see you?" Tin Foil hissed. "It'll be suspicious now!"

"I didn't let it see me!" she whispered. "It found me. I don't know how! It's gotta have some sort of magical truesight! In which case we're not hiding anything from it!"

Her unicorn brother growled, pawing at the mahogany floor with a hoof. "Great, that's just great. You said it was with somepony?"

She nodded. "Right. This is where things go from bad to worse. The Elements of Harmony have been compromised. She's got Kindness under control. I don't know if it's magical brainwashing, or a silver tongue, or what, but the Elements can't be relied on to get rid of the alien."

He swore. "That's just bucking perfect." He sighed. "Well, it's not like the Elements would've been much use anyway. From what I hear, the creature's gotten not only to the foreign ambassadors, but to the... Princesses as well. Without her to aim those puppets, they're useless anyway."

"So what are we gonna do?" she asked nervously. "I mean, we can't just sit around waiting for the creature to phone its friends and... and... do whatever it is aliens do!"

He sighed. "I don't know. I'm gonna have to tell the others. One way or another we need to get rid of the alien." He began to pace back and forth before Covert Confidence. "We can't just leave it alive. That's just asking for trouble. But we can't simply kill it either. It's gotten in deep with the Princesses, and it'll be very hard to reach. However we're going to remove it, it has to be sudden so nopony can know it was me."

Us, Covert thought irately.

"We need more information about the alien. We need to know its weaknesses and strengths." He looked at her.

Covert's blood turned to ice. "No, no, no." She leaped from the couch and backed away. "No no no no no. I am not getting close to that... that thing again! You don't know what it's like!"

"And you know what it'll be like if you don't?" he hissed. "You need to do this. You need to find this... this... Elizabeth Greene and by whatever means necessary get me that info!"

"And what," she asked with fake sweetness. "Will you be doing, dear brother, while I risk life and limb?"

"Contacting the others, having them help you. You know I'm as subtle as Discord when it comes to hiding!"

She rolled her eyes. "Ain't that the truth," she muttered, thinking of the many, many times he had foalishly tripped over his own hooves and spilled barrels when spying on the guard. She loved her brother to death, but...

"Alright, alright," she huffed. "I'll stick my neck out for you this last time," she said. "But you owe me." She stuck her nose up, imitating the Canterlot accent she'd been forced to learn ever since her brother had dragged her out here. "A meal from the finest restaurant in the lands..."

"I'll get you the cherry donuts," he said reluctantly.

"You'd better." She flopped back onto the couch, reliving the moments she'd flown away from the creature. From the Evolved. News traveled fast in Canterlot, doubly so when it was about an alien that had come to subdue the government and take over the world. All the signs were there, Tinny had very convincing arguments. But the thing had been so scary! She was so far away from it, yet she could see the heat rippling off of her, shimmering the air in her immediate vicinity. The gaze it had shot her, promising death as emotions that weren't her own flooded her mind.

What had she gotten herself into?

The Anomaly

View Online

Greene

They stayed in Subneigh for a while.

Fluttershy ate away at her sandwich while Elizabeth kept newly arriving equines from staring staring staring at them. Idly, she rested a hand on the table and extended red and white tendrils upon it, twisting them into different shapes. A cloud. The mark on Celestia's hind legs. Twilight Sparkle's grooved horn. A Similar gun. Her Wayward Child's favorite weapon; a massive curved and notched blade. The twisted red symbol on his back.

"O-Oh," Fluttershy whispered. "Those are really pretty. Y-You're an artist?"

"No. Past things. Remembered." The tendrils squirmed, forming Fluttershy's silhouette. She tugged on the outlines until they were to her liking. The real one giggled, and Greene pulled her warmth back into her. "Can make things seen. Not creative enough to invent."

"Well, you're very good at it." Fluttershy continued to nibble.

Greene nodded. Again, she felt like she should say something in return for that. Instead, she sent out more of her warmth, this time forming an image of Canterlot Castle. Ambassador Tearwing, whose daughter her blood may help. She hated hated hated giving blood, being poked and prodded and stabbed with needles that took her life from her, but it was a far more noble purpose than what the Similars used her blood for, and it was one time only.

Fluttershy smiled when she finished her meal. "Do you want to go out, Elizabeth?" she asked gently, offering her a warmer smile, a more confident smile. Elizabeth didn't know what sparked this change in Fluttershy, but she quite liked it. It was so annoying for her to be cowering all the time.

"Would be nice," she said. "Look around. Crowded places?"

Fluttershy's bravery evaporated. "Um, could we please not? I - I mean, if you really want to, that's okay, but - "

"Not crowded," she revised. "Do something. Canterlot large. Must be something."

"Hmm, well, I don't know the city that well... oh I knew Twilight should've stayed to help, I'm not much good at all..."

"Not true," she hissed. "Better than scientist." She got an idea. Oh she was ever so smart! The equines had been asking her so many many many questions, it only made sense that she'd get some of her own. "Questions," she insisted.

"Oh! That's wonderful." Fluttershy looked at the equines still at the store, pretending not to look at them. "But, um, maybe we should go somewhere where everypony can't listen in?"

Greene nodded hastily, already up from the table. She rested a finger on the griffon-shaped warmth, drawing it back in. Several of the equines tried to back away, but it was still crowded. One of them stumbled, got knocked back and forth and got close to her. She took a step forward and nicked a hair from her mane, analyzed its essence, and then let it go. Then they were on the streets, walking with no purpose, equines stopping and staring at her, backing off. She could see the pegasus guard keeping his distance to her right, and the female pegasus from earlier doing the same, if in a somewhat stealthier manner.

Was she being followed by that pegasus? She certainly was. Oh well. Let her. Curiosity killed the... killed the.... she didn't know. She certainly knew if a pegasus had appeared in the middle of her family she'd watch them very, very carefully.

The other equines, again mostly unicorns, looked at her with expressions ranging from surprise to anger to fear to intrigue, all in varying strengths. They almost all turned to curiosity as she approached them, and that was strange strange strange. It made her curious. But no matter where they went, they just could not get alone. It was no surprise, given it was a nest.

"Way to get alone," she rasped.

Fluttershy stopped and looked up at her with a warm smile. "Really? H-How?" she asked almost desperately.

"Jump." Greene summoned the barest amount of strength to her legs and jumped, landing on the roof of the nearest building. With another hop, she landed a street over, and with one more she landed in an empty alley. She looked up at the sky, and waited waited waited for her... friend to arrive. She liked being able to think that about someone. Eventually, with a slow hesitant manner of flight, Fluttershy found her.

"Um, Elizabeth? I know t-that you wanted to get here before anypony noticed you, but can you please not go so fast? I didn't think I'd find you, and I was so afraid you'd be lost!"

Greene frowned. "Needed to get here fast." She looked up, trying to find one of the four equines that had been following her. Nothing. She looked back at Fluttershy. "Questions."

"O-Oh. Right. Um, ask what you want. If that's alright with you."

She sat down, putting her at roughly Fluttershy's eye level. She extended a small mat of tendrils beneath her for warmth. What questions should she ask? Now that she thought about it, there was so much much much she didn't know. Very little of it was relevant, mostly pertaining to the sickening politics of this world, however there were some things, like its dangers that she needed to know. However benevolent they were, Luna and Celestia could move the sun and the moon across the sky with their minds. She needed to know about dangers. First...

"Harmony Elements," she whispered.

"W-What about them?" the Element of Kindness asked.

"Seal, purify Nightmare Moon. Stone Discord." She cocked her head to the side. "Dangerous. Powerful. Dangerous." She narrowed her eyes at Fluttershy, who shrank back. "Weapon of good, or weapon used by good?"

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, but I don't understand."

"Only do good, or used by good, and can be stolen and used by bad?" She shivered. "Don't want to be target."

"Oh. Oh. I see. Um, y-you don't need to worry about that. Um, the Elements don't let themselves be used by anypony that's not, um, harmonious, I guess."

"At all?"

"Well, we've never, you know, tested it. We only know two groups of Bearers. There's um, the Princesses, who aren't the Bearers anymore. And, there's um..." Fluttershy seemed to shrink. "Us."

"Not bad. Good," she whispered. "Good. Not blasted." She smiled. That was one less thing to worry worry worry about, not having the Elements stolen and used against her by... by... she didn't know, but there was bound to be someone who wanted her to fail again. In a world full of individuals, it would only be natural. She latched onto something. "Said us."

"W-Well, my friends and I are, um, kind of the new Bearers."

"Who?" she rasped. Fluttershy had explained how her friends had gotten the Elements to fix Luna, but she didn't mention who they all were. It would be important to know those capable of wielding the most powerful weapons on the planet.

"W-Well, there's my friend Rainbow Dash. I've known her since I was a filly. She's, um, Loyalty. You already met Twilight, she's Magic. A-and my friend Rarity is Generosity, Pinkie Pie is Laughter, oh, and Applejack is Honesty." She gave a tentative smile. "Maybe you'll meet them when you're passing through Ponyville? It's, um, where we all live. Sort of. I mean, Twilight was born here, but she moved there recently, so, um, oh..."

"Maybe visit," she said. "Elements important." They were Fluttershy's friends. She'd fix them, she owed it to the pegasus. She reached out with a hand and gently touched Fluttershy's barrel, analyzing her essence. "Born in Ponyville?" she asked, placing her orb under Ponyville Pegasus.

"No, Dash and I were both born in, um, Cloudsdale," Fluttershy said, gently shaking her head. "I-Is something wrong?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "Just thinking," she said, even as she mentally moved the orb of Fluttershy's essence within her from group Ponyville Pegasus to Cloudsdale Pegasus. "Discord escape again? How stop?"

Fluttershy shook her head, face going grim. It didn't fit on her and Greene did not like that expression. She immediately regretted her question as a result. "Discord escaped last time, well, from what I know of the report, because there was arguing around his statue. A-And the only reason that worked is because the Princesses weren't linked to the Elements anymore, so they weren't keeping his, um, prison strong." She raised a hoof and wiped away some of the sweat matting her forehead's coat.

Her eyes widened. "Strong now?" she asked urgently.

She nodded. "Oh, it is. Twilight tells me the Princesses check on it every week. So, um, it's not going to break anytime soon." She tilted her head. "Why are you so worried about Discord? I mean, you don't have to tell me if it's not okay with you - "

"Twists things," she said. "Twisted things. Grass into paint. Night into day. Ponies into shadows." She shivered. "Similars... took my Wayward Child. He was Blessed back then. Twisted into Curse, driven mad."

She locked her eyes with the pegasus's own. "Don't want to be twisted. Don't want to be Cursed."

"Oh. Oh. Well, you don't have to worry about that. We only ever use the, um, Elements on anypony who really, really needs it. We're the only ones who can use them, and, um, Discord's not going to get you."

"Next question," she rasped. "Hind leg marks. Don't understand." She cocked her head. "Think... think Similars did identical. Stabbed ink under skin."

Fluttershy looked confused for a moment."What do you mean about... oh. Oh! Oh. Um, how do I explain this? Oh dear..."

"Patient," Greene rasped. She looked around. No other equines had noticed them yet. That was a good sign; she'd picked a good hiding spot.

After several long long long minutes of Fluttershy trying to figure out how to explain those marks - it couldn't be that hard could it? - she nodded, smiling gently. She wiped away more sweat. "Alright, so. Elizabeth, what would you say you're good at? Like, what's your calling in life, your talent?"

It took Elizabeth a heartbeat to come up with an answer. "Raising family." Her eyes narrowed, and Fluttershy backed away. "Irrelevant to my my my question."

"Well, actually, it sort of, um, is important. You see, my talent is working with animals. Not to brag. Please don't think I'm bragging." A pause. "Twilight's special talent is magic."

"And?" she asked, getting impatient but she couldn't be impatient because this was Fluttershy and how could she ever be impatient with her?

"Well, we didn't always know those were our talents. We didn't have our cutie marks - the marks you're talking about, right? - back then." Fluttershy smiled, as if reliving something warm. "When a pony discovers their special talent, the magic inside of us creates our cutie marks. It just, sort of changes the color of our fur there." She ducked her head, looking up at Elizabeth sheepishly with one eye. "Well, that's how Twilight always explains it."

Elizabeth frowned. "Marks show talent. Appears when talent found?" Fluttershy nodded. Greene smiled mirthfully. "So strange strange strange," she chirped, echoes like windchimes in the gentle breeze. She'd seen windchimes in the city she'd escaped the Cold Dark Place in. They were nice. Still... "Butterflies, animal skill? Stars, magic?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "Well, it's not, um, always literal. Sometimes you need to, well, interpret it." She tilted her head. "Like poetry, I um, guess."

She had no idea what poetry was.

She heard something, smelled something, and looked up to see the same female pegasus from before watching her. Immediately, she eeped and drew back. Fluttershy also noticed that, instantly reddening and going fearful, curling up. "W-W-Who was that?" she asked.

"Unsure. Curious. Let them be curious. Hmm. Marks magical fur color. Appear when talent discovered?" Fluttershy nodded. "Hmm. Celestia... sun. Luna... night." She tilted her head. "Makes sense." Suddenly, as if her speaking about their names caused it, the sky began to change. It grew dark so fast fast fast, the brilliant blue turning black. Once that was done, a plethora of stars materialized on the night sky, filling it with light. Greene smiled. Finally, the burning burning burning sun was gone.

"Oh, look at that. We've been out here for so long." Was Fluttershy's voice trembling?

"Lowered sun?" Elizabeth guessed as the shadows lengthened on a delay. It had grown dark so fast! Was it always like this? And the way the many-many-many stars came out independently! Furthermore was the knowledge that it was Luna and Celestia doing this, shaping the entire world like this. The idea that there could be beings so incredibly powerful was almost alien to her, the irony of which was not lost on her.

Fluttershy yawned, a cute little thing barely audible even to Greene's ears. "Oh my, I'm sorry. Should we, um, start heading back to the castle? I'm getting kind of sleepy. I-If that's alright with you, of course."

"Sleep important," she rasped. She, of course, wasn't going to sleep. There was little merit to it, and she had essence to gather. It'd be fool of her to waste a third of the day doing nothing. "Return." She rose to her feet, pulling her warmth back into her.

"R-Right. D-Do you want to lead the way?" she asked, looking around fearfully at the shadows. What was she so afraid of?

"You lead. Still unfamiliar." Though a quick leap up and fall back down left no question as to where the castle itself was.

"Alright. Follow me. I-If you want to." Fluttershy walked out of the alley, and Greene followed her. There were far fewer equines out and about, and she made sure to bump into the few that didn't notice her and back off in surprise, taking their essence. The three guards that had been, ugh, assigned to her kept following, trying in vain to stay out of the range of her great great great eyes, ears, and nose. Oh well. It's the thought that counts, she mused. Even though it wasn't. They still failed.

It didn't take long for them to return to the castle, where the guards - night guards now - let them pass without issue. They weren't two steps inside when Fluttershy's stomach growled, and she nervously hid behind her mane. "Oh. Right. It's, um, time for dinner."

"Bring you," Greene offered hurriedly. "Twilight Sparkle's tower. Food?"

"Oh, that's, um, quite alright. I don't want to trouble you." She swallowed. "I - I can get it myself. You can, um, go to your room. If you want to, that is. It's not like I can just tell you what to do. Not that I'm trying! It's just that, oh dear..."

She nodded. "Leave alone." She should say something to Fluttershy, she knew it! What was it... she didn't know. She didn't want to make her upset though! Nonono. Make something up. "Wish pleasant night." A patrol of night guards passed.

Fluttershy smiled. "You too, Elizabeth." Fluttershy turned around, and walked down the halls. She took a left, and vanished from Greene's sight.

What to do now? She had the whole night before Fluttershy woke up. Then she had another day with her, then another night, and then it was on to the earth pony nest. She'd need to finish up taking the essences.

It took her no time at all to leave the castle again, sampling the essence of the guards at the gate. With a quick look around, she saw that she was no longer being pursued by the day guards. She had three of the bat-winged night guards following her now.

Not for long.

She dug her feet into the road and pushed, soaring down the road with wonderful wonderful wonderful speed. She kicked up dust with her feet, with such swiftness that she gave the illusion of red and white tendrils floating in her wake. She swiftly lost herself in Canterlot, leaping across five streets at once, landing on roofs and doubling back with a flip, going to ground level and barreling down the mostly-deserted streets. She kept it up for a long long long time, until she was absolutely certain she'd lost her guards, moving from one end of the city-nest to the other in mere minutes.

She leaned against a building, a flower shop if she had to guess, and pondered her next course of action. She was in the less-brightly colored part of the city. There weren't any equines out and about, which meant they were all asleep...

... were they? That building looked awful brightly lit. Her sensitive ears made out the sounds of equine speech from within, her nose the smell of fluids and some mineral. She wrinkled her nose at the idea of fluid, but went pushed through the red door regardless, not bothering to read its name. Inside was dark, which delighted her, the only light coming from dim candles. Inside there were multiple equines, some sitting at round tables, at booths, and some on seats at an elevated bar. Two larger-than-normal but still short to her earth ponies eyed her from the sides of the door. As she entered, all conversation died down and every last one of them turned to look at her. She would've heard it anyway, but she suspected the equines could've heard a pin drop.

"Um, hello?" said one of the equines that appeared to be handing - hoofing? - out drinks, move-thoughting one in midair. Greene approached him, eyeing the glasses warily, lest they leap at her. It wouldn't be the strangest thing in this world. "You gonna order a drink or not?" The equine next to her, a pegasus, flicked his tail nervously. She grabbed a strand of it before it went away.

She eyed the bottles behind the unicorn talking to her. All filled with liquid. She identified them as containing the poison alcohol mixed with water, among some other... things she had no reference for. "No. Observing."

If it was quiet before, it was silent after she spoke, all eyes turning to her. She bristled, red and white tendrils poking out of her suit in irritation.

Finally, the unicorn spoke. "I'm sorry miss," he said with some anger in his voice. Hadn't he been terrified before? "But if you're not going to buy anything I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave." The two earth ponies approached her from the door. What for? Either way, the sudden proximity made her tendrils flare for a moment before she clamped down on them.

"Observing," she rasped. "Do no harm."

"You'll scare away patrons. Now please, I'll ask you to leave one more time before I need to have you removed."

Was...

... was the equine...

... threatening her?

'Elizabeth, I will say this once and only once, so listen very closely. Panic or no, do not assault my subjects. '

The base of her spine began to tingle. The tingle spread throughout her entire body, a low humming audible only to her. She focused her gaze on the equine. She lowered her head, glaring at him. "Observe. No harm," she repeated, her voice bouncing around the building and forcing all attention to her.

"Look, I don't have anything against, um, aliens, but if you're not paying you're loitering, and there's no loitering in here."

She hissed at him.

He sighed. "I'm sorry. Please escort the... alien out." The other two equines moved to put their hooves on her, and she steadied her will, bracing for the touching. The moment they made contact the tingling vibrations throughout her body latched onto them. It wasn't anything too too too harmful, just enough to paralyze them while she sampled each one's essence. Then she tightened the organ around her spine, spiking the charge and throwing the two equines away from her. She laid one hand on the black bar, short by her standards, and let her warmth start emerging.

"Observe. No harm," she said as she began to fill the entire building. She thickened the tendrils that reached across the door until they were tougher than even Similar metal, as several of the equines trying to escape noticed. Panic filled the building until she hissed at them to stop and to calm.

The unicorn nodded hurriedly. "A-Alright. Y-You can stay here! Just stop!"

Elizabeth abruptly smiled, and with a slick wet noise, drew every last drop of warmth back into herself. "Good good good." She drew away and began walking around the building. She identified the mineral smell as salt. Seasoning. Maybe she could try some with her meals the next time she had flesh. Several of the equines, apparently poisoned, didn't bother to get out of her way; once she'd stopped arguing with the unicorn, they didn't seem to notice she existed. Very poisoned. More essence for her.

She froze up when she heard her name being called. She whirled around, a hiss ready, to observe the unicorn that had called for her. He was shorter than normal ones, but only by a little. He had a dark blue secondary fur color overlaid with a bright blue main coat, and green eyes. His mark was strange strange strange, two vertical black lines with two horizontal black lines perpendicular to them, with X's and O's in it. He eyed Greene strangely, as if deciding what to do with her and she hated-hated-hated that look.

"Hello there. Miss Greene, was it?"

"Elizabeth Greene. Name not Miss," she said. The equine's ears flattened, though at what she didn't know. "Want?"

"Just to get to know you," he said. "Please, I already have a booth. This won't take but a minute of your time." He blinked, and yawned. "My apologies. It's getting late."

"For you," she rasped.

He shrugged. "Perhaps. Different metabolisms." Someone else bumped into Greene. She suppressed her revulsion and indignation long enough to get their essence, placing it into Canterlot Pegasus. "Please, sit with me," he said, motioning to a round table off to the side, with strangely soft soft soft looking red padding around it. He moved in, sitting on his haunches, and Greene did the same on the opposite end. It was a tight squeeze, but luckily she was lanky for her size. She let a short patch of tendrils out, warming her seat and her back.

He placed a hoof on the table, and she responded by spreading her warmth over it. He eyed it warily as the mesh approached him. "Um, that's not dangerous, is it?"

"Only if I want," she answered honestly. Though she'd never actually used her warmth to scorch and rip, she knew very well she could. It crept closer and closer, and the unicorn nervously pulled his hooves off the table. She stopped spreading it towards him. She needed a different way.

"So, can I get you anything?"

"Don't drink anything," she said, silently sending her warmth beneath the table.. "Here to wander, to observe." She coiled a few tendrils around a fur strand of his tail and clenched, slicing it off. She took its essence, then frowned. The essence was... deformed. That was odd. She placed it in the group Canterlot Unicorn, resolved to look into that later-later-later, and pulled her warmth back to her area.

"Well, that's all well and good. Hardly for me to begrudge." He smiled at her. "So, you don't sleep?"

"Not unless I want," she said. "Why?"

He shrugged, and took a sip from the mug of the yellowish-white liquid before him. Had that always been there, or was she just inattentive? "Just strange to think about. Not sleeping, I mean. Just, being conscious, forever, without a single lapse in it." Greene's skin abruptly bristled. She didn't like this equine. She didn't exactly know why, or why so suddenly, but she didn't didn't didn't.

"Observed enough. Leaving," she said, pulling her warmth back to her and leaving the booth.

"W-Wait!" said the equine with something like desperation. "There's so much I want to talk to you about!"

"No," she hissed, eyes flashing with anger. The unicorn shrank back into his seat with a whimper. The others in the building all looked at her warily. She suddenly felt cornered. She felt trapped trapped trapped and suddenly she was in the Cold Dark Place again, but she wasn't held down, she wasn't weak. She was going to kill these Similars, kill them for what they did to her, kill them so they'd never know her Blessing oh she was going to - !

She took a deep breath. This wasn't right. This wasn't wasn't wasn't right. She wasn't in the Cold Dark Place. She would never see a Similar again. She was fine. She let the electricity she'd charged by reflex into the ground. Without further word, she left, grateful to be out of that claustrophobic little place. With a short hop, she was on the roof.

She looked around. Time was running out. The equines wouldn't be in those places for very much longer, of that she was certain. She had to move it before they all went to sleep.

Greene didn't know exactly how long she gathered essence. She'd look for a building with lights and noise and smell smell smell coming from inside and slip in. She'd hiss and scare the equines into continuing on normally, except for some places where she was almost entirely ignored. Which was good. Several of the places she visited were poison dispensers. Others had ponies and zebras, and even one or two griffons, moving in strange a synchronized manner to flashing lights and the worst worst worst music she had heard in her life. She was glad to finish those quickly. But eventually, the buildings were less and less occupied, and as the moon began its gentle descent past midnight she reviewed the essences she had gathered.

Canterlot Pegasus had a fair bit of essence, as did Canterlot Earth Pony, but Canterlot Unicorn had several times both put together. There was variance among the poor poor individuals within each group; the size of a spike, the length of a loop, how close they were together, so on. But then there were the... she didn't know.

While unicorn essence orbs had three loops and one spike, pegasi orbs two loops two spikes, and earth ponies one loop and three spikes, there were a few - three out of the same number hundred she'd gathered - that didn't fit the pattern. Their orbs, instead of a lovely violet, were a dark blue. They were smaller than the other orbs, and had four spikes and four loops each, with no exception. She didn't know what could cause that.

Were they perhaps Luna's night guards? She hadn't sampled any, but she knew that their forms were owed to their armor, so it stood to reason maybe she just didn't notice they were night guards. That was the most likely explanation. The second was that, somehow, she was taking their essences wrong wrong wrong, and deforming them in the process. She really really really hoped it was the former, because the latter meant she couldn't necessarily rely on her samples.

Still, three out of three hundred wasn't bad.

She leaped and jumped across buildings and barreled down roads, until she once more arrived at the castle. With a leap, she soared over the walls and onto a tower, where she then ran up it, alighted on the balcony, shook her hands, and smiled. Her smile evaporated when she realized who was waiting for her in this particular tower.

"Found you," said a night guard smugly, two others forming a triangle behind him. Greene scowled and growled, echoing around the small dimly-lit chamber. Her keen eyes picked out Fluttershy's sleeping form on Twilight Sparkle's bed. "You know, you could at least let us do our jobs."

"Jobs not needed," she rasped intensely. "Do better elsewhere. Don't need babysitter!"

The one in the back right cocked their head. "Baby? Ah, foalsitter," he murmured. "Whether or not you feel you need protection, there are a few things." He stomped a forehoof. "A, Their Highnesses tasked us with protecting you while news of your very existence is circulating and rumors are stabilizing."

"Protect self! Not hurt by ponies," she said menacingly. Unfortunately, to his credit, the guards gave no hint of being intimidated at all.

"Right," said the one to the left. "Which leads us to B. You don't know what's out there. Let me ask you this. How tough is your skin against magic? Or, how about, how resistant are you to petrification?"

"Petri... petrif..."

"Turning to stone," he said simply. She froze. Was he saying there were things beside the elements that could do that?! "Those things exist here on Equus. Not very common around these parts, but if anypony would attract those things, it would be you."

"Petrify," Greene whispered. "Magic. Don't know..." She gulped dryly. Perhaps... perhaps there was some merit to the guards. She had no magic, so she highly doubted she'd be able to counter it. She definitely had to read up on magic, see what there was that could hurt hurt hurt her. There appeared to be much more that was dangerous besides the Elements and Discord. She hissed lightly in defeat. "Fine fine fine! Protect. Out of sight."

"Great," said the one in front. Fluttershy stirred in her sleep, muttering in a soft voice that was, oddly enough, louder than her waking speech. "Now, would you mind telling us where you've been all night? It hardly looks good on our report that you lost you," he said scathingly.

She bristled. How dare he insult her! She ought to - ! "Faster, not big surprise. Various buildings. Observe, sample ponies. Watch. Learn."

"Well, at least let us catch up with you next time."

She shivered. "Perhaps. Tomorrow with Fluttershy. Think... not go out next night." Truth be told it had been, save for a few strange strange strange instances of equine behavior, a very boring boring boring night. She'd take to sleeping more. At least then she'd skip the hours when Fluttershy couldn't help her around. Not that she was helpless but it was always so much easier with the pegasus around. She... made her feel calm. She didn't know why, but she did, and that was all she needed to know.

She shivered abruptly, reminding herself how cold it was. Elizabeth extended a small web of red and white beneath her feet. It wasn't much, but it helped ward off the chill.

"Very well then," said the equine in front, flexing his strange strange strange wings. "We shall keep post outside the door." The equines left, closing the door behind them, and left Elizabeth Greene alone with a sleeping Fluttershy. She pulled her warmth back in, and moved over to where the equine laid sleeping. Her barrel rose and fell uniformly, and Elizabeth ran a hand along it, tilting her head with a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

She couldn't keep Fluttershy here for as long as it suited her. If Greene had her way, she'd stay in Canterlot until she'd sampled as much of its population as she physically could. But that wouldn't be fair to Fluttershy; she had her own family to return to and her own Home to tend to. And while she could in theory remain in Canterlot without Fluttershy... she didn't want to. There were very very very few people she could ever call her friends, and all of them were in this castle.

Once in the earth pony nest, though, she could really take her time. See what this species had accomplished while broken before fixing them. Maybe meet the other Elements. Though she deeply deeply deeply hoped none of them were like Twilight Sparkle. Scientists were bad bad bad and were she a Similar she would've killed Twilight in a moment; Similar scientists didn't deserve her Blessing.

Fluttershy cooed gently in her sleep and shifted, pressing her muzzle into Greene's hand. She stiffened. How dare she touch her without permission! How dare she how dare she - she was sleeping and she didn't know and she was touching Fluttershy wasn't she? Control. She was smart.

She sighed, pulling away from Fluttershy. She moved to a wall and leaned against it. Warmth bubbled to her back and out the tubes her suit had along her spine. Elizabeth let the red and white tendrils out, covering a good half of the room before she stopped. A few of the tendrils wound up the legs of the bed, but that was the farthest they reached. She gave a weak weak weak hop, her back scraping along the warmth. Halfway up the wall she grabbed at it with her warmth, suspending herself. Warmth blossomed radially from the bottom of her feet and rose upwards, forming a thick cocoon of flesh. The energy and mass kept draining from her until she was satisfactorily cocooned, only her eyes visible.

Greene blinked, looking at Fluttershy, still sleeping peacefully as the moon slowly slowly slowly descended outside. She closed her eyes. Tomorrow was her last day in Canterlot. And she was going to make it count.

Sunburn

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Greene

"AHH!" shouted an unfamiliar equine voice.

"Ah!" exclaimed Fluttershy in a regular tone of voice.

""Hhhhhhh!" Greene hissed, pulling her cocoon back into herself and dropping to the floor, lowering herself, eyes flashing at the intruder menacingly. He was an earth pony, main color red, secondary color blue. His mark, she couldn't see from her point, but his mane and tail were cut very, very short, the former almost nonexistent. He froze in his place, two sets of green eyes locking. At that moment Fluttershy, still in the throes of panic, fell off the bed in a pile of blankets. At once Greene was there. With a harsh tug on the purple covers, she unraveled Fluttershy, who promptly fell, dazed, to the enmeshed ground.

"Why yes Angel," she muttered. "You can jump off the candy cane forest."

"Who!?" she shouted at the intruder intruder intruder. "Who who who who who?!"

"R-Ringing Bells, miss. I-I was sent by the Princesses to c-call you and Miss Fluttershy to b-breakfast."

Fluttershy got back to her hooves, shaking in anger which was strange strange strange. Greene's glare intensified. "Scared her!" she growled, echoes closing in on the offending equine like a vice.

"S-Sorry," the equine squeaked, backing out of the room. Greene waited until he was out of sight, and then relaxed. As soon as she did, Fluttershy did as well. She dropped to her stomach, gasping from some unknown cause.

"Alright?" Elizabeth asked, worried.

Fluttershy pulled herself up, blinking sleep out of her eyes, and gave Greene a nervous, one-eyed smile. "Y-Yeah. I'm fine. Thanks for, um, asking."

"Breakfast?" she asked. This was her last day in Canterlot for the forseeable future, so she wanted to see the sister alicorns one more time.

Fluttershy shook her head for some bizarre reason that Elizabeth could never figure out. "Right. Let's go to breakfast." She snapped her head up from the ground to look at Elizabeth. "I-If you want to."

"Not hungry, but you are," she rasped, drawing in her warmth again until none was left coating the room. "Want to see Celestia and Luna again."

"Alright, you can, um, follow me. If you'd like to," Fluttershy said, opening the door that had been slammed shut by the terrified servant. Her mane was somewhat ungroomed, but still maintained most of its shape, and her coat was matted in a few spots where she'd slept on it. They walked through the castle silently, passing guards with little more than a glance between them and Elizabeth. She wondered if the one she'd struck and the one she'd siphoned from had recovered. The latter certainly, the damage was purely superficial. The former, though... she was slightly stronger than her Wayward Child, and even he could kill Similars with a single glancing blow. However, she'd been very weak when she'd struck, and it had been an equine, not a Similar. Smaller, but also armored, and different in body. She just didn't know. Hardly hardly hardly mattered, they'd arrived and the doors were open and the smell of plants being eaten made her wrinkle her nose and -

Celestia and Luna were already there, the former eating something she identified as a fluffy white angel cake, the latter eating a light green salad decorated with deep blue flowers and blood red tomatoes.

" - imposed conditions too light. Those... those..." said an unfamiliar male equine on Celestia's other side.

"Temper, nephew," said Celestia's voice, chiding the white, heavily clothed unicorn beside her. All eyes turned to them as they walked in, the guards closing the doors behind them and leaving the five in private.

"Who?" she rasped, looking at the new equine as she and Fluttershy moved to the table, sitting across from the two princesses. She herself was across from the Solar Alicorn, Fluttershy across from the Nightbringer, so Greene was closest to the new equine.

"Elizabeth," Celestia said, gesturing with her hooves. "I would like you to meet my nephew, Prince Blueblood."

Greene's eyes locked with the Prince's pale blue orbs, which immediately went wide. "Prince Blueblood," Greene said as a servant asked a trembling Fluttershy what she'd like. She extended a tendril beneath her feet, weaving it along the ground towards the unicorn. "Hello," she said uncertainly.

"U-Um, hello," he said in a strained voice. Elizabeth didn't like that voice. It sounded guarded. Forced. Like he'd rather say something else. The fact that his eyes kept flicking to Celestia made her more suspicious. "As Prince of Canterlot, allow me t-to formally welcome you t-to Equestria."

Greene continued to look at him, and smiled. She pressed one of her feet to the ground, and extended a tendril of warmth across beneath the table. She poked the unicorn's seat with it. "Purpose talking?" she asked. "Talking before we entered. What was it about?"

Blueblood shivered as her voice buzzed around, but Celestia answered for him. "We were just discussing the conditions we set up with the ambassadors. He was most tolerant of their decisions," she said. Celestia looked over to him and narrowed her magenta eyes. "Isn't that right, nephew?"

"Of course, auntie!" he said hastily, paying his half-eaten, rather fanciful meal no mind. "I have no trouble whatsoever with granting our, ehm, esteemed guest here free movement throughout most of the known world! None whatsoever!" An equine brought Fluttershy her meal.

Elizabeth nodded. This was a strange equine indeed. Very, very broken. Still...

She continued the tentacle's path and snipped a piece of Blueblood's fur, sorting its essence. She pulled the trail of warmth back, and turned to Fluttershy. "Plan today? Last day in Canterlot. Interesting?"

"W-Well, I don't know about anything happening right now..."

Blueblood suddenly withered under stares from both alicorns. "Well, there is the symphony being held in the Beethooven Concert Hall, a-at noon. I'm sure you can find your way there." The alicorns kept looking at him. Blueblood drew closer to Celestia and began to whisper in a voice that Greene was sure Fluttershy couldn't hear. That didn't stop her though.

"Auntie, why can't you have a servant show them there?" he hissed.

"You were already planning to go there today, weren't you?"

"But escorting those... those commoners?" he whispered, an ear flicking.

"Fluttershy is the Element of Kindness and dear friend to my personal apprentice. Elizabeth Greene is the ambassador to the Evolved, an alien species. Tell me, nephew," Celestia said stonily. "What about them is common, were that even relevant?"

"But... but..."

"But nothing, Blueblood! Remember the Gala?" Both of Blueblood's ears flattened. This was the second time she'd heard of this 'Gala'. She needed to ask about that. It sounded rather important. "Now, after breakfast is finished, you'll bring them to the concert you were already planning to listen to. I don't want to hear them speak of anything ill about you, nephew. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Princess Celestia," he muttered, looking down. They pulled apart, and their voices rose. He turned to Elizabeth Greene, and his lips abruptly pulled upwards into a smile. "Well then! We'd better start heading out towards the concert hall!"

"But, I'm still - " Fluttershy said softly.

Blueblood leaped from his seat in what Greene, after a moment of thought, decided was frantic dignity. "Right then. No time to waste. After all, it's commoners who arrive fashionably late." She had no idea what to make of that statement.

"But - oh, alright," Fluttershy said quietly before following leaving her own chair, her meal forgotten. Greene had only a limited amount of time. She probably wouldn't need their essence, but it was better to be safe than sorry. She sent a tendril beneath the table towards Princess Celestia, snipped a piece of her fur and took the essence -

"AHH!"

She screamed and fell back, instantly releasing her hold on the alicorn's essence. It burned! It burned it burned it burned burned burned! It was the Bad Air again, spreading inside her body from her stomach and eating away at her, eating at her Blessing with heat and death and poison and it burned-burned-burned make it stop! It was inside her, what was it? It hurt it hurt it was inside her get it out get it out GET IT OUT!

She tried to get up, but she staggered back a few steps and fell, red and white tendrils angrily lashing around her and cracking the floor. The castle tilted to the side. She thrashed around on the ground, clawing at her stomach to get whatever was burning her out! She'd spat out Celestia's essence, why was she still burning burning burning?!

"E-Elizabeth? W-What's wrong?" A white and purple pegasus approached her, one purple eye hidden behind her mane.

"What is happening to thou?!" Luna was upside down, a giant purple flower growing from her forehead in place of a horn.

"Elizabeth, Elizabeth speak to me!" frantically shouted a pink alicorn.

"Oh do get up, you're dirtying the floor!" said a white and yellow earth pony.

"Blueblood!" both alicorns shouted at the other, bubbles coming from their mouths in the form of various animals.

She rolled over onto her stomach and propped herself up on two hands. She heaved once, twice, and then let loose a glob of blood that she sensed had Celestia's torn-up fur inside it. She hacked and coughed, letting up more of her flesh, and then fell backwards onto her spine, chest heaving with great effort as she still coughed. She rolled onto her side and curled up, whimpering in pain. She felt something, someone pushing at her, but lacked the energy to be indignant.

"Elizabeth!" shouted an equine's voice. Whose was it? She couldn't make it out. "Elizabeth, speak to us! Where is thy pain?" She curled up on her stomach more, breaths coming ragged and strained.

"Unnnngh, ah..." she hissed, rolling onto her back. Luna's worried face was over hers, eyes narrowed. It suddenly dawned on Greene just how close the equine was and she scooted back, panting. She slammed into a wall, cracking it, but at least she was sitting up now. "F-F-Fine," she stammered, rising to her feet, swaying back and forth. A moment later, and her tremendous regeneration had her fixed completely, her perceptions returning to normal. "I'm fine," she insisted, echoes quiet. "Fine. Beethooven?"

Blueblood blinked. "You expect me, the Prince of Equestria, to bring you, an alien being, to a concert by the renowned Octavia Philharmonica, after that pitiful display of self humiliation? What even brought that about?"

"Doesn't matter," she rasped, looking at the equine intently. Instantly Blueblood froze. "Won't happen again. Made mistake. Won't repeat." She walked over to Fluttershy, and gave her a warm, toothy grin. "I'm fine. Relax." She did so, marginally; she stopped trembling and managed to look up, but still gave off the overall impression of 'meek'."

"Elizabeth," Celestia said soothingly, approaching her from the side and making her whirl around. "I know how much being self-reliant means to you, but so long as you are in Equestria's borders you are my subject and as such, I am obligated to care for your well being. You can be honest with me. What happened?"

Greene fiddled with the strap around her waist, thinking. Her eyes roamed from a glaring/nervous Blueblood, to a just plain nervous Fluttershy, to a surprised Luna, and to a worried Celestia. Should she tell them? One of their philosophies was to be honest, but how would Celestia react to learning she'd tried to take essence from her? She knew she'd be furious, to put it lightly. But Celestia was not her not by a long shot but how would she react would she be angry would she even understand? But if she lied, what would she say? The alicorns were centuries old, millennia old. She doubted she'd be able to fool them.

"Sampled essence," she said. "Want to compare. Earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi." She tilted her head, looking Celestia in the eyes. "Alicorn essence... burned. Had to get it out. Safe now. No repeat."

Celestia frowned. "My... essence?"

"Makes you you. Mistake." She shook her head. "Alicorn magic burns my Blessing when it's in them. Alicorn essence burns me when it's in me. Safe now. Promise."

"What were you doing with my... essence, Elizabeth?" she asked warily, stepping back. Luna moved to her side, and out of the corner of her eye Blueblood's tail flicked in irritation.

"Analyze. Compare others." This wasn't totally a lie. After all, she didn't plan to Bless the alicorns, so taking her essence was just more out of curiosity than anything else. "Was curious. What makes you and Luna different." She rubbed her stomach, and shuddered. "Mistake."

"I see. Still, I feel you should take a rest. You were coughing up and vomiting blood just seconds ago." The Daybringer whispered something about cleaning servants to herself. "You're not fine."

"Am fine," she insisted. "Heal quick. Demonstrate." She walked over to the table and grabbed one of the weapons. Not the pronged one, the one with a serrated edge. She brought it to her left hand and, angled so they could see, pressed it in hard and moved it. She barely felt a touch as the blade opened a red line in her flesh. Just as quick as she opened it her healing factor closed it. The knife bent and crumpled under the force she had to put on it to cut her. "Heal quick," she repeated to the jaw-dropped equines.

"We... see," Luna said in awe. "Natural regeneration. We need magic for that."

Greene whirled around on Blueblood suddenly. "Music?"

"You expect me to bring - " Celestia suddenly coughed. Was she sick? " - right away! Follow me, I'll lead you to your seats." Blueblood turned around, letting Greene catch sight of his strange circle-with-lines mark. What in the world was that?

She and Fluttershy followed after Blueblood, the pegasus looking wholly uncomfortable around the unicorn. They made their way out of the castle quickly, but out of a side passage Elizabeth didn't know existed. Blueblood seemed inclined to keep them away away away from the majority of the population, which was fine by her, and he seemed to have an innate sense of direction Fluttershy lacked. At some point, day guards joined them. She bristled, but decided they were more for Blueblood than for her. It made their presence tolerable. Still, her dislike didn't keep her from taking their essence.

The Beethooven Concert Hall was... impressive, she decided. Somewhat open, mostly closed, somewhat bowl shaped. The marble white building - actual marble? - seemed to project noise well. A pegasus in a strange buttoned white and black suit that reminded her of Sokara greeted them.

"Ah, Prince Blueblood. I see you're escorting the Element of Kindness and the Evolved?"

"Yes yes," he said. "Give them a seat in section 4-D, doesn't matter. I'll be headed to my usual. You can, ugh, send their admission fee to my royal coffers."

"Of course, sir." Without further word, Blueblood left, leaving the two of them in the company of the pegasus. Greene could see seats further ahead, arranged in rows and columns with aisles between them. There were many equines here, and on the stage she could see... she didn't know. Strange things of wood that looked like circles melted together, with black fibers stretched across, all of varying size. A unicorn lead Fluttershy and, by extension, herself through the chairs until they found a seat. She shivered as she sat next to Fluttershy, and extended her warmth onto the seat, shifting around it for a moment so her suit's back tubes could find a comfortable spot.

She frowned as the unicorn left them, equines struggling to edge away from her for some bizarre reason. Were they still afraid of her? But that wasn't why she frowned, no no no. She hadn't been particularly sated before the incident with Celestia's essence, but she also hadn't been hungry. Now though, having lost that flesh, she could go for a bite. Or two. Or twenty. She stewed over this. She'd need to eat again. But not in Canterlot; she could wait. Maybe until Ponyville.

"Um, Elizabeth?" Fluttershy asked tentatively from next to her. "Have you ever been to a concert before?"

"No," she rasped. "Bad music late night in Canterlot. Hope better."

"Oh," she said, looking down at her hooves. Elizabeth looked around; the equines were staring staring staring at them! AGAIN! Could they not get the message?!

She hissed at them to ignore them, and they did so. Good.

"Where's Blueblood?" she asked Fluttershy, looking at her.

"Um, I don't know. I think he left us. Oh that wasn't very nice. D-Did I do something?"

"Hmm," she said. "Don't need prince. Can leave." She considered her choice of words with a head tilt. "After music."

"Oh, r-right." Fluttershy relaxed marginally, now that all eyes weren't on them. The echoing echoing echoing background chatter-braying of the equines quieted. All eyes, including Greene's own, were drawn to the stage.

An equine introduced the piece to be played as Beethooven Eight something by some group with key player Harmoni-something. A couple equines walked out and took place around several instruments. Elizabeth tensed. Her first encounter with equine music had been awful. Would this be any better? Some of the equines were male, some were female. The one that gathered the most attention was a gray earth pony female in the middle. She had brilliant violet eyes that reminded her so so so much of her Holy Child's eyes. She also had a strange white thing around her neck with one of those lavish 'bows' on it.

"Music?" she asked as quietly as she could to Fluttershy. Even so, her echoes made the equines around focus on her and 'shhh' harshly. It also didn't help she stood heads and shoulders above them, even while sitting...

... why had she agreed to this again?

"Yes," Fluttershy whispered just above silence. She was sweating through her coat heavily, though Elizabeth suspected it was because of the crowd. She continued to extend her warmth, this time towards Fluttershy, wrapping it under her seat and crawling the tendrils over her body like the blankets on their beds. She tensed but she shushed Fluttershy, who then she relented and allowed Elizabeth to wrap her in red and white tendrils up to her neck. She loosened them so she wouldn't be entirely restrained - she knew how awful awful awful that was! - but otherwise, she kept her warm. The equine looked over at her and gave a small smile, one visible eye grateful.

She returned the smile, and then looked back towards the stage, where some equine was chattering on about the day's events, how this was such-and-such piece performed by such-and-such composer on such-and-such an occasion and would they get on with it already!?

At length, they begun, the musicians moving their bows and plucking strings and... and...

... and...

Elizabeth tensed with a small gasp, her eyes going wide at the sounds.

Then she relaxed and smiled, eyelids fluttering closed.

This was... good music, she decided. She didn't quite know why it was good but... it was good. It was smooth and nice nice nice, but it had jumpy erratic parts that weren't erratic all, that were patterned. Planned. Brass-metal things made her almost jump with their intensity; the building carried sound so well well well, especially for her sensitive ears! She liked this music. She really really really liked it. She leaned back her head and smiled as the pleasant tunes washed over her.

It wasn't like the music she'd heard last night. That had been awful. It had been screechy, wildly jumping between bone-rattling lows and ear-piercing highs. Here, the range of noise wasn't as intense, and the changes were planned and good. Then, the music had been erratic, multiple overlapping layers fighting each other conflicted with each other not Listening to each other and it made her stomach churn. Here though, they Listened. They were ordered, they were in perfect harmony. It resonated in her chest in her head. There, the music had been... fake. Made by lightning and metal. Here it was still made by metal but with the force of the equines to power it. It was so much... better. It seemed familiar to her somehow. Certainly not the music itself, but the overall tone, the type. Perhaps she'd listened to such music Before?

And then... it stopped. She snapped open her eyes, and suddenly she was aware that she'd been humming the tune. She looked at Fluttershy, who was visibly sweating through her coat yet also, upon noticing Elizabeth's grin, gave a small smile of her own.

"Over?" she rasped as the equines gathered began to chat.

"O-Oh, no," Fluttershy said softly as the musical equines began to move away from her sight. Where did they think they were going? "It's just an intermission so that, um, they can rest."

"Rest," she muttered to herself. "Strange to need rest."

"W-Why? Um, if you don't mind me asking, why is that strange to you?"

"Don't get tired," she rasped. "Weak, but not tired. Rest doesn't change. Time does. Weak and fighting, weak and sitting, still get strong. Never tired." She frowned. "Similars get tired." She looked at Fluttershy intensely, who wilted back under her cover of tendrils. "Equines get tired?"

"W-Well, I think you're the only one in, um, the world who doesn't, um, get tired."

"Strange," she muttered.

Fluttershy shuffled under her warmth. She opened her mouth, then closed it. It was a motion that did not escape her. Nothing escaped her. Not the way the equines on stage occasionally glanced out from behind the curtain, or how that curious pegasus was still curious, or how Blueblood was in an elevated portion of the seats and doing his best to pretend they didn't exist. "Yes?" she asked the yellow pegasus.

"Oh, it's nothing," she said, trying to hide both eyes behind her pink mane. When Elizabeth didn't stop staring at her, she relented. "Um, I was just going to ask, if it's alright with you, if you could pull this off? It's getting kinda hot. If you want to, that is."

She nodded, and pulled her warmth off of Fluttershy so that it was only under her own seat.

"Thanks, Elizabeth," she said with a grin.

She nodded, but did not say anything. She settled for staring intently at the stage, waiting waiting waiting for the musicians to resume the lovely tunes. The songs made her feel... happy. Relaxed. It let her forget forget forget her stress, how she had to gather as much essence as she could -

- essence! There was so much of it around, and she had time before the music resumed surely. She extended small, nearly invisible tendrils outwards from her warmth, winding around the occupied chairs. It pressed her focus to its limit to control so many individual, tiny tendrils from so far, but she did it, and then it was relatively simple to take the essence of the several hundred equines here. She categorized it quickly, frowning when she found two more of the anomalies, prompting her to create a separate group just for them. She pulled her warmth back from around the Beethooven Concert Hall until it was once again localized to warming her immediate surroundings. There. That should be enough to be definit... definiti... showing of Canterlot's equines.

Then the musicians came back out, and Elizabeth gave them her utmost attention. They resumed playing, and tension once again bled out of her. Greene let herself be lost in the music, swaying back and forth in her seat and gently humming to the tune. The music continued on and on and on-on-on, for she didn't know how long but if it never ended it would've been too soon. Even sad-sad-sadder, it ended far quicker than never. The music reached a peak in intensity, and then abruptly ended, leading to the loud loud loud stamping of hooves around her. She looked around, unsure what she should do.

Before too long, the equines began to file out. The musicians began to abandon the stage after making repeated bows, leaving in her a panic. They were going to take that music away away away! She couldn't couldn't couldn't let that happen! She had to get to them!

"Stay. Wait," she told Fluttershy before standing up. The equines around her turned to look at her as she pulled her warmth back into her body. She tensed her legs, and then leaped. She soared through the air in a calculated arc, landing before the Holy-Child-Eyes equine.

She jumped backwards. "Ah! Who are you - securi - !" Her shout cut off when she saw who it was. She staggered back on all fours, eyes looking up at Greene, wide in shock and... horror? That made her sad. She didn't like it when others were afraid of her. "I-It's you!"

"Me," Greene repeated. She smiled, hoping to diffuse the tension. "Listened to music."

"O-Oh. W-Well what did you think?"

Greene tilted her head back and smiled. "Happy times. Don't remember, but happy times. Calming. Wonderful wonderful wonderful music." She snapped her head back, looking intensely at this earth pony. "Name?"

"It's O-Octavia, Octavia Philharmonica, pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Greene." Octavia held up a forehoof. Greene took a moment to decipher what her goal was, then reached out to grab it gently, shaking her hoof and taking the essence. Octavia winced and pulled her hoof away, which Greene allowed. She gingerly tapped it on the marble floor. "Celestia, that's quite a grip," she said under her breath.

"Strong," she said, unsure of which of them she was referring to.

"Ri-i-i-ight," said another equine, this one with one of the metal instruments. "Octavia, remind me why we haven't called security on this alien yet?"

She turned to him. "Relax, Full Stave. Remember, this is the ambassador to the Evolved alien race, she is meaning no harm, and I'm sure she was just leaving." Octavia turned to her, the other equines returning to packing away their instruments in preparation for something... something. "Right?"

"Wanted to ask. How often music, where?"

She smirked. Smirked! "You'll have to check with our schedule, Elizabeth. We hardly know them off the top of our head. Suffice to say, I play almost exclusively in Canterlot."

Greene nodded. "Will return." She tilted her head. "Maybe Bless after second music listening."

That made the equine raise a brow. "Bless me?" Oh no, was she going to have to explain it again? "Why, thank you, Elizabeth. I shall look forward to receiving your Blessing."

Elizabeth Greene's face broke out into a wild grin. She was right right right! These equines were better than the Similars! They knew what was good for them. She extended her left arm and rested it on Octavia's shoulder, who instantly went rigid, the first beads of sweat peaking out from under her coat. "Thank you. Rest. Music good, mustn't falter." She turned around and, her mission complete, returned to Fluttershy with a hop, still grinning.

"O-Oh, hello Elizabeth," Fluttershy said, as if she'd been gone for a while. A few of the equines had stayed behind to watch her conversation with Octavia. Some of them appeared to be guards out of armor, but didn't approach. Good. For them. "Do you, um, want to leave now? The Concert Hall doesn't have another, well, concert, for a few hours, a-and, we'd need to pay for that because I lost Prince Blueblood." She shuffled her hooves. "Sorry for losing Prince Blueblood," she whimpered.

She knelt and gently laid a hand on her withers. "Relax. Doesn't matter." She was still smiling. This was a good day. "Want to go out? Wander if want. Go somewhere if want. Don't mind." She wrinkled her nose, standing back up. "Just not wet."

The Kindness Element giggled at that. "Okay. Um, do you want to take a walk?"

"If you want," she rasped. They began to walk, and were soon the primary focus of the streets of Canterlot. A fact that gave Fluttershy no small measure of visual discomfort, but didn't manage to hamper Greene's mood. The music had done wonders for her. She felt... uplifted. Yes, that was the word. She had a spring in her step, each such spring leaving a hairline fracture in the road beneath her feet. Equines largely ignored them, which was good good good, but every now and then one stared, so they were still the center of attention.

"What now?" she asked.

"Well, um, I was thinking maybe we could just walk around. Look for a place to get lunch? I mean, we did spend a few hours at the concert hall and, um, I'm a little, um, hungry."

"Place to get lunch," she said happily.

Fluttershy smiled. "Alright. I think I know where I want to go. U-Unless you want to go elsewhere?" she asked, smile fading.

"Your choice," she rasped. "Know city better."

The smile returned. "Alright."

There was a pair of pegasi, differing genders, flying overhead. A unicorn mother and her child buying what appeared to be flowers in cookies. a twitchy looking earth pony sitting on a bench. The sun was bright bright bright in the sky, but she didn't let that bother her. She was far more bothered by how cold it was. She and Fluttershy walked through the streets, being followed in 'secret' by the curious pegasus and the one-of-each day guards.

Fluttershy lead her down a road, one filled with the smell of plants, though she didn't know if it was for decoration, or consumption, or both.

"So, Elizabeth," Fluttershy began quietly, looking up at her. "I-If you don't mind me asking, what's it like to, um, regenerate?"

Elizabeth pondered that. "Don't... don't know." She looked down at Fluttershy, face neutral. "What's it like not to regenerate?"

"Hmm," Fluttershy mused.

She heard an equine behind her shout, "For Equus!" She whirled around to see the twitchy earth pony - black fur, blue secondary fur, bloodshot red eyes, mark obscured - running at her. Fluttershy backed away in shock. As he approached her, he stopped and wheeled around so that his back was to her, revealing his mark of a... smoke cloud with some silver triangular thing coming out of it. She tilted her head in that short span of time. Was it running to her just to run back? Then he lifted his hind legs and slammed them into her stomach. She stumbled back a step, more from shock than anything.

Time slowed down. She was aware of Fluttershy's eyes going wide. She was aware of the day guards running out of their hiding spots, and of the curious pegasus bringing a forehoof to her face. She was aware of the earth pony dropping back to all fours and looking at her in surprise. But more than anything she was aware that the equine had just ambushed her. He had struck her, he had attacked her.

He.

Had.

Touched.

Her.

She bared her teeth and growled. She pushed off with her legs and slammed into the equine, whose eyes went wide with horror. But she didn't stop there. She grabbed it by its neck and hoisted its head up to her level, and her speed carried her on. She and her assailant sailed down the street, past the unicorn day guard whose horn was lit, and slammed into the wall. She did so with such force that the stone cracked. Still holding the equine, she pulled her hand back and released, sending him tumbling head over tail on the ground before finally coming to a rest.

She leaped forward as the earth pony struggled to his hooves, right hand flying out in a hook. He ducked beneath her wild swing, though it seemed more like a collapse. It didn't matter. The sheer force of her missed attack sent a shockwave through the air that battered him back into the ground. She leaned down with a snarl and grabbed him by the neck, raising him again. He began kicking at her, and she barely felt it but he was still touching her! She panted in anger, her vision red with fury. Her entire body felt like it had fallen asleep, and her vision went from red-tinged to grayscale. Red and white tendrils - looking like gray and white to her - danced around her suit and skin, seeking that which had dared anger her. She opened her mouth to take a deep breath -

"Elizabeth, no!" shouted Fluttershy. At that same moment a unicorn bystander pulled him away from her by move-thought and she, not having expected that, didn't adjust her grip in time to keep him from floating away. A similar, blue aura surrounded her and suddenly she was in the air. Her raw fury slipped away from the surprise; her body got feeling back and her vision returned to normal, but she still kicked and snarled at the air, though she had no purchase to escape the move-thought around her.

Fluttershy ran up to her, eyes pleading. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth please, calm down!" She stopped snarling. "Please, please calm down, it's okay." She stopped kicking, and Fluttershy nodded to a female unicorn, whose horn was surrounded by similar colored magic to hers. "You can let her go now," she said with a surprising amount of confidence. The unicorn nodded and released her magic, dropping Greene the short distance to the ground. She went to hiss and growl at the green-magic-encased equine, but Fluttershy got in between them, eyes intense like she'd never seen before. "Elizabeth Anne Greene, that is enough. You've hurt him enough already. I know he tried to hurt you, but the guard has it handled now, alright?"

"Alright," she responded almost automatically.

"Good." Her gaze softened. "Are you alright? He had hoof spikes on his hind legs when he bucked you."

"Hoof spikes?" Now that she looked at the unconscious equine being tended to by the guards, she noticed there were metal things on his hind legs, similar to the ones Luna and Celestia wore, but with a single tiny metal spike sticking out of their ends. Had he always had them, or just put them on when he saw her? Had he pursued her?

She suddenly understood Fluttershy's concern. These equines were a lot... squishier than her. Something like that metal... "Am fine. Tough, didn't cut. Heal if it did."

She smiled. "That's good. But did you have to be so rough on him?"

She growled in return. "Hit me! Touched me!" she shouted, echoes buzzing through the air angrily and drawing the full attention of the crowd around her.

The pegasus guard approached her, in full uniform and disguise. "Miss Greene, are you alright?"

"Am fine," she said, her anger finally beginning to ebb. "Just... surprised."

He nodded. "It's a good thing we got you two separated in time, or you may have killed him."

"Bad how?" she asked scorchingly.

He sighed. "First off, Equestria's self defense policy doesn't go so far as to include ponicide." Poni... what? "Second, everypony is somepony's son or daughter. Third, if he died we wouldn't be able to question him."

"Questions irrelevant," she rasped, still indignant.

"What if there are others that want to attack you, associated with him? What if there was a good reason for him attacking you we don't know of? We need to perform an investigation on this." He looked back at the equine, and Greene followed his gaze; he was unconscious, the earth pony day guard and a civilian unicorn tending to his wounds while the unicorn day guard kept the surrounding equines from rioting. Out of the corner of her eye, the curious pegasus's eyes were wide.

"Now, I suggest you and miss Fluttershy head on back to the castle. It's getting dangerous out here."

"Defend Fluttershy," she insisted. "Friends protect."

He nodded, the barest hint of a smile on his stony face. "A noble sentiment, but either way your presence is starting to incite a riot." He nudged a head at the increasingly rowdy crowd. "It'd be best for you to clear out before things get heated and any innocents get hurt." She saw more day guards arriving on the scene. "We'll contact you later when we need to conduct the investigation. For now, just clear out."

She huffed, her echoes quieting back to normal. "Fine." She turned to Fluttershy. "Meet back in Twilight Sparkle's tower?" she asked.

The pegasus timidly nodded. "O-Oh! Sure. I guess I can, um, eat lunch in the castle." She took off into the air, slowly flitting through the air as a pair of day guards joined her in escort.

Greene herself leaped into the air, instantly removing herself from the crowd and passing her friend. She landed on a roof and she, with all her strength, leaped off. She hung in the air for a long long long time before smashing back into the ground, completing the sprint back to the castle in record time. She hopped inside Twilight Sparkle's tower and screamed.

How dare that equine touch her?! The nerve! The arrogance! She didn't go around poking them for no reason, did she? No, he didn't either! He wanted to kill her!

She screamed again, and again, and again.

Why did he want to kill her? To hurt hurt hurt her? Hadn't she been hurt enough already? Hadn't she lost enough? She'd felt her children break and burn, she'd endured the freezing chill of the Cold Dark Place, the Awful Poison, the Bad Air, and the Similar weapons! She'd had her blood drawn so so so much and kept hungry hungry hungry. She'd faced her Wayward Child in open combat not once but twice and been slashed, crushed, stabbed, impaled, then Cursed. She had died, wasn't that enough?! But of course it wasn't. In a world filled filled filled with individuals, of course there would be these... these fiends. It was exactly the reason she had to succeed! Well, one of the reasons anyway.

She prepared to scream again, but Fluttershy was there and how could she act like that around her?

She frowned, meeting Fluttershy's patient gaze. "Do you want to talk about it?" she whispered.

"No," she said sharply. She walked over to a corner of the room and sat down. She drew her knees to her chest, linked her arms beneath them and bowed her head. There was the clopping of hooves, and she felt a presence next to her.

"Elizabeth, do you want to talk about it?" she repeated.

"No," she whispered.

"Do you want me to get you something to eat?"

She considered this. "No," she rasped. "Just want to sleep."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes," she insisted. "Want to go to earth pony nest sooner."

The sound of slightest motion. Fluttershy nodding? "Alright. Sweet dreams, Elizabeth."

Fluttershy was trotting away when Greene opened her mouth. "Same to you," she said, drawing a cocoon of warmth around her and closing her eyes.

She'd been imprisoned. She had died. Wasn't it her turn to have things go well?

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Covert Confidence

She kept going over it in her mind's eye.

What... what had happened?

She'd been following the alien and the Element of Kindness, and this time it seemed she avoided being noticed. They'd gone to a concert hall with the Prince; she'd followed them from the castle. After the wonderful performance by Octavia Philharmonica, she kept following them. That's when everything went to Tartarus.

She groaned, pacing around her house. Tinny was currently out, talking with somepony about just who had been stupid enough to assault the alien without a plan. Everything could be ruined now!

She plopped down on the couch, shivering. She could remember it so clearly. Greene and Fluttershy had been discussing the former's regeneration abilities when they'd been attacked. The stallion had hit her and then time just seemed to stop. The next thing she knew Covert Confidence was furious for some bizarre reason, and the stallion was getting his plot handed to him on a silver platter.

She now knew several interesting things about the alien. Firstly, it was extremely fast. She'd known this before, but only then had she got just a true idea as to how agile she was. She'd grabbed the pony and in the blink of an eye traveled all the way down the street to its bend and slammed him into the wall. Then she proved her strength by tossing him behind her like a ragdoll, halfway back to where they had started.

She shuddered at the thought of what came next. Covert Confidence had nearly compromised herself when Elizabeth, after producing a shockwave with her raw strength, lifted the poor pony into the air by his neck - no small feat! - and she nearly flew down to help him. But then... she'd gotten so angry. She nearly choked on the hatred that had filled her, playing merry Tartarus with her perceptions. It had made her dizzy and hot, her vision blurry and gray. She wanted to murder somepony. She wanted to grab them and rip their legs out of their sockets, to fly up into the sky and drop them screaming to the earth...

... and then it stopped. Fluttershy and the guards had, luckily, intervened and stopped the alien from murdering the poor pony she'd previously held in her grasp. At the same time, the sensation of choking hatred had stopped, leaving Covert Confidence woozy, up until the point the alien had soared past her, back towards Canterlot Castle. She laid there for a few minutes, panting and gasping, before her senses returned to her and she fled before she could be found, questioned, and undoubtedly connected.

This was not looking good. The alien had infiltrated the highest levels of government and gotten into the good graces of the alicorns, the not-outright-scorned graces of Prince Blueblood, gotten the admiration of the ambassadors of the rest of the allied nations, and the friendship of two of the Elements of Harmony. And if that wasn't bad enough...

... she was fast. She was as tall as an alicorn and faster than anything save perhaps the Element of Loyalty, with surely unmatched agility. She could move a web of tentacles around by touch, expanding and contracting it with seemingly no limits. No telling what that did, but Tin Foil was crazy(crazier) if he thought she was going to touch that to find out. Not for all the cherry donuts and coffee in the world. She had a terrifying amount of physical strength, strength she suspected she'd only seen the very lowest limits of even during the fight, the durability to shrug off an earth pony's buck with hoof spikes, and evidently the regeneration to ignore that if she was stabbed anyway.

And that left the... thing she had done. Covert had no idea what it had been. She'd felt what the alien had felt, that was for certain. Such hatred and anger, all directed at a single point. The alien had, by accident and likely without even knowing, distorted Covert Confidence's vision with her very emotions. She didn't know what she'd been preparing to do. She prayed she never did.

Elizabeth Greene had... well, everything on them. She was strong, fast, and durable. She had no apparent defense against telekinesis, but if that... that thing she'd been preparing didn't interrupt it she'd eat her own feathers. She had powerful, powerful allies.

Just how were they going to deal with her? What could possibly hurt that thing?

Running and Run Ons

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Fluttershy

Fluttershy took a small bite from her dandelion sandwich. It really was a nice sandwich. The bread was light and fluffy, the flowers crunchy and sweet, the lettuce crisp, and a whole number of other delightful things. It was easily one of the best sandwiches she'd ever had. Oh, but don't tell that to any of the other sandwiches.

Still, she hardly even noticed the taste of the sandwich. She was alone in the Princesses' private dining room alone with, well, said Princesses. The tension was thick enough to touch. Not to cut with a knife, though, that wouldn't be nice to the tension.

"So..." Princess Celestia began. Fluttershy cringed, her ears folding back. "Elizabeth Greene."

"Y-Yes, Princess?" she asked timidly.

"We need to talk about what happened yesterday," she said kindly, her and Princess Luna's meals long eaten. "I don't want to wake her up just yet; I want your perspective on what happened."

"Um, I don't know..." she said quietly. "Wouldn't Elizabeth be better to ask? Oh, but it wouldn't be nice to wake her up. Um..."

"Take thy time, Fluttershy," Princess Luna said. "This is most important to understand how we may proceed with the interrogations - "

"Questionings," Princess Celestia corrected.

" - interrogations of her assailant. Fluttershy, please recount to us what happened between Elizabeth Greene and the poor earth pony she sent to the hospital." Her throat clenched. Hospital?

"W-Well, it happened really fast," she stammered, suddenly very interested in her sandwich. "I don't really know what happened."

"Start at the beginning," the Solar Princess said. "Whenever you're ready."

She took a deep breath. What if she left out something important? What if she mistold the story, her memory failing her? Still, her mouth moved and her lips formed the quiet words almost by themselves. "I-It happened really fast. We were walking around the city, um, trying to find someplace to have lunch. Then somepony shouted and... well, we turned around, and this stallion bucked Elizabeth in the stomach!" She shivered. That had been really mean of him. "But, she just got really angry."

She shivered, but continued. "She's really strong. It all happened so fast. She flew down the street with him, then part of the way back, and then..." She choked on her breath. "I became so angry. And it wasn't on my own; she was angry, and it was making everypony else angry. She made me so angry I could barely breathe, I thought I was going blind from it!" She grimaced. "I told her to stop, and she did, and then the guards separated her from the poor stallion she'd almost knocked out."

"Hold, Fluttershy," Princess Luna commanded. "What is this about Greene's anger making thou blind?"

She shivered. "It was... it was as if Discord had corrupted me again, made me hateful, and combined it with what he did with, u-um, Pinkie Pie, hating everything. I was so angry at everypony, and... and all the colors in the world drained away. Everything was gray."

"Elizabeth Greene..." Princess Celestia said with the faintest undertone of anger. "... manipulated you mentally?"

"I-I'm sure she didn't mean to!" she said hastily. "I mean, I think I was feeling what she was thinking. She's done that before, and I don't think she knows she can do it."

"What doest thou mean 'before'?"

"W-Well, sometimes when she's really curious, I get curious. When she's really happy, I get happy, like at the concert. Or when she's really confused about something, I feel confused even though I, uh, know what the thing she's confused about is." She pondered her words momentarily. "N-Not to make her sound stupid or anything!" she added hastily. "I-I doubt I'd do nearly as well in her world. She's learning very fast, all things considered!" she said meekly.

Princess Luna nodded. "The emotional leak Twilight Sparkle told us about," she mused. "Evidently Elizabeth Greene is capable of extremely intense emotions, if transmitting her raw emotions can offset vision." The Princess sighed. "What we have here appears to be a case of self-defense taken to excess. If the reports we hear art true, Greene is in the right, barely. Still, we must make sure she doth not commit murder next time somepony touches her." Princess Luna looked dead straight at Fluttershy. The words sent a chill down her spine. Murder. Murder was excessively rare in Equestria, to the point of not happening once in... well, the last half of her life. She could remember Greene; she'd been ready to do just that. She was ready to murder that pony. To end his life.

She nibbled a little more from her meal, even though the discussion was enough to ruin her appetite. It wasn't that she was angry at Elizabeth. She was just... really scared. After all, hoofspikes were very sharp.

"All the same, after you've spoken with her," Princess Celestia began. "It would do well for you two to leave Canterlot as soon as possible. News gets around quick, and not everypony will learn the whole truth." Her horn flashed, sending a jolt of fear through Fluttershy's stomach. Had she done something wrong? Two slips of paper materialized before Princess Celestia's plate. "I took the courtesy of getting you two train tickets to Ponyville."

She nodded quickly. "Thank you, um, Your Majesty."

"It was no problem, Fluttershy," Princess Celestia said with the wave of a slippered hoof. "I have already sent Twilight a message by magic as for when you two should be arriving, so no worries about nopony being at the train station."

She blushed and squeaked out a 'Thank you'. The Princess really didn't need to go to the trouble. She'd have been happy to do all this herself.

"It would be," Princess Luna began. "In everypony's best interest for thou and Greene to reach Ponyville as soon as possible, out of the immediate spotlight of Canterlot. We shalt handle the investigation, and shalt send for Greene when necessary. Till then, tis best to keep her out of way of doing harm. Hopefully, she shalt stay in Ponyville long enough for us to get a grip on the situation."

Fluttershy nodded. She felt sick, the thoughts of yesterday still playing out in her mind. "Um, Princess...es... do you want me to go talk to her now?" She gently took the tickets and placed them under her left wing.

Princess Celestia nodded. "That would be best, Fluttershy. You may take your breakfast with you, if you want."

She shook her head fervently. "O-Oh, no, I'm not hungry. Really." She gave the alicorns a gentle smile, and they relaxed. She pulled out of her seat. "Um, thanks for breakfast. Please tell the cooks that the sandwich was really good. I-If that's alright with you, Princesses."

Princess Luna nodded. "We shalt do so, gentle Fluttershy. Now, best be on thy way. Thou has a train to catch."

With one last, timid nod, she slipped out of the halls, not daring to meet any of the guards in the eye as she passed them in the halls. As she closed in on Twilight's old room and, by extension, Elizabeth, a few of the servants gave her greetings. She tried to return them, she really did, but what could she say?

The door opened, and warm dry air assaulted Fluttershy's nostrils, making her wrinkle her snout. She softly closed the door behind her and trotted over to the sleeping figure in the corner...

... then again, should she? How much time did they have before the train left? She manipulated her wings and the adhesive magic in her hooves until she could look at the tickets directly. Friendship Express, first class (Oh, she'd have to thank the Princesses when she saw them again. She felt so bad for not thanking them for that in particular) at... 11:30. What time was it now?

She looked at the clock Twilight had on a table littered with papers. 11:20.

"Eep!" she squeaked, placing the tickets back under her wings and rushing over to Elizabeth. She was in the same spot she'd fallen asleep yesterday in her typical knees up, head down, hands under position on the ground. Red and white tendrils had crawled over her form, so Fluttershy couldn't see anything besides her closed eyes, twitching underneath their lids frantically. She tentatively approached the sleeping Evolved.

"Um, Elizabeth?" she asked softly. She was certain she'd have to try again to wake her up; she did often have to speak up with others, even when they weren't sound asleep. But her eyes snapped open with a suddenness that made Fluttershy rear onto her hind legs with a surprised whinny and then fall ungracefully onto her back.

Elizabeth Greene took a deep breath, and by the time Fluttershy had gotten back on her hooves, she was on both feet, web of tendrils gone. "Yes?" she asked sharply.

"Um, Elizabeth, it's time to, um, go to Ponyville."

Unease flooded her as Greene spoke. "How soon?"

She blushed. "Well, in ten minutes. Less. A-And it's a long trip to the station, so we need to hurry. I'll even need to..." She gulped. "Fly," she said weakly.

Elizabeth was silent for a while. Her fingers flexed, her eyes narrowed, then widened, and she smiled ever so slightly. The aura of wariness didn't abate. "Idea. Hold on to me. Will make trip fast."

The vision of a broken pony on the ground flashed through her mind. Greene's face, contorted with unfathomable hatred, ready to take a life. "Are you sure? I'll be touching you," she asked warily, not quite meeting Elizabeth's eyes.

A flash of red and white tendrils. "Will manage," she said haltingly. She turned to the tower's balcony. "Come. Go to Ponyville," she rasped. Nodding, Fluttershy followed. Outside, the wind was sharp and crisp, carrying the smell of the city below up to the castle. It was slightly moist as well, the benefits of being on the good end of the mountain's rain shadow. She felt, well, bad for the bad side of the rain shadow, but it helped to know that the pegasi kept it from drying out too much. Above, the sun poked through a partial cloud cover, casting drifting, nebulous shadows on the earth below.

Elizabeth sat, back to her. "Climb on." Fluttershy did, placing her forelegs around Elizabeth's neck and her back legs around her waist. She winced; Elizabeth really was very hot to the touch. She squeaked in fear when she felt the familiar tendrils crawling over her form, just as hot and also pulsing with Elizabeth's heartbeat. They tightened against her, pinning her to Greene so she couldn't let go if she wanted to. Her wings were left free, though tendrils crawled under them and kept the tickets pinned.

"Um, Elizabeth?" she asked nervously as the Evolved began to approach the ledge. "A-Are you really sure about this?" she asked, trembling peacefully. Not violently. Who would tremble violently?

"Can cover your eyes if you want," she said. She never would have guessed Elizabeth just woke up from a day-long nap.

"O-Oh, would you please? If you want to, of course." Tendrils began closing in on her face, and Fluttershy closed her eyes as they sealed over her lids, rendering her blind. Good. Now she didn't have to see what Elizabeth was about to do. Only hear... and, and feel.

"Going," she said. And then Fluttershy's world turned upside down.

If she had to guess, she'd guess that Elizabeth had flipped over the balcony, grabbed it with one hand and flung herself at the tower's, well, tower. The scraping sound, along with the fact that they weren't falling as fast as she'd expected, would have led Fluttershy to believe Elizabeth was sliding down the tower, using her feet for friction.

Or she would've, were she not busy screaming.

There was a jolt, and then she felt her mane and tail flopping through the air as Elizabeth did a flip. She screamed, but then Elizabeth spoke, her echoes piercing the winds whipping around them like a knife. "Quiet!" she hissed. Fluttershy tried to clamp her mouth shut, but the screams building inside of her wanted out, and she could only fall weightlessly for so many times before the jolts at their ends made her scream again. In response, Elizabeth moved the red and white tendrils some more, until they covered her mouth to muffle her terrified screams.

It was a good thing she'd not eaten much.

After an indeterminate length of time, Elizabeth Greene's wild and haphazard movement stopped. She didn't slow down, though; if anything, settling into what Fluttershy guessed was a dead sprint only made her go faster. She buried her snout into Greene's neck, using her body to shield herself from the worst of the winds so she could still hyperventilate through her nostrils. She'd known it would be bad, but this bad?

Her stomach lurched when Elizabeth leaped up, presumably onto a roof, and continued her sprint. Then again when she dropped back to street level, jarring her bones. But what could she do? She'd agreed to this, and besides, they were late. Probably because she'd taken so long getting back to Elizabeth after her late breakfast. The Princess probably had given her plenty of time and she'd squandered it.

After several long, long minutes of the wind whipping through her fur, muffled screams of panic and several moments of nearly throwing up her small breakfast, began Elizabeth to slow down. Fluttershy could hear ponies talking around her, and she wanted to hide because she knew they were talking about them. At length, Elizabeth stopped, and her tendrils retracted, lowering Fluttershy to the ground. She gasped and panted fearfully for several long moments, her coat matted with sweat, before Elizabeth knelt next to her.

"Train?" she asked, the aura of unease still there.

Fluttershy got to her hooves unsteadily. It was deadly silent around her. There was the Friendship Express. Oh dear, what time was it? She spun around, searching. She found being handled by an earth pony, holding it between his hooves and polishing its glass cover. 11:23.

It took them three minutes to get there. It had felt like longer, though, hadn't it?

Still, seven minutes really wasn't a lot of time, was it? She found her way, wobbling, onto the train, Elizabeth following after her like a lost puppy (Oh, but don't tell anypony she'd thought that!) as she presented the tickets to the train operator near the First Class seats.

"Alright," he said, hoofing them back to her. "Right this way, miss Fluttershy," he said, stepping to the side and opening the path to the First Class cabin. He eyed Elizabeth. "Would you like any help finding your way around?"

"Oh no," she said. "Thank you, um, for the offer. B-But I don't want to trouble you."

He shrugged. "It's no trouble at all, miss, but if you insist." He nodded in at the train, gesturing for them to go on. He shot Elizabeth one more glare as she trotted past into the interior. The inside really was very nice. Red velvet seats, carpeted floor that was nice on her hooves, and they were the only ones there today. Oh, a wall clock above the door forward to the next cabin so she could know how much time before they'd arrive. The tickets had said 3:00, so now she could keep an eye on it. Yay.

She sat on one of the seats, placed her saddlebags into a compartment, and oh, they'd already prepared lunch for her! She was rather hungry after her meager breakfast, and it wouldn't be nice to let the food go to waste. Oh, but what if Elizabeth was hungry?

She glanced at the Evolved, who'd taken the seat across the aisle, leaning against the window and looking out at the countryside. Motionless.

It wasn't as if Elizabeth could eat an omelet anyway, not with the daffodils and alfalfa seasoning.

After a few more minutes, the train started up, and they were on their way, headed to Ponyville. Fluttershy was really excited to see her friends again and introduce them to Elizabeth. She wasn't quite sure of how she'd get along with them, though. The image of her face screwed up in fury, or in pain as she vomited up blood, were still fresh in her mind.

They'd cross that bridge when they got to it. At the moment, though, Fluttershy could see faces outside of her window, and she, suddenly realizing this, blushed fiercely and pulled the inside curtain over to hide from them. Only when she was sure, after about a half an hour of her and Elizabeth sitting in awkward silence, that they had left Canterlot did she pull back the curtains to gaze outside at the countryside of Equestria rolling past.

She could hardly wait to see her animal friends again. Even if it had been only, what? Three, four days? Even then, she missed them. She hoped Angel Bunny hadn't given Spike too much trouble.

"Why did you stop me?" Elizabeth asked suddenly, startling her.

She wheeled around on her seat, choking on the piece of omelet before swallowing it down the right pipe. "E-Excuse me?" she sputtered between coughs.

"Why did you stop me?" Elizabeth repeated, echoes low and nearly inaudible. She hadn't shifted from her position; her arms were still crossed, and she still leaned against the window, eyes lazily looking out of it. She hadn't extended that mesh from herself, which was odd and a little worrying.

"Stop you from what?" Fluttershy asked. "I-I'm sorry, I really am, but I don't know what you're talking about."

"Pony yesterday," she said. "Why did you stop me? Should have killed him."

Ooooh. "Elizabeth, killing anypony is wrong, regardless of what they do to you."

She turned over, frowning at her. Fluttershy shuffled backwards under the intense, predatory glare fixed her way. Had she said something wrong? She'd said something wrong, hadn't she? "Deserved to kill," she rasped hotly, echoes growing ever so slightly in intensity. Unease, anger, and worry began nipping at the back of Fluttershy's mind. "Wanted to hurt me."

"That doesn't make it right," Fluttershy said, her voice soft but not stuttering. The seriousness of what they were discussing gave her some small measure of almost-confidence. "Everypony has ponies they care about, Elizabeth. What about his parents? Siblings, if he has any?"

"Not important," she hissed. "Parents should have taught to listen. Not to hurt." She shook her head. "Broken broken broken," she whispered, seemingly to herself. "Can't bless," she mused. "By the time I can, easily make many others unable to be blessed, hurt. Should've killed."

"Elizabeth, this is a pony you're talking about!"

"Yes, I know," she said. "Point?"

"You can't just talk about ponies' lives like they're numbers. We're more than that."

"Each more," she agreed. "If they conflict, then numbers."

"No, Elizabeth," Fluttershy said. "They're never just numbers. Not even when you have to pick."

"You're wrong!" Elizabeth shouted, anger and how-dare-she-think-she-understands washing over her with almost physical force, making Fluttershy lean back in her seat with a startled neigh. "Wrong wrong wrong! Loved ones conflict, have to pick larger good! Have to look at numbers!" She quieted down, seeming to draw into herself much like Fluttershy herself often did. "I had to pick," she whispered. "I had to pick. One hurting, or the many he hurt."

"Um, i-if you don't mind me asking," Fluttershy squeaked from the window she had backed up into when Elizabeth began shouting. "W-Who are you talking about?"

Her eyes turned downward, voice sorrowful and low, which was only emphasized by the repeats and the fact that her emotional leakage turned to misery, bringing tears to Fluttershy's eyes. "My son. My poor poor poor wayward child." Her hands clenched into fists, turning even whiter than before under the pressure. "The things he did... oh the Similars had truly broken him." She blinked, holding her eyes closed for a few seconds before opening them back up. "He killed my other children." Fluttershy gasped, drawing her hooves to her mouth. Her son... what?! "Killed them by the dozens. No sorrow. No mercy. Broke them, cursed them, devoured them for the strength to continue killing." They both shivered. Her wayward child, whoever he was... he sounded like a complete monster. Who kills children? Their siblings? Eats them?

"Oh," she whispered. "T-That's horrible."

"Had to pick. Him or my other children. Picked others." Elizabeth traced a finger over her window, which squeaked as it left behind a blood-colored slime.

"You could have tried to help him."

"I did try!" she shouted. "I tried and talked to him but he wouldn't-couldn't listen and whenever we met face to face he wouldn't listen either! And..." She choked on her next words. She bowed her head and began to fiddle with her fingers. "Partly my fault. Similars drove him mad but... came to me. Didn't know me." She sighed. "Ruined it. Blew my first impression. Oh my son..."

"Um, Elizabeth, if you don't mind me asking, what did you do?" Fluttershy asked nervously.

She closed her eyes. "Hit him. Came to me, didn't realize it was him at first. Thought he was the Similar that had cursed him, they looked so alike! Attacked him, tried to kill him, avenge him. First hit, touched him, and I saw the truth. He wanted answers, so I gave him what I could, but even that hurt him oh I'm so so so sorry..." she trailed off.

She shook her head and got back to it. "Made myself his enemy. Didn't mean to. Should have stayed with him, apologized, explained, but the time for waiting was finally over! I had so many things to do!" She shook her head. "Not more important than him."

Fluttershy sighed as the emotional aura finally let up, letting her focus on the gentle rattling of the train again. "Elizabeth, you made a mistake. And even if you're right about being forced to choose between one and many, that still is no reason to have tried to, to - " The word tasted like ashes in her mouth. The very idea made her want to hide under a table more than usual. " - murder that pony. There are other ways to defend yourself. You could've just, um, held him down, or something."

"Only way to be sure," she rasped. "Only one way to make sure he'd never hurt hurt hurt me again."

"Um, Elizabeth? That's not, um, that's not true. There's always another way. There's always, always a better way than killing somepony."

"Like?" she hissed.

"You could, um..." She hesitated. This really wasn't a comfortable topic for her, but she could tell it bothered Elizabeth a lot. Meanwhile, the train went forward, uncaring of their hopefully-not-an-argument. "You could've, um, just scared him off. Or, you know, tied him up with those tendrils."

"Not permanent," she said.

"It doesn't have to be, Elizabeth," she stressed. "You don't need to hurt anypony to get your point across. Use your words."

"Like he did?" she hissed, eyes narrowing.

"Elizabeth, you need to be the bigger pon - err, Evolved. Just because somepony sinks to those levels doesn't mean you have to."

"Implies killing's bad," she pointed out.

"It is bad, Elizabeth," Fluttershy said. Oh, how was she going to do this? It was clear that the views on killing were so very different on Elizabeth Greene's home world. "When you're d-d-dead, you can't ever hope to improve yourself. If somepony's bad, they can still redeem themselves." She gazed out her window, trying to find Canterlot. "No matter what they've done in the past," she whispered, suspecting Elizabeth would hear her. She turned back to the Evolved. "If you kill them, you remove any hope of them getting better."

"Or any risk of them getting worse," she said simply, like she'd been waiting to say that.

Fluttershy sighed, resisting the urge to rub her temples. After all, that would be rude, even if Elizabeth probably wouldn't understand the gesture. "But what if they would get better?"

"What if they would get worse? Could get better, could get worse, could stay bad. Two to one." she countered easily.

She suppressed a frustrated groan. Greene was more stubborn than Angel Bunny! At least he often conceded a point to her. Elizabeth wasn't budging, and what was worse that she, by some twisted, horrible logic, made some sense. But Fluttershy knew the Princesses would be disappointed in her if she didn't get Elizabeth to agree not to kill anypony. They didn't have to tell her that, she knew that's what they'd expect. Probably. But if it wasn't... oh dear. Maybe she should just stop?

... but they'd started this, and Elizabeth didn't strike her as the kind to let a topic go easily. She had one more thing she could think to use in her convincing. The Golden Rule.

"Elizabeth, how would you like it if somepony killed you for doing what they thought was wrong, without giving you a second chance?"

Elizabeth froze. She held her awkward position for one second, two seconds. Then she brought her feet up onto her seat and wrapped her arms around her knees, shivering violently. She closed her eyes, as if she was seeing something she didn't want to see. Maybe she was. Oh no, had she brought up the 'emotional trauma' Twilight said she had?

"U-Um, Elizabeth?" she said nervously. "I'm sorry. Whatever I said was wrong - "

"Quiet," she hissed, not moving anything but her mouth. "Please, don't talk."

"Okay," she whispered, looking away from the troubled Evolved. The rest of the trip passed in a tense silence. Once or twice a waiter or waitress came to ask if they wanted anything to eat or drink. Fluttershy politely turned them down each time, profusely thanking them for the offer, while Elizabeth was still catatonic, though she occasionally gave off waves of fear and horror and don't-want-to-go-back that made Fluttershy feel ever so sorry for upsetting her, but she worried she'd upset the alien more if she tried to apologize.

At length, the train began to slow as they approached Ponyville. Fluttershy tried once more to try and talk to Elizabeth.

"Look, Elizabeth, I'm really sorry. I said something that bothered you. I'm sorry."

For a moment she didn't respond. Then, "Had worse." The echoes were sad yet powerful, filling up the cabin. "Your beliefs, my beliefs." She shuffled, sitting in what Fluttershy assumed was normal for her species, looking her straight in the eye. "Will defend myself. Will protect myself and my blessing. But..." She sighed dejectedly. "Will try not to kill. Try your method." Elizabeth shivered. "Old methods didn't work, no no no, not at all."

Fluttershy smiled. "Thank you, Elizabeth. I can only ask you to try. It's all anypony can ask you to do."

"Try," she mused, looking up at the ceiling.

A moment later, somepony came through the curtain at the front of their cabin. "Excuse me Miss Fluttershy, Miss Greene, we're arriving at Ponyville. Please prepare yourselves for departure."

"O-Oh," she said, cowering under the kind look of this mare. "Thanks for the warning. Really, thank you."

She smiled, but it turned forced when she glanced at Elizabeth. Fluttershy really couldn't blame her. Elizabeth was scary. Oh, but she was really nice too! She turned her mesh into a blanket for her at the concert. "Just doing my job, miss," she said before vanishing.

Fluttershy got out of her seat and pulled her saddlebags out, putting them on her back. Elizabeth pulled in the red slime she'd left on the windows and, with a gentle push, soared out into the aisle and onto her feet, leaning against the rows of seats with an almost bored ease. It was the gentle waves of apprehension that gave her feelings away. "Follow you," she rasped.

Fluttershy nodded nervously. Oh, she hoped there weren't too many ponies outside. How many ponies were on the train today? Oh, she knew she should've checked. She hesitated, stepping out. There were a lot of ponies out there, clamouring with each other. Not many, given that Ponyville was a rather small town, but more than enough. One or two unicorns levitated signs into the air. 'Buttercream'. 'Heartstrings'.

She was just beginning to panic when Elizabeth arrived next to her. "Don't worry," she said, reading her thoughts. "Go. Protect my friends."

All eyes turned to them when they left the train, forcing Fluttershy to keep her head down. "Stop staring!" Greene hissed. "Stop stop stop!"

They did so.

Fluttershy spotted Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie standing off to the side of the main 'crowd', looking intently at her and Greene. Elizabeth was looking just as intently at them, and Fluttershy felt like she was sizing them up. In a flash, Elizabeth crossed the distance to them and, in a voice that cut through the background chatter, asked one word. "Elements?"

Fluttershy galloped up to them. Rarity was looking up and down Elizabeth, taking her in. Pinkie Pie was quite literally vibrating, though her gaze seemed to be focused... somewhere. Applejack's neck was craned back, her jaw open.

"Holy smokes," she whispered, apparently in awe.

Fluttershy trotted next to the Evolved. "Girls, I'd like you to, um, meet my new friend, Elizabeth Greene," she said, gesturing up at her with a hoof. "If you want to meet her, of course."

Applejack gulped, fixing her hat with a hoof. "Howdy there, Miss Greene. Please to meet, ah, your acquaintance."

"Elements?" she repeated insistently.

"Ah, I suppose. I suppose I'm the Element of Honesty." Applejack nodded towards Fluttershy. "Ya've already met Fluttershy and Twilight."

"Have met," she said.

"Well, then let me be the first to welcome ya to Ponyville, Elizabeth." Applejack drew herself up in a show of bravado, despite the minor apprehension washing out from Elizabeth Greene. She held out a hoof, and after a moment of hesitation, Elizabeth shook it. Applejack grimaced during the hoof/handshake, but toughed it out and placed her foreleg back onto the ground when she was done. "When you got a moment, see if you wanna head on over ta Sweet Apple Acres - "

"Apple?" she asked.

"Err, yeah." She said. "Ma family owns the best apple farm in Equestria."

"Don't eat apples," she rasped. "Not edible to me."

Applejack's ears flattened. "Oh," she said. "That's right, Twilight mentioned to me ya'll were a, err, carnivore." Rarity and Applejack shared a glance. At the mention of Elizabeth's diet, a pulse of fear made Fluttershy whimper. It wasn't like she was unused to dealing with carnivores, but instinct was a powerful thing.

"Eat flesh, yes," Elizabeth confirmed.

"Um, girls, if you don't mind me asking, please don't mind," Fluttershy began. "Where is Twilight? And, um, Rainbow?"

Rarity shrugged. "Oh darling, you know how she can be. She got back from Canterlot and locked herself in her library, researching about something about 'Nosokinesis' and 'Liquefied movement of flesh outside of one's body'. We've only heard of her when she sent Spike to get groceries."

She frowned, looking down. "Oh dear, I do hope she's okay."

"Oh don't worry, sugarcube. It ain't like this is the first time Twilight's gone on a study-spree. As for Rainbow, she's got a shift right now, so she might drop by later."

"A-Alright," Fluttereshy said.

There was a large intake of breath, prompting Elizabeth to whirl around with a surprised gasp, coming face to face with Pinkie Pie.

Somehow, somewhen, Pinkie had acquired stilts.

"Are you the alien?" she asked simply.

Elizabeth blinked, and took a step back. Pinkie, controlling the stilts like they were part of her, stepped forward. "... yes?" Elizabeth said.

Pinkie took in a deep breath. "Oh my gosh I never thought I'd ever meet a real live alien I mean I've met a Princess a corrupted Princess that same Princess uncorrupted ooh ooh and another Princess that wasn't really the Princess and another that was her and a griffon and a showmare and five of the Elements of Harmony oh but that's not really a big surprise cause I'm one myself so I guess I'd have met all six but can you really ever say you met yourself cause you're yourself or maybe you can huh I've never really thought of that have you ever met yourself Elizabeth? Ooh, ooh, can I call you Lizzy? I think that's a great nickname and I should know I call myself Pinkie and Dashie Dashie..."

Fluttershy shuffled her hooves. She knew Pinkie Pie could be a bit... much whenever you first met her. She really hoped Elizabeth didn't get angry at her for invading her space. Though judging by the look on her face (Assuming it meant the same thing on a pony as an Evolved) the reactions to Pinkie Pie were universal.

"... So I think I can call you Lizzy unless you have any problem in which case just say so! Ooh, ooh, say, you're an alien right? That means you must have all sorts of neat-o sciencey stuff like Twilight does do you have neat-o sciencey stuff like Twilight does you must I mean just look at your suit it's all future-ey and stuff cause it's gray and got all those straps and tubes on it do you have a shrink ray or a materializer-er-er-er oh I can just think of all the party tricks you could come up with those things ooh ooh ooh! Or pranks! I could shrink somepony down to itty-bitty-foal size and... hmm! Oh, oh! I could shrink myself and pretend to be in Cheerilee's class! I could play all SORTS of pranks with the foals there and..."

Elizabeth just blinked. Fluttershy was really getting worried. Pinkie hadn't stopped for breath yet, and while that was par for the course, it really did worry her she'd hurt herself one day. Until she reminded herself that this was Pinkie Pie, so there was no danger.

"... that's not even to get started on what I could do with all the construction ponies by crawling under their hardhats oh but I'm such a silly filly we're not talking about pranks we're talking about how you're new in Ponyville and even though Twilight told us you were only passing through Ponyville before visiting Cloudsdale that's as good as an excuse as any to introduce you to everypony and I mean everypony because I'm friends with ever-y-pony in town and the last two times somepony that wasn't a pony came to Ponyville it really didn't go all that well I mean Gilda was a big meany-pants and I was really wrong about Zecora but that's no excuse..."

Rarity and Applejack's eyes were both starting to get lidded. To be honest, Fluttershy herself was getting hypnotized by the ongoing sentences. The pink mare was literally vibrating in her stilts, while Elizabeth blinked in an owlish, adorable way.

"... so now you get to be invited to your 'Welcome to Ponyville miss alien-from-another-planet' party though maybe I should change the title I mean alien kinda means from another planet unless you're talking about immigrants so maybe I should keep it, oh and don't worry about not being able to eat anything I did prepare a party for Gilda and I looked up afterwards what kinda things carnivores like to eat at parties so you'll be a-okay and I'm not telling you when the party's coming so it'll be a surprise but you know it's coming so it's a kinda-surprise, so just look out for that, I mean Twilight told me you got all jumpy when you were surprised." Pinkie finally, finally took a breath, a deep gasp of air that seemed to empty the atmosphere, but it seemed to be more from surprise than anything else. "I NEED TO GO PREPARE THE KINDA-SURPRISE WELCOME PARTY!" she shouted.

With stilts still attached, Pinkie Pie bounced out of the station.

The three of them turned to Elizabeth. Several other ponies that had watched the spectacle and knew Pinkie Pie also watched, eager to see what the alien's reaction was.

Elizabeth blinked. She opened her mouth, held it open for a moment, and closed it. She opened it again, narrowed her eyes, closed it again.

She blinked for the second time.

She opened her mouth and took a breath to talk, but then frowned and let it out, closing her mouth for the third time. Finally, she seemed to make up her mind.

"I don't understand," she rasped.

Rarity sighed. "Yes, Pinkie Pie can be very... intense. Did you grasp what she meant at the end?"

"... something about a surprise," Elizabeth said after a lengthy pause.

Rarity giggled lightly. "Yes, well, Pinkie's special talent is to throw parties, so she'll likely throw you a surprise party some time very soon. Don't be too startled when it inevitably happens, dear. We all had to go to one, and so will you. Don't worry, they're quite fun."

"Fun," Elizabeth said simply.

"Mmhmm. With that said, darling." Rarity wrinkled her nose. "You simply must stop by my store, the Carousel Boutique, so I can help you with your... interesting choice of fashion. I don't know what customs are like back home for you, but you are simply not a neutral color!"

Applejack scoffed. "Just try not to frou-frou her up too much, Rares."

"Why, perish the thought!" she said, holding a foreleg up to her chest. Rarity turned to Fluttershy. The latter instantly felt apprehensive. Oh dear, had she forgotten something? "Fluttershy, are we still on for our spa date tomorrow?"

She nodded hurriedly. "O-Oh, of course, Rarity! I wouldn't miss it for the world." She looked at Greene. "Maybe Elizabeth could join us? I don't think she's ever had the chance to go to a spa," she said, keeping what she suspected of the 'cold dark place' to herself for the time being. It really wouldn't be nice to talk about that without Elizabeth's permission, would it?

"May try," she rasped, shifting her weight side to side.

Rarity smiled. "Excellent! I'll see you in my Boutique, hopefully sooner rather than later, no?" she said, winking mischievously at Elizabeth. With that complete, Rarity turned around. "Now you simply must excuse me. I left Sweetie and her friends at my home, and we're approaching the first quartile time it usually takes for them to destroy something."

"Goodbye," Elizabeth said, apparently understanding 'first quartile'. Rarity trotted out of the train station.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Mind explaining what 'first quartile' means? Don't know as much fancy math as Twilight or, apparently, you do."

"First quartile, probability," she rasped. "Below median. Below first quartile are one fourth of samples in a set, above are three quarters. Lower estimate."

"How do you know that, Elizabeth? If you don't mind me asking, that is."

She frowned, placing a head to her forehead. Then she winced, lowering her hand. "Don't remember."

Applejack raised the other eyebrow, and Fluttershy blinked. "Sweetie Bell, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom have wrecked Rarity's home so much she has the time it takes them ta do so down to a science? Oh, I am gonna have some stern words with that filly!" she said, stomping off, ears flat in anger.

Fluttershy wilted under the awkward silence. "So..."

"Pinkie Pie, Rarity, someone named Rainbow are Elements?" she asked, the crowd around them moving on now that the life of the party had bounced away.

"O-Oh yes," Fluttershy said hurriedly. "Pinkie's the Element of Laughter, Rarity's the Element of Generosity - "

" - Leaves Rainbow as Element of Loyalty," she mused. "Interesting."

Fluttershy smiled. "Yeah, I, um, guess that's us." She smiled. "If you want, we can go to my cottage? I can introduce you to Angel Bunny. You two would get along so well, I think." Fluttershy paused. Hold on. If Twilight was on another study-spree, and Spike was helping her...

... who was watching her animals?

She gasped. "Oh no!"

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Greene

Ponyville was very very very different from Canterlot, Elizabeth decided.

For starters, there was a forest, its leaves browning and reddening and fa-a-aling down before her eyes. It was a very deep forest, from the looks of it, and she could've sworn she saw a flash of blue inside of it as she followed Fluttershy.

Second, it was much smaller than Canterlot, even the individual buildings were smaller, and of slightly different design. It wasn't built into the side of a mountain. It had no castle. Though she could still see both in the distance.

And lastly, where in Canterlot most of the equines had been unicorns, here even the few dozen equines she saw in the crowd off the train had been mostly earth ponies. She'd get a lot of earth pony essence here, of that she was sure.

Of course, her friend hadn't wanted to cut straight through Ponyville, even if she was in what Greene decided was a 'hurry'. Instead, they had cut around the town, heading towards a little house close to the forest. Fluttershy's Home?

"Worried. Why?" she asked.

"O-Oh, it's just, when I was in Canterlot with you, um, I had Spike taking care of all my animal friends. But now, uh, um, he's tied up with Twilight researching... something, so I don't know who's been taking care of them!" Fluttershy shuffled her hooves, but tried to keep moving, resulting in her tripping and faceplanting on the soil. She got back up. "S-Sorry for that," she muttered.

"Not fault, no offense." Elizabeth tilted her head. "Animal friends?"

"O-Oh yes," she said, continuing her hurried walk. "I take care of animals. Food, water, shelter. If they're injured I do my best to help them out, but..." She lowered her ears and head, slowing down briefly. "I'm no licensed vet."

She had no idea what a licensed vet was. "Animal talent," she rasped. "Sure you do fine."

"Eep! Um, t-thank you, Elizabeth. Oh, I really do hope they won't be too mad at me." They continued on.

She still wasn't entirely sure about the Elements being only able to be used by the good, but like the sun and moon being strange strange strange for some reason that she just didn't know, she was just going to have to accept it and move on. She had trouble remembering who went with what Element, though. She knew Fluttershy was Kindness and Twilight Sparkle was Magic, and she felt Applejack was... Generosity? No, no. Honesty. She kept losing track! She should know it, it wasn't that hard! Six things! Six six six!

Fluttershy rushed towards her home, Elizabeth following after her at a mild walk. Greene noticed just how many animals were around. Small furry things, small feathery things, a bear, many of which she felt she should've recognized but didn't. They ran around, chasing each other, but as she approached every last one of them stopped to stare and, in more than one occasion, ran off to hide. She frowned. They were scared of her. That made her sad sad sad.

The Kindness Element hurried into her home and began rapidly chatter-braying to the animals, all of which seemed to Listen to her. She manipulated several large bags filled with what smelled vaguely like food. Over the course of the next few minutes, Elizabeth watched silently as Fluttershy ran in and out of her house (Filled with bird cages and birds, among other things). She was acutely aware of every animal staring at her, but she was even more aware of how uncomfortably humid it was, making her skin tingle.

She groaned and flexed her fingers stiffly. Then she noticed there was something white that stuck out among the rest of the animals, and it was looking right at her. It was extremely small, though she couldn't quite place what type of animal it was, and trying caused sinking drowning choking. Long ears, beady eyes, it leaped to a nearby table as Fluttershy ran outside with some kind of seeds and it glared at her.

She looked back at the creature.

The creature tapped its foot, then pointed out the door. She tilted her head curiously. What was it gesturing for? "Can you speak?" she asked it. Why not?

It shook its head, and pointed insistently at the door. She frowned. She didn't understand.

The rabbit brought a paw up to its face, smacking itself. Then it took two fingers, and pointed at its eyes. Then it pointed at Greene. She still didn't understand.

Fluttershy came back in and brushed past her. She paused, then turned back to Elizabeth. "O-Oh, Elizabeth, this is Angel Bunny." She gestured to the creature. "He's my, um, pet rabbit." The rabbit crossed his arms and nodded. "Angel Bunny, this is Elizabeth Greene." She gestured to Elizabeth. "You two play nice, I have to get Mr. Bear's fish ready." With a surprising amount of speed, Fluttershy bolted off, returning a moment later with a scaly wet wet wet thing under a wing. She left the building again.

The other animals conspicuously hid in little homes, watching as Elizabeth and 'Angel Bunny' stared at each other. Elizabeth got the feeling the animal didn't like her. That was fine. It was just an animal.

She decided to look around; she doubted Fluttershy would mind. She went around, up stairs, down stairs, through doorways. She shivered as she entered a small room with what her memories said looked kind of like a toilet, and a shower. A sink. She shivered; she got the impression she really wouldn't like the sink. She backed out, closed the door, and turned to find Angel Bunny still watching her, tapping a foot from the floor. She leaned against a wall, curious as to what would happen, and extended a small splatter of tendrils from her, putting her shivers at ease.

The rabbit's eyes went wide and it bolted. She heard the door opening and closing.

That was odd odd odd. She pulled the warmth back and headed after the creature, to find it on Fluttershy's back, gesturing wildly at the pegasus as she walked inside. "Now Angel," she said, craning her head around and somehow understand the animal's wild gestures. "Elizabeth's a friend. Like Rainbow Dash."

"Thought name Angel Bunny," she asked. "Abbreviation?"

Fluttershy yelped in surprise, taking off a few feet into the air before hovering back to the ground. The white animal was, as a result, flung into a wall. "E-Elizabeth! You startled me."

Elizabeth Greene frowned, stepping back and looking down. "Didn't mean."

"I-It's okay," Fluttershy said, still breathing deeply. Her one visible eye went wide. "Angel!" she rushed over to the animal's side. "Angel are you okay?" The rabbit swatted her nose, then held its head. She breathed out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank goodness. I am so so so sorry, Angel! I promise, first thing after I'm done getting the otters' meals ready I'm going to the market for some of your favorite carrots. Carrot Top's specialty."

The creature pushed her snout away again, closed its eyes, and its breathing evened out. "Okay Angel, you just get some rest." Rest? Had it been concussed?

Fluttershy scooped up the white creature and, still followed and under Elizabeth's gaze, moved it to a little bed with all sorts of cloth filling it. After fretting over him for a few minutes, she turned back to Elizabeth.

"Won't distract," Elizabeth said hastily. "Go to forest, hunt while you're doing this."

"Oh Elizabeth," Fluttershy said, approaching Elizabeth and gently touching her ankle. She stiffened, but reluctantly allowed the contact. She could trust this equine if none other. "You're not distract - the Everfree Forest?!" she suddenly squeaked.

"Forest name Everfree?" she asked.

"Y-Yes," Fluttershy said, a faint blush showing through her fur. At having been loud when saying the forest's name? Odd odd odd. "Elizabeth, I don't know if it's a good idea to go in there. There's a lot of dangerous animals in there. Timberwolves, manticores, cockatrices, just to name a few!"

"Can't be more dangerous than me," she rasped, stepping back from Fluttershy's touch. "Hunt. Eat." As if to punu... punctu... help her point, her stomach growled.

Fluttershy nodded. "A-Alright, Elizabeth. Just, um, a few things. First off, well, I can't think of many things that could really hurt you, cause you, um, you know, if it's okay for me to say - "

"Heal," Elizabeth said.

"Yes, um, that," she said, looking down and pawing at the floor. "But, there are a few things you need to look out for. First of all, if you see any bright blue, um, flowers? Don't touch them."

"Flowers?" she asked, unimpressed by the supposed dangers of the forest. Then again, these equines were like brittle tanks compared to her.

"Yes, those bright blue ones are called Poison Joke. They're magical. If you touch them, they do..." Fluttershy shivered. "... unpleasant things. Trust me, it's happened to me before. Just don't touch Poison Joke."

"Won't," she rasped. She wasn't keen to play around with magic. That stuff still made her uneasy. "Other dangers?" she asked.

"Well, you really should watch out for the cockatrice."

"Cocka... cockatr..." she attempted, tilting her head back.

"It's a chicken with the body of a dragon," she said. "Kinda like the ones you saw outside my cottage, but scalier and, um, less friendly."

"Dangerous how?" Elizabeth asked skeptically, tilting her head.

"If it makes eye contact with you," Fluttershy said with a tremor in her voice. "You'll turn to stone."

She sucked in a breath. Turned to stone. There wasn't anything she could do about that, was there? If she were stone, she wouldn't heal; rocks don't heal when broken. She couldn't spread her Blessing. It wouldn't save her, either. It couldn't save her from her Wayward Child's Curse, which had overcome her gift's defenses without a moment's pause. Why would it be able to protect her from the same effect that had defeated a creature as powerful as Discord?

"Eye contact needed?" she asked weakly.

"Um, y-yes."

She nodded. "Listen for stone-chickens. Close eyes if needed. Hunt by smell and sound." She placed a hand onto her stomach, then removed it. "Hungry. Need to hunt. Will come back later."

"O-Okay, Elizabeth," Fluttershy said quietly. "Just, um, if I'm not here when you get back..."

"Can wait," she rasped. "Patient."

"Alright, be careful," she said.

Without further word, Elizabeth left her cottage, a small smile gracing her lips as she exited the humid air. In two leaps, she crossed the distance to the forest, sailing over the babbling gurgling babbling river that ran past the yellow pegasus's Home. In a single step, Elizabeth Greene entered the Everfree Forest.

It was very dark and the trees matched that, which she liked. Helped to block the bright light of the sun somewhere above. She walked through the forest, snapping tree roots as she passed them and sending smaller animals scurrying. She didn't go straight in, no no no, she went back and forth and forth and back, to cover the most area. Her nose was assaulted by a barrage of scents. Plants, animals, mostly small prey-things that wouldn't amount to much. No, if what Fluttershy said was true, there were larger animals here. She intended to hunt one and eat one. Be full for the first time since she'd been Cursed.

She dug her hands in the thick bark of a tree and hoisted herself up. She didn't have a quiet gait, and after about an hour of stomping around searching for something to eat, she decided a new plan was needed. Now in the trees, she leaped from branch to branch, searching for something to eat.

She froze on her newest tree. She waited a moment, listening to the buzzing, chirping, growling, and rustling around her. She dug her right hand into the tree, hanging off of it, and whipped her left hand out in front of her face. The buzzing stopped, and something squirmed squirmed squirmed in her hand. She opened it, just enough to let her see in but not enough to let whatever-it-was out.

It was a little ball-shaped... thing. Its blue carapace glinted in what little light got to it through Elizabeth's fingers, and its similar wings buzzed frantically. The creature's giant eyes darted back and forth. Greene scowled. That didn't look appetizing, even to her. It seemed too... crunchy. Very small, too. She opened her hand, and the orb-thing buzzed away in a blue streak.

Elizabeth sighed. Nothing so far. Nothing. She placed both hands into the tree and turned around, facing her next destination. She tensed her legs, ready to leap over to it. She did so, sailing through the air in a wide -

- something hit her.

She froze, startled, as she and the something flew through the air and hit the ground. Whatever had hit her bounced off as she landed, blinking once in surprise. Then her eyes narrowed, though she didn't know if it was in fear or anger. On one hand, one of the forest's residents had dared to touch her. On the other hand, it might be a cockatrice.

She sprung to her feet to look at what had attacked her.

It looked... familiar. In more ways than one, as well. It had the vague structure of an equine, but with smaller eyes that glowed as green as her static. It had claws on the end of each leg, fangs, as well as a thick brown armor that stirred painful memories. The armor was warped and jagged, with green leaves seemingly built onto it.

It didn't even closely resemble Fluttershy's description of a cockatrice. Which meant she was going to kill it. Doubly so for having actually snuck up on her.

Before she could, however, she heard things behind her. Spinning around, she saw a dozen other creatures approaching her, weaving between the trees. She smiled. She'd have a big meal.

Something scratched at her back, presumably the one she'd turned her back on. Had it grabbed her? The nerve! It dared cling to her without her permission?! She flexed her shoulders back, and the creature flew off of her, smacking into another tree with a pained yelp. The other armored-things were almost upon her. She brought her hands together and pushed out, hard.

The air before her compressed and blew outwards in a cone, snapping trees like twigs and sending eight - she counted eight - of the things flying backwards, limp. That left four of them after her. No-no-no, five. That one to her left was trying to sneak through the branches in the trees, to be higher up than her.

The four on the ground hesitated when they saw the destruction she'd wrought. That was good. With a hop, she reached the one trying to ambush her. Its glowing eyes widened when she approached, and it yipped when she grabbed it.

Her upward momentum continued, and she landed on the tree. She twisted around and aimed for two of the armored creatures on the ground, two that were close to each other. She pressed her legs against the trunk while upside down, animal still in her hands, and pushed off.

Slam. Crunch.

The impact shattered the animal in her grasp into pieces, its armored limbs littering the area. The one she'd landed on suffered the same fate, and the other, caught by the shockwave, was thrown into the air. Rebounding quick, Elizabeth leapt up and tore straight through it, leaving the two pieces to fall as a stray piece of her hair bounced against her forehead.

She shivered and groaned, going stiff as her skin and suit turned numb in various places along her body. What... why had...?

One of the two remaining animals pounced at her, and she was too slow bringing up her tingling right arm to catch its throat. As a result, she punched it in the underbelly. The armor broke beneath her strength and it flew up, breaking through the branches and continuing in its journey. The other one, in her moment of distraction, pounced at her.

She landed on her back, still numb in various places. The animal on top of her snarled and clawed at her with its talons. Most of its claws broke on her tough skin, but one caught in her neck and tore a small wound, which sealed immediately. She narrowed her eyes, and the creature went still in panic. An organ around her spine clenched, and began to tingle. As if sensing something was wrong, the creature tried to get off of her, but she'd wrapped red and white tendrils around its limbs and it wasn't going anywhere because it had touched her and almost as bad it had cut her and it... was... going... to... die.

She grabbed its head with both hands and channeled the buzzing into them. Veridian electricity arced into the beast's head with a loud crack, and it immediately went still. She let it go and tossed the body to her left, still smoking, as her body restored complete normality, and stood.

She clapped her hands giddily as the one she'd punched landed and broke. Food food food! Her first hunt in ages! Oh it was so wonderful! Not to mention it had felt good to flex her muscles again.

She approached one of the creatures she'd caught in her shockwave and pulled off a leg. She bit into it -

- and spat it right out. Plant! It was a plant! Its armor was tree-skin! She knelt and investigated the carcass more closely. Water oozed from several holes in it. Its brown armor was pervasive, going all the way through. She backpedaled in disgust. No wonder she'd gone numb tearing through one if its blood was water. They were moving plants. All the short time fighting them had been wasted wasted wasted! She couldn't eat these. The equines probably could, but not her.

With an exasperated roar, she turned and began her hunt again. Time to find something she could eat for a change.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

She looked down at her prey. It was a strange-strange-strange thing, like many things in this forest. Three heads, each of differing animals, a wicked tail, large to boot. It had breathed fire, ice, and lightning. Torn trees apart with its charge as it came to maul her.

She'd struck it once. She'd dropped beneath it, grabbed its tail and lifted it up, over, and around her, slamming its back into the ground so hard its necks snapped.

And now she was going to eat it.

She dove at it and buried her mouth into its flank, taking a deep strip. She chewed the flesh and swallowed, but frowned and backed away from the carcass. After the burned-cooked meat in Canterlot, it just wasn't the same. And the blood, the fluids, inside were less than appetizing. But she was smart, oh yes, she was ever so smart because she could make so many plans plans plans and all she needed was one.

She leaped into the air and slammed her fists together. The shockwave that burst out sent several branches tumbling to earth, and she arranged them into a pile. Then she knelt, warmth bubbling under her skin, and pressed her left fingers to the cool, damp soil. Her flesh began to drain out of her into the mesh of tendrils, which encircled the wood and rose up in two tall pillars on either side of it before she stopped, standing back up. She grabbed her quarry and held it above the pile of sticks, pressing a foot to her warmth. From both pillars, a 'bridge' formed, piercing through the animal and suspending it above the sticks. She let go and built up the tingling in her spine again, then blasted the wood with an arc of lightning.

Immediately, it caught fire. Her warmth kept the blaze contained and the creature above it, and so she began to wait. She found a tree adequately shaped for her, and leaned into the hollow imprint it sported.

She waited. Animals chirped and croaked around her, but none dared approach.

And waited. The orange glow of the sun permeated the canopy, casting dancing, oblong shadows in combination with her blaze.

And waited. The smell made her mouth water, but she knew knew knew to wait. It was common sense. You couldn't rush good things. Usually.

Alright, enough waiting, time to eat! She sprang forwards and grabbed the charred body, the bottom part blackened, and tore it off her warmth. She tumbled with it onto the ground and turned it over so she could see its cooked flesh and then she was gripping at it and tearing it and devouring it and there was no more blood or fluid it was cooked it was burned it was so good it was better than what she'd had in Canterlot this one was fresh it had organs and one that was spicy and its bones were so crunchy and the marrow sweet like... like... like something sweet and even the blackened-overburned parts were so good because they were smokey and mmph!

All too soon, there was nothing left. She sighed, and with a simple blast of air, she extinguished the embers of her fire. She pulled the warmth back in, and relished the feeling of fullness and warmth. That one creature had filled her so much. She wasn't quite full, not yet, but that could wait until the next day. As for now, it was time to head back. She wasn't yet sure where she'd stay. She knew Fluttershy wouldn't refuse her, but she could really sleep anywhere; she didn't get exposure, and her warmth let her make anything, even just the immediate air, into her nest.

All the same, she wasn't about to sleep out here in the Everfree forest. While the darkness was nice on her eyes, it wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't do to worry Fluttershy, since the equine had been panicked about the idea of her going into the forest, likely only letting her because she knew she wouldn't be able to stop her.

She tensed her legs, leaning over, and leaped as hard as she could. She sailed above the canopy of the Everfree, the sunset's orange light inundating her, even as the sun rapidly sunk below the horizon. She wheeled about in the air, and spotted Ponyville off in the distance. There!

She fell back down in a cacophony of breaking twigs, and instantly settled into a dead sprint back. Her mass, with the added flesh from her hunt, left deep prints in the soil and shattered trees in her wake as she plowed right through them. Animals scurried away from her as she approached, her clamor giving them only a moment to move before she herself arrived. A plant-animal-thing. A thing with a feline head and armored tail. She thought she saw something starry out of the corner of her vision, though that easily could've been the night sky. She continued on, approaching Ponyville, occasionally jumping again to make sure sure sure she was going the right way -

Stop stop blue flowers stop stop stop!

She dug up the soil in a brown fountain as she skidded to a stop. She'd only had an instant to register the flowers before she'd been upon them, but that had been enough. She kept moving, and realized she'd reach the small patch of bright blue flowers if she didn't do something. So she jumped over them, clutching the tree across from them (Which bent back with a pained groan) so she wouldn't fall into the patch. She shimmied around and landed a distance away from what she assumed were Poison Joke flowers.

She eyed them warily. They didn't look like much at all. Small flowers, bright blue petals, what more was there to say? Maybe a dozen and a half of them, waving back and forth in the light breeze. But magic was something foreign to her, something she didn't understand but she didn't really need to understand. All she needed to know was that if something was magical, it was dangerous.

She summoned her electricity to her right hand, holding out with her palm facing up. She envisioned the green power twisting and forming a spherical orb, roughly half her size. The vision became a reality, the sphere crackling with power. She pulled her hand away, and it remained, floating, feeding upon itself. It wouldn't last forever, but it would last more than long enough. As if controlling an extra limb, she moved the ball of emerald lightning forward, leaving a brilliant yellow trail as it soared through the air. It impacted the middle of the Poison Joke clump with an airy pop, exploding in a green nova of sizzling energy. The flowers were annihilated, the grass in the area of impact vaporized by her power and the dirt thrown outwards in clumps that didn't quite reach her.

She smiled. She still had it in her.

Back back back to Fluttershy's Home.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

"This is bad," she said. "This is really, really, really bad."

"I-It's really not that bad," Fluttershy said, stepping back as Twilight's mane and tail turned ever more ragged.

"Are you kidding?! Not that bad?" Twilight levitated the newspaper over to Fluttershy's face, who leaned away from it. "Read this! Alien being assaults citizen of Canterlot! How is that not a bad thing?!"

"Well, it is technically true..."

"You said it was in self defense! It was, right? Or did she goad them into it? Did she have some sort of mind control gas?"

"Twilight," she whimpered. "You're starting to, um, scare me." She looked over to the nearby basket. "Also, you wouldn't want to wake up Spike, would you?"

She took a deep, cleansing breath like Cadance had taught her. Alright. Calm down. She could approach this calmly and rationally, like she did everything.

Want-it Need-it, her treasonous memory whispered.

Like she did most everything. She could do this in a logical, structures fashion. What did she know?

She knew that Elizabeth Greene had been attacked by a madpony in Canterlot. She had defended herself with gusto, to the extent of hospitalizing her assailant and only barely remaining within legal boundaries. The Princesses had suggested she come to Ponyville post haste, which she knew was polite, political maneuvering terms for 'Go Away, You're causing Trouble'. And now the newspapers had caught wind of it. The newspaper article had been horrifically biased, leaving out that Greene had been attacked first, skimming over how easy her strength made it to hurt ponies, and outright ignored that because of Elizabeth there was going to be a cure for wing cancer - bucking wing cancer - released to the public in a few week's time. Maybe sooner, if the testing went really well.

The theory was confirmed. The only thing that traveled faster than light was Bad News.

"What are we gonna do, Fluttershy?" she asked. "Tomorrow Greene's gonna come into Ponyville, and everypony's gonna think she's a deranged lunatic!" Plink! Another stray fur. "She's gonna be chased out of town!" Plink! "She'll go back to her home planet and start an interplanetary war where the humans she despises ally with her and rain down fire on us with their technology!" Plink! Plink! Plink!

"T-Twilight, please, calm down. Take a deep breath," Fluttershy insisted.

"Calm down?! How can I calm down when - in, and out," she did, suddenly transitioning. After a few moments of the breathing exercise, she was fine-ish. Her mane and tail were still frazzled, but the world was not spinning out of control.

"Twilight," Fluttershy asked, working up the great amount of bravery she needed to approach her. "What happened? When you left Canterlot you were perfectly fine." Her eyes widened. "N-Not that you're not fine now but, um, I'm sorry you're not fine," she said, squeaking out the last bit.

"No, no," she admitted. "You're right." She sat down and brought her tail around her body, stroking it with her forehooves. "It's just, when I got back home, I started going on the same thought process I was when we arrived. A-And Rainbow Dash tried to help, but she really only made it worse. And then I was researching whatever I could about Elizabeth Greene's powers, and it all just... got to me. I'm sorry. I should know better than this by now."

She glanced over at her notes on Nosokinesis, piled high around her. Nosokinesis was defined as the manipulation of disease and disease causing agents by thought. It was a very rare and little-practiced form of magic, used primarily by the royal Pathogen and Vaccine Research Branch to classify various illnesses, among other things. While the research branch used only the benign aspects of Nosokinesis, Twilight's research had turned up much more... sinister applications, not the least of which was the pandemic of 243, some fifteen hundred years before Nightmare Moon, caused by the unicorn Black Spread.

Black Spread had, with just one single spell, kickstarted the worst plague ever witnessed in Equestria. He'd died to his own disease, of course, but in the few weeks it took even the Princesses to figure out the cure, one third of everypony in Equestria died.

Elizabeth Greene had natural Nosokinesis, and despite not knowing just how powerful it was that premise terrified Twilight Sparkle. Magical or biological, it wasn't a field one simply dabbled in. Not even herself.

"It's alright, Twilight," Fluttershy said, pulling her out of what was surely about to turn into another spiral. "And really, it won't be that bad." Fluttershy looked down and fiddled with her hooves momentarily. "I mean, there's really nothing anypony in town can do to force Elizabeth to leave. I've seen what she can do." She shivered. "She'll probably ignore them, or hiss at them to ignore her. She can be really scary when she wants to."

A chill went down Twilight's spine as she stopped stroking her tail, which was now smooth. "Yeah, I noticed. Carnivores. Alright. Thank you, Fluttershy. We'll handle this... one step at a time. What's Elizabeth doing tomorrow?"

"Well, she's probably coming to the spa with me and Rarity - "

"Rarity and I," she corrected out of pure instinct.

Fluttershy hid further under her mane. "Oh, sorry. She's probably coming to the spa with Rarity and I. I don't think she'll like the massage; Elizabeth really doesn't like it when anypony touches her. But she'll probably like the bath, a-and the sauna. After that, it'd probably be nice for her to go to Rarity's. She wants to make something nice for her to wear."

Twilight nodded. "I guess I can see where she's coming from. Greene's been wearing that same suit since she came here, hasn't she?"

Fluttershy nodded. "Yes. I didn't want to mention anything to her, it really would be mean to bring it up, but... she could really use a trip to the spa."

Twilight nodded. "Alright. But what about everypony else?" She shook her head. "No, no. I can do this." She shook her head again, mane going smooth as well. She took another deep, relaxing breath, and let it out. "We are the Elements of Harmony. W-We carry a lot of weight, even if we don't always notice it." She nodded, smiling at herself. "Yes, we'll simply tell everypony what really happened in Canterlot, and that Elizabeth as alright. She'll go with you and Rarity to the spa, then to her Boutique, then who-knows where after. They'll understand. I'm not blowing this out of proportion."

Fluttershy stepped back in fear, and the words left before Twilight could stop them. "What could possibly go wrong?"

Fluttershy's eyes went wide. Twilight gulped, realizing what she'd done. She smiled sheepishly.

"Oops?"

Unexpected Family

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Greene

Her eyes snapped open and she sucked in a deep breath, eager to relieve the sinking drowning choking. It was a high price to pay for sleep, but if it meant she didn't go through several hours of boredom as Fluttershy slept she decided she'd keep doing it. She flexed her fingers and pulled the cocoon of tendrils back into her skin, smiling as the warmth and mass settled in her. She pulled herself forward from where she leaned against the outside of Fluttershy's Home. The pegasus, after returning from somewhere-not-important, had insisted she enter the room but... it was too humid. And small, small, small, cold and dark.

The sun was just barely peeking up. She heard soft humming from within Fluttershy's Home. Was that to what she had awoken? Oh well, today was a new new new day, to see what the equines had accomplished despite being broken broken broken and to gather their essence so she could one day fix them.

She started upon spotting Greene. "O-Oh! Hello, Elizabeth," she said shyly, saddlebags on her back filled with food.

She smiled. "Fluttershy." Her words echoed around, rousing several of the larger animals from their ongoing slumbers. Fluttershy went over to them and handed... hoofed.... handed out the meals. The pegasus returned to her. "Spa with Rarity?" she asked.

Fluttershy nodded, a semi-wide smile on her face. "Oh yes. We go there every week, Aloe and Lotus really are good at their jobs." She tilted her head at Elizabeth, a tiny frown tugging at her lips. "Elizabeth, have you ever been to a spa, if you don't mind me asking?"

She shook her head. "Never been. Don't know what spa is."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, poor dear," she whispered under her breath, likely not expecting her to hear.

"Can hear," she rasped.

Fluttershy instantly went red. "O-Oh I'm so sorry! It's just that, I heard you talking about the Cold Dark Place, a-and I just assumed - I'm so sorry for assuming!" she squeaked.

Elizabeth shivered, flashes of held down weak can't move and stealing blood draining draining laughing laughing behind her eyes. "What is a spa?"

The smile returned, red turning to orange turning to yellow. "Well, it's a, a relaxation service. There's the massage, the seaweed wrap, the sauna, the mineral bath, lots of things." She frowned. "I don't think you'd like the massage."

"Massage?" she asked.

"Well, they lay you down on this table and work out, u-um, tension spots in you. By, um, pressing on them. Touching you." Elizabeth's eyes widened and she shook. "O-Only if you want to!" she added hastily. "It's completely optional! There's other things to do."

"Go see," Elizabeth rasped. "See then."

Fluttershy nodded. "A-Alright. Follow me then, if you want to, of course, Elizabeth."

"Follow," she said with a nod, doing just that. Soon, they began to approach the town proper, many equines stopping what they had been doing - she had no clue what, though - and staring at them.

"Phew," she thought she heard Fluttershy whisper. "At least Roseluck and her sisters aren't around." Elizabeth didn't pay that any mind, though she would need to diffuse the tensions and whispers whispers whispers around them.

"No harm," she said, raising her voice and looking around at the crowd. "Ignore," she said. This got a few of the equines to stop staring at her with their very wide eyes, while others kept muttering. She tensed, and drew on what little she could remember about the history of this town. "You survived Discord," she said, her echoes beginning to hiss and ripple angrily. "Why are you scared of me?!"

This got the equines muttering again, but with each other rather than in her direction. Fluttershy, wincing, trotted on. Eventually, most all of the equines chose to ignore her, but not all at once. Greene bristled. It would be so much easier if they could Listen. She could make them understand so quickly then, none of this excessive thinking and deciding!

Soon, Fluttershy stopped outside one of the various strange-shaped buildings in the town, and Elizabeth's keen eyes spotted Rarity trotting from another direction towards them. Element of... Generosity, was it? No, Laughter. Or...

"Fluttershy, dear, you made it! Not that there was any doubt."

"Hi, Rarity," she said quietly.

The unicorn turned to Elizabeth. "Why Elizabeth, glad to see you chose to come. I assure you, you'll find that Aloe and Lotus are superb at what they do."

"No massage," she insisted.

Rarity blinked. "Oh, is that so? Why ever not?"

"Touching," she hissed.

She nodded. "Ah, I see. Well, not everypony is comfortable letting somepony lay their hooves on them, even if they are professionals. I'd advise you to give it a try, but who am I to say you feel things the same way we do? Do not worry, I'm sure there is something you will enjoy. Come along now, we're wasting daylight and I do still have to make you something to wear besides that..." She wrinkled her snout. Why? Such a random gesture. "... thing."

Elizabeth frowned as Rarity turned around, herding Fluttershy into the building - the spa perhaps? - and she followed after them, the door jingling as it opened and closed.

There wasn't much to describe about the spa's inside; it was similar similar similar to the other examples of equine architecture in Ponyville; slightly more low-key than Canterlot. They were soon greeted by two female equines.

"Welcome to the... the... the..." the pink-colored blue-secondary one said, stuttering off and looking up at Elizabeth. She gulped and offered a squeaky 'Hello' that Elizabeth returned, though with a frown.

"Girls," Rarity said before they could panic any more. "This is Elizabeth Greene." Elizabeth wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. It was cold, but even worse, it was so incredibly humid in the room! She felt like she was moving through a heavy miasma, and she hated it! Rarity continued. "She's never been to a spa, and I thought today's as good as any for her to see what she's been missing.

The other equine, inverse colors of the first, nodded. "R-Right," she stammered, hesitantly making eye contact with Greene. She noticed, and locked her gaze on her intently. "Greetings to you, miss Greene. If I may say - "

"Humid," she interrupted, skin crawling. "More humid further in?"

The two looked at each other before the blue-primary one spoke. "W-Well, the sauna and bath room do release a fair amount of moisture, so it would get moreso as you go in, however I don't see how that would be a prob - "

"Not going," Elizabeth interjected. "No no no."

Pink-primary opened her mouth, frowning. "I insist, I'm sure you will enjoy it."

She backed up, shaking her head frantically. "No, no, nonono. Don't like. Don't like." She turned to Fluttershy. "Do... spa thing. Will wait outside."

"Are you, um, sure, Elizabeth?" she asked quietly. "The twins are, um, really good at what they do. And..." She wrinkled her nose. "I really, really didn't want to say anything, but, um... youcouldreallyuseabath."

It took Elizabeth a moment to understand what Fluttershy meant, piecing it together with what was left of her memories of Before told her a bath was used to do. She nodded. "Don't need bath. Other ways." She extended her warmth, but turned it on herself, wrapping it around her and digging it just under the upper layer of her skin and suit. Once satisfied, she lifted and the dirtied layer fell off in a black shower as she quickly regenerated. She pulled her warmth back in. "Done."

Rarity eyed the fallen skin with horror. "You just... with those... you just...!" She sighed. "Alright, that settles it. You need this treatment."

"Not for me," she rasped frantically, approaching the door out. Panic bubbled in her chest. They wanted to touch her, to bring her deeper into the humidity and submerge her in water! "Not for me. Good for ponies, bad for me. Bad bad bad. Wait."

Defeated, Fluttershy lowered her head and nodded. "A-Alright, Elizabeth." She looked back up with a gentle smile. "I'll see you, um, in a few minutes? Or, well, maybe more..." she said, trailing off and looking towards Rarity.

Realization struck her. "Few minutes." She stepped forwards to the spa equines, kneeling and brushing a hand against each one's cheek, taking their essence as they froze. "Certain good at job, not for me though. Not not not." She stepped away from them, and approached Rarity, repeating the movements to swiftly snip a bit of essence from her. "Appreciate the offer." And with that, she swept out of the humid-bad-spa building, categorizing the essence within her. She hissed as the sun burned burned burned her eyes, but she adapted before too long, leaned against the outside of the building and extended her warmth a short distance, warding off the pervasive chill, and waited.

She saw a few equines flying among the clouds, doing... something. As she watched, a dark gray male with an odd vertical mane pressed his forelegs against one and... pushed the cloud forward. Her eyes widened. She'd read that the pegasus variety could manipulate weather, but it was something else else else to see firsthand. She leaned her head back and smiled when he happened to push it in front of the sun, blocking its scorching rays.

The equines continued to pass on before her, even as the talking of Rarity, Fluttershy, and the two others inside moved beyond even her hearing range. Some turned to look at her, but still as she was, they soon payed her no mind and trotted on, going about their confused broken day, struggling to make their decisions. She clenched her fists. It was so unfair! She was so close to being able to help them! And why couldn't she? She already had a lot of equine essence from Canterlot. It couldn't vary that much to Ponyville. She could alter her Blessing right now and begin...

... but what would the risks be? When she was first Blessed, her Blessing was... unstable. It killed its recipients in days, hours, granting them only a brief taste of family before it felled them. She changed it quickly, of course, frantically. How else could she have held her first Home for a year?

But if she changed her Blessing now, without enough essence, it might do that again. And this time, she might not be able to change it in time. No, as much as it twisted at her insides, she had to wait. And besides, these weren't Similars. They weren't utterly miserable like them, they were able to be happy sometimes, able to bring some sparks of joy to others.

"Elizabeth, hello!" said a voice she dreaded. She snapped her head over to see Twilight Sparkle heading her way, bags on her sides with paper sticking out. "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions," she asked as she came a stop next to her, just outside her warmth's tendrils.

She bristled, clenching her hands. "More?" she asked irately, making Twilight Sparkle's ears go down.

"Well, I mean, it's kind of important."

She crossed her arms, glaring down at the unicorn. "How?"

She sighed. "I'm really sorry if this offends you, but I've reason to believe you're in the possession of dangerous Nosokinetic abilities."

"Noso... hmm?"

"The ability to control disease with your mind."

Elizabeth pondered this, then chuckled. "No no no, no such. Wrong."

"But Elizabeth, you see - "

"Hey Twi!" shouted a new voice. Elizabeth Greene blinked in surprise as another equine blasted down from the sky, landing in between herself and Twilight Sparkle. This one was bright blue, with a myriad of colors for their secondary fur tint. She didn't... like those colors. The full spectrum, red to violet... she remembered seeing something like that, so many many many years ago in her first Home. It had rained, forcing her to take shelter, and then the sun came out and cast a prismatic arc across the sky.

Then the Similars came, forced her children back, blasted them apart. Took her Holy Child from her, trapped her in the Cold Dark Place, and slaughtered the rest of her family.

She already didn't like this new equine. The pegasus stopped next to Twilight Sparkle, and slowly turned around to face her. She blinked, then looked back at Twilight Sparkle. She leaned next to the unicorn with a hoof raised next to her mouth, whispering. "Is this the alien spy? That's the alien spy, isn't it?"

"Not a spy," she said, making the new equine jerk, evidently not expecting to have been heard. "Who to report to? How? Nobody, nohow." She tilted her head. "Name?"

The equine puffed up her chest, taking a strangely defensive posture before Twilight Sparkle. "Name's Rainbow Dash. Guessing you're 'Elizabeth Greene'?" she asked, rearing up and performing a strange motion with her forehooves as she said Greene's name.

"Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash." She tilted her head to the side, then back. "Is... Loyalty Element." She frowned. Or had that been...

She nodded, a smug smile on her face. "Yep, that's me! Soon to be - "

Greene tilted her head back, smiling. "Got it, got it. Was right. Loyalty Element. Haha..." she said, trailing off into airy laughter. She'd got it! She actually guessed right with one of the Harmony Elements! It made her happy happy happy. She refocused as the pegasus began talking, rubbing her jaw with a hoof and hmming.

Rainbow Dash looked Elizabeth up and down. "So Twilight, she's the one that the newspapers were calling a 'deranged aggressive lunatic'?"

"Well, she was attacked first," the unicorn muttered.

Rainbow Dash kept looking, then shrugged. "Meh, she doesn't look so tough."

Elizabeth blinked once. She crossed the distance in one step and lashed out with her hand. She wrapped it around the equine's neck and calmly lifted her into the air.

"E-Elizabeth!" Twilight Sparkle shouted, stepping back in fright.

Rainbow Dash choked once, which prompted Greene to loosen her grip and snip a piece of essence. She flapped her wings and beat on Elizabeth's chest with her hooves, but she was expecting that and managed to keep her temper under control. After a few moments, Rainbow Dash's struggles went limp and she glared at Elizabeth, eyes at equal height, and crossed her forehooves from where she hung.

"Alright, alright," she said with a slight grate to her voice from Elizabeth Greene's grip. "You're tough. Now put me down!" She did so, moving her hand down and opening it. It wasn't a strong motion, but her tremendous physical power still turned it into throwing Rainbow Dash to the ground. She crumpled on her legs, but got back up in fairly short order, rubbing her neck. "Geeze, do you make it a point to attack everypony you meet?" Rainbow Dash looked at the equines staring at them, and waved them on. "We're all cool here! Nothing to see, everypony!"

"Showed I was tough," she rasped. "No harm done. Wrong thoughts fixed."

"Hmph, I guess. Coulda just said."

"Actions louder than words," she said simply, crossing her arms.

"Ri-i-i-ight. What're you doing outside the spa anyway?"

"Fluttershy and Rarity brought, thought I'd enjoy." She shivered. "No no no. Good for ponies. Not for me, not not not."

She grunted, nodding. "I agree. Not my kinda place, either." She paused. "So, what, you were just going to wait out here until they're done?"

"Rarity said had business with me later. Patient."

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash shared a look, before the latter sighed. "Well, you might be waiting here for a while, you know. Their spa trips take up a lot of time. Trust me, you could do a lot in the time you spend waiting here, with this egghead - " She laid a hoof across Twilight Sparkle's withers. " - and the fastest flyer on Equus!"

Twilight Sparkle groaned. "Upgrading your status, Rainbow?"

She laughed. "Well, it's true." She looked at Elizabeth. "We could probably have a race to Sweet Apple Acres, help out Applejack, and then be back with plenty of time to spare!"

"Do so." Maybe she'd find something interesting. Besides where this 'Sweet Apple Acres' was.

"Haha! Now you're speaking my language. First one to their barn wins." She had no idea what a barn was, but she was sure she could figure it out.

"Direction?" she asked.

"Um, Rainbow - "

"Err, right. You're new here." She raised a hoof and pointed it in a seemingly random direction that vaguely ran out of Ponyville's heart. "That way, towards the barn." She paused. "That's the big red building, ya got it?"

"Got." She leaned over, planting her feet into the ground. "When begin?" she asked, the beginning of a smirk tugging at her mouth. Fool equine. She was so fast fast fast! Though, she would have no way of knowing that, would she? No, Elizabeth supposed she wouldn't.

"Rainbow, I was - "

"Three two one go!"

Elizabeth was off like a flash, her powerful legs digging into the earth and propelling herself forward. Buildings passed her in a blur, the ground rippling beneath her. Moments of weightlessness followed each other like heartbeats as she skipped over little irregularities in the road. Equines flashes past her in little spots of vibrant color. She smiled. She'd surely passed the rainbow equine already.

She glanced up to see her flying along, a look of determination on her face. Rainbow Dash looked down at Elizabeth Greene and gave a cheeky smile.

Growling, Elizabeth lowered her head and pumped her legs faster, leaving craters where her feet dug into the earth. Within moments, she spotted a wide area filled with trees, red things glinting on them. There were two buildings, but one of them met the criteria. Glancing up, she saw a pegasus furiously beating her wings, slightly ahead of her. She redoubled her efforts, legs no longer leaving craters but instead outright cracking the dirt. The pegasus was going to beat her.

She arrived at the 'barn' mere moments after Rainbow Dash, halting her forward momentum by leaping straight up and landing.

The pegasus blinked, panting hard. "Oh, wow. You actually almost beat me. Nopony's ever almost beaten me on land."

She glared at her, hard. "How did you win? How how how? I'm fast. Very fast, faster than Wayward Child. How are you faster?" she asked, echoes intense with her frustration.

Still hovering, Rainbow Dash held up her hooves in an innocent gesture. "Whoa, hey, easy there. No shame in losing to the fastest flyer in Equestria. Really, I had to push myself. I can go faster, sure, but I need gravity helping me to do that." She dropped down and flexed her wings, then tucked them next to her sides. "Gave me a run for my bits, I'll tell you that."

Greene seethed. "Race again later. Obstacle course. Agility."

A wicked grin broke Rainbow Dash's face. "You're on. You issued the challenge, so I'll decide the time and place. Deal?"

"Deal."

The equine spat onto a forehoof and held it out to Greene expectantly. She hissed and stepped back. "No no no. Deal made."

She shrugged, reddish eyes seemingly disinterested. "Whatever floats your boat." She smirked, and added, "Just get ready to eat my dust a second time."

"Will see," she hissed before a new scent assaulted her. She whipped around and saw that other equine, Applejack, approaching with a larger red equine next to her with some sort of large ring around its neck. After squinting a moment and wracking her brains for what she knew of equine sexual dimor... dimerph... gender differences, she deduced it was a male. Both had, attached to their backs, some wooden thing filled with the reddish orbs dotting the trees. Apples?

Applejack stopped and blinked when she saw Elizabeth and Rainbow Dash. "Hoo, didn't expect ta see ya around, Rainbow." She nodded towards the Greene. "Elizabeth."

"Applejack." She looked at the other. "Who?"

"This here's my brother, Big Mac."

The male equine looked her up and down, eyes comically wide. "Helloooo..." he said, drawing out the last syllable.

"Big Mac. Hello." She tilted her head. "Apples. Bringing to or from?"

"Err, bringing to the house, I reckon," Applejack said. "Wanna come along?"

"See what you do. See what accomplished."

She nodded. "Mmhmm. Big Mac, think she can tag along? See what she's like?"

The male regarded her before, at length, "Eeyup."

"Alright then! Rainbow, ya want ta come help?"

Rainbow Dash shook her head. "Nah, thanks for the offer though. I was only racing Elizabeth here. She can run. Can't wait to see what she can do in the Running of the Leaves. How did you do that, anyhow?"

"Strong legs," she rasped angrily. "Push off."

"Hmm," Applejack said, analyzing her. "Well, we'll see then, won't we? Provided, of course, that miss Greene here stays so long."

"Perhaps. See house?"

Applejack nodded. "Right, gotta get these carts off of us anyhow. See you later Rainbow?"

She nodded. "Yep. My break's running out anyway, just wanted to stop by to see the alien." She gestured at Elizabeth, who stood there awkwardly, looking back and forth as the conversation bounced between equines. "Gotta get some rainclouds ready for tomorrow, and Thunderlane's always setting them off early, so I need to keep him on track."

Applejack groaned and rolled her eyes. "Yer telling me! Applebloom gets into enough trouble without random mud puddles all over the farm." She pressed a forehoof into her face. "Down to a science, I swear..."

Rainbow nodded. "Yeah, I heard about that. Hey, fillies will be fillies, right?"

"Hmmph. Come on, Mac, lets get these apples inside."

"Eeyup."

The two earth ponies trotted past, and the pegasus, with a final farewell, winged off, vanishing in a burst of speed that made Elizabeth clench her fingers before following the two equines. She was surprised by how surprisingly brusque the equines had been with each other. It couldn't be that they were still acting different because of her presence, could it?

They arrived at a new house, different different different in size shape and color, and entered. Applejack and Big Mac moved their apples to a table, whispering under their breaths about getting to see what Elizabeth was like, expertly moving the fruits to rest despite not having hands. From her point, Elizabeth could hear faint snoring, in addition to a high pitched voice braying in the equine language she was becoming very familiar familiar familiar with.

"Oh come on... stupid... grr!"

The Honesty Element moved towards one of the side rooms, and began to speak back and forth with the voice about some assignment and hard and pointless and not pointless and she didn't care anymore. She looked at Big Mac.

"Big Mac, shortened name?"

"Eeyup," he replied, organizing the apples.

She nodded. "Short for?"

"Big Macintosh."

"See."

"See what?"

She tilted her head, curious. "What what?"

He shook his head. "Ah, nevermind."

They stood there silently for a moment. That was fine by her, watching the equine sorting out the apples, almost seeming to analyze them for... something. She snapped her head around, raising one hand to chest level, when she heard the clip clop of two pairs... sets... pairs of hooves approaching her, and spotted two earth ponies. The first was Applejack, of course, her mouth open as she hastily said, "Bloom, now hold on there just a - "

And then a startled gasp from the other, a much smaller equine. Yellow, not orange or red like the other two, and much smaller. Wide, shocked orange eyes formed a sort of midpoint between the yellow coat and red secondary fur, which was held together by pink fabric arranged in some familiar form she, after a moment, remembered was a bow. Also, they had no mark, which was strange.

"Whoa nelly," the small equine whispered in the high pitched voice Elizabeth had heard earlier. She connected the dots. Lack of a mark, so they didn't know their talent. Small. Higher voice. This wasn't just an equine. It was an equine child. Standing right in front of her.

They stared at each other for a moment. Applejack laughed nervously. "Elizabeth, this here's Applebloom, my - "

"Your suit is funny," the child, Applebloom said, tilting her head.

Elizabeth gave out a joyous cry and crossed the distance to Applebloom, leaning over and picking the child up by her sides. She spun around, and the equine screamed but that didn't matter! "Applejack, help! It's got me!" She pressed her cheek against Applebloom's, laughing ecstatically as the equines' heartbeats flittered in their chests so fast fast fast.

She pulled Applebloom to her chest and leaned against one of the house's walls. "A child, child, child," she muttered, closing her eyes and shifting left and right with the child still with her. The equine struggled, pounding her with weak forehooves but she couldn't even find it in her to be angry because it was a child and they were so young and precious!

Applejack and Big Macintosh moved towards her, but stopped soon, smiles on their faces. "Sis, help!" Sis? Short for sister? That helped clear up relations; for a moment she'd thought Applebloom was the daughter of either Applejack or Big Macintosh. They seemed to have the right age difference for parent-child, though that may have just been her not not not understanding equines properly.

She sat down, leaning against the wall, happy happy happy and drew her knees up, still hugging Applebloom to her chest, ruffling her fur and kissing the top of her head. "Child, child, child," she whispered, over and over. She was content. She loved children, oh she loved them ever so much they were so dear to her and even if this one wasn't hers she wanted her to be hers and she would be one day but until then oh a child, a child close enough to touch and care for! As she grew more and more content, Applebloom also relaxed, leaning into her chest as she warmed warmed warmed up the small equine, whispering loving words of belonging and family to her she only later realized she'd spoken in the Similar language.

Applejack laughed, a light airy thing. "Well, look at that Bloom! I think she likes ya."

Elizabeth ran her hands down Applebloom's back, stroking her fur repeatedly as she curled up in her lap. "Yeah, she's really warm too." The child shivered despite what she'd just said. The child was uncomfortable! She was cold! Greene had to fix that! She extended tendrils of warmth from her suit and wrapped the red and white mesh around Applebloom's legs and barrel. The equine gasped, but soon relaxed, content in her grasp, while her siblings approached.

"What did ya do?" Big Macintosh asked challengingly.

"Shivered. Was cold, made warm." She stroked the child again, smiling warmly. She leaned down and rubbed her cheek against the murring Applebloom's cheek. "Child child child oh darling precious precious oh..."

"Ya really like kids, don't ya?" Applejack asked, smiling gently at the two of them.

"Had children," she mused as Applebloom snuggled into her chest, not asleep but relaxed and content in her warm presence. "So many many many, made me so very proud." She blinked back the painful memories of watching them die under unnatural fire. "Not here. Didn't couldn't follow." She looked down at the equine, snipping a piece of fur for Applebloom's essence, filing it away under Ponyville Earth Pony. "Children children, oh. Pretend at least for a while." She closed her eyes. "Pretend for a while."

The Honesty Element strode forward, her smile having evaporated into a frown. "I'm mighty sorry to hear what happened to ya, Elizabeth, and I'm glad that you and Bloom are gettin' along so well. Though, you may want to let her up from... whatever it is you've got that's calmed her down so much. She's got a lot of school work over the weekend and she needs ta get a head start, especially with all the crusadin' she does."

Elizabeth frowned. "School, school. Place of learning." She remembered that much from the Similar conversations during her captivity. They'd been proud of school and bragged bragged bragged to one another about which school they went to and why it was so much better than the others and how they'd done so much better and it made her sick. Still...

... the equines were broken. They couldn't Listen to each other, it made sense that they needed a way to pass down knowledge. As much as she didn't want to admit it, school was an important thing for them.

Around the same time she thought those things, Applebloom started. "Wha - whoa! Why am - Big Mac, Applejack, help! The alien's got me!" She struggled to get away, but Elizabeth's tendrils held tight for the second or two before Greene pulled them off. The moment her warmth was back inside of her, the child leaped away and scurried behind her sister, poking her head out to look at Greene with frightened eyes. She frowned. She wanted to be with the child again, wanted to hold her close and whisper to her and make everything alright forever.

Big Macintosh cracked a smile even as Applejack twisted her head back to smile down at her sister. "Relax, Bloom. She's not gonna hurt ya," he said.

"She was too!" Applebloom stamped a hoof, not taking her eyes off Greene. "She put some kinda calming spell over me!"

Two sets of eyes snapped to her. "... what," stated Applejack. Not asked. Stated.

Elizabeth rose, cocking her head to the side. "Calming spell? Strange. No magic." She frowned. "How then?"

Applebloom shivered. "She's lyin'! I was flailing and everything and then I just suddenly felt all calm and happy around her! Weren't natural!"

"Did nothing," Elizabeth insisted, narrowing her eyes.

Applejack and Big Macintosh took a step back. "Whoa," the former said. "That's... whoa. Think I know what Bloom's talkin' about. Got a bit of your anger."

"Got?" she asked, now intrigued.

"Yep. Seems ya can sorta give off some of your emotions." Applejack tilted her head. "You mean... you didn't know?"

No, she had not. "No, no." She fiddled with her fingers. "Strange strange strange. Applebloom close, was happy, made her happy." Tilted her head. "Hmm. Give off emotions. Didn't know. Explains much."

There was a tense pause before Applebloom spoke up. "Well? Ain't ya gonna apologize?"

"For?" she asked.

"For changing ma emotions without askin'!"

"Made you happy, why should I apologize?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Well, you didn't ask for ma permission!"

"Made you happy," Elizabeth insisted, narrowing her eyes despite the fact that she couldn't summon anger against a child. "Did nothing wrong."

"Did too!"

"Wrong."

"Yuh huh!"

"How so? Made happy."

"Bloom," Applejack said, interrupting their back and forth. "Go on and do your homework, ya hear? Sooner ya get it done, the sooner ya can go play with your friends."

"But - "

"Now," she said sternly.

Applebloom lowered her head submissively."Okay, sis," she said, dragging her hooves as she went back to the other room. Elizabeth whined quietly in her throat as she left. But... a child...

Once Applebloom was out of equine earshot, Applejack turned back to her.

"Don't manipulate her emotions again, ya hear me?"

"Didn't know, can't control," she rasped, standing to her full height in order to tower over the equines. "Now? See what you do?" she requested.

"Sure, I don't see why not," Applejack said. "Wouldn't be proper turning ya away, especially since how fond ya are of Applebloom." She turned to her brother. "What'dya think, Mac? Should we see how well the alien can buck?" she asked with a slight smile.

"Eeyup," he said slyly.

They left the house, and walked out into the fields, surrounded by the trees with apples in them. Apple trees? Likely. They'd brought the wooden carts with them, and looking closely, she could see wooden buckets in them. They formed a circle around one of the trees. Elizabeth was utterly lost as to what was going on, but she hoped it didn't take too long. After all, she didn't know how long Fluttershy was going to be in the... eugh... spa, but she didn't want the female to worry worry worry about where'd she'd gone off to. Fluttershy was prone to worry, and she didn't want to cause her nearest friend that emotion, even if it wasn't from her apparent radiation.

"Doing what?"

"Applebucking," Big Macintosh said. One word? It sounded like such.

"Don't understand."

"Well," Applejacks said, adjusting the weird hat on her head with a hoof. "We run an apple farm, ya see? We tend to the trees round the year, and when it gets to be around this time of the year, we harvest the apples, then sell them round Equestria. Sometimes even to neighboring countries."

She frowned, confusion scratching scratching scratching at her head. "Don't understand. Why? Can't others grow?"

She shook her head. "It ain't that simple, miss Greene. Well, suppose I can call you Elizabeth, friends with Fluttershy 'n all. Thing is, farmin' apples is no easy feat, and just apples ain't enough for a properly balanced diet. Ya'll see what I'm gettin' at?"

Elizabeth frowned. "Almost see. Sell for what?"

"Bits," she said calmly, then tilted her heads. "Is there... no concept of money where you come from, Elizabeth?"

She hissed, drawing back. "Similars had currency! Broken nonsense broken useless redundant!"

The two equines had backed off. "Err, alrighty then!" Applejack said a little little little too cheerfully. "Regardless of what we do with the apples after harvestin' and whether or not you approve of that, there's still the harvestin' to do. Here, watch." She planted herself in front of the tree, buckets around it, and turned around. "You just give the tree a good, solid buck at the base - " Her hind legs whipped out and snapped at the tree. Elizabeth watched as it shook, letting the apples free, landing in the buckets that had been delicately placed beneath them. " - and presto."

Test of strength. She could do that.

She approached another tree when Applejack spoke up again, while Big Macintosh continued to swivel his gaze between them. "Hold on now! Ya ain't gonna get hot in that suit, are ya?"

She shook her head. "No. Cold without my warmth."

"Err, right. Really though, you can take it off if you - "

Elizabeth hissed, hugging her arms around her chest. "No! No no no my suit mine mine made mine mine!" She calmed herself down-down-down, blinking and lowering her gangly arms. "Can't anyway."

"Ya... can't?"

"Suit made by Similars, for Cold Dark Place. But..." She smiled wickedly. "Over the years, poured my warmth into it. Converted it slowly, part of me now. Mine mine mine. Took theirs, made mine!" She hugged herself again. "Mine." She turned so that her side faced the tree, ignorant of Applejack's pieces of advice because she knew knew knew how do this it wasn't that complicated. She lifted her fists, raised her right foot, and whipped it at the apple tree.

Crunch!

She blinked, and scowled. Her foot was embedded in the trunk of the tree, shattered pieces of wood splintered around the entry. Already, her foot was going numb from the tree's insides, and the force behind her kick had all gone into breaking it, so not a single apple fell. With a heave, she ripped her foot out, sending splintered bark out to coat the grass.

"Holy Celestia," Applejack drawled. "Heard she was strong, but... did ya see that coming?"

"Eenope," said her brother, sounding equally dazed.

Elizabeth Greene turned to them. "Kicking doesn't work," she said, and turned back to the tree before her echoes could stop. She approached the tree, avoiding the gently oozing hole, and gently pressed her left fingers to the bark.

"Hmm, it'll heal," she heard Big Macintosh saying behind her as warmth blossomed inside of her and bubbled under her skin. She extended a web of red and white tendrils across the tree, up into the branches. "What are ya doing?" the red quine asked.

"Apples, removing from tree," she said, curling her mesh around each branch that bore an apple. She found the points where each apple was attached to the tree.

"Hold on now!" Applejack said. "We do things 'round here the earth pony way, ya hear me? None of this magical nonsense!"

"No magic," she rasped. "Extension of myself. Part of self. Is me." She snipped her warmth around the branches, and a dozen apples fell from the tree, and then pulled her web back inside of her. "That well?" she asked them, turning to face them.

"Err, it's certainly something," Applejack said. "A step up from kicking holes in our trees, for sure. Though I think I'd rather you let us do the buckin', if that ain't too much ta ask."

Greene flexed her foot, dispelling the numbness from it. "Not too much."

Applejack sidled up next to Greene. "Although..." she began. "Ya did take quite a shine to ma sister, right? And you seem to be able to keep her calm for at least a little while..."

Elizabeth smiled, clasping her hands together under her chin. "Yes yes yes, like her, child, precious oh so precious want to help want to - "

"Well," she said, cutting off Elizabeth's run on sentence and rubbing a forehoof in circles on the dirt. "I was wonderin' if you might be interested in foalsittin' for Applebloom and her friends when we need it? They can get into..." She frowned. "Trouble."

"Friends?!" she asked excitedly, beaming. "When? When? When?"

The Honesty Element laughed. "Whoa there, now. We don't need a foalsitter right this moment. But we'll ask you when we do need one."

Behind her, she could hear Big Macintosh snort under his breath, "I give her twelve minutes with the crusaders..."

Elizabeth tilted her head. "Don't understand foalsitter."

Applejack nodded. "Aha, right. Ya see, I care for my sister, I really do. Love her to death. But sometimes, well, a mare's gotta go somewhere a filly can't rightly follow. We have ta do those things, but we also can't leave Applebloom unsupervised. Celestia knows that's a bad idea. So we hire a foalsitter to watch over her until we can do so again."

"Nothing more important than family," she murmured. "Watch over family even when not watching over family," she whispered, tilting her head back. "Smart, good, good, fixed." She smiled. "Protect child? Me?" She was... honored. They trusted her with their family! They trusted her! Made sense. Honesty Element, saw she meant well.

Applejack nodded. "If ya think ya can handle them, I'll let you know when we need your services."

Elizabeth nodded frantically. "Yes yes yes!" She paused. "Time elapsed. Not much, no no no." She fretted with her fingers. "Don't want to risk. Don't want to worry her." She began to run, but paused and turned to look at the two equines. "Close family," she rasped. "Almost... almost fixed," she told them before running on.

She... quite liked the Honesty Element's family. They cared about each other. From what little she could see they practically Listened to one another! She couldn't begrudge them for not doing so properly; she'd connected the dots. They'd lost their Mother and father, just as her children had lost her.

And they had a child with them! A child! She could hardly wait to meet her and her friends.

Through the Roof

View Online

Greene

She'd arrived too soon.

It wasn't really a big surprise. Rarity and Fluttershy were still deep in their spa visit, if the lack of voices coming from deep within the building were anything to go by, but she'd still arrived too soon. That was fine. She took up the space she had formerly, and waited. There were slightly more equines going about now, and she saw them using currency with each other, trading flat pieces of flexible metal for things that were actually useful and that made her frown in disgust. Still, that wasn't enough to kill kill kill the good mood she was in after visiting Applejack's family. She smiled. Yes, she was in a good mood.

Her good mood only rose when Fluttershy finally exited with her friend. She smiled and stepped towards them. They smelled of chemicals and rocks and water, which did nothing to dissuade her from approaching the pegasus. "Hello."

She smiled. "Hello Elizabeth. Were you, um, okay waiting for us out here? Nopony gave you trouble, did they? I mean, I like to think we've learned our lesson since Zecora, but - "

"Was fine," she said dismissively. "Raced Rainbow Dash to.... to... apple place."

"Oh my," Fluttershy said as Rarity looked at the two of them with a wry smile. "How did that go?"

Elizabeth growled, clenching her fists, making Fluttershy shake and back off. "Beat me. Don't know how, flew faster than I run."

"Rainbow is pretty fast," Fluttershy mused. She started, and looked over to Rarity. "Oh, Rarity, didn't you say you, um, wanted to take Elizabeth over by your store?"

She waved a forehoof. "Oh, I can wait for you two to catch up." She leaned her head next to Fluttershy's. "Please, don't stop on my account."

So Elizabeth didn't. "Like Applejack. Family, close. Very very nice. Met brother, met sister."

"Oh, dear," Fluttershy said. "Um, you met Applebloom? What did you think of her, i-if you don't mind me asking?"

"Child," she whispered airily, grin too large to be entirely Similar. "Darling, precious. Friends too. Want to meet."

Fluttershy and Rarity looked at each other, almost warily, as if they knew something she didn't. "Um, that's... great!" Rarity said nervously. "Speaking of meeting her friends, you should come over to my Boutique. It'd be fitting to talk about her friends there, if you truly want to meet the other crusaders."

Elizabeth looked at Fluttershy. "Go? Where will you?" She had to admit, she worried for Fluttershy. She lived very close to the Everfree Forest, and while it posed no almost no threat to Elizabeth, Fluttershy wasn't nearly as tough as her. Sure, she'd survived so long long long next to the trees, but any day her luck could run out.

"Oh, I'll be fine," Fluttershy said with a warm smile. "It turns out the otters caught a cold while I was... away, so I need to take care of them. You can stop by later if you want, but I don't think you'd like being around otters."

Otters. She felt like she remembered them. Furry, swimming, wet things. No, she would not-not-not like being around otters, and she voiced that sentiment. "Go with Rarity then. See later?" she asked, tilting her head.

For some reason, Fluttershy giggled at that. She tensed. Laughing at her laughing laughing! "I'll see you later, Elizabeth. I'm really sorry for, um, leaving you like this." She turned to Rarity, and what little confidence she'd had from speaking with Greene vaporized. "Um, thank you for, um, paying, Rarity. I-I really enjoyed it."

"No trouble at all, darling, you know it was my pleasure." She looked at Elizabeth again and tilted her head, smile diminishing ever so slightly. "Well, come along, dear. Fashion waits for nopony." Rarity turned and began trotting, Elizabeth following after her. As she did, though, she kept her head trained on Fluttershy.

The equine mouthed 'sorry', though why she could not possibly imagine. Elizabeth was left to ponder that curiosity as Rarity metaphorically dragged her through the streets of Ponyville - she could do so much better pointed in a direction and left to go in a straight line! - as equines looked on at them.

"Boutique purpose?" she asked.

"Glad you inquired!" Rarity dropped back until they were side to side. Elizabeth edged away, suit momentarily crawling with red and white because Rarity was close close close! "You see, my talent is in taking the mundane and making it fabulous!" She gestured to her mark, three diamonds arranged in a triangle. "I'm also quite skilled in finding gems, if I do say so myself. But regardless, my business is to design and create fashionable dresses for mares and suits for stallions. Other things too, such as scarves, or socks on rare occasions, but mostly dresses." She looked at Elizabeth. "I can tell you right now, that suit does not fit you at all. Especially not those tubes down your back, no no. Simply will not do!"

Elizabeth frowned. "Business. Let me guess. Give away clothes you make, given metal pieces in return."

"Metal... ah, you mean bits!" They walked over a bridge, below which ran a murmuring brook. Elizabeth thought she heard the bridge creak under her weight, and she readied to jump should it fail below them.

It didn't. They passed. "Well, that's the usual fare, of course. Though I must say, I have a strict first-one's-free policy." They continued for a while. "And I must say, you have the most exquisite accent I've ever heard."

"Oh?" They approached a new building. It was... strange. She really didn't understand the organization. She could see the point of a doorknob, though, as Rarity move-thoughted the door open. After all, the equines were certainly not the only species on this world. "Accent?" she asked, stepping in. There were strange things. The room was... rather smoothly colored, but her gaze was drawn to the faceless equines covered in various... various...

... dresses.

She zipped over to the nearest one, a dark brown and orange thing with various frills and even orange see-through rocks like Fiamma had eaten. They were patterned and shaped for equines, with saddles where their withers would be, flowing around their hind legs. But they were clearly dresses. She reached out a hand to touch the nearest...

"Ah ah!" Rarity interjected. "I'm afraid those are only displays. Not for sale, you see. I make the actual dresses based on consumer input, those are just examples. Well, of course, with the lineups they're usually similar but... oh apologies, I'm rambling." Rarity walked forward, and Elizabeth followed her, eventually coming to stairs. She turned her head around.

"But... dresses," she rasped, helplessly following the Laughter Element. She didn't didn't didn't understand why exactly she felt so attached to those articles of clothing when she had her suit and her suit had her, but she was attached.

"Now, before I get started on your measurements, I simply must fix you something to drink. I'd give you something to eat, but." Rarity laughed nervously, trotting into into into some room that smelled vaguely of the plants she was beginning to identify as equine-food. Which was to say, most of them. "I don't exactly have any meat. Sorry."

Elizabeth wasn't focused on the meat part. She had a virtually inexhaustible supply in the Everfree, didn't she? "No drink," she said urgently, shaking her head. "Not thirsty. Don't get thirsty. Dresses?"

"Ah, different body, I understand. In any case, dear, I shall get to your dress in just a moment. I myself do need something to drink after that soak I've just had. Until then, do feel free to look around, Elizabeth." As Rarity went to fix herself water, Greene did just that. What she spotted, however, quickly grabbed her attention. There, lying next to some kind of machine, which she guessed Rarity used for her, ugh, business, was a bundle of cloth, and inside of that bundle, a cat.

She approached the cat, watching the white bundle stretch and crack open sickly green eyes. It hissed at her. Elizabeth, responding based on knowledge she didn't know she had, gripped the cat by the scruff of its neck and lifted it to her eye level, bow and all. She smiled fondly at the feline. She remembered a cat. She remembered having a cat. Just barely, but she remembered. No color, no gender, no attitudes, but when she'd been a Similar she'd definitely owned a cat.

The cat hissed and clawed at her arm. It claws bounced right off her suit, making it shake once in surprise. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, and tightened her grip on its neck. The cat meowed awkwardly, shifting about, and gagged as if coughing up a furball. Then Elizabeth snapped her hand open, dropping the cat back to its mountain of fabric. The cat glared at her. Elizabeth glared at the cat.

The cat blinked. Elizabeth did not.

The cat huffed, and laid back to its nap. She smelled someone nearby, and whipped around to see Rarity rolling her eyes, a glass of water water water held in her pale blue move-thought. "I see you've met Opalescence," she said. "She really only seems to like me, and by like I do mean tolerate."

Elizabeth huffed, looking at the cat as Rarity took a sip of water before setting it aside. Abruptly, she shivered, reminding herself of how cold it was. She sat, bringing her to Rarity's eye level, and let out a small mat of tendrils for her to sit on. The equine eyed them. "Um, right. So, as I was saying, I have a strict first-one's-free policy in this store, and I simply refuse to make an exception."

"What free?" she asked.

"Why, my wares of course!" Rarity edged close to Greene, making her pull back and shake. "Why, your current outfit just doesn't suit you at all! It's so gray, and plastic, and dreary," she said, trotting circles around her. Elizabeth's gaze narrowed, and Rarity shivered despite the fact that her coat was steadily matting in sweat. How dare she insult her suit! "You need something to compliment you. Exotic." She'd gone back around to her front, Elizabeth's eyes tracking her intently, never blinking. "Alien, with agile fingers, a fearsome predator." She reached her back, but continued to circle around. Elizabeth's body bristled with tendrils. Was the unicorn getting closer? "A being from beyond, come to Equestria. Gray simply does not suit you, dear!" Elizabeth scowled and idly played with the strap around her waist.

She was back infront, smiling, her eyes dazzled with... something. Greene didn't know, no more than she knew how to respond to Rarity's comments. "My suit," she rasped harshly. "Don't won't can't take off."

The equine tilted her head, curiosity filling her eyes. "Can't? What do you mean you can't remove your clothes?"

"Part of me," she said, standing back to her full height. "Mine, part of me." She warped red and white tendrils around her, from her head to her torso to her hands and feet, to prove the point. "Can't take off."

"Hmm, so it'll always be there." She tapped a hoof on her chin. "I believe I can work around that." She approached again. "Though you really should get somepony to redo your - " She reached out a forehoof and tapped Greene's head. She stiffened, breath hitching as a thousand roiling boiling seething emotions flooded her WHO DID THIS UNICORN THINK SHE WAS? She brought her hands together and slammed both palms into Rarity's ribs. She flew backwards and slammed into a wall, falling down with a groan. "... mane," she wheezed.

Elizabeth stayed on her, the web of tendrils expanding towards Rarity and pinning her to the floor. "Not Fluttershy!" she hissed. "Don't touch! Don't you dare!"

"Eugh..." Rarity groaned, her intake of air buzzing weakly for a few minutes while Greene's cautious angry gaze remained on her, just daring her to touch her again. She... she had no right! What was it with these equines and touching? The only one who she'd even remotely allow to touch touch touch was Fluttershy, not even Celestia or Luna. Eventually, Rarity managed a word. "S-Sorry."

"Should be," she hissed, the words bouncing through the air angrily. She relented and pulled her trapping warmth off Rarity and flicked her right hand, a shower of green sparks falling from her fingers and palm.

Rarity pulled herself to shaking hooves, coughing, and leaned against the wall. "I-I should apologize," she said at length. "It was unbecoming of me to touch you without warning, especially given your." A coughing fit. "Culture."

"Never again without permission," she hissed. "Might not remember to hold back. Kill."

She gulped. "R-Right then! You have my word I will not touch you without your express permission." She winced, and took several more minutes to recover from Greene's blow. "N-Now, as I was saying, I can work with this. Just... hmm." Rarity tilted her head, as if that gave her some new insight. "Yes," she murmured. "I have something! Oh, but before I go any further, I'll need to take your measurements." Rarity's horn lit up, and a drawer opened up, from which came... what was that? Rarity move-thoughted it closer to her, a pad of paper and a quill next to her, and then paused, biting her lip. "I do have to warn you, in order to take your measurements I have to press this against you. May I?"

Greene grimaced. "What for?" she asked hesitantly.

"Well, if I'm to make you any apparel, I need to know how large to make it, you understand?"

Elizabeth nodded slowly. "Think so. Go ahead." She stiffened. "Measure."

The item Rarity had levitated was soon revealed to her to be a measuring tape. She wrapped it around her arm, her neck, her waist, every part conceivable. She extended it horizontally, vertically, even diagonally, and each time Elizabeth hissed lightly and shook. In an effort to take her mind off the touching she thought back to her first meeting with Rarity, and remembered something.

"Sweetie is sister?" she asked.

"She is indeed," Rarity replied, scribbling some odd measurement or another on her paper. "She's not here at the moment, of course. I sometimes foalsit her for my parents, and then she stays here, but otherwise she stays with them. Why do you ask?"

She pondered this as Rarity took the width of her neck. "Sweetie friends with... Applebloom? Same age?"

Rarity sighed. "She is."

Elizabeth couldn't help but suppress a little giggle. "Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo. Friends. Applejack, promised her to foalsit them when needed." Rarity's face blanched. Why? This was great news! "Sibling to her. Things to know?" she asked excitedly.

"Oh dear, you volunteered to foalsit the crusaders?" She shook her head. "Err, right. While I can't exactly speak for her friends - hold your forelegs, err, arms out please, just like that, thank you - I can tell you this right now. Under no circumstances should you ever allow her to cook anything."

"Why?" she rasped.

Rarity's snout wrinkled. "It's not... just don't let her cook anything and you won't need to find out why."

Elizabeth was satisfied with that explanation.

As Rarity began measuring something about her back, she continued. "Though I really am surprised you volunteered to foalsit Sweetie and her friends. After all, you take care of one you take care of all three." She looked left. She looked right. "And they do have the reputation as troublemakers," she said with a whisper.

"Can't be more trouble than already seen," she said simply. "Children," she stressed.

"Mmhmm," the unicorn said knowingly. "Well, I suppose we'll just see what the damage is when it's done." Another scribble on her pad. "I'll have to ask Applejack why exactly she thinks you're qualified, but that's neither here nor there. Ah, thank you. That's all I needed." Elizabeth leaped back, almost toppling over a table filled with cloths of all shapes and colors.

"Dress when?"

"A few days, dear. I do have my autumn line to make as well, in addition to preparing for the winter season. Hmm... swing by sometime next week. Or, if inspiration decides to strike, I'll come find you when it's ready. How does that sound?"

A week. That was nothing. She began heading back downstairs to leave and go to Fluttershy when Rarity stopped her with yet another question.

"Hold on, if you please." She snapped her head around, fingers flexing like claws bad bad bad image head bad memory bad stop stop stop!

"I trust you've noticed your voice echoes, hmm?"

"Always," she said, said echoes bouncing around the room long after her lips stopped moving.

"Yes, well, I'm curious. You have a lovely accent, but your repeats somewhat distort it. Is it... possible for you to speak without the echoes?" Rarity stopped to rub at where Greene had defended herself. "I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I'm simply curious.

Greene frowned. She opened her mouth, clenching and unclenching her throat muscles. "Never... tried," she said haltingly, her echoes held back in her throat. "Is... difficult. Not... worth... effort." She stopped, and rubbed her throat. "Hurts," she said, the word repeating several times.

"Then I shan't ask you to do so!" Rarity said, and then shivered. "What an accent, though. Hmm, it almost reminds me of a minotaur's accent, but it's even more clipped. Now go, go! I must get to work while the idea is fresh in my mind! Something to incorporate your tendrils, perhaps. Could you be so kind as to see yourself out, Elizabeth?"

She tilted her head as the unicorn began to scribble rapidly. "See myself out? Don't understand."

"Um, right. Would you be so kind as to leave the premises of my home? I must minimize distractions. Oh, don't take it as me kicking you out, no no no. It's just, I need to strike the iron now, while it's hot."

"Understand." Elizabeth looked at the window and briefly briefly briefly considered jumping out of it. However, she doubted it would be considered nice to break an equine's Home, and they had been so kind to her! Especially the alicorns, and especially Fluttershy. So she fled down the stairs and out the unicorn's Home, pondering where she would go next. Fluttershy would still be treating some disease for the otters - good good good, it was a terrible thing to be sick for however short a time - so she had time before she could not interrupt her.

Elizabeth Greene's eyes wandered towards the Everfree Forest, and her dry tongue licked her lips.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

The previous day had come and gone, and still Twilight was no closer to having a definitive answer as to just how dangerous Elizabeth Greene was. What little information she could scrounge up on Nosokinetics was very limited; ways to test for cures and disease strains primarily. Not unsurprisingly, the library didn't have any information on plague-causing magic, so she'd need a trip to Canterlot in order to find more information about the alien's possible powers.

Of course, it didn't help that the alien in question trusted her about as much as she trusted Pinkie Pie's hoof-made hot sauce. Or that she didn't even seem to be aware she was viral.

"You look like you're panicking," Pinkie Pie observed from where she hid underneath a table.

Popping her head from behind a couch, Twilight locked eyes with Pinkie, using what little light got through the closed blinds to find the pink mare's - gray in the dark - eyes. "I'm not panicking," she insisted. "I'm past that now. I'm just worried I can't learn enough about Greene before she, accidentally or purposefully, uses some dangerous aspect of her powers."

"Oh that's silly!" she said. "I mean, you said how jumpy she is, but she didn't jump at all when she met me and usually ponies jump when they first meet me!" Pinkie cocked her head. "Twilight, why do ponies usually jump when they first meet me?"

"You get right in their faces," she said dryly. "All the same, Pinkie, thanks for keeping this party to just the seven of us."

"No problamo! Don't wanna scare her too bad!"

"If ya'll are done chatting," Applejack interrupted from somewhere else in the library. "Keep in mind that she's got very good ears! Hush up!"

"Sorry," the two of them hissed.

Twilight focused her eyes and blinked again, but that did little to help her vision. Today, on Elizabeth Greene's second full day in Ponyville, she hoped she could maybe get some more information out of her. From what she'd discussed with the girls, she was very friendly with Applejack and Rarity, confused by Pinkie Pie (No surprise there), and had a competitive streak with Rainbow. As for Fluttershy... she was really attached to Fluttershy, and had spent the entirety of yesterday afternoon and the whole of today with her. The welcome party was a perfect excuse to get some more information out of her; if Elizabeth wasn't willing to answer her questions, maybe she'd answer the girls'.

... not that that was the sole reason for the party. No.

"Hey girls?" Pinkie half-whispered after a few minutes of waiting.

"Yeah?" Rainbow asked.

"Do you... do you think Elizabeth will like it?"

"Of course!" Rainbow said. "Who doesn't like one of your parties?" the pegasus asked from where she'd perched on top of a bookshelf... somewhere.

Pinkie's hooves shuffled. "Well, it's just... I really really really want this to go well. I've never thrown a party for an alien, and... my non-pony-parties don't exactly have a good record."

"What ever do you mean?" Rarity asked from next to Twilight. Between them, Spike shuffled.

"I was too afraid of Zecora to properly welcome her," Pinkie said, sounding genuinely distraught. "And don't even get me started about that meanie-pants Gilda! I really, really, really hope Lizzy likes this party - "

"Hush ya'll! I think they're coming!"

They all fell mum, but for all Twilight knew Greene could hear even their heartbeats. She heard her speaking with Fluttershy, her shredded voice piercing through walls and distance as if they were immaterial.

"Why Library? Twilight's there." Said Twilight's ears flattened. What had she done to deserve that? She was a good pony, wasn't she?

'Um, well, I need to check out a book there." They were close now. "Sorry," Fluttershy squeaked, barely audible. The door creaked open, letting in a flood of light. Elizabeth had to lean to fit inside the door, her black silhouette contrasting sharply with Fluttershy's.

They stepped in, the door creaking as somepony, probably Fluttershy, shut it. "Banner? Why - "

Applejack flipped the lights on. They all leaped from their hiding spots. "SUR - "

"Ah!" Elizabeth was there, and then she wasn't. Just a startled pegasus with wood falling on her from a hole in the ceiling.

"- prise?" the six of them trailed off. The six ponies and one dragon clustered around the hole in the ceiling, looking up into Twilight's bedroom. There, with her back to the ground, fingers and feet lightly touching the second ceiling, was Elizabeth Greene, a small splatter of red and white tendrils around where she touched the tree.

"Ha! I don't think I've ever surprised somepony like that before!"

"Um, Elizabeth?" Fluttershy began.

"Yes?" she hissed, not looking back down.

"Y-You can come down now."

"Scared me."

"Sorry!" Pinkie chirped. "But I did warn you you were gonna get a kinda-surprise party! Come on down, let's get started!"

"My house," Twilight grumbled. "My bedroom!"

Slowly, Elizabeth turned her head to look down at them. Even from so far away, Twilight could see that her pupils had contracted in fear, but her irises remained the same. She had to write that down when she had a moment.

"Party?" Elizabeth asked, still clinging by the mesh to the ceiling.

"Yeppers!" Pinkie replied back. "Come on down! It's just the seven of us, so you don't need to worry about crowds!"

"Party," she repeated again. "Told me. Own fault for not being prepared." The mesh of tendrils shrunk until they vanished... into Greene perhaps? The moment they were gone they all took a step back, forming a ring around the empty spot of library that Elizabeth fell onto with a strangely heavy thud. She looked around at the assembled ponies, before her gaze settled on Spike.

Spike raised a claw and waved it. "Uh, hi," he said.

"What... dragon... small," Elizabeth stammered.

"Yeah," Spike said indignantly, placing his hands on his hips. "Make fun of the baby dragon."

Greene stiffened, her eyes widening. "Baby dragon? Child?" Internally, Twilight groaned. Great, how have we offended her now?

Spike nodded. "Yeah, sure."

Elizabeth's neutral face was split by a smile, and she lunged.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

After pulling Elizabeth off of a very panicked Spike, they finally got the party underway. True to Pinkie's expert knowledge, there was a separate table of snacks for Elizabeth to eat. Meaty ones. Twilight hadn't any idea where Pinkie managed to secure that amount of meat, but she really didn't want to know. She got that some other species needed to eat that, she really did. Didn't stop her from feeling queasy and joining in to talk with Applejack over by what one half of her brain was calling the 'herbivore table' and the other half the 'sweets table'.

"Twilight," the farmer said. "I know ya'll are very curious about Elizabeth, but if she wants to talk about it she'll talk about it!"

"It's not if she wants to talk about it," she said. "It's that she may not think something's a big deal when it is!"

"Well, then why don't you just go over to her and ask?"

Twilight nodded. "You're right. Better to just get this over with."

"I might just join ya, ya know. Get to know her a bit better if she's gonna be foalsittin' Applebloom."

Twilight groaned. "I feel bad for her."

"For who?" Applejack asked threateningly, leaning closer to Twilight.

"Err..." Oh for Celestia's sake, was that ever a loaded question! "Um..."

Suddenly the orange pony grinned. "I'm just yankin' your tail, Twi. Come on, let's chat with her."

"Right." The two trotted over to Elizabeth, who had just scarfed down... the last of the food Pinkie had out for her. Which was actually quite horrifying, considering the entire table had been devoted to just that. The Evolved stood next to Fluttershy, smiling and talking about, from what Twilight could gather, how helpful Elizabeth was with the animals, and why Elizabeth felt she wasn't.

"Hello, Elizabeth," Twilight greeted.

The alien's gaze settled on her, making her flinch. "Twilight Sparkle. More questions?"

"We," Applejack interjected, Elizabeth's lips turning up slightly as she did. " - just wanted to talk to ya. Get to know ya a little better."

The Evolved relaxed. "Makes sense." She sat on the floor, bringing her to eye level with them. A small web of tendrils emerged underneath her, but went no further. "Que... questions?"

The rest of the girls joined them, sitting on their plots in a circle with Elizabeth at the apex. Spike also joined, careful to be as far from Elizabeth as possible, whereas Fluttershy was right next to her. They gathered beneath the banner, which read 'WELCOME TO ~~PONYVILLE~~ ~~EQUESTRIA~~ EQUUS ELIZABETH GREENE', with her last name painted in brilliant, well, green.

Everypony stared intently at Elizabeth, before Twilight opened her mouth. "Well, lets start at the beginning. What was it like, growing up in your world?"

"Don't remember," she rasped.

"What do you mean you don't remember?" Rainbow asked.

"Don't remember," she repeated. "Time as similar... mostly forgotten." She held a hand to her chest. "Good to not remember."

"Why is that a good thing?" Twilight asked. "I mean, you'd think that remembering more of your life is good, because then your effective lifespan is greater."

Greene appeared to be the only one who understood that, and she just shook her head. "No no no. Saw other similars. Not good life. Good to not remember."

Twilight frowned, filing this away in her memory. Humans either lived generally miserable lives, or Elizabeth saw them, by comparison to her Evolved life, to be miserable. "What do you remember of your time as a human?" Spike handed her a sheet of paper and a pencil. She mouth a thank you and began transcribing Elizabeth's answer word per word. Deeper analysis could come later.

Elizabeth tilted her head back and winced. "Remember... falling autumn leaves. Falling shards of orange glass. Learning to roll and dive. Had a cat, but don't remember what they were like." She grimaced and closed her eyes, as if the process of remembering was painful. "Was... an argument. Don't know with who. Rain falling outside a window." She snapped her eyes open and looked at Twilight. "Steve. There was definitely someone named Steve."

"O-Oh," Fluttershy whispered, looking at her alien friend. "That's really all you remember?"

She nodded. "Impressions sometimes. Octavia concert, felt like I recognized music style. Don't remember, but recognized. Most memories gone." She shook her head. "Remember after that well."

"Ooh! Ooh! Me next!" shouted Pinkie Pie, raising her hoof. "So, what was your who-o-ole life like? I mean, what's your life story? Mine's - "

Rainbow plugged Pinkie's mouth with a hoof before she could go off on a tangent. "I don't think she's interested in our life story right now, but you do have a point. What's up with you?" she asked.

Elizabeth tilted her head. "Where to start start start..." she mused.

"Maybe, um, before the cold dark place?" Fluttershy mentioned. "If that's alright with you, of course?"

She nodded vigorously. "Yes yes yes, good idea, good. Start at beginning, yes yes." Elizabeth looked at Fluttershy, expression softening. "Deserve to know. First home was hope."

"So," Twilight began. "What was the name of this place?"

Elizabeth looked at her, expression maybe annoyed. "Hope. First home called Hope. Small town, few hundred similars. First real real real memory. Graveyard. Similar child grave."

They all gasped. A dead child? Twilight looked at Spike, unbidden mental images threatening to overwhelm her. Elizabeth continued. "Got idea from there. Family. Raise them." She smiled. "And I did. I raised my blessed family, but then... but then..." she shivered. "They came. Fought my children, burned them broke them shattered them. Found me. Found me, I was weak from new child. From giving birth to my holy child." That stirred something in her. Attacking a mare while she was in the process of bringing a new life into the world - !

"They attacked you while you were giving birth?!" Rainbow shouted. "Alright, where's your home world? Let me at 'em!"

"Rainbow, calm down," Rarity said, eyes wide. "We can't get there. Let Elizabeth explain."

The pegasus pouted, crossing her forehooves. "Fine. But if I see one of them, I'm bucking them cross country."

"Alright, alright, we all agree that what the humans did to Elizabeth was shameless. What happened after?"

"A lot of nothing," she said, looking down. Suddenly, waves of misery and sorrow crashed down on Twilight, her pencil momentarily stopping in its movements within her magic. "Holy child and I were only ones left of my family. Separated us. Never... never saw him heard him felt him again. Don't know fate. Put me in... somewhere. A cold dark place. Chemicals to weaken. Took my blood, so much blood, too much blood."

Twilight's lips cracked. "H-How long?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. Pretended to not think. Make them relax around me, talk of world beyond. Learn that way, learn that way." She shrugged again. "Thirty years? Fifty? Forty? Don't know. Time for waiting lasted long time."

"Hold up now!" Applejack interrupted. "Ya'll pretended ya were stupid? What for?"

"Trick them," Elizabeth said simply. "Make them reveal information. Knew they couldn't hold me forever, all I had to do was wait, and learn, so that when I was free I could raise a new family without failing." Greene grimaced as she finished that sentence.

"Don't seem too honest to me," Applejack grumbled.

"Honest and die," she rasped, then smiled. "Not here. Honesty doesn't kill, not here."

"Darn right it doesn't."

"So, um, Elizabeth, what happened? You're not in the cold dark, um, place anymore, so how did you get out?"

She sighed. "Similars took my blood. So many times. So many. One time, took my blessing from it and... and..." She shivered. "Changed it. Twisted it. Made my blessing a curse and kept it sealed." Twilight's pencil scribbled on. So the humans had taken a sample of Elizabeth's virus and mutated it? Without magic? How was that even possible? What sort of technology did they have?

She continued. "The one who twisted it took the curse. He was... mad. Watched him through my connection with the cursed blessing. Saw... a huge city. Towers of metal, dozens hundreds of towers, as tall as Canterlot's mountain. Millions of similars. Giant birds of metal flying overhead. Mad similar took the vial to a building, and... they found him. They killed him, but not before he could release the curse."

Again, Elizabeth's descriptions were beyond Twilight's ability to imagine. The city she described didn't make any sense. She imagined several Mount Canterlot's arranged in a row and covered in steel. She pictured a gray Philomena screeching from atop one of them. None of them were likely even close to the real thing.

"Not entirely sure what happened. Lost connection to the cursed blessing. But... I do know what it did. Felt it bloom in strength. It killed thousands." All seven of them gasped. "In under ten minutes." There was a feminine shriek as Rarity collapsed, but her couch was nowhere to be found, so she ended up in Pinkie's lap.

Rainbow was the first to find her voice again. "T-Thousands of people? In ten minutes? Alicorns damn it, what kind of thing does that?"

"Blessing works in days," she said, which was helpful for Twilight to know. "Curse works in seconds. Powerful curse. Was my chance."

"Y-Your chance?" Fluttershy asked.

"Similars panicked. Forgot to weaken me. Time came, made my prison temporary home. Almost time. And then." Her head fell. "He came."

"Who?" Twilight asked.

"My wayward child. First time I saw him, thought he was the mad similar. So I attacked him. But the moment I touched him I knew. The curse became alive after it was released. It was confused and hurt and had no memory and ever since I touched him I could feel him and hear him. He was so... afraid. He didn't understand." She choked down a... sob? "I should have stayed. I should have helped him, asked him to forgive me."

Fluttershy moved towards her and placed a hoof in her lap. Greene tensed, but that was all. "Elizabeth, you made a mistake. Everypony makes them."

"Not like I did. Instead of helping him, I escaped. Began to raise my family, but... I don't know. I think the similars moved me during the time for waiting. The city was on an island. Similar army surrounded it, couldn't get off the bridges. Surrounding water not not not an option." She shivered, and that prompted herself and her fellow Elements to also shiver. "Repeated. Similar army attacked my children." She looked up, her eyes meeting Twilight's. They were hard, they were angry and determined. "I was ready. Taught my children to fight. Fight back, defend themselves. Island had more resources than first Home. Larger family, numbered in hundreds of thousands."

"Whoa!" Pinkie exclaimed. "Like, thousands of children? How did you keep track of them all?"

"Could hear them, feel them. Watch through eyes, listen through ears, and they listened to me because they were such good children, so obedient. Love them all."

"All of them?" Pinkie asked, leaning in.

"Yes."

"One moment," Twilight said, scribbling in a side note to her verbatim recording of Elizabeth's life story. "So you're saying you had a sort of hive mind with your family?"

She tilted her head to the side. "Don't know what a hive mind is."

"It's a telepathic connection," she explained. "But it's much deeper than the Listen-Across-Streets spell or the My-Eyes-Your-Eyes. You can actually send orders and manipulate thoughts through it, usually with a central figure that controls the others."

Elizabeth shook her head. "No no no. Almost, not quite. No control. Asked them, they heard, listened, obeyed." She frowned. "Except one."

"Who?" Spike asked.

"My wayward child. Cursed. Could hear him, but... he couldn't hear me. Couldn't comfort him. And... oh. Such a bad impression. Struck him, then hurt him without knowing, then left him, and then... children attacked him. Forgot to tell them off, forgot to tell them he was family. Made him decide. He wanted to... to wipe out my family."

"Oh no..." Twilight said. She couldn't imagine what that would be like for her parents. If she or Shiny tried to kill the other, because their parents forgot to tell them something important, and then couldn't fix it. "But, you clearly remembered later. Couldn't you tell your other children not to attack him?" Truth be told, she was still trying to connect in her mind Elizabeth Greene, unstable alien who hated physical contact, with Elizabeth Greene, loving mother of thousands of other Evolved, who apparently reproduced like parasprites.

"Did!" she hissed, repeats momentarily growing frenzied. "But my wayward child couldn't hear! He kept attacking them, and what were they going to do? Let him butcher them?"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Applejack said. "Hold up one moment. You said you attacked your 'wayward child' because you thought he was one of them humans. But how could ya'll have confused them together? Especially if ya love him as much as you claim ta."

"Blessing gives me powers beyond what similars had." The web of red and white tendrils pulsed underneath the alien, and emerald static flickered between her fingers. "Curse gave him powers. Even more so. I'm blessed, but he's not just cursed. He is the curse. Didn't know that, no no no, didn't know that, but still allowed him to do things. Watch."

As she said that, the web of tendrils moved. A strand of it extended into the middle of their little circle, and then began to rise. More and more tendrils piled on top of others, until Twilight could see that they were forming a sculpture. A little fetlock-high sculpture of something that vaguely looked like Elizabeth.

"That was the mad similar. Wore different clothes that day." The figure was bulkier than Elizabeth. It didn't have breasts, but it had very wide shoulders, and had a hood over its head to conceal features Greene couldn't shape with just the mesh. Twilight realized much of the figure's bulk came from poorly-reconstructed layers of clothing. Its stance was cocky and arrogant, head back and arms not out to the side, but hovering just above its sides. It looked like it'd been taking lessons from Iron Will.

"That's the mad similar. Also my wayward child. Curse made him a shifter. Change form."

"A shapeshifter," Twilight breathed. As she watched, the figure melted back into the mesh, which changed to form the silhouette of a human arm, hand included with the five fingers spread out.

"Learned to disguise as similars. Didn't know mad similar form was a disguise, not for a long time. Never saw himself in true form. Identity crisis."

"Kinda like a changeling," Fluttershy whispered to herself.

"Read about them," Elizabeth rasped. "Some things equal, others not. Couldn't disguise as those living. Had to curse other similars to be able to shift into them."

"Curse them? What do you mean?" Spike asked.

Greene shivered. "Always hungry, he was always hungry. Carnivore like me, but... he could only eat meals alive." The wayward child figurine formed again, but there was another human facing him. Twilight couldn't identify them, but got the impression who the second figure was wasn't important.

"Filled similars with his curse, melted, drew in." As she spoke, the mesh changed. Elizabeth closed her eyes, focusing hard. From her wayward child, a pair of tentacles emerged from his back. They twisted through the air and touched the other human. Then the tendrils began to move back in to their source, but the human came with them. When the human touched Elizabeth's son, they seamlessly melded with them, until there was once again just the one figure, melting back into a web of red and white.

They were all stock silent, until Rainbow spoke up. "I think I'm going to be sick," she groaned, dashing off to the restroom.

"Right behind ya!" Applejack said before galloping after the pegasus.

Fluttershy was next to regain control of her vocal cords. "T-That's... that's horrible! He ate people alive!"

"Cursed life," Elizabeth murmured. "Did more than feed him. Healed him, more fuel for regeneration. Yes, healed like me. Flesh is fuel for healing. Also gave him their forms, and... all their memories. Saw what victims saw, knew what victims knew." She shook her head, and the mesh reformed into the image of a human arm. "Changelings can only disguise, but can disguise better than he could. However, he could make... weapons." The human arm changed. The fingers lengthened, one vanishing, and turned to sickle claws. Spikes and loops grew off the length of the arm. It changed again, the claws merging to form a lumpy sphere in place of a hand. Elizabeth then drew the mesh back into the mass she sat on. "Made weapons. Used weapons to fight my children." She shivered, then smiled.

"Good news, though. Not just me and mine. Fought similar army, too. Good thing. Would've lost quick otherwise. So quick."

"What was his name? What happened to him?" Pinkie breathed, the little display of 'cursing' rendering even her quiet.

She scowled. "Similars gave him names. Plural. Too many names for everything. Gave him the name of a god, Zeus. Gave him the name of the mad one. Alex Mercer." When Elizabeth said that name, it was like the temperature dropped by twenty degrees. Twilight's fur stood on end as the light in the library seemed to briefly dim.

"Lots of things happened to him," she rasped. "More than to me, as I raised my family and found a second Home, safe from their unnatural fire. Helped by two similars. Second betrayed him to similar army. Eugh." She shivered. "They poisoned him. Made an awful poison and gave it to him. Almost killed him, almost killed him. Another similar saved him. First similar... mad one's sister. Thought my child was him."

Hatred flooded Twilight's veins. "Pretender!" Greene hissed. "Pretender! Not his family, no right to him! None! My son, mine! Encouraged to fight my children, to butcher them and devour them! How dare she!" She looked at them, as if daring them to say otherwise. "Took her. Didn't want her to poison his mind anymore, even though I hated him for what he did - "

"I thought you loved him," Twilight said, pencil moving almost on its own.

"I do. But oh I hate him, because he slaughtered his sisters and brothers and called it justice, devoured them and called it good, but how can I hate him when he never had a chance, when the similars cursed him to be like that? Will admit, took the pretender partly for revenge."

"It's never good to hate somepony you love, though," Fluttershy said quietly. "Especially not family."

"You weren't there! You didn't see what he did! The way he hunted us down. The way he silently slaughtered." Elizabeth's expression went dazed. She lifted a hand to ghost along the left side of her neck. "The way he hurt me. It would be hard not to hate him, after his used the awful poison on me when he came to find the pretender."

"He thought she was his sister," Spike said. "I know I'd... I mean, I don't know what I'd do if somepony foalknapped Twilight!"

"Not a foal," she grumbled.

"Doesn't matter. But... awful poison was made to destroy his curse. Hurt me, hurt my blessing, but made me give birth to my strange child."

"Strange child?" Spike asked.

"Strange child," she echoed in more ways than one. "Defended me when I ran away, to heal, weak. Strange child was cursed like him, couldn't hear me, but still listened. Still listened. Feared me, oh I don't want him to fear fear fear me." She shook her head. "Wayward child escaped with pretender. Strange child almost died, but healed. Escaped, made new Home, last one was broken by their fight."

She frowned. "Similars made poison for me and my children. Red fog. Bad air. Burned to touch, burned and dissolved." She beat a fist into the ground, cracking the wooden floor. "My son... that's when I really began to hate him. Stopped forgiving him. He stopped fighting the similar army and helped them. Brought the bad air to my home and pumped it in."

At that moment, Rainbow and Applejack returned, looking noticeably more green in the face. They didn't say anything as Elizabeth went on. "It hurt, it hurt. Similars wanted to make me leave home. Wayward child wanted it to make me face him." She growled. "Plan, make so many plans, ever so smart. Some children blocked off tunnels. Slowed spread of bad air, but couldn't stop it. Others... others came to me. Gave me their power, gave me their strength. Still others went to surface, fight them, buy time."

"Why didn't you just run?" Applejack asked.

"Yeah, I'm all for not running from a fight, but it's just stupid to go looking one," Rainbow interjected.

"Run where?" Greene challenged. "On an island. Find me again. Couldn't sit aside longer. Couldn't let wayward child butcher my my my children. Had to stop him. Only one way to stop him. Children gave me enough time to grow stronger, and when I couldn't hold any more strength I emerged from home and fought my wayward child."

"That must've been so hard on you," Fluttershy said. "Fighting somepony you love like that."

She nodded. "Hard in more ways than one. Hated him for what he did, but loved him because he's my son and he had no say in what he wanted to do to me. But also..." She gulped. "More powerful than him. Kicked him away, screamed at him, blasted him with electricity. Children punched him, slowed him, fought off similar army that came to help wayward child. Focused all my power on him."

"Oh, wow," Twilight said. "I can just imagine." Not really, she couldn't even begin to imagine.

Elizabeth fiddled with her fingers, then with the straps on her right hand. "Almost got him. Several times, I almost won. But each time, he slipped away, cursed one of my children or a similar to heal, and then came back. I could almost kill him, but never quite."

"Why would you try to kill him?!" Rainbow shouted. "That makes you as bad as him!"

"Only way to stop him!" she shouted in return. "Couldn't hold down, couldn't talk down, only way to stop him is to kill him! Too powerful for anything else to work!" As quick as it had come, her fury dissipated. "Didn't matter. Slashed me, whipped me. Smashed me, clawed me. Summoned a forest of spikes, stole similar weapons to use against me, blasted me with a river of his curse. Cut my legs off, then tore me away from my defenses. And then... never forgive what he did."

They were watching with baited breath, hanging on her every word. "What?" Pinkie asked. "What did he do? I mean, everything can be forgiven if you really really want to!"

"Grabbed me. Beat me, threw me down." She shivered, taking a deep breath.

"Elizabeth," Fluttershy said, placing a hoof on Elizabeth's back. "If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to."

"Cursed me. He killed me."

Utter silence.

"But... strange. Curse doesn't give a good death. Wasn't dead, but wasn't alive. Not... not in between. Outside those two. Horrible prison. No time, no space. No something, no nothing. No chaos, no order, no vision, no blindness, no movement, no stillness. Don't know how long. Then... got better. Came here somehow, won't complain." She shrugged. "You know rest."

Twilight's pencil clattered to the floor.

Elizabeth Greene... had died. And that meant she had come back to life. Necromancy was supposed to be an impossible field of magic, and yet here was living proof that it could be done. But, Elizabeth said she hadn't been strictly dead. Or was that just poetic speech for the afterlife given by Alex Mercer's curse? Or was it literal? Twilight didn't know. She could review her notes later for a proper introspective analysis later, when she wasn't so shell-shocked by the story.

"Answers life story question?" Greene asked.

"Y-Yep. Well," Pinkie said weakly. "Enough mopey-wopeyness. W-Who wants to play Twister?"

But Twilight could only stare. Died and come back to life.

Hydrophobia

View Online

Greene

"No way, she's gonna fall."

"Come on Liz, come down!"

"Wish I could take a picture."

"Someone go get the principle!"

"Oh not again."

She moved one hand up, grasping the ledge. Her right foot slipped, but she'd felt that coming for some time now. She swung her weight onto her left foot and hopped. While that didn't buy her any height, it did let her get both feet onto the wall again. With another heave, she pulled herself further up. She took a moment to lean against the ledge, looking down at the assembled students. She kicked her legs against the wall, smiling.

"How's the weather down there?" she asked.

"Very nice, how's it up there?" someone shouted up.

Elizabeth shrugged. "A bit chilly. Gonna get closer to the sun, maybe that'll help."

"That's not how it works!" another reminded her.

"Yeah yeah," she snarked, standing back up. She jumped, scrabbling for purchase on the wall. For a moment her feet caught on her skirt, and she gasped in fear. But experience persevered and, in seconds, she'd climbed to the top of the school, dangling her legs over the edge. She threw her arms to the side, looking down at the assembled student body.

"Yeah! What now?" She laughed, flopping down on the back of the school, relishing in the height she'd gotten.

The shadow of someone behind her blocked the sun. "Miss Greene," said the one voice she dreaded. Her guts froze, and her heart leaped into her throat. She turned her head around, and there, emerging from a stairway passage to the roof the janitors used to keep the school clean of leaves and such, was Principle Flora.

She whipped around, scrambling to her feet. "M-Mr. Flora," she said nervously. "Nice to see you! Um, nice view up here, right?" Mr. Flora was about as intimidating as his name wasn't. He stood head and shoulders above everyone else Elizabeth had ever met. His black hair was shaved in a military cut like she'd seen Daddy have, framing a face so tan as to be almost golden. Combined with his impossibly wide shoulders that his dark, all-business suit did nothing to slim, bulging bisceps, trisceps, and various other 'ceps, he looked like he'd be better at home holding the world up, not in an office with a Harvard degree behind him.

"Elizabeth," he said in a smooth-as-honey voice. "How many times have we spoken about climbing the school?"

"Ooh, someone's in trouble!" came a snicker from below.

"Hehe, twenty seven but who's counting, right?" She backed off, inching towards the roof's ledge.

If Mr. Flora noticed, he gave no indication. "You do realize that only school staff members are allowed up here, a quality you are distinctly... lacking in." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with enough force to break her own. "Oh Elizabeth, what am I going to do with you?"

"Um, give me a stern word and let me go?" she asked nervously, calculating how she'd need to move and when. The crowd was backing off, likely already knowing what she planned to do.

Principle Flora sighed. "Oh Elizabeth. Honestly, you're such a bright young lady. I've seen your test scores. If you could refrain from doing things like this, you may end up working for NASA, or - "

"As much as I like talking to you, sir, I, um, forgot I left my cat under the oven!" She turned around and leaped, sailing two stories to the earth. Wait for it... now! She tucked her chin under her shoulder and rolled with the impact, coming up in a run for it. The other kids cleared out of her way and she booked it like the Nuclear Alarm had gone off. She wasn't going to go straight home, she wasn't crazy! She'd never be able to sprint that long. So she went for the woods behind the school, slipping in and vanishing before anyone could follow her. Some person - a commie probably - had started a rumor that the woods were haunted, and now even the grown-ups were afraid to go in.

More for her.

She wasn't a survivalist, not by a long shot. The amount of time she could survive in the wilderness was more or less equal to the time it would take her to thirst to death. But she didn't need to stay in the woods for too long, just long enough to circle back to her house. The buzzing of insects filled the air, and more than once she had to slap away a mosquito. Stupid bugs. Stupid summer-while-there's-still-school. Before long she'd circled around, and had reached the backyard of her house. The twelve-year-old jumped over the dividing fence, then knelt as a little ball of fur bounced up to her.

"Hey there Sniffles," she said, ruffling the white cat's fur, brushing her fingers over the black splotches. "How've you been?"

Sniffles mewed.

"I missed you too." Elizabeth stood back up, clicking her tongue at Sniffles. "Come on girl, let's get you some fish."

Sniffles mewed slightly louder.

Elizabeth could only laugh at that. The two of them swept into their home, where her mother was busy knitting a sweater. Elizabeth didn't really care for it. The sweater was something about Vietnam. Sniffles clawed at her leg, almost drawing blood before she caught into her dress and scampered up to rest on her shoulder, keeping silent vigil on the kitchen. Elizabeth went to the fridge, but passed by it to the shelves. She reached for the box and took out one of the fish-flavored crackers (They tasted nothing like fish, yuck) that Sniffles just couldn't get enough of.

She frowned, taking the cracker out. She could've sworn there'd been more. Oh well, not her problem. She held the treat up to Sniffles, who took it up from her and, in a single agile leap, went from her shoulder to the shelves. In another leap, she alighted on the floor, scampering off to God-knows-where.

"Elizabeth?" she heard her mother call.

"Over here!" she shouted. Had Mr. Flora called them already? He couldn't have. She was fast. But then again, no matter how fast she was, telephones were always faster.

"Come to the living room, there's someone to meet you!"

She gulped, her feet bringing her from the kitchen to the living room without her say. Oh no. This was it. Oh God above, what had she done? She should never have ran from Mr. Flora. She should never have climbed to the top of the school. She should never have -

"Daddy!" She ran forward, placing her arms around his neck. He hugged her back, lifting her effortlessly, chuckling.

"Oh look at you, you've grown so much!" He set her back down, ruffling the orange hair that spilled across her head. "Why's your hair undone like that?"

"Mom says I don't need to do my hair up if I don't want to. Oh, but I like skirts, Daddy!"

Daddy looked over at Mom. "Is that so?" he said slyly.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes yes, you've won on that. But her grades don't lie, you know. She's definitely got a future in math."

"Honey, you know that girls are naturally - "

"Maybe on average, but individuals can still - "

"Hers is a fluke. She gets points for being cute."

"Maybe when she was six, but she's in eighth grade!"

"Then it's sex appeal!"

Elizabeth started backing away. She hated it when her parents fought like this. She reached the kitchen.

"This is your daughter you're talking about!"

"It doesn't matter if I'm right! Her place is in the kitchen, like yours and every woman before!" She ran. This was what she hated about Daddy's visits. He and Mom had been fighting a lot lately. Calling each other less. She wanted to scream that it was so unfair! She didn't want her parents to fight, not like Jimmy's parents!

Her entire family was coming apart.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

She gasped, relieving the sinking drowning choking, the forgotten dream's vague recollection of sadness and fear slipping away. Before she could pull her warmth back inside she flailed her arms about, tearing through the cocoon and stumbling to her knees. She paused for a moment there, pulling her warmth back inside, then recoiling off the damp soil onto two feet. A flick of tendrils bounced the dirt from her hands, and she set to looking around.

The moon was closing in on the horizon, and since the day-night and night-day switches happened so strange and fast and not-quite-right, it would very quickly become morning. The smell of rain still clung to the air, from the rainshower that had forced her to stay inside Fluttershy's home most of yesterday. That had been a rude rude rude awakening. The dirt was still damp damp damp, so she entered Fluttershy's home, spotting the sleeping equine fairly quickly by virtue of the sound of her breathing and heartbeat.

She sat down next to her resting form, gently running a hand through her coat and mane. She smiled weakly. Over the week since the... welcome... Fluttershy had been acting very oddly around her. As if Greene was the one made of brittle glass, not her. Why why why? She didn't understand. It hadn't been just her. The rest of the Harmony Elements, even the ones she wasn't quite as fond of, also behaved as such.

She looked up through a window, watching as the moon dipped closer to the horizon. All at once, the stars faded, and the moon plummeted. At the same time, it became horribly bright bright bright, forcing Greene to squint before her eyes adjusted.

These equines were diurnal. Fluttershy was an equine, and it was day. She was not awake. Elizabeth had to fix that.

She placed a palm against Fluttershy's belly, and gently clenched the base of her spine. It immediately tingled lightly, and sent a tiny tiny tiny shock of electricity into the pegasus. She jerked slightly, then sleepily opened her eyes. "O-Oh, hello Elizabeth," she said.

"Morning," she said.

"Good morning to you too," she murmured.

"No, is morning. Ponies awake in day. It's day."

"O-Oh, right. It's... Tuesday, right? I think I need to, um, pick up some birdseed from the market."

"Come with you? Or hunt for flesh for flesh eaters?" It was one of the few things she did that made her feel like she was helping. Fluttershy could gather and, ugh, buy food for the plant-eaters easily enough, but hunting flesh and bringing it from the forest was something she excelled in. Of course, it meant she rarely spent time in Ponyville and so rarely gathered essence, but there was no rush. She had all the time in the world...

... well, not all the time. She so wanted Fluttershy to be hers and take care of her forever so that nothing would ever bother her ever again because...

But there was no rush.

"Well, you can come with me, um, if you really want to, that is."

She smiled. "Yes. Want to come. Want to see."

"Alright then." Elizabeth moved off the bed, letting the equine get up. She went through her daily ritual, while the rabbit continued to stare at her. Before too long, they'd left and were approaching the earth pony nest. This early early early in the morning there were few equines awake, but the ones that were never ceased to stare stare stare at her, regardless of how many times she reminded them that there was no sense in doing so. Fluttershy finished up her, eugh, shopping in short order, with little event.

"Don't understand, just don't understand," she muttered to herself. There were quite a few clouds in the sky, sometimes blocking the sun, thankfully.

"Oh, um, what don't you understand?" Fluttershy asked, looking up at her.

"Currency." She shook her head. "Never never never."

"W-Well, if it bothers you too much, um, I'm sure Twilight would let you borrow a book. I-I'm sorry, I don't know how it happened myself..."

"No, not that curious," she hissed. She glanced over at Rarity's business/home. She still hadn't gotten that dress.

"Hey Shy! Hey Lizzy!" said the equine suddenly right in front of her where had she come from where where where?! She leaped back with a screech, landing low with one hand touching the road, hissing. A shadow shifted around her.

"Where - why - how - why?" she rasped angrily, slowly rising back up.

Pinkie Pie tilted her head, face oddly contemplative, and Fluttershy spoke up quietly. "Um, Pinkie, I-I don't think it's nice to scare ponies... I mean, Evolved like that."

"Oh it's no biggy!" she said with a wave of her hoof, bouncing up to - but not too close, thankfully - Elizabeth. "So Lizzy, I was just thinking. You can only eat meat, right?"

"Yes," she said, unaware of what that had to do with anything.

"And you didn't like any of Bon-Bon's candy that I got for you at the party, right? I asked Twilight for a book on that, and it said that meat eaters can't taste sweets, right?"

"... Yes." Was this going anywhere?

"Um, Pinkie? I don't think Elizabeth really wants to be bothered. I mean, you remember..." Fluttershy said, trotting over to Pinkie Pie's right.

The earth pony frowned for a moment. "Yeah," she said morosely. "Yeah, I do." She brightened up again. "But that's no reason to ignore all the happy things!" Her eyes flicked upwards for a moment. Elizabeth did so as well. There were a few drifting clouds. Several pegasi flying back and forth. She supposed even equines sometimes got surprised by the abilities of the other subgroups. "So Lizzy, you can't eat pastries like cakes and - " A deep gasp. " - cupcakes. And you don't taste sweets. So I was thinking... what would you say to me inventing a super funtastic meat-cake just for you? Huh? Huh? Well?"

Elizabeth tilted her head. She pondered this suggestion over in her head, long and hard and more meat why not? "Yes," she said greedily.

"Great! Signal!"

Elizabeth was confused at what that meant. A moment later, Fluttershy's eyes widened strangely - the blue surrounding her pupil actually shrunk - and then Greene felt something pressing down on her from above, pushing down. It didn't matter, she was able to take it because she was ever so strong and she had endured so much worse, yes she was so strong and so -

- WET!

Taken by surprise, she collapsed with a crying screech. First to her knees, then her hands, then as the water so much water continued to pour around her, to just laying on her stomach, all in one smooth motion as the downpour crashed around her. She gasped as the water water water dripped around her, pooling around her and soaking into the soil but there was so much on her! She couldn't feel her hands, her legs, anything!

Everything was limp, unwilling to respond to her mental commands, although most of those commands were centered on the feeling of pain, of her body and her suit coming apart at the smallest levels, unable to move through the body of water clinging to her.

"Elizabeth!" shouted/said a worried Fluttershy, rushing up next to her, nudging her head with her snout. She tried to swat her away, but her arm twitched and that was it. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth say something!"

"W-Water," she croaked, water slowly falling off her and the numbing fading but it was happening too slow slow slow! "B-Bad."

"Haha!" shouted a new voice. Rainbow Dash. Infront of her. "That went perfect!"

"Yep! Coulda used a better word than signal, though. I mean, what was I thinking?"

"Heh, yeah. Hey, Elizabeth, don't take it too personally." With great effort, Greene pulled herself onto her hands and knees, looking at Rainbow Dash, who'd landed to Pinkie Pie's left. They both seemed to be laughing. Laughing at her.

Suddenly it clicked.

Pinkie Pie had made her stop moving. Rainbow Dash dumped water all all all over her. They'd planned this.

She growled, numb fingers tightening against the street, but still too desensitized to carve grooves in it like they would normally.

"Heh. Hey, Elizabeth, you all right? Come on, lighten up, it was just a prank."

"Rainbow," Fluttershy said, still at Greene's side. "I think you really hurt her. Look at her!"

"Oh, sheesh. It was just a little water." Greene pulled herself further up. One knee came up, the corresponding hand resting on top of it.

"I don't know," Pinkie Pie said, looking suddenly less energetic. "She doesn't look ok."

"W-Wet," she sputtered. She shook her head, not as quickly as she would have liked, sending stray droplets flying. "T-Tricked me. Hurt me. L-Laughed at me!"

"Oh, Lizzy, I'm really really - "

Her vision narrowed. Fluttershy ceased to exist. The sky ceased to exist. The equines looking at her display ceased to exist. Nothing was real except the two Elements that had just hurt her and laughed at her pain. With a noise that was half growl, half roar, Elizabeth Greene summoned her strength and pounced.

She hit Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash both at the same time, clamping one hand around each of their necks and forcing them to their backs, looming over them. Her arms shook with the effort of keeping herself up, but she ignored it, channeling a steady current into the two equines below her to paralyze them.

"Hurt me," she growled. Her weight bore down on the two, but the way she'd clamped her fingers kept them from choking, and she didn't have the control to change that. "Laughed at me," she snarled, getting closer.

"Elizabeth," Fluttershy said, still by her side. "Elizabeth, please, let them up!"

"They hurt me! Meant to hurt me!" Her echoes buzzed angrily, like irritated insects, filling the air.

"No, they didn't!" she said, frightened.

Frightened.

Scared of her.

She looked over at Fluttershy, whose face was of absolute horror. "Then what?" she hissed. "Accident? Cheered about it."

"Elizabeth, Pinkie and Rainbow prank everypony, especially if they're new. They didn't mean anything by it, it was just some fun."

She let just a little more of her weight fall on the two beneath her, their eyes bulging slightly. "Fun to cause pain? Fun to hurt?"

"They didn't mean to hurt you, Elizabeth. Please, just let them up. Please."

Elizabeth bit her lip with enough force to tear through metal. "Then what did they mean to?" Pinkie made a little sound beneath her, but with her mouth paralyzed by the steady weak steady current, that was all it was.

"It's just a prank. It's not supposed to hurt anypony, they meant it in good fun."

"My expense." Still, she eased up some of her weight, but not before taking a snip of Pinkie Pie's essence. She placed it in Ponyville Earth Pony, but for a moment it flickered over to Canterlot Pegasus. She frowned, and forced it into place.

"They wanted you to laugh about it too. They weren't trying to be mean about it. Please, let them go."

She stopped squeezing electricity into the two and got off. Her back was still completely numb, so she fell back, eyes looking up at the clouds. She laid there for a while, panting, slowly too slowly drying, feeling returning to her body. Once she felt somewhat better, she pulled herself up, glaring at the two equines who'd done that to her. They were on their haunches, looking up at her with wide eyes, hugging each other fearfully and rightfully so!

"Out of my sight," she hissed, a web of tendrils sluggishly expanding from her feet and reaching towards them. They didn't need to be told twice, both vanishing in little clouds of dust. Once they were gone, Elizabeth stumbled again, then shook her legs, getting more water off of them. She brought her warmth in close and spread it along her body. It tingled and numbed painfully where it encountered water, and she clumsily lifted it off her, removing most of the water.

There. Almost better now. She drew the tendrils she'd released back into herself. She scowled at Fluttershy, and immediately felt a stab of guilt for being angry at Fluttershy. "Well? Why did they do that?"

"P-Pinkie and Rainbow like to play pranks," she said almost too quietly for even Greene to hear. "They don't do it to be mean, really. I know it may, um, look like that sometimes." She paused, broken only be the uneasy talking of the equines in the background. "Um, Elizabeth, if you don't mind me asking, why did you fall down like that? I-If it's alright for me to ask?"

"Water hurts," she rasped. "Water burns. Can't move through it."

"But then how do you drink?" she asked, one of her ears flicking in what Elizabeth thought was curiosity.

She looked at Fluttershy strangely. "Don't."

"But, oh. Right, um, alien biology. Sorry."

They soon started back to Fluttershy's home, the pegasus carrying the seeds she'd acquired in her bags. All the while, Elizabeth kept irately flicking off numbing water from her. She could've sworn, each time she thought she got it all off more attacked her!

"Elizabeth," Fluttershy asked as they left the area of the town. "Are you alright?"

"Will recover," she said. "Water numbs, but water dries. Takes time to effect, surprise got me."

"That's not what I - nevermind."

"That's not what you what?"

"Oh, um... Elizabeth, about what you told us at your party. Are you... okay? You sound like you've had a difficult life."

So that's what it was about. It made sense; these equines lived in a much better better better world than that of the Similars, so a story from there would upset them. "Difficult life," she admitted. "Looking up."

Fluttershy smiled. "I'm happy to hear that. I don't know what it would be like if I went through that." She shivered, as if to emphasize the point. "Elizabeth, do you... want to see the town? I mean, I'd like to go with you, but I need to get these seeds back."

"See town?" she asked. She shook her head. "No, no. With you."

Fluttershy gave her a gentle smile. "O-Oh, thank you. You've been a really big help, Elizabeth."

She allowed herself to smile. "Suppose so." They arrived back at Fluttershy's home and began to tend to Fluttershy's animals who were, as Greene quickly realized, her own family in a way. Mostly, Elizabeth just stood back, watching as Fluttershy tended to each of them, occasionally helping out. Such as leaping to a bird's nest, or climbing the tree, to deliver them food or bring an injured member down to Fluttershy's level, sparing her the need to fly. It was curious to see; a pegasus that feared flight, but she didn't think too deeply of it. Why should she?

She brushed away a stray hair from her face as Fluttershy spoke with a bear, something about berries going out of season. She was still angry, especially at Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. She'd trusted them. They were supposed to be heroes of these equines, of this world, and then they went and did that to her? Why? She resolved to ask Fluttershy as soon as she was done with the other animals.

That time arrived when they were inside, Fluttershy eating a sandwich and sipping tea out of a cup. She couldn't begrudge the smell; it was pleasant. Sitting in a chair, reinforced by her warmth so it didn't buckle under her deceptively large mass, Elizabeth was beaten to the punch by Fluttershy.

"So, um, if you don't like water, then how do you drink? I-If you don't mind me asking, of course." She, with the spoon strangely - magic? - attached to her hoof, scooped some sugar into her cup.

"Don't drink," she said calmly as Fluttershy took a gentle sip from her cup, slurping once and then apologizing profusely. "Never had to. Similars drink, not me."

"But, um. I heard how Celestia needed a sample of your blood." The rabbit, Angel Bunny, lightly tapped Greene's shoulder.

Greene winced at the memories, the flashback of held down weak drained of blood. She brushed Angel Bunny off. "Make sure I wasn't dangerous by being here."

"Yes. Um, how can you have blood if you never drink water? You've got to take it in somehow."

Elizabeth pondered this for all of five seconds. "Don't know, doesn't matter. Have blood. Don't need to drink." Something lightly nipped at her feet. She glanced down to see Angel Bunny there again. What was with this creature? Before it could hop away, she wrapped it in her warmth, pinning it to the ground with a cocoon of tendrils and leaving only the nose and eyes uncovered.

"Oh, well, I suppose that's alright," Fluttershy muttered, before taking another sip.

"Don't understand," Elizabeth muttered. "Prank, don't understand. Nothing good either way, bad bad bad all around."

"Well, um, oh I don't want to say anything mean about them. Please don't tell them I said this?"

"Won't," Greene promised in a heartbeat.

"Alright." Fluttershy took a deep breath, seeming to prepare herself. "They're mischievous ponies. They're not mean, but they get a good laugh out of pranking ponies, or, um, anyone, really. They never really do anything bad, just, um, inconvenient."

She narrowed her eyes. "Others let them?"

"Well, they aren't hurting anypony," she muttered.

"Hurt me," she growled. She was lucky the equines had figured out she didn't like water. The Similars had tested, of course, but she hadn't reacted to that any more than she'd reacted to anything during the Time for Waiting.

"And they're really sorry, Elizabeth. They didn't want to hurt you."

"Even if not, annoying. Bothers many, pleases two! Stop them."

"B-But they aren't trying to hurt anypony."

"Displeasure of many, pleasure of few," she insisted. She shivered. "Still hurt me. Hurt me, hurt me, hurt me."

"A-Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine!" she snapped, then immediately felt bad when Fluttershy whimpered. "Sorry," Elizabeth said.

"It's alright," she squeaked. "You're just upset."

"Upset too weak word. Hurt me. Water hurts."

"I know, you already said. So, um, we let them continue because it doesn't really hurt anypony. It's annoying at the moment, but you look back on it and laugh."

"Won't laugh about that."

"Well, you're the, um, exception. I know it doesn't seem like it, but it's not that hard to put up with it, a-and they prank everypony in town, so there's a lot of time between each pony getting pranked."

Elizabeth huffed. "Shouldn't at all." She didn't want to talk about this anymore. "Plans tomorrow?"

"Oh, well, um." Fluttershy seemed taken off guard. Elizabeth spared a moment to glance at the rabbit she still had ensnared. It glared at her, but she released it and siphoned the tough, ensnaring tendrils back into her foot. "Well, I was thinking I should visit Zecora. It's getting colder, and some of the animals always have trouble with hibernating." She creased her brow. "I think she has something that helps with that."

"Hibernate, hibernate," Greene mused. She felt like she should know that word. Oh, but she didn't. Fluttershy did, though, and what were friends for? "What's hibernate?"

"Hibernation, um, that's when some animals go to sleep for the winter. They can't find food during the winter, see, so they sleep it away so they don't use as much, um, energy."

"Hmm," Elizabeth said to herself. "Makes sense. Though... can't find food?" She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Zecora?"

"She's a friend," she explained. "She lives right inside the Everfree forest, so she can get the plants she needs to make, um, potions and medicines."

"Pony lives in Everfree?"

"Zebra, actually. I think some of her potions give off a smell that ward off p-predators. She's really good at making potions."

Elizabeth smiled. "Then meet Zecora tomorrow."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

"So, let me get this straight," Twilight deadpanned, looking at the two downtrodden ponies before her. "You decided, in your infinite wisdom, it would be a good idea to prank Elizabeth Greene, by dumping an entire raincloud on her?"

"Well - " Rainbow began.

Twilight didn't let her even start. "Elizabeth Greene, ambassador to an alien world, who's at the top of the Everfree Forest's food chain, who has enough strength to lift Fluttershy's cottage with one hand just to let her talk to the termites, whose motivation for nearly killing her assailant in Canterlot was 'he touched me', who's traumatized by being murdered by her own son after being held in isolation for nearly five decades." She paused, and then did her best to imitate the Royal Canterlot Voice. "And you thought it'd be a good idea to prank her?!"

"Well, when you put it like that, Twi..." Pinkie says, shifting on the floor.

"Great," she muttered. "Just great. Well, at least we're probably not going to have an interplanetary crisis on our hooves, but, just, grah! What could have possessed you to do that?!"

"It was just some rain!" Rainbow protested. "I didn't know it would do... that to her!"

Twilight paused. All she'd known is what the prank was, and that Greene had been absolutely livid afterward, and that was just from what the two had confessed. "Rainbow, what happened to her?"

"She just fell down!" Pinkie answered for her. "Like, splat! Then she started, like, making everypony angry and scared, saying that water hurt, and then she, um, pinned us." Pinkie rubbed her neck. "It was so weird! My everything was buzzing, but it wasn't like Pinkie Sense, and I couldn't move at a-a-all because of it."

"Electric current," Twilight mused. "Elizabeth can do that. I don't think its magic, though. More like an electric eel, I think." Twilight shook her head. "This doesn't change the fact that what you two did was incredibly stupid! She could have killed you! She probably would have if Fluttershy hadn't been there!" Twilight's throat tightened at that. She realized just how dangerous Elizabeth Greene truly was. It was a really good thing the only times she wasn't with Fluttershy was when she hunted in the Everfree. As much as she didn't like the term, while Fluttershy kept her tamed, they needed a way to keep her tame.

"Sorry," Rainbow Dash grumbled on the library floor.

"Oh, I don't think I'm the one you should be apologizing to! Apparently, water is poisonous to Evolved!"

"Oh," they said at the same time, before Pinkie continued. "We, we really messed that up, didn't we Rainbow?" Rainbow. Not Dashie. Rainbow. "W-We need to tell her how sorry we are."

"Yeah, we should." The two get off their haunches and head for the library door, but Twilight stopped them by locking it with magic.

"Not so fast. She'll still be angry at you. Give her a moment to calm down. Try tomorrow. Until then." She gave them each one last glare for good measure before unlocking the door. "Go think about what you've done."

"Yeah. Sheesh," Rainbow said, walking out of the door. "Poison, who'd have thought?"

Once they were gone, and the door was closed, Twilight let our a frustrate yell. There was a series of footsteps, and Spike appeared, coming down from upstairs. "Sheesh, did they really do something that bad?"

"They pranked Elizabeth, by dumping a cloud full of water on her, and it turns out water is paralytic toxin to her."

He blinked, spatula still in his claws. "Wait, water? Like, the stuff we drink?"

Twilight laughed nervously. "Yeah, who'd have guessed? Oh, and guess which planet has sixty-two point three four percent of its surface area covered in ocean? Equus!" She slumped her face onto the floor, eyes closed. "Rrgh!"

"Well look at it this way, now you have something to enter into your biology report on Greene."

Flick ear one. Flick ear two. She lifted her head, looking at Spike. "You're right!" Her horn lit up, teleporting in a flash of energy into her bedroom. She pulled the blank book detailing her knowledge about Elizabeth's biology and opened it - there was distressingly little. Greene was understandingly nervous about being tested on.

She dipped her quill and found a new page to begin writing on.

Subject E1 reacts negatively in the presence of water. When subjected to the downpour of a raincloud, she was briefly paralyzed and in pain. This lends further credit to the theory that humans live on a desert world, however it is not known if the effects of water are isolated to Evolved or humans in general. With no way to visit their world, there is little chance of resolving this theory.

Twilight looked over other things, and then realized something.

The blood of E1 is teeming with variants of the strain that results in differences between Evolved and humans. The virus is naturally mutated in their blood by an as-yet unknown process resulting in a variety of strains. While most are even more harmless than the original, some have beneficial effects. Though undocumented, it is not unthinkable that some may be harmful.

After the welcome party, she'd added, E1's personal history reveals an innately high reproduction level of Evolved, a single of which can have hundreds of children, even hundreds of thousands in the right conditions, though the means by which this is done are unknown. This may or may not extend to humans. Further analysis regarding the number of Evolved indicated that female Evolved are self-fertilizing, not requiring the presence of male sex cells to reproduce. This indicates E1 has innate genetic-scrambling abilities, which serve to both mutate her virus in the bloodstream, and to give her children diversity, as they were not implied to be clones of her.

But that was just it, wasn't it? She could randomize the virus strains in her blood, and blood's main component was water. So if water was poisonous to her, how did she have blood? It clearly didn't have affect on her once inside; she could chalk that up to internal protections, like how a pony's stomach didn't dissolve from the stomach acid, yet getting that same acid on fur would burn. But drinking the water... no, there had to be something else.

Celestia's sun was beautiful outside, casting its rays on Ponyville. Twilight just kept scribbling theories to test on what Elizabeth Greene was capable of.

Leap of Faith

View Online

Fluttershy

It was really strange to be awake before Elizabeth. The Evolved was usually up before her, so finding her encased in a cocoon of red and white tentacles just outside her cottage was a real shock. Fluttershy could see through the shell that her arms were pinned next to her sides, and the cocoon left her eyes revealed to show they were closed. Her sleeping position didn't seem at all comfortable; standing up like that, but who was she to judge? Elizabeth had insisted she was comfortable and warm.

"Um, Elizabeth?" she asked, not expecting her to wake up. She did, opening her eyes with a suddenness that made her jump, the cocoon sinking into her skin and suit.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Oh, I was just going to, um, ask you to wake up. But, you did, so, um..." She nervously adjusted her saddlebags.

"Zecora?"

Fluttershy smiled. She'd already had breakfast, and she'd had the presence of mind to set out food for the animals yesterday before going to sleep. "Yes, we're going to see Zecora today."

"Zebra," she said. "Sokara was... Sokara was... hmm, odd."

"Sokara?" Fluttershy asked. "Who's Sokara, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Zebra ambassador," Elizabeth replied swiftly. Suddenly, as if remembering something, her eyes locked on Fluttershy. "Eaten? Fed animals?"

Fluttershy nodded. "Oh, yes. Um, I can wait for you to get something to eat, if you want."

"Not hungry. Zecora?"

"Eager to see her?" Fluttershy asked with a smile.

"Second zebra seen," Elizabeth replied. "Rare here."

She giggled. "Alright, um, follow me. I know the way, and it's pretty safe." Her eyes widened. "N-Not I think that you couldn't handle yourself, I mean!"

"Zecora?" she interrupted.

Fluttershy blushed, instantly feeling awkward. Of course Elizabeth wouldn't think she thought that. She was very smart. "Right, um, this way," she said, heading into the Everfree forest.

She couldn't stand the Everfree Forest. It was dark and scary, there were all sorts of poisonous plants just waiting for somepony to touch them, and the various animals were often less than friendly, especially the further in one went. To say nothing of the general sense of wrongness with the place, where her innate magic simply could not manipulate the weather. Not that she really did that, but just the idea of knowing she couldn't do that if she had to made her fur stand on end.

Of course, the Everfree Forest seems a lot less dark and scary when you have a towering Evolved with you. Fluttershy followed the path with almost confidence, while Elizabeth just looked around, sniffing now and again. They hadn't gotten more than fifteen paces from where they couldn't see the outside world when a timberwolf leaped out of the brush.

Fluttershy 'eeped' and hid behind Elizabeth, but the moment the timberwolf saw her it skidded to a halt. Elizabeth went rigid, sending waves of fury and mine-mine-mine through Fluttershy, angry red and white tendrils licking around her form.

The wolf growled, and Elizabeth hissed at it, amplified by her naturally repeating voice. It yipped fearfully, and dove back into the bushes. Fluttershy could hear more than one timberwolf running away further on. She came out from under Elizabeth's legs and looked up at her, smiling slightly.

"Um, t-thanks, Elizabeth." She was in awe. Clearly, the less friendly inhabitants of the Everfree had learned to fear her. That meant something, if she could leave an impression on them.

"Hurt you, wanted to hurt you," she snarled. Suddenly Elizabeth knelt next to her, wrapping Fluttershy in a crushing hug. "My friend. Mine mine mine." She paused to loosen the hug when Fluttershy croaked once. "Mine," she chirped, standing back up.

Fluttershy blushed. Did... did Elizabeth really care that much for her? Oh...

"Um, uh. Z-Zecora's this way," she stammered, tracing the path again. Eventually, as they neared Zecora's, the smell of predator-warding potions filled the air. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose in a very adorable way. Oh, but don't tell her she thought that; she didn't think Elizabeth liked to be thought of as cute.

"Bad smell," she muttered.

"Those are the potions she uses to keep predators away." She sucked in a breath. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think they'd affect you too!"

"Doesn't matter," she insisted, continuing to follow Fluttershy. "Only smell." She paused. "Only smell?" she asked.

"Um, I think so, yes."

"Keep going."

"Okay." They arrived at Zecora's hut very quickly. Fluttershy thought the repellent potions smelled quite good actually. Then again, Zecora hadn't exactly made them to ward off ponies, had she? She hesitantly knocked on the door, Elizabeth standing a ways behind her and occasionally growling in a certain direction after a bush rustled there.

After a moment when nopony answered the door Fluttershy tried again, just a little louder than last time. This time the door opened, revealing a smiling zebra. "Fluttershy my friend, so good to see you! Have you come for a - " Her eyes widened dramatically. "Get behind me, I'll protect! One of the monsters did not relent!" Before she could 'eep', Zecora leaped in front of her, facing Elizabeth. She rapidly grabbed a decorated stick from the immediate inside of her hut and balanced uneasily on her hind legs, brandishing it while at the same time using it to balance.

Elizabeth hissed and began to warp with tendrils. Fluttershy's heart leaped into her throat, and she stepped in between them. "Zecora, Zecora please wait! That's not a monster, that's, um, Elizabeth. My, um, friend. Elizabeth, this is Zecora. Um, please don't hurt her!" she said, squeaking out the last sentence

Zecora relaxed, and Elizabeth's flickering stopped. She placed her staff down. "Any friend of Fluttershy's is a friend of mine. Come inside, I'll trust you to be benign."

Elizabeth stepped forward, walking past Zecora with an uneasy glance. Soon, all three of them were inside Zecora's home. "I'm afraid, Fluttershy, I won't have peace of mind until I know of your friend's kind."

"Oh, um, Elizabeth's an Evolved," she said. "M-May I take a seat?" Zecora waved her on with a hoof, and Elizabeth zipped to stand next to her. Zecora just stood before both of them. "Thank you. Um, she's an Evolved. She's actually from, um, another world. We don't know how she got here but she's been a big help."

"Not that big help," she insisted. Fluttershy briefly debated asking her not to be so humble, but that would make her seem like a hypocrite and she didn't want anypony to think that of her!

"If you insist," she said. "Either way, um, Elizabeth's staying with me in Ponyville for a while before she goes to Cloudsdale and from there, um." She rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. "H-Have you decided where you're going after that, Elizabeth?"

She shook her head. "Not yet."

"Right."

Zecora nodded. "So strange a circumstance this is. When did Elizabeth arrive on Equus?"

"Just, um, about two weeks ago," Fluttershy said. "So you probably wouldn't have heard." Oh what was she saying? Of course she hadn't heard; she'd threatened to attack Elizabeth!

"Correct," Zecora said before turning to Elizabeth and holding out a hoof. "I hope that, in regards to our meeting, I can make amends. Would you take me to your group of friends?"

She seemed to ponder this, then extended her hand, grasping Zecora's fetlock. They shook on it, and then Elizabeth let go. "Thought Everfree animal, protect Fluttershy," she said as Zecora rubbed her foreleg, wincing. "Fluttershy needs something." Elizabeth glanced uneasily at the cauldron Zecora had gently simmering. It seemed to be just water at the moment.

"Ah, of course Fluttershy. For coming to see me, thank you. Have you come to seek a special brew?"

Fluttershy felt her cheeks heating up. Oh, in the heat of the moment she'd forgotten all about that. "Oh, right. Um, if it's not too much trouble, I was wondering i-if you had anything to help my animals with, um, hibernation? I mean, I know this is a very specific request, so if you don't have anything that's, um, fine."

Zecora smiled, easing Fluttershy's fears. "I have just the thing to go to sleep. And for you, it'll be quite cheap." The zebra went over to one of her tables, rummaging through several vials before pulling out one filled with a milky, dark blue fluid, its surface reflecting the dim light like a mirror. "Place a drop on a cloth, and any beasts that scents it will be overcome with sloth," she explained, hoofing it over to her.

She grasped it, placing it in her saddlebags. "Oh, um, thanks Zecora."

She waved it off her compliment. Oh, was it... too much? "It is no problem, Fluttershy. It is nice to see you swing by. Please," she said, trotting over to her cauldron. Fluttershy looked closer. Oh. That wasn't water. "Have some tea. A gift for you, from me." Grabbing a wooden bowl in her mouth, Zecora carefully scooped some liquid from the cauldron and offered to Fluttershy. She hesitated a moment, then gently took it.

"Um, thanks. Elizabeth, would you...?"

"No no no," she insisted, backing up until she reached a wall.

"Oh, alright," she said, taking a sip of Zecora's tea. It was really nice tea. She stayed a while, telling Zecora about how Elizabeth had come to Equus, and what she'd gone through since, leaving out what had happened to Elizabeth... before. Well, mostly Elizabeth did it. She knew the story better, after all. Zecora stayed silent through most of it, which she could understand, only asking for clarification on a few points.

"A very interesting story, and it is good to know you did not seek to make Fluttershy your quarry." Elizabeth gasped, as if the very idea of hurting her offended her. Fluttershy blushed. Oh, she couldn't mean that much to her, could she? "Either way, I have enjoyed your company. Though I can't help but notice, Greene, that your gaze flickers hungrily."

"Not hungry," she rasped. "Full."

"Perhaps not in the literal sense, but you have lost something dear to your heart." Fluttershy stiffened. She had a good idea what that 'something dear' was. "I must ask you to be careful, before we part."

Elizabeth grimaced, sitting down. "Family," she whispered, her echoes carrying it through the hut easily. "Children. Try... try again." Fluttershy's heart wrenched; her friend didn't need to be reminded of that.

She approached Greene and placed a hoof on her back. "It's alright, Elizabeth," she said, before looking at Zecora. "Could we, um, please not bring that up? I-If it's alright with you?" Zecora nodded, regret in her eyes.

"My apologies, I did not meant to nearly make you weep. I had no idea the wound went so deep."

"Didn't know," Greene rasped softly. She turned her head to Fluttershy. "Back to Ponyville?" she asked.

"Um, i-if you want."

"Back to Ponyville," she repeated, standing. Fluttershy stumbled back, momentarily taken off guard by just how tall Elizabeth was. She almost came up to Princess Celestia's height, and she seemed even taller due to being bipedal and very slender. Without further pause, she patted Zecora on the head, who winced, and swept out the door.

She sighed. "W-Well, it was nice seeing you again, Zecora. Um, stop by Ponyville some time?"

"I will," the zebra said as Fluttershy stood, checking to make sure her vial was secure. "Goodbye, Fluttershy."

"Bye, Zecora," she squeaked, waving her hoof and joining Elizabeth outside, heading back to Ponyville.

The Everfree Forest was a lot less dark and scary when you have a towering Evolved with you.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Applebloom

"W-What?" she stammered, looking up at the older pony.

"Ya heard me," Applejack said. "I know you want to play with your friends, but I mean it this time. Ya'll get into trouble more often than not, and if there's anypony who can keep you straight, oh ho, it'll be her."

"But sis!" she complained. "We don't need no foalsitter. 'specially not an alien!"

"Cutie Mark Crusader Monster Hunters," she deadpanned.

"Aw, but... you 'n Mac'll be right out in the orchards! Right in earshot!"

"We'll be busy buckin' apples, and ya know that." She smirked. "'sides, ya'll seemed to enjoy her company when she was huggin' ya."

Applebloom scowled, but to be honest, she had liked it. Once the fear had faded into a general sense of comfort and all-is-right, being smothered by Elizabeth Greene wasn't really all that bad. The hot gray plastic all around her, whispering song-like alien words in her ear and kissing her forehead...

She shook the memories off. They weren't her emotions, she had no right to be feeling that way around a creepy alien. "That was just cause she was messin' with ma head!" she insisted. "She's scary!"

Big sister's eyes turned sad faster than they had any right to. "I know, I know, she can be a bit... unnerving when ya meet her. But 'bloom, trust me when I say she'll take care of ya and your friends."

"But sis! I don't need no foalsitter!" she complained.

"But nothin', Applebloom. She'll be here to keep an eye on ya, Sweetie and Scootaloo."

"But - "

Her eyes hardened. "Cutie Mark Crusader Matchmakers," she said, with just that extra bit of steel to let Applebloom know she was in full Stubborn Big Sister mode.

She huffed, snorted air out of her nostrils, and looked down. "Fine," she pouted.

Knock knock knock.

Great, was that the alien now? Applejack opened the door, and two things that were definitely not aliens spilled in.

"Girls!" she squealed in tune with their shout of 'Applebloom!', joining them in a hug.

"How've you been?" Scootaloo asked.

"I told my mom I couldn't wait to hang out with you and she let me go right away!" Sweetie all but shouted.

"Now hold on ya'll!" Applejack interrupted. "I thought Greene would be here by now, so just sit your haunches right down - "

A presence arrived. It was impossible not to notice. The air grew hot and vibrated ever so gently with excitement. "I'm here," whispered that torn-apart voice from her nightmares, making all four of them whip around with a yelp to face Elizabeth Greene, with an open window behind her that had certainly been closed before.

The three of them yelped again and hid behind Applejack, who just sighed and stepped forward. "Sweet Celestia, Greene, don't do that!"

To Applebloom's surprise, the alien cringed backwards. "Sorry." She looked at them, and Applebloom felt her fur stand right on end.

"What held ya up?" she asked.

"Mayor spoke with me." The alien's eyes narrowed. "Angry I defended myself. Set straight." Applebloom could feel Sweetie shiver, and she couldn't blame her. Set Mayor Mare straight? What did she mean by that? "Here now."

Applejack nodded. "Right, let's go over here, I'll tell you what to expect." With that, her sister lead Greene over to the dining room, and began speaking quietly. Every now and then one of the alien's echoes reached her ears, but it wasn't anything more than glimpses of 'children', 'bits', and 'care'.

"So Applebloom," Sweetie asked, rubbing her forelegs together nervously. "You didn't say the... the... alien's going to be here."

"Sis just told me," she huffed. "She's our foalsitter."

"What?!" Scootaloo shouted. "We don't need a foalsitter! We're big fillies, we can take care of ourselves!"

"I don't know, Scoots," Sweetie said. "Let's face it, we can do some pretty dangerous things."

"Pfft, and we're still here, so we're fine!"

Neither Sweetie Belle nor Applebloom could argue with that logic.

"Well, we're gonna have the alien as a foalsitter whether we want it or not," Applebloom said. "Any ideas for getting away from her?" she asked.

"Why do we need to get away from her?" Scootaloo asked. "It's not like we can't look for our cutie marks in here, right?"

"Right..." they both said at the same time, the gentle rasp of Greene's voice still scratching at their ears. "Still, I don't think she's gonna let us do much Crusadin'," Applebloom continued. "So we'd better come up with a way to give her the slip."

"Give who the slip?" Applejack asked.

She cringed, not looking towards the owner of the voice. "Um, uh..."

"I expect ya'll to behave, ya hear me? Don't wake up Granny Smith, or you'll be hearing an earful from her."

"Yes, Applejack," the three of them said in unison.

"Good." Applejack looked at Elizabeth, and her tone softened. "Take care of them, alright?"

"Protect children," Greene said, looking at the three of them with a blank face as Applejack trotted out, letting the door close itself behind her. "Hello," she said, suddenly right in front of them and on one knee, her face way too close for Applebloom's liking. She pulled back. "Activities?"

They shared a look, before Sweetie Belle piped up. "Um..."

Scootaloo opened her mouth. "Uh..."

Applebloom laughed nervously. "Er..."

Greene moved back, leaning against a wall and eyeing them intensely. "Activities. You decide, I protect."

"I know!" Sweetie Belle said. "Let's play hide and seek!"

"That's a great idea!" Scootaloo said. Applebloom had to agree. They could slip away from Greene, hide somewhere (The barn, maybe. Elizabeth didn't know the farm and she did) and then have fun.

"What's hiding and seeking?"

"It's a game!" she started to explain. "Ya'll stand in one spot and close your eyes, then count ta one hundred. Err, two hundred. Then ya try and find us after we hide while ya count!"

"Builds intelligence, better spots to hide, better looking." She leaned further against the wall, snapping her eyes shut. "One, two..."

"Come on!" she hissed to her friends. They darted out the door. "Follow me! I know where we can go!" Their sprint was made in silence and without incident, only stopping once they were safely inside the barn, panting with exertion. Sweetie Belle wavered back and forth, panting heavily.

"Alright ya'll," Applebloom said once she'd caught her breath. "What's the plan for today?"

"Well, I was thinking we could try getting our cutie marks in being soldiers!"

"Don't you mean Royal Guards?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Scootaloo shook her head, purple mane flying wildly. "No no, the Royal Guards are for Canterlot. Soldiers are in, like, every main city. Manehatten, Stalliongrad, those kinda places."

"Then why haven't I seen them before?" the unicorn asked.

Scootaloo gave her a deadpan look. "A thousand years of peace and prosperity."

Applebloom let a smirk come across her face. "Dang Scoots, I didn't take ya for a bookworm."

She groaned, tilting her head towards the ceiling. "My mom's a historian, alright? These things just rub off on you! Anyway, yeah, soldiers! I mean, how hard can it be? We find some ponies breaking the law and arrest them!"

Applebloom lowered her brows and frowned. "That's... police."

"Then should we try being police ponies?"

"Yeah!" Sweetie exclaimed. "How hard can it be?"

They took a breath. "Cutie Mark Crusader Police Ponies, yay!" they shouted to the heavens.

"Police ponies?" came a voice, bouncing around the interior of the barn.

"AHH!" they shouted, leaping into the air and turning around to face the Evolved.

Scootaloo stammered out, "H-H-How did you find us?"

"Smell," Greene rasped. "Followed trail." Absent mindedly, Applebloom lifted one of her forelegs and sniffed. She didn't smell anything. What was this alien going on about? Elizabeth tilted her head. "Police ponies? Mark crusaders? Don't understand."

"W-We're the Cutie Mark Crusaders," Sweetie Belle stammered. "W-We're on a quest to find who... don't eat me!"

"Won't... wouldn't..." Greene stammered, looking surprisingly hurt at Sweetie's not-unreasonable accusation. Applebloom may have been a filly, but everypony knew you couldn't trust aliens. It was a 'Universal Constant' as Miss Twilight would call it. "Would never... children the very thought is just so disgusting I'd never I promise honesty element never hurt you..." Elizabeth said, trailing off and launching herself at the cowering unicorn.

Elizabeth wrapped herself around Sweetie Belle before her brain had even processed that she'd moved, whispering reassurances in that creepy voice of hers. Then Applebloom moved. "Sweetie!"

"Get off of her you big - "

"It's okay, really," Sweetie Belle said. "It's really not all that bad." Elizabeth cooed and gently ruffled Sweetie's mane, upsetting the curls. "She's really warm."

Applebloom's eyes widened. "Sweetie, that ain't you thinking that! That's her thinking that, she can leak her emotions ta make ya feel what she feels! She did it to me!"

"Wuh?" Sweetie murmured. At the same time, Elizabeth released her, returning to where she'd entered the barn as if nothing had happened.

"Watch over. Activity? One of you count?" She shook her head. "Crusade, what's crusade?"

"We don't have our cutie marks and we're trying to find them!" Scootaloo belted out.

Greene tilted her head. "Important? Marks... important why?"

"Well for one, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon keep giving us hay about it," Applebloom muttered, not caring about the language she used. Nopony around would blame her, not in regards to those two.

"Diamond? Silver?"

"They're big bullies," Sweetie pouted. "Always teasing us about being blank flanks."

Greene's eyes narrowed. "Ages?"

"Well, they're about as old as us."

The alien tightened her fists, palpable anger settling over Applebloom. "Children... fight amongst... don't need my blessing to fix that." She relaxed. "Blank flank bad?"

"Everypony else has their cutie marks," Scootaloo complained. "We can't know our special talents until we do!"

"Why not?"

"Well - " Applebloom said, then immediately cut herself off just in time for the alien to speak.

"Griffons don't need marks, dragons don't need marks, I don't need mark," she rasped.

"But we do!" Sweetie complained. "I mean, I don't know if I'm supposed to be good at sewing like big sister, or a carriage driver, or a cook - "

"NO!" the two of them shouted.

She shrank back. "See?"

Greene tilted her head. "Hmm. How do you find marks?"

"You find what you're good at! Twilight found her talent in magic by performing a lot of magic," Scootaloo explained. "Fluttershy discovered her talent by tending to animals for the first time." She puffed up her chest. "We're going to try everything until we discover our talents!"

"Hasn't worked yet," Sweetie chimed in.

"But we ain't gonna stop till it does! No matter what the adults say."

"Say what?" the alien asked.

Applebloom rolled her eyes. "That 'that's not how you find your talent' or 'ya'll just have to be patient' or 'you're gonna get yourselves hurt'."

"Crusade to find marks dangerous?" she asked. "Adult ponies don't approve, protect children by prevention," she mused, seemingly to herself. "Thought I think same as them, hide..." Elizabeth nodded. "Will protect on crusade."

They blinked. "You mean, you'll still let us crusade?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Finding talent important to ponies," she said simply. "Go on crusade, protect you."

Scootaloo's face lit up. "Hey girls, we can finally go get that bungee jumping cutie mark!"

"But what about the police pony cutie mark?" Applebloom asked.

She shrugged. "That can wait for later, come on! Bungee jumping's gonna be so much fun! There's this ravine in the Everfree..."

"I don't know," Sweetie Belle said. "Isn't it dangerous?"

"Well, it is the Everfree," Applebloom mused, a hoof on her chin. "And let's face it, the rope snapping wouldn't be very good."

"Where are we gonna get rope for that anyway? Or, ya know, a crank, a base pad, stuff like that?" Scootaloo asked.

All three of them looked at Elizabeth, who gave them what Applebloom supposed passed as a 'warm smile'. "Protect children." She paused, smile melting into a frown. "What's bungee jumping?"

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

"Well," Applebloom said nervously. "That's one way ta do it." They currently stood above Ghastly Gorge, staring into the ravine below. Emphasis on above. The alien had escorted them to the ravine, then knelt and placed one of her weird hands on the ground and then the weirdest thing had happened. She'd extended a giant web of red and white tentacles up to the lip of the Gorge and then over it, followed by forming long tendrils beneath it to the sides, creating a platform that lead to the middle of the tear in the ground.

She pawed the hot ground with a hoof, the fleshy surface pulsing with an invisible heartbeat. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. They'd opted not to bring their capes for this, since they didn't want to accidentally lose them and explain to their families why they'd lost them.

It'd taken a lot of reassurances from Greene to get her to lay hoof on the tendril mat, and Sweetie Belle had joined soon after her. Scootaloo, of course, had been the first one on. They'd all been apprehensive of the sturdiness of the thing, but when Elizabeth threw her weight at a nearby tree to break it, and then jumped impossibly high off the outcropping and landed without it so much as shaking, they were convinced. No, what Applebloom was surprised at now was the cord they were going to use to jump.

"I don't know, Scoots," Sweetie said. "Are you sure?"

The pegasus shrugged her wings outwards. "Well, you saw how strong this stuff is! I'm not really worried about it breaking, ya know?" As she said that, the alien kept attending her, moving her strange fingers over her coat and leaving a biological harness around her forelegs, withers, and hind legs.

"Well, yeah," Applebloom said. "But doesn't bungee cord need ta, I don't know, stretch? If it didn't, ya'll will just snap back and it'd be the same as hitting the ground."

Scootaloo's eyes went wide. She turned back to the Evolved. "Um, this cord will stretch, right?"

"Whip design," she said, as if that explained everything. "Will extend, will stretch, smooth ride." With that, she closed her eyes and placed a hand on the harness going around Scootaloo's barrel. Before their eyes, a long, thick tendril grew out of where the harness went across Scootaloo's spine. Looking closer, Applebloom could see it was actually many smaller cords braided together in a tight design that she couldn't make heads or tails of. The cord extended, like a snake responding to a charmer's flute, and connected seamlessly to the edge of the platform. Greene opened her eyes and took her fingers away.

"Ready," she rasped, gesturing for Scootaloo to approach the edge. The pegasus did so, looking down. She shook her head, as if clearing it. Elizabeth approached, sitting next to her and looking down, one hand on the cord where it joined the platform. "Go when ready."

Scoots closed her eyes and gulped. "Alright, alright. I'm a big filly, I can do this." Applebloom rushed to join her, Sweetie by her side.

"If ya'll don't think this is a good idea then don't do it," she hissed. She was worried. You couldn't trust Greene, just the way she played with their emotions like toys was proof of that. She didn't strike her as malicious enough to hurt Scootaloo, but...

"Doesn't this cord seem kinda... short to anypony else?" Sweetie Belle asked. She was right, Applebloom realized. It was barely longer than Big Mac. No way it'd be enough to bungee jump with.

Scootaloo looked down, and gulped. "She's right. Isn't this kinda... not long?"

"Will extend," Elizabeth explained. "Safe. Wouldn't do this if it weren't."

Scootaloo looked over it again, gulping. After a good minute of hesitation, she took a deep breath.

"Geronimo!" shouted the orange pegasus, diving over the edge. They gasped as she plummeted, the cord extending like a coiled spring as she fell. Scootaloo screamed wildly as she approached the edge, and just before Applebloom was sure she'd hit the cord tightened, and Scootaloo slowed before bouncing roughly halfway back up.

"Yeah! Woohoo! This is awesome!" She shouted at the apex of her return. She began to fall again. "Yeah! Ahahaha!" The process repeated several times until Scootaloo stopped wildly moving up and down, instead bouncing slightly, roughly halfway to the bottom of Ghastly Gorge. "Um, ahaha! Alright, can you pull me up?" she shouted, voice echoing as it bounced up the cliff face.

Just as Applebloom was about to ask Greene how they were going to get her back up, the alien jumped. She fell down to the bottom, and she had no cord. She couldn't look. They both looked away...

A moment later, there was a squishy thud on the platform, and she cracked open her eyes to see Elizabeth with a wide-eyed Scootaloo in her arms. "... put me down," she demanded, and Greene lowered her to the ground. She pressed a finger to the harness and it... melted around Scootaloo's frame. It was like it turned liquid, flowed off her, and once it was off turned solid again, all without losing form.

"Next?" she asked.

"I will!" Sweetie Belle shouted, astonishing her. Applebloom's eyes went wide. Of all ponies, she had not expected Sweetie Belle to volunteer to do... well, this!

"Ya sure?" she asked.

"Well, it looks pretty scary," she said, trailing off. "But Scootaloo was fine, and it looks pretty fun!"

"Then why's she sweatin'?"

"Um, because this stuff's really hot?" the pony in question responded, now on all fours, quipped. "It's great, girls! I think it's almost like what flying would be like."

"Sweetie Belle next?" Elizabeth asked, holding the harness in one hand. The cord had contracted back to its shortened state.

"Sure!" she said, trotting over. Elizabeth slipped the harness over her legs and body, it dissolving and reforming where needed, until it was snug over her. "So, I just jump down?" she asked, trotting over to the edge.

"You jump, I control rest."

"O-Oh," she said, as if suddenly realizing just how high up they were. "You sure this is safe?"

"Protect children," she insisted.

"Sweetie," Applebloom said, genuinely worried for her friend. "Ya'll don't have ta do it if ya don't want."

"N-No, it's okay." She tensed her legs, then relaxed them. She took a little breath, tensed her legs again, and relaxed. She looked up at the Evolved. "Um, Elizabeth?"

"Yes?" she asked.

"Could you, um, I don't want to sound mean, throw me down?" she squeaked. Without further ado, Greene reached over with a lanky arm and shoved her over the edge. Applebloom cringed, Scootaloo and herself rushing towards the edge to watch the source of the ear-piercing screams. Like before, the cord extended to many times its original length, and then just before it looked like it was going to be too late, slowed Sweetie's descent and pulled her back up. Unlike Scootaloo, however, Sweetie's screams didn't turn to laughs, and she was practically begging to be pulled up by the time she was done.

Then it was her turn. Applebloom gulped. She really didn't want to do this, but the others had already gone. She was not going to put up with Scootaloo teasing her about backing down when Sweetie didn't.

When Elizabeth slipped the harness over her, she shivered. It was just like being back in the alien's embrace, chokingly warm as she twisted her feelings. She stepped towards the edge of the platform, and shivered. The bottom of Ghastly Gorge seemed to move away from her, the edges climbing up. It was... very high up. She wasn't sure she could go through with this. She looked at Elizabeth Greene; the alien's face was neutral, watching her with all the intensity of a predator.

Applebloom took a deep breath. She wasn't supposed to be here. She was an earth pony, her place was on the -

She jumped.

"AAAAAAH!" The scream that tore from her throat was so loud she was certain she'd lost her voice for good. The cord connecting her to the platform above was limp, there was nothing slowing her down! She was going to die! Boulders tumbled in and out of her vision as she fell, seemingly in slow motion, towards the bottom. She was going to die, she was going to die, she was going to die -

The cord on her back tightened, the harness squeezing her barrel and withers. She let out a strangled gasp as it pulled her back up, weightlessness taking her. Her scream cut off, replaced by a, "Whoa." The platform was above her, a perfect silhouette against the sky. She could see Elizabeth's form, as well as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo's heads peering over the edge. Then she started falling again, but instead of a scream, a laugh burst forth in its place. It continued on her second trip up, and her third, and fourth.

By the fifth cycle of up and down, she was starting to slow, and Applebloom took a moment to catch her breath. She could feel the cord of braided flesh trailing behind her, reaching up to the top.

"That was fun!" she shouted to them. "Can I come up now?"

A tall figure leaped and fell past her, landing on the bottom of the ravine. She looked down to see Greene there, just as she knelt and soared back up. She squeaked in fear as Greene wrapped her arms around her, momentum carrying her back to the rest of the girls, where the alien let her go. The other two ponies crowded around her as Elizabeth 'melted' the harness off her. "That... was... awesome!"

"So," Sweetie Belle asked. "Did we get our cutie marks?" They all checked their flanks. Nothing.

"Aww," came their collective sigh. Scootaloo immediately perked up. "Hey, maybe we didn't get our cutie marks, but that was still fun! Lets go again!"

"I don't think that's a good idea, Scoots," Applebloom said. "We'd better get back to the farm, 'fore my sister finds we've come out here."

Scootaloo frowned. "Yeah, guess so. Let's head on back then."

They trotted off the platform of flesh Greene had put out. Once they were off, Elizabeth stopped by the edge and placed a foot onto it. The harness and cord melted into the main platform, which began to flow backwards into Greene's foot, until in a matter of seconds it was like they'd never even come to Ghastly Gorge. Elizabeth turned to them. "Head back. Stay in front of me, see you that way, protect you."

They nodded as one, and that was what they did. Greene lead them back to Sweet Apple Acres, hopefully before anypony in her family realized where they'd gone. They had a very nice, broad path too, since the alien had taken to carving a path through the forest when they told her where Ghastly Gorge was.

But the Everfree Forest was the Everfree Forest, and not long after they'd left the Gorge behind, Applebloom heard a beastly snarl from her left.

"What was that?!" Sweetie shrieked, hugging both of them tightly.

"I don't know!" she said, all three of them looking that way.

"Get back," Elizabeth hissed, pushing them backwards and placing herself between them and the noise. Applebloom could see movement in the thick trees. "Manticores. Three. Four." Applebloom's throat tightened. They'd learned about manticores in school, had to with how close they were to the Everfree. They only ever hunted in groups of more than two when they were tracking very dangerous prey.

Both of them scurried further back along the path Greene had smashed towards the Gorge, leaning fearfully against the bark of a tree.

The four manticores erupted at the same time along the edge of the path, eyeing Greene almost nervously. The one center left growled lowly, and Greene returned it with a snarl, red and white tendrils briefly licking the air around her. Almost like they were seeking the animals. The manticore furthest to the left roared, stepping forward. Elizabeth hissed, and it backed up, only for the one center right to step forward. Greene growled, and spread her arms to the side.

The air around Applebloom's shivering body - she noticed the others were doing the same - crackled, like there was a thunderstorm in the area. Two orbs of brilliant green formed on Elizabeth's hands, growing until they were twice the size of Applebloom herself. She pulled her hands down, and the orbs of electricity remained. The manticores looked even more reluctant at this display of power, but the ones left and right, as well as center, pounced.

Without any prompting, the orbs flew out, connecting firmly with each of the side manticores. Applebloom winced, closing her eyes at the airy pop that they gave off. When she opened them, there were only two manticores left, stray energy making her coat stand on end.

She knew this wasn't something somepony her age should watch, but it was like a carriage accident; she couldn't look away.

The manticore to the left swung a paw at Greene, catching her in the side. She stumbled to her right, and her surprise reached Applebloom. She spun around before the other could hit her, foot snapping out at it, forcing the manticore to get back. But that wasn't enough to save it from the alien; she lunged after it, grabbing the manticore's head. She reached over to its neck...

The other manticore hadn't ceased to exist. It sprung forward to defend its pridemate, sinking the barb of its scorpion tail into Greene's back. Elizabeth howled, stepping backwards as the poison sunk into her. Applebloom gasped. Oh no, this was bad. Really bad. This was...

She grabbed the manticore that had stung her, wrapping her fingers in its mane, and tossed it sideways to crash into a tree. She turned her focus back onto the other manticore, which was surprised to find a web of tendrils pinning its paws to the ground. She formed another one of those crackling orbs and tossed it at the manticore. Its eyes widened as the sphere closed in. Applebloom stared, wide eyed, as the orb exploded in an emerald nova, and the beast simply vanished. No, Elizabeth wouldn't have trouble with manticore venom; nothing that could do that would.

"Eep!" she heard Sweetie Belle exclaim. Her eyes snapped to the right, and she eeped as well. The other manticore was coming for them, prowling silently while Elizabeth was focused on obliterating its comrade. Her breath caught itself on an apple-sized lump in her throat. Oh Celestia, help...

Help arrived. A thrown tree smashed into the manticore, sending it sprawling back. Greene was there in a moment, forming a triangle with herself, the Crusaders, and the beast.

"Go for children," Elizabeth snarled. Applebloom tensed up, and she could feel Scootaloo and Sweetie do the same. "Behind my back to hurt children!" Applebloom bit her lip, furious at the manticore. "Pay for that!" The manticore scrambled back among the splinters of the tree, bleeding all over.

Color faded away under the weight of Elizabeth Greene's hatred. Applebloom couldn't tell if Greene was pulling color in towards her, leaving only gray behind, or if the dullness emerged from her closed eyes. Either way, her heart clenched in fury in a dim world, gray and white tentacles angrily whipping around the alien's form in search of the source of her anger. One of them carved a groove through the dirt. The manticore's eyes went wide as Greene took a deep breath, arms raised above her head...

Her eyes opened, and they were a radiant, golden yellow, standing out sharply in the colorless world.

She lowered her arms and opened her mouth, color returning to the world in a brief flash of red-tinge. A terrible screeching, reverberating shriek erupted from her throat. The air in front of her warped as the air was displaced, a conical, crimson shockwave exploding from her mouth and catching the manticore full force. The scream drowned out the snapping and breaking of countless trees as the shockwave continued on for a hoof full of seconds before Elizabeth relaxed, cutting off the shockwave. She blinked, and her eyes were once again the same dull, pale green they were before, her tattered mane of red hair waving as much as it could in the resulting breeze.

Applebloom's ears popped. At some point, she'd untangled herself from the other two crusaders. She tumbled over towards Elizabeth's side and looked at the destruction.

Her jaw dropped.

For starters, there was no more indication that there'd ever been a manticore, a thought that, in and of itself, was enough to churn her stomach. For the better part of the shockwave's area of effect, the trees had simply ceased to exist, though there was an awful lot of sawdust further back. The ground had been carved out by the shockwave, dirt and stone shorn cleanly through. Even the trees that had been on the edge of the blast had large circular chunks taken out of them, which dripped water and sap. Further back, trees lay in clumps and pieces, uprooted and dropped as if by a tornado. Even further back, they were bent backwards at immense angles, leaves and branches ripped from their trunks until even further back, finally, were trees with branches and, finally, with leaves as well.

Applebloom gave out a startled whine, alerting Greene to her existence. The alien knelt next to her. "Alright? Uninjured?" She looked over her, but Applebloom didn't react. "Uninjured." She went over to Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, checking them over as well. "Uninjured. Keep going?"

Applebloom didn't get her voice working before Scootaloo. "You just... those manticores... where did they - "

"Wanted to hurt you. Protect."

"G-Girls," Sweetie stammered. "We should go. Before a-anything else decides to come."

"Protect from them too."

"Thanks, but i-it'd be better not to risk it, right girls?"

"Uh huh," Scootaloo said.

"Yeah," Applebloom breathed, still looking at the destruction Elizabeth had created, that she had created by shouting. All of a sudden she was terrified of the alien. She resolved never, ever, ever to make her mad.

The rest of the trip back to Sweet Apple Acres went without event. Applebloom kept up with the girls in front of Elizabeth, who had acquired a tendency to snarl at the slightest rustle in the bushes. Once free of the Everfree, they galloped back to the farmhouse, Elizabeth keeping up with them in a gentle walk. They tumbled back into the farmhouse, panting.

"Well girls," Applebloom said weakly. "That was fun."

"I'll say," Scootaloo said. "Except for the part with the manticores." Her eyes lit up. "Oh, but the bungee jumping was incredible!"

"Glad to help," Greene said joyously, a wide smile on her face.

"Yeah, thanks," Applebloom said. She looked at the girls. "Maybe she can help us again later with our cutie marks?"

"Hmm," Sweetie Belle said. "I don't know..."

"Will help if children want," Elizabeth insisted. "Tell Applejack about achievements?"

"No!" Applebloom shouted. "Sis'll be so mad at us if she learns we went ta the Everfree Forest! Please, you can't tell anypony where we went, ya hear me?"

"Won't tell," she insisted.

Applebloom smiled, exchanging the grins with the others. They weren't going to be busted. They'd gone on another Crusade, and while it hadn't been successful it'd sure been fun, they'd avoided getting covered in tree sap, and her (Ugh) foalsitter wasn't going to tell anypony. Maybe you could trust aliens.

Skyscraping

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Greene

A chill breeze swept through the air.

Greene sniffed at it, frowning. It was already cold enough, it didn't need to get even colder. She'd asked Fluttershy about that, but the answer had made her even less at ease. The tree leaves browning, approaching snow, it all led to the inescapable conclusion that winter was coming. She hated winter. In her first Home, she'd experienced a winter a few months after figuring out how to keep her Blessing from felling her children. Stinging, numbing stuff had fallen from the sky, and transformed into rain-water-bad the moment it even got near her. What was more it had ushered in an utterly cold era, almost as cold as her Wayward Child's prison, and she huddled her children with her and wrapped them in her warmth.

And now it was to be winter again, soon. She didn't know what to think of that, but the pegasi could stop stop stop the stinging cold stuff, couldn't they?

Still, that wasn't here and now, wasn't here or there or anywhere.

"Going where?" she asked the pegasus next to her.

"W-Well," Fluttershy began. "You remember how you challenged Rainbow to a rematch?"

She scowled at the mention of the hurting-equine. "Remember," she snarled. "Remember her very well."

"Well, she and Twilight have got the course, um, set up for you and her to race. They want to do it now."

Greene grinned. A chance to put Rainbow Dash in her place. She'd been looking forward to this. "Now. Where?"

"Um, this way, if you want," Fluttershy said, continuing her trot. They soon entered Ponyville proper, and Elizabeth, much to her annoyance, found that there were far more equines around than normal. Rarity, the curious pegasus, the Mayor, many more she couldn't identify. They looked at her, whispering acutely.

"There she is!"

" - round two."

" - think she can beat Loyalty?"

"We're um, here Twilight," said Fluttershy at length. Twilight Sparkle was in the middle of the earth pony nest, holding some sort of contraption beneath a front hoof. Around her were crowded several other equines, and next to Twilight Sparkle...

"Oh, hello Eliz - " Twilight Sparkle began.

"Rainbow Dash," she snarled, cutting her off.

The pegasus in question winced, slowly turning her head to look at her. "Hey, Elizabeth." She paused. "Look, I'm - "

Suddenly, in a blur of movement, Pinkie Pie was next to her. " - we're really really sorry!" she shouted, ears flat and eyes watery.

She drew back, left hand slightly raised in surprise. "Sorry?" she spat at them. "Here to talk again?" she challenged.

Pinkie Pie shook her head so fast Greene thought it would fall off.

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash said. "Look, we're really sorry about the raincloud. We didn't know it would do... that to you, and we're really sorry. We cool?"

Cool? She didn't understand that, but a moment of thought and context revealed the equines' intentions.

"No. Hurt me."

Pinkie Pie winced. "Elizabeth, we really are sorry."

"Doesn't change facts. Hurt me, didn't care." She cut them off before they could start. "Even if water didn't stop me, still drench, laugh at that!"

Rainbow sighed. "Look, how were we supposed to know? Nopony else has really ever, ya know, held it against us. We didn't know water hurt you like that."

She narrowed her eyes. "Didn't know," she rasped angrily. "Didn't check!" She looked towards Pinkie Pie. "Go!"

"But, Lizzy - "

"Go!" she hissed, and the equine darted away.

Twilight laughed nervously. Fluttershy nudged Elizabeth's leg, making her look down at her. "Elizabeth, that wasn't nice. She was trying to apologize."

"Apology won't change past. Won't change intention." She crossed her arms, glaring at Rainbow Dash. "Race?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure. So Twi, wanna go over the rules?"

"Um, sure." Twilight Sparkle looked at Elizabeth. "I've set up a range of magical flares. When I hit this button, the first in sequence will light up." She tapped a button on the strange strange strange mechanical box that wouldn't have looked out of place on the Similar world. "Elizabeth, your flares will send a green light into the sky. Rainbow, yours will be blue. Simply enter your respective lights, and they'll go out and the next flare will light up for you."

"Understand," Elizabeth said uncertainly.

"Got it, Twi," Rainbow Dash said shortly after she had.

Several of the equines around them closed in a bit, and Twilight waved them back, much to Greene's relief. They'd started getting close. "Why so many ponies here?"

Twilight Sparkle laughed nervously. "Well, you see, I don't know if you've realized or not but you're kind of a big deal! So when the press somehow found out you were racing 'The Element of Loyalty'," She shot a glare at Rarity, who was mixed into the crowd. Rarity backed down, blushing, and Greene felt a twinge of anger at Twilight Sparkle. What had she done? "They decided to hype it up. Which is why I'm not only going to serve as referee for the race, I'm also going to need to tag you two with a timer spell."

"Timer spell?" she hissed. She did not want this scientist placing her magic on her! What was it going to do?

As if reading her thoughts (Could equines do that?) Twilight Sparkle answered. "Once the race starts, it'll measure the time it takes for you to reach the last flare. So we won't just know who's faster, but also how fast they are."

Greene hesitated. Should she trust her word? She looked down at Fluttershy, who gave her a reassuring nod. "Cast tracker spell," she rasped, echoes quiet.

"Are you sure, Elizabeth?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

"Sure." The unicorn shrugged at Greene's answer, and her horn lit up. A purple glow enveloped Elizabeth and the pegasus she was to race. It intensified, then snapped to dark blue a moment before it vanished. She didn't... feel different. At all. "Follow green beams?" she asked.

"Um, yeah, that's pretty much it. I'm going to guess you're ready - "

"Ready."

" - Rainbow?"

The pegasus nodded. "I was born ready!"

"Alright, both of you step right here, please," she said, indicating a yellow line she'd just conjured. Elizabeth reached it in a single step, Rainbow Dash right next next next to her.

"Hey," the pegasus said. "After the race, can I talk to you about something?"

She growled low. "About what?"

"Just, can I talk to you then?"

She pondered this. On one hand, the equine was likely to try another 'prank' on her. On the other, she'd gotten her point across very very very well last time, and barring that she'd be expecting it and could move away so there really wasn't anything to lose. "Fine." She knelt on the yellow line, placing both hands on it, gently ever so gently digging her feet into the dirt. Rainbow Dash took up a position to her right, wings spread to their fullest extent.

Twilight Sparkle walked in front and turned around to face both of them. "Alright, some ground rules. Rainbow, you're on blue beacons. Elizabeth, yours are green."

She snarled. "Know that!" Did Twilight Sparkle think she was dumb?!

"You're following two identical paths. The race will be around Ponyville several times, then off to Canterlot, a few loops around there, then back to Ponyville for the final beacon. The guards, mainly air patrol, in Canterlot have been notified, and will not interfere. Furthermore, neither of you are to interfere with each other." She looked at Rainbow Dash. "That means no pegasus-magic lightning." Now she looked at Greene. "And no webs to trap her."

"Got it." Rainbow Dash smirked. "You're going down, Elizabeth."

She growled. "Understand rules."

"Alright." Her horn lit up, and a gentle move-thought glow enveloped the box. "On three. One. Two."

Greene tensed. She was going to do this. The rainbow pegasus may have beaten her in a dead sprint over a short path, bu this was a long race - by equine standards, at least - with, presumably, many twists and turns. She could win this. She was going to win this. There wasn't a question about it.

"Be safe," Fluttershy squeaked.

"Three!" Twilight Sparkle's horn flared, and two beams of colored light shot up a short distance in front of Greene. Her legs slammed outwards against the dirt, propelling her forwards in a shower of dirt.

"And they're..." was all she heard from the crowd of equines before she leaped and entered her pillar of light. Immediately it went out, sending a tingle throughout her body. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted another green beam. She landed, and with a burst of strength flew into it, moments after Rainbow Dash reached the first beam. Her next beam was next to the Cube's Corner of Sugar or something along those those those lines. She grabbed the roof nearest her and tossed herself at it, landing and creating a small crater. She couldn't see her next beam so she turned around; there it was, behind her.

She kept the pattern up. Ponyville was a rather small nest, especially compared to Canterlot, so there wasn't much difference in height between the buildings to half allow, half force her to perform some of her more extravagant maneuvers. Each beam of light was no more than a few jumps away. As she flew through the air, she could see Rainbow Dash moving, nowhere near the speeds she'd gone at during their race to Applejack's family. For a brief moment a flash of anger and indignity engulfed her. Was she holding back?! Was this her attempt to 'apologize' for the prank, by letting her win?

The anger faded when she saw Rainbow Dash reach her next pillar of blue light, swerving as she tried to locate the next. She grinned. There it was was was. She couldn't redirect easily.

She let out an airy laugh as she barreled down a street towards her next light, jumping over a group of equines in her way as she flipped once, twice, thrice, and landed in a roll to continue without the slightest loss of speed. She heard their gasps, but paid no mind to it as she reached the light and leaped to the side. She was smart smart smart ever so smart enough to know that, however much the thought made indignity burn her, in a contest of pure speed she would never beat Rainbow Dash. The path to and back from Canterlot would give the equine a chance to catch up, so she needed to build up as much of a lead as she possibly possibly possibly could.

She slammed into the ground next to Rarity's home, and a buzzing ran through her body as the light around her vanished to be replaced by one... all the way in Canterlot, far on the horizon. With a light hiss to herself, she redirected. With a small hop she sailed over Ponyville, and began pumping her legs and arms as fast and hard as she could. The ground beneath her feet cracked and splintered, grass flying by her in undulating waves of green. Canterlot approached rapidly, but she knew that every moment she was running there was time for Rainbow Dash to catch up and that was not not not acceptable!

The mountain rapidly filled her field of vision. Her first green light of Canterlot was near the castle. As she tore up the mountain, the pounding of her feet triggered a miniature landslide behind her. She dove into the light with reckless abandon. The next one was behind her, but it took next to no effort to reach that one. Another one, this time in the castle's area itself. She clung to one of the towers and propelled herself up, flipping over the tower - she noted it was Twilight Sparkle's tower - and landed on the balcony, right in the middle of the beam which promptly fizzled out.

She turned back around, since the next light was in Canterlot City proper. She spotted a streak of colors just entering the unicorn nest, and scowled. Rainbow Dash had arrived.

She snarled, and landed in the next pillar with a stone-shattering crash, sending a radial blast of dirt away from her. She threw her arms and back behind her as she jumped, flipping backwards and landing two streets over in the next pillar. A crowd of equines - mostly unicorns - gasped as she landed. She didn't give them long to gawk; she was already gone.

She kept it up for a while, pushing with every bit of strength and skill she had. And she had a lot of skill and even more strength, and she didn't tire. At one point, Rainbow Dash and her crossed paths, going in opposite directions. Time had seemed to slow down, and Rainbow Dash gave her a nervous wave. She returned it with a glare.

If looks could kill.

She landed atop the highest point of Canterlot Castle for a beam, then scaled the mountain to the next. She stopped to look around for the next beam, spotting it in the far-off Ponyville.

She tore down the mountain, stone flying behind her. As she reached the castle she tensed her legs and shot out horizontally, clearing the castle and falling into the city, where she resumed her mad dash through the streets, battering through the equines not fast enough to get out of her way.

She tore free from Canterlot in moments, pumping her legs faster and faster. Halfway to Ponyville, she chanced a glance behind her, and saw a chromatic trail reach the top top top of the mountain. She snarled. Rainbow Dash would be closing in on Ponyville too! She had a good head start, but she had to make the most of it! She slammed her legs into the ground harder, leaving great brown craters in her wake.

She saw the final beam looming before her. It was the same spot she'd started, and her keen eyes could make out the crowd of equines around it. A glance behind her told her that Rainbow Dash had left behind a splash of colors in the sky, and was approaching very rapidly.

Not not not this time! she thought angrily. There were the final beams. One thousand feet away. Five hundred. One hundred...

She barreled into the final beam. No more showed up, and she felt another tingle around her, a dark blue magic aura seeping out of her skin and suit, turning purple, and fading to nothing. A moment later, Rainbow Dash careened through her own finish line, slamming into an equine and sending the two rolling away as the magic faded from the pegasus.

She cackled airily, even as a kra-kaboom washed over her a moment later. She'd won, she'd won, she'd beat beat beat Rainbow Dash that would show her!

She stepped towards Rainbow Dash, still entangled with an equine, but before she could open her mouth Twilight Sparkle spoke. "Rainbow?"

"Yeah Twi?"

"Please get off of me."

"Yeah, sure," she said, obeying the unicorn, who got up and shook her head.

Elizabeth sauntered over to them, joyous tendrils flitting about her frame. "Beat you," she said to Rainbow Dash, smiling.

Rainbow Dash grimaced, her coat flushed red as her ribs rapidly expanded and contracted, heart pounding wildly. "Yeah," she said slowly, looking in Elizabeth's eyes. "Yeah, I guess you did. Good race, I guess," she muttered.

"Talk to me after race. About what?" she rasped, eager to get it over with. She didn't want to spend any more time with Rainbow Dash than she absolutely had to. She glanced around at the crowd of equines, noticing pieces of currency changing hooves. Where was Fluttershy? She wanted to go back to Fluttershy.

"Give me... a moment," she panted. "Not all of us can't get tired. Phew. Some sprint that was."

Twilight Sparkle had trotted over to her mechanical box, and looked at it with her jaw dropped. "Only... only five... how did...?"

Greene ignored her. "Talk?" she insisted to Rainbow Dash.

"Yeah," she panted. "Twi, can you get me those things I gave you before the race?"

"Yeah, sure," Twilight Sparkle mumbled, though she didn't seem to be focusing. Her horn lit up, and in a flash of purple two white... things appeared in front of her. She levitated them over to Rainbow Dash, who grasped them in a gently-shaking wing. "Alright, everypony! Race over, Elizabeth Greene won." That's right she did.

As the crowd began to slowly disperse, Greene's eyes widened. Equines! Around her! What was she thinking, she'd waited for a chance like this! She dug tendrils of her warmth beneath the soil and surged them outwards from her in a starburst. As each tendril arrived beneath an equine, it dug upward and nicked a fur from their hooves, analyzed and classified their essence, and then retreated to her.

" - listening?"

She snapped her head over to the colorful pegasus. "Yes?"

She sighed. "Of all the - alright, look, I really feel bad about the raincloud, alright? Let me make it up to you."

Oh? Make it up to her? Providing a service in exchange for forgiveness? Now that made sense sense sense, unlike their 'bits'.

"These here, are tickets to the next Wonderbolt concert." She did not have the faintest idea what a 'Wonderbolt' was. Was this supposed to be something she'd like? "It's right after Nightmare Night, up in Cloudsdale. I know you've been wanting to go," Rainbow said, tracing a forehoof over the ground. "So consider this a gift."

Elizabeth considered this. On one hand, she'd be going with Rainbow Dash somewhere she could probably get to on her own. On the other, this was a chance to visit the pegasus nest, and who knew when she'd next get this opportunity? She couldn't very well hold off giving her Blessing to the masses because she didn't like one equine, could she? That would be selfish, and wholly against the equines' idea of generosity.

"Who else coming?"

"Well, it'd be only the two of us," she said nervously. "For a whole day."

She hissed lightly. That was not an ideal situation, but... who knew when she'd get to go to Cloudsdale again? Best get it out of the way quickly so she could go back to collecting essence and protecting Fluttershy. "Fine. Go to Wonderbolt concert. Cloudsdale."

Rainbow nodded, still red beneath her coat but no longer panting. "Alright then, good to know. I'll come pick you up first thing in the morning, day after Nightmare Night. See you then, I guess." She stepped forward and took one of the tickets from her wing and held it out to her with a hoof. Greene snapped her hand out and grabbed the piece of paper. She looked it over once, twice, then placed it on her right side, right above the straps and buckles of her waist, and grew a small mesh over it to keep it in place.

"Fine," she snarled, whirling away as Scootaloo approached Rainbow Dash. She heard snippets of their conversation, about winning fair and square whatever that meant, but tuned it out and hopped to the roof of the nearest building, and then again to the next street, immediately freeing her from the already-thinning crowd.

She tapped her side, and decided to head back to Fluttershy's home. The pegasus would probably be there; she hated crowds about as much as Greene herself did. She leaped two streets over and started heading to the cottage when she heard it. It was a slow chiming, melodious noise and it was like Octavia's she's going there now now right this second now!

She turned and headed towards the entrancing noise. What she spotted was an earth pony on a bench, seeming to focus on a unicorn with a gold something levitating in their move-thought. The move-thought aura quivered in tune with the wonderful music, but then the aura stabilized and it stopped.

"What do you think?" the unicorn asked.

"It was good, but..." the earth pony responded.

Elizabeth didn't hear the rest. The aura around the object faded as it landed in the unicorn's lap. It was a golden arch, closed along the edges, with strings strung across it. She jerked her gaze towards it, eyes narrowing and limbs shaking with nervous energy. Fire blossomed inside of her. That arch, all of a sudden...

... she Wanted it.

She leaped forward at the greenish-blue unicorn. In one smooth motion she grabbed the arch and flew on, rolling once and coming to a rest against a building's wall. She ignored the startled cries of 'hey!' and 'what?!' as she looked over the thing, idly running her fingers along its strings and creating a gentle strum of sound.

The other two equines - the only two in the area, the others were probably still around where she'd had the race and this was on the other side of Ponyvile - were already charging at her.

"Hey!" shouted the unicorn. "Give that back!" A shimmering gold aura enveloped the thing she'd Wanted and tugged feebly, not even generating a budge. Elizabeth ran her fingers along the strings again. "Stupid... alien!" The move-thought transferred to Elizabeth herself. She started once as the magic tried to lift her, but she didn't so much as rise off the ground so she didn't worry, plucking at the strings one at a time.

"Ugh," the equine said, releasing the aura. "Celestia, she's heavy," she muttered before trotting over to Greene. The earth pony had also come up. "Listen, you."

Greene snapped her attention to the unicorn, watching intently as she continued to talk. "That's my lyre. Give it back right now, you hear me?!" she asked, descending into shouting near the end.

"Want it," she hissed, hugging the 'lyre' closer to her.

"Lyra," the earth pony said. "Use your indoor voice."

"We're outdoors!" the unicorn said, turning to the other equine before going back to Greene. "That's mine! Give it back!" The same aura lit up around the lyre and tugged fruitlessly. Elizabeth huffed and hugged it closer to her. "Grr!"

The earth pony shoved 'Lyra' back, who shouted indignantly. "Hello, Elizabeth."

She eyed this new equine. "... hello," she rasped at length.

"My name's Bon-Bon, and this is my roommate, Lyra," she said, gesturing to the unicorn, who was busy pouting. "May I ask why you took her instrument?"

"Wanted it," she said, plucking another set of strings to make the same music Lyra had. Lyra just winced at the noise, and Bon-Bon herself flicked an ear.

"Is there any particular reason you wanted it?"

Elizabeth considered the question for a moment. "Wanted it."

"I... see. You must understand, this is one of my friend's prized possessions, and it's not very polite to steal it from her."

Greene frowned. It didn't sit well well well with her to think she was poorly representing Fluttershy's element. But... the lyre... she hugged it closer to herself. "No."

Bon-Bon sighed. "Alright, lets try something different. What would we need to do for you to give it back to Lyra?"

Elizabeth pondered this. She was loathe to part from something she Wanted but if there was something to be gained from it... hmm, did she have these equines' essence? She could take it without them knowing, of course, but it was always better when she was honest. They deserved to know the part they were to play in the future, didn't they?

"Touch, return." She approached Lyra first. She placed her left palm on her forehead, right hand still gripping the lyre, and snipped a bit of essence, filing it away under Ponyville Unicorn. Then she did the same to Bon-Bon. She frowned, but returned the lyre to its 'owner' and filed the newest essence under Ponyville Anomaly.

Lyra huffed. "About time."

Bon-Bon moved over to her side and elbowed her in the side. "What she means to say is, thank you. Can you please not steal from ponies again? It's very rude." She frowned. "Not to mention illegal."

Elizabeth growled, and began to head onwards to Fluttershy. "Wait!" She stopped, and turned around to face Lyra. "If you don't mind, can we go over to my house - "

"Our house," Bon-Bon muttered.

" - to talk? There's something I need to see about you."

"What?"

"Well..." Lyra said, trailing off. "If you come over, I can show you."

"Fine," she said, following after Lyra as the two equines lead her into a nearby house. She could smell more equines coming, so it was just as well. The interior was an equine home, which meant it was filled with all sorts of things that meant something to them, that made them a little happy for a little time, but were useless to Greene. Bon-Bon shut the door behind her, wisely taking care to avoid touching touching touching Elizabeth.

"Purpose?" she asked.

"Lyra's special talent," Bon-Bon said. "Is playing the lyre. Makes good money at restaurants and symphonies. But she has a 'hobby'," she explained, rearing up and moving her forehooves in a weird up-and-down pattern. "More than a hobby, really."

"It's just a hobby!" Lyra said, having ran forward and vanished into a different room. Elizabeth took a deep sniff. The air had the smell of equines, of those tasteless little foods Pinkie Pie had at the party, and of... something very Similar but just far enough to not rouse her fury. Lyra returned a moment later, holding in her move-thought a metal... thing.

"You've written papers," Bon-Bon deadpanned. "Very long papers."

The metal thing came to a rest on a nearby table, making several empty and one not-so-empty mug jump. "Yeah yeah! Look, they're important things! The way hands develop is highly indicative of how they evolve and what their society is like. Minotaur hands are large, four fingered, and muscle-bound to an extent, since they need to move heavy machinery and twist wheels. Diamond dogs, on the other hand - "

"See what I mean?" the earth pony asked Greene. Elizabeth did not, in fact, see what she meant. "Everypony has a hobby, but not everypony has a hobby they're just as good at as their talent, you see."

" - so I'm really curious as to how your hands are designed. I mean, who knows what we can learn from it? I mean, we got a cure for wing cancer just from your blood, who knows what else we can find? May I have a look?" the unicorn asked, suddenly much closer than she should've been.

Elizabeth snarled. "Scientist?" she asked dangerously, echoes rumbling after her voice like thunder.

Lyra shook her head quickly, mane flopping. "No! This is just something I do in my spare time."

Bon-Bon shook her head. "Well Lyra, I'll just leave you two alone." She smirked. "Wouldn't want to keep sparks from flying, would I?" As the earth pony trotted up up up a stairwell, Lyra sputtered. Had she inhaled wrong?

Still wary, Elizabeth Greene held out a hand towards the unicorn, who began looking at it closely, moving back and forth and whispering to herself things like 'Porous skin' and 'little muscle, controlled further up?'. "Could you wiggle your fingers?" She did so, but had no idea why this equine needed her to do so. "Hmm, highly flexible, five. Hold on." Lyra trotted into another room, and returned with a cube in her magic. She move-thoughted it into Elizabeth' grip. It was a little cube, each face cut up into nine, with a variety of colors scrambled around it. As she held it, a casual twitch of a finger turned one of the sides. In surprise, she dropped it.

"That's a rubik's cube." She lifted it back up into Greene's hand. "The goal is to turn the sides until you get each side to be the same color." Elizabeth held it again, turning the thing over, looking into each side carefully, like it would hold the answer to changing her Blessing. "It's really hard, though, but I want to see how you move it."

Elizabeth was already twisting it. For a few moments she had no real plan, but very quickly she saw the patterns numbers patterns. Left top always stays left top, middle always stays middle. She turned it over, twisted a lower, a right side. She could see the numbers in it. It wasn't like it was a familiar thing; she had doubts the Similars had any puzzle like this! And she could certainly see see see the use, making equines smarter by solving it.

"Hmm, very adept, three joints each, lots of - you're done?!"

Elizabeth held the rubik's cube, head tilted. "Yes," she rasped.

"Already?!"

"Strange?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah!" Lyra took the cube from her with move-thought, looking it over. Idly, Elizabeth leaned against a wall and tapped it gently with her fingers, extending a small patch of warmth. "I mean, seriously! You sure you never solved one of these before?"

"Sure." She leaned into her warmth, relishing the heat, especially since winter was fast approaching.

Lyra cocked an eye. "Whoa! Alright, that's pretty neat."

"Neat? Orderly. What?" she asked, confused.

"Those tentacles!" she said, pointing a hoof at her warmth. "Did they just come out of your hands?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Hmm," Lyra said, tapping her chin with a hoof. "Alright, come over here please." She gestured Greene over to the metal thing. "Put your hand here, on the microscope's stage."

"Why?"

"Well, so I can see closer. Yes, right there, thank you!" Lyra made an odd, high pitched whine, one that Elizabeth knew from her dealings with Fluttershy meant an equine was happy. Elizabeth, with one hand on a flat portion of the metal thing, watched curiously as Lyra stood on her hind legs and peered down a tube of the 'microscope'. Her magic fiddled with several circular things, and then she spoke. "Alright, can you extend some of the mesh?"

She did so, encasing her hand in warm tentacles of red and white. "No, no! That was too fast!"

"For what?" she asked, getting annoyed.

"I need to see how you let that stuff out!"

"Bring warmth to surface, push it out," she said irritably, but she still pulled her warmth back inside.

"No, I need the actual mechanics!"

"Why?" she challenged hotly, her repeats gaining intensity, buzzing louder.

"In case we can use it for other things! Like, weI could develop some new magical technique from it, or mechanical, or something!"

Elizabeth considered this. She considered it some more. Then she decided it made sense, and slowly peeked her warmth out her hand.

"Wow! The pores... oh wow, it's just slithering..." Lyra vibrated in what Greene assumed was excitement. "Alright, can you pull it back in?" She did so, slowly, just just just in case. "Wow, I thought those pores were for sweat."

Elizabeth shivered. Just the thought of water coming out of her body made her want to blast something.

Lyra continued. "You're moving that stuff in and out of them. It's remarkable! I-I need a better microscope for this! I need to see inside! I wonder if Twilight - "

"No," Greene hissed, flashes of I need to know what makes it tick behind her eyes, inside her ears. "Enough." She stepped back, glaring at Lyra, whose eyes were wide and ears alert.

"Alright, alright," she said. Still on her hind legs, she held her hooves up. "I'm sorry! Didn't know you were so sensitive about it. I can deal with what I've got, sheesh. I won't be writing anything on you alone, but I can still use what I've got."

Elizabeth tilted her head. "Good." She undid the mesh on her right side, grabbing the ticket and looking it over. Some equine writing symbols covered it. Cloudsdale, seats 35-D, so on so so forth wasn't important. "Go now?" she asked again, half glaring at the equine. Lyra had scary scary scary scientist tendencies. But... the music...

"Uh, yeah, sure," Lyra said. "I've got a lot to do. Seriously, thanks a ton! I'll be sure to include - "

Elizabeth was already outside. After a short sprint, she was back at Fluttershy's cottage, and let herself inside.

Fluttershy stood next to a little bird, wrapping a long white thing around the blue feathers. Angel Bunny stood on top of a box with a red plus sign, glaring at Elizabeth but otherwise doing nothing. "Alright," Fluttershy whispered, spitting out the white cloth from her mouth. "Try to stay off the wing for a week and you should be all better." Chirp! The bird pecked Fluttershy's hoof, making her blush, before it pranced out of the open door.

"Back," Elizabeth said.

Fluttershy started, her wings flaring out and throwing her into the air with a frightened neigh before she came back down. "Elizabeth! Oh, you scared me." Angel Bunny's glare turned a tad more intense.

Greene winced. "Sorry. Back."

The pegasus smiled. "I saw. How did your race go?"

She laughed airily. "Won, won! Ticket too." She handed the ticket over to Fluttershy. "Cloudsdale, day after Nightmare Night." She blinked and tilted her head at Fluttershy, who for some bizarre bizarre bizarre reason smiled at the motion. "When Nightmare Night?"

Eternal Nightmare

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Fluttershy

"Oh, thank you!" she exclaimed softly. Elizabeth's mesh flowed back into her suit's leg, dropping the various berries and herbs. Fluttershy gathered them into her saddlebags, and Elizabeth smiled gently in response.

"Welcome," she rasped quietly, moving beside her as Fluttershy trotted back to her cottage. She sloughed off her saddlebags onto a nearby couch, while Elizabeth kindly remained outside for reasons known only to the Evolved. Judging by the thump from upstairs, she'd taken to the roof.

She hummed lightly as she fixed some tea for herself. Angel Bunny was currently foraging around the house, and he wouldn't get into trouble. It wasn't very nice to lie, especially not to herself, so she had to admit that Angel Bunny could be a little bit of a bully sometimes, but ever since Elizabeth had arrived he'd gotten a lot nicer!

As she balanced a measuring cup in her mouth for bird seed, she glanced up at one of the walls to see a hoof-sized splatter of red and white, pinning a small paper to the wall. She frowned nervously around the cup's handle. She knew that Elizabeth would forgive Rainbow in exchange for going to Cloudsdale, but that was in the future, and she didn't know how far that forgiveness would extend beforehoof. She may very well still think the trip was a prank. Oh well, it was out of her hooves.

After fixing herself and her animals a nice lunch, she took her sandwich and a cup of tea, each in one hoof, and flew up to where Elizabeth was perched on her roof. She'd molded her warm mesh into a seat of tendrils, supported just a nose above her cottage's roof, tendrils leading down to the ground and holding its weight easily despite how thin they looked. A good thing, too. Fluttershy didn't want to know if her house's roof could support that.

"Hi, Elizabeth," she said quietly.

"Hello," she rasped gently, watching the trees in the Everfree sway in a gentle wind. Fluttershy did the same, cringing as the orange leaves fell to the ground, all on their own. "How are you?"

"Better," she rasped. "Seen almost all ponies in Ponyville. Essence."

"Oh," she said, not entirely understanding why Elizabeth had just said 'essence' out of the blue. She chalked it up to one of the Evolved's quirks; it wouldn't be too polite to pry. "That's nice."

They sat there for a while, Fluttershy eating and drinking her lunch in silence. Once she was done, she looked up at Elizabeth, who simply stared blankly at the Everfree. "So, um, Elizabeth," she began quietly, steadily gaining volume as she went. "What do you know about Nightmare Night?" she asked nervously, biting her lip at the concept of her least favorite holiday.

"Is today, celebrate Nightmare Moon. No more," she said simply.

"Well, I don't know if I would say celebrate. It's more like, well, it was said that if you didn't leave candy for Nightmare Moon, she'd come and, um, eat ponies. Especially fillies and colts."

"Said?" she asked. "Not did?"

"I-I don't think so," Fluttershy stammered. "I don't really know how it started but it, um, stayed around. Ponies usually dress up and go door to door for candy, and foals place some at a shrine to Nightmare Moon. It's really mostly foals," she explained, before wincing. "Um, it's really scary. Adults usually use it as a chance to s-s-scare ponies," she said, phantom shivers working their way up her spine.

Elizabeth frowned. "Scare ponies? Why? Bad." Flickers of irritation crested along Fluttershy's thoughts at that. "Just like prank," she spat.

"Oh no!" she said. "It's different! Most ponies really like the scary part."

"Ones getting scared do?" Greene asked, still tense.

"Oh yes," Fluttershy said. "It's because of the, um, adrenaline I think. It gives them a rush, so they like it." She hoped that would make sense to Elizabeth. It would be really bad bad bad if she hated everypony in town who took part in Nightm -

- bad bad bad? She was starting to think like Elizabeth. Not that that was a... bad thing, not really, but it said something about how much time the alien spent with her. She still hung out with the girls, of course, but when Elizabeth wasn't hunting or foalsitting the CMC, she clung to Fluttershy like a lost puppy. Oh, she hoped Greene didn't think she thought of her like that!

"Some ponies want to scare, other ponies want to be scared. Works. Dress up?"

"Oh, yes. Ponies usually dress up as things. Sometimes scary, sometimes not. I think Twilight dressed up as Starswirl the Bearded last time."

"Star...swirl?" Greene asked haltingly, giving each individual word time to echo.

"Um, he was a really smart unicorn, a long time ago. Sorry, I don't really know that much about him. Really, just what Twilight's told me."

"Imitate," Greene said, pondering this new information. "Clothes, show as other things." She looked straight at Fluttershy, cyan eyes meeting wilted green ones. "What were you?"

Blood rushed to Fluttershy's cheeks. "Oh, um, I don't really celebrate Nightmare Night. I-It's too scary," she said, looking down. Oh, Elizabeth was going to be so angry at her. Elizabeth was always so brave, almost always so certain of what she wanted. She hunted in the Everfree Forest after all, and that was no small feat. Of course, it was easy to be brave when any wounds healed immediately, but she was still so brave...

"Understand," Elizabeth said. "How long is Nightmare Night?"

"It usually lasts all night long, even past midnight."

"See, I see," Elizabeth said. She shifted on her web of flesh, and the web shifted with her, until she laid on the cottage next to Fluttershy, their heads level with each other. "Plan next?"

"Well," she said, watching as Derpy placed a letter in her mailbox and kicked off. Like every year, there'd be invitations to Nightmare Night parties. One large, pink invitation would emit a song and a blast of confetti when she opened it. And like every year she'd decline them with a tremendously guilty heart, in exchange for holing up in her cottage and waiting out the night. "We could go see Rarity about your dress. Um, if that's alright with you?" she asked, looking at Elizabeth.

"Dresses," she whispered. In a motion too fast for Fluttershy to follow, Greene twisted her body and pushed against her mesh, jumping down from the cottage, where she then pulled her tendrils back into her body, something that made Fluttershy itch under her coat just by watching. Once Greene was done, she followed after the Evolved and alighted gently on the ground, balancing her teacup in her mouth.

"Onh momenth," she mumbled through it, trotting back inside her house, placing it down, then back out to where Greene stood like a statue, waiting for her. "Alright, lets go," she said.

The two of them walked and trotted to Ponyville. In the month and a half since Greene's arrival, the ponies had grown used to her, and there were no longer cries of horror, fear, and 'the' horror whenever she walked through town. Nopony noticed them anymore than normal, and so they made the journey to Rarity's boutique without incident. She raised her hoof to the door, hesitated, and placed it back down.

Elizabeth slammed her palm into the door with the sound of a thunderclap, making Fluttershy jump. A moment later, there was a melodious 'coming!' from inside, and the door flew open. "Oh," Rarity said. "Hello, dears! Please, come in."

"Thank you," she whispered, walking in after Elizabeth and gently shutting the door behind her. "I hope you don't mind, Rarity," she said as Elizabeth looked around at the ponyquins. "We were just wondering if, um, you had Elizabeth's dress ready? I mean, she's been very patient, and it's been a lot longer than the week you said..."

Rarity gasped, holding a forehoof to her mouth. "Oh good heavens! How could I forget?" She whipped her head to Elizabeth. "Oh darling, I am so sincerely sorry. I've had it done for a while now but it completely slipped my mind! Come, come, right upstairs!" she said, half screaming. Fluttershy winced. She'd made Rarity panic. Oops?

They followed Rarity upstairs, emerging into a hailstorm of clothes, yarn, and wooden boxes as the unicorn flung her magic around. Rarity stood in the middle of the cyclone, muttering to herself. "Where was it, I put it right here... no no, that was order 346-C. Maybe here..." Fluttershy saw Sweetie Belle pressed up against a wall, eyes wide in fear. As a tornado of needles from Celestia-knew-where flew around Rarity for Luna-knew-what reason, Elizabeth calmly stepped forward, the projectiles bouncing off her suit harmlessly and jolting Rarity out of her... episode.

"Dress?" she asked, echoes loud in the confines of the upstairs.

"Oh!" she said, cutting off her magic and letting the storm fall, creating a huge mess. Fluttershy eyed it nervously. She wasn't really looking forward to climbing across it. What if she stepped on something important? Eventually, she fluttered over to a little clearing in the clutter, in which Rarity and Elizabeth stood. "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. Now, lets see..." Sweetie Belle, no longer pinned against the wall, smiled and waved a forehoof at Elizabeth before returning to her crayon drawing.

Elizabeth returned the wave, wiggling her fingers. Fluttershy smiled warmly at them. Aww, they were so cute together! She strongly suspected that Elizabeth was an adolescent, or at least had been when she became an Evolved and stopped aging. She just had that... look about her.

"Here it is!" Rarity shouted, levitating a tangled mess of cloth out and unfolding it. "Here we go!" she said, floating it into Elizabeth's grip and trotting over to another hallway. "If you'd like to get changed, there's a screen I keep behind here," Fluttershy heard as the alien followed the unicorn, leaving her standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Not that she really minded...

She sat down and nervously shuffled her forehooves. She heard Elizabeth and Rarity fussing over the clothes, mostly Rarity while Elizabeth repeated the word 'dress' repeatedly, the insect-like buzz that came with her echoes cutting through any background noise. Sweetie Belle kept coloring, like this sort of thing happened every day.

Eventually, she heard Elizabeth Greene return, a smiling Rarity next to her. Fluttershy took in the design, Elizabeth's happiness flickering around her, and she had to admit Rarity had outdone herself once again.

She'd never say it out loud, but Elizabeth's regular look gave the impression of her being broken. Not whole, like she'd lost some very important, core part of her, like Rainbow Dash without her confidence and speed, or Pinkie Pie without her skill at parties and ability to defy physics. Truth be told, Fluttershy doubted Rarity's ability to pull it off, especially with her suit being part of her body, but...

The main colors were red and black, not red and white like Fluttershy had expected. The top of the dress, hanging on Elizabeth's wiry frame, was red as blood, and Rarity had given it different shades of red, so that when Elizabeth moved it looked like it was flowing. The bottom part was wide, Elizabeth's suited legs still came out from under it, and it was black as coal. If anything, the gray of the plastic leggings only gave the illusion of ashes under a fire.

Near the middle, red and black met, each color splitting into webs and curling around one another before being overcome by the other. Down her 'sleeves' the flowing red quickly frayed into tendrils of red and white, twisting above and below each other in haphazard directions that seemed to hint at some underlying pattern, with the occasional flash of brilliant amber. Just as they reached her wrists, they flared with the same brilliant green tint of Elizabeth's electricity. The dress was wide, so it hid the tubes down Elizabeth's back very well.

Elizabeth's suit went up her neck and ended in a little 'disk' around the bottom of her head, yet Rarity's design took that into account as well, the red fading to gray as it reached it, and even forming additional rings on its way up, interconnected with strands of red and white. All in all, it balanced out Greene's features, and while it wasn't quite as graceful as some of Rarity's other works, it fit the wearer. Its rippling, 'bloody' top, the ashes at the bottom and dark webbing at the middle, and the hints of emerald lightning at the wrists and flashes of yellow, made Elizabeth look just as intimidating as before, but less broken.

Of course, her mane was still a mess. Not that she'd ever say that out loud, of course.

"Dress!" Elizabeth hissed happily, spinning around so it flew out around her. "Good dress!" Elizabeth laughed once, rippling around Fluttershy like wind-chimes.

"I'm glad you like it, Elizabeth," Rarity said, also smiling. "Look at me, designing clothing for an alien! Oh Greene, you simply must wear that to next year's Grand Galloping Gala!"

"Hmm," Elizabeth grunted. In a single spinning motion, Elizabeth lifted the dress over her head, ducked down from it, and caught the now-tangled mess in her hands, folding it. Rarity winced, and Fluttershy's heart went out to her, seeing what had happened to her work. Still though, Elizabeth's fingers were very nimble, she could probably fix it. And lacking that, she always had her web of tentacles. "Dress, dress." She ran her left hand over it, smile too large for her face. "Good, good."

"I'm glad you like it, Elizabeth," Fluttershy said.

"Like I said," Rarity cut in. "I am dreadfully sorry for forgetting all about it! Things just came up, and then - "

"Doesn't matter. Patient," Elizabeth interrupted sharply. "Dress!" She frowned, fixing the white mare with a hard look, narrowing her eyes as her smile turned into a thin line. Confusion and what-is-that-word washed over Fluttershy, muddling her thoughts. "Thank... you," she said haltingly, as if testing out the words. Elizabeth nodded, apparently satisfied. "Yes, thank you."

"My pleasure, dear. Fluttershy, will you be staying for lunch?" she asked.

She shook her head slightly. "Oh, I'm sorry, I already ate." She flinched at Rarity's slightly disappointed look. "... sorry."

Rarity waved a forehoof in an elaborate flourish. "Oh, it's no trouble. I do have to help Sweetie with her costume after all," she said, shooting the younger unicorn an amused look. "She is so cute in it, I really wish you could see it, Fluttershy."

"Um..." she whispered, unsure of what she could say that wouldn't hurt anypony's feelings. "Um..."

"Don't worry about it, I know how you feel about Nightmare Night."

"Okay. I'll just, um, go then."

"Take care, Fluttershy," Rarity said sympathetically. In no time, Fluttershy headed downstairs. Elizabeth followed, with Sweetie Belle shouting a farewell behind them. They exited Rarity's home/business and began to head back to Fluttershy's home. Fluttershy swiveled her head around, looking at the eerie, frightening carved pumpkins and pony skeletons and spider webs being hung out.

"How you feel about Nightmare Night, not see Sweetie Belle's costume," Elizabeth said as they left Ponyville, walking through the field to her cottage. "Don't like, understand. Don't understand why you can't see costume," she said, Rarity's dress hanging from her right hand, flopping from the motion of her walking.

"Well, I usually spend Nightmare Night in my house with Angel and the rest of my animal friends."

"Hide from ponies that want to scare," Elizabeth mused.

"Y-Yeah. Well, here we are," she whispered.

"Here," Elizabeth agreed, letting herself in. Fluttershy followed after, and noticed that Elizabeth no longer held the dress, and that there was a very large splatter of tendrils next to the one holding the ticket. With that errand done, Fluttershy began her afternoon chores. Angel stayed inside to prepare dinner for her, he could be such a dear sometimes.

She checked up on the chickens, the bluebirds, the robins, the otters, the badgers, and so on. Elizabeth vanished into the Everfree, but Fluttershy knew she'd come back. She always did come back, with a carcass to divide up with her carnivorous and omnivorous animals. She went through the chores - even though they weren't really chores, she liked doing them - easily. By the time she was done, Elizabeth had given a now-eyeless cockatrice to a family of foxes who'd gotten snowed out of their home by the Everfree's unpredictable weather. Luckily for Fluttershy's appetite, it had been completely ensnared by Greene's web. Really, she just took Elizabeth's word that it was eyeless.

"Bad eyes," she'd said. "Took arm. Grew back. Find through smell."

She hadn't been too sure about that. Sure, rapid healing was one thing but regrowing limbs was completely different. Still, Elizabeth wasn't missing an arm, and she had no reason to doubt her story, so she didn't press it the issue.

Fluttershy fidgeted nervously. The sun sank rapidly beneath the horizon, and a hoofball-shaped gibbous moon rose from the other end of the land. She shivered, and went back inside her house, closing the door and setting some candles aflame. She'd need the light, even though the fire was dangerous in a wooden home.

"Smell fear," Elizabeth said, leaning against a wall, a small mesh extended from her. "Why? Not going to Nightmare Night. Nothing to fear."

Fluttershy shivered. "Well, you know how some ponies like to scare others? T-They know I get scared, so t-they come to scare me," she said, volume trailing off as she tried to hide behind her own mane. She felt a tap from her left hind leg as she fumbled with a match in her hooves, and looked over to see Angel Bunny there. He saluted, a miniature royal guard helm on his head. She smiled warmly at him, even as she wondered if he'd gotten it from Pinkie. "Thank you, Angel." She looked back at Elizabeth, who had her mouth pressed together and her fists clenched.

"Scare you?" she asked quietly, tendrils flickering intermittently around her. "Know you don't want to be?"

"O-Oh, they know, but, um..." she trailed off.

Elizabeth snarled, pulling her mesh back inside and standing up straight. "Scare you. Hurt you." Anger smacked into Fluttershy with almost physical force, and she recoiled away from the alien. Angel completely tumbled over. Oh no, she had to defuse this before Elizabeth really hurt anypony who came to her cottage.

"Elizabeth," she said as sternly as she could manage. "Please, don't hurt them. They don't mean anything by it."

"Stop them," she whispered, but Elizabeth seemed to be speaking to herself, her head down with tufts of red mane hanging onto her forehead. "Scare Fluttershy, stop them, not hurt..." Elizabeth's radiated anger suddenly stopped.

She looked down at Fluttershy, a smile growing on her face. "Um, Elizabeth?" Fluttershy asked nervously.

"Plan," she said wickedly, her repeats adding to the ominous tone.

"What plans? F-For Nightmare Night?"

Elizabeth didn't respond beyond a small, dry cackle. There was a sickening, wet slithering sound, and a web of red and white tendrils expanded outwards.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Caramel

"AIIIIIEEEE!" shouted a group of fillies. As they ran away, their screams of fright devolved into giggles, fading away as they turned a corner.

Caramel chuckled. "Alright, mission accomplished everypony," he said through his costume's skeleton mask.

"Who died and made you prince?" Colgate asked, almost unrecognizable in her zombie costume. It was a very well made costume, unlike the ones the foals wore. While those consisted of little more than some fur dye, Colgate had gone the extra mile for realism. Stitches across her face, pieces of plastic she stuck onto her coat to give the illusion of furless spots, her mane and tail were ragged and frayed, and she walked with a fake limp. She'd redone her mane so that it hid her horn, and attached a fake horn beneath that was broken off halfway. And to top it all off, Colgate wore a specialized eyepiece, part monocle and part contact, that consisted of a black disk with an eyeball hanging off string, giving the illusion that eye had popped out.

It was a lot more gruesome than most costumes, but Caramel wasn't in any place to talk. After all, his 'bones' still had pieces of 'flesh' attached.

"Fine, oh great radiant leader," he said, bowing mockingly before Colgate.

"Shut up, you, or I'll be less than gentle on your root canal."

"I don't need a root canal," he deadpanned, getting back on his hooves.

She smirked, something that looked fundamentally wrong in her grotesque costume. "Not yet," she intoned threateningly.

A sharp series of screams came from further down the road the foals had run off, making both Colgate and Caramel snap their gazes over there. A moment later, two pegasi approached them. Flitter and Cloudchaser had both done themselves up as vamponies, their manes and tails deliberately flattened under black and red paint, creating the impression of fresh blood that dried near the tips. Their normally powder blue coats were a pale white, their feathered wings had been fitted inside fake bat wings that, while they wouldn't hold up long under close scrutiny, did their part. To top it all off they both wore full red contacts that totally replaced pupil, iris, and scelera alike, and sported two large fangs from their upper jaws, splattered with tomato juice.

"Got'em," Cloudchaser intoned, flexing her bat wings.

"Yeah," Flitter said from beside her. "So, who's next Colgate?"

The unicorn levitated a list out from her mane and looked it over. "Let's see..." A wicked grin burst on her face, and she rolled up the list into a scroll and placed it back. "Next is Fluttershy," she said, her voice black with malice that would be uncharacteristic on any other day. "You ponies ready?"

Caramel cracked his neck, causing the vertebrae on the outside of his black suit, enchanted with light absorption, to rub against each other. "Born ready. Follow me, it's this way," he said, picking a direction he knew from years of living in the town to be correct, and headed down it. Cloudchaser and Flitter followed behind him while Colgate sped up until they were side by side. He rolled his eyes, even though nopony would see it.

Before too long, they'd left Ponyville behind. "So," he asked. "Any ideas on what we're gonna do?"

"Well," Cloudchaser said. "I was thinking we could lure her out to you two. You know, we'd go in, give some spiel about how we thirst for her, and she'll be happy as one of us. Then she comes to you, and you two do the whole 'brains' thing."

"I do the, as you put it, 'brains thing'. Caramel here... what do skeletons even do? Rattle menacingly?"

"Quiet, you," he growled at the mare. "We're here... oh sweet Luna."

"What are you - oh," the unicorn said, trailing off.

Fluttershy's cottage had transformed. Red and white tendrils had completely overgrown it, covering windows, bird houses, the roof, nothing was spared. It was like... like somepony had taken a blanket and draped it over the building, but that metaphor didn't quite extend to the fact that the mesh extended a fair distance away from the building.

"So..." Cloudchaser said. "What exactly are we gonna do about that?"

"For that matter," her twin chimed in. "What is that stuff? I can't see with these contacts on."

Caramel trotted up to the mesh and tapped it with a forehoof. The tendrils were squishy and hot, and leaving his hoof there for a moment longer showed that it pulsed with a hidden heartbeat. "I have no idea. Isn't that alien living with Fluttershy?"

Silence descended on them. Colgate sighed. "We do not want to mess with the alien. Still, she's usually in the Everfree Forest, right?"

"I don't know," Flitter said. "I mean, I was doing a flyover here yesterday; this... icky stuff wasn't here. This is new."

"So... what?" he asked. "Everypony knows that if you mess with the alien, she hurts you. And I don't think she'll take kindly to us messing with her friend."

"Alright, but then why's the mesh here?" Cloudchaser asked. "I mean, it's been, like, a month! This is the first time anything like this has happened." She paused, and a moment later broke the pregnant silence. "Do you think... she's doing something to Fluttershy?"

"I don't know, sis," Flitter said. "She seemed pretty attached to her."

"We should go in and check, just in case," Colgate said. "If we find nothing's wrong, we just leave. No point scaring Fluttershy while Greene's around. If something is wrong, we go and alert the police."

"Sounds like a plan," Caramel said, walking onto the mesh. It squelched beneath his hooves and warmed them up like he were holding them to a fire, but it held. "It's warm, but that seems to be about it. Come on, lets go."

Colgate and Cloudchaser both walked on, Flitter taking a little longer to step onto it. "It's a shame Princess Luna is in Trottingham," she said. "She could probably clear this up real quick."

"Well, she isn't," Colgate said. "Come on, lets take a look around the house."

They trotted around the outside, but could see nothing of any interest. Every part of Fluttershy's house had been overgrown by the tendrils. There was, quite literally, only one way to even look inside, and that was the door. Which was also overgrown, but not to the extent of everything else. Was this... some kind of prank? From Fluttershy?

"We need to open this," Caramel said, bracing himself against it. "Here goes nothing." With a heave, he pushed against the door. It didn't budge. He strained, pushing himself with his back legs against it, but to no avail. "Could use some help," he growled.

Colgate walked next to him and also joined him in pushing, lighting up her horn as he, her, and her magic pushed against the door. The twins also joined in, beating their wings as fiercely as they could with their costumes on to give them extra force. The door creaked, but other than that the ensnaring tendrils held firm, uncaring of the ponies straining against it, or of their grumbling.

"Push!"

"I am pushing!"

"Push harder!"

"How about you push harder?"

"We are!"

"Not you, hi - whoa!":

At that moment, the door blew inward. All four of them fell inward, with Caramel at the bottom of the pile. He thought he heard a rib crack on his costume. He shook the stars out of his eyes, and gulped.

If he thought the outside was covered, then the inside of Fluttershy's cottage was smothered. Heavy tendrils hung from every corner, every wall. There was no regular source of light, the only illumination coming from pony-sized swollen lumps of tendrils that clung to the ceiling, pulsing with a sinister orange light. The air was stiflingly hot and achingly dry, which was a sharp contrast to the wet tentacles under his hooves.

"Get... off!" he growled. A moment later the others in his group complied, letting him stand and take not-so-fresh air into his lungs.

"Oh wow," Colgate said, her false eye having fallen off. "This is... certainly something."

"Yeah," Cloudchaser said. "Hey 'gate, mind giving me a hoof? I can't see a thing in these contacts." After a moment, she winced and lifted a hoof, as if something had poked her.

"Me too," Flitter chimed from somewhere behind Caramel.

"Yeah, sure thing." A moment later, Colgate's horn lit up blue, four auras removing red contacts from four eyes, placing them on an ensnared... Caramel guessed it had once been a couch. "Wow. So, yeah, the alien's definitely been here." She raised a hoof and grimaced. "What is this stuff?"

"I"m not sure," Caramel said. "I've never seen it before, but I haven't seen Greene around much either." He tapped the 'floor' with a hind leg. "Weird stuff. Lets look around on the first floor, see if we can't find anything."

They did just that, splitting up. Still, Fluttershy's cottage wasn't a very big place, so in no time they'd covered all the ground. The picture they found wasn't pleasing. Everywhere it was the same story; tendrils growing over every surface, over the windows, lamps, candles, bowls. Some even formed filaments from floor to ceiling, like stalagmites and stalactites that had grown together, and just as hard. Bulging, pulsing orange growths above them, some on the walls, filling the cottage with dim, ominous light.

The scariest part were the protrusions. Very distinct shapes on the mesh, squishy but unyielding to touch, shaped like animals. Ferrets, birds, a cluster of bee-shaped bulges. That removed the idea from Caramel's head that this was an uncharacteristic Nightmare Night prank from the alien and Fluttershy of all ponies. She'd never let something like this happen to her precious animals.

They regrouped near the stairwell - also overgrown - that headed upstairs, to Fluttershy's bedroom. "Alright," Flitter said. "This is really creeping me out. I mean, I can get the webs, but Shy would never let something happen to her animals." Her eyes widened. "Not if she could help it."

"Well then," the other pegasus said. "Upstairs it is."

"Hang on," Colgate interjected. "Shouldn't we get out of here? Tell somepony trained to handle this sort of stuff?"

"We might not have that kind of time," Cloudchaser said. Caramel looked around nervously, sweat pressed against his coat by the suit, making him feel sticky and gross. He thought he'd heard somepony. "Something's happening, and something's happening now!" There it was again. That was certainly a whimper. "Come on, lets sneak up. Everypony quiet now," she said, voice plummeting to a whisper.

Cloudchaser took the lead, with Colgate right behind her, leaving Caramel side by side with Flitter. As they quietly climbed the stairs, grateful that the mesh kept them from squeaking, he noticed another animal-shaped lump. But this one's eyes and nose were uncovered.

"Angel Bunny," Colgate whispered, the slightest hint of vindictiveness in her voice. Caramel could hardly blame her. Not a pony in Ponyville hadn't had, at one point, an ill-fated meeting with the overprotective rabbit. "Hang on, let me try and get him out." Her horn lit up again, casting flickering shadows in the near-absolute darkness. A dark blue aura surrounded the rabbit, but nothing happened. Colgate screwed her eyes shut and groaned but still, no effect. Finally, she stopped the magic. "Sorry, I can't. These things are something else."

"I noticed," Caramel whispered. "Lets keep going." He ignored the rabbit's glare, instead focusing on the whimper from upstairs.

Before long, they'd reached the second floor, and found the source of the whimpers - and now that they were closer, a slick wet noise - to be Fluttershy's bedroom. Like everything else, it too was utterly enmeshed.

The four of them stopped in a line, watching the horrific scene unfolding before them. Fluttershy was pinned to the wall, her legs spread out and covered in tendrils, which also went over her tail and mane. The only parts of Fluttershy exposed to air were her face and her upper body, sans wings, which were unfurled and covered. And there, standing before her in all her unholy glory, was Elizabeth Anne Greene.

Fluttershy whimpered as Greene moved a hand along her midsection, the red tendrils growing over her belly and up to her neck. She quivered, her eyes locked with the alien's.

Caramel almost said 'Holy Celestia', but stopped himself in time. This was bad. This was really bad! He could feel the malicious intent radiating off of Greene, they had to get away. He nudged his head towards the staircase back and mouthed 'go', making the four of them start tip-hoofing back.

"H-Help," Fluttershy whispered. Caramel snapped his head back in horror. Greene had just covered Fluttershy up to her snout in mesh. Elizabeth Greene, of course, understand what she'd tried to say and went stock solid, taking her hands off the pegasus on the wall.

Four pairs of pony eyes met one pair of Evolved eyes. "E-Everypony..." Flitter whimpered.

Greene's eyes flashed and she opened her mouth in a rasping, bouncing hiss, a strand of saliva dripping off one of her canines.

"... run!" she finished, screaming at the top of her lungs.

She didn't have to say twice. The three mares bolted for the stairwell, half galloping and half tumbling down the stairs. Caramel followed close after, and not a moment too late, because an instant later Greene was right next to him with her fist planted into the wall where his head had been a moment before. The force behind her punch sent a shockwave of air out, slamming into him and making him careen down the stairs.

He landed, and was immediately helped onto his hooves by Flitter and Cloudchaser. "Run! Run! Run!" he shouted, galloping for the door. There was a roar behind him, and the entire house shook despite the support of the alien flesh covering it. Caramel was, like before, the last one in line, on account of the twins' wings and Colgate being a naturally fast sprinter. So it fell to him, when Greene came charging down the stairs, to rear up on his forelegs and buck the alien in the chest as hard as he could.

He stifled a scream as his legs seemed to catch fire. It'd been like kicking a boulder! Regardless, Elizabeth flew back and slammed into the wall with a squelch which gave him enough time to get the hay out of there!

He flew out of the still-open door and caught up to the others.

"Where are we running?" he asked as they left the splatter of suddenly-scorching-hot tendrils around the cottage. "Where?!"

"Anywhere!" Colgate shouted. She screamed again as a single, thick bolt of green lightning flashed past her ear, striking the ground with a thunderclap and leaving a patch of blackened dirt.

Caramel looked behind to see the alien lowering her hand, still sparking, and charge at them again. "Magic!" he shouted. A moment later, Elizabeth was lifted, kicking and hissing, into the air by Colgate's magic, just before she reached Cloudchaser.

"Go, go, go!" he shouted. The air buzzed again, and he lowered his head just in time to avoid another blast of electricity. Chancing another glance, he saw that Greene had summoned two sparking emerald orbs the size of a pony, and despite being immobilized herself the orbs were closing in very fast, their latent energies forcing his fur to stand on end.

Even when Colgate couldn't hold up Greene anymore and her magic fizzled out, they kept running, and did not stop for anything.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

Elizabeth watched the four equines run screaming into Ponyville, her orbs chasing them at a fraction of their maximum speed. She kept watching until the orbs popped, and only then did she allow a smile to creep onto her face. She turned around headed back to Fluttershy's home, closing the door and once again tightening her tendrils onto it, entering the warm place. She walked past the animal-shaped bumps she'd formed with Fluttershy's help to the stairs. Halfway up, she looked Angel Bunny's way and, with a thought, released him from the tendrils.

He hopped on past her, sitting on Fluttershy's bed as Elizabeth, with a flicker of concentration, released Fluttershy as well.

The pegasus fell to her hooves, shaking lightly. "A-Are they gone?" she asked.

"Gone," she whispered, grinning as the word bounced around the room. "Got them good." From next to her, Angel Bunny fixed her with a beady glare, then smiled and made a motion with his arm she often saw Similar soldiers do. She frowned at that, but she... supposed the motion was meant in good good good will.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I mean, it looked like you really scared them."

"Deserved it," she hissed. "Knew you don't like, did anyway."

"B-But, what if you'd hurt them?"

She frowned. Fluttershy was afraid of her wasn't she? "Wouldn't hurt them," she rasped quietly, kneeling next to the equine. "Careful. Promised you," she said, recalling how Fluttershy had asked her not to hurt anyone coming to scare her. And she hadn't.

Much.

"Oh, that's good to know," Fluttershy whispered. "But aren't you afraid they'll get the police? I-I mean, they thought you were trying to hurt me, so..."

"Show truth, you show truth. Fix," she said simply.

"I suppose," she said quietly, looking down. "So, what do we do now? I mean, I know you're not gonna take the webs back in case anypony else comes, but..."

She shrugged. "What you want. No difference to me."

"Well, I'm... okay." Angel Bunny hopped next to her and tapped her, then his stomach. "Oh! Right, we haven't eaten dinner yet. Elizabeth, is it, um, alright if we go? Y-You can join us if you want! It's just, you don't seem like you're hungry, oh I'm assuming things. Um, um..."

"Go eat. Food important," she said, tilting her head slightly to the right. "Will tell if others come."

"Y-Yes. Come on, Angel," she said to her pet rabbit. The two headed downstairs, and Elizabeth pulled her warmth off the bowls of prepared meals the rabbit had made. She jumped at a wall and attached herself to the warmth there, and pondered, her thoughts drifting away from Nightmare Night and towards her Reason.

Angel Bunny was clearly intelligent. And like the equines, like the zebras and minotaurs and dragons and griffons, he was broken broken broken and she had to fix that. It made her wonder how many other species there were that she had to Bless, how many times she'd have to change her Blessing. It would take so long. Was there simply some way she could change her Blessing to affect all species on this world? If there was, she didn't know of it. As nice as it would be, things couldn't be that easy.

She heard through her tremendous ears and saw through her warmth Fluttershy and Angel Bunny both eating the carrot stew said rabbit had fixed earlier in the day, surprising Greene with his... generosity.

She sighed, and moved to sit sideways on the wall. Regardless of how long it would take, she was almost done with the equines. She was done with Ponyville; she'd gotten the last bit of essence she needed from the earth pony nest from those four. Tomorrow she'd go to Cloudsdale with - the thought made her wince - Rainbow Dash, and she'd get the essence she needed from the pegasus nest. Then she'd fix fix fix her Blessing and then... well, she'd see then.

She smiled as Fluttershy gently licked her bowl clean of the soup and complimented her pet, who soaked up the praise.

Hang in there there there, Fluttershy, she thought. I'll help you soon.

She was close. She was so close, she could practically taste it.

A Dream of Armageddon

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Greene

Today was the day.

Today, she'd get the last pieces of equine essence she needed. It would all all all be uphill from there. Of course, she still had a few hurdles to go through for it. Most glaring of which was that she'd have to spend the entire day with Rainbow Dash of all equines. At least Pinkie Pie would stay behind.

Fluttershy had already finished breakfast by the time she woke up, so there was little delay for her to go meet Rainbow Dash. She got the ticket, and went towards the earth pony nest. However, she could not find find find where the pegasus was. She didn't wait for Fluttershy, because she was going to go to Cloudsdale and she wanted to go there now! She bounded into Ponyville and set about looking for the rainbow equine, barreling down streets and over roofs.

"Elizabeth!" said the equine she nearly bowled over in her search through Ponyville.

She froze, looking down at the unicorn huddled beneath her, braced for an impact that never came. "Twilight Sparkle," she said softly, a tinge of wariness in her voice. She stepped back, eager to put some distance distance distance between her and the equine. "Where's Rainbow Dash? Cloudsdale today."

"Oh, Rainbow? She's usually still asleep this time of day. Have you tried her house?"

"Can't find," she said simply. Wasn't it obvious? "Where's Rainbow Dash? Cloudsdale today," she repeated.

"Uh huh," Twilight Sparkle said warily, shuffling her saddlebags for some bizarre reason. "Actually, I was just going to find her myself regarding that. You see, um, Elizabeth? How much do you know about Cloudsdale?"

"Pegasus nest," she said simply. "Mainly pegasi. Far."

"That's what I was afraid of," Twilight Sparkle said, a worried frown on her face. Why was she worried? Greene could take care of herself! "Could've sworn I told you... you see, Cloudsdale is just what it sounds like, it's made of clouds. Pegasi have their natural magic to let them walk on clouds, but anypony or anyevolved else will just fall right through." Elizabeth frowned. Fall... through? She didn't understand.

Twilight Sparkle apparently sensed this, and sighed. "Cloudsdale is really high up. And you don't have any magic, let alone pegasus magic, so you'll just fall right through." Elizabeth's frowned deepened. So... she couldn't go to Cloudsdale? A spark of anger lit up inside of her. Rainbow Dash was trying to trick her! She was -

"However," Twilight Sparkle continued. "There are spells to replicate the effect temporarily. I know a cloud-walking spell that should be good for a few hours, so I was hoping I could come with you, cast the spell once you arrive - " Greene's eyes narrowed. Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle. Bad bad bad. The unicorn clearly noticed her expression. "I won't be staying with you, if that's what you're worried about!" she backpedaled hastily. "Just going there with you, casting the cloudwalking spell, then going back."

Elizabeth sighed. She really didn't want to rely on the scientist equine to let her gather essence. "Rarity do it?" she asked.

She shook her head. "Rarity doesn't know the spell as well as I do. I tried to teach her, but she can't keep it up for more than a few minutes."

Elizabeth growled. "Fine. Fine. Come with, cloudwalk, then go. Where's Rainbow Dash?"

"Right this way," she said, turning towards a seemingly random direction. Elizabeth easily kept pace with her. After a while, the equine next to her said, "It should be right... ah, here!" They stopped, and Elizabeth looked left, right, and then up. Sure enough, there was a large cloud, shaped like a home, with more rainbows pouring out of it. How hadn't she seen it?

"Rainbow!" she shouted up at it. Elizabeth could hear inside the sound of breaking, moving, and muffled shouts.

A moment later, the pegasus tumbled out of her cloud house and descended to them. "I'm up!" she said indignantly. "I'm up!" She looked at Greene. "So, Cloudsdale, right?"

"Yes," she said simply. "How to get there?"

"Well, I was thinking we could take Twi's balloon," she explained. "No offense, but I don't think I can carry you." Rainbow Dash chuckled nervously. Good for her to be nervous. "Don't think you'd be up for that anyway. So, we should probably go find it so she can give you a lift."

She scowled. "Keep finding? Not leaving now?"

"Well, unless you want me to carry you..." Rainbow Dash trailed off.

"Rainbow," Twilight Sparkle hissed. "Don't taunt her."

"Alright, alright, sorry. But yeah, we're gonna need - "

" - a way up!" shouted Pinkie Pie coming out of nowhere where had she come from?! "I already got my balloon cause I knew you'd be going today and you were pretty set on going to the Wonderbolts concert so I knew you'd be up early so I woke up early and got my hot air balloon and found you so whenever you want to head for Cloudsdale I can take you ri-i-ight up!" Pinkie Pie paused mid run-on-sentence and frowned. "That is, if you're okay with me operating it?"

She scowled. She did not want to be in this balloon-whatever-it-was with these three. They were up to something. But... if it even gave her a chance to reach the pegasus nest...

"Fine," she spat. "Where's balloon?"

"Right here!" Pinkie Pie shouted, reaching over the bushed next to them - was that where she'd come from - and inexplicably pulled out a large basket, with something large, purple, and decorated splayed on it.

"Pinkie," Twilight Sparkle said warily. "That's my hot air balloon."

"Nuh uh!" The equine sat down and crossed her forelegs. "It's a look alike."

A purple forehoof met a purple face. "Pinkie, why do you have a replicate of my hot air balloon?"

"Well how else am I gonna get to Cloudsdale without bugging you to buy rainbows for my baking?"

"But, why do you - how do you walk on - " Twilight Sparkle sighed. "Nevermind."

"Right!" Pinkie Pie said, suddenly in the basket, lighting a metal implement above it Elizabeth hadn't seen before ablaze. "Can you hold the balloon up while it fills with air?"

"Sure thing," Twilight Sparkle said, lighting up her horn and move-thoughting the balloon above the fire before turning to Greene. "Elizabeth, you might wanna get in. Don't want it floating off without you."

"Can wait," she said, eyeing Pinkie Pie with distaste. "Can jump when it flies."

"If you insist," she said, the balloon inflating. The equines around them spared them no more than a glance before going on, as if this sort of thing was normal normal normal to them. Rainbow Dash jumped into the air, flapping slowly. "Well, Elizabeth, here we go," Twilight Sparkle said, climbing into the basket. It lifted, and when it cleared the rooftops, Elizabeth leaped into the air, aiming perfectly and landing in the hot air balloon.

It immediately plummeted. The two equines with her screamed until the balloon landed with a thump. Elizabeth looked up at the fire idly. It was nice. It wasn't warm but it did at least partly ward off the bitter cold. After a moment, she looked at the two equines. "Problem?"

"Um, yeah," Pinkie Pie said. "You're kinda really super heavy, so if it's not too hard, could you do that weird tentacle thing outside so we can go up?"

After a moment's thought to decipher what the equine wanted, Elizabeth extended her warmth over the side of the basket and onto the street, expanding it into a large mesh of pulsing, warm red and white tendrils. She fed more of her flesh into it until she felt it was good. She pulled the warmth still on the basket in, leaving the rest on the streets with the now-wary equines, and the basket immediately soared up.

As they floated, controlling direction through some mechanism Elizabeth Greene really didn't care about, the three equines chatted, Rainbow Dash flying circles around the balloon. Elizabeth sat on one end, ticket grasped tightly, but did nothing to interact with the equines, even when they asked her a direct question. As the sun crept higher and the balloon kept drifting, Elizabeth eventually noticed a patch of clouds closer together than others, and more and more pegasi flying around their balloon.

"Cloudsdale?" she asked as they neared the large group of clouds. Waterfalls and what looked like rainbows poured off the side. It wasn't like the other equine nests. This one was very three dimensional, with overhangs and underhangs, roads above roads. Her eyes could, even at such a distance, make out pegasi flying around and - no kidding - walking on the clouds. Talking, exchanging currency, flying, walking, trying to be happy.

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash said. "We're almost there. Twi, wanna cast the cloudwalking thingamajig?"

"Yeah, sure. Elizabeth, hold still." Twilight Sparkle's horn lit up, and Elizabeth held still. A tingle passed through her body, lingered in her feet for a few seconds afterwards, and then faded.

"Cloud walk?" she asked, echoes cutting through the wind with ease. With a thought, she placed her ticket onto her right side and slithered her tendrils across it.

"Should be working," Twilight Sparkle said. They were getting very close to Cloudsdale now. "So, Dash, when do you want us to come back and pick you two up?"

Elizabeth snapped her gaze towards her. "Don't need," she rasped. "Can get down myself."

Twilight Sparkle raised an eyebrow, but it was Pinkie Pie who spoke. "Oh, so you can just come down from Cloudsdale without needing a balloon? But she needed a balloon to get up here, I mean, you can jump really high but not Cloudsdale high, so is it another one of your freaky alien powers that lets you get down? Ooh, ooh, like using those webs to make a parachute?"

Elizabeth blinked, and slowly nodded. She didn't know about 'parachutes' but she could 'just come down from Cloudsdale without needing a balloon'. "Neato!" Pinkie Pie finished.

Still operating on the unseen-mechanism-doesn't-matter, the balloon soon came to a rest, hovering over a large, open area. Several pegasi looked their way, but most were too occupied with their own lives to notice too much. Still, there was a small crowd watching them, and Rainbow Dash landed midst them.

"Alright," the unicorn said. "Lets take this easy, see if the spell worked. Can you hang on to the balloon and place one foot on the clouds?"

Elizabeth leaped out, avoiding the balloon overhead, and nearly entered a cloud 'street' above them. She reached the tip of her arc and fell down. She raised a foot and stomped as she landed. The clouds held, and rippled outwards like fluid.

She hissed and stumbled about. Most of the pegasi had, in response to her landing, scattered. They weren't used to her yet. Rainbow Dash nodded approvingly. "Alright, looks good." She turned to Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie. "Alright, see you girls, well, eventually. I'll drop by Sugarcube Corner when we're back, kay?"

"Alright."

"I'll be waiting, Dashie!" And with that, the balloon drifted away, and Rainbow Dash approached Greene.

Elizabeth hissed lightly, dancing on her feet. They were slightly numb, tingling, the soles of her suit prickling and stinging gently, like she were in her First Home, walking on snow for the first time before realizing what a terrible idea that was. "Water," she hissed angrily. "Where's water? Clouds!"

Rainbow Dash's face went from confused, to fearful, to understanding, to embarrassed. Greene couldn't help but feel a point of pride pride pride at that. She was getting better at reading equine emotions. "Oh, heh. Sorry, I just figured you knew. Clouds are made of, well, water. You okay?"

She grimaced and stopped bouncing on her feet. They stung and rippled ever so slightly with her tendrils, but... "Will survive. Only bottom of feet. Wonderbolts?"

Rainbow Dash's face lit up. "Right this way!" She spread her wings and flew to a nearby street a level up. "There's a way around - " Elizabeth jumped and landed next to her in a single bound. " - or you could do that."

"Wonderbolts?" she repeated.

"Right this way," Rainbow Dash said, taking flight again. Elizabeth Greene followed after her, running along walls, flipping over barriers and jumping onto and clouds as easily as the pegasus flew between them. After a few jumps, Rainbow Dash landed on a cloud-street and began trotting eagerly towards a large... cylindrical cloud. A lot of pegasi were walking on this street, she noticed, and made it a point to bump into as many of them as she could to collect their essence. This resulted in more than a few few few complaints, but what did she care?

Though she was only getting Cloudsdale Pegasus essence, no Unicorn or Earth Pony, though given the whole 'clouds' thing, it made sense.

... she hated clouds. She hated Cloudsdale, hated it! She wished this would be over soon soon soon. It was cold, it was windy which made it colder and her feet stung and prickled and rebelled with every step. This was not a good place.

"Alright," Rainbow Dash said, stopping before the large cylindrical cloud. It was molded into a lot of shapes, pillars, columns, arches, she didn't care. It did look nice, but it was a cloud and so it was water, so she didn't care. "Here we are, the Cloudiseum. See that pony?" she asked, pointing towards a pegasus male standing under an arch. He was blue with black secondary fur, and a mark that was hidden under his wings. He also held a checklist in one hoof, a short yellow stick in his mouth.

"See," she rasped, making a few of the pegasi around snap their gazes to her. She ignored them, but did snip essence from a pink one that drew close.

"Well, he's the ticket inspector. Give him your ticket, and he'll let you in."

"Let in," she repeated, dissolving the tendrils along her side and grasping the ticket tightly in her hand. She and Rainbow Dash reached the male quickly. He spat the stick - a pencil - onto his checklist.

"Tickets?" he asked, looking over them. His eyes rested on Greene for a moment, but then went to Rainbow Dash. "Oh, hey Dash! Fancy seeing you here."

"Hey, Snow Drift. Been a while since flight school. Here's my ticket," she said, reaching into her mane to pull out her own slip of paper, handing it over to the male. "Elizabeth?"

Greene stepped forward and placed her ticket onto the clipboard, and turned to Rainbow Dash. "Wonderbolts?"

She chuckled, and Greene tensed. Laughing at her! She didn't have the right, especially not her! "Geez, and I thought I was eager to see them. We got a few minutes before the show starts anyhow, wanna go to the snack bar?"

Greene fixed Rainbow Dash with her best deadpan stare. She'd been practicing it; these equines created a need for a deadpan stare. "Can't eat same food."

"Oh, right. Hehe. Well, lets go find a seat, I'll get me some grub, and then we can watch the show."

"Fine," she said, though she really didn't have much hostility in it. After all, Rainbow Dash had held up her end of the bargain, even if still incomplete, so she could partially forgive her. She followed the pegasus next to her as she went through a few stairs, flew up a few floors, and eventually came into the main part of the cylindrical building. There was a large circular field in the middle, which seemed to be devoid of floor, and around it were a few floors, with heavier clouds forming 'seats'. There was also a statue of Celestia on one end, with a golden sun beneath her, and a statue of Luna on the other, a crescent moon under her. Both were made of clouds.

Rainbow Dash flew up to one of the higher level seats across from them, and Elizabeth joined her in a casual leap. They both sat on the cloud, and Greene looked over to Rainbow Dash. "Place? Soon?"

She nodded, smiling in what Greene decided was genuine happiness. "Yep! Got here really early, too. Stay here, I'm gonna go buy some snacks." With that, Rainbow Dash winged away.

Elizabeth took the moment to extend a web of tendrils under from her, making the clouds finally stop biting at her. To her delight, Twilight Sparkle's cloudwalking spell continued to affect her webbing. Made sense; it was her after all. And it made her warm and stopped the numbing, so she was happy.

Steadily, equines began to fly in. They always gave her a wide berth, looking at her fearfully before moving on. It didn't matter; the equines of Cloudsdale knew little of her, so their broken minds had likely spawned all manner of horror stories regarding her nature. She shook her head, fiddling with the straps and no-longer-metal buckles around her waist.

Rainbow Dash was still missing. That was fine; she was patient. Two pegasi came to her; a male adult and a female... child!

She grinned as the little one approached her nervously. The male - parent? - nudged her with a light purple wing. The child, a pale color like Greene's own skin, with a spiked black mane that sent chills down her back clusters of spikes forests of spikes erupting from the ground and no mark hesitantly approached her. "Go on honey," the male said.

The child approached her carefully. Elizabeth kept her eyes locked with them, smiling as she approached. "H-Hello, Miss Greene?" she asked.

"Hello," she rasped, looking down at the young one. The child stiffened when she heard her echoes. "Name?"

"Um, it's Cirrus Halo, miss." The pegasus pawed at the ground with a hoof, the cloud wavering as she did.

"Cirrus Halo," Greene repeated. Fairly equine name. "Want what?"

The child nervously shuffled her forelegs. "Well, um, I was wondering if you could..." She flexed her right wing, bringing out a little scrap of paper with various equine symbols on it. Something about a grade and Equestrian and science. The child moved her left wing and produced a pencil. "Give me your autograph, if it's not too much trouble?"

Elizabeth tilted her head. "Don't understand what autograph is. Why?"

"Um, it's when you write your name on this piece of paper. So I can, um, prove that I met you."

"Why?" she repeated. "Don't understand."

The child's cheeks flushed red through her coat. "Well, you see, um, my mommy was really sick, a-and daddy says you helped get her better. I've really wanted to meet you and thank you. Um, thank you."

Elizabeth tilted her head, quickly going through her memories. "Blood sample, make sure I don't have illness. Cure for wing cancer from it. Your mother had wing cancer?" she asked.

The child looked down, and Greene could smell the nervousness. She continued. "Good to help. Bad disease."

"Thanks. Really, thank you." Without waiting for the child to continue, Elizabeth snatched the paper and pencil and scrawled what she assumed was her name in equine symbols on it. A moment of sinking drowning choking enveloped her as she moved the utensil, but she was done and handed it back. Anything for a child. She'd briefly considered instead just giving the child a meaningful memory from her own, but no. That would hurt the child.

"Done," she rasped. The equine child whirled back to her father, and the two winged away, chattering excitedly with each other.

Eventually, Rainbow Dash returned. She now carried in her hooves a variety of drinks and vegetables and fruits. She flew up next to Greene and sat down just outside her small webbing.

"Hey," she said. "Did I miss anything important?"

Elizabeth considered that question. "No," she said after a heartbeat. She eyed the cup full of water nervously and scooted further away from Rainbow Dash, bringing her web with her. She wasn't going to trust herself around Rainbow Dash and water. She wouldn't hold it against her, but she wasn't going to trust her. Not not not for a while.

Elizabeth tuned out the proceedings as the pegasi she assumed were the Wonderbolts flew in. The suited pegasi gave a few welcomes and greetings, then started flowing in various intricate patterns that drew lots of excited gasps and squeals from Rainbow Dash.

Elizabeth had much more important things to worry about. She extended tiny, thin tendrils from her webs in all directions while the pegasi (And one unicorn) watched the performance. She wrapped them around pillars, under clouds, through clouds. It was hard to move her warmth through the water but luckily for her, it wasn't dense water. It wasn't easy, but she could do it.

Eventually, the Wonderbolts flew out of sight, and Rainbow Dash turned to her. "Did you see that?!" she squeaked. "The reverse triple barrel roll with a - "

"Where are Wonderbolts?" she asked, cutting off Rainbow Dash.

"Oh, it's an intermission," the pegasus said. "They'll be back in a moment. So, what do you think? Pretty amazing, huh?"

Elizabeth tilted her head. "Didn't pay much attention," she said. "Will after intermission." She crept her tendrils forward towards each pegasus and snipped a fur from each, analyzing the essence. She sorted them into their respective Cloudsdale spots. Pegasus, pegasus, anomaly, pegasus, unicorn, pegasus. She pulled her sluggish tendrils back to her main patch of warmth, and by the time that was done, the Wonderbolts returned.

This time Elizabeth did watch the performance. The performing equines - a concept that puzzled her, performing - weren't as fast as Rainbow Dash; if she had to place a bet, they were about as fast as Greene herself. However, they were extremely coordinated, giving her the impression that they could Listen to each other. They flew in tight tornados while others passed through, flyovers, spins, whirls. Elizabeth watched silently and motionless, in sharp contrast to the equines. Especially sharp contrast to Rainbow Dash.

Eventually, it ended, and the equines filed out.

"That was awesome!" Rainbow Dash shouted, throwing her waste into a cloud-bin. "Well, we've still got some time before the day ends. Wanna go walk around the city? There's so many things I need to show you!"

"Show," Elizabeth said. It would give her a chance to collect more essence. She stood and pulled her warmth back in, grimacing when the bottom of her feet began to prickle and numb painfully. She followed Rainbow Dash outside to a fountain pouring rainbows, effortlessly keeping up with the pegasus's idle flight.

"So, where do you wanna go next?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Elizabeth tilted her head. "Split up? See on my own. Take care of self."

"Eh, you sure?" Rainbow Dash asked, her ears going down. She tilted her head along with Elizabeth, and lowered her voice as if she were trying to keep a secret from someone. "I mean, I was kinda hoping to show you around."

"Can show self around," she insisted. "You have fun on own."

"I don't know..." Elizabeth frowned, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly. "Well, okay, if you say so. Should we meet back up here at, say, sundown?"

"Sundown," Elizabeth agreed. "See then." With that, she leaped away. After turning a few more corners and changing her street height a few times, she slowed down, walking through the crowd of equines, snipping as many pieces of essence as she could, despite their natural reluctance to be close to her. She avoided several shops, snarling lightly when she saw the movement of currency within. It helped that a few of the pegasi came up to thank her for the cure, citing either themselves or one they loved as having been helped. Those made her smile as she took their essence.

While it was somewhat alarming how readily they came to thank her, she tried tried tried to think of it conversely. If an equine had come to the Similar world and offered them a cure to... her memories of Before whispered a disease synonymous with help, she was certain there would be many thanking the equine. Not as many as here, the Similars weren't as kind, but grateful surely.

... no no no. She couldn't quite wrap her mind around that. Another example. If an equine had come to her and given her a way to - she shivered and felt ever so guilty at the thought - neutralize her Wayward Child and win then she too would so very very grateful eternally grateful.

Suddenly the equines thanking her made much more sense.

As the day went on and the sun creeped lower towards the horizon, lessening its blinding glare, Elizabeth Greene collected more and more essence. She largely avoided the news equines who asked so many questions too many questions. She felt like she had a very good sample size; not most of Cloudsdale like she had most of Ponyville, but certainly enough. Still, more wouldn't hurt...

She turned down another street, one with very few equines, and made her way into an abandoned alley. It was a fairly simple thing, made of clouds like everything else. Halfway across, it separated on both ends, making it an enormous X lined with colorless, bad bad bad houses. It was nestled underneath a street, forming a sort of ceiling. She could smell the scent of past equines here, even through the water, so whoever usually went through there wasn't there right then.

But there was also the smell of new equines. She sniffed at the air. Yes, several pegasi; their feathers had different smells. "Who?" she asked. She wanted to get their essence.

There was shuffling. "She knows we're here!" came a male from around the dividing corner.

"Then what do we do?" came another voice.

"Do it now! This is our only chance!" answered a third, female.

Three equines jumped out. Two were pegasi, a male and female, and the last one was a male unicorn. She didn't recognize any of them, doubly so because they'd evidently taken care to paint themselves a shade of gray. "Get her!" shouted the unicorn, his horn lighting up. The two pegasi darted; one towards her, the other up to grab from the ceiling/street.

Immediately, Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. Angry red and white tendrils thrashed around her body, which numbed and tingled intensely. Color seeped out of her vision as the world turned gray. She took a deep breath -

Will try not to kill, she remembered saying. Try your method.

Elizabeth relaxed and let out her breath. Color returned to the world and the warping of her body stopped. She relaxed herself.

In that time, the pegasus that had dashed at her reached her and swung her front legs against Elizabeth. A hot flash of anger wracked Greene's thoughts, and she snapped out with her right hand, grabbed her by the throat and hoisting the equine into the air. She tightened her grip, cutting off the pegasus's air. She choked and began beating Greene with all four legs, feeling to her like gentle taps. Elizabeth didn't plan to hold her long. Just until she passed out...

"AAH!" She dropped the pegasus and stumbled against a wall, coughing and numb as something crashed around her. The equine she'd previously held backed up, also coughing. Greene shivered. Wet wet wet! She glanced up at the male pegasus. There was a cloud in his forehooves, and a large chunk missing from the ceiling above.

She flickered haphazardly with tendrils, and in that time a bright orange glow enveloped her and lifted her into the middle of the alley. She snarled, kicking at the magic, fighting through the water's effect, but there was nothing nothing nothing for her to grab and use her tremendous strength.

... almost nothing.

She brought her hands to her side and pushed them forward. Her sheer strength compressed the air and blasted it outwards over the three equines, throwing them back in a tangled heap and disrupting the unicorn's move-thought. She landed and grimaced, still wet.

She brought her right hand up and gently squeezed an organ at the base of her spine, which began to tingle lightly. The tingle swept up her back, down her arm, and into her palm. She envisioned the energy forming a sphere the size of an equine, and it was so. There wasn't much power in this orb, but there didn't need to be. Like moving an extra limb, she floated it towards the three recovering equines. It landed in their midst, exploding with a light plink and throwing them against the walls. They stirred, making her frown. She'd underestimated them; she'd tried to have that orb knock them out, but apparently she needed more energy for that.

She floated up again, suspended by move-thought, this time upside down with her back towards them. She snarled in fury, raging against the binds. "What do you think?" asked the unicorn.

"Incapacitate her or something! Do it quick!" shouted the other male.

She needed to figure something out. Magic was her greatest weak spot; there was nothing she could do about it. She tensed up again, and sensed a bolt of lightning fly out from the tubes on her suit's back. There was a grunt, and she dropped. She whirled around, snarling furiously.

Elizabeth charged and reached them faster than they could blink, grabbing the male pegasus by the throat. She lifted him up, locking eyes. Then she slammed him down, eliciting a strangled 'gurk'. She changed her grip to his tail and slammed him over onto his stomach, then on the other side on his back, letting go of the now-unconscious equine. The unicorn's horn glowed.

A moment later she gasped and fell over onto all fours as the water that had dripped off of her slammed back into her, wrapping itself around her in heavy, flowing, rippling coils. She snarled, thrashing against it. Water! She hated it again! It clung to her body, into her skin, numbing her it was so cold! She could fight off the effects if she really wanted to, but either way it slowed her down too too too much!

"Do... something!" the unicorn shouted.

"Are you kidding?! I'm not getting near her! Maybe..." The female pegasus leaped up and grabbed another cloud from the street above.

Elizabeth wasn't planning on letting her do whatever it was she had planned. Fighting back the numbing prickling nipping sensation she held out her right hand. Sizzling arcs of energy rushed down her arm and out at the pegasus.

The female's eyes widened and she held her hooves out. To Greene's surprise, her electricity channeled through the pegasus's legs, deflected, and blasted the side of the alley. Alright, pegasus magic. Summoning her will in spite of the water, she leaped up, not nearly as fast as she would've liked but fast enough, and grabbed the pegasus. She gasped, eyes going wide with a weak 'no' and let go of the cloud. Elizabeth oriented herself properly and let gravity do the rest, making her slam the pegasus into the clouds beneath. Greene let go; she wasn't unconscious, but she was moaning in pain.

"Oh buck me," the unicorn said weakly. Elizabeth snapped her gaze over to him, a moment after she was lifted into the air by his move-thought a second time. "Sleep spell, sleep spell, how did that sleep spell go...?"

Elizabeth didn't like the sound of that. She charged more lightning across her, and it arced from her stomach at the unicorn. He yelped and jumped to the side a moment before it fired. She fell to the ground, free of magic, and charged at him...

His horn lit up again, and an orange beam hit her in the face. She blinked, but she was already next to him. Her arm snapped out around his neck and lifted him into the air, ready to slam into the ground. But... strange strange strange. It was getting surprisingly dark. Were Celestia and Luna causing the night? Why was her arm drooping and her eyelids lowering? She didn't want them to lower. What was going -

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

"We are gathered here today," said the priest, a bead of sweat going down his head thanks to the warm, humid weather. "To mourn the passing of Michael Kempton Allan, taken before his time at the tender age of two years old..."

The funeral proceedings continued on. Elizabeth only listened to them in the back of her mind. She looked around the assembled people, out here in the graveyard. There were the parents, Jason Allan and Michelle Allan holding each other, teary eyed as the priest continued to speak.

Elizabeth looked at the coffin, and immediately glanced away to the overcast sky, the clouds smooth and unbroken. It was a closed coffin, and good thing too. She'd been spending time with Michael, along with several other children that had passed away within months of her moving to Hope. Their deaths had been quiet things, where their lungs or hearts failed, and the light in their eyes was extinguished. Or so she'd heard, she'd never been around to see those deaths.

But as part of the Hope Women's Club, she also visited them routinely and tried to help the doctors. Those children had gifts, she swore. Changing the pH of water by touch, lighting up a bulb just by touching it.

But none more so than Michael, the longest lived of any child born in Hope, or so she 'they' told her. She'd often seen him in his little plastic box, a tube up his nose so he could breathe. They'd played little games through it, and one of those games involved how many shapes he could bend an iron rod into with his little baby hands. She wouldn't have believed it had she not seen it herself.

She'd been there when he died. It'd been horrible. The baby, the baby had spontaneously exploded inside his box.

It was a very good thing there was a closed casket.

" - to say a few words." At that point, Michelle walked up to the priest's side and began reciting about how joyful she had been, how even for so short a time Michael had made her happy.

Elizabeth tuned it out and looked around. There were several people here from the club. Jessica, Ellie, Margaret. To her left was her dad, also dressed in mourning, but it was more to support her than any genuine grieving for the child. She almost looked for her mother, but remembered she'd run off to join a hippie community rather than come to Hope. She'd betrayed them.

Michelle was swapped for Jason.

Over there, on the other side of the proceedings with his head bowed, was Steve. He'd shaved, and his normally loose, long brown hair was cut short. He didn't look as out of place in the black funeral clothes as Elizabeth had expected him to; he cleaned up good. Like, really good. She suppressed a blush; there was no time or place more inappropriate than a funeral.

At length, the family and friends of Michael all said their pieces. Elizabeth didn't have anything to say; she'd only met Michael a few months ago. What could she say? 'I'm really sorry for your loss'? It wouldn't sound sincere. Nothing would. After all, she wasn't his mother. She wasn't a blood relative. All she was was someone who came in every second week to play with the baby for a few hours behind a glass box and hazmat suit.

At length, it was time to bury the coffin. One by one, people walked up and placed a hand on it, heads bowed. Elizabeth eyed Steve, who gave her a solemn nod. She waited for him to give his prayers to the baby, despite never having met him before, and then she stepped up.

"Michael," she whispered under her breath, tracing the all-too-small wooden coffin. It was maple. "Oh Michael. You... you could've been a hero. Like, a genuine hero in one of those comic books." She blinked tears out of her eyes, bowing her head even lower. Her hand found the side of the coffin. "I hope you're comfortable now. I hope you can breathe all right now."

She traced her hand around the lid, and found a tiny speck of blood. Before she realized what she was doing, she moved a finger over it. The blood was warm, eerily warm, and it didn't smudge. Revolted, knowing just who that blood had come from, she pulled her hand away and returned to her seat. Her finger tips were warm. She shuffled next to her father, who draped an arm over her shoulder. Slowly, the coffin was lowered into the seven foot hole. Deeper than six. He should be able to rest in extra peace. Dirt was shoveled. Dirt was packed.

"Come on, Lizzy," Dad said, getting up from his chair. "Lets go home."

"In a minute," she replied, standing up. Chairs were put away by volunteers. People remained by the grave, but then left. She remained even after the parents. The warmth in her fingertips had spread, an uncomfortable, sticky heat pulsing in her veins. She reached over her right side and picked at the strap going over her shoulder. Had it always been so cold?

Elizabeth sat by the grave, under the watchful gaze of the angel statues over the headstone.

Michael Kempton Allan
DOB 5/25/66
DOD 8/6/68
Son, Friend
RIP

What was she even doing here? Michael was dead. She hadn't known him very long. So why was she still here? Maybe... she felt a little kinship with the poor baby? But what exactly did they have in common?

She scratched the top of her head. The heat had gotten there, and her head was buzzing, like a cacophony of insects.

She hadn't died young. She wasn't doted on by her parents. She certainly didn't have the strength to sculpt marble with her bare hands. So why did she feel a little... attachment?

She sighed, and shivered. It didn't matter if she felt attached to this child who would never see the light of day again. She was different. She had friends in Hope. A family, a future. And, despite Steve being a hippie like her mother she had in him a potential... boyfriend. There, she'd thought it. Yes, thinking of all she had in Hope... all she had in the future, it made the heat in her veins turn to a roasty warmth. She felt happy. She felt rather...

... blessed.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Rainbow Dash

"Sundown," Greene rasped in that horrible echoing voice. "See then." Without further ado, Greene turned her back to Dash and, in one ridiculous leap, sailed out of view.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. Elizabeth was as blunt as ever. Still, though, she at least seemed to have forgiven her for the whole raincloud incident, so Rainbow was just going to chalk it up to Elizabeth being Elizabeth when the alien had ditched her.

There really wasn't that much for her to do, so she'd decided to follow Elizabeth around from a distance. Okay, so at one point she'd stopped at a shop and gotten a bite to eat, but other than that she'd followed her! After all, who knew when she'd next get a chance to see what Elizabeth Greene does in her spare time?

There wasn't a lot. Every now and then somepony came up to speak with her, but Rainbow could never hear the words because she knew that if she were close enough to hear, Greene would hear Rainbow. So in order not to be noticed, she had to stay very far away. In addition to being spoken with, she occasionally leaped and bounded away from newsponies, forcing Rainbow to rapidly adjust to her sudden, unexpected bouts of speed.

Resting on a cloud outcropping, Rainbow looked down. "Huh," she said to herself. "You'd think she'd be flipping out given how she hates touching ponies." Yet there Greene was, bumping into everypony she came across, almost to the point of on purpose. It was starting to get later in the day, so it was almost time to go back to Ponyville. She still didn't know how Greene expected to get down Cloudsdale on her own, but...

... hmm. Elizabeth hadn't exited that alley in a while. For a moment Dash contemplated doing nothing; it was a dead end anyway, so she'd come out eventually. But the thought of doing nothing while an alien she hoped to eventually befriend - because seriously, anypony who could move like that was somepony she could get along with - was lost in Cloudsdale twisted a knife in her heart. She flicked her wings and descended, walking in. Her eyes widened when she saw the scene.

Greene was sitting against a wall, her head bowed with orange sparks around it. There was one pony splaid on the ground, totally unconscious. A unicorn pointed his horn at Greene, a faint tangerine glow around it. And sitting opposite from Greene, holding her head in her forehooves, was a pegasus mare.

"Hey!" Rainbow shouted, walking in with her wings flaring in anger. "What's going on here?"

"Blast it!" the unicorn shouted, jumping high into the air. "Flicker, can you handle this?"

The mare with her head in her hooves groaned and shakily stood. She approached Rainbow Dash at the same time Rainbow stomped towards Greene. "Using names... listen, Rainbow Dash - "

"WHAT?!" Rainbow was lucky it was getting late, else she'd be attracting a lot of attention with her shouting. Of course, that may not have been a bad thing.

"Look, I know you think she's your friend, but she's - whoo, lightheaded - she's not. She's dangerous."

"Think I don't know that? What've you done with her?"

"Sleep spell," the unicorn muttered. "Just in time, too."

"Alright," Rainbow ground out, gnashing her teeth and pushing past Flicker. "Why did you put a sleep spell on her? And what's this about her not being my friend? Sure, we hit a bit of a rough patch, but we're cool now!"

"That's what you think," Flicker said, placing herself between Rainbow Dash and Elizabeth again. "Look, you think she's stable? You know she attacked the Royal Guard within minutes of her arriving here! First impressions not going so well! And do you remember the last time a strange being appeared in Canterlot unexpectedly? I think you do, you were there for the wedding! Ever since arriving in Equestria she's nearly killed three ponies, six if you count us! And lets not forget the surge in the flu."

"The... what?" Rainbow asked, her anger and wings deflating in confusion. She cocked her head to the side. "What about the flu?"

Flicker facehoofed. "For the love of - within hours of arriving in Canterlot, a lot of ponies in the castle suddenly came down with the flu. Sure, ponies get the flu all the time, but this was before flu season, all in the same place, and all in exactly the same time as each other, within hours of an alien creature who's got a disease in her arriving! Coincidence?"

"Well, it could be - " Rainbow stammered.

"Alright," the unicorn shouted. "Got it!" His horn lit again, firing a beam at Elizabeth. Dash's eyes went wide when she plummeted straight through the clouds like they weren't there.

"No!" she shouted, sprinting forwards. She made to open a hole in the clouds and go after her but Flicker got in her way again.

"Think about this! I know she's putting on a nice face, but Elizabeth Greene can not be trusted! She showed her true colors when she arrived, before she could smarten up, and you have to realize that! Come on, Element of Loyalty! Be loyal to your kind!"

Rainbow Dash snarled. "Loyalty, exactly! You know what, you make me sick! When she came to Equestria, do you know where she came from? She came here from being dead for Celestia knows how long! Of course you're not going to be thinking clearly after something like that. You freaks need to get your heads checked, because you just tried to murder somepony!" She smirked. "Emphasis on tried." With that, she let her natural pegasus magic weaken and fade, and she plummeted through Cloudsdale. She summoned her magic back when she was free, angled herself, and dove straight down.

She pumped her wings as fast as she could, fierce winds beating at her face. Where was she, where was she... there! Far in the distance, a little black dot against the Equestrian countryside. She redoubled her efforts and closed in on Greene. She'd seen Elizabeth take some pretty big tumbles in their race, but falling from Cloudsdale was something different entirely.

She eventually pulled right next to Elizabeth, but they were getting dangerously close to the ground. The orange sparks around her head were gone, but she still slumbered surprisingly peacefully despite how she was falling at terminal velocity, slowly spinning through the air. "Elizabeth!" Rainbow shouted. "Elizabeth, wake up!"

Faded emerald eyes snapped open. "Falling?" she asked, her voice lost in the wind but the repeats cutting through it like they were stationary.

"Um, duh!" Rainbow shouted, moving over to Greene in an attempt to grasp her midsection. The moment she did, Elizabeth grabbed her and blasted her away with both palms. Dash gasped as all the air forced itself out of her lungs in an instant. She flailed for a moment before righting herself and flying next to Elizabeth. "Stop! I'm trying to stop you from falling!"

"Don't need," Elizabeth rasped. Then, the alien curled herself into a ball, facing the ground, and then straightened her body in a movement so sudden it knocked Rainbow off course a second time.

She groaned to herself, once again, flying after Greene. The Evolved was falling full tilt now like an arrow. And the wake she left behind her made speeding up almost impossible. The ground was very close now. Too close!

Rainbow Dash instinctively pulled back, slowing herself before she could hit the ground. Elizabeth, however, did no such thing. Rainbow winced when Elizabeth flipped over and landed on one knee, slamming her fist into the ground.

The spherical blast of air knocked her breath away a second time. It was like running into a brick wall, sending her tumbling head over hooves.

"Whoa!" By the time she got her balance back she was on the ground again, just in time to let the tail end of the expanding ring of white and red force wash over her, steamrolling her back a few dozen feet. Finally, it ended, letting Dash shake the stars out of her spinning eyes and pull herself back to shaking hooves.

Elizabeth Greene casually walked over towards her, as if she hadn't just fallen all the way from Cloudsdale. She was not happy, anger and betrayal washing over Rainbow Dash. "Grabbed me," she hissed.

"Ugh. Sorry, but you were falling." She eyed the space behind Elizabeth. There was a deep indent in the ground, and in a nearly perfect circle around it, grass had been stripped and dirt thrown into the air, forming a ring around the crater when they'd fallen back down. The ring was terrifyingly large. "Jeez, I knew you could take a fall, but sweet Celestia! That is awesome!"

"Falls don't hurt," Greene said. She tilted her head, and the radiated emotions faded. "Didn't know, tried to save." She nodded her head. "Other ponies? Fought, don't remember..."

Rainbow Dash scowled. "Yeah, them. I found three of them around you. They put you to sleep?" A pause, and then a nod. "Great, just great. Jeez, you're good in a fight and all, but I guess there's nothing you can really do about magic. Well, they're probably gonna come after you again. What do you say we head on over to Ponyville? Safety in numbers, that kinda stuff."

"Sundown, back to Ponyville." Elizabeth smiled. "Good Cloudsdale visit. Forgive."

Dash breathed out in relief. Well, at least that issue was solved. "Alright, meet up at Twi's house?"

"Twilight Sparkle," Elizabeth mused in a less than happy voice. "Good enough. Direction?"

Rainbow sprang into the air and spun around, dabbing a hoof in random direction. "Eh, dada, du, um, that way!" she said, getting her bearings. A moment later, she was in the dirt, and there was a trail of dust fading in the direction she'd pointed. She grinned and took to the air again, soaring after Greene. It didn't take long to catch up to Elizabeth, but that didn't mean she wasn't putting a lot of distance between herself and Cloudsdale. Rainbow wondered why they hadn't just hooked up the balloon to Elizabeth, set it on low altitude, and had her haul them to Cloudsdale.

... right, she'd probably have strangled them for trying to hook something on her like a beast of burden.

In no time, they made it back to Ponyville. Rainbow Dash scored a perfect, ten outta ten touchdown just outside Twilight's house and did a little victory dance. A moment later, a black dot in the sky grew a hundred times larger and slammed into the ground, cracking the dirt.

"Nice landing, Lizzy," Dash said. Greene stiffened.

"Good job not breaking my windows, Dash," said a new voice. Rainbow looked over to see Twilight walking out of her house, Spike closing the door behind him. He had a little scroll in his claws. "Nice to see you both in one piece."

"Yeah, about that, Twi - " Rainbow started.

Twilight cut her off with a hoof. "We can talk later, Rainbow. We need to get the rest of the girls, and then you can tell me on the train."

Dash blinked in confusion. "Train? Why, we're going to Canterlot?"

The unicorn shook her head. "Not Canterlot, the Crystal Empire. I got the letter just a minute ago." She looked at Elizabeth Greene. "Elizabeth, Cadance thinks she knows how you came to Equestria."

Too Bright a Heart

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Twilight Sparkle

"Meet at train," Greene said. "Pull warmth back in, bring Fluttershy," she said, and then bounded off to somewhere else in Ponyville. Hopefully to draw back in that web of tendrils she'd left behind just before leaving for Cloudsdale; they were disgusting.

"Alright," Twilight said once Elizabeth was out of sight. "Rainbow, wanna go get Applejack? I'll go talk to Rarity."

"I don't know, Twi. I mean, in Cloudsdale - "

Twilight held up a hoof. "Whatever it is, it can wait. The next train for the Crystal Empire leaves in half an hour, so we need to hurry."

Rainbow sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine. Meet you at the station." With that, she took to the air and headed over towards Sweet Apple Acres.

"You seem pretty calm about this, Twilight," Spike said next to her.

"I am perfectly calm," Twilight said. "Why wouldn't I be? I am the epitome of calmness." she asked, looking back at the baby dragon and arching a brow.

"Well, you just got a summons by a princess to bring an alien to a far off empire," Spike said. "You brainwashed the town because you didn't have a report ready."

Twilight laughed nervously, shifting her gaze away from Spike. "Heh, yeah, not my best moment. But Spike, you seem to be forgetting that this princess is Cadance. We're great friends!"

He shrugged. "If you say so."

"I say so," she said a little more briskly than she probably should've. "Come on, lets go see if Rarity's awake."

The trot to Rarity's home-slash-business went without any event. With the sun having gone down recently, there was hardly anypony out to take notice of them. Of course, that also meant it took several knocks before Rarity opened the door.

Rarity's mane and tail were as immaculate as ever. Her coat was clean and brushed, and if one didn't know Rarity enough to look for the ever so slightly drooped eyelids, they never would have known she'd been getting ready to sleep, instead mistaking her to be as wide awake as if it were noon.

"Oh, hello Twilight. What brings you here? It's very late," she explained, ending with a yawn.

"Rarity," Twilight said. "We're heading to the Crystal Empire, right now. Cadance thinks she knows how Elizabeth came back to life."

"That's nice, darling. Why do I get the feeling you're including me in 'we'?"

"Well, I just thought you'd want to come along - "

"Twilight. Dear. I understand that this is probably a great revelation, but I do need my beauty sleep. I'd be more than satisfied if you simply relayed the events to me after you come back."

"Well, we can sleep on the train..." Twilight said.

Rarity shook her head. "As much as I'd love to visit the Crystal Empire, especially with the spectacular effects it has on my coat and mane - oh especially my mane! - I have quite an order to fill out."

Twilight nodded, but couldn't help but feel disappointed. After all, this was to see how an alien being came across worlds and back to life! This was history in the making! "It's alright, I understand. Good night, Rarity."

"And to you, Twilight." She flicked her eyes to Spike and winked. "Sweet dreams, Spikey-wikey."

"Um, uh, guh..."

"Right, bye Rarity. I still need to check in with Pinkie."

Rarity rolled her eyes. "Celestia have mercy on your soul, Twilight. See you later. I eagerly await hearing what you discover on your trip." With that, Rarity went back into her home and closed the door.

Twilight sighed. "Well, that was kinda disappointing."

"For you, maybe," Spike said dreamily. He sighed. "Well, on to Sugarcube Corner, I suppose." He brightened up. "Hey Twi, think we can get a few cupcakes while we're there?"

She shrugged. "We'll have to ask Pinkie. Come on, we're wasting moonlight."

She normally would've teleported, but she didn't feel like it was a good idea. It was night time, sure, but she could use the exercise, and given they didn't have to account for Rarity's packing that freed up an additional twenty minutes she'd feared they wouldn't have. They arrived there fairly soon, and knocked on the closed door. The lights were out, except in the upper loft.

Spike raised his claws to knock again when the door blew open.

"Hey Twilight! Hey Spike!" Pinkie bubbled. She bounced out and closed the door. "Sorry, it's closing time and I really don't wanna wake up the twins cause then Mr. and Mrs. Cake will be really grouchy and don't tell them I said this but they don't quite bake as well when they're grouchy but I guess nopony really does I mean I know when I was all freaky-flatmaned I wouldn't have been a very good baker - "

"Pinkie!" Twilight hissed. "Not now. Listen, we just got a letter from Cadance. You know Elizabeth?"

Pinkie Pie stopped bouncing and frowned. "Yeah, what about her?"

"Well, Cadance thinks she knows how Elizabeth came here. We're gonna catch the next train to the Crystal Empire and see her. Wanna come?"

Pinkie tilted her head to the side and looked up at the starry sky. "Hmm.... okie dokie lokie! Just gotta leave a note and take a personal day!" She pranced back inside and closed the door. Twilight and Spike shared a look.

"So, we've got Pinkie Pie coming," he said. "Rainbow too, and maybe AJ and Fluttershy. Anypony else we should tell?"

"Hmm, I don't think so. I mean, this is kinda short notice." Twilight frowned. "Maybe Rarity had a point. We should wait until tomorrow, shouldn't we? I mean, it's not like this kinda info is going anywhere..."

"I think that's kinda Elizabeth's decision," Spike said. "It is about her, after all. If I suddenly found myself on an alien planet, I know I'd want to know how that happened."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"So!" Pinkie Pie shouted, suddenly next to them. "When are we going huh huh? When are we going?"

"Whoa!" Spike shouted as they spun around. "How did you get there?"

"Through the window, silly!" Pinkie had her own saddlebags on, which contained who-knew-what.

He sighed. "Right, right. Well, lets head on over to the train station."

It didn't really take that long. Twilight found Rainbow Dash already there, speaking with the conductor. As they approached, she ruffled her wings and pinned something underneath her left wing. As the three of them approached her she turned away from the sleepy pony at the ticket stand and cantered towards them. "Hey everypony, I bought the tickets! AJ's not coming, she's got a lot of work to do on the farm with Applebuck season and all."

Twilight nodded. "Makes sense. Have you seen Fluttershy and - " There was an impact in between them and Rainbow, sending them back, sprawled against the ground. " - Elizabeth," she wheezed, shakily standing back up.

"Oh Twilight, are you okay?" Fluttershy asked from behind her. Twilight turned around, stumbling on her right hooves as she did, to see the pegasus helping Spike up. "Elizabeth, please try not to knock everypony around. Um, if that's alright..."

Twilight had to strain to hear Fluttershy, but Elizabeth apparently had no such problems. "Was mistake. S-Sorry," she said, looking straight at Fluttershy. Suddenly, Greene snapped her gaze over to Twilight, and she shrank under the intense look. "Cadance, Crystal Empire. Who, what?"

"W-Well," Twilight stammered, breaking eye contact with Greene and looking at the straps on her right wrist. "Princess Cadance was my foalsitter when I was a filly. Um, a lot of stuff happened with her and Shiny - " Did Elizabeth even know who that was? Maybe she should tell her... or maybe considering her experience with soldiers it'd be better not to. " - and now she's the Princess of the Crystal Empire. It's this place up north, where the crystal ponies live. We're going to meet her about, well, you know."

"Crystal ponies," Greene mused. "Hmm, fourth kind. Leaving how?"

"We're taking the train. Rainbow, how many tickets did you get?"

"Well, lets see. One two three... six. Enough for each of us. Heh, I was thinking that Rarity would be joining us, and that Elizabeth would want to run on her own..."

"Do want to run," the Evolved in question decided.

"Um, Elizabeth?" Fluttershy began. "I don't know if you want to do that. T-The Crystal Empire has a magic shield to warm itself, but right outside it's very, um, cold. And snowy. And I know you don't like the cold."

Elizabeth shivered. "Take train," she rasped. She looked down the tracks. "Train there."

Twilight looked in the same direction Greene had. "Really? I can't see anything. Can you see anything?" she asked everypony else.

"No, not really," Rainbow said. "But you know. Freaky Evolved eyes."

She chuckled. "Right, that. Hmm..." A few minutes passed, all of them noticing the train in slightly differing intervals. Twilight was ashamed to say she was dead last, right after Fluttershy. Her eyes probably still hadn't adjusted back to distance viewing from close-range reading. However, the train pulled up, and all six of them got into the cabin Rainbow had generously purchased; Twilight was going to have to find a way to balance the monetary debt back towards neutral after this.

They flopped down on several benches, while Elizabeth just sat ramrod stiff on a seat and extended a tiny splatter of her tendrils that Twilight had gotten used to as customary.

Pinkie opened her mouth and let out an overly long yawn, making everypony sans Greene stare at her, wondering how she fit that much air in her lungs. "Welp, I'm beat! Night everypony, see you when we get there!" With that, Pinkie Pie's head lolled and her eyes snapped shut.

Rainbow whistled. "What do ya know? She does sleep. Kinda creepy, actually."

They nodded. It was something else to see the constantly hyper, bouncing-off-the-walls pony at rest, let alone sleeping. Twilight found she couldn't quite take her eyes off of Pinkie, like if she looked away the scientific marvel would vanish.

"I think I'm going to sleep too, if you don't mind," Fluttershy said. She shuffled her legs until she too was laying down and closed her eyes. The moment she did, Elizabeth stood from her 'seat' and crossed over to Fluttershy in a single step. The alien placed one hand on Fluttershy's barrel, making her flutter her eyes open. "Huh?" With a slick, slimy noise, a heavy mesh extended over Fluttershy like a blanket, up to her neck with a large mass behind her head, like a pillow. Once done, Greene pulled away. "Thanks, Elizabeth." With that, Fluttershy shut her eyes again and drifted off to sleep.

"Keep warm, replace bed," she said simply, returning to her place. The train started to move. Elizabeth went completely stiff again, even growing a cocoon over herself and closing her eyes. Twilight soon found that both Spike and Rainbow's eyelids were drooping.

She had to diffuse that quick. A sleeping Rainbow Dash was a Rainbow Dash she couldn't question. "So Rainbow," she said. "You said you had something important to say?"

"Oh, right. After the show, we kinda split up. Elizabeth wanted to see Cloudsdale on her own, ya know? Of course, eventually I found her again, and well..." Rainbow bit her lip, eyes flicking left to right. "She was attacked, Twi!"

Twilight's eyes widened. She was already wide awake; compared to her normal study sessions, sundown was nothing. But now she was extra attentive. Ignoring the fact that attacking Elizabeth was a stupid idea, who would have any reason to do that? "What? By who? How? What?!"

"Easy, I'm getting there! I don't know exactly how it went down, but there were three of them; two pegasuses - "

"Pegasi," she corrected.

"Whatever. Two pegasi and a unicorn. One of the pegasi was unconscious and the other was hurting. Apparently the unicorn tagged Lizzy with a sleep spell, cause she was out cold." Rainbow shrugged. "Of course, the magic around her head probably gave it away, but still!"

Twilight frowned. "Geez. Three ponies took her down? I mean, you've heard what she can do. You'd think it would take an army."

Rainbow snorted. "Well, think about it. Outside of her electricity - which doesn't do a whole lot against pegasi, remember - she needs to get close to you to hurt you. And if you float her in the air, there's not a whole lot she can do." Rainbow looked at Elizabeth, who seemed to be sleeping inside her cocoon. "Unless she's holding out on us, of course."

"And she comes from a world without magic," Twilight mused. "She'd have absolutely no way to combat magic, especially not a sleep spell. What happened after?"

"We shouted at each other a bit, then the unicorn zapped her again and she fell right through Cloudsdale!" Twilight nodded. A basic dispel; it wasn't hard to remove the cloudwalking enchantment. "I went after her, of course. Don't give me that look, Twi! But guess what? Turns out our friend here doesn't like being touched even when it's to save her life when she's plummeting at terminal velocity." Rainbow Dash shifted in her seat.

"Ouch," Twilight said when she caught sight of the dark bruises on Dash's stomach.

"Well, I guess I can get it. Turns out she can't get hurt by a tumble."

"Even from Cloudsdale?"

Rainbow Dash shook her head. "Not a scratch. The ground was hurt more when she landed. So then I made sure she was alright, we came back to Ponyville as fast as we could, met up with you, you know the rest."

"Oh that's just great!" Twilight groaned. "Wait, hang on. You said you shouted at each other? What did they say?"

"Does it matter? Some manure about Elizabeth being evil, showing her true colors when she attacked those guards, something about the flu, yada yada. They think she's pretending to be nice to get on our good sides."

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Twilight said, her eyes going wide, pupils and irises shrinking. "Back up. What's this about the flu?" Behind her, Spike snored. Pinkie shifted in her sleep and giggled.

"I dunno. They made up some stuff about how after she appeared in Canterlot, a bunch of ponies got sick, and they were blaming her for it."

Twilight's blood turned to ice. "Oh no. Oh no," she whispered. "Rainbow, that's true. When Fluttershy and I met Elizabeth for the first time, a lot of servants around the castle were sick. And Elizabeth was talking about blessing ponies."

"So? Blessing ponies is completely different from - "

"No!" she hissed. "Don't you get it?!" Her thoughts started racing. Plink. "Elizabeth used to be a human, but when she got infected with some virus she turned into an Evolved! Whatever this virus is, it's helpful to her. You've seen the things she can do. When she came here, she wanted to give that to anypony she came across. She made them sick!"

"Oh. Oh! But, then why didn't they become like her? Like, there aren't any pony Evolved."

Twilight shook her head. "No no no! That's not how diseases work at all! Whatever Elizabeth is symbiotic with, it's a human disease. It wouldn't have anywhere near the same effects on a pony. It doesn't have anywhere near the same effects. It just makes them sick for a few days and then nothing!" Twilight frowned. "Fluttershy already talked to her about that, though. She hasn't infected anypony since she learned all it does is make them miserable."

Rainbow snorted. "Tell that to them. They're dead set that Elizabeth's a time bomb."

"Hmm," Twilight said. "What happened with them?"

She shrugged. "Beats me. We came back before they could find us a second time."

Twilight sighed. "I wonder if this has anything to do with that stallion in Canterlot. Apparently, Elizabeth got attacked by him, and nearly killed him in response."

"Yeesh. What happened to him?"

"Didn't really hear. I think he was taken in for questioning and arrested for assaulting a foreign dignitary. I wonder if they're connected..."

"Maybe. So, what're we gonna do? I mean, those three are still gonna be looking for Elizabeth, and they may have friends elsewhere. I might not be around to help her next time."

"From what it sounds like," Twilight said. "She'd have been fine anyway. They found her, knocked her out. Then they would've made her fall through anyway, she'd hit the ground, wake up, and come back to Ponyville." She sighed. "Then again, next time they might try something that actually can hurt her." She frowned. "Well, we'll certainly need to report this. Can I trust you to do that? I mean, you were there."

Rainbow saluted. "You can count on me! What'll you do?"

"Well... I'm gonna ask Shiny, see if he can't teach Greene how to defend herself from some magical spells." Twilight knew that was a terrible idea. Shining Armor was still a soldier at heart, and given Greene's history with human soldiers and her complete and utter lack of anything even resembling tact, the two would probably end up trying to strangle each other. But she really couldn't think of a better pony to each Elizabeth to protect herself.

Rainbow yawned. "Right. Well, we should probably get to sleep. Sounds like we've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow." With that, the pegasus adjust her seating position, rested her head on a seat cushion, and shut her eyes.

Twilight didn't go right to sleep. She spent a few minutes looking outside the window, watching the hills roll by under Luna's moon.

This recent... event brought several things back to the forefront of her mind. Notably, her failed - failed, the word sent shivers down her spine. Plink. Failed research into Nosokinetics. There just wasn't anything on it, since research into any of its fields beyond disease control and prevention had been explicitly forbidden by Princess Luna's royal decree of 244, after Black Spread's plague. Nopony needed to know how to cause diseases, only how to prevent them. And even if there was, that didn't help her at all! Because all of that was magical, and Elizabeth's was natural. What could she do? Were the tendrils she manipulated part of her nosokinesis or something else entirely?

And what about the ponies who'd attacked her? How many were there who thought Elizabeth was too feral to be allowed in Equestria? Granted, Elizabeth was quite animalistic with all her hissing and whatnot, but she usually behaved herself very well.

She sighed, reclined her head, and closed her eyes. There'd be no answers this night. Foalishly, she'd forgotten to bring any reading material for herself; she was too caught up in the moment. After all, if they could figure out how Elizabeth came to this world, maybe they could open a two-way path. Elizabeth swore up and down the humans were a savage, bloodthirsty race, and her story certainly made Twilight inclined to agree with her. Still, that was only the word of one person. After all, some ponies said the same thing about the griffons.

Twilight fell into dreamland with thoughts of metal phoenixes and cities dwarfing Canterlot playing out in her head.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

"Strange," Greene rasped, looking over herself. She was sparkling. Why was she sparkling? She didn't want to sparkle. She looked at the other five. They were sparkling too, and had been ever since they entered the barrier, leaving the frigid air for not-as-cold air. "Strange."

"It's the Crystal Heart," Twilight Sparkle explained. "It does this. Though it's not having any effect on our manes. Strange. I guess Cadance must've removed that."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Good thing, too. I like my mane the way it is."

"The Crystal Palace is this way," Twilight Sparkle said. "Come on, I already sent a letter to her, she'll be expecting us."

Next to Elizabeth, the dragon snorted. "Yeah, I remember." He held his stomach queasily for a moment.

"Sorry, Spike," Twilight Sparkle said, walking down a street that was probably important but had no importance to Elizabeth. "If I knew sending letters to anypony else hurt you like that I wouldn't have asked you to."

Elizabeth sped up, walking side by side with Twilight Sparkle. She looked around at the glistening bright bright too bright crystal pony nest. Though... should she really call them that? Initially, she'd decided to come here to gather crystal pony essence. After all, a fourth type of equine she didn't have any essence of? She didn't care about how she'd been removed from her Wayward Child's prison, but the essence had intrigued her.

Now, however, it was clear that the crystal ponies weren't a separate type of equine at all. It was just the magic from this Heart Crystal whatever-that-was causing them to look different. There was no point in taking their essence, and so the only point in being here was the information this 'Cadance' had.

Which she really didn't care care care about.

The Crystal Empire was too bright. The shining buildings reflected the blinding morning sun onto the shining street and onto the shining equines looking curiously at her and respectfully at the shining dragon and onto her shining suit and into her eyes a hundred hundred hundred times over. When they reached an intersection, with the glare of two streets and not just one, Elizabeth had had enough and shut her eyes, moving using her nose and ears.

"Um, Elizabeth?" came Fluttershy's voice from next to her. "Are you alright?"

"Bright," she rasped quietly. "Too bright."

"Oh," the pegasus said.

"Hmm, really?" Twilight Sparkle asked. "I mean, I guess it makes sense your eyes are sensitive here, given how good your night vision is. I wonder if you have separate cells for day and night time vision like ponies do, or if you - "

"Doesn't matter how. Crystal Empire bright," she said. Leave it to a scientist to overanalyze how eyes work.

They kept walking, and Elizabeth kept sniffing the air. As they went on, the number of equines increased steadily, then all at once almost completely vanished, along with some guard talking about expecting Twilight Sparkle. The light seeping through her eyelids faded, and she hazarded opening them again, finding herself in a hallway.

The place she was in still glistened and shimmered, especially with light coming in through the windows, but it wasn't nearly as bad bad bad as outside.

Crystal equines lined the halls. She guessed by their armor that they were guards, so she hissed lightly at the closest ones. The area, she had to admit, did look nice. Crystalized murals, banners, what looked like a throne with an alicorn walking from it who?

"Twilight!" the pink alicorn said excitedly, trotting towards Twilight Sparkle. The unicorn was also approaching the alicorn. "You made it!"

The two equines came up to one another and then performed a... bizarre series of motions that left Elizabeth tilting her head in confusion. "Sunshine, sunshine," they sang. "Ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake!"

While the two equines began rapidly chatting, Elizabeth looked straight at the alicorn. It was strange. She'd thought only Celestia and Luna were alicorns. Evidently not. She'd have to be very careful not to sample this alicorn's essence by force of habit.

At length, the alicorn pulled away from Twilight Sparkle and approached her. The equine's gait was slow and wary, and she didn't meet Greene's gaze. "H-Hello, Elizabeth Greene, ambassador to the Evolved."

"Hello. Who?" The alicorn's ears flattened and she winced when Elizabeth spoke. Greene smelled fear.

The equine straightened up and raised her head, but still didn't meet her gaze. Just as well. "My name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but please just call me Cadance."

"Cadance," Elizabeth said. "Said know how I came here. How?"

"Heh, heh. Well, we can talk about that later." Cadance turned to the rest of the equines. "I'm sure you're all very hungry after the trip over. Come, lets get some breakfast," she said, turning around.

The equines chatted as Cadance lead them through a corridor, mainly Pinkie Pie, though time to time Twilight Sparkle and Cadance also conversed cheerfully. Elizabeth fell back and walked next to Fluttershy, both of them remaining silent. At length, they entered what Elizabeth assumed was a dining hall, the table high enough to require seats. Either way, it was a lot brighter than the corridor, forcing her to squint. One by one, the equines and one dragon sat down at a seat. Elizabeth moved to sit next to Fluttershy, but noticed this left her sitting next to Cadance. Intentional? Perhaps. Irrelevant? Yes yes yes.

As Elizabeth sat down, the crystalline seat crackled and shattered, suddenly dropping Elizabeth. She blinked owlishly for moment, then extended her warmth and molded it into a seat. That one, no surprise, held.

A new equine sat next to Cadance, opposite from Greene. This one was a white unicorn, with a dark blue secondary color that had a streak of light blue. The male's mark was a shield with Twilight Sparkle's star over on it. He leaned forward. Elizabeth leaned forward. They locked eyes. "Hello," he said. "You must be Elizabeth."

"I am," she confirmed.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Servants began to file in, and brought in plates covered in metal domes, balanced on their backs and hooves by what Elizabeth had learned was some kind of sticky magic. One was placed before Elizabeth. She smelled various plants underneath the others, but there was something more appetizing beneath hers. The servants (Another strange concept that she chalked up to an 'individual' thing) also brought sparkling glasses of water. She eyed hers uneasily.

The unicorn continued. "My name is Shining Armor, you've already met my wife, Cadance, and my LSBFF, Twily."

Twilight Sparkle inexplicably groaned. "Shining!"

"LSBFF? Twily?" Elizabeth thought for a moment. "Twily is Twilight Sparkle. LSBFF?"

"It stands for - "

" - nothing important!" Twilight Sparkle interrupted, causing Cadance and Shining Armor to both smile and the former to laugh. Elizabeth smiled. Laughing at Twilight Sparkle, laughing laughing laughing!

Cadance composed herself. "Oh well." Cadance glanced at Elizabeth, and wilted noticeably. "Welcome, Elizabeth, to the Crystal Empire. I hope you enjoy your stay here, however brief it may be. How are you liking it so far?"

"Bright," she said simply. "Too bright."

Cadance gave a small smile. "It can be hard to get used to. You should see it in the summer. Well, everypony, I won't keep you any longer. Dig in."

Remembering how things worked from her first day in Equestria, in Celestia and Luna's castle, Elizabeth pulled up the metal dome by the handle, accidentally warping the metal, as the others did the same and began to eat. There was a fair bit of flesh on her plate, next to some metal weapons (Utensils?), and she recognized the meat as being that of a chimera and... and...

Then the smell hit her and the rest of the world ceased to exist. She tore chunks out with her hands, fingers carving into the meat and scooping it into her mouth and tearing it apart in her powerful jaws, shredding it and swallowing it and it was so good good good and it was burned-cooked not raw which made it so much better even though it almost disgusted her that it was burned it was delicious and good and it was inside of her and then...

... there wasn't any left. She sat back down, realizing she'd leaned over the table. Everyone else was looking at her in surprise, jaws loose. Elizabeth idly licked her lips with a dry tongue.

"She's like auntie with cake," Cadance whispered. She shook her head. "Right, um, once again, dig in everypony." She shot a smile at Elizabeth. "It's good to see my decision to import wasn't in vain."

As they ate, Elizabeth watched them banter back and forth. Occasionally, they asked something from her or Fluttershy, and they'd answer quickly, but for the most part the two of them remained quiet. Time passed, and they had finished their meals.

Cadance sighed, and looked down. "So, I was hoping to be able to speak to Elizabeth about how she came here in the research department. Shall we?"

"Actually," Rainbow Dash said suddenly. "Princess, I need to talk to you about something. It's kinda important."

"Oh," the princess said. "Of course. What's it about?"

"Well, it's about Elizabeth, but Twilight and I kinda need to talk to you in private about it."

"Sure, sure," Cadance said, standing up. "What about you, Elizabeth?"

"Well," Twilight Sparkle said. Greene bristled. Cadance had asked her! Not the scientist! "I was hoping Shiny could help her out a bit."

"Really?" Shining Armor asked with a raised brow. "With what?"

Twilight scooted out of her seat and whispered in his ear. "I was wondering if you could teach her to defend herself against sleep spells and transformation magic," she said in what was probably supposed to be a quiet voice.

Shining Armor nodded and stood up as well. "Alright." He turned to Greene. "Follow me, I'll take you to the training grounds." He approached Cadance and the two nuzzled. "Take care honey."

"I will," she said, breaking the embrace. "Come on, everypony. I know a room where we can talk."

They all, Pinkie Pie and Spike included, left through another corridor, Pinkie Pie bouncing, flanked by armored equines. Elizabeth found herself walking with Shining Armor.

"Relation to Twilight Sparkle?" she eventually asked.

"Oh, she didn't tell you?" he asked. "I'm her older brother." That explained much.

"Family," she said quietly. Suddenly she was tempted, oh so tempted, to change fix change her Blessing and let it loose in a burst, but no. Not yet. There were still some things she needed to do, to be sure. "Defend from magic?"

He started, looking at her in surprise. "You heard that?"

"Heard."

"Huh." They exited the corridor and entered a wide open courtyard, which glistened and shone. Not as bright as the streets had, but her eyes still stung. Several guards trained in formations, with spears, magic, hoof-spikes. She bristled. Soldiers.

"So, why exactly do you need to learn magical defense?" he asked.

Elizabeth thought for a moment, then frowned. "Attacked in Cloudsdale, sleep spell. Nothing against that."

"Ah," Shining Armor said. "Attacked in Cloudsdale, hmm. Gonna have to talk to Cadance about that." He shook his head. "Anyhow, it's a good thing you came to me. Defending yourself against those types of magic is among of the first things taught in the Royal Guard."

"Royal... Guard?" she asked tensely, thick coils of red and white warping around her hands. "You're a soldier..." she growled, eyes flashing menacingly.

Shining Armor noticed her aggression. Maybe she'd emitted it into him? "Is there a problem with that?" he challenged, leaning forward.

"Soldiers hurt burn no reason," she snarled, clenching her fists. "Hurt me hurt my children burn break bad!" she hissed, echoes rising sharply in intensity.

"Maybe where you came from," Shining Armor said, bristling. "But here, Equestria's Royal Guard and the empire's Crystal Guard are exactly that. Shields, not swords. We do not stoop to harming children, or torturing and breaking for no reason. We do our duty with honor and respect, not what you imply!"

"Words easy," Greene hissed. "Actions louder."

"Really?" Shining Armor challenged. "And what actions have we taken that leads you to this conclusion?"

Elizabeth paused, then hissed. "Arrived in Canterlot, guards..." As she trailed off, she knew she was wrong. The guards there had done nothing nothing nothing. She'd only taken one's memory of language, but had in the process attacked so the guards attacked and the soldiers on this world were better than those on the Similar world she'd been wrong. "Fine. Guards here not bad. Defend magic?" she asked.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Alright, first of all. While sleep spells are impossible to defend against entirely, you can limit their effects. Transformative magic is different, and the technique I'll teach you will make it so only Discord himself could change you." Elizabeth hissed lightly, drawing back. The mere mention of Discord sent a spike of fear-don't-Curse-me-twist-me into her heart.

"Relax," he said. "First, we'll start with incapacitating mental magic. Now, your kind are not magical, right?"

"Correct. No magic, none on Similar world."

He nodded. "Right, however Equus has ambient magic all around it. Simply by being here and eating its food, you become saturated with background magic. You can't use magic, not like unicorns or pegasi or even earth ponies, but you can use it to defend yourself."

"How so?"

"Well, you can shock ponies, right?" Elizabeth let a handful of emerald sparks fall from her hands. "Right. Well, it's sort of like that. You run a magical charge under your skin, right around your head, and that defends yourself. There are more intricacies, but we can cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Can't use magic," she reminded him. Had he already forgotten?

"That's a nonissue. You don't need to be magical to use background magic. Just picture the buzzing of magic around your brain, guarding it from attacks." Elizabeth tilted her head, and pictured just that, a glowing green halo around the inside of her head, vibrating excitedly. She nodded. "Alright, I'm going to hit you with a sleep spell to see if it works. Is that alright?"

"Alright," she rasped. Shining Armor's horn lit up, a beam leaped from it and she suppressed the instinct to move out of the way -

She was on her back, and the ground was cold and the sun was burning into her eyes! She rolled around with a strangled hiss and leaped to her feet, looking at Shining Armor. "What happened?" she asked.

He frowned. "You didn't protect yourself, that's what. Nothing to be ashamed of, nopony gets it on the first try, especially if they've had no experience with magic." He tapped his chin with a hoof. "You just imagined magic around your brain, didn't you?" She narrowed her eyes, but nodded. "Yeah, typical first mistake. You're not picturing the sensation, you're using the background magic in you to get that sensation. Now, lets try again."

Elizabeth spent a while with Shining Armor. Half an hour maybe? That sounded sounded sounded right. By then, she'd found the latent magic she was supposed to have - like an additional limb, like moving her orbs through the air - and could protect herself well enough that Shining Armor's sleep spells only made her vision darken for a moment.

"Changing magic?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yes. Transformation magic is both harder to cast and harder to resist, simply due to it changing somepony on such a fundamental level. You can still use your background magic to protect yourself, but it's tricky."

"Teach," she insisted, more than a little frantically. "Important."

Shining Armor had been correct. It was substantially harder to protect herself from changing-spells, even if the ones he used only made her suit change colors. She wasn't sure how that would protect against dangerous changes, but his explanation of 'disjunctioning the transformation' made some sense. And she was ever so smart, so she quickly understood it and protected herself from it.

"Alright," Shining Armor said, after trying and failing failing finally failing to change her right hand into a sponge. "You've got it. Lets go meet up with the others, sounds good?"

"Sounds good," she rasped giddily. She was safe now. She could protect herself. Granted if she was taken by surprise she'd be able to do nothing, but she could hear and smell so great, she doubted she'd be taken by surprise. Before she knew it, she had followed Shining Armor back into the dining room. The other equines were there, but none were even near the table. Cadance stood in front of them, looking at the floor. Elizabeth nearly gagged on the stench of fear and apprehension the alicorn gave off, but approached her.

"Elizabeth," Cadance said as Shining Armor trotted next to her. "When you first came to Equestria, do you remember what it was like?"

"Yes, remember," she said. There was a pause, and Fluttershy, at the back of the group, gestured for her to explain. "White and blue and moving, moving, movingmovingmovingmovingmoving."

Cadance nodded. "That just about confirms it. Elizabeth, w-what do you know about the Crystal Heart?"

"Crystal Heart?" she asked, then shook her head. "Nothing." She blew away a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her right eye.

"The Crystal Heart is an immensely powerful magical artifact of this kingdom," Cadance explained, no longer looking at the floor but not at Elizabeth either. "It takes in the goodwill and love of the ponies, and protects the empire. We only recently recovered it, and I-I had to activate it immediately to stop King Sombra."

"And?"

The alicorn gulped. The equines behind her all looked at each other nervously. "When you came here, Canterlot's Magical Contamination Containment Unit picked up a surge of magic, the one that brought you to Equus. I recently got a record of the magic, and it's exactly the same as the Crystal Heart's magical signature."

"Crystal Heart type magic brought me? How?"

"No, Elizabeth. It wasn't magic like the Crystal Heart's; there's nothing else like it in the world. It was the Crystal Heart. T-The effects of unleashing it after a long period of inactivity are pretty poorly understood, but apparently it was enough to find where ever you were, and bring you to our world. And since you were clearly far away, there was a delay between the two events." Cadance gulped, shaking in terror. Why was she so afraid?

She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I'm the one who took you from your world. I am so sorry..."

Elizabeth blinked. Cadance was the one that had brought her here? This 'Crystal Heart' released a burst of magic, and it accidentally pulled her away from her world? She blinked again and flexed her fingers, watching Cadance intently. She pondered pondered pondered what to do... and then she lunged at Cadance.

The equines 'eeped' when she approached, the surge of air blasting their manes and tails back. Elizabeth knelt to Cadance's level and wrapped her arms around her neck in a tight embrace, careful not not not to make it too tight. The equine stiffened, but after a few seconds opened her eyes. "Why are you - "

"Thank you," Elizabeth said, her echoes low and nearly inaudible. "Thank you, thank you. Never repay. Can't repay. Never never never..." she murmured.

"But I took you from your world! I took you from your Home, from everything you ever loved..."

"Already taken," she rasped gently. "Was dead, imprisoned, Cursed. Nothing left nothing nothing nothing. Saved me, back to life, second chance."

"I... what? You were dead?"

"Not dead, not alive. Cursed, outside cycle. So lucky lucky lucky, many others Cursed, lucky it was me lucky lucky thank you."

"I... you're welcome," Cadance said, relaxing. Elizabeth let go and rose back to her full height. "But, I still took you from everything you have ever loved. How can you be okay with that?" Cadance had repeated her question. That meant she didn't understand, so Elizabeth had to repeat her answer.

"Didn't take me," she rasped. "Already dead, nothing left." It was a good good good thing she'd come to the equine world when she was freed from her Wayward Child's Curse. There was little doubt in her mind that if she'd revived on her world and tried to spread her Blessing there, her Wayward Child would've hunted her down and devoured her a second time. No, Greene valued her life. She would never go back.

"Alright." Cadance swallowed and stopped shaking. She looked at Elizabeth with a smile. "I'm happy to hear that I didn't ruin your life, Elizabeth. For what it's worth, you're welcome."

She dipped her head.

"Wait a minute," Twilight Sparkle said. "Princess Celestia told me that humans used to be bed time stories when they were young." The unicorn tilted her head. "You think maybe the Crystal Heart pulled a human here long ago, and then their legacy faded over time?"

"Maybe," Cadance said, turning to Twilight Sparkle. She didn't smell like fear anymore, which made Greene happy happy happy. "After all, the Crystal Heart has been around long before even the uniting of the tribes. That seems more than ample time for it to be used and accidentally summon a human, then the human fades into legend, then myth, then stories, just as Celestia and Luna are born."

Pinkie Pie leaned over and whispered something into Rainbow Dash's ear, making them both snicker. Elizabeth didn't know how Pinkie Pie kept it too quiet for Greene, but loud enough for Rainbow Dash.

"So," Shining Armor said with a smile. "Now that we've got that out of the way, how about we give you the grand tour? We missed the meeting of the ambassadors, given all the rebuilding we were doing, but that's no reason not to catch up now."

Elizabeth looked at him, then at the one who'd saved her, who'd brought her back and given her a second chance, ended the long-time and short-time of being Cursed, and smiled. "Yes," she rasped.

Biological Imperative

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Greene

Very quickly, Elizabeth regretted agreeing to tour the Crystal Empire. Because they had decided to go outside and she did not not not like that. She closed her eyes and followed through smell and sound as Cadance, Fluttershy, and the others lead her around.

"Over there is the Amblygonite Park," Cadance said. "Not quite as large as the Opal Park, but I like it for that. Peace and quiet, you see."

Elizabeth hazarded opening her eyes. The park in question had shimmering green grass surrounded by a few streets, and further on were the sparkling buildings. The park was dotted by several trees, and if Elizabeth looked closely she could see that the dirt around some of the trees was loose, as if they'd recently been placed there, or rapidly grown. In the middle of the park, a large spike of amber see-through stone jutted up. Glancing back with squinted eyes, she saw Spike drooling, and cringed away from the wet strand despite there being several equines between him and her. She idly wondered how strongly dragon scales were attached to their skin.

Cadance, Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle chatted a bit, something about grabbing a bite and then they split up, leaving her with Fluttershy, Cadance, and Shining Armor.

"So Elizabeth," Shining Armor said as they walked through the park, the occasional passing earth pony waving to their leaders or looking at her strangely. "Tell us a bit about yourself, if you'd please."

She shrugged. "What to say? Not not not much. Have questions," she rasped.

"Go for it," the unicorn male said.

"Sombra, who? Bad?"

Cadance shivered. "You have no idea. You know how I'm the princess of the Crystal Empire, right?" She nodded. They walked under a tree, and Elizabeth took the opportunity to rest her eyes in the shade. Luckily, they stopped. The equines leaned against the tree, Cadance and Shining Armor together. Elizabeth sat on the grass, and quickly extended a web of tendrils to seperate her from it because the grass was moist.

"Well the Crystal Empire, until recently, didn't really exist. Where we are now was all engulfed in snow and ice, just like outside," Cadance continued. "The Crystal Empire was sort of locked out of time for a little over a thousand years, and it only came back recently. King Sombra was actually the one who cursed the empire."

That got Elizabeth's attention. She narrowed her eyes and bristled, angry and scared tendrils swirling around her arms and legs. Cadance blanched in what Elizabeth assumed was disgust. "Cursed?! Cursed! Where is Sombra? Will find him..." she growled.

"Elizabeth," Cadance said gently, though her eyes were wide. "Please, relax. L-Let me explain." Elizabeth did, clamping down on her fluctuating limbs. "A thousand years ago, Sombra seized control of the Crystal Empire and took the title of King. He created a brutal regime, committing horrible atrocities. He kept the Crystal Empire looking good on the outside, lest other nations realize and liberate the crystal ponies, but meanwhile he did so much damage that... well, let me put it this way. Elizabeth, when you hear the word 'empire', what do you imagine?"

"Nothing," she rasped. What did this have to do with her hunting down and killing - no, not killing, she'd promised Fluttershy. What did this have to do with hunting down and hurting Sombra?

"Nothing? Really - err, nevermind. Anyhow, in his short four years of ruling, he'd reduced the Crystal Empire to a single city, the one you're in now."

"Then?"

Cadance shrugged, and smiled. "Then, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna found out what he was doing. A bunch of cities vanishing gets noticed, you know. They cornered Sombra and banished him into the glacier, but..." Cadance's smile evaporated. "Before they could, Sombra got the last laugh, and cursed what was left of the Crystal Empire to a thousand years in the future. To today."

"Today?" she asked, confused.

Cadance chuckled somewhat nervously. "Well, not today today, but very recently. I'd just gotten married to this wonderful oaf here," she said, leaning over and giving Shining Armor a nuzzle, who smiled at the action. "It turned out I was the rightful heir to the Crystal Empire, so we'd come here to start repairing things." She frowned. "Sadly, Sombra freed himself from his banishment at around the same time. The Crystal Heart was missing at that time, and he wanted to take the Crystal Empire back for himself, but..." she trailed off, shivering. Greene couldn't blame her. It was cold.

Fluttershy shivered as well, and Shining Armor picked up the conversation. "Cadance had to shield the empire all by herself while Sombra tried to break in." He patted Cadance on the back. "Tired herself half to death doing it. Meanwhile, Twily and Spike tried to find the Crystal Heart, since it could make a permanent version of Cadance's shield, but the crystal ponies all had amnesia from the curse, and Sombra had laid traps before his banishment."

He shook his head and sighed. "It was very, very close, but in the end Cadance activated the Crystal Heart, which erected a shield, kept out the cold, brought you to Equestria, and got rid of King Sombra." His face grew stern and grim. Greene tensed. It reminded her of the Bad Man who'd taken everything from her and locked her in the Cold Dark Place. "Maybe permanently."

Greene nodded, brightening. "Sombra dead, good good good. Won't hurt, no." She looked down, then back at Shining Armor. "Comes back, I'll hurt him."

"Elizabeth," Fluttershy said shakily, staring at her with one eye wide, the other hidden. "You promised - "

"I know," she rasped, looking down. "I know."

Cadance looked confused. "I won't pretend to know what that's about, but I won't pry." She gestured to Greene with a hoof. "Elizabeth, if you don't mind, may I ask precisely... how you died? I mean, necromancy is supposed to be impossible, and yet..."

"Didn't really die. Life to death, went sideways." She sighed and shivered at the memory of that second that lasted an eternity, of the trillion years that had lasted an instant. It didn't surprise her they kept saying she'd died, because to everyone but herself she had, and there really wasn't a better term for that experience than death and afterlife. Cursed just didn't seem to cut it at times... "Dead for all purpose. Wayward Child Cursed me, killed me."

Cadance and Shining Armor's pupils - and irises, strange strange strange - shrunk as their faces tightened in shock. Fluttershy laid a hoof on Elizabeth's lap, and she allowed it because it was Fluttershy. "Killed you? Knew you were, but your son..." Cadance whispered. She shook her head. "I'm sure it was an accident, he probably didn't mean to."

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed, and she felt Fluttershy's breath hitch. "It - wasn't - an - accident!" Greene ground out haltingly, making Cadance lean backwards and Shining Armor narrow his eyes. "We fought for an hour! I destroyed the buildings I shattered the streets, he leaped around my strikes he tore my legs apart. Before tried to kill me really kill me with the Awful Poison. It wasn't an accident!" she shouted, her voice bouncing around the park and closing in on the alicorn and unicorn, who were now properly intimidated and huddled together. She relaxed, and felt Fluttershy do the same. "Hated me twisted Cursed didn't know what he was doing, hated me." She shook her head. "Died by him Cursing me. Tore from defenses, broke power. Devoured me, body mind essence."

"D-Devoured?" Shining Armor asked faintly.

She nodded. "Always hungry, Cursed to be like that. Don't want to talk about it. Where others?"

"Oh," Cadance said faintly, her face green through her pink fur. "Twily and her friends went to go find a restaurant, to show you around the empire. Of course, restaurants are a new thing for my subjects, so they'll probably find one we can all go to quickly."

Elizabeth blinked in confusion. "Rest...aur...ant?" The word was familiar, but whenever she thought about it her mind conjured up a painfully brief flash of a yellow arch, the good-burned-subtly-off smell of chicken flesh, and the feeling of sinking drowning choking.

"Do they not have restaurants on your old world, Elizabeth?" Shining Armor asked. He and his wife shifted their weight. Fluttershy slowly, nervously, retracted the hoof from Elizabeth's lap. She shook her head. "So you just don't remember?" She nodded. "Well, that's alright. Restaurants are places where ponies go to eat food. They sit at a table, order what they want from a waiter, who tells cooks to make it, then gives it to them, and the ponies pay for the food."

Greene frowned. More currency 'uses'. Couldn't these equines take care of themselves without needing to pay for even the most basic basic basic things? And besides. "Not hungry."

"Probably just as well," Cadance said. "I don't think there'll be many restaurants that can serve you meat. The Crystal Empire used to be allied with the griffon kingdoms before it was cursed, but during Sombra's rule that was cut off, to say nothing the time displacement did."

"Hmm," Elizabeth said. Oh well. That didn't make a difference. She wasn't hungry anyway, so it didn't matter at all if their restaurants served flesh. No no no, not at all. "When here?"

"Who do you mean?" Cadance asked.

"Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Spike," she rasped.

"Ah," the alicorn said, nodding, now notably less green. "Well, I don't really know." She gave Elizabeth a bashful smile. "There's no rush though, unless you have something to be doing?"

As a matter of fact she did; she had all the essence she needed so she really should've been changing her Blessing so it could fix these equines, and then she had to spread it amongst them, and then she had to adapt it and give it to the griffons, and the minotaurs, and the zebras, and the diamond dogs, and the dragons...

She really did have something to be doing. But one look at Fluttershy's relaxed face made her relax. She could wait just a little longer to spread her Blessing. There was no rush. She'd been patient for so very long during the Time for Waiting, she could be patient a few more days. Still, it wouldn't hurt to at least change her Blessing...

"Cadance!" shouted Twilight Sparkle's voice. Elizabeth snapped her head towards the noise with enough force to create a small shockwave, ruffling the grass. Sure enough, there they were, walking through the park with the others by their side. "We found a place," she said. "The Milky Quartz, little place near the edge of the city. I heard they've got great soup." Memories of wet-food-bad-food. No, she certainly wouldn't be eating.

"Sounds nice," Fluttershy whispered from beside Elizabeth. The pegasus pulled herself to her hooves and trotted over to the others, and Elizabeth followed silently.

"Oh, I've been there before!" Cadance gushed. She put her forehooves together, wings flapping to keep her upright. "Oooh their tomato soup is just amazing! They put pieces of garlic in it, and - "

" - and I'm sure it tastes even better when we're actually eating it, not just imagining it," Shining Armor said, pushing the alicorn with his move-thought and leaving two shallow grooves where her hind legs moved. He relented, and Cadance fell to her hooves, glaring at him with fake intensity. "Lets go, everypony."

They exited the Ambly... Amylgo... Amerni... they exited the park swiftly. The earth ponies on the streets - too bright, had to narrow her eyes - did one of two things. They either gawked at her, which made Fluttershy cringe under the attention focused in their direction and make Elizabeth hover around her protectively, or they bowed to Cadance, which made Fluttershy cringe under the attention focused in their direction and make Elizabeth hover around her protectively.

The Milky Quartz did not stand out from any of the other sparkling equine buildings in the area, save for the smells of plants from inside, and the larger number of equines. Shining Armor opened the door as they approached, letting Cadance through. "Ladies first," he said.

Cadance rolled her eyes and tapped him on the nose with a hoof. "Goof. Come on everypony, we're wasting daylight." As the others filed in, Elizabeth got a good look at the inside of the Milky Quartz.

It only took a second for her to know for absolute certain she wasn't going inside. 'Chandeliers' hung from the ceiling, with translucent white crystals held in them. The Crystal Empire shone and sparkled, but inside this building, with its mirrors, candles, and reflective blue walls, it was terribly bright. "Not going in. Not hungry, bright bright bright."

Cadance nodded. "I understand, Elizabeth. But what will you do?"

"Wait outside, patient."

The equines exchanged nervous looks. "Um," Cadance said. "I'm not sure that's a good idea. There may be ponies who wish you harm."

"I-If it's alright with you," Fluttershy began. "I can stay with her."

They exchanged more nervous looks. "Are you sure, 'shy?" Rainbow Dash asked. "I mean...

She nodded vigorously. "Oh yes. I like Elizabeth's company." Her eyes widened. "N-Not that I don't like your company, but Elizabeth needs somepony to watch out for her, then, um... oh you're right, maybe it should be somepony else..."

"Don't be silly!" Pinkie Pie said, popping up next to Fluttershy and draping a foreleg over her withers. Fluttershy bit her lip and squeaked. "You're like, Elizabeth's bestest friend! And you made a dragon cry!"

Fluttershy's ears flattened and she looked away, Pinkie Pie bouncing away but still staring intently at Fluttershy. "Oh, well, I suppose..."

"Alright," Twilight Sparkle said, resting a hoof on Fluttershy's withers. "Take care, Fluttershy. Watch out for anypony, alright?" The unicorn turned to the others. "Well, lets go. We can talk about Elizabeth's fans inside."

As the others filed in, Elizabeth hopped lightly onto the roof of a nearby crystal building, and began street-watching. Fluttershy flew next to her, sitting down on her haunches and joining her in the activity. The equines here didn't react much to them now that they were on the roof, going about their sparkling business without really ever looking up.

"Um, Elizabeth?" Fluttershy asked quietly after a while. Some of the equines looked up, locked eyes with them for a while, before shaking their heads and moving on. "If you don't mind me asking, um... you've been to Canterlot, Ponyville, and Cloudsdale. Where're you going to go next?"

"Stay in Equestria, place to place, raise family. Then... " She pondered for a moment, weighing the various places. "The Zebran Plains," she decided. The zebras were fairly identical to the ponies, both were equines. Once she had a working Blessing for the ponies, she doubted she'd need a lot lot lot of zebra essence to make it fix them as well.

Plus, the Zebran Plains were dry.

"Yes," she continued. "Zebran Plains. After that, see then." Maybe the Griffon Empire? They flew like pegasi, there could be similarities...

"Oh," Fluttershy said, smiling. "I'm really happy for you!" She paused, and frowned. "Have you talked it over with the Princesses?"

"Why should I?" she asked.

"Well, you said that you had thousands of children on your old world, a-and if you raised the same amount or more - " She'd certainly raise more. " - then that might cause some food problems."

Elizabeth shook her head, then raised her right hand to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen on her cheek. "Won't be problem."

Fluttershy nodded, the sheen of sweat on her coat reflecting the light and making her painful to look at. They street watched a while longer. If Elizabeth focused very very very closely, she could hear the voices of the others in her group, talking within the restaurant about who-knew-what.

"Elizabeth?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"If you don't mind, do you think I can come see your children? I've never seen young Evolved before, and well..." She looked down and blushed. "I mean, if it's alright with you..."

Elizabeth didn't know how to feel about that. "Will - will see then." She sighed. She didn't know. She'd raised her family before, and she Wanted Fluttershy, her dearest friend, to be part of it so that she could take care of her forever. But...

... each time she'd raised her family on her own, she'd failed.

She didn't didn't didn't want to think about that.

Time passed, and the flow of equines ground to a near halt. There were scarcely any, and so the scent of equines faded and was overshadowed by the scent of stone and gem. Neither she nor Fluttershy said anything, so she took the opportunity to plan her course of action.

She had to modify her Blessing using the essence she'd gathered. That much was obvious. But how? She certainly couldn't make a separate version of it to match every single equine; they'd die and pass on by the time she finished. No, she needed to make many essences into into into few. Average them together. But how?

Perhaps she could combine Canterlot, Ponyville, and Cloudsdale first? Maybe. She'd certainly have to fuse all four main variants of essence together, though, and that would be the hard part. No point in adding in location difference too. So... no averaging the nests. Maybe average the subgroups first? Canterlot Unicorn, Ponyville Pegasus? Perhaps. And then the subgroups further, to get Unicorn, Earth Pony, Pegasus, and Anomaly. Then she could combine to get the essence of all equines.

She smiled. Yes, that would work work work. And once she had that she could finally change her Blessing to work on them. She felt giddy at the prospect, her heart beating inside her suit with enough force to break stone. Her patience was pushed to its limit, but after so very long, it seemed her dream was in sight. These equines weren't like the Similars. They and every other on this world were better. They'd understand her quest. They'd help her. Fluttershy would help her.

"Elizabeth, yoohoo!" an annoying voice chirped. She snapped her eyes open - when had she closed them? - and saw pink. Her smile vanished in a moment. "Equus to Lizzy!" Greene brought her hands together and clapped, the blast of air sending Pinkie Pie off the roof and to the street below. She looked down, and was disappointed to find the earth pony shaking off the fall like it was nothing. "That wasn't very nice," she pouted.

Greene dropped to ground level; the others were out and Fluttershy was already with them. They looked... happy. Not a surprise; they'd eaten. She knew she was always happy after devouring a manticore. "Rain wasn't nice," she hissed back. "Forgave Rainbow Dash, not you," she stressed. She snapped her eyes to Cadance, ignoring the way Pinkie Pie pouted and was then comforted by the other Harmony Elements. "Restaurant done. Next?"

The alicorn gave her a smile, all traces of her former fear gone. "We got to talk more in the restaurant. Now, Elizabeth, we'll really show you around."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

They stood before the train. Spike rode on Twilight Sparkle's back, fast asleep. The other equines were tired too; Elizabeth could tell by the way their heads and tails drooped. All but Pinkie Pie were affected, who just bounced along as energetically as ever.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Elizabeth," Cadance said. "I hope your visit to the Crystal Empire was an enjoyable one."

"Was," she rasped, echoes cutting through the night. In the corner of her vision, Shining Armor's head swiveled around, watching out for... for something. She wasn't sure about that one. He was adama... adama... ada... sure that the equine guards weren't horrible horrible horrible but on the other hand, he was a guard. She'd have to watch him closely.

"Then I'll leave you to yourselves now. I'm fairly certain I've got a good bit of paperwork backlog now."

"See later," Elizabeth promised the two royals as they cantered away, sometimes being bowed to. Once they were gone, they filed into the train, ate some of the snacks offered (she didn't, the others did) and then settled on the seats. There was a lot of conversation, but she noticed almost none of it, just as she'd hardly noticed her tour of the Crystal Empire's various places of entertainment and 'culture', whatever that was.

How could she pay attention to those things, distracted as she was by her goal?

The train started, and the equines began to drift off to sleep. Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy talked a little about how they thought Elizabeth liked the visit, which was strange strange strange because they could've asked her instead. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie talked about 'pulling one on Time Turner'. She wasn't sure what that meant, but she got the feeling she wouldn't like it if she did.

Finally, the sound of slow breathing filled the air. Greene sat on one seat, with Fluttershy right next to her. She glanced out the window; they'd entered the cold-snowy-dark area outside the Crystal Empire.

"I hope you had a good time, Elizabeth," Fluttershy said. Everyone else seemed to be asleep. Rainbow's head lolled off a seat.

"Know how I was freed," she murmured. "Cadance, never repay her ever ever ever. Can try, can try." It was even more frustrating because Cadance was an alicorn and she couldn't give her her greatest gift. At least with Celestia and Luna she was beginning to form a way to repay them beyond Blessing them, but Cadance had done so much more for her. What could she do?

"Oh, that's nice to hear." She gave Greene a warm smile. "Good night, Elizabeth."

"Good night," Elizabeth parroted back as Fluttershy fell asleep. Elizabeth reclined her head, extending a small amount of her warmth to ward off the chill. She gazed out the window for a few minutes, and then she closed her eyes. But she didn't sleep.

At long last, it was finally finally finally time.

Behind her eyelids, it was black but there was still a wild flickering of colors and lines. She focused and delved deeper into her own essence, and the flickering eased out into a simple, all encompassing darkness that she really liked; it was easy on her vision. In the distance, there were three groups of dots; the first two had four dots, three purple and one dark blue. The third group had only three dots; two purple and one blue.

She imagined reaching out with her hand, even though her body was stock still, and grabbed the scene, pulling it closer. Now she could see that each of the dots was really a group of dozens of orbs, covered in loops and spikes. The equine essences; Canterlot, Ponyville, Cloudsdale. Earth pony, unicorn, pegasus, anomaly. She pictured wind swirling around the orbs and the essences flew towards her, forming a cylinder around her imagined body, still grouped up. Elizabeth investigated.

No two orbs were the same, not even within her subgroups. Each one was a slightly different color; some of the purple and blue orbs had hints of red, a streak of green, were lighter or darker in shade. The pattern spikes and loops on them were also never repeated. The anomalies, small blue orbs, each had four spikes and four loops. All the orbs in Unicorn held three loops and one spike, pegasi two and two, and earth pony orbs had three spikes and only one loop. There was one orb of zebra essence, but that wasn't important now. She made it fade into the blackness.

Of course, that was all old news. She formed a picture in her mind, and in her vision it became a reality. A red half-orb formed in her hands, its outer surface mostly smooth but grainy when she ran her fingers along it. On the portion cut away, there was a single spike sticking out. She shifted it to one hand, and touched its spike with a finger. She pulled away, and the orb's spike unraveled like string. Elizabeth willed it to let go, and it did, reforming into a spike.

She willed an orb at random to float in - a Canterlot Pegasus - and grabbed it with one hand. She took the hand holding the essence of her Blessing and pressed the spike into the orb, which parted easily around it. She pulled out the Blessing orb, and watched the equine orb. It briefly darkened, turning red, but the tint didn't reach its spikes and loops, so it turned back to Twilight Sparkle violet in a moment.

She could work with that. She focused on the Blessing orb, reworking the infinitely small small small fibers making it up, changing its color from blood red to night purple. She pressed the two orbs together again, and this time the Canterlot Pegasus orb changed, turning red and staying like that. The spikes and loops flattened, pressing themselves into the surface. They were still there, but so much duller.

This version of her Blessing would fix this equine. She sent their orb back into the column around her and willed it to change back, and tossed her Blessing's essence to float above her head.

The problem was, it would only fix that one equine. She brought all of Canterlot Unicorn before her, then all of Ponyville Unicorn. She considered leaving out the two orbs of Cloudsdale Unicorn, but she decided it would be better better better to include all. She looked over Canterlot Unicorn first, and compared it to Ponyville Unicorn. There were variations in each, but looking closely, Elizabeth saw that the single spike of Canterlot Unicorn was usually less pronounced than Ponyville Unicorn, while the loops were larger and thicker. Looking over the many orbs repeatedly, she eventually moved the orbs of essence together and, using her thoughts guided by her ever so great mind, sculpted three orbs of essence, one to symbolize the unicorns of each three places.

Satisfied with the three orbs of unicorn essence, she pushed them back out, and pulled in the many spheres of Canterlot Earth Pony and Ponyville Earth Pony. There was none for Cloudsdale. The spikes of Ponyville Earth Pony were thicker and duller than those of Canterlot Earth Pony. She averaged them together, and traded those two orbs for the ones of the pegasi, and repeated her action with those.

She frowned when she got to the next part. She pondered obliterating the orbs of Canterlot, Ponyville, and Cloudsdale Anomaly. They were, after all, flaws. Small, dark blue, with four spikes and four loops. Places where taking the essence of equines had gone - somehow - wrong. Or were they? Perhaps the equines had such anomalies by nature? It wouldn't be the strangest of things; she believed what Celestia and Luna did, but still found the moving of the moon and sun to be wrong wrong wrong on some level. No, she'd use the anomalies. And molding the few few few orbs she had of those, she realized that there was almost no noticeable differences between the three nests. So she simply merged all of them into one orb of Anomaly, the tiny differences in color smoothing out into an even, dark blue, and sent it out.

Now surrounded by nine orbs, she pulled in each of the ones for unicorns and began to merge them. She factored out things like gender, horn strength, distance between the nests, and the unknown of places she hadn't gone to like Stalliongrad and Hoofington. She twisted at the strings making up the orbs until she felt like she had a good orb to symbolize the unicorns. She took it in her right hand, snatched her Blessing's essence from above her, and held it in her left.

She again modified her Blessing. Its color was still purple, and its grainy texture changed into a smooth, rippling one, with tiny loops sticking out of it. She pressed the half-orb's spike into the Unicorn essence, and smiled when it turned as red as dry blood, and its loops and spikes flattened into it. She changed it back, and sent it back out. She repeated the process with Anomaly, Pegasus, and Earth Pony, merging them into one orb (Already done with Anomaly) and then changing her Blessing to only affect that one, before resetting them and sending them back out.

In the end, where she had before had some half a thousand orbs of equine essence, she now only had four, floating in a square before her. She pulled them in, and began the long, tedious process of combining them so she had one descriptive orb of essence for every equine.

It was very difficult. Looking at Earth Pony and Unicorn, one would've thought to combine the three spikes one loop with the one spike three loops to get two of each, but that was the shape of Pegasus. Things got even more complicated when she tried to factor in Anomaly, which was much smaller, different color, and had twice as many spikes and loops than any of the other three.

She tried several combinations, impaling loops with spikes, punching holes in spikes, pushing them together, pulling them apart, and warped their color into stripes, stars, and an even indigo. Finally, she came up with the essence of all equines: a large orb, a time and a half half half the size of the usual. It was a deep violet, with spots of deep blue along it. It had two spikes and two loops, but one of the spikes had a hole punched through its middle, and the other split off into two spikes halfway up. Similarly, one of the two loops was actually two pushed together side by side until they nearly melded, and the other loop was laid flat along the orb and stretched all the way around.

She smiled, feeling her lips turn up even in the waking world. Almost done.

She grabbed her Blessing's essence in one hand, and took what she learned from making it affect Unicorn, Pegasus, Earth Pony, and Anomaly individually. She played with the strings making it up, changed the length of its spike, its color, until she'd gotten it into a similar color scheme as the equine essence, and it had a feeling like dry, crunching grass when she rubbed it. She poked the Equine orb with it...

Success! It worked! It worked worked worked! Hahahaaaa... no, not done yet. She changed the equine essence back to normal and tossed it up, hovering it above her head. It wasn't important at the moment, but she might need it again in the future. She summoned all the various orbs she had at the start back from deep within her. She pulled each orb in, Blessed it, and sent it back once it was changed. She went through, piece by piece, and much to her delight every single one was fixed.

She'd done it. Her Blessing would affect the equines now! She snapped her eyes open, and the orbs and darkness vanished to be replaced by the train. She looked over, and gently pulled Fluttershy over to her. She rested the pegasus's head in her lap and stroked her mane, smiling gently.

Of course, she still had her original Blessing. The new equine-Blessing was merely a new one she kept within her, calling it forth whenever she needed. She could still Bless Similars if the opportunity arose she hoped it never did they did not deserve her Blessing but she could now just as easily Bless equines.

Joy joy joy bubbled in her chest and rose up her throat. She opened her mouth and chuckled, giggled, laughed lightly. She laughed joyously for a few minutes, her voice bouncing around the train car several dozen times.

Elizabeth Greene looked back down at Fluttershy, and stroked her mane with one hand while rubbing her barrel with the other. Many thoughts dominated her head, racing and birthing and dying and screaming and whispering, but above them all was one simple saying.

I'm back.

Greene with Envy

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Greene

The train arrived, and she was still awake. The others were slowly waking up, roused by the sound and feel of the slowing train. She was out in a heartbeat, dancing and cackling throughout Ponyville before the other equines could even register she was gone. She soared past the roofstops and charged down the streets, her feet leaving a trail of red and white, the wind behind her sending equines' belongings flying as she laughed.

She left Ponyville and danced around Fluttershy's cottage before shooting into the Everfree Forest. She hopped over a patch of Poison Joke, skipped past a timberwolf pack, and jumped over a ruined castle. She lost herself in her movements, jumping high and sprinting and rolling around, until finally she returned back to Fluttershy's cottage. She leaped out from the Everfree Forest and, as she landed, slammed her fist into the road, cracking the dirt and sending out a rolling wave of soil.

"Eep!" Fluttershy squeaked as the shockwave picked her up and tossed her a short distance away. By the time she got to her hooves Elizabeth was already there, picking the pegasus up in a bone-crushing hug. "Um, E-Elizabeth?" she whimpered.

Oh. Fluttershy was afraid.

Elizabeth dropped her to the ground and leaped to the roof of her cottage, which rattled menacingly under Greene's weight. She stood and looked out over Ponyville, at the equines moving about, boarding the train. Further there was the city and castle of Canterlot hanging off the mountain, and while not even she could make out individuals, she could still see the buzzing noise of moving equines there. She could do it. She could do it. She could leap into their midst and Bless them, and then go repeat the process elsewhere again, and again, and again, until her children numbered in the millions, and then she could repeat it with the other species. Nervous energy burned bubbled burned in her chest. She could do it right now. Why not start?

She looked back at Fluttershy. She was sitting down, her forelegs slightly spread out as she looked at at Elizabeth. With another hop, she reached Fluttershy again. "Fluttershy," she whispered, her echoes as loud as her voice. She traced her fingers along the equine's cheek, the yellow fur parting around her fingers. They locked eyes.

"Um, hi, Elizabeth. You seem, um, happy. I-If you don't mind me saying," she stuttered, leaning back.

"Don't mind," she said, summoning her new Blessing to her fingertips. She moved it to the surface of her skin and prepared to push it into her dearest best friend...

... a spike of fear stopped her. She pulled her Blessing back in.

The equines were not nearly as broken as the Similars. They'd been kind to her when her former species had been cruel, shared a meal with her when they'd imprisoned her. But... they were still broken. It was why she had to Bless them in the first place.

She'd been attacked by four equines. Granted, it was out of a few thousand, an infinitely better ratio than the Similars had, but some of them... yes, some of them would reject her Blessing. Violently. It made sense; it was a wonderful change, but it was also a big change. The equines preached and practiced harmony, and while her Blessing would bring that, some would certainly see it otherwise, even if it was only the transition - the painful transition she could do nothing about - they'd find issue with. However good good good they were, they were still broken.

She stepped back from Fluttershy and bit her lip, looking left and right. She knew this must be so strange to Fluttershy, how she was acting acting acting, but she couldn't help it.

"Need need need to go," she rasped, forming a plan in the blink of an eye. She bolted, but stopped immediately after and looked over her shoulder to the now-confused equine. She smelled fear, fear she had caused her best friend. "Will you be okay?" she asked gently, eyes softening.

She nodded. "Oh yes, I'll be fine. Really."

Fluttershy would be okay. Good. Elizabeth bolted again. The equines this time heard her coming and got out of the way quick enough. She came to the Golden Oak Library in less than a minute and opened the door, barging in and ignoring the jingle of the bell.

Twilight Sparkle and Spike were... she sniffed. In the kitchen. That meant she needed to find the books she was interested on her own.

She needed to learn things. She needed to know how to convince equines who thought she was wrong that she wasn't. There would be some; there were some. And she didn't know how she could do that, or anyone who could teach her that she would let, and that left...

... books.

She wasn't very fond of books. For one thing, Twilight Sparkle liked them. For another, they were boring and dull and took much longer to teach her than a person who knew the same thing could. She wasn't entirely sure how she knew that, but the sinking drowning choking that came with trying to find out discouraged her from trying. And lastly, they involved her sitting there not moving when she could be out there spreading her Blessing!

Still, that didn't stop her. She looked through the bookshelves and eventually found a book that seemed about about about right for her purposes. How to Win Friends and Make Peace with Enemies by someone named Silver Tongue. She pulled that out and turned around...

... it caught her out of the corner of her eyes, and she stiffened. She debated with herself. She'd done it before. Reveled in it, in fact, whenever her children shattered a Similar nest, or on those rare rare rare occasions when she'd taken part herself, throwing boulders at their flying machines and ripping them apart with her bare hands and drenching herself in their blood. She unashamedly enjoyed the feeling of shredding those who'd do her children harm, but...

The Majesty of War by Emperor Screch. It was a thick, brown book, the title gold with the image of a griffon on top and below, facing in opposite directions. She knew what it would be about; it was obvious. She pursed her lips.

She really really really didn't want to have to do that. Against the wretched Similars, it had been different. But the equines... no. She would never. But they weren't the only ones on this world. Certainly, the minotaurs with their technology - she remembered the thing ambassador Tungsten Mind arrived in - resembled the Similars most. It... wasn't too hard to picture they may react the same way and she'd have to respond in kind.

She was fairly confident in her ability to do war. After all, stinging-bullets couldn't pierce her Blessing. Tanks couldn't drive over her Throwing Children. Similar soldiers, even when they escaped the wrath of her and her children, were trailed by her Blessing. She'd lost before even beginning in her first Home, but when the Time for Waiting ended and she escaped to the island city, she had the Similars on the run, and it was only due to her poor poor poor mad Wayward Child that she'd lost.

He was not here. Even if the equines repeated what the Crystal Heart did to bring her here, they clearly had no control. The chances of her corrupted son coming to Equus were not even worth considering considering considering, especially since they had no reason to repeat what the Crystal Heart had done to her. If any race on this world tried to attack her and her family, she was confident in her ability to win.

... but was she? She'd been confident before, and the thing she hadn't hadn't hadn't expected had ended her. There was no Curse on this world... but there was Celestia and Luna. They were immensely powerful, and that meant there could easily be other gods that wished her harm. Her memory flashed to the mural of Discord, and she shivered in fear. She'd need to account for that. Somehow. Later. If she ever needed to. She hoped she didn't.

Se realized her attention had drifted, and her eyes now rested on a completely unrelated shelf about cooking.

She eyed The Majesty of War uneasily, and reclined against the nearest wall, which creaked under her weight. She gently held the book, opened it and -

"Oh, hello Elizabeth!" chirped a female's voice. "I didn't hear you come in."

Face unmoving, she snapped the book closed. Over the top of it, she glowered at Twilight Sparkle. "Good."

"Well, better late than never. Welcome to Golden Oak Library, Ponyville's public library. I see you've already got a book picked out. If you need help finding anything, let me or Spike know."

"Will," she rasped, opening the book again after shooting one last glare at the scientist. She began skimming through it, almost immediately bored and impatient. She didn't care about the personal accomplishments of the author, she didn't care why the methods worked, she just wanted to know what the methods were! But she had to be patient, even if she didn't like it. She couldn't risk skipping something important.

Harmony theory...

... search of attention...

... strong voice for strong people...

... ethos, pathos, logos...

She could hear Spike and Twilight Sparkle eating breakfast upstairs when the door rang again as more equines entered. Three of them, and their hoofsteps were very close to each other, so they were small. She shut the book a second time and smiled when she heard their voices.

"Howdy Elizabeth!" Applebloom chirped. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were on either side of her.

Elizabeth lowered the book and smiled. "Applebloom," she said, placing the book back in its place in a single step. This was more important. "Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle."

"What're you doing in the library?" Scootaloo asked, tilting her head sideways.

"Reading," she rasped. Wasn't it obvious?

The children looked at each other. "... about?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"How to convince those broken I can fix them," she said simply. She blinked. "What're you doing in the library?" she asked, parroting Scootaloo's question.

"Miss Cheerilee assigned us a science project," Sweetie Belle explained. "A nonu... um... gah, I can't pronounce it!" she said, stomping a foreleg.

"Non-Newhoofian fluid," Scootaloo enunciated. "Some stuff that's solid when you're hittin' it, but turns to water when you aren't." She blinked. "I think. Sounds weird. Anyway, we were hopin' Twilight could tell us about it." She paused. "Hey Elizabeth, you wouldn't happen to know anything about Non-Newhoofian fluids, would you?"

"No, don't," she said sadly. She was disappointing children. How could she not be sad? "Sorry." She grabbed and opened her book back up, but didn't break eye contact with the children.

"It's alright," Applebloom said. "Do ya know where Twilight is?"

Elizabeth sniffed the air once. "Telescope room." By then she found where she'd been in her book before the three children had arrived. She kept reading, but couldn't help but smile at the fact that the children were around. Still... the thought of the equine children now made some thought twist at her heart. She ignored it and continued reading. After all, she had so much to do to make sure that she wouldn't fail fail fail a third time.

As more equines filed through the library looking for books, directed by a recently returned Spike - Golden Harvest for a book on repairing hoes, Time Turner for a book on how to wash pink paint out of fur - Elizabeth kept reading. The sun outside reached the top of its blinding arc, and she finished the book, setting it back in its place.

The three children, at around that point in time, came charging down from the stairs, covered in an odd white substance, with a whisper-still-loud of "Cutie Mark Crusaders chemists yay!" They then charged out the library, and Twilight Sparkle walked down the library, coming to a rest next to Greene.

"Um, Elizabeth, can I ask you for a favor?"

"Favor?" she asked, snapping her gaze towards Twilight Sparkle. "For?"

"Those three are going to be mixing cornstarch and water together, and knowing them they'll probably taint the town's water supply with it or something. Can you go make sure they don't do anything that gets out of hoof? I know they really respect you, so I was wondering..."

"Time with children," she said simply, brushing past Twilight Sparkle and saying nothing more as she brushed out of the library, ignoring Twilight Sparkle's goodbyes and saying of how she owed Greene one. Once outside, she looked around.

Equines were walking around, giving greetings to each other as they passed, sometimes stopping for a conversation. A gray pegasus put a letter into a mailbox, the metal of which was dented, and took off. Mayor Mare spoke with an equine, and her wonderful hearing picked up things about tax rates and renormalization due to lack of reconstructions. All around, they walked and talked, filling the air with noise and smell, but finding the children she was searching for was easy easy easy.

They'd gone to Sweet Apple Acres, and she opened the door to slip in.

"Howdy Greene," Applejack greeted. Greene ignored her and entered the kitchen to find the children handling a bag of what looked like a white powder. They'd filled a bowl with water, and it now rested on a stool.

"Corn starch?" she guessed.

The three of them jumped and turned to look at her, dropping the bag to the floor. It had, fortunately, fallen on its base, so none of the corn starch fell out. "Yep!" Sweetie Belle said. "We're gonna mix it with the water and make some of that, uh, stuff." She pouted and lowered her ears at not being able to pronounce the word. "You wanna watch?"

"Watch," she said, eying the bowl of water - which had rattled dangerously when the bag of cornstarch was dropped - with distaste. Hesitantly, she approached it. She poked its dry outside with a finger and spread a splatter of tendrils all along its outside. Still with only one finger attached, she moved the bowl to the ground, pulled her warmth inside, and stepped back. "Won't spill now. Will watch."

"Alright!" Applebloom said. "Lift!" The three equine children children children once again listed the corn starch and propped it against the bowl. Scootaloo was at the lip, holding it up and keeping the water from spilling. Elizabeth watched as they poured cornstarch - whatever that was - into the water and then righted the bag. "Now we need a spoon," the earth pony said.

In a flash, Elizabeth threw open the nearest drawer and reached in - she was lucky, it was the right one - and handed Sweetie Belle a wooden spoon about the length of her forearm, which she grabbed in her mouth.

"Thnk thoo!" she said, trotting over the the child-sized bowl and plopping in the spoon. Elizabeth, with a light push, slammed the drawer back in. They stirred it for a while, until eventually Sweetie Belle stopped and spat out the spoon. The white powder and water had mixed together into a white... slop. What was so special about it?

Scootaloo picked it up in her hooves, bouncing it back and forth after sitting on her haunches. "Okay, this is seriously awesome!" she said, the stuff hardening into a ball as she passed it back and forth between her hooves. "Come on girls, pick it up and start tossing!" She threw it up and bounced it off her forehead. It landed, and immediately started to melt.

Elizabeth watched the equine children mess around with the goop, and she frowned. They were... happy. Not as happy as they could be, but still happy. It made something tighten in her chest.

"Hey Elizabeth, try this out!" Applebloom said as she let a ball trickle through her forehooves. "Really cool!" She slapped the puddle, and Elizabeth could see it turn hard and resist the child's hit.

She frowned. On one hand, that stuff was made with water. But on the other hand it would make Applebloom happy. "But, water," she complained weakly.

"Oh, right." Applebloom giggled nervously. Sweetie Belle tried to make a caste around her horn, but it dribbled off and she closed her eyelids to keep it from getting in her eyes. Scootaloo kept bouncing her ball in her hooves. "Ya'll don't hafta if ya don't wanna."

"Good good good," she muttered. Sweetie Belle had gotten it out of her eyes, and was now playing with it on the ground, drawing it into shapes. As Elizabeth kept watching, she frowned more. These children were... happy happy happy. They'd been raised well, either by their parents or the rest of the family. What had she done? She couldn't even keep her children safe and alive for more than a year! Not once but twice, and the second time she hadn't even lasted two weeks.

"Alright, ya'll remember what Miss Cheerilee wanted us to write about with this stuff?" Applebloom asked.

She hadn't realized it before, what with going around and snipping essence from equines left and right, but now now now that her goal was so close at hand, so close, she began to think about it. Was it even worth it? Those she Blessed she protected and fixed, but if she failed then they'd suffer. They'd be afraid and lost and cold cold cold. Could she even take that risk in good conscience? How? She had no successes! These equine children were already doing well, they didn't need her messing things up!

She scrambled out of the suddenly-too-small house, unaware of the equines calling to her, of Applejack shouting after her or the orchard whirling past her. She stopped in the middle of a forest and took a deep breath. Color drained out of the world...

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Fluttershy

"T-Thank you, Lily," she stammered, putting the flowers in her saddlebags. They'd be good for the salad she was planning to make. Now it was really time for her to go back home, it'd be lunch time soon...

The first roar split the air. A keening, crashing shout that echoed faintly through the streets and instantly stopped all activity. Fluttershy panicked and dove behind Lily's stand, the other flower ponies joining her. For a moment after the roar ended, there was dead silence. Then it came again.

After about a minute of repeated roars and silence, Fluttershy noticed that those screams were familiar.

"Elizabeth!" she gasped, darting out from behind the stand and walking through town in search of her friend. She looked around. Ponies were slowly starting to ignore the repeated roars. This was Ponyville, after all. Stranger things happened.

She found Rainbow Dash near Stirrup Street, perched on a cloud looking around. "Rainbow!" she panted. "Where's Elizabeth?"

The other pegasus landed next to her. "I don't know about Elizabeth, but whatever's causing those roars is in Whitetail Woods. Wanna come with me? I'll teach it to mess with - "

"No Rainbow," she said desperately. "That's Elizabeth roaring."

Dash's ears perked up. "Really? Sheesh, she's got some lungs on her." She pointed in a vague direction. "She's thataway, just look for the giant red fog coming from the forest. But Flutters, don't ya think you should wait for her to calm down before looking for her?"

She shook her head, mane flopping and - eep! - uncovering her face. "Oh no, I think she might be hurt! I have to go see her. Um, goodbye Rainbow Dash. T-Thanks for helping."

Rainbow smiled, closed her eyes and waved a forehoof. "Ah, don't sweat it 'shy."

"O-Okay," she stammered, taking to the air and angling towards the direction Rainbow had pointed.

At that moment, another roar, a little louder now that she was a little closer, rumbled through the air. Far off in the distance, Fluttershy spotted a cone of red mist rising above the treeline. She gasped, and closed in.

Once inside Whitetail Woods itself, she landed and began trotting. As another roar came to a close, she felt her stomach drop and the barest bits of anger flicker in her veins. Color faded slightly, and then returned with the next scream. Fluttershy shivered. Elizabeth wasn't in danger, she was furious.

She didn't know what had cause this. Elizabeth wasn't exactly the paragon of emotional stability; sometimes she barely reacted to world-altering news, other times she reacted wildly to things ponies thought was nothing.

The next roar forced her to flatten her ears against her skull. Leaves fell from trees and branches rustled. She grimaced as angry thoughts filled her head, but continued on.

She spotted Elizabeth in the middle of a large clearing, a clearing that she knew for a fact hadn't been there before. The upturned trees at the edges - she hoped no animals had been there when that happened! - confirmed this. She watched as Elizabeth, with her back to Fluttershy, clenched her fists and raised them. Gray and white tendrils - color was fading again - whirled around Greene like a tornado, until with a flash of orange-red Elizabeth roared to the sky, a conical crimson shockwave blasting into the sky, the wind and hatred at herself for being a failure forcing Fluttershy back.

The scream cut out and Greene lowered her hands, but immediately began to prepare another roar.

"Elizabeth!" Fluttershy shouted before she could unleash the next one. She stepped into the clearing as the world again descended into grayscale and loathing.

Greene snapped the top half of her body around and stared at Fluttershy. The pegasus stepped back when she saw that Elizabeth's irises were as radiant yellow as the sun, but even as those sulfurous eyes burrowed into her soul color returned, and Elizabeth's eyes returned to their smothered-green tint. The foreign anger in Fluttershy's body faded, only to be replaced by deep sadness. The Evolved fell to her knees and stared dejectedly at the dirt.

Fluttershy tentatively approached. She hadn't seen Elizabeth this sad since she learned that her virus made ponies sick, instead of strong like it made her. "Elizabeth, what's wrong?" she asked. "I-If you want to tell me, of course."

"Don't," she whispered.

Fluttershy sat next to Elizabeth and laid a hoof on her lap. "Alright, but you know you'll feel better if you talk to me."

A few minutes passed. Finally, Elizabeth said one simple word. "Failure."

"What is?" she asked.

"Me, failure failure failure. Can't keep children for a year, can't for two weeks. Failure failure, ruined them, sad and cold. Ruined them..." she trailed off.

Oooh, she thought. "Elizabeth, you're not a failure. You're a wonderful parent, and the fact that you're so sad about it proves that."

"Still failed," she mused. "Once, twice, can't try thrice. Can't dare."

"Are you afraid that you'll mess up your family again? N-Not that I'm saying you messed it up before, it was the humans that attacked you. But, um..."

"Afraid of that," she rasped. "No success, doomed to failure." Elizabeth's rasping echoes seemed to dim by the second.

"Greene," she cooed. "You won't fail. Did you have anypony to help you on your world?"

She paused. Then, "No..."

"You have friends here, Elizabeth. Friends who care about you. Alright? You don't have to be afraid."

Suddenly, Elizabeth turned to Fluttershy and grabbed her. She grasped Fluttershy's withers with both of her scorching hands, and her small eyes burned into Fluttershy's. "Promise!" she hissed. Torrents of fear and hope and never-succeeded-never-never-never and I-can't-do-this-on-my-own battered Fluttershy.

"P-Promise what?" she stammered.

"Promise you'll help," she rasped intensely, echoes rising again. "Can't do this alone can't can't can't!" Elizabeth let go and relaxed, looking down. "Fluttershy... help."

She nodded instantly. How could she say no to that face? "I promise Elizabeth, I'll help you."

Greene's face lit up like the sun. "Will?!" she asked, as if not expecting that answer.

The pegasus nodded. "I will. I'll help you with your children, Elizabeth. Cross my heart," she said, performing the correct motions. "Hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Mercer

Red and black soared through the air as the predator glided. He restabilized his mass and landed with a heavy thud on the nearest rooftop, springing in an instant. With that leap he reached the other end of the housing complex. He grabbed the biomass inside of himself and made it lurch forward, sending him flying forward. His insides squirmed queasily at being forced to do that, but the moment his feet touched the building's wall that faded.

He dug in and in a gravity defying maneuver sprinted straight up. His prey hung limply from his right hand, swinging left and right as he continued his mad dash across the skyline of Manhattan.

He reached the top of the skyscraper, a trail of shattered glass in his wake. Alex Mercer flipped, his prey flipping with him. Once upon a time, he'd have to watch for helicopters up at these heights, but he'd shattered Blackwatch's power years ago. And while he kept his ear to the ground enough to know they'd started rebuilding, he'd put the fear of Zeus in the 'fearless' military branch.

He leaped off the skyscraper and spread his limbs as far as they'd go. He began shooting small amounts of himself out with immense force, so the biomass drain was unnoticeable but still generated lift. He knew that several of the New Yorkers below would have their smartphones out to take a video of the mysterious Monster of Manhattan, and he also knew that the resulting YouTube, FileFront and whatnot videos would get taken down within a few hours.

Too bad for the government that Dana kept a very good collection of the ones she found before they were taken down. She'd even compiled them on her laptop: The Hall of Alex, she called it. He had no idea how she did it - okay, he did, but that didn't make it any less impressive that she could constantly and safely save any videos of himself without looking for them as soon as they went up. Even if that method caught more than a few kids pretending to be him.

He landed on another building, and saw his destination one street over. Dropping into a nearby alley, he focused. He dissolved, the feeling of relaxing into a human-shaped mass of rippling black followed immediately by the moment of focus to assume to form of Theodore Anderson. He walked into the street, his quarry still dangling helplessly in his hands. Nobody gave him a second look, except for the angry drivers that swore at him and threatened him with death (Ha!) as he simply walked across the busy street.

Once in front of the building, he began to climb. Not his usual digging-fingers-into-bricks climbing, but rather finding footholds and ledges to use pull himself up. Several people took videos of him, but it would just go up as a video of some crazy parkour enthusiast. He slipped open the window and crawled in to his home, dragging his prey with him.

Walking over to the couch, he plopped the grocery bags in his right hand onto the coffee table. He wished it was Dana's turn to get groceries, but he had to concede that he could get them a hell of a lot faster than her. Besides, she could put them in the kitchen. In a flurry of red and black tentacles, he shifted back into the form of Doctor Alex Mercer and looked around.

As far as Manhattan apartments went, it wasn't too bad. After the Outbreak five years ago, with a final death toll of nearly 95% of Manhattan's population, it was fairly obvious that the cost of rent plummeted. A couple postmortem bank accounts later, he'd secured Dana and himself a halfway decent apartment. Upper East Side, a restroom and a shower (Only one of the inhabitants needed that, after all), walls a shade of alabaster white, with a view over Central Park, the trees slowly greening as spring dawned. Or at least there would be a view, if the apartment wasn't on the wrong side of the building.

Halfway decent.

He'd climbed into the living room, where a 3D TV was hung on the wall, and his keen eyes noted that it was tilted one thirty-fourth of a degree to the right. Across the TV was a well worn grayed out couch, with several springs broken. He most certainly did not break them by sitting on the couch and forgetting he weighed ten times more than a human on the best of days.

He walked into Dana's computer room, as she called it, and immediately got a bad feeling in his 'stomach'. The spartan room was a lot like the safe house she'd hidden in before that damned Leader Hunter got her, and he always looked once to the right, in case he heard that tell tale rumble a second time. The walls were almost bare, and the paint was chipped. There were a few photographs of him and Dana taken in a photo booth, after she'd threatened him with a squirt gun. The only light after he closed the door behind it came in the form of undulating light from Dana's laptop, but that was more than enough for him to see everything in detail.

There wasn't much detail to see. There was a black swivel chair with the stuffing falling out, and a mahogany table he'd gotten with his stolen/inherited bank account. The table was occupied by several empty soda cans, and laptop showing some website about various news organizations. The chair was occupied by the one thing that mattered to him more than his own well being.

"I'm back," he said.

The swivel chair snapped around to face him. "Jesus Christ, Alex! You scared the shit out of me. Again." Dana exclaimed, one hand clasped over her heart.

He winced like a kicked puppy. "Sorry," he muttered to the ground.

She waved it off. She'd gotten used to it over the past five years. "It's alright, I should be used to it by now. You're just doing what you always do." She turned back around and muttered under her breath, "Sneaking around like a fucking creep."

He winced again. "Sorry."

"Look, it's alright." She clicked something, and the page changed to a more reddish hue. "Anyway, I got this offer from Fox - "

"And you're going to take up another story about how the military needs to do something about 'The Monster of Manhattan?'?" he asked skeptically.

"Oh Zeus," said a sickly sweet voice from all around him. "Don't be so critical. Not everything revolves around you, after all."

He whipped his head around, until he spotted the source of the sourceless voice laying down on a wall.

Laying down on a wall.

He was a little boy, maybe six or eight. He had sandy blonde hair, a little on the long side but still short enough to not be criticized. He wore a white button-up shirt three sizes too large, greyish-tan jeans, and no shoes. He laid against the wall as if it were the floor, with a hand raised in front of him as he inspected it, turning it back and forth. This little fucker was the source of the bad feeling in Alex's gut, a vibrating pull as if the small figure were so immensely powerful he created his own gravitational field.

"Really," Pariah said, his voice again coming from every direction at once, even though Alex saw his mouth moving. "You go out and brutally murder a few thousand people, and you get the status of terrorist, monster, and creepy guy. You become the goal of all evolution on Earth, nobody says a thing!" Pariah threw his arms back, which in his position corresponded to up, in exasperation. "There's no justice in the world."

Alex rubbed his temples through his hood. It would be nice to pretend Pariah's talking gave him a headache, but not even humans could get headaches from talking to other humans. All the same, he rubbed his imaginary headache away. "There's no justice in the world because nobody's heard of you," he snarled. "A fact that you were quite adamant on keeping true."

Pariah rolled his glowing purple eyes. Both Mercers had silvery blue eyes. Dana's were simply that color, while Alex's flickered with inhuman malice. But Pariah's lavender irises simply smoldered, like pastel cigarette butts. "Yeah yeah, and you wanted to hold me out to the world shouting 'Simba!', didn't you Lexi?" He flashed a beautific smile on his smug little face.

Alex bristled at that name. He fucking hated that name. He could just picture it. Sitting on a rooftop, looking down at the streets below. They call me a killer, a monster, a terrorist... Lexi.

God he hated that name. And no, he most certainly hadn't wanted to do that. When he'd first met Pariah, he had only intended to eat the little creep.

Pariah laid his hands along his lap and shook his head. Limply across the wall hung four black tendrils that extended out from the older viral abomination's back. One of them was held out - up for Pariah - and fiddled with a Rubik's Cube at the end, idly turning it this way and that. Dana thought they were creepy as all hell, calling them 'Some Slenderman shit'.

Alex just thought they looked stupid.

"Oh, Alex," Dana said, distracting him from his one-sided glaring contest with Pariah. "Check this out before I leave. You too, Parry."

Pariah stiffened, and all four of his tentacles reached out to their full Slenderman-y extent. He stood 'up' from the wall, looking 'up' at Dana. He flung the Rubik's Cube into a corner. "I told you never to call me that!"

"Yeah yeah. I wanna show you this before I gotta get to work." She clicked the play button, and the video started. It was another one of those 'fail compilations' she liked so much. Dana apparently, in her spare time, found sadistic pleasure in the failure and agony of other human beings.

... screw genetics, they really were siblings.

After a few minutes of Dana laughing maniacally, and Pariah snerking, the video ended. Both turned to him expectantly. The silence was filled by the whispered memories of those he'd consumed.

"Um, it was..." Damn it, if he said he didn't like it, Dana would make the Disappointed Face. Anything but the Disappointed Face. "... funny?"

Apparently that was enough for Dana. She smiled broadly, and instantly it was like the sun shone in the small room. "I'm glad you liked it!" She pulled herself out of her chair and began to search for her business clothes. "Anyway, I gotta get down to the station. Apparently there's something going on in Germany - "

"Have fun," Pariah said, still pretending gravity was sideways for him. Of course, Alex knew how he did it; he clung to the walls in the same way when he ran up walls, and the rest was just moving his limbs carefully.

"Remember," Mercer said as she opened the door, letting in light from the rest of the apartment. "If you find any leads..."

Dana's face turned grim. "Alex, I know you're worried, but face it. She's not back."

"But I can't hear her anymore!" he countered. "Everyone else I've eaten - " Dana cringed. Damn. " - I can hear, but I can't hear her anymore. That means she's back!"

"Or that she's really gone now," she said. "Alex, I know you really don't want to take any chances, but face it. Greene's not exactly the kind of person to lay low. It's been a month. If she were alive, we'd know about it."

"Dana's right, brother." Pariah's face turned worried. "Mother's not alive. She took out eighty percent of Manhattan in a week and a half, and that was at an exponential rate. If she is back, then she's nowhere we can get to her or she can get to us. Let it go."

Alex Mercer growled, red and black flickers warping around his body. But, but Elizabeth Greene! The one who'd taken Dana and nearly infected her! The one who'd tried to destroy the world and enslave humanity to her will. The one opponent he'd ever fought - really fought, not suffered from like the Parasite or run from like the nuke - that had ever gotten him close to death! How could he let it -

He saw the look of genuine concern on Dana and Pariah's face. He growled, but relaxed and stopped his tendrils. "Fine, fine." Then he looked at Pariah. "Get off the wall."

"Of course, Zeus. I know how uncomfortable that makes you." And then Pariah jumped and 'landed' on the ceiling, upside down. His four tendrils hung in a cluster along his back, but they were going up by Alex's perspective, not down like gravity wanted them to.

Dana laughed, and Alex growled, forming his claws and facepalming with them. "... I should've left you with Blackwatch." He really shouldn't have been complaining. When he first tracked down Pariah, he'd expected him to be a psychopathic Runner like his mother, Mother. Instead, he'd gotten the most powerful being on the planet to be his ally and, more importantly, protect Dana. But...

"Aww, I love you too Zeus," said his voice from all directions.

... on the other tentacle, Pariah was a prick.

Dana laughed again. "Alright, alright. I really do have to leave now." Pariah let go of the ceiling and landed on the ground like normal people. "Try not to destroy the island while I'm out."

Pariah wrapped his arm around Alex's waist and pulled the younger virus to him, who instantly glowered beneath his hood. "Don't worry Dana, we'll be good. Scout's honor," he said, making the gesture.

Alex snarled. "... take your arm off or I'm ripping it off." Pariah tightened the grip and leaned his head onto his side, making Alex glower lower.

Dana rolled her eyes, her coat concealing her home clothes, wallet in her pocket. "Fucking viruses," she sighed, and then she opened the door into the hall and swept out.

Alex waited ten seconds for her to get out of earshot. He changed his claws to a thick mass of gray muscle and backhanded Pariah away from him. Before Pariah could slam into the wall, he air dashed forward, the momentum canceling out and letting him drop to the dead-sunflower color carpet soundlessly.

"You wound me, Zeus." Pariah's body flickered with black tendrils - not red and black like Mercer's own, just black - and a hole opened in his chest where a human's heart would be. "Deeply wound me," he said in a strained voice before closing the void.

"Oh fuck off Pari - " He cut off, his arms turning back to normal. There was... a sensation. A feeling in his gut, like when he'd been hit by a thermobaric missile by that bastard Taggart. It was the feeling that somewhere, somehow, something utterly horrible was about to happen and there was nothing he could do about it.

Pariah looked worried, his back tendrils slightly raised. "Zeus? Are you alright?"

"I think so," he said, staring off into space. "It's strange. I don't know why, but all of a sudden I have a strong urge to comfort small horses."

Making the Future

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Greene

The time had come.

At long last, this short, second Time for Waiting had come to an end.

She snapped her eyes open and pulled her sleeping-cocoon back inside. Yesterday, she'd been filled with burning, nervous energy and later, crushing depressing self hatred and doubt, and then even later, thanks to Fluttershy, happiness and hope. Now, however, there was only cold too cold purpose and Reason.

She walked inside to Fluttershy's house and noticed that the equine was still asleep. Grabbing a nearby piece of paper, she - using her nails - scratched/tore a message.

Fluttershy,

Going to Canterlot, raise family. Speak with alicorns. Invite you later.

Be safe, worry not,

Elizabeth Anne Greene

She place the letter on the bedstand and turned around. She descended the flight of stairs and turned to the right. There was the dress dress dress Rarity had made her, plastered to the wall with tendrils. She briefly debated taking it with her, even if not to wear, but no. Not yet. She had something to do.

She left the cottage, ignorant of the animals scurrying around, and set her sights on Canterlot. With a push of her feet she was off, tearing up the dirt behind her as she charged at a casual place towards the mountain. Even at a light jog, she crossed the distance rapidly, and within minutes she was tearing up the mountain and bounding into Canterlot.

Once in the unicorn nest, she stopped moving. Many of the equines around her stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her. Pieces of currency remained on tables. A child's tongue just inches away from ice cream. A pegasus had been on his hind legs, ready to fly, but now stood suspended.

She smiled at them warmly. "Hello," she rasped, making many of them wince as her voice echoed around the street. She found the new Blessing within her and began to emit it in invisible amounts, filling the air around her with it. She looked up at the castle and began to walk there at a slow, leisurely pace. Equines she passed stop to look at her, then as she passed returned to their business. She made sure to walk next to the densest groups, occasionally bumping into them by accident. It didn't matter.

She exited lower Canterlot and entered upper Canterlot, where the 'nobles' lived. By then, she could feel her Blessing clinging to a few hundred equines, felt it pulsing in her veins and her mind. She reached out to those seeds and stroked them. 'Not yet,' she told them, making them only sit in the equines' bodies. Not change them yet. 'Wait for all, wait for command.'

The nobles were a bit more reluctant to approach her. They whispered nervously about her, and she could smell their fear. Elizabeth didn't let it deter her. She spread her Blessing among them as well, keeping it subdued. To her delight, their bodies didn't start rejecting it like they had last time. Instead, her Blessing simply sat in them, dormant. Waiting. Like her.

She didn't go straight for the castle. She made several rounds around Canterlot, lower to upper to lower back to upper, her Blessing seeping through the air around her, picked up by the winds and blown around the nest. Much of it didn't find anyone, instead falling to the ground outside the city, but she was rapidly Blessing them and that made her so happy happy happy! A hundred, five hundred, a thousand, fifteen hundred. She remembered reading, when she first arrived, that Canterlot had a population of five hundred thousand. It wasn't that much; she'd seen three times that on the island city back on the Similar world.

But it'd be a start.

She found herself in a market square, equines exchanging worthless items for items with worth. She sat on a bench and extended a web of tendrils beneath her feet, into the ground, and spread them out beneath the stones. She made the tendrils poke up from the ground and touch the bottom of several clothed equines' hooves, but instead of pinching away a piece of their fur for essence like she would've in the not-so-recent past, she sent her Blessing through her feet, into the tendrils, and up into the equines. Two thousand.

The market square she was in was decently busy, extremely busy, so she remained there for a while, using the system of webs she'd created to repeatedly Bless equines as they came and went. Three thousand. Four thousand. Five thousand. That was one percent of Canterlot ready.

As the sun continued to creep up from early morning to late morning, she found her seat besieged by newsponies.

"Elizabeth Greene, why have you returned to Canterlot for the first time in a month?"

"How do you feel about having your blood used to make medicine?"

"Any comments on the upcoming Equestrian Games?"

She sat still, blinking through the initial barrage of questions just as she had the first time. Once it was done, she pointed at one of them, a female unicorn. "Question?" she asked her, retracting her warmth and standing up.

"Er, yes. Eyewitnesses have reported seeing you in Cloudsdale last week, for a performance by the Wonderbolts. What is your opinion of the aerial group?"

She shrugged. "Good at flying, bad at flying, wouldn't know. Impressive still." She patted the equine on the head, Blessing her directly on top of the Blessed air wafting around her.

"What do you think about the upcoming elections for mayor of Hoofington?"

"Don't think anything about," she rasped, patting and Blessing the male pegasus.

"Are you currently involved with anypony romantically?" asked another.

She shook her head no, idly Blessing that unicorn. She went through each newspony, answering their questions and Blessing them in turn. As time passed, she eventually was free of them. She looked up at the castle. It'd be Noon very soon. Time to give Celestia the first part of her repayment.

She leaped and bounded her way to the castle, diffusing her Blessing into the air behind her as she went. There was the castle, and the gate, it was... closed. And there was a line. She walked up to the end and looked down at the equine right infront of her.

"Line? Why?" she rasped and echoed.

He stiffened, and turned around. He was an earth pony, dark blue primary color, bright green secondary color, and a mark of two masks; one smiling, one laughing. This equine, like many in Canterlot, wore clothes over his front half. Elizabeth couldn't make heads or tails out of his red/white striped outfit. "O-Oh," he said, looking up steadily. "Oh my."

"Line? Why?" she repeated.

"It's N-Noon Court s-soon," he stammered as if it explained everything, shivering in his hooves. When she didn't stop looking into his brown eyes, he continued. "There's a line to see Princess Celestia, she can't possibly attend to everypony at once." He turned around and looked at the line of - she counted for a moment - seventeen equines before him. "You're actually quite lucky, usually it's much busier." He tilted his head. "Or maybe it's the Midnight Court."

"Understand," she responded. While she waited, she sent more tendrils through the ground, Blessing every equine in the line before her. The moment the blinding sun reached the top of the sky, a voice announced the beginning of the Noon Court and hearing petitioners and the line was moving. One by one, the equines walked forward after being 'announced', and after a few minutes the line moved forward again and the process repeated. Greene took the opportunity to dance through the bodies of those she'd Blessed, feeling her gift pulsing inside of their flesh, waiting for her command. She turned around, facing a substantial line behind her, and blinked.

When she opened her eyes, everything was red once more, sound muted and herself blazing a brilliant, dazzling white. She'd left a trail of yellow mist behind her, and even from this distance she could see those she'd Blessed, her Blessing sitting inside of their bodies as globs of yellow, giving red-Canterlot a faint orangish tint to it. She blinked again and brought her vision back to normal. It was her turn now.

"Announcing - " The pegasus guard blinked, before shouting into a contraption. "Elizabeth Greene, ambassador to the Evolved!" A moment later, she heard someone repeat that inside. A moment later the gates opened, and Elizabeth strode in to the Noon Court.

Celestia was just as she'd remembered, magic and flowing mane and all. She sat on her throne, looking at her with wide eyes. "Elizabeth, it's good to see you."

"Good to see you," she said with a slight incline of her head, smiling.

"Indeed! Tell me, why have you come to court?" Celestia's gaze turned stern. "Has something happened? I heard about what happened in Cloudsdale - "

"Want to repay," she corrected, cutting off the alicorn. Several of the guards gasped, but she ignored that. "Was kind to me, want to give back."

Celestia laughed. "Oh, I appreciate the gesture, Elizabeth, I truly do. However, I'm afraid Noon Court is for ponies - or in your case, Evolved - who have an issue they wish to address with me."

"Is an issue," she explained. "Issue is want to give gift. Blood again."

Celestia's eyes widened at blood, but then the smart alicorn must've understood what she meant, and gave a small smile. "I am very happy to hear that Elizabeth, but I'm afraid I am busy right now. If you'll wait in that hall until Noon Court is done," she explained, extending her right wing and pointing towards an adjacent corridor. "I will happily come with you to Doctor Lymph's work station then."

"Will wait," she said, dashing into that hallway with a clap of air. She leaned against a wall and extended a small amount of her warmth, and waited. She heard, in the background, the rest of the Noon Court being discussed, but paid no real attention to it.

Then, there was the clip-clop of hooves in metal, and Celestia stood next to her.

It was refreshing to look at someone at eye eye eye level again.

"Right this way, Elizabeth," she said with a smile. "I have already sent the summons for Doctor Lymph to meet us." Elizabeth fell into stride next to the older of the alicorn sisters, and soon they were once again the infirmary. A large white place, equines moving about, the smell of machines and liquid-not-water and illness. She passed beds, seeing that there were a lot more equines resting in them than she'd seen before, so she spread her Blessing to them as well.

Celestia was constantly being Blessed, but she was just as fast purging it from her body. Just as well.

The alicorn lead her to the same room she'd first been - tested - on in Equestria. And just like then, Doctor Lymph was there. Unicorn male with dark brown fur, pale gray secondary, clothes that she'd concluded, after seeing Ponyville's hospital, were 'doctor' clothes, and a white splatter as his mark.

He bowed to Celestia, rose, and then smiled warmly. "Hello, your highness. Hello to you too, Elizabeth."

"... hello," she said coldly, Blessing the unicorn as she did so.

"On behalf of the Royal Pathogen and Vaccine Research division, thank you for your time, Elizabeth." His smile broadened. "I am very thankful you decided to give blood again." He frowned. "Will... you be okay with it?"

Elizabeth stiffened as he grasped an iron and glass needle in his muddy move-thought. "N-Not okay," she admitted. "Needles bad..."

Celestia's golden magic overtook Doctor Lymph's. "Elizabeth," she said soothingly. "Do you want me to take the sample?"

"Yes," she hissed, as stiff as a board. This was for Celestia, she reminded herself as she closed her eyes. This was for Celestia, she reminded herself as the needle prodded against her left hand, where she weakened the flesh to let it in. This was for Celestia this was for Celestia this was for Celestia this was for Celestia it was over.

She opened her eyes and looked at her hand, the tiny wound already gone. The needle, now filled with a small amount of her blood, floated over to Doctor Lymph, who took it in his own magic. He nodded to her. "Thank you very much, Elizabeth." He looked at the alicorn in the room. "I'll get this down to analysis right away, your highness."

"Please do, Doctor Lymph," Celestia said. The unicorn trotted out of the private room, the door swinging shut behind him. "I'm very proud of you, Elizabeth," she said.

"How so?" she asked.

"I know of your past experiences with needles, I know it must've been difficult to do this." Elizabeth opened her mouth, but Celestia answered the question already building repeats in her throat, holding up a hoof to cut her off. "Twilight wrote me a letter, she was very concerned about you. I hope you do not hold it against her?"

"Can't, wrote to you," Greene admitted with a gesture of her hand. "Trust you."

A wide smile appeared on Celestia's face. "Thank you, Elizabeth. It means much to know that. If I may ask, what precisely are you doing in Canterlot? I imagine it wasn't just to give us a second sample of your blood."

"Repay you," she said, her echoes intensified in the small room. "Did so so so much for me, pay back. Blood first part of gift. Second part comes later." Elizabeth tilted her head and frowned. "When can I speak with Luna?"

Celestia smiled. "She'll have a moment free after Midnight Court ends, I'll tell her you were looking for her at dinner. Until then, I hope you enjoy your stay in Canterlot."

Elizabeth smiled and nodded. "Will be at end of Midnight Court line," she promised. Internally, she checked her Blessing. Five percent, good good good. "See then." She tilted her head. "Goodbye, Celestia. See later."

"Farewell, Elizabeth," she said. Then Greene dashed out of the infirmary, saturating the air with her Blessing as she did.

She got lost in the castle, of course, but two kind kind kind 'servants' showed her the way out, and she Blessed them in return. Once out of the castle, she climbed to the top of the mountain.

Stones still rolling down the slope where her powerful legs had shattered the cliff, she gazed out around Equestria. In some places it was cloudy. In some places it was sunny. She thought she could see Cloudsdale. She looked down the hill at Canterlot, and smiled. Her Blessing was spreading quite rapidly; the pieces of it drifting about in the air eventually reached an equine, and she kept emitting more of it, so things were very very very good.

She curled over, placing her hands over her stomach. Power boiled inside of her, around her, through her. Her body burned, and as the fire rose to her head she placed her hands over her throat as if she were choking, small droplets of blood flying from her mouth. She writhed for a moment more before she shot her arms to the side and released her Blessing. Had any equine been looking up, they would've seen a small red cloud erupt atop Canterlot's mountain, swiftly dispersing in the wind, but her eyes saw none doing so.

Her Blessing slowly drifted down the mountainside, but Greene was faster. She charged back into Canterlot and resumed her leisurely stroll, Blessing anyone she saw. Ten percent. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty. The sun set and the moon rose, and she continued.

There were much fewer equines out once darkness had set, which always confused her. The night time was so much better. It was the perfect level of light, no blinding burning sun always in the corner of your vision, trying to blind you. If anything, it would make sense to sleep through the day. Oh well, it did not matter. By the time the half-moon reached its pinnacle, and she waited at the back of the line for Midnight Court, she'd gotten fifty percent, and each Blessing was holding back. As new equines arrived, she gestured them ahead of her.

She was starting to feel the effort of that, actually. She'd never done anything quite like this, but for the alicorn sisters it would be worth it. It wasn't hard to hold a quarter million seeds of her Blessing back, but it did take effort, and she could certainly see it becoming hard by the time she'd Blessed all of Canterlot.

"We regret to inform you," a night-type guard said, reading from a scroll his horn floated. "That Midnight Court has reached its conclusion. If your petition was not answered, we ask you attend next night's Midnight Court, or tomorrow's Noon Court, for a resolution." There was a lot of grumbling from the equines, and even one that shouted and argued with the guards that reinforced why she was spreading her Blessing. Within the span of five-maybe-ten minutes, she was alone in the castle courtyard, save for guards.

There was a rush of wind, and someone landed behind her. She whipped around to see Luna who was, like Celestia, exactly how Elizabeth remembered her. She smiled broadly. "Elizabeth Greene, it brings us great joy to see thou!"

"Good to see," she responded in kind, smiling. She liked Luna. She made the sky not-too-bright.

"Come, come!" Luna said, taking to the skies and flying to one of the castle's towers. Elizabeth followed after her, leaping and running up walls, until they arrived. She remembered the spot. It was the same place Luna and her had spoken, so many weeks ago. She placed her hands on the railing and coated it in two splotches of red flesh. "We see thou art just as fast as we remember!" boasted Luna. She sat down. "We must ask, why hast thou asked to see us? Our sister did not mention much, it is plain she hoped thou would inform us?"

"Gift," she explained. "Did so much for me, kind kind kind, pay back." She looked out at the city beneath them and smiled. "Gave blood for Celestia, give blood for you."

"... we do not understand, thou wishes to enlist in the Royal Guard? Granted, reports of thy abilities would certainly make thou a valuable soldier. Likely why nopony in the echelons of politics has tried to take advantage of thou, now that we think about it."

"No no no, not soldier never soldier," she rasped, backing away and shaking her head furiously. "Blood test first day, wing cancer cure from. Blood at noon for Celestia, blood for you now," she explained.

"Ah, we see." Luna looked down and, under her breath whispered, "A pity, thou would hath been a most valiant guard. There would hath been epics about thee." She looked back at Elizabeth and shook her head, the night-sky-mane sending a sprinkle of stars flying out. "In any case come! We shalt teleport us to the infirmary to proceed with the extraction of blood!" Luna's horn lit up with blue magic, and Elizabeth braced herself -

- she never could have been ready for teleporting. She stumbled as she briefly lost her balance, breath hitching. They were back in the same room, but it was empty and dark which was good. Luna's move-thought produced a needle from a drawer and menacingly floated it to Elizabeth. She winced and stepped backwards.

The needle stopped and Luna's face softened. "Apologies, our sister informed us of thy past history as well. We shalt be careful Elizabeth, thou hast our word." Elizabeth relaxed and allowed the needle to approach, again softening the flesh in her hand. She looked away as Luna did the deed, and relaxed immediately afterward. "We art done. We thank thee, Elizabeth." Luna stepped forward and clasped her on the back with a wing, making Greene hiss and jump backwards, writhing with red and white.

"Don't touch!" she hissed indignantly. Only Fluttershy got to touch her! Noone else, not even Celestia and Luna. Maybe Cadance.

"Apologies, Elizabeth," Luna said while raising a foreleg to her chest. "As we were saying, we thank thee, Elizabeth, for aiding us in making life easier for our little ponies."

She smiled. "See you later," Elizabeth said, heading to the door.

"Oh?" Luna asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking. "Thou can't stay for lunch? We art wounded, Greene."

"Things to do, see later." She pushed open the door and paused, looking back. "... goodbye." Then she was gone.

She kept at it, spreading her Blessing to the equines of Canterlot throughout the night until the sun rose once more, by which point she had seventy percent. When she blinked her eyes and the world turned red, Canterlot was a delightful shade of orange, like Applejack's coat. She ran around Canterlot, looking for her destination... there!

She landed on a building just outside the Beethooven Concert Hall. She could hear equines talking within it, and smelled the Holy-Child-Eyes one. What had been her name? Octavia Philharmonica? Yes yes yes, that was right. She formed a little seat with her warmth and reclined in it, filtering out the background sounds of Canterlot and focusing her tremendous hearing into the building. There was the talking of many equines there, as she had expected. She really couldn't be surprised; it was very good music. Still, she sorted through the chatter-braying sounds until she heard what she wanted.

An equine bellowed within, and the others went silent. From her seat, Elizabeth smiled. The typical greetings, saying the not-important name of the music and the not-very-important names of the players. And then it started and...

... she swayed, her eyes slipping shut. Like before, it was good good good music. The parts Listened to each other, flowed and jumped and hurried and slowed. She really liked this music, and the brass instruments bellowed with great strength even from her distance, she could hear the music so well well well even outside the Beethooven Concert Hall!

The intermission came and went.

She slipped a tendril down the building, through the concrete, and into the Concert Hall, where she then began to divide it out. She poked a good fifty portions of her warmth out of the marble, and forced them to release small, unseeable puffs of her Blessing into the building before she pulled them back. It wouldn't do to scare the equines; after all, large amounts of her Blessing did look like blood, and that made the equines scared and that made her sad.

The music went on.

She mentally counted seventy five percent. She was making good progress. Though it was getting getting getting annoying to hold her Blessing back; she was so tempted to just release it and let it do its work, the Reason for everything she did, and save those who'd been kind to her of the burden of free will. But no. She had to do this right, she owed it to the alicorn sisters.

At length the music, much to her disappointment, ended. She stood and pulled the last bits of her warmth back inside her skin and suit, then scanned the crowd for Octavia Philharmonica.

Nothing. She leaped to another building. Nothing. Another building. Nothing. Another building. There! In a single bound she reached the earth pony, shattering the ground beneath her and making the equine jump, almost dropping the case on her back.

"Octavia Philharmonica," she greeted.

"O-Oh," she said with a breath, holding a forehoof to her chest. "Miss Greene, you startled me. I did not see you at the performance, so I didn't assume you were in Canterlot."

"Was. Outside, listen."

Octavia Philharmonica frowned. "I appreciate you coming, ambassador, but it would've been much more appreciated had you paid for a ticket and supported our ventures."

"Currency strange," she said with a frown. "Don't understand. Metal useless. Not important. Said would Bless when back."

Octavia Philharmonica took a moment to think about what she'd said. "Oh! Oh yes, I do recall. I am most honored that you would Bless me, Miss Greene."

She nodded, giddy, and reached out a hand to the equine's forehead. She pushed a small amount of her warm Blessing into her, and pulled the hand away. "Done done done," she said airily, tensing her legs. She could've always just effused a small amount into the air and let that Bless her, but that felt so... impersonal.

"Oh no, please stay a while," she said, and Elizabeth relaxed her muscles. For the Holy-Child-Eyes equine, she would. "Do tell, what brings you to Canterlot?"

"Celestia and Luna kind kind kind when I arrived, pay back. Chance to see you listen to music."

"Hmm, that is quite understandable," she admitted. She winked. "I'll let it slide... this time. However if you want to listen to one of my performances, please do pay the fee for a ticket. It may not make sense to you, but rest assured bits do make life... much easier for us."

Elizabeth sighed, but nodded. It didn't matter, really. If everything went well, Octavia Philharmonica would never have to do another performance again to take care of herself. She'd miss miss miss the music, but it was a small sacrifice. "See later," she rasped before leaping away. She landed on another roof and sprung away, flipping twice in mid air before landing in a roll, seeking a high spot so she could see Canterlot and where she had yet to spread her Blessing. Seventy eight.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

The second day came and went with ninety-five percent. During the second night of her stay in Canterlot, she'd managed to raise the amount of Canterlot she'd Blessed even higher. Of course, by the end of that it'd been getting harder, since she Blessed the majority and it was hard to get those who remained. Still, she'd gotten a very large amount, and there were always equines coming to Canterlot and leaving Canterlot, so she'd be satisfied with almost one hundred instead of one hundred.

Besides, once she stopped holding back her Blessing, the stragglers would also be Blessed.

She stopped radiating her Blessing into the surrounding air as she perched on the highest of the castle's towers. She gazed out at a red world. The sound of flapping night guard wings was almost inaudible. Once or twice she'd gotten a strange look by them, and she looked back at them and the yellow light sitting patiently in their veins. All of Canterlot was lit up, and it warmed her heart to see that.

Ninety eight.

She hadn't met either of the alicorns tonight or yesterday, but that was fine fine fine. She'd already given them the first part of their present, and now she could finally give them the second part of her gift.

Canterlot, fixed.

None of the equines' magical anythings seemed to detect her Blessing, which wasn't a surprise or a concern, since it was unlike anything they'd ever witnessed. Either way, it was almost almost almost time to begin. She felt giddy and nervous. Should she do this? She knew that some of the equines would be angry, fearing that which was different, just as she heard they had feared Zecora.

But just as it went with Zecora, it would go with her. They'd fear her change, and then they'd understand it wasn't bad.

Still, she couldn't help but feel a little fear and self hatred. This was irresponsible of her. They were happy enough, and not everything that was broken had to be fixed. But... she owed it to them. She couldn't just stand by and let them suffer through omission. And she had Fluttershy to help her. Fluttershy. Everything would be alright. She'd write Fluttershy a letter, run to her house tomorrow night, and place the invitation to Canterlot there.

Ninety nine. The moon set and the stars were washed away.

She took a deep breath and looked to the horizon. It was very dark, and cold, and lonely. Despite the throb of her Blessing in her veins and the effort to hold back the five hundred thousand instances of it, she felt lonely. Not not not for long. Nobody would ever be lonely again. Not while she drew breath. Ninety nine percent was close enough. It was time to begin.

The first rays of the sun broke over the horizon.

Elizabeth Anne Greene stopped holding back.

The Monster and the Mother

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DAY 1 OF INFECTION: 8% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Celestia

Vast amounts of alicorn magic wreathed Princess Celestia's horn as she finished tugging the sun over the horizon and, with one last nudge, sent it on its path. She extinguished her blazing horn and nodded. She could already feel it; it was going to be a beautiful day. It was a shame Luna wasn't here today, but she had prior engagements. They could meet up at breakfast. Or dinner. The distinction was getting quite blurred with her sister back.

She turned around and left the balcony behind, returning to her private chambers. A flick of her magic straightened her bed, put out the candles, and floated her list of today's events towards her. Breakfast with Luna, a meeting regarding tax revisions with a representative from Hoofington, Noon Court followed by her lunch break, a meeting with Doctor Lymph, another meeting with a representative of the ETRF. Then it was paperwork, followed by dinner, then lowering the sun, and then sleep.

A fairly light day, all things considered. Those were becoming more common; it warmed her heart to see Luna stepping back into her role after so long. She pulled her regalia off her nightstand and floated the pieces on before stepping out of her chambers into the hallway leading to them.

The two Solar Guards that had stood guard to her room wordlessly filed to her sides. She knew better by now than to try to make small talk with her guards; they took their duty very seriously, for which she was grateful, but they could stand to lighten up at times.

As she completed the short trot to her and Luna's private dining room, she sniffed the air. It smelled a bit... off. Likely her imagination. After all, she'd been dreaming of dancing pine trees before she awoke...

She found Luna already at the table, a stack of buttered waffles drizzled with syrup on her plate, happily munching away.

"Greetings, Tia!" she shouted. Celestia idly closed the door behind her with her magic, the guards taking their posts next to the ones already there. "A most glorious morning thou hast brought," she continued as Celestia took her seat next to her. Her plate was already filled with a delectable bouquet, a cup of tea next to what she believed was a cup of coffee, and next to the flowers was a healthy heap of white rice, with peas and even a few kernels of corn.

"Morning, Lulu," she said, levitating her fork and spoon. She dove into her rice, saving the flowers for later. "So sister, how did the night go?"

"Most splendidly, Tia! Doctor Lymph hath told us that he shalt have an analysis of Elizabeth's blood for thee later in the day, and we hath reviewed Prince Blueblood's proposal for tax money redistribution concerning the upcoming Equestrian Games and found it most satisfactory." She paused and smirked. "With a few changes, of course." Luna took another sip from her cup. Was that hot chocolate Celestia smelled from it? She leaned down and sniffed her own cup. No, not coffee. Hot cocoa as well. Wonderful; it was getting rather cold these days with the approach of winter, doubly so since it was still early morning. She took a sip from the cup.

Divine.

The two sisters ate their breakfast/dinner at a leisurely pace, yet Celestia kept her schedule in mind. She relished the tea and the hot chocolate, as well as the vegetables. It was, as was all food prepared by the Royal Chefs, heavenly. As they ate, they spoke about important things. Things critical to ruling the nation.

" - so then he trips with the letters still in his hoof and they go flying everywhere!" Luna said through gasping breaths. "And he just looks up at us, blinks, down at the papers, up at us, blinks again, and says 'Oops'."

Celestia burst into laughter, almost sending tea out her nostrils. Oh, if her subjects could see her now. She slammed her forehooves on the table, gasping for breath as she finally relaxed, eventually wiping a tear from her eye. "Oh dear..."

Truly important things.

All too soon, Celestia finished her food and her beverages. She wiped her muzzle of any remaining pieces of food and yawned. "Well, I suppose I should get going."

"Indeed sister," Luna said. She finished slurping up the last of her waffles and dabbed away the syrup on her mouth. "Would not do to leave the representatives waiting." They both stood from the table and leaned in to nuzzle the other. "Good day to thee, Tia."

"Sleep well, Lulu," she said, pulling away. She lit up her horn and organized the plates and cups. She knew the servants would take them away to be cleaned, but that was no reason for it to be unnecessarily hard. "I wish you pleasant dreams."

"Indeed! Now, thou shalt get going lest thou be la-ate," she said sing-songishly before vanishing with a flash of blue and a crack of air rushing in to fill a void.

Shaking her head with a smile, Celestia strode over to the great double doors that lead from the room and opened them with a push of her hooves. As she did, and her guards took her side, she noticed they weren't as... steady in their hoofsteps. After passing a few servants - 'Good morning, Your Majesty' followed by 'Good morning to you too' - she stopped and turned to them.

"Sirs, you do not appear to be feeling well." She was concerned. Her guards were nothing if not stubborn. If they were ill, it would take a lot to convince them to take leave. Sick guards were no guards at all, to say nothing of their well being.

"It is nothing, Princess," said the one on the left. Who was that? She looked past the enchanted armor... ah, Clear Skies. "We are capable of protecting you."

She stepped forward and laid a fetlock on his forehead. "You're running a fever." She looked at the other one - Blue Skies, brothers - and repeated the process. "You too. What other symptoms do you have?"

"Your Highness, we're perfectly - "

She leveled a joking, half-glare at Clear Skies. "Do I need to make that an order?"

The guard sighed. "My throat is sore, my joints ache, it's cold, and I'm dizzy."

His brother replied, "Same for me," he said with a nod.

She frowned. "Sounds much like the flu. I highly recommend taking sick leave." She held up a hoof as they prepared to protest. "I understand you are worried about my safety, however I in turn worry about yours. We do not need you spreading it to everypony you meet. Sick guards are no guards at all," she said, repeating her thoughts from a moment before.

Blue Skies nodded. "Yes, Princess. We will place our armor at the barracks and retire to our homes."

She smiled. "Good. I will let the Captain know. Please, do take care of yourselves."

The two guards, after some prompting, trotted in front of her and around a corner. When they were gone, Celestia proceeded on her own. She didn't encounter anypony on her way to the meeting room, and so she simply pushed open the door with a flick of magic, walked in, and closed it behind her with a hoof.

This room was a perfect cylinder, patterned with red, gold, silver, and blue swirls. In the middle was a round table, piled high with several stacks of paper. Along the walls hung portraits and paintings from artists long gone, and across from her was another door. Two guards stood by each one, saluting or bowing to her as she entered.

"Please, relax," she said. Rather than look at the gently tick-tocking clock on the wall she briefly connected to the sun's power. It was... about five minutes before the representative had to arrive. She took a across from where he'd likely enter and waited. She flicked her gaze around the guards.

Their eyes were bloodshot, she realized. Not terribly bloodshot, but enough for her to notice. They also shivered ever so slightly in their armor. She frowned visibly. Was it flu season already? She resolved to make sure the Canterlot weather team didn't blow the winds so that germs would be caught by all.

At length, Logic Spending entered the room, ten minutes late. He was a steely gray earth pony with a black mane and tail that were both short, in contrast to his shaggy coat. He was getting on in his years, as she could tell by the streaks of white in his fur. His suit was ruffled, and she could see various pencils stuck inside a pocket.

He shivered and had bloodshot eyes.

"My apologies for being late, Princess Celestia," he said as he took a seat. He was a big pony. Not as big as Applejack's brother, but noticeable in a crowd. "I'm afraid I've not been feeling all that well today."

"Perfectly understandable," she said. Internally she couldn't help but feel the first hints of panic. Was everypony sick today? Whatever it was, could alicorns contract it? She was immune to most forms of disease, but she couldn't help but wonder...

... no, this was just the flu. Perhaps an extremely infectious case, but flu nonetheless.

"Of course." He ruffled through the stack of papers Celestia had arranged and labeled the day before, and pulled out the correct one. "Revenue for Hoofington is currently at 10% excess of what was expected, so I was thinking if we could..."

The meeting went on, Celestia paying as much attention to Logic Spending's ideas as she could. They were sensible ideas. A minor reduction in tax for the citizens that would still yield excess, and the excess would be sent to the Royal Treasury for distribution among the projects she and Luna oversaw. The exact numbers were, of course, what took up the majority of the time.

Every now and then, Logic Spending sniffed, sneezed, or produced a hoofkerchief from his suit and blew into it. It was probably for the best his seat was next to the wastebasket. Celestia asked him on more than one occasion if he was fine, but he insisted he was. Either way, his proposals were sound, and he didn't grovel like many others did, so his mind was still operating at full steam.

As the clock ticked on and Celestia sensed the sun rising closer to its zenith, the meeting drew to an end with the conclusion that it'd be better if they simply reduced the taxes overall for now, let the citizens have more bits in their pockets. "Thank you for your time, Princeh... ehh... achoo!" he said, trailing off by sneezing into his latest hoofkerchief.

"It was no problem, Logic. I hope you feel better soon." She got up from the table and was about to head to hold court when she stopped. "By any chance, when did you start feeling sick?"

"Just this morning, actually. Hit me pretty hard." He tossed the hoofkerchief into the bin.

"I see. And where have you been lately?"

"Just in Canterlot, the Flying Unicorn hotel. May I ask why?"

She waved a hoof. "Just out of curiosity. You are dismissed."

He gave a quick bow, and they parted ways. Celestia trotted at a brisk pace to her throne room, which was empty save for a few ill-looking guards and an ill-looking Sounding Voice.

"Hello, Princess," the mare said as Celestia sat in her throne. "Noon Court is ready to begin whenever you are."

She nodded. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Let the Noon Court begin."

The guard next to the doors listened outside for a moment. "Announcing Firm Ground and Tough Luck, concerning a legal clarification."

The doors opened, briefly revealing a line stretching outside that wasn't quite as long as it had been in years past. Two unicorns strode in, and they seemed to be polar opposites of each other. The stallion to Celestia's left had a pristine red coat and ruinous yellow mane, whereas the stallion to her right had a messy butter-yellow coat and flawless red mane. They bowed respectfully to her, and she held in a sigh. When would they finally understand they didn't have to do that?

"Please, rise. Before we begin, please tell me which of you is Firm Ground, and who Tough Luck is?"

The clean-red-coat stallion raised a hoof. "I would be Tough Luck, Your Highness." He gestured to the other. "This is my business partner, Firm Ground." Abruptly, Tough Luck sneezed, barely catching it with the foreleg of his suit. "Apologies, Highness." Oh no, she thought. Him too? "The two of us were wondering if it were legal for us to start up a company that sells insurance to insurance companies, in case they should fail."

"If you have the money to do such things, then there is no reason why it would be illegal." Her voice dropped. "However, keep in mind that should you not be able to do such, it would have... drastic consequences. In addition, insuring companies against failure could have repercussions through the market. It is not illegal per say, but I strongly advise you think it over."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," said Firm Ground. The minor issue settled, they left, and Noon Court progressed.

Celestia's panic slowly began to heighten. In between settling land disputes, approving weather plans that hadn't made it through the regular process, and explaining that this was not, in fact, 5 Whitesaddle Street, she saw that almost everypony was sick. It sorely distressed her. She had several ideas as to what was going on, and she liked none of them.

"... a thousand thanks, Princess Celestia," said the latest petitioner, leaving the city. Celestia blinked. Had Noon Court gone by so fast? Her mind was truly elsewhere. She hoped she hadn't said anything she'd later regret. That has been embarrassing in the past. Approving a parade in honor of lemons that could catch fire, what had she been thinking?

She mentally checked the position of the sun. "Please tell the petitioners outside that Noon Court has ended. If their issue was not addressed, they are welcome to return to tomorrow's Noon Court or to my sister's Midnight Court tonight. I must now take my leave."

Celestia rose from her throne and walked through the halls. After a quick lunch consisting of tomato soup and ample deserts, she found her hooves bringing her to the appropriate door at the appropriate time. The sign warned, 'Caution! Disease causing agents and ponies do NOT mix!'. She cast a quick spell to sterilize herself and stepped in. Doctors rushed about, albeit with more than a little lethargy. Celestia took one step, and the clip of her hoof against the marble floor made them stop and give bows or similar greetings.

She waved her left foreleg. "Please, do not stop on my account. I'm here to see Doctor Lymph. Could anypony direct me to him?"

"Well," somepony to her right said. "I'm not sure about that. After all, Doctor Lymph is crazy!" Celestia turned and smiled, seeing that the neighsayer was the good doctor himself and... and he was sick too. "Please Princess, step into my office," he said, leading her through the crowd of gazing ponies. Celestia looked at little vials out of the corner of her eyes, marked with letters and numbers such as GS17 and GS65.

Doctor Lymph's office was a little cube, and Celestia had to sit lest her horn puncture a hole in the low ceiling. He went behind his desk and pulled several sheets of paper out from a nearby folder. "I trust you figured out why I wanted to have this meeting with you?" he asked.

With a small bit of magic, she closed the door and granted them privacy. "I imagine it is for the two samples of Elizabeth's blood she was generous enough to provide?"

He nodded happily, betraying how terribly under the weather he looked. "Quite right! Has Luna explained to you how her blood works with her virus?"

"It mutates the strain in her flesh rapidly. Most of these variants are harmless, but one put you on a track to cure wing cancer." She smiled. "Excellent work on that, by the way. It does you and your peers credit."

He blushed. "It was nothing, Your Majesty. Once we had the strain it was quite easy to be honest - " She cut him off by raising a forehoof. "Oh, right. As I was saying, we've received interesting things from Elizabeth's new samples. Before, not including her base strain, we had thirty-eight strains of the Greene Virus. Now we have a hundred and thirty. Forty six from the one you took, forty nine from the one your sister took."

"No overlap?"

"None at all, Princess. I stand by what I said to Princess Luna; the viruses Elizabeth is creating could help us cure every ailment in existence! I'll go over Princess Luna's sample first since it's the most recent." His eyes briefly scanned the paper. "Most of Greene's strains are inert, utterly unable of doing anything, however Greene Strain one-hundred and fourteen is what we've taken to calling a Benevolent."

"I'm assuming it has given you a lead on how to cure another disease?"

"Quite right! This actually helped us with the feather flu. If we're right we should be able to cure the feather flu and all its variations, including some of the more... virulent ones." He shivered. "In any case, one of our scientist's foals have already been cured. It shouldn't be long."

"Stupendous development," she said. Though she wondered if the foal in question had agreed, and had known what was to be involved. Results were results, but anypony who told you the process was irrelevant was a foal. "And as to the blood sample I provided?"

Doctor Lymph's happy smile collapsed into a nervous smile. "Princess, remember how we said that sometimes Greene's viruses change from being inert? And that they may possibly become less than benevolent?" Her lips tightened. "Greene Strain seventy-five is a dangerous virus. We're not entirely certain what it... it..." His horn lit up and something white floated across Celestia's vision. "iiiiachoo! Sorry, Your Highness." He drifted the hoofkerchief into a trash can.

"Think nothing of it," she said stiffly.

"As I was saying, we're not entirely certain what seventy five is capable of, however initial magic scans indicate high fevers, lesions, and vomiting." That didn't sound like what was going on. There were fevers, but lesions? Vomiting? None... that she'd seen. She'd keep an eye out. "Luckily, it doesn't seem to have gotten out of the lab, and we've obliterated most samples of it."

"Most?"

"You must understand, it may end up useful for an as-of-yet unknown disease in the future. It'd be a waste to get rid of all of it. Rest assured, it is being kept under strict sanitary conditions, and the virus itself isn't very infectious. Virulent, certainly, but not infectious." Celestia breathed out a sigh of relief. "On a happier note, Greene Strain forty-five is another benevolent." Celestia's eyes widened. "Preliminary trails with medicine taken by adapting some of its mechanisms show great success against walking pneumonia."

"That is very good news, doctor."

"Indeed it is. Princess, with your permission we will, using Greene Strains forty-five and one hundred and fourteen to create cures for feather flu and walking pneumonia."

"Permission... belayed," she said sadly.

The unicorn's eyes widened. "W-What?!" he said loudly. "No disrespect, Princess, but - "

"Allow me to explain," she interjected. "I am well aware of the benefit these developments could bring and I will fully support them, but there are more immediate concerns. I have noticed that everypony I've met today save for my sister is sick with the flu, which I fear is reaching epidemic levels in Canterlot. The flu does not just spring up overnight in such a wide spread manner. You yourself are ill, are you not?"

"We take great precautions to make sure we do not spread any diseases we carry, if we carry them at all," he said flatly.

"I understand, but not everypony does. I fear it's all one illness, and I would like you to carry research into this disease and have a report ready for my sister by tonight."

"Oh," he said, ears flattening. "I understand, Princess Celestia. Berry in the hoof and whatnot."

She nodded gratefully. "Thank you for your understanding, Doctor Lymph. Make no mistake, I fully intend to endorse your projects with these two cures and send packets to our allies once the immediate danger has passed. Do understand however, that I am very worried. I hope you can resolve this issue as soon as possible. It may be a simple flu, it may not. Better to er on the side of caution."

"No no, thank you for your time, Princess. We'll get to work right away."

She smiled. "I know my sister and I can count on you and your colleagues, Doctor. If you'll close your eyes real quick?" He did so, and Celestia lit up her horn, vanishing into a nearby hallway.

"GWAH!" shouted the pony trotting before her. She'd been right on time with her teleport, apparently. "Y-Your Highness, you startled me," the unicorn said.

"I'm sorry, Counted Days, but I'm in need of a quick rescheduling. A matter of potential national importance has arisen."

"Of course," she said with a sniffle - not her too - before reaching into her saddlebags adorned with her cutie mark - a calendar with a few days crossed with red Xes - and pulled out... a calendar with a few days crossed with red Xes, along with many smaller scribbles. A pencil floated out of her black mane to float next to her head. "What do you need to move?"

"My meeting with the Equestrian Thaumatology Research Foundation," she said. "Cancel it or reschedule it, whichever fits."

"S-So quickly, Your Majesty?" she asked, her eyes wide and pencil lowering. "But it's only in a few - "

"Please, Counted," she told her schedule keeper. "This is very important."

The white-coated mare frowned, but a few scribbles later and she was done, floating the items back. "It's been canceled, Princess."

"Excellent. Please go inform the ETRF representative that an urgent matter has come to my attention and that I am unable to come." She turned around to begin her path, but paused and looked back at Counted. "And once that's done go to the Royal Kitchens, get yourself some hot soup, and take the rest of the day off to recover." She paused again. "That's an order."

Hearing a not-as-crisp-as-usual 'Yes Princess' behind her, Princess Celestia soon found a corridor where nopony was watching her. There were distressingly few guards; she feared many were on sick leave today. She needed to get a good assessment of the situation, but in order to do that she couldn't be stopped by citizens every ten hoofsteps asking for her autograph or blessing. Reaching into her magic and calling upon a spell - the same spell her sister used to transform herself every Nightmare Night - she began to shrink. Her wings and horn vanished, though the latter was still capable of magic even concealed. Her aurora-esque mane, blowing in the solar wind, flattened and shortened under gravity after turning a light pink. Cutie marks were almost impossible to alter, however it was trivial to layer an illusion spell on top of it to transform the sun into a sunflower.

There was only one thing left to do, and that was to teleport her regalia to her room. Had anypony walked by, they would've seen an snow-white earth pony with a horn-shaped yellow glow on their forehead teleport four pieces of metal into nowhere.

"Good," she said, before pausing. A moment of magic later, she spoke again. "Good, better," she whispered in a much higher tone of voice. She wove a temporary invisibility cloak around herself and teleported out of the castle, into the streets of Canterlot.

She arrived near a market square. There were few customers, but that was balanced out by the few sellers. She'd teleported to a roof to avoid any displacement complications, and with her invisibility still active it was easy to trot down to street level and reappear in an inconspicuous location. Once settled she took a deep breath through her nostrils.

Celestia frowned. The air smelled... stale. Something was off, and seeing that everypony on the streets was red-eyed and shivering, her suspicious were growing grimmer and grimmer. She checked the sun; she still had some six hours until dinner with Luna. That was plenty of time to get information.

She trotted around the streets of Canterlot, looking for somepony, anypony, who wasn't sick. The fruit vendor, sick. The street performer, sick. The guards at the gate, sick. Everypony getting on the train, sick. The doctor, sick. The musician, sick. Nopony wasn't sick!

What was worse was that, as time passed, they seemed to be getting worse. They shivered more intensely. Ponies rubbed their aching joints more often and the number of tissues in waste-bins climbed at an increasing rate. Drink vendors - also sick - had good business. Celestia was very, very worried. It seemed everypony in the city was sick. She didn't know if those outside Canterlot were also ill, but for the time being she had to get a hold on the situation.

Resuming her natural alicorn stature and teleporting her regalia to her from her chambers, she flew to the house where she could find her latest Captain of the Guard, a worried frown plastered on her muzzle. Something was terribly wrong with her little ponies, and she was going to contain the problem, get to the bottom of it, and fix things.

"Captain Shielded Heart," she said, rapping on the door with a hoof. When it failed to open, she let herself in to find the Captain sprawled out on his living room's sofa, fast asleep with a dribble of drool down his faded pink coat. "Captain Shielded Heart," she repeated firmly. He snorted and fell off his sofa, the off duty soldier sputtering and getting up. Sick.

"Uh, hello... Princess!" He immediately saluted upon seeing her, his red mane and tail both drenched in sweat. "My sincerest apologies - "

"Forgive my intrusion, but there is no time for that, Captain," she said firmly. "There is an epidemic in Canterlot, and everypony I've seen so far is afflicted." She summoned paper, a quill, and an ink well. In the air, she began writing. "Take this decree and guards to enforce it. Until the situation is once again in hoof, I am issuing a quarantine on Canterlot. Nopony leaves this city without express permission from myself or my sister."

His eyes widened, pupils collapsing as his blue irises shrank. "Y-Your Majesty! But what about trade routes, vacationers - "

"Captain, in the past twelve hours everypony in Canterlot has come down with the flu. Everypony. Something is dreadfully wrong, and we can not allow this disease to escape any further than it already has."

"Princess, if I may, it's just the flu."

"The flu is more than just a nasty cold, Shielded Heart," she said coldly. "Even with modern healthcare, ponies die to it. Go." She floated the paper over to him. "I have much to attend to before I lower the sun."

He saluted again. "It will be done, Princess." He lowered his hoof to his mouth to catch a cough.

"Captain," she whispered as she opened the door. "Take care of yourself." And then she was flying through the stale, withered air. She had so much to take care of. It would take time for Shielded Heart to mobilize the afflicted guard, so until then she had to take things into her own hooves...

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Luna

With a final tug, Luna pulled the third quarter moon over the skies. Utter darkness fell upon the world until she, after a moment of gathering her magic, summoned forth the incomprehensibly numerous, immeasurably distant stars. She took a moment to delight in her work, wrinkled her snout at the foul smell of the air, then trotted back inside. Her regalia was already affixed, and she walked with purpose through her starry bedroom, extinguishing the black flame of anticandles with flicks of magic. Princess Luna hummed a gentle tune as she walked towards her and her sister's private dining room. Tonight would be a good night, even though she hadn't yet looked at her schedule for the night.

"Greetings to thee, sister!" she bellowed as she stormed into the chamber. "What hath the Royal Chefs prepared for us tonight?"

Celestia sat stock still with an unreadable expression, not taking her eyes off Luna. On their plates sat multiple slices of buttered toast, perfectly browned. She could see that their cups held naught but water.

"Tia, what is the problem?" she asked gently, dropping her voice.

"Luna," Celestia began slowly and gently. "How are you feeling?"

"Feeling?" she asked, walking around the table and quirking a brow.

"Any dizziness? Nausea? Fever? Chills? Aches?"

Luna laughed, reaching her seat. "Celestia, we art not ill!" She sat down and eyed her breakfast. It was surprisingly plain for something coming out of the Royal Kitchens.

Her sister breathed out a sigh of relief. "Thank heavens. Oh Lulu, you would not believe the day I've had!"

"Chewed out by the ETRF?" she asked with a smirk.

"Canceled the meeting." Celestia bit a piece of one of her toast slices. Luna saw how drooped her eyes were, the way her left ear flopped, and heard her right forehoof tapping the floor. Time for Concerned Little Sister mode.

She scooted closer and wrapped her wing around her sister's shoulder. "Tia, what happened? Thou can - " She paused. "You can talk to me. What happened?"

Celestia sighed. "Everypony in the city is sick. I had to issue a royal decree; Canterlot is under quarantine. The Pathogen and Vaccine Research is looking into the cause; they should have an answer for you right after Midnight Court."

Luna frowned. "Define sick."

"It didn't start out as anything very alarming. My guards had a fever, some chills. I didn't think much of it; I told them to go on sick leave until they were better and that was that. But... everypony in Canterlot's come down with it, and while the sneezing and runny noses were fading by the time you raised the moon..."

"Getting worse?" she asked soothingly. Tia nodded briskly. "What hast thou been doing?"

"I've been relieving the symptoms of anypony I can, ease their suffering. I took part in enforcing the quarantine until the guard - they're sick too, by the way - could get into position. Then I came here, sent the Royal Chefs home to heal, and made us toast."

Luna withdrew her wing to munch on a loaf. "What splendid toast it is." Luna frowned. "What might cause such a thing to transpire in our fair city? Last night everypony was fine."

"That's what I don't get!" Celestia shouted. "Everything was fine! And then the entire city just all at once comes down with a disease I am increasingly certain is not the flu. I'm worried, Lulu. Who or what is doing this? How can we make it stop? How - "

"Shush, Tia!" Luna snapped after swallowing another bite. "Worrying thyself wilt do our little ponies no good. The night is young and the day is over; go and rest, Tia. Should any complications arise, we shalt handle them." She took a sip of water to help wash the toast down.

Celestia nodded, ears down. "You're right, you're right. I shouldn't worry." She smirked. "That's your job now."

Luna raised a hoof to the ceiling in false anger. "Curse thee, Tia! Thou hast outsmarted us!" She lowered her hoof and although Celestia didn't laugh she did smile.

Operation Concerned Little Sister successful!

They ate the rest of their meal in silence, parting with nervous take cares as Celestia went to sleep and Luna went out into her domain. As she trotted out, she summoned her list for today. She frowned. There really wasn't much, which could likely be attributed to the circumstances Celestia had mentioned. No matter. She had the night free until Midnight Court, it was time to dreamwalk.

Princess Luna wandered the halls of the castle in a near daze, only dimly aware that not even her Night Guards waited at their vigils. It distressed her, but not so much that she could not wander the pathways of the dream world, spread out before her like a spider's web with dew glinting on it. A bubble appeared near her, glowing with a gentle yellow light. Luna tapped it with her mind's hoof, and set Celestia's dream towards the most relaxing thing her subconscious could think of. She'd have to be careful not to accidentally view that dream later...

Luna wandered her gaze throughout Equestria's dreams, occasionally stumbling upon a red one that was tumbling out of control, or a blackened nightmare. Each time she gave it the gentlest tap with a dream hoof, and the colors turned clear as the dream turned pleasant. Only once did she have to enter somepony's dream, a dream about the Slendermane character popular among foals. Evidently that poor colt took it as more than fiction.

She noticed something strange, though. There were plenty of dreams but... very few close to her. Within Canterlot there were only three dreams; one of those were her sister's, and the other two were shriveled little droplets, barely coherent dreams that, even as she watched, ended. Luna knew enough about dreams to know that sleep was comprised of alternating cycles of dream and deep sleep, but this was utterly abnormal.

It's the disease, she thought. There are no such things as coincidences. Go into Canterlot and see why nopony can dream.

Princess Luna pulled herself out of the dreamscape and checked the position of the moon. Still two hours until Midnight. Time always flew while dreamwalking.

She found her way to one of the castle's many balconies, carved by expert unicorns during the time of the Unicorn King, then remade when her and her sister took the throne. It was a masterpiece, every bit of metal and each gemstone placed with expert care, and she didn't care for any of it as she took off with a flap of powerful wings and incredible pegasus magic.

Canterlot was unusually lit up for the night. Most ponies would be sound asleep, their houses darkened, with only those who played, partied, and worked under the stars up and about. Now though, the streets of Canterlot were as lit up as the starry skies above, ponies shuffling around.

Luna landed in a street at random, and almost instantly gaped in horror. Ponies shuffled along at a slow gate, some holding their stomachs or leaning against each other. They looked half dead, sweat coating their fur, but the truly horrible part were the small red blotches on the street.

"What doth be happening here?" she asked, just shy of the Royal Canterlot Voice.

The ponies all turned to her, looking substantially more lively in her presence but still terrible. "Can't sleep, Princess."

"Everypony is ill?" she questioned. She looked towards a red splotch uneasily, fearing the worst.

"I've always had insomnia," a mare said.

"My stomach hurts too much," said another.

"My face."

"My horn."

Princess Luna gaped as everypony began telling her what their ailments were in a jumble of words. It was... eerie. And then...

"Everything hurts, I can't sleep, I feel like I'm being watched by somepony and... and..." The brown unicorn was cut off as he let out a hacking cough, and then vomited a small torrent of blood from his mouth, splattering onto the ground.

Luna stepped back, flaring her wings. "WHAT?! Everypony to your homes now! If thou can't sleep then thou can't sleep, but keep thyselves hydrated!"

"Luna, Highness, but what about those buying water? Or going to court?" a mare asked. Her subjects were strangely nonplussed by the sight of such gore.

She gritted her teeth. "Those can be exceptions! Other than those important practices go home, cease spreading thy germs to each other!"

With a small amount of grumbling, everypony on the streets filed towards their homes, or changed direction if their homes were more distant. Luna took back into the air, terribly worried. Tia hadn't mentioned insomnia and vomiting blood as symptoms. Had she not noticed or - more likely but more worrisome - was the disease getting worse?

She winged over several streets and repeated her proclamation to the sick and sometimes-vomiting ponies. Stay at home unless you absolutely have to be outside, and keep hydrated. With Midnight Court a few minutes away, she became suddenly paranoid. She winged over to the castle and landed in the gardens. Luna wasted no time looking at the colorful flowerbeds or the trim hedges, making her way straight to the fear-filled fear-inducing statue hidden in the back.

Discord looked just as he always did, but appearances could be deceiving, especially when it came to the greatest adversary they had ever faced. After sealing him away for the first time, so many years ago, she and her sister had had multiple nightmares where Discord escaped his prison and created a replicate statue to throw them off as he wandered the land unchecked. Granted, a wandering Discord wasn't the only explanation for this; it was too subtle, it just wasn't his style. Luna had other ideas, but dared not give voice to the thoughts.

She extended her magic around the statue, wrapping it in a blue aura...

'Aww, is it visiting hours already, wittle Woona? I'm touched!'

Luna gritted her teeth and ignored him. She had nothing to say to him. Not a thing. She scanned Discord, looking for the bonds.

'Fine fine, be like that. It's not like hours of solitude will drive somepony insane without a person to talk to. How very cruel of you, Woona!'

He was already insane, he deserved it, and his mind certainly did not work like others' did. There! There were the bonds of Harmony. As predicted, since the Elements still had Bearers, they were unbroken. The lines of Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Kindness and Honesty were as strong as ever, and the knot of Magic holding them together unfrayed. Discord was going nowhere; even if there were strife around his statue, the bonds would keep it from freeing him.

'Three hundred eighty two thousand three hundred thirty seven bottles of chocolate milk on the wall, three hundred eighty two thousand three hundred thirty seven bottles of milk...'

No, it was not Discord causing this, even though it would've provided an easy solution. She withdrew her magic just as Discord was getting to 'pass it around' and took off, heading to her throne room. She teleported inside with a crack of magic, appearing inside the dark room that her natural night vision easily pierced. There was... nopony there but herself. Understandable, if this plague was as widespread as Celestia claimed but... it was unnerving to see. Just last night the city had been so alive, and well. Now everypony was vomiting blood and stumbling about as if they'd had one too many salt licks.

Her Night Guards were not at the gates; they were sick. Her herald was not here to announce petitioners; she was sick. Luna threw open the gates with her magic. "Let this session of Midnight Court begin! Due to extenuating circumstances, there shalt be no announcing, but we shalt still only take one petition at a time, and in order!" she bellowed to the line of ponies outside. There were not that many, and even as she watched, one of them threw up blood to the side. Her stomach churned.

The first pony, a unicorn mare with a white coat and pale blue mane - stained with blood and sweat - stepped forward. Her steps were unsteady, and as she approached Luna's obsidian throne she began tilting to the side. Luna caught her with her magic. "Please, speak thy petition to us." She'd made an attempt to adjust to the new 'modern' terms of speaking, but a little after Greene's arrival she realized the proper method of speech was better at cowing uppity nobles and tax dodgers. So she stuck with it.

"L-Luna, Your Majesty," she said slowly and almost haltingly. Her voice was ragged and dry.

"Please, hold." Luna conjured a glass of water - there was now one less cloud in the skies - and levitated it to the mare, who eagerly siphoned it dry. "Now speak."

"As I was - " She stopped to clear her throat. "As I was saying, I was hoping you could, if it pleases Your Majesty, make me sleep? I've tried everything I can think of, but I just can't fall asleep and I'm exhausted."

Luna's eyes softened. "Of course we can." She lit up her horn and summoned a cushion from her bedroom, laying the dark blue item off to the side of her throne room. "Simply climb upon it and we shalt send thee to sleep."

She bowed and headed to the cushion, collapsing on it. "Thank you, Princess... ess..." She didn't get to say more as Luna wove a powerful sleeping enchantment on her. It required a surprising amount of power to do, it was like a large portion of the spell's enchantment simply dissipated away.

Midnight Court progressed, and while there were still a few serious requests, many of her little ponies simply asked her to do something, anything, about their illness. She couldn't cure them directly either; even if she knew the disease and how to eliminate it, they would simply be infected again by those near them, and after the spell their immunity would be temporarily weakened. As the night progressed, she soon ended up bringing every last cushion from her private chambers to the throne room and letting the insomniacs slumber upon them. Something was dreadfully, dreadfully wrong, and she could not begrudge them. They needed the pillows much more than she would.

... though it was odd how they were brave enough to even ask such of her. Normally, ponies who asked such from her or her sister feared for their lives after such 'audacity'.

Eventually, Midnight Court came to an end as the last of the petitioners was put to sleep. Luna adjusted their bodies to make sure that while they slept, if they vomited blood they would not suffocate themselves. That done, she morosely rose from her throne and made her a hallway. She had a meeting with Doctor Lymph discussing the research her sister had put them to.

The Pathogen and Vaccine Research wing was dark, cold, and very empty. There were a few doctors, but instead of working with their glass vials they hung blearily over trash cans, occasionally looking over their shoulders for somepony who wasn't there. Luna walked through, her starry mane providing the most light, and received not a second glance. Normally she'd be happy that her little ponies were foregoing the bowing and scraping, but... not like this.

She found Doctor Lymph leaning against a wall, rubbing his forehead just next to his horn, whispering 'ow, ow, ow' over and over.

"Doctor Lymph," she said gently. "Our sister told us thou wouldst have a report for us regarding the situation in Canterlot."

He yawned and pulled himself from the wall. "Yes, we do. Please, follow me Luna." Luna. Not Princess, Excellence, or Your Highness. Just Luna. They entered his office and he collapsed in his seat. Luna watched him worriedly. "Now," he said, levitating a single sheet of paper. "You remember the samples of blood we received from Elizabeth Greene."

Already she did not like the direction of the conversation. That scenario was one of the most upsetting ones she'd envisioned. "We do," she said coldly.

"Well, then you'll remember how the blood strains are a mutation of the virus in her flesh. We've labeled them Greene Strain one to one hundred and thirty. Three of them were useful, one was dangerous, the rest were inert. Greene's original strain is a weak version of the common cold, at least in ponies." He shivered and winced, pressing a hoof to the side of his horn. "Mrr, feel like I'm growing a second head. Anyhow, Luna, this new strain is - " Don't say it, don't say it. We trusted her, we trusted her. " - a mutation of her original virus. We call it Greene Strain Zero. Err, the original one that it. This one is one hundred thirty one."

"What doth it do?" she whispered. She wove a quick pain suppression spell onto the poor doctor. Like her sleeping spells, much of it seemed to... disperse. At any rate, the doctor sighed blissfully.

"Thank you. As for what it does, well." A tear appeared in the corner of his eye. "If it wasn't so dangerous, and if I wasn't suffering from it, I'd call it a piece of art. Most diseases work by slowly eating the flesh of the victim to produce more pathogens. It's never a noticeable effect, and the body regenerates faster than the disease can destroy it, but that is still what they do. But this virus! It... it's beautiful. It doesn't destroy cells."

"Then what?"

"It enters a cell and... changes it. The new cell produces more copies of the virus within seconds and releases them, and then the changes take effect. The new cell replicates, and as the virus does its work it changes tissue, organs, and hypothetically, the entire organism."

"Into what?"

Doctor Lymph nodded sagely. "Indeed. Into what?" His eyes bugged out and he leaned over, vomiting blood into the wastebin. "So sorry, Luna."

"Not thy fault," she said sadly. Elizabeth Greene was doing this. How could Elizabeth do this?

"But this brings me to my next point. The symptoms you and your sister see are just... transitional. The old flesh interacting poorly with the transformed flesh, and this virus is fast so the symptoms escalate rapidly. Fever, aches, chills, a runny nose. The runny nose replaced later on by insomnia, paranoia, and the vomiting of blood. That's why this virus is so marvelous."

"How so?" Was he calling the symptoms marvelous?

"Normally changes on this level would be fatal. The alterations would kill the victim virtually a hundred percent of the time; out of the entirety of Canterlot there would be maybe five survivors." Luna's jaw dropped. "But this strain... it was changed. It was deliberately modified so that it would not kill its victims."

"Nosokinetic, Elizabeth Greene is nosokinetic," she whispered. "She changed it."

"Indeed," Doctor Lymph said. "If she is behind this - and given it's a variant of her strain it'd be hard for her not to be - then she doesn't want anypony to die from this. She wants the change to happen with minimal loss of life."

"Can..." She swallowed the moon-sized lump in her throat. "Can thou cure it?"

He shook his head not-that-sadly. "For one thing, it's very fast acting and impossibly contagious. I suspect the changes are already almost done, and then?" He shrugged. "We'll see then. Maybe we'll be lucky and get super strength like Elizabeth." Luna couldn't help but smile at that. She remembered a conversation with Elizabeth over a month ago. 'Blessing lifts me above Similars. Stronger. Better. Don't weaken over years. Give it to others.'

That explained her motive. Had Elizabeth vomited blood while she was a human, becoming an Evolved? Had she been unable to sleep before not needing to sleep? Would her subjects forget their lives before the virus?

Doctor Lymph went on. "Even if we had time, I don't think this virus can be cured. It's like nothing we've ever seen before, it's simply not natural. Slow it? Retard it? Maybe. But curing it is out of the question."

Luna's ears lowered. "We art sorry to hear that, Doctor Lymph. May we try anyhow?"

He shrugged. "Go for it."

Luna lit up her horn and scanned Doctor Lymph. She didn't know what she was looking for exactly, but after the incident with that madpony two and a half millennia ago she had a rough idea. She saw the disease in Doctor Lymph, a dark red spreading throughout his entire body. She tried to cure it with her magic in a hundred different ways, but nothing provoked any response. She pulled her magic back. "We art sorry, we can not."

"It's not your fault, Luna." He snapped his head to look behind him, then shook his head and looked back to Luna. "Ah, sorry. I think it may be changing my brain at this point; keep feeling like I'm being watched."

"We understand. We must take our leave now." She stood, her horn almost puncturing the low ceiling. "We hath an Evolved to find and bring to justice. Take care of thyself, Lymph Node. And for the love of the stars, keep thyself hydrated."

"I will, Luna," he said as Luna teleported to her room.

She felt sick, and it had nothing to do with the diseased city. Elizabeth Greene was doing this. She'd seen her just two nights ago, and she hadn't hinted anything about spreading this... this plague! Even if it was with good intentions, how could she? Making somepony sick, regardless of the results, was just not something you did! The journey mattered as much as the destination, and currently the journey she'd forced on her little ponies was making them suffer!

Luna laid her upper half on her bed, utterly stripped of all pillows. She'd betrayed them. Princess Luna narrowed her eyes. She could moan about 'how could she do this' after she'd found the Evolved. With her moon slowly approaching the horizon, Princess Luna burst from her balcony and soared above the city of Canterlot.

Everywhere she went, there was the same stomach-churning smell of blood and disease. Everywhere she flew, ponies were sick as the epidemic ravaged their bodies, turning them into something foreign, strange, alien. But while sick ponies were everywhere, and the illness filled the air, the origin was impossible to find. Was Elizabeth hiding, fearing the iron hoof of justice? If so, she couldn't hide forever. She cast her moon's glow upon Canterlot and searched, but Elizabeth was nowhere in the city. She widened her search to the entire night-side of Equus, but still Greene was not touched by moonlight and it exhausted her to search for anypony like that. Elizabeth was somewhere with a roof over her head, then.

Luna went door to door to door, and everypony was eager - perhaps too eager - to let her search and to drop her title. No matter what she did, she simply could not find Elizabeth over the hours of her solo search, and then she'd exhausted everything because it was time to end the night and usher in the day. She so wanted to do more, but if Greene was causing the outbreak there was no containing it, only stopping it at the source. She flew to her balcony and lit her horn.

A bluish, silvery glow wrapped around her horn as her magic reached out across the light years, through her link to the night sky, and subdued the light from the stars. The skies went black, save for the light of the moon. She pulled her magic back and focused it on the gargantuan moon. With a heave of telekinetic force, she wrapped the moon in her aura. However, the moon was so large and so far away it was impossible to notice the azure glow around it as she slipped it beneath the horizon. A moment later her sister's sun broke on the opposite side of the horizon, its golden glow illuminating the sick city.

Worry heavy in her stomach, Luna trotted into the empty castle and searched for her sister. Apparently Celestia had had the same idea, and they met halfway.

"Greetings, Tia," she said without enthusiasm.

"Rough night?" Celestia asked, worry heavy in her voice. Luna checked over her withers; her mane and tail blew slower in the interstellar wind than they usually did.

She looked back at Celestia and sighed heavily. "Thou hast no idea. But first, thee. How was thy slumber?"

"Very restful," she said happily. "I think I can tackle this situation now."

"Splendid. Let us walk to our dinner chambers and we shalt fill thee in on what hast transpired over the night." She frowned deeper. "We art sorry, we had no time to make thee breakfast."

"It's fine, Lulu. It sounds like you had a lot on your plate."

"Indeed." They walked and talked, Luna relaying the progression of the disease's symptoms and her talk with Doctor Lymph about how the virus worked, what it did, and who made it.

"I can't believe she would do something like this," Celestia said with a shake of her head. "Well meaning or not, we have to arrest her." She grimaced. "Elizabeth won't be happy about that. She truly trusts us."

"It matters not what she feels about it!" Luna insisted. "She hath betrayed our trust and broken our laws, which the treatise made sure she would be bound to while in our borders, and brought great suffering to our subjects!" She yawned and rubbed her eyes with a slippered hoof. "We shalt go to sleep, Tia. We hope thee finds Elizabeth and incarcerates her."

"No dinner?" she asked worriedly.

"We art too upset to be hungry. Good day, Celestia." She hesitated, and leaned in to hug her older sister. She returned the embrace for a good half a minute until they broke apart.

"Sleep well, Luna."

They exchanged several more farewells over their withers as they departed. Luna found her way to her bedroom and lit a dozen and a half anticandles, whose black flames immediately started siphoning light. She fell onto her bed, devoid of pillows that other ponies needed so much more than her, and drew the constellation-laden drapes around it. She drew her covers up and fell into a fitful sleep...

... for a few minutes. Then there was an alicorn shaking her frantically.

"Sister! Luna! Lulu, wake up!" Celestia cried, towering over her and shaking her with her forehooves.

"Gwah, blrr, gwar!" she sputtered, pushing the elder alicorn off of her. "What is it, sister?" she demanded hotly, wiping the little sleep she'd gotten out of her eyes.

"Remember how something was terribly wrong with our little ponies?" she asked fearfully. Luna nodded, noting how much Celestia's eyes had shrunken in fear. "Well today, something is terribly terribly wrong with our little ponies! Come!"

"We will, if thou will get off of us!"

"Sorry, Lulu." Celestia got off of her and Luna, grumbling, got out of bed. She reached out with her magic to put on her regalia, but realized she hadn't taken it off. That explained the crick in her neck where her torque went around. "Now come!"

"Coming, coming," she grumbled, following her sister out of her room, through the empty and foul-smelling corridors of the castle, and to the outside. She glanced up, and saw that the sun was barely above the horizon. She hadn't slept long before Celestia woke her up for whatever reason.

They entered Canterlot proper, and Luna tried to imagine what was so wrong. Had the plague entered its next stage of 'transforming' ponies? Had it completed it, and Celestia was now frightened at ponies regenerating and being able to gallop up vertical surfaces?

What she saw on the streets dispelled those notions that Tia was jumping at shadows. It was... horrible.

There were more blood splotches than when she had last seen, but nopony on the streets threw up blood. None of them shivered from chills or winced from aches. She walked next to one and put a fetlock against the mare's forehead; no fever either. All of the symptoms from yesterday were gone.

But a new one had taken its place. Cancer.

Horrific, disfiguring tumors grew along her ponies' bodies. There weren't that many, but enough to horrify her beyond words. On her flank, under his horn, growing over her left eye...

Luna retched, and was thankful she hadn't eaten anything beyond last night's toast. Nopony on the streets paid any attention to their Princesses, content to simply stand there with blank, unfocused eyes. Luna stepped before one and waved her hoof in front of her, trying desperately to ignore the hideous growth under her chin.

"Thy Princess asks thee to speak to us. What hast happened?" No response. "Why... why is everypony like this? Tell us. Please."

"They won't respond, Lulu," Celestia said, stepping next to her. "Something terrible has happened. Whatever Elizabeth's plague does, it seems to have done its purpose."

She growled. "We find her," Luna snarled. "Now."

Without word, Celestia nodded, and both alicorns burst into the air. They scanned Canterlot east to west, but before long Celestia shouted. "I got her! She's under the sun now... near the Beethooven Concert Hall, a bakery!"

They angled towards the building in question, blotting out the deadened crowds beneath them. They found Elizabeth with her back towards them, her legs dangling over a ledge as she sat on the bakery's roof. She kicked her feet against the wall like a foal, looking at the unmoving crowds in the streets below.

They landed behind Greene with heavy thuds, and immediately the Evolved reacted. She got to her feet and looked at them, a wide happy smile on her face. "Luna," she rasped, giddy as a school filly. "Celestia." Was it just Luna, or was there just a little more... force behind her voice's repeats?

"Elizabeth Greene," Celestia said with all the emotion of a boulder. They both strode towards her until they were halfway across the roof. "What have you done?"

"Blessed them, second part of gift," she said, her smile shrinking ever so slightly before Celestia's passive anger and Luna's snarl. "First part blood, second part fixing Canterlot." She tilted her head to the side and her face turned contemplative. "Fix rest of world after after after, soon."

"Fixing?!" Luna shouted incredulously. "You call this fixing them?" she shouted, gesturing to the idle crowds.

"Yes, no more free will, no more choices. Good good good for them," she murmured. "Take care of children..."

"Your children - ?!" they both started, cutting off. Suddenly, it made horrible sense. Elizabeth had talked of her children before, and of Blessing others, but never had they associated the two together. They always thought she'd meant literal children; why wouldn't they? Not fellow infected. Celestia continued. "You've... you've removed their free will?" she whispered in horror.

Elizabeth shrugged. "Yes. Make choices for them, only need to listen to me." She frowned and furrowed her brows. "Why... why are you angry?"

"Because thou hast removed the liberty of our loyal subjects and if what thou art saying is true thou hast enslaved them to thy will! THAT is why we art angry!"

Greene stumbled back towards the edge of the roof under the Royal Canterlot Voice's power. "But... why?" she asked, perplexed. Did she... did she really not understand?

"Elizabeth Greene," Celestia said with a bite of steel in her voice. "You have forcefully infected the citizens of Canterlot with an unknown disease and caused them no undue amount of suffering in the past day. Now you have spat on their right to make decisions from themselves, and you question why we are angry?"

Elizabeth winced, fiddling with her hands. "Transition... admit, painful. Made it less painful when I could, when I could. Make happy now, make happy forever."

Luna's jaw dropped. "Thou... thou manipulates their emotions directly?" She was horrified at that. Cadance admittedly did something similar with her mending-hearts spell, but that was only a nudge in a general direction, not forceful as what Greene described, and it was also temporary and the recipients were perfectly able to ignore its effects if they wanted. "How... how could thee?"

"Same as Applebloom," she whispered. "Why angry? Manipulate their emotions but make them happy. If made them sad..." Greene shuddered. "Understand then, but making my children happy!" She lowered her hands, leaving them by her sides but slightly risen from her hips.

"Let us try and understand, Elizabeth," Princess Luna said, carefully keeping her anger in check. "Thou hast come to Canterlot and infected everypony in the city with a variation of your virus without them knowing. Thou then, over the course of twenty four hours, made them suffer as it changed their bodies. And now, thou hast eliminated their ability to make their own decisions, forcing them to listen to thou and playing with their emotions."

Elizabeth nodded, a hint of fear in her dusty emerald eyes.

"And thou canst understand why we art angry?!" Elizabeth was forced to jump to a nearby building before Princess Luna's voice blew her to street level. "Listen to us and listen to us well, Evolved! For when we say such things they truly mean much!" She stopped her use of the Voice and whispered, but she knew Elizabeth could still hear her plain as day. "Thou art a monster, through and through. We trusted thee..." Luna lit up her horn, ready to blast Greene with the power of the heavens. Elizabeth stepped backwards, flickers of red and white tendrils around her legs.

"Hold, sister," Celestia said, placing a hoof on her horn. The shock prompted Luna to dissipate the magic. "We must arrest Elizabeth and bring her to a trial, not simply vaporize her."

"Thou knows what she hast done! What she intends to do to the entire world! The entire world Tia! We must stop this madness here and now!" she said, locking eyes with her sister.

"I know that, but we are nothing but savages if we simply blast first and ask questions later."

"We hath asked our questions," she said menacingly. "And she hath answered them."

"You know what I mean, Luna." Cue Stubborn Big Sister mode. "We must have a proper legal procedure for all crimes whenever we have the ability."

"Discord, Sombra," she hissed.

"None of those we had the ability. Discord was too powerful to contain for a trial, and Sombra... Sombra..." Celestia trailed off, and Luna knew she'd scored a point. No, neither of them had been so 'due process' inclined back then, had they?

Celestia shook it off. "In either case, we must imprison Elizabeth Greene and then decide her sentence." She lit her horn and Luna followed her example. They both turned to face Greene...

The monster was nowhere to be found.

"Find her!" Luna shouted.

The two sister broke apart and Luna began tearing Canterlot apart to find Elizabeth Greene. She lifted houses, flipped carts. None of the ponies - if they could still be called that - even noticed. She searched everywhere, but she had to admit it. Elizabeth was fast and she was smart. They'd lost her, they'd lost her and that failure ate at Luna. She regrouped with her sister on the balcony where they occasionally moved the heavenly bodies together.

"Where is she?" Luna panted. "Didst thou find her?"

"No, I was hoping you did!" Celesia panted. "We have to stop her. She said... she said she planned to 'fix' the world. She's going to infect everypony unless we stop her!"

"Well what do we do then? In case thou didn't notice, it took her no effort at all to subsume Canterlot within three days!"

"We'll raise public awareness of her efforts but first..." Celestia's eyes widened. "We have to get the Elements. Ponyville's close to Canterlot, she may go there next. We have to evacuate Ponyville."

"Then let us be off, Tia! Time is against us!" Luna took to the air, and Celestia caught up with her soon enough. She took one last look at Canterlot beneath her as they flew. The air was foul with disease, and she and Celestia both cast repeated sterilization spells upon each other until they were certain they weren't carriers of plague.

As she pumped her wings, she saw the ponies below tracking them with their gazes.

Unlovable, Intolerable

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DAY 2 OF INFECTION: 9% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Greene

She didn't fully understand her situation, but she didn't like it.

They... they hated her. Celestia and Luna hated her. They hated her and she couldn't understand why. Why did they hate her? Why did they fear her Blessing? Where had it all gone so horribly wrong?

It wasn't often that Elizabeth Greene paced, but this was definitely definitely definitely a situation that called for pacing. She walked back and forth in the corridor of the house she was in, her hands linked behind her and her head bowed contemplatively. She thought back to the things the alicorn sisters had said before she'd ran, barely escaping with her life.

The thing that had horrified them the most - she'd horrified them... - was how her children didn't need to make choices for themselves anymore. They thought it was a... good thing to have to do that? Why why why?

She idly kicked a piece of rubble she'd brought in with her. It sailed to the wall on the end of the corridor and punched a hole. She should've tried to explain to them, but would that have worked? They were so angry with her, and they were alicorns. They moved the sun and the moon and the stars with their minds. If she had stayed around, what would they have done to her in their fury? No, it was a good thing she'd ran when she had. She could wait for them to calm down. An idea niggled at her that they weren't as powerful as she thought, but she ignored it. Better safe. She'd wait.

She smiled at that. Yes yes yes, she'd wait. She could give the alicorn sisters some space, some time to think things over. After all, none of them got old, so they had plenty of time. Once they calmed down, she'd explain and make them see.

Suddenly she frowned. But in the meantime they hated her for the painful transition, hated her for fixing them, called her a monster and it was so unfair because they'd trusted her and in their eyes she'd broken that trust! She hadn't betrayed them! She didn't betray people! It made her so angry that they'd thought that, so angry!

With a cry she tensed an organ at the base of her spine. Energy flowed up her back and into her right arm where she shaped it into an equine-sized orb of crackling emerald lightning. She spun around and lobbed it at the nearest wall with a shout where it exploded in a light pop, shattering the wall and exposing the street through a screen of dust.

She panted angrily as the dust wafted inside. What could she do? Celestia and Luna hated her. Two gods hated her. She still had to spread her Blessing, that much was certain, but she had to dodge them. How? She was strong, but was she stronger than their magic? She was fast, but was she faster than teleportation? What could she do against them?

No no no, this wasn't the time for worrying about that. They hated her but they weren't vengeful. They'd try and foolishly ward off her Blessing from the equines they ruled and that... that was something she could work around, something she'd worked around in the past.

She took a deep, calming breath and opened her sensing, turning giddy in an instant. Children, oh she had her darling children again, to take care of now and forever so that nothing would ever hurt them ever again! She could see through their eyes and listen through their ears, tens of hundreds of thousands of children within Canterlot, pulsing in her mind like a heartbeat. They were so dear to her, and she radiated her love to them over their link. The dust cleared from the hole she had blasted, letting her see the children outside and smile smile smile. Just for that moment, everything was perfect.

She'd forgotten what it had been like over the long-short time she'd been Cursed, forgot what it was like to be able to see and hear and feel through others. This reminded her of how wonderful it was, to be more than herself alone. For a moment she selfishly wanted to spread her Blessing for that reason, just so she could see more and hear more and more and more! She shook her head and suppressed the feeling. No. As good as it may feel, that wasn't why she did what she did. It was for them, and any delight she got directly out of it was secondary. She had to keep focused on her goal. And that goal was completing itself even now.

Half a million of her children within Canterlot, and even more further out. When she had Blessed the equines but still held back, they left to other cities and towns, mostly cities, and now her Blessing spread there as well. She didn't feel anyone within Ponyville despite how close close close it was, but she saw other landmarks and signs through her children; Manehattan, Baltimare, Cloudsdale, Appleoosa. Those places had started. Of course, she'd go and spread her Blessing herself, but for the moment she was content to bask in the warmth of her children, to look at them and feel them as they nibbled on her love, as they drank in her adoration.

She wasn't sure where that had come from; her children on the Similar world couldn't do that. All the same, it solved the issue of food very very very handily.

'Mother is here,' she cooed to them. 'Mother will keep you safe...'

They responded immediately, showering her with great depths of affection and belonging and she was reinforced in her belief that this was her purpose, her Reason for everything she did. She sighed and smiled, sitting down next to the wall and leaning into it. She tilted her head back and smiled. She could worry about angry gods later. Perhaps things weren't going exactly as she'd hoped, but it was still around what she'd expected from the equines. Fear, then understanding and acceptance as they learned. She'd just hoped the alicorn sisters would skip the fear and hatred.

"Hmm?" she heard an equine ask from elsewhere in the house she was in. She smiled. That was Fluttershy! She was awake now! And it was only... what time was it? She looked through one of her children's eyes and asked them to look in the general direction of the sun, but not directly at it. They did so. She thanked her, and asked her to look back where she had been and she did because she was such a good daughter...

... it was still morning.

She zipped upstairs to find the pegasus still under her covers. "Hello," she rasped, rousing Fluttershy.

"O-Oh!" she stammered, poking her head out of the bed. "Hello, Elizabeth." The pegasus smiled. "You look really happy today."

Of course she was happy! There was so much to be happy about even though Celestia and Luna, the first people she had ever trusted, hated her guts. She walked over and stroked Fluttershy's head. "Am happy." She could feel trace amounts of her Blessing within Fluttershy, but effortlessly kept it subdued. After all, Fluttershy had promised to help her raise her family. She couldn't do that from within. When the time came, she could truly Bless Fluttershy, but until then she needed her best friend's help.

"Where are we?" Fluttershy stammered. "I'm sorry, I don't remember - "

"Canterlot. Came to you last night. Asked for help. Carried here," she explained.

"And the h-house?" She pulled the covers further up her face, which just made Greene smile.

"Owner let us in," she said. It was true. She had, with the sleepy Fluttershy still beside her, asked if he would let them in. The equine-now-her-son had, subconsciously sensing her as his Mother even as her Blessing worked on him, agreed and gave Fluttershy the bed. She suddenly panicked and sent out a general message to her children in Canterlot. 'Go through every building and turn off all ovens and such.' With that message, Greene was satisfied that Canterlot would not have an outbreak of fires like the island city had.

"Oh, alright." Fluttershy got out of the bed and stretched her wings and legs. There was a slight gurgle in the air and the equine immediately hid behind her mane. "O-Oh..."

"Come," Elizabeth said. She lead Fluttershy from the bedroom to the dining room, where she had already prepared a meal for her; a bowl of oats with a glass of wet wet wet milk. She'd been in a very good mood when she'd prepared that; Luna and Celestia had yet to confront her then. As such, she was willing to handle even the milk.

Fluttershy ate the breakfast without noise, and Elizabeth watched through the eyes of all her children, giddy. The ones outside Canterlot were mostly in hospitals, being treated for the tumors. That made her frown. She understood that the tumors the equines were used to caused pain and death, but these were benign. Couldn't they see that?

Oh well. Those children of hers Blessed the doctors they were with, and soon enough the doctors would understand as well. To say nothing of those they had spread her Blessing to before the changes had finished.

"So um, Elizabeth, you said that today you'd show me your children?" Fluttershy asked once her meal was done.

"Yes yes yes!" she said ecstatically. She zipped away and found the crater she'd left in the nearest wall. Fluttershy followed after her and Greene lead her into the streets.

Fluttershy gasped when she saw her children - her children, after so long! - in the streets and pressed herself against the nearest building. "E-Elizabeth, what happened to everypony?"

"Blessed them," she said. "My children now, my children."

"But they're... they're... oh my," she said, growing quieter by the word. Elizabeth was suddenly worried. It was unthinkable, but what if Fluttershy reacted the same way Celestia and Luna did? "They're ponies," she said at last.

Elizabeth nodded, "Yes. Blessed them, made my children. Happy now now now, listen to me good children happy," she said, beaming with pride.

"Oh dear," Fluttershy whispered. Hesitantly, slowly over a long span of time, she approached one of her daughters and waved a hoof in front of her. "Can you hear me?" she asked. After a pause she looked back at her, "Elizabeth, can they hear me?"

"Can hear, but don't care. Don't need to think, don't force them to think. Just happy."

"C-Can't think?" she asked in horror.

Elizabeth frowned again. "Yes, but happy," she stressed. "Only Canterlot now. Fix Equestria, then... somewhere else. Maybe Crystal Empire." She sighed in delight as another wave of love washed over her from her children.

"You want me to..." Fluttershy gulped, looking at her. "You want me to help you Bless everypony ... um, everyone in the world?"

"Yes yes yes, tried and failed before on Similar world." Bowing her head, she fidgeted with the strap and buckle around her waist. "Afraid afraid afraid, can't do it alone, couldn't do it alone in first Home and couldn't with my children's help in second Home." She looked up at Fluttershy. "Need help, outside family, help."

"You want me to help you make everypony do whatever you say?" Fluttershy shook her head and bit her lip. After a tense minute, she said, "I'm so sorry Elizabeth, but... oooh I promised, but I can't!" Greene's mouth opened slightly. "Elizabeth, this isn't a good thing that you're doing!"

"But - "

"Elizabeth, can you change them back?" Fluttershy asked, looking into Greene's eyes. "Can you make them... make them normal again?"

She shook her head. "Can't take away Blessing. Can't can't can't, only give and stop." She frowned. "Even if I could, already changed." She sighed. "Fluttershy, have to do this. Cruel not to. Is a good thing."

"But - "

"Can hear thoughts of my children, no but. Is a good thing."

Fluttershy looked down. "Okay. So, um, what were you planning to do?"

"Go to other towns, Bless. Blessing spreads itself in cities."

"Oh, I'm not sure that's a good idea," Fluttershy said with a guarded expression. "I mean, this is a really big change. If you push it o-on everypony, then they'll try and, um, stop you." Elizabeth sucked in a panicked breath. "But! But, if you just, um, stop for a while, then they'll see how happy your..." Fluttershy looked around at Greene's sons and daughters. "... family is, they'll join you on their own. This way, nopony panics."

"Hmm," she said. Of course! She'd have never thought of something like that. It made made made sense. Things were always less scary if you had a choice and it wasn't coming towards you, even if it was a good thing. "Yes yes, do that." She reached out to the ones already Blessing their hosts and made sure they wouldn't Bless any others. Not yet at least. 'Don't spread, stay inside. only change the one you are in.'

She knelt next to Fluttershy and wrapped her arms around her neck. "Thank you," she rasped. She let go and stood up. "Find house for you?"

"Huh? But, what's wrong with this one?" she asked, waving a forehoof to the wall she'd blasted a hole through. "And won't anypony be angry if we just walk into their homes?"

"Children will let you in, good children. Can choose best house." If she wasn't going to Bless Fluttershy yet, she was certainly going to make sure she was comfortable. What kind of friend would she be otherwise? Not not not a very good one. "Come, come." She lead Fluttershy to Upper Canterlot, and after a moment of thought, to the castle.

The gates were closed, so she opened them with a flick of a finger and lead Fluttershy in. "Many rooms," she rasped. "Pick one?" she asked, looking at the pegasus.

"M-Me?" she stammered. "But I don't, um, I don't feel like I deserve a room at the castle. Especially without, um, paying rent. I didn't bring any money," she said lowly.

Greene scowled. "Deserve more," she insisted. "Don't need money. Children don't need the rooms. Wasted otherwise."

"Oh. Alright. Could we go to the r-room you lived in when you first came here?"

Suddenly Elizabeth was made well aware of a flaw in her plan. She didn't know the inside of the castle. She smiled sheepishly at Fluttershy. "... try to find," she said nervously. She looked around. "... try to find," she repeated. She found a wall and placed a hand on it, leaving behind a single thread of her warmth as she began to trace the walls. Fluttershy trotted beside her as she navigated the halls. She stuck to her memory as best she could, but she hadn't spent much time memorizing the inside of Canterlot Castle. Why would she have? She always had so much more important things to do.

They passed the kitchens, the throne room a second time, a paperwork room, and then finally reached the guest rooms. Elizabeth sent out a call to a few of her children, and ushered Fluttershy in, making sure to leave the door open.

It was the same room she had been in, with a large window overlooking her city of children that let in soothing warmth from the blinding sun, a large bed, walls patterned gold and violet and decorated with various small little things that she could care less for; a bookshelf, desk, mirror, doorway leading to what she knew was a 'bathroom'.

"Good?" she asked Fluttershy as she trotted over and rested on the bed.

Fluttershy nodded. "Thank you, Elizabeth." She eyed the bookshelf, then Elizabeth, then the books again. "You, um, don't mind if I read some of the books, do you?"

She shook her head. "Don't mind, don't mind." The two children she had called earlier were almost there, flying through the castle. "Will be alright if I leave? Things to do?"

"O-Oh, it's perfectly alright! I wouldn't want to keep you," she said, trailing off.

Elizabeth smiled, just as two of her pegasus children arrived next to her, one by each side. Fluttershy's eyes widened as she saw them and she whispered, "Oh my."

She patted the pegasus to her right's head and scratched her left's neck tumor. Both of her children leaned into the gestures of affection and she smiled warmly at them. "Can see what children see," she explained to Fluttershy as she saw the doctors in Trottingham shivering and sneezing from trying to 'treat' one of her children. "Hear what children hear. Whenever you're with one of my children, you're with me." Another mental command and her two children went outside, facing outward like the guards she had seen Celestia and Luna do. Thinking of that, she told all her children to sit down, rest. They didn't have to stand all the time.

They sat down, and she pulled her hands away from her two children.

"Need anything, say around my children. Food, drink, will hear, will help," she promised Fluttershy. Then she turned around and left, following the thin strand of flesh she'd left behind until she entered the throne room. She leaped out of Canterlot Castle and sprinted back into the city. She stood next to a fountain, no longer running with water good thing it wasn't and thought.

She wasn't a fool. She understood Fluttershy's logic and agreed with it, but she didn't believe the equines would just leave her children be in the mean time. Her own experience in Cloudsdale was proof of that. She would not be caught by surprise. In her mind's eye she took the equine-Blessing and made two copies, then tossed the old one into the depths of her being.

She brought forth the Blessing that created her Strong Children back on the Similar world; it was a variation that she gave her children to cause the changes to make them able to protect. She took one of the copies of her equine-Blessing and, using her Strong-Children-Blessing as a templa... tempra... copy-thing she created one that would change equines into her Strong Children. She smiled and filed them away, turning to the next copy of her Blessing. This one, she manipulated with the intention of self-sufficiency. She didn't want to have to always hunt and eat whenever she created new children to protect her family. With a few minutes of tweaking, it was done and she returned to the real world.

She called five of her children to her at random; two pegasi, two earth ponies, and a unicorn. In a few minutes they arrived and sat before her, staring off into space. On either side of the unicorn sat a pegasus and an earth pony.

She stepped towards the two to her left and urged them to put some space between them and everyone else. They spread out and she touched a hand to each one's forehead, starting the changes. With her hands still on their foreheads she pushed down, her thoughts urging them to lay down. Once they had, she pulled her warmth to her palms and pushed it out, wrapping the two of her children in thick mounds of red flesh, growing and growing until she judged they were of correct size, after which she secured them to the ground with her red and white tendrils.

She stepped towards the unicorn and remaining pegasus and repeated the process; spread out, start the changes, lay them down, and place them in large cocoons for them to grow in.

The earth pony she, like before, spread out from the four cocoons so that she had room for her own cocoon. Greene laid her down, but placed a small amount of her new Blessing into her. The little amount reacted with what was already there and the changes began, different from the ones the other four were going through. That done, Elizabeth surrounded her in flesh and tendrils and stepped back, admiring the five warm, gently pulsating cocoons.

'Feed,' she bade them. 'Eat deep from my love and grow.' She could sense them doing just that, gorging themselves for the changes to come. With that done, she leaped to a nearby building and gazed out at the Equestrian countryside. All she had to do was wait now. She was terribly hungry from creating the cocoons and it bothered her to again hold off on spreading her Blessing, but she'd do it. For her family, she would do anything.

She eyed one of Canterlot's towers. She didn't know which one would be the right ones, but there was another danger she had to check on.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

"Twilight, why are we going to Quills and Sofas?" Spike asked from beside her.

"We're out of quills," she said simply. It was a warm sunny day, an oddity in the fall months leading up to winter. The weather team must've felt generous. Everypony chatted and greeted each other as they passed, happily going about their business. It was a normal day in Ponyville. Well, relatively speaking; Fluttershy had left a note in her house saying she was going to Canterlot with Elizabeth Greene, leaving the entire town to wonder what those two were up to. It was also quite strange that no train had come from Canterlot yet when it was supposed to...

...which warranted a letter to the train company...

... which warranted a quill...

... the lack of which warranted a trip to Quills and Sofas.

"But Twilight, what about Backup Quill Stockpile Thirteen?" he asked innocently.

Twilight stopped in place, nearly bumping into Berry Punch in the process. "W-Wha?" she stammered.

"Backup Quill Stockpile Thirteen," he repeated. "In case of letter-to-company emergencies," he explained.

Twilight's right ear flopped. Her left eye twitched once, twice, and then she took deep breath, cleansing breaths like Cadance had taught her. "... it's a beautiful day to be outside regardless," she said in a level voice.

He shrugged. "If you say so." They kept walking. "So, why are we still going to Quills and Sofas?"

"We can use some extra quills okay?!" she snapped. Immediately, she frowned at his hurt look. "I'm sorry, Spike. I shouldn't have snapped at you. It's no big deal."

The moment she uttered those words, a big deal fell from the skies and landed before her, followed by a second, younger big deal next to them.

"GWAH!" she shouted, backpedaling and bowing hastily. "Princess Celestia, Princess Lu - "

"Twilight!" Suddenly, there was a white alicorn hugging her fiercely. After a moment squished against Celestia's chest, she put her down. "Oh please tell me I'm not too late. Twilight, how are you feeling?"

"Too late for wha - "

"How are you feeling?" Celestia demanded desperately.

"I'm fine!" she belted. "I feel alright, Princess. Spike, how about you?" she asked, looking at the stunned dragon.

"Um, I feel great!"

Princess Celestia breathed out, visibly relieved. "Oh thank heavens, I'm not too late. Twilight, listen to me very carefully. Something very, very bad has happened in Canterlot. I need you to gather your friends in your home and wait for us. No matter what, nopony is to enter Canterlot. Meanwhile my sister and I will speak to the mayor."

"A-About what?" she asked fearfully. The ponies in the street were split between gawking and bowing to the two alicorns.

"Evacuating Ponyville," Princess Luna said. "The calamity that hath struck Canterlot may easily come to Ponyville. We must ensure the citizens get to safety as soon as possible."

"R-Right," Twilight said. "I'll get my friends and we'll head over to my place. Err, how long do you think you'll be?" she asked.

"Not that long," Princess Luna elaborated. "Our sister will come with thee once we art finished with this town's mayor, whilst we shalt help oversee the evacuation. Now go! Time is of the essence!"

"Going!" she and Spike said at once, turning a full one-eighty degrees and heading for Rarity's boutique. Over the next twenty five minutes, she gathered up Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow, and Pinkie, and before long they were standing in her library's lobby, Spike turning the sign outside to 'Closed', all thoughts of Quills and Sofas banished from her mind.

"So Twi," Applejack asked. "Why'd ya call us here so urgently? Somethin' about an emergency?"

"Yeah Twilight! I mean, you were all 'Come quick!' and I was all 'Why?' and you were all 'It's an emergency I'll tell you there come on!' and then I was all - "

"Pinkie!" Twilight shouted. "I don't know what's going on! All the princesses said was that we needed to get here because something terrible happened in Canterlot. They asked us to wait here so they can explain it to us."

"Wait a second," Rainbow said, her magenta eyes widening. "Canterlot?"

"Um, yes," she said.

"That's where Greene and 'Shy are! I gotta go help them!"

Before Dash could zip away, Twilight gripped her tightly in her magic. "No! Princess Celestia said that under no circumstances is anypony to go to Canterlot. Whatever happened there, it must be really bad."

"But... but Fluttershy!" she protested.

"No, Rainbow. We don't even know what happened, you'll be flying in blind."

"But - !"

"My faithful student is right," Princess Celestia said, letting herself in. "Canterlot is a death trap. It's a small miracle my sister and I are unaffected." The alicorn was visibly relieved to see none of them bowing, but it didn't stop Twilight from feeling like she'd committed a major faux pas. "My sister and the good mayor are in the process of evacuating Ponyville to the closest cities. Come, we must go to the Crystal Empire. T-The further we go the better."

Twilight's jaw dropped. It was a very, very rare thing to hear Princess Celestia stutter. Whatever had happened in Canterlot, it was bad. Like, Discord-getting-free bad. "What about the Elements of Harmony? Those are in Canterlot, aren't they?"

"Indeed they are, Twilight," she said. "But before we can hope to fix the problem, we must contain the damage, and at present that involves getting you all far away from here. Your brother and sister-in-law are already preparing a teleportation pad for us; Luna sent them a magical letter on the flight over. Now, prepare yourselves my little ponies. Long distance teleportation like this can leave you feeling squeamish." Celestia lit her horn up, and Twilight braced herself fo -

Suddenly she was jerked. She gasped as the world around her stretched into a funnel, and then she was being crushed. There was no air in her lungs, it was all forced out. Her blood couldn't flow, her lungs couldn't expand, she was a flat, two dimensional pony. Then the crushing got worse and she was nothing more than a line, then a dot, and then -

- she was whole again. Even with all her teleportation practices, long distance like that never got any easier. However while she just stumbled once as the teleport faded, replaced by the tingle of the Crystal Heart working its magic on her coat, everypony else flopped. Even Pinkie Pie.

"Twily!" she heard a concerned voice. She turned around and was immediately met with a pair of pink hooves around her withers. "Oh I was so worried! All Luna's letter said was that everypony was in a lot of danger and that you were coming here. I thought something had happened to you!"

Cadance pulled away and Twilight smiled. "We're fine," she said with a tense smile. "Princess Celestia got to us before the... whatever it is did."

"Ugh, speaking of which," Rarity said, holding a hoof to her stomach as she pulled herself up, looking around the throne room they'd arrived in. "Your Majesty, I don't suppose you could explain to us why it was so important we leave so urgently? We didn't even get to pack!"

Princess Celestia frowned and looked down. "Everypony, we have been betrayed. Elizabeth Greene has shown her true colors." All the blood drained from Twilight's face. Everypony gasped. Oh no. This could not be happening. Elizabeth Greene, who simply walked into Everfree, was against them? Nonononono. "She has used her natural abilities to engineer a virus unlike anything I've ever seen in my life. It's extremely contagious and even faster acting. It causes debilitating symptoms over a twenty four hour period, and once that is done it shackles the victim to Elizabeth's will. Greene is attempting to enslave all of Equus, and Canterlot has already fallen."

It was Pinkie Pie who spoke first. "... what?" she whispered, uncharacteristically silent.

"Aunt Celestia," Cadance said. "You can't be serious. I met Greene! Sure, she's creepy with her voice and everything, but she doesn't strike me as a bad person."

"She openly admitted her intentions when Luna and I confronted her earlier today," Princess Celestia said solemnly. "She arrived in Canterlot three days ago. At noon, she gave me another sample of blood, and again to Luna at midnight. The day after we saw not hide nor hair of her, and the day after was spent watching everypony in Canterlot fall victim. As of today, everypony in Canterlot is a mindless... I'm sorry, there's really no better word. They're all zombies that only listen to her."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Rainbow said, holding up her hooves. "Zombies? Like, zombies zombies? They didn't bite you, did they?"

Celestia shook her head. "No, they didn't. They just... stood there, staring off into space. They didn't react to anything, but Greene implied that she can control them. I believe her exact words were, 'Make choices for them, only need to listen to me.'" The white alicorn took a breath. "And she's not stopping with Canterlot. She won't stop until every last consciousness save for her own is eradicated."

"That's... that's horrible!" Twilight blurted. "I can't believe she'd do something like this! I can't believe it!" And she couldn't. She simply could not wrap her mind around that. Elizabeth, enemy of all free will. Greene, bane of Canterlot. Elizabeth Greene, who never swore, who forgave Cadance and Rainbow Dash, who gave the world a cure for wing cancer and who-knew what else with the following two samples of her blood, who protected Fluttershy against anything that might even remotely hurt her... that Elizabeth Greene had caused the zombie apocalypse.

Protected Fluttershy...

Her eyes widened, but it seemed Applejack beat her to the realization. "Oh no. Yer Majesty, Fluttershy went to Canterlot last night. Are you saying she's... she's..."

Princess Celestia's mouth opened slightly and her eyes darted over them quickly. "Two, five, six... but... oh no, counted Spike..." She gulped. "I - I'm afraid... it seems likely."

"No... no! No way!" Rainbow shouted. "No, Fluttershy's fine, alright!? Elizabeth would never do that to her! I won't believe it!"

"Rainbow Dash," Celestia began calmingly even as Rainbow started backing up, looking left and right like a cornered animal.

"No! No, you're lying! Nothing's happened to Fluttershy! It's impossible! I don't believe you! I'll prove it!" Rainbow bolted for the nearest corridor, gone before almost anypony could react.

Almost anypony. "Dashie!" Pinkie shouted, zipping off to find her. Twilight could only breathe out in awe at her speed. She really hoped Pinkie would be able to calm Dash down.

Celestia folded her legs under her and looked down. "Oh, poor Fluttershy," she whispered under her breath. She swallowed and looked back at Twilight. "We must hold out hope. Elizabeth appears to have kept her plague subdued until she infected everypony in Canterlot, she may yet do so to Fluttershy." It was a vain hope, but Twilight clutched the Princess's explanation like a lifeline. In her heart of hearts, though...

No, no. Don't think about that. Whatever you do, do not think about that.

"So," she said, licking her dry lips and trying to swallow the lump in her throat. "What are we going to do about Elizabeth? The Elements of Harmony..." She trailed off, not willing to complete that train of thought. "And what about curing this disease? Would that work?"

"It may, but from what Luna tells me, this disease is nigh on impossible to cure, if not completely incurable. Right now, we have to find ways of containing the infection in Canterlot. I've already sent the proper messages, the cities and towns across Equestria will be routinely sending me reports as to the current situation throughout the country. We must figure out how to stop this before it becomes too much to handle. The first step will be to raise public awareness."

"Ever so sorry to interrupt, Highness," Rarity said. "But why didn't you simply stop Elizabeth when you confronted her?"

She sighed, lowering her head. "We tried, but she escaped before either Luna or I could lay a hoof on her, and she is nowhere to be found."

At that moment, a side door opened and her BBBFF trotted in, wearing full uniform and a stern expression on his face. "Caddy, I've got the guards posted at every position along the barrier. Everypony's on a full lookout for anything suspicious. Mind filling me in on what exactly is going on?"

Cadance nodded and walked over to Shiny, pecking him on the cheek. "Of course."

While her ex-foalsitter brought her husband up to speed, Twilight kept thinking. What did she know? Elizabeth Greene had spread a mind controlling, zombie-creating pathogen upon Canterlot and intended to continue spreading it to the entire world. The Elements of Harmony may or may not have been compromised. Elizabeth was in hiding, and was good enough to elude two alicorns. The disease in question was highly contagious, worked fast, and impossible to cure. Everypony in Canterlot was already part of Greene's zombie army.

... everypony in Canterlot.

She gasped, her pupils shrinking in horror. "No," she breathed.

Shining noticed her gasp and trotted next to her. "Twily, what's wrong?"

She snapped her head and locked eyes with him. "Shining Armor," she said, emphasizing on her use of his full name because this was serious. "Where are our parents vacationing? Baltimare? The Gryphon Empire? The Zebran Plains? Manehattan?" she asked, her voice rising higher and higher. Why was her vision getting blurry? She was fine!

"Twily, our parents weren't - " He cut himself off, turning pale even under his white coat. "No," he whispered. "No, no no."

She ignored how everypony else was looking at them in either confusion, not yet understanding, or in horror and compassion. "No, they were on vacation! Right?! They had to have been! They had to! They... they had to." Would her lip stop quivering? And why wouldn't her ears stop splaying back? Everything was absolutely perfect! T-That certainly wasn't water dripping onto the floor! She was fine damn it!

Her brother moved to embrace her, and didn't let go. She buried her snout into his chest, silently shaking. She tightened her eyes and made herself one promise.

Elizabeth Greene would pay.

A Just Cause

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DAY 4 OF INFECTION: 9% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Twilight Sparkle

Whoosh!

Whooooo!

Flutter.

Whoosh!

Fwooo!

The tornado of books surrounding Twilight Sparkle didn't abate. Her horn blazed like a torch, but if she felt any magical strain she didn't show it. The actual weight of the books, while quite a lot, was nothing compared to things she'd done in the past. Really, it was all coordination, and she had enough of that from lessons with the Sun Princess that she didn't even notice the whirlwind around her anymore.

The hundred or so books she'd torn from their shelves in the Crystal Library circled around her in a vortex that reached halfway to the aforementioned library's ceiling, but three remained side by side before her. One was a treatise on the psychology of the criminally insane and their behaviors, another was a scientific report on the patterns of the various pandemics that had occurred on Equus throughout the ages, and the last was a notebook for herself, on which her quill scribbled away to the tune of the other two's pages fluttering forward and back.

"Vectors of transmission are major... population densities increase rate of transmissions by variable D. Manual control of infectivity and virulence via nosokinetics..." She etched some more and substituted her variables, but she needed more information! With a flick of thought she returned the pandemic report to the twister around her and pulled out a book on nosokinesis. The Crystal Empire had never banned the books on the dangerous magic, despite having extremely few magic users to use the knowledge. It was not much, seeing as the difference between magical and natural processes was a large one, but it was giving her an idea as to what Greene might be capable of.

The most basic of disease magic was curing and inducing diseases by magic, or given Elizabeth, touch. That magic became more difficult and costly as the diseases became more dangerous; however, given how Greene had seemingly without effort subjugated Canterlot with an armageddon plague, the difficulty thing likely didn't apply to her.

Twilight also wasn't sure if Greene could cure her victims even if she wanted to. She was fairly certain the Evolved's abilities were geared towards spreading infection, not stopping it.

The next tier was disease identification and weakening; it was how the Royal Pathogen and Vaccine division used to create their vaccines. Greene seemed to skip out on that and go straight for the high tier nosokinesis.

Virus manipulation was extremely difficult, and Elizabeth did it. Subduing infections was even harder, yet she had done that to all of Canterlot for two days straight. She didn't know the full extent of Greene's abilities and that ate at her, because then she couldn't stop her, and then others would suffer the same thing that her... that her...

The tornado of literature briefly slowed, but Twilight forced the thought out of her head. That wasn't important! All that mattered was finding a way to prevent anypony else from being infected. The magical decontamination aura - a high intermediate nosokinetic spell - was well and good for small areas around magic users, but A: It would never provide the sort of area of effect needed to contain this and B: It had never been tested against an alien supervirus.

"Twilight?" a familiar voice called out.

"Gwah!" she shouted, her horn extinguishing itself. All the books fell around her, but before they could hit the ground and break their spines and fold their pages, a pale blue glow set them carefully down.

"Twily, you need to take a break," Cadance said as she trotted in. The librarian had long ago fallen asleep, cowering behind the desk in fear of Twilight's vortex. "How much sleep have you been getting?"

"I don't need a break! I'm close to creating a best case and worst case model of the vector spread of the Greene Virus throughout Equus. At the very least we need to know how much time we have!"

"I know, Twilight, but we've had this discussion before, remember?"

Twilight frowned as the alicorn got within foreleg's reach of her. "Continuous studying without rest results in diminishing returns, to the point where resting and then continuing gives more productivity. But we don't have the time! Every moment we spend is another moment Greene is spreading - "

"Actually, the infection seems to have stopped."

Her left ear flopped. "Bwa?" she croaked, her mouth hanging open.

"Reports from around Equestria confirm it. The infection put down roots in a lot of cities and towns, but it didn't progress too far before being stopped. Apparently, Greene is holding off again."

"What? Why would she do that?" She scowled. "Elizabeth made her intentions very clear in Canterlot."

Cadance frowned. "Twilight, are you alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be alright?"

"You snarled when you said her name," the alicorn deadpanned.

"I didn't snarl!"

"You're snarling again."

"I'm fine!" she insisted with a stomp of her hoof. "I know you're worried about how I'm taking what happened to my parents but I'm fine alright?!" She raised a hoof to wipe away one eye. "I can reverse it. I know it. Everything can be reversed, everything! Princess Luna's corruption, a stomach ache, even Discord's chaos. All I have to do is find how to reverse Greene's virus and everypony's going to be fine!"

Cadance sighed. "Alright, Twilight. But if you ever feel like talking about it..." she said kindly, trailing off.

Cadance shook her head. "As for Greene stopping her virus I'm afraid I don't know, Twilight. But whatever her reason, it buys us time to stop her, doesn't it?"

Twilight sighed. "This is going to throw my intermediate variable way off," she grumbled. "It's good and bad. It gives us extra time to prepare, but we also don't know how long, so the resurgence might take us by surprise, plus she may be holding off because she's preparing something..." She waved a hoof in the air. "Really bad. And we have no way of knowing what it is, because we can't get near Canterlot without being affected."

"I know, Twily, I know. Anyways, there was another reason I came to get you."

The ear that had flopped rose back to attention. "Hmm?"

"I think I may have found something useful that we may be able to use to contain the infection. Come on silly filly, I'll show you."

Smiling forcefully, Twilight laid her notebook on the ground and followed after her former foalsitter. She could already feel a major headache coming on from overuse of her magic, but she couldn't help it. She'd just been so... angry. She had to find a way to stop Greene, she simply had to...

"What did you find, Cadance?" she asked as they ascended a staircase. So many stairs...

"Well, Elizabeth infected everypony in Canterlot and then, well, 'turned on' her disease. But some ponies went away from Canterlot to other places while it was taking hold, so now that she'd paused it again it's in other places." Cadance stopped on the next step and smiled at Twilight. "It's a miracle that nothing happened in Ponyville," she said softly. "I don't know what I'd do if Greene got to you before Aunt Celestia did."

Twilight shivered at that and attempted to crack a smile. "Well... I'd get a lot of first hoof research," she said weakly.

They started walking again to the sound of Cadance's soft, forced chuckles. "That you would! That you would. So anyway, a lot of other places got infected, but here's the thing. Some of my subjects were in Canterlot when it happened. Vacation, business, such and such. But none of the crystal ponies are sick."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really really. I don't know if Elizabeth forgot to infect them, or they're immune, or just resistant, but it is what it is. There are no crystal ponies who are infected." They arrived at the top of the stairs, and there sat the Crystal Heart between its two spires, glowing bright. "Think you'll be able to do something with this knowledge, Twily?"

"Crystal ponies are immune to the Greene Virus," she repeated to herself. "Why?"

Cadance shrugged. "I'm not sure. I was hoping you could figure it out, and then go take a nap. Unless it's a difficult question in which case, nap first."

She shook her head. "No, no. I don't think it'd be too hard." She put a hoof to her chin and pondered how best to attack the problem. The ache in her horn and the exhaustion tugging at her eyelids wasn't helping matters. "I am an Evolved from another world. I desire to spread my infection to everypony I see."

"Alright," Cadance said slowly, not entirely understanding where she was going.

Twilight closed her eyes, even though the light of the Crystal Heart - bright, but not at all blinding - still burned brilliantly. She reached back with her impressive memory to the events of when she'd first met Elizabeth Greene. "I am in Canterlot Castle and I try to spread my disease. But nothing happens. My disease only affects humans, not ponies." She moved her memory forward. "I want to change my virus to affect ponies, but I don't know in what ways. So I need to sample a lot of different ponies somehow. I need unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies."

"That sounds reasonable, I suppose. But couldn't she have done it quickly then? Just three ponies and done?"

"I need a large sample size to minimize experimental error. I go to Canterlot, Ponyville, and Cloudsdale. But then I unexpectedly go to the Crystal Empire. It strikes me. Of course! Crystal ponies too. So I go to the Crystal Empire but, being from another world and unused to magic, I think they are just earth ponies with shinier coats. So I don't take any samples from them. When I change my virus to affect unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, I don't make it effective against crystal ponies." Twilight opened her eyes. "This... this could be the break we're looking for!"

"How?" Cadance asked.

"If we can get somepony made shiny, they'll resist the virus! I don't know by how much, but something is better than nothing!"

"Alright Twilight, but what's your plan then? Hide all of Equestria under the Crystal Heart's shield and wait for Elizabeth to visit us and make her virus affect crystal ponies too?"

Her ears drooped. "Well, no. But it's a start, isn't it?"

Cadance smiled and nodded, looking back at the Crystal Heart. "That it is. Go get some rest, Twily. I need to talk to Celestia and Luna, I'll tell them what you found."

"But - " A look from Cadance silenced her. "Oh fine," she grumbled in good nature. "Where's my room again?"

"Room three twenty-six," Cadance said without skipping a beat. She leaned over and nuzzled Twilight. "Go get some sleep, alright? If I walk into your room and see you still studying, I'll be sure to tell Shiny about that time you went in his room without asking."

Her pupils collapsed into periods. "Not the time when I replaced his - "

"Yes, that time. Twily, I know it's hard, but you need to take care of yourself. Please."

She sighed. "Alright. See you tomorrow?"

Cadance smiled. "You know it."

Without further ado, Twilight lit up her horn and vanished in a burst of lavender energy. She reappeared in the room Cadance had given to her and Spike. It was a cozy thing, with a window that looked out over the Crystal Empire and the snowy tundra beyond. It was very decorated, but she just waddled over to the unmade, sparkling bed and collapsed in it. She wasn't tired though! She could keep working! She was close to a breakthrough with this knowledge of crystal pony resistance. She was sure of it! She was -

Snooooore.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Breakfast was, like all other meals, a solemn affair. She sat with the other Elements - sans Fluttershy - in the dining hall. To her left sat Rainbow and Spike, and to her right Applejack, Pinkie, and Rarity. Across from them sat Cadance and Shiny. He hadn't said a word all day or yesterday, dismally eating his meal with dark rings under his eyes. The Crystal Prince and Princess were right next to Princess Celestia. Crystal Guards stood vigilant at every doorway, banners of the empire hanging from the ceiling banisters.

Nopony spoke a word, focused entirely on the meal the servants had prepared not many minutes before. Twilight had to admit, not even she could stay entirely morose while eating a crystallized pear, or sparkling pasta. It was amazing! She chewed silently, utterly focused on her meal. Everypony else was the same way until, after roughly twenty minutes of silent meal consumption, Cadance spoke up.

"Twilight, I looked into your crystal pony idea."

"Hrnph?" she asked, looking up with bits of tomato sauce dribbling down her chin.

"There were a lot of enchantments in the Crystal Heart I deactivated, like the one that did up your manes. I'm confident that there's enough power in it to protect large amounts of Equestria, if we can somehow transfer its power over to the cities in need."

"What is this about crystal ponies, my dear niece?" Celestia asked.

"They're resistant to the Greene Virus," she explained. "Twilight figured out that when Greene created her strain, she didn't make it affect them because she confused them with earth ponies. I doubt my subjects are completely immune to the plague, but if their resistance can be given to others..."

Princess Celestia finished the thought. "Then we may be able to contain this. I am very proud of both of you for discovering this. Still, how do you plan to..." Celestia waved a hoof in the air. "Extend these effects to Equestria?"

"With a lot of the enchantments stripped from the Crystal Heart, it has a lot of power to spare," Cadance explained. Suddenly she frowned. "A surprising amount to spare. You would not believe what sort of things I found in it."

"I was thinking we could set up focusing crystals," Twilight said. "I had the idea just this morning, actually. If we can come up with some type of crystal to channel the energy from the Crystal Heart into the surrounding areas, we can make entire town or city blocks resist the virus. I already have several ideas. Alexandrite, perhaps. Of course, we'll have to test them first, but I'm confident we can figure it out and then begin wide-scale deployment before three days pass." She frowned. "Of course, this is all very hypothetical. If we're wrong, then when Greene starts spreading her disease again lots of ponies are going to get sick."

"That is all I can ask of you, my faithful student," Celestia said. "This is a problem unlike any other. Luckily, we have many things aiding us. Not the least of which is Elizabeth's hesitance, your intellect, and my sister - "

One of the doors blew open with a cacophonous slam! In their place stood Princess Luna, her face as radiant as her voice was loud, a cup of coffee floating next to her in her magical grip. "We hath most joyous of news, sister!" She trotted over to the dinner table. "Thou shalt scarcely believe what we hath found in the dreamscape not too long ago!"

Everypony else held their hooves to their ears save for Princess Celestia, who just looked at the smiling, approaching night alicorn tiredly. "Luna, volume?"

"What dost thou - oh. We apologize. At any rate, the news is still most splendid!" She took her place next to Celestia and took a sip from her coffee. She made sure to look everypony in the eyes before continuing. "Gentle Fluttershy is well."

Rainbow spat out her water. "What?!"

Luna nodded, evidently happy with herself. "Indeed!"

"B-But, how do you know? I thought that moonlight-looky thing was hard to do?" Rainbow challenged, apparently unwilling to admit this was not some sort of sick joke.

"Certainly it is! But the infected have no dreams, yet we clearly detected gentle Fluttershy's dreams. She is plagued by nightmares, but given where she is that is the best of the options, and we aided her with them regardless. She is not infected." And that meant her parents weren't dreaming. They really had... no, no don't think about it. Don't think about it.

"She's not... YES!" Rainbow shouted, bursting up in a prismatic streak and a shower of feathers. "Yes yes yes yes yes!" she chanted, flying in a circle above them. She landed back in her seat and leaned over to Twilight. "She's alright! She's alright, oh thank Celestia and Luna and, and, and even Discord she's alright!"

"Yes, 'tis indeed must joyous news. However, we also hath less splendid events to share," Luna said. "We hath spoken to everypony we could find and are explaining to their cities of the danger we face. We had not even left Manehattan when anypony who so much as coughed was cleared away from. Paranoia is beginning to hold fast, and shalt only worsen with time."

"But still!" Pinkie Pie said. "We know Fluttershy's alright, don't we? So can't you just go into Canterlot and wham bam, teleport her out then we go use the Elements on that big meanie Greene?"

Celestia shook her head. "If what my sister says is true, then we can't move to save Fluttershy. Elizabeth may suppress the virus in her, but if she suspects that we may use the Elements of Harmony against her, she'll stop doing so and enslave Fluttershy. She essentially holds her hostage. For now at least, we must hold out hope that Fluttershy can take care of herself."

That's not a big hope, Twilight thought to herself. It's Fluttershy for pony's sake!

"Oh," Pinkie said, drooping. She ate some more of her breakfast cupcakes before picking up where she left off. "Alright, so no go on the Elements. Also, Lizzy's hiding, so we can't go right after her. Crystals then?"

Everypony nodded. "Crystals," Cadance said, like a not-evil Sombra. "We figure out a way to channel the Crystal Heart's magic through them, we place them in key locations, and they ward off the infection, maybe even trap it if we're smart about it. And if Elizabeth tries to spread her plague beyond, we can get her."

Twilight sighed. "It's better than any other plan we've got," she admitted. She gingerly touched her horn. Ow. "Let's get started." She looked down at the sparkling gourmet laid out before them, and remembered there was still desert to go. Double-desert in Pinkie's case. "After breakfast, of course."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

She spread her hands, and warmth was left behind on the wall. She forced her warmth into it, spreading the red mass through the buildings she had fused together into one large one. There really wasn't any reason she'd chosen this location beyond it having a good view and not being the castle; that belonged to the alicorn sisters. Not hers.

It was done. She'd made her Home in Equestria. She detached from the ceiling and dropped to the floor, looking about the building she had created out of many smaller ones. It was very very very roomy, like her second Home on the island city. It would do well, very well. But now that she'd made it, she had something else to do.

She found the exit and stepped out of it, looking up at the night sky. The moon slowly moved across the heavens, reminding her of her failure, mocking her for it. She had so much to do, so many plans to prepare just-in-case, but before any of that she was hungry and had to eat. She leaped across the streets of Canterlot in what was becoming second nature, finding her way to one of the city's many parks. Through her children's eyes, far away from Canterlot, she could see the equines doing... something with crystals. She didn't know what, but it didn't really matter.

She found her four children in question lounging next to a pond, feeding off her love eagerly under the setting sun's light. While her Strong Children waited in Canterlot for when she would next ask of them something, basking in her warmth, her... her Warm Children lounged.

Their bodies had bloated dramatically, fur fallen out almost entirely to expose reddened flesh, and while they could not cast or fly they could still walk and run at a decent pace. On their backs were large sores the size of Greene's head, but she could see none of them. Flowing from the pustules came cascades of red and white tendrils, and as they ate more and more it extended longer and longer.

Stomach growling fiercely from finishing up her Home, Greene stepped to one of her Warm Children and touched the tendrils stemming from her back. She drew them in, and they slipped out of the pustules and into her body effortlessly. She repeated the action with the other four, and she was once again whole and heavy. She bounded away, looking through her eyes and the eyes of her children...

"Elizabeth, can I speak with you? If it's alright with you, I mean." That was Fluttershy! She'd spoken to her children that guarded her. She changed direction and darted for the castle.

She found her way to Fluttershy in a minute, looking down at her dearest friend. "Fluttershy," she rasped happily.

"O-Oh! Hello, Elizabeth. Um, I didn't think you'd get here so fast."

"Quick," she said giddily.

Fluttershy smiled. "That's good to hear. I was, um, curious. If that's alright. I don't see too much of you. Are you alright?"

"Am fine, busy busy busy." She tilted her head to the side. "Finished making my Home."

"Oh? Can I see if? If that's, um, okay?"

"Yes, follow." With that, Elizabeth Greene lead Fluttershy out of the castle and down towards Canterlot. She brought the pegasus to her Home. She had taken a multitude of buildings and stacked them together, leaving empty spots in the streets where she'd pulled up the houses. It had taken some effort, breaking apart their walls to make one giant cavity and using the rubble, with her tendrils, to fuse them together. Now the complex stood visibly apart from the rest of Canterlot, snared with her warmth and overgrown in red. It wasn't yet reinforced like her second Home had been, but that could come later.

It had a certain charm to it, but Greene had to admit she was no artist.

"You did that?" Fluttershy whispered, looking up at its impressive height. "But what about those pony's houses? Their businesses?"

"No need for business or money. My Home, their Home. Shelter in rain and storm." Elizabeth looked up at the clouds gathering around the mountain. No pegasi manipulated Canterlot's weather anymore, so it happened in a more natural way. Like it had on the Similar world. It would've made her happy, but it also meant it was hard to know when it would rain.

Fluttershy tilted her head. "Well, I guess it's... roomy."

"Very," she said. "Inside? Show?"

"If you want," Fluttershy whispered. With that, she guided the pegasus towards a spot near the bottom. She held out a hand and lightly touched it to the red mesh, which receded into the surrounding tendrils to expose a large hole as an entrance. Fluttershy looked around uneasily before stepping in. Elizabeth followed after her, enclosing the tendrils behind her. "Oh wow," she breathed out.

The inside wasn't that much to look at. Empty cocoons along the walls, for when she may need them. Pulsing orange sacs along the ceiling to provide light, webs and lines of her warmth snaking on the floor. And best of all it was so so so warm. She loved it, as did the several dozen of her children in with them.

"It's... nice, I guess," Fluttershy squeaked.

"Nice," Elizabeth breathed, tilting her head back and closing her eyes blissfully under another surge of her family's devotion. Then she frowned. Something was going on in the city of Manehattan. Her frown deepened. "Need to go, need need need to go. Something wrong."

"What's - " She zipped away from Fluttershy before she could finish speaking, but heard her finish her sentence through her children's ears. " - wrong? Oh, I'll just... go back on my own."

She twisted around the spires of Canterlot Castle and ran full tilt up the face of the mountain. At the top, she looked around and, in the distance, spotted Manehattan. She could see it in the distance, and what looked like three blue dots in it, but she turned to one of her children's eyes for a better look. Greene felt her elation at being looked through and smiled at it, but focused her sights on the anomaly.

It was an enormous, shimmering blue magical field, similar to the one around the Crystal Empire. Not nearly as big, but it was still there, but she could see no equines out to see what it was. No matter. Still looking through her daughter's eyes, she instructed several others of her children to walk up to the field and then carefully test it with a hoof.

Immediately she recoiled them. Their hooves had turned shiny, like her suit had in the Crystal Empire, but it also tingled in them, like it was trying ever so slightly to reject her Blessing, to push it out and fight it. Experimentally, she had one of her sons step inside. Her Blessing tingled inside of him and inside of her veins as he became crystalline, but other than that nothing too bad. Still... she released the Blessing in him and told it to waft around.

Nothing happened. Which was a bad thing, which meant her Blessing wasn't getting far before vanishing.

The equines were putting these up, she realized. They were trying to contain her Blessing, to stop it. They weren't waiting and then coming around. They were actively trying to stop her, and these crystal fields would not be the last. Fluttershy's guess had been a good guess, it had been good advice, but it saddened saddened saddened Greene so much to see that she had simply been wrong.

She sighed and looked down. Oh, she did not not not like where this was going.

Before she could continue that line of thought, a pegasus flew before her, and this was not Fluttershy.

"Rainbow Dash," she rasped, making the pegasus wince. The equine had flown up to her while she'd been focused on her children in Manehattan, and now hovered before her, forearms at her sides, looking generally unhappy. She was framed by the moon behind her and around her neck was a clasp, with a light blue gem in its middle. The crystal sparkled with light that Greene assumed was magic, and Rainbow Dash herself mimicked the crystal pony look.

"You'd better not hurt her," Rainbow Dash snarled.

"Hurt who?" she asked, tilting her head. "Many females."

"Don't act like you don't know, Evolved!" Elizabeth tilted her head, and Rainbow Dash brought a hoof to her face. "I'm talking about Fluttershy! You'd better not hurt her. I don't know why you've taken her, or what you plan to do with her, but listen closely." Elizabeth opened her mouth, but her words only barely built their repeats before Rainbow Dash cut her off. "If you lay even a hoof on her, I will buck your flank onto the next planet. I've watched out for 'Shy since we were fillies, and I'm not about to let some disease ridden psychotic alien destroy her."

Elizabeth reached out towards Rainbow Dash, to try and Bless her to calm her down. Surely the crystal effects couldn't hold off her directly. Either way, the pegasus zipped from her grasp, prompting Greene to start invisibly releasing her Blessing into the air around her. "Oh ho, no you don't. I don't care why you're making everypony sick, or that you've supposedly got Fluttershy hostage with it. You're not getting me."

Her Blessing coasted around Rainbow Dash, but none of it seemed to settle on her. "Should care, asked her to help," she said softly, the repeats of her sentence flying out into the countryside.

"Yeah yeah, whatever! Listen to me, Greene. You're not gonna win. We're gonna trap you, and we're gonna cure whatever it is you've got going on. Hay, maybe the Princesses will find a way to cure you." Cure? You only cured diseases. What was she going on about? She wasn't sick, nor was anyone else. "Mark my words, Elizabeth. We're gonna get you, and when we do I'm gonna free Fluttershy from your grip. We're coming for you." Rainbow Dash turned around and prepared to bolt away. "Mark. My. Words." And then she was gone, unBlessed, leaving a rainbow streak behind her.

Elizabeth looked out into the night sky, and frowned. "Fine," she rasped, but couldn't put feeling behind the reply. She reached out to her children in the far off cities. 'Find and destroy whatever is creating those blue fields. Incapacitate or kill anyone who tries to stop you.'

Her children obeyed, she released her Blessing again, and she sighed. She'd have to break her promise. She'd have to make many lesser Homes around Equestria, give her children a safe place to rest. Things were going to get ugly, of that she was sure. She'd have to armor them as well. Change her other Blessing variants. She had so much to do, and she'd need Fluttershy's help so very much.

Even if it hasn't helped so far, her insidious doubts whispered whispered whispered in the back of her head. She snarled and furrowed her brows.

No, that didn't matter. One sample wasn't enough. She would do this, and she would account for everything. She wouldn't be taken by surprise, not like the last two times. She wouldn't let those who opposed her beat her. So the equines wanted to play rough? Even after all the equines had done for her? Fine. Fine!

Two can play at that game, she seethed.

Friendship is Magic, Family is Power

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DAY 8 OF INFECTION: 10% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Twilight Sparkle

"They're doing what?" Shining, in full uniform, asked his lieutenant incredulously. He was looking much better; he'd gotten proper sleep yesterday. Twilight had too. She didn't even have a nightmare. They stood inside a little wooden building. It was a decidedly cozy thing, with candles burning in glass bowls (To keep the hot wax from causing a fire) to provide light, a cozy faux-fur carpet, and several paintings of various Equestrian vistas hanging on the walls.

"The infected ponies are attacking the crystals we have set up throughout Equestria," he said, his shimmering blue coat reflecting the candlelight in all directions, giving his mane a smokey look as opposed to its regular black. "In addition, there have been sightings of Elizabeth Greene herself in heavily infected areas,"

"Start with the crystals," he barked. "Are they being defended adequately?"

"Mostly sir, but the attack took us by surprise. We lost one before we were able to mount a counterattack, and the infected have not relented. The Equestrian Military is also doing much of the heavy lifting, seeing how thinly spread we are."

"Wonderful." Shiny sighed. Twilight couldn't blame him; he and the general of the Equestrian Military had never gotten along. "I hope General Hard Gaze knows what he's doing."

"Surely he does, Prince. The crystal amulets are being distributed to high ranking officials, and we suspect that we will have enough to start giving them to individual soldiers within the week."

Twilight shifted nervously, a hoof gently prodding the amulet around her throat. Should she be listening in on this?

"Acceptable," Shining Armor said. He sighed. "Alicorns damn it, looks like our grace period is over. Work with the Equestrian forces to establish perimeters around our crystal fields. Keep the civilians safe, and above all do not let the infected destroy the crystals, hear me?"

"Yes sir!" the other guard said with a salute.

"Now, what of these sightings of Greene?" Shining asked curiously.

The guard gulped once, but otherwise betrayed no signs of nervousness. "We're... not entirely sure. She uproots several buildings - I mean literally lifts buildings over her head, sir - then places them together, and covers them in her tendrils. There are a few cocoons on their outside, but we have yet to ascertain their purpose. The structures do, however, seem to rally the infected around them. We have taken to calling these modified buildings Colonies, sir."

Wait she was doing what?

"Wonderful. Tell the good General I propose putting some amulets around pegasus scouts to see what their functions are, if he hasn't already. What of Greene afterwards?"

"She leaves," he said with a shrug. "She shows up, creates a Colony, and then sprints away just as fast, presumably back to Canterlot. A couple of hours later, she does the same thing in another part of Equestria."

Shining Armor frowned. "Is there any pattern to the location of the Colonies besides being in infected areas?" The lieutenant shook his head, prompting Shining to sigh. "Wonderful. We need to find a way of pinning down her location properly, without having to go into the Tartarus that is Canterlot." Her brother turned to her. "Twilight, is the enchantment of the resistance field crystals going well, at least?"

She nodded, smiling since she actually had good news. "As well as can be expected. The few enchanters that we got here in time are creating them as fast as they can. You can expect an amulet every hour, and a field generator every four." Secretly, she wanted to go help them, but Princess Celestia had told her she needed her skills elsewhere. She didn't know where, but Twilight hoped the Princess would tell her after this meeting with the lieutenant was done. With the drab reports of food and armor and such behind them, it looked like it was almost over.

"That's good," her older brother said, clacking a hoof on the ground. "Given how much the fields protect, it's far more than we could have hoped for." He turned back to the lieutenant. "You are dismissed, return to your post. Twilight, with me. Princess Celestia's waiting for us."

The other pony saluted and left while Twilight wordlessly followed her older brother. They wound their way through the musty building, their coats shimmering with crystalline essence. It was a little building in Stalliongrad, close to the Crystal Empire, where they had come to more closely oversee the defense of Equestria. Cadance had stayed in the Empire, keeping the Crystal Heart powered up to create the fields upon which the future of ponykind rested. So far they worked; the infection ran rampant through the cities but hit dead ends with the blue shells.

They found Princesses Celestia and Luna in a conference room, sitting around a table depicting Equestria. It was a magical map, so it showed the shimmering blue hemispheres around parts of Manehattan, Baltimare, Trottingham, and many more cities. Canterlot was painted red. The other four Elements, and Spike, were already there. A shimmering projection of Cadance hovered over another seat.

Princess Celestia looked up and smiled when they entered. "Shining Armor, Twilight, so glad you made it. Please, have a seat." They sat. "We've started the process of containing the infection but, as you are all aware, Elizabeth has ordered those she has afflicted to try and stop us. I fear that this situation will escalate dramatically if not stopped."

"The situation," Princess Luna said. "Is even worse due to the nature of the foe we face. We face not a conventional enemy. We art not fighting the plagued, we art fighting the plague itself, a disease embodied by Greene. A disease that can think, reason, strategize, and propagate. Even if we were to eliminate every infected - " Twilight and all her friends flinched at 'eliminate'. " - we shalt still not claim victory as long as Elizabeth Greene is free."

"Sadly," Luna's sister said, continuing. "We have no way of tracking her consistently. While Rainbow Dash is faster, Elizabeth does not tire and could simply wait for her to wear herself out, walk over and strip her amulet, then infect her." Rainbow shivered at the mental image. "My sister and I can't find her. We can't fight her, we need some way to either draw her out or pin her down."

"The crystals are working, Your Highnesses," Shiny said. "If we can all chip in to protect them from the infected, we can contain this infection and narrow down the places Greene can strike. From what I've seen of her, she's not patient. If those she controls aren't getting the job done, she'll come herself and then we can imprison her."

"A sound strategy, my former Captain," Celestia said. "However, it relies too much on being able to hold out against the infected. Are you sure that it can be done?"

"With me leading the Crystal Guard and General Hard Gaze leading your nation's army? Unless Elizabeth pulls something new and horrible out of her bag of tricks there is no doubt. However, there is something to be said about the Colonies."

Luna tilted her head. "Colonies?"

"I was informed of them not long ago. Greene is creating these buildings throughout Equestria to serve as strongpoints for the infection. They'll have to be destroyed."

"Aha! Our sister and we shalt be able to level these Colonies with great ease," Princess Luna said boisterously. "Elizabeth thinks to turn our infrastructure against us but we say neigh to that!"

"Aunt Luna," Cadance's voice said through the magical hologram. "Are you sure? They may be traps."

"Worry not, Cadance," Princess Luna continued. "We ourselves art immune to Greene's infection, and can purge ourselves to keep from being carriers."

"Excuse me, Your Majesty," Rarity said. "If I may interject, you said you can purge yourselves, yet you can not cure this plague? How ever does that work?"

"We can burn it out of ourselves," Luna explained. "Literally. Attempting to do something on a non alicorn would have... great consequences to their well-being. Still, if we and our sister destroy the Colonies, and the militaries of our two countries hold off the infected long enough to blanket Equestria in crystal fields, then it will force Elizabeth to reveal herself."

"Yer Majesty," Applejack said nervously, adjusting her hat. "I have an idea too."

"What is it, Applejack?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, spill the beans!" Pinkie exclaimed.

"I was thinkin'. We're worrying about how to stop Greene, but we already know who has in the past."

Twilight's heart nearly stopped. "You're not saying - "

"The Crystal Heart," she said, continuing despite Twilight's rising horror. "Brought Elizabeth back to life and to Equestria. So, why don't we have Princess Cadance fire it up again, and summon that Alex Mercer fellow? Then we sick him on Elizabeth, problem solved."

"Hmm," Princess Celestia said, placing a hoof to her chin. "That sounds - "

"No!" Twilight shouted, unashamed at interrupting her mentor because that was such a bad plan. "No, nononononono! That is a terrible idea!"

"Why?" Dash asked. "Seems pretty reasonable to me. I mean, we'll have to tell him not to kill her outright, but - "

"Okay first off!" she interrupted. "How do we even go about summoning Zeus? We know the Crystal Heart brought Greene here and probably another human ages ago, but do we know exactly how? Can we reproduce it, or do we need to hide the Crystal Heart for another thousand years and then activate it to summon him?"

"Well..." Applejack said.

"Next, let's say we figure out how to summon humans on command. How can we summon him directly? I'm pretty sure Cadance didn't try to summon Elizabeth, and humans are the only sentient species on her world. That could put their numbers in the hundred millions, maybe even billions depending on how much uninhabitable land their world has. But let's ignore that too and say we figure out how to summon Alex Mercer himself. What's to stop him from appearing in the Badlands? Or ten miles in the air? Or the middle of the ocean? Or the center of the planet?"

"When you put it like that, Twi - " Spike began.

But she was on a roll now. Plink. "But let's ignore all of that and say we manage to figure out how to summon Alex Mercer out of the millions of people on his world and bring him to where we want on the planet. What do you propose we do after that, Applejack?"

"I reckon we ask him kindly to stop Greene," she said confusedly.

"Wrong! He wouldn't know our language. Elizabeth had to perform a memory transfer on a guard to learn Equestrian, but remember when Greene told us how Alex Mercer eats?" Several faces turned green. "Yeah, that. 'Devours them mind body and essence,' she said. Mind. Alex Mercer learns by eating people alive. So he'd come here, suddenly in a strange place with magic, and can't understand the language, and he is always hungry. Solution? Eat a pony. After all, only humans are sapient creatures, it doesn't matter. Slurp. Oh, oops."

She took another breath and went on. "Furthermore! He eats the pony and learns that Elizabeth is spreading her plague. Great. He may or may not go to stop her, and given how he fought her tooth and hoof before he'd probably do it again. But how do we stop him from outright murdering her? I don't know if you pieced this together from Greene's story, but he won a three way war between the infected, his world's military, and himself alone. No way in Tartarus we can control him. He'll murder her." Though in a dark corner of her mind she couldn't feel that that was a particularly bad thing...

"And then what? We have a sociopathic, sentient, flesh eating disease that can kill thousands of ponies in ten minutes in Equestria. What are we gonna do? Calm him down? Remember that he thinks his creator's sister is his sister, so from his perspective we're ripping him from his family and putting him into a strange world, probably unable to send him back, to fight our battles for us. Think he'll be happy? Think he'll be satisfied with just murdering Greene? Everypony will be next. We can at least sort of identify with Greene because she is, at the most basic of levels, an animal. A mammal. But a living virus? No telling how his mind will work, if 'he' is even a correct term."

She took another deep breath. Plink. "So in conclusion, not only can we not control the Crystal Heart's summoning, who it summons, or where it summons them to, bringing Alex Mercer would result in Greene's swift unlawful execution, followed by us replacing a disease that enslaves ponies over a day with an even more infectious disease that kills them in seconds, with a criminally insane instigator that now has a grudge against us for separating him from the only family he's ever known, and is even more powerful than the last disease instigator. That is why it is a terrible idea to summon Alex Mercer!" Plink. Plink.

"Twily, Twily," Cadance said. "Calm down. Deep breaths. You've made your point."

"Right," she panted. "Deep breaths. In... and out. In... and out." After repeating that several times, she sighed. "Alright. I'm good."

Princess Luna was smiling at her wryly. "Well, thou hast certainly proven thy point, Twilight. Summoning Alex Mercer would end poorly for all parties involved; him, Greene, and us. However, dear Cadance, we would ask thou at least look into doing so, so that we may summon him if needed." Twilight gaped, and the Nightbringer caught her disbelief. "Make no mistake Twilight, we shalt not summon him unless absolutely necessary. Alex Mercer shalt only breathe Equestrian air if we art truly left with no other choice. Let us pray it is not a choice we have to make."

Luna cleared her throat. "Furthermore, we should also recommend thou look into making the Crystal Heart send Greene back to her own world. Again, there are many variables that we simply do not know with this, such as what happens to the infected without Greene or if the Heart can only take, not send, but t'would be best to keep our options open."

Cadance nodded. "I'll get right on it, Aunt Luna. So what else is there to talk about? The crystal ponies are worried, but not too much given how far away they are. How are things in Equestria?"

Princess Celestia sighed. "... not too good. Everypony is scared and jostling for space to get into the crystal fields. The evacuations of the towns closest to Canterlot has drawn to a standstill with the virus's resurgence." The eldest alicorn looked at Twilight and her friends. "I realize I have no right to ask this of you, but we need your help. You have stronger voices among the population than you may think, being national heroes. Rarity, Applejack, I'll need your aid with the evacuations. Can I trust you two to do so?"

"Ya can count on us, Princess," Applejack said confidently.

"Certainly, Highness," echoed Rarity.

"You have my thanks." She turned to Pinkie Pie. "Pinkie Pie, though you do not wear the Element of Laughter you still embody its ideal to perfection. Equestria is in dire need of your services. I need you to go around and calm ponies down. The fact that Elizabeth's infection has initial symptoms similar to a flu or cold is doing a great deal to terrify the populace and abandon loved ones who so much as sneeze, for fear of becoming a zombie. Can I trust you to stop or slow down this trend?"

She saluted with a mock-serious look. Or maybe it was actually serious, Twilight couldn't tell. "You got it, Celly!"

Celly?

By the time Twilight's brain had rebooted from Pinkie's use of a nickname for Princess Celestia, the pink pony was already gone to spread cheer among the paranoid masses. Now the Princess was looking right at her. She gasped. Oh no. What had she done? Had her calculations as to the rate of geometric infection spread among various plague vectors been faulty? Had her crystal pony plan failed already? Oh no oh no oh -

"Twilight, I realize I have no right to ask this of you." Yes you do, you have every right! "But the infected do not relent in their assaults. I realize in the past you've taken one or two lessons under your brother, and you and your friends performed very admirably in the changeling invasion. It would be very helpful if you could aid in the defense of the generators." Celestia looked down and winced hastily.

What?!

"What?!" Shining Armor shouted. "Princess Celestia, this is my little sister you're talking about! You can't just send her - "

"I realize that, Prince Armor," she said. "I'm not forcing her to do anything." Princess Celestia turned to Twilight. Everypony else had turned stock silent, watching the exchange. "Twilight, I will not lie to you. Anypony infected is already dead. They do nothing on their own and are nothing more than extensions of Greene's will. They can not be reasoned with, can not be bought, or convinced. Greene has told them to attack our crystal fields and they will not stop until she says otherwise. If we incapacitate them, they will resume when awoken. If we entrap them, they will never stop fighting their bonds."

She continued. "They can only be... put down." Twilight's jaw dropped. Surely, she hadn't just said that... had she? "I know it sounds heartless and I know it sounds cruel, but it is the only way. There aren't enough places to imprison everypony infected until a cure can be found, and if we allow them to keep brute-forcing their way, eventually the army will tire out and the fields will fail. It is the only way, and we need everypony we can get to help," she reiterated after saying her piece. "I can only ask this of you Twilight, and I would never dream of forcing this upon you. But it would be nice to know your answer."

Twilight stammered senselessly. List! She needed a list! Pros and cons! Cons for going through with this. She'd be placing herself in great immediate danger. Her friends would think less of her for doing it. And most of all she'd have to kill ponies. They weren't exactly in their right state of mind, of course, but still. Killing ponies. That thought ran absolutely contrary to everything she'd ever learned. There was always a better way, always. But... what was the better way? Greene was clearly not coming to negotiate. They couldn't find her to push the issue and even if they did, in the meantime she was not stopping.

Pros... pros for doing that. She'd be protecting Equestria. Making Celestia proud, probably. Those poor ponies that she'd have to... have to kill. What could it possibly be like, from their perspectives? They couldn't think for themselves. They couldn't do what they wanted. They had to do what Greene told them, always. If she were ever like that, stripped of logic and reason and empirical deduction, forced to do the whims of another and spread that curse to others, she had a hard time imagining wanting to go on. It would be... it would be a mercy. They would be mercy killings. As long as she thought of it like that...

As long as she stayed logical about it and forbade her morals from interfering, she could do this. Yes, the only way to form plans was with logic and evidence... right? "I'll... I'll do it. We can't slouch around with Greene."

"Hold up there Twi!" Dash said, swooping out of her chair and hovering next to her. "You're seriously going to go - "

"What other choice do we have?" she countered. "Rainbow, think of what it must be like for the infected. Just picture it. You can't control what you do. Everything you do is at Greene's command. You can't think, you can't want, you can't dream. And she's not going to let them stop, alright? If we don't... if we don't do this, then... then..." She blinked back tears. 'Don't think about it' was, perhaps ironically, rapidly becoming her new motto. "You know what happens."

"But the Princesses can take care of this!" she insisted.

Princess Luna shook her head sadly, ethereal mane flopping around under its strange gravity. "Neigh, quick Rainbow Dash. We art powerful truly, but not all-powerful. We can fail."

In the recesses of her mind, Twilight had always known that. But still, to hear it said out loud was a different matter. 'They failed to protect mom and dad,' she thought angrily before dispelling the notion immediately. Sure they had failed in that but... so had she. That thought didn't make her feel good about herself.

"Girls, I have to do this," she told everypony, looking at her aghast. "I can't... I can't just let Elizabeth... if I think of another way I'll do it!"

"Twily," Shining Armor said, looking at her sadly. "No..."

"I'm sorry, BBBFF, but we're not being given much of a choice. I have to do this."

The older unicorn sighed, but nodded. "Alright. But if you're going to do this, then allow me to at least teach you some things to keep you safe."

She nodded wordlessly, and then Rainbow clapped her on the withers with a hoof. "Well Twilight, if you're really going to go through with this, then I'm coming too." She looked up at Princess Celestia, as if daring her to say otherwise. But Celestia didn't. She just looked at Twilight sorrowfully, eyes glistening.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight sighed, looking at the street before her, several alleys leading off perpendicularly. This was happening. This was really happening. How had it come to this?

She stood next to Rainbow in an abandoned street in Stalliongrad, both wearing their amulets. Nopony was around save for them; the military hadn't had time to deploy to this largely vacated block, this street, so it left them. Neither of them wore armor; it was too heavy for Twilight and too restricting for Rainbow. It was creepily quiet, since everypony had evacuated further into the city, the crystal field providing cover for the retreat. Twilight and Rainbow stood with their backs to a building. Halfway down the street, the dome of blue energy came down and dove underground, beyond which the infection could rage and grow.

Ponies outside the barrier shambled in, moaning and groaning. There were no soldiers here to save them, none to rely on; they hadn't had time to deploy here yet, which was why she and Dash were there, staring down the infected.

"Here they come," she said nervously. They were coming. Very slowly, the first pony only now breaking through the blue barrier and stumbling towards her. As he approached, Twilight gasped as she got her first look at an infected pony.

At first glance she wouldn't have thought anything was wrong, but several things stood out all too well. The earth pony had an unkept coat to the extreme, covered in blood from some event she didn't want to imagine. His eyes were focused dead ahead with unnatural intensity, and he stumbled in his gallop, like he were pushing his body forward faster than his legs could keep up. But the worst part were the tumors, growing over his mown-lawn cutie mark and out of his spine as the zombie-like pony stumble-galloped at her.

"Remember Twi," Rainbow said nervously, hovering next to her. "Don't let them bite you."

"Heh, I don't think it works like that." Does it? She grasped a piece of the road in her magic and tore a chunk of rubble out. She hesitated, then dropped it. This wasn't the invasion of Canterlot, where she was forced to improvise. She could be methodical, energy smart. She didn't throw a rock. Instead she reached her magic over the earth pony's neck and... and...

She couldn't do it. Despite every logical argument she'd given herself she could not do it. She wasn't a soldier. She wasn't a guard. She was a librarian for Celestia's sake! This was a pony, a mentally ill pony but still a pony! This went against everything she'd ever -

"Watch out!" In a blur of color and speed, Rainbow Dash flew from the air and bucked the stallion in the head, sending him flying through the air and landing in a heap. The infected pony immediately began thrashing about, but delayed shock made Twilight pull on her magical grip. The infected fell still.

Before she could begin hyperventilating and panicking, Dash landed next to her. "Keep your head out of the clouds, Twi! There's more coming."

"Right," she said weakly. Sure enough, there were a lot more coming. An assorted mix of all three tribes, stumbling their way. She could only imagine what sort of order Greene had given them to do this.

This time she steeled herself and reached out with her magic, dropping a former unicorn. Then an earth pony. A pegasus. Each time she winced, but they were gaining on them. Rainbow took to the air and began to fly, bucking those getting close in the head so Twilight had some breathing room. Either way, Twilight was forced to begin picking them off by twos, and then threes, just to keep them away from her.

It didn't take long for the infected - or Elizabeth - to smarten up. The pegasi took to the air and began dogfighting Rainbow, who was soon forced to lead them away on a wild goose chase. And a unicorn-zombie-mare (Never thought she'd use that to describe somepony) lowered her horn at Twilight and let loose with a ray of energy. Twilight stopped. She just stopped and let gravity do the rest, the magical blast sailing far above her mane as she hit the ground. A moment later, Rainbow flew by and tossed the offending unicorn aside, which gave Twilight the opportunity to do the deed.

Rainbow had already passed on, and the infected pegasi swooped past Twilight. They were moving too fast for her to use her magic on individually, so she summoned a ceiling of force and pushed it down, throwing the infected to the ground. She picked off each one with her magic...

"Aie!" she shrieked, leaping out of the way. An infected earth pony had reached her, and was reared up to strike her with her front hooves. The legs came down on the hard street, and a moment later Twilight flung the infected mare against the nearest building. She could actually see that there weren't 'many' infected left; about two dozen, with half of them still outside the barrier.

She reached out with her magic and... snapped a few more times, each one making her thankful for her small breakfast, before she felt herself lifted. She flailed wildly as a green aura enveloped her, coming from one of the infected stallions. The other unicorns prepared to blast her.

However telekinesis was the basics of basics, so it took a unicorn of Twilight's caliber no effort at all to undo the infected's magical aura and drop to the ground, narrowly dodging the blasts and returning to her task. Before long, she was fighting down retches and crippling guilt as she swept the bodies aside so she wouldn't have to see them anymore. Rainbow touched down next to her, a bit winded but otherwise unharmed.

"Alright Twi," she said grimly. "How did things go?"

"Some tricks, but pretty easily all things considered. Can't see any more infected from here, which is good."

Rainbow chuckled a bit. "Kinda like a game, almost. Elizabeth causes the zombie apocalypse, and sends them in the form of tougher and tougher waves."

"Focus Rainbow! This isn't a game! Ponies are dying because of this!" she shouted hotly.

The pegasus pulled back, folding her ears and looking down. "I know, I know, alright? But if we're so deadly serious all the time then things are gonna get pretty freaky." Rainbow stopped and looked at the edge of the crystal field surrounding them. "Um, freakier." Suddenly, there was a slam. It was a loud slam, but given how quiet it was Twilight judged it to be far away. She and Dash turned to one of the alleys. "What was that?!"

Twilight swallowed the lump in her throat. "We should go take a look."

"Way ahead of you," Dash said, creeping along the streets towards the alley. In it was a dumpster, from which came another rattling and what sounded like chatter. She and Rainbow stopped next to each other, looking at the filthy thing.

'On three,' Twilight mouthed. 'One, two, three!' Her magic flung open the dumpster at the same time Dash took to the air to get a better perspective on the creature inside...

... or the three young fillies with sparkling coats.

"Ah!"

"Don't eat me!"

"Ah!"

"Aie!"

Once everypony had calmed down, Rainbow looked down incredulously at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. She clenched her teeth as her face turned purple with anger, breathing heavily. "Applebloom. Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo."

Scootaloo chuckled nervously. "Heh, hey there Rainbow," she said nervously, looking up at the livid pegasus fearfully. In the meantime, Twilight began scanning them for disease as they climbed out of the filthy dumpster.

"What the b - I mean, what are you three doing here?" Rainbow hissed. "I don't know if you noticed, but we're kinda busy with the end of the world! How did you even get here? I thought you all evacuated with AJ's family to Appleoosa." Good, they weren't infected.

"Well, we heard about what was going on so we tried to get to the Crystal Empire - " Applebloom began.

" - but we didn't get our Cross Country Cutie Marks, so we stopped in Stalliongrad - " Scootaloo continued.

" - and then we heard what was coming here so we hid while you... what did you do?" Sweetie finished, ending with a question.

Twilight's stomach flopped. "It does not matter what we were doing! What matters is getting you three to safety. We don't need you trying to get Zombie Hunter Cutie Marks." Again, she thought.

"But Twilight!" Applebloom whined. "We'll be good, I promise."

Twilight's ears swiveled as a distant roar met her ears. "Nope!" She looked at her friend. "Dash, can you get them somewhere safe? Something really bad is coming here."

"You're not asking me to leave you here are you?" she asked with a raised brow.

"No, I'm not." The roar was closer now. She swore she could feel thuds, the earth shaking beneath her hooves. "Get the CMC to safety, then you can come help if you want."

Grimly, Rainbow nodded. "Alright, come here everypony." She grasped Sweetie Belle in her forelegs as Scootaloo got on her back, Applebloom clinging to the bottom of her barrel. She looked distinctly Unhappy with being a filly-rack, but despite that she took off into the air. Once she was out of sight, Twilight sighed and shook her head. Honestly, the world comes crashing down around them, throwing well-established moral codes into disarray, and those three...

The wall behind her exploded, sending her flying a short distance before falling on her stomach. She turned her head around and gasped at the roaring beast behind her. Its skin was a strange shade of pink. Unlike Pinkie Pie's coat, it was heavily muted. Almost more gray than pink, and strands of green fur stuck out in random places upon its body. There was no mane and no tail, and it was big.

The creature, on all fours, was as tall as Princess Celestia and had much, much more in the way of muscle. It wasn't grotesquely muscled, but given it just broke through a building she was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Its mouth, open in a roar, seemed shriveled around the lips and its tiny, tiny eyes were sunken so far into its head Twilight had to wonder if it could see at all. At the end of each leg, instead of hooves, a clawed hand stuck out with fleshy webs between its appendages.

From its forehead grew a shriveled black stick of a horn.

"Um," she whispered, getting back on her hooves shakily. "Hello?"

Her response was the creature - had that used to be a pony? What happened to its hooves? - looking her way and roaring before bounding after her.

Time slowed down. Twilight pondered the situation rapidly. Mutated pony, clearly a former unicorn. Whatever Greene had done had seemingly made the horn useless, so magic wasn't an issue. It was very big and very fast. Judging by how it had burst out of a building without a break in its step, it was both incredibly strong and incredibly tough, similar to Elizabeth herself. She could easily teleport away, but at the same time she couldn't. She'd be letting this... this thing roam around the streets free. With that decision made, Twilight lit up her horn.

She gave an unexpected grunt of effort as she brought the beast to a halt in mid air, growling in anger at her. It had a lot more momentum than she'd anticipated; it was much heavier than it looked. With a groan and a flick of her head she smashed it into the pavement, lifted, and then again. Again, and again, and again.

On the eighth slam the beast grabbed the ground and, when she pulled it up again, ripped a rather large boulder out of it. Still held in her magic, it hefted back the enormous piece of rock and tossed it at Twilight.

She gasped and, in her panic, let go of the beast, switching her magic to trying to stop the rock. Normally it'd be little challenge to hold back something its mass, but given how fast it was going it took her a lot of effort to deplete its momentum. By the time she'd gotten it to stop it was right in front of her and the beast was...

On a rooftop. It had jumped and in one bound reached the nearest roof. It jumped down next to her, and Twilight got ready to defend herself. Or she would've but the force of the thing landing sent her flying again. She groaned when she landed; it was like getting bucked in the chest.

New analysis, she thought to herself as she got to her hooves. Avoiding contact is priority number one.

She threw herself to the side, scurrying behind it. The thing was next to her again, raising its fists into the air before slamming them into the ground. The pavement shattered and warped around the impact, rolling out like a liquid wave.

She gaped. That... that could've been her!

Her horn lit up and she slammed it backwards with a wave of force, sending the creature toppling onto its front. It caught itself easily, and Twilight began desperately attacking it, slashing anywhere on its body with her telekinesis.

Her magic seemingly slipped off its tough hide as the beast turned around to face her. It roared again and leaned back on its hind legs, one arm far back. Then it darted forward, slashing with its forearms viciously. Thinking on instinct, Twilight tossed up a flat, rectangular shield as it approached her. There; she wasn't as skilled as her BBBFF, but she had a lot of power. That would buy her time to think of a plan.

Thunk! The first hit made her shield shake.

Smash! The next, barely half a second later, cracked it open.

Crash! In just one second, the monster had broken Twilight's shield.

She gasped in pain as the magical backlash hit her, falling to her haunches in a daze. Then, in a single bound, the beast was upon her. It sank to all fours and grabbed her with a hand. Immediately, she began shrieking and flailing, trying to magically shove against it, but all she managed was to slow down its hand. It looked her way with that hideous, broken face and dead horn, and opened its mouth wide as it brought her neck to its mouth.

There was a flash of light and sound, then a whoosh of displaced air. Twilight's eyes cleared just as the fiend closed its mouth, snapping empty air. Noticing it had been duped, it stood on two legs and roared to the sky. She panted from the rushed teleport, and began to think of a new plan. It was impossible to slow down, and if it was anything like Greene it would take a lot to make it stop fighting...

Time for a lot, then, she thought grimly. Her horn lit up and the dumpster, now a short distance away from their fight, came loose and slammed into the monster's back mid-roar. It fell forward again, but before it could do anything Twilight bashed it again with all the force she could muster, and again, and again, and again, even as the metal warped and crumpled she kept hitting it. Eventually, though, it got its hoofing again and backhanded the ball of scrap. Immediately her telekinesis was overpowered, sending the ball crashing down the alley into the main street. She backpedaled and summoned her magic again.

This time, she took a page out of the monster's book, grabbing a piece of the street, hefting it up, and throwing it at the beast. She expected to hit it, but at the last possible moment the monster grabbed her projectile and tossed it back at her. She gasped and leaped forward under its arc, barely being passed by the boulder.

She didn't know exactly what happened, but a moment later she was on her side, gasping for the air that had fled her lungs. Her entire barrel hurt, and she couldn't find the strength to stand. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw the beast slowing down from what may have been a charge, and cast a sleep spell at it.

Nothing. It didn't even blink. It was like her magic had just... dispersed around it. Then it was on her, one arm pulled back and ready to slash her. So she did the only thing she could think of; she rolled backwards. She thanked her brother for teaching her how not to get herself killed, even if he only had an hour to do so before she came here.

The creature's claws passed her by a hair's length, but in that time she got back on her hooves and, with a grunt of effort, tossed the thing back. It landed on its back and, seizing the initiative, Twilight wrenched a rock the size of her head from the street and tossed it up. Then, at the height of its arc, she used her magic to push it down, gravity and telekinesis slamming it into the recovering monster's stomach.

The rock broke.

Dust and rubble spilling out, the beast still roared angrily and got to its feet. It prowled slowly towards Twilight, who gulped and began backing up. How could she hurt that thing? It seemed invulnerable. It had very tough skin, but...

That was it, tough skin. Blunt trauma couldn't damage it unless there was a ridiculous amount, but cutting it might do something. Summoning her telekinesis again, she pictured slicing apart a gash in the monster's chest. Her magic encountered much more resistance than she'd expect for such a narrow cut, but regardless a small hole opened up, which copiously bled before healing immediately.

So then. A lot of that then.

She began viciously slicing at the monster, grunting and gasping with effort as its thick skin - what sort of virus does that to somepony? - offered resistance, but not enough to keep her from injuring it. Eventually, it reared back under her assault, one hand back. It slashed, then slashed with the other, dissolving into a frenzied fit of attacking as it walked forward at her.

Twilight's eyes widened and she dove to the side, wincing when her developing bruises pulled against her skin. The beast passed by her, and when it belatedly realized she wasn't in its path of destruction anymore, raised its head and stiffened its arms, roaring. Twilight actually saw red and white tendrils flicker around its body, leaving no doubt as to its origins.

She didn't waste a moment before lashing out with her magic again. If she had time and wasn't being attacked by a beast that could kill her in one hit, she likely could have come up with a better plan than 'keep cutting it' but as it was she didn't have the luxury of time. Fortunately, her new plan was holding it off, and even though the cuts healed as fast as she made them a lot of blood spilled out in the short time; were its insides pressurized? It would explain a lot of the durability.

Finally, with one last shove she pushed the monster back, carving a trench in the ground as she did, and opened a wide gash from its exposed navel to its throat. Again, it healed almost instantly, but bled - don't think about the blood don't think about the blood - copiously before stopping. Twilight readied her magic again, preparing for the beast to try and lunge at her, or throw a boulder.

Instead, it roared again, and began stumbling back on its hind legs. It held out its front legs as if to ward itself from Twilight, and rapidly vomited blood from its mouth. Had... had she won? Perfect! Now when it recovered from whatever was happening to it she could imprison it for when -

With one last screech, the monster looked up at the sky and then fell over backwards, dead.

She began panting. She'd killed it. She'd killed it! Oh sweet Celestia she'd murdered somepony! A-And a whole bunch of someponies! She retched and threw up her previous meal, and immediately began stumbling away from the alley ew ew ew was that its blood ew ew ew! Why did Elizabeth have to do this? Why couldn't she have just remained as normal as an alien could've? Why? Now a bunch of ponies were going to die and it was all her fault!

Twilight nauseously stumbled out into the street, her horn sending errant sparks from the immense power it had been forced to use recently. That monster's skin was really tough. "Rainbow!" she screamed hoarsely, ignoring the infected bodies around her. "Rainbow!" Was that the destroyed dumpster? It looked like an F.P. Eqscher painting.

Then the pegasus was infront of her, panting, still sparkling. Was Twilight still sparkling? Was she infected?! She checked herself over. No, a little sweaty, dusty and bruised, but she was fine. She was okay. She was perfectly fine! "Twi! You - whoa, you look like you just took a trip through Tartarus."

"Gotta get outta here," she breathed. "Giant thing. Horrible."

"Whoa, slow down there," Rainbow cautioned her, grabbing Twilight in her forelegs as she kept stumbling towards her. "Come on, lets get you outta here. I spoke with your bro and that military commander guy, he's sending some ponies here to take care of this section. Lets get you back to the girls and you can tell us all about it."

Mutely, Twilight nodded and allowed Dash to lead her out of that horrible place, though she felt many more places would receive the status 'horrible' in the near future. What... what had she done? What had she done? As much as her logic tried to justify it she couldn't ignore her morals. This was utterly wrong. Horribly wrong. This was madness, this was civil war, this was going to free Discord and return the windigoes and plunge Equestria into a chaotic eternal winter! She could only hope that everypony else was faring better than her. She only hoped everypony would be safe.

She hoped she hoped...

One Thousand Suns

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DAY 9 OF INFECTION: 13% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Celestia

It was rare for Princess Celestia to be angry. Those who knew her personally knew that she was kind, benevolent, and sought the path of least resistance whenever it was possible, the one which would benefit all parties involved. Her anger was something few wished to see and fewer still ever did.

Princess Celestia was angry.

First of all she was angry at the ambassadors. They had been called some time ago, and only this morning had they managed to reach Stalliongrad for a meeting with her. Luna had been out incinerating more Colonies, which left Celestia with the task of speaking with them and securing outside aid for Equestria.

Or, at least, attempting to.

She grumbled to herself as she walked in circles around the bedroom she'd been given. It was a rather spacious one all things considered, and the bed, complete with pegasus down pillow, had given her a good night's sleep after a series of dreary incineration of infected buildings.

Infected buildings. Businesses, homes, monuments. Was nothing sacred to Elizabeth Greene?

Her good mood after she'd awoken had been ruined by a series of events, the latest of which were their uncooperative 'allies'. They were not receiving any aid and, in fact, the zebras, griffons, minotaurs and the dragons that listened to their council conspired to actually quarantine Equestria and the Crystal Empire. They didn't want to deal with the plague getting into their countries.

Why would they do that?! They had an agreement. Several agreements! Equestria had aided each of their countries when they were in need so why wouldn't they return the favor? Instead they sealed off the borders to ensure nopony got in and, more importantly, nopony got out. Her own country had become a prison, a dungeon shared with a dangerous inmate. There would be consequences. There would be Tartarus to pay for the actions of Equestria's 'allies' once Greene was contained. Oh yes, there would be very, very severe consequences but that was neither here nor there.

She knew why they'd done it. If she'd been in their position she'd certainly be tempted to do the same. They were afraid, terrified even, of Greene. From a certain standpoint it made sense; Elizabeth was an instigator of a terrible disease, keeping her contained was the logical move, despite the impossible logistics of carrying it out. But on the other hoof, it would be impossible to contain her. Once - if, she reminded herself - Greene subsumed all of Equestria, she would have an army of six million slaves to focus on and shatter the quarantine. Especially with those giant infected, 'Breakers' they were called. A quarantine would not work, and she had spent a while trying to drill that into the ambassadors' heads.

But fear and passion had won out over logic; all of their 'allied' nations were paralyzingly terrified of the prospect of the apocalypse visiting their respective countries. And so, Equestria and the Crystal Empire were sealed. Given the sudden appearance of Breakers in Greene's armies, they could spare nopony to even try and break the quarantine. Ponykind was all on its own.

She was angry at the ambassadors, oh yes, but even more than that she was angry at herself.

She'd seen the haunted, deadened look in Rainbow Dash and Twilight's eyes. This was horrific for them and she'd pressured her dearest Twilight into doing such things, things she'd hoped would remain in her distant, distant past and never surface ever again. Why had she pressured her? Celestia had told her it was optional but in her heart of hearts she knew that the moment she even brought it up Twilight, ever so eager to please, would accept. Celestia had done that to her, and she would never forgive herself for putting Twilight through something nopony, especially not her, should ever experience. Never.

She ruffled her wings angrily. It was almost time for another meeting. They were having a lot of those; with the stacks of reports on her desk thoroughly looked through, requests for aid signed, and advice given to unsure mayors, she headed out. As she walked through the hallways of the inn that had been commandeered for its proximity to the Crystal Empire (With a promise of great recompense for the owner) she heard a commotion coming from a side room. She didn't want to eavesdrop, but...

"I can't believe y'all would do something so incredibly stupid!" rang out Applejack's voice.

"What AJ said! Squirt, I get that you wanted to help or... whatever you expected to do, but really? Trekking across zombieland to get to us? That's not brave, that's just stupid!" shouted Rainbow Dash.

"Honestly Sweetie Belle, I thought our parents raised you better than this." That was Rarity Belle, sounding as calm as possible. A moment later, Celestia winced and backed away from Rarity's impression of the Royal Canterlot Voice. "I AM GROUNDING YOU SO HARD YOU'LL BE GOING AS A ROCK FOR NEXT NIGHTMARE NIGHT!"

Best be on her way then.

It was a spacious inn but it wasn't exactly large, so it took her little time to get back to the room with the enchanted map of Equestria.

Twilight was there, staring vacantly off into the distance with heavy bags under her eyes. Her sister was also there, as was a projection of Princess Cadance. Nopony else was around. With a heavy sigh, she took her place at Luna's side.

For a while nopony spoke. Celestia found her gaze firmly locked on Twilight Sparkle's, a worried frown attempting to displace her featureless mask. What had she done to her? Why? She knew why, of course. The same reason Equestria's allies had locked them in; she was afraid.

She was afraid of Elizabeth Greene. The Evolved's purpose was easily the most malevolent one she had ever encountered; the complete eradication of all free will. Utter enslavement to her will on such a level that the afflicted would never even contemplate something better, held fast to the same level for all eternity, no hope of anything greater or even the idea that there could be such. She had been afraid and, in her desperation to contain the infection at all cost, she'd cost Twilight Sparkle her innocence.

Greene would pay dearly... as would Celestia when the time came.

She sucked in a breath, clearing her head of those angry thoughts. In... and out. Better. "Greetings to you all. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

"It's alright, Princess," Twilight said slowly, clearly uneasy around three members of royalty, even if one of them was Cadance. It pained Celestia to see that Twilight was uncomfortable around her, but maybe Celestia deserved that. "We've all been really, really busy."

"I suppose we have, Twilight," she said. "You told us that you had an idea on how to potentially resolve this situation?"

The only non-alicorn at the table nodded. "Yes. You see, after getting attacked by that... that thing - " The Breaker. Oh poor Twilight, it's a miracle you're okay. No thanks to me. "I started thinking about why Greene is doing this. I mean, relating what we know now to the story she told us. I'll have to start at the beginning and work my way up in chronological order, so that we can see clearly why she's spreading the infection."

"Really?" Cadance asked. "I mean, if you think it'll help, Twily, I'm all ears."

"Indeed," Luna replied coldly, her forehooves folded over the table, almost touching one of the illuminating candles. "Understanding thy opponent is the majority of the war. If we know of Greene's most peculiar brand of insanity, we can use such instabilities to her great disadvantage."

"Alright, let me just organize my notes." Lighting up her horn, Twilight pulled a decently thick stack of papers from under the table. Celestia couldn't help but let a smile reach her lips. Still Twilight. Perhaps the damage wasn't as bad as she'd feared; Twilight had certainly proven to be a very strong mare in the past. She started shuffling them. "Let's see... nature of... origins of Zeus... ah, here we are!"

Twilight cleared her throat. "It's pretty clear that Elizabeth used to be a normal human, and that she was infected with the virus at some point in her life and lost almost all her memories. Currently, she's a psychopath with the goal of gripping the entire planet with her virus. But here is the thing; I don't think she is entirely to blame. What are the odds that out of all the humans who became an Evolved, Elizabeth was already insane beforehoof? Zero to none. Given the changes it causes other ponies, I think this virus did more to her than simply wipe her memories."

"How do you mean, Twilight?" Celestia asked.

"The virus did something to Greene to make her want to spread it. It's almost like... like a beehive. The workers serve the queen without question, and the queen's only purpose is to make more children. The regular infected are the workers, and Evolved are the queens, seeing them as children. But there is no chance she was always like that. The virus... I think it destroyed the person she was before. It didn't corrupt her. It didn't possess her. It just outright drove her insane."

They nodded, and waited for Twilight to carry on. "She mentions that the first home she lived in was called Hope. It may have been her birthplace, it may not have been, but it doesn't matter. She became an Evolved there, and she claims to have tried to - " Twilight raised her hooves to make air quotes. " - make her family there. Then the humans came and murdered her children and locked her and her 'Holy Child' away. Reading between the lines, the humans look much more relatable. Greene did the same thing to them she's doing to us, and the human military stopped her. They recognized her potential and kept her and one of the other infected to study."

Twilight shrugged. "Then Elizabeth pretended to be brain dead, so that would throw a lot of their moral inhibitions out the window. At some point they, for some alicorns-forsaken reason, took her virus and made it exponentially deadlier; she calls it a curse. A madhuman took the modified virus and released it, killing thousands. The virus then devoured his body to become, well, Alex Mercer, and in the confusion Greene escaped."

"From what it sounds like," she went on, shuffling her papers. "That time things were much worse. She was in a city, so her virus would've spread like wildfire; hay, it does here without the crystal fields. The human military tried to stop her again, but with the raw numbers in the city, it took Zeus to stop her. And that's not exactly a feasible solution for us. We either have to force her to stop, or convince her to stop."

"We understand," Luna said. "But Elizabeth Greene is utterly incorrigible. She feels no regret for doing such and views the removal of free will as a benefit. How doth one combat that ideology? Please explain this to us, Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight smiled and brought a new page to the top of the pile. "I'm glad you brought that up, Princess Luna. Here's my theory; Elizabeth doesn't know she's infected. She doesn't think she's infecting ponies. She calls her strain of virus a blessing. She thinks it's just that; a blessing to be spread to all. The virus naturally makes its queens think the virus is a good thing. And to the Evolved it is. I know I'd give my left hoof to be able to regenerate like that. She doesn't even realize her so-called blessing is a virus, so we can't go by that route. For whatever reason, she has got it into her mind that free will is a poor thing to have."

Twilight looked at Celestia, and she had to force herself not to look away in shame. Still, Twilight's eyes were alight with the search of knowledge, the joy that she had a hypothesis that could be falsified. "Princess, you once told me that the only thing needed for evil to win..."

"... is for good ponies to do nothing," she completed. "But my faithful student, surely she does not see it that way?"

"She probably does. After all, it's easy to do something if you think it's the right thing to do. She, in her insanity, sees free will as causing us all pain, so naturally she wants to alleviate that pain by blessing us. This gives us an opening to negotiate with her."

"I think I see where you're going with this, Twily," Cadance said. "If we can convince her that enslaving everypony isn't a good thing, she'll stop. Only problem is, how are we going to find her to talk sense into her in the first place?"

"That's easy," Twilight said. "We ask her to come to us while around some of the infected. She told me and the girls a while back that she can see and hear everything her 'children' do; it's how her hive mind works. She also controls them through it; she explains it as simply asking them to do something, but I kinda doubt the infected are able to say no to Greene. So we go to some infected, and ask Greene to meet us somewhere, then talk her down." Twilight frowned. "That's also what I think causes her emotion bleed; she's the center of a hive mind so powerful that, if you're close enough, it can affect you even if you aren't part of it."

Celestia smiled. Finally, some good news. A diplomatic approach was possible. Oh sure, they'd still have to try Elizabeth afterwards, but it was her plans that were malicious, not Greene herself. Once she saw what she was really doing Celestia had little doubt she'd agree to a fair trial. "I should go alone." Luna opened her mouth to begin to protest. "Lulu, please hear me out." Hearing her fillyhood name used in the presence of others, Luna went silent with a blush. Score one for the big sister. "Greene is clearly afraid of us; we both saw that during our last encounter. If we both go, she will be too afraid to come. If I go by myself, then she won't be nearly as intimidated."

Luna looked her right in the eyes. "And why should thou go and not us?" Luna challenged hotly. A moment later her voice and ears lowered. "We art afraid for thou."

"I know Luna, I know. But let's face it, diplomacy... isn't exactly your strong suite," she said as soothingly as she could. "Besides, Elizabeth has already shown she can change her emotions and actions wildly. If she turns violent and... something happens, I want you safe."

"Tia, thou art in no harm. Greene's only strength is her disease and that doth not work on us."

"We don't know that, Luna," she said. "And if there's no harm why are you worried?"

Luna sighed. "Perhaps we lied on that. There doth be much about her that is dangerous, such as her physical prowess. We still feel thou should not go alone." Luna sighed. "But if thou feels thou canst talk her down, then go. Just promise us thou will be careful, sister."

Solemnly, she nodded. "I promise, Luna. If she turns aggressive, I'll leave."

With that, Luna began to smile again and clapped her forehooves together. "Brilliant! And to be certain... hmm, hour there, hour back... call it two for negotiations... in four hours, if thou art not returned we shalt come find thee. Twilight Sparkle, was there anything else thou wishes to speak of regarding Greene?"

"Be careful with her, Princess," Twilight said, looking right at Celestia. "She was isolated and experimented on for half a century, for the vast majority of her life by her perspective. She's not a stable individual." She looked down and sighed. "I'm sorry, I couldn't figure anything else."

"Do not be so hard on yourself, Twilight," Celestia said. "This is more good news than I had expected regarding Elizabeth. Thank you. Please, take care of yourself."

Twilight smiled. "I will, Princess."

After several more farewells, Princess Celestia lit up her horn and teleported into the airspace above Stalliongrad. She had a very dangerous journey ahead of her; best to get started. No guards for this. Nopony could follow her into the heart of infection.

She spread her wings and soared, launching herself in a burst of pegasus magic and wind. The city of Stalliongrad had multiple giant blue hemispheres over it, but even as she watched one of the fields imploded. Outside the auras, thousands of infected roamed the streets. Luckily, there were no Colonies in the city; it seemed Celestia's presence warded Elizabeth Greene away. Just as well; Colonies themselves had no defenses, but Greene hadn't left them unguarded, especially after she'd concocted Breakers.

In minutes, she passed the city and headed further south. In roughly half an hour, she could see the spire of Canterlot far in the distance, and if she looked closely she saw a red miasma hanging around the city. She bit her lip and began going over how she would contact Elizabeth and convince her to stop. Possible hypocritical points in the Evolved's reasoning, circular arguments Greene may have.

Fifty minutes after leaving Stalliongrad, she circled around the streets of Canterlot with her sun's noon light beating down on her. Just as last time, her little ponies milled about listlessly on the streets, but there were a hooffull of Breakers walking the streets and some pegasi on rooftops tracking her with their eyes. Recalling Twilight's words, Celestia realized they were scouts. Elizabeth had spotted her.

She took a glance to her left and almost fell out of the air in shock. There was a Colony there, but it was twice the size of any other. The red mesh that had overgrown it was exponentially thicker than on the others, so dense it was almost black. The cubical arrangement of buildings stood tall and proud over the rest of Canterlot's structures, and there was no doubt in Celestia's mind that that was where Elizabeth made her home.

People are always more likely to concede a point surrounded by the comforts of home, she thought. She touched down near an infected pegasus, looking at their twisted bodies sadly. "Elizabeth Greene, I wish to speak to you. I assure you that I mean no harm; this is purely diplomatic. Please, I was hoping we could discuss things like mature adults. If you wish to do so, I will be waiting at the roof of your home. If you do not arrive, I will leave in one hour and negotiations will be off."

Having said her part to summon Greene, she again took wing and performed the short flight over to the massive Colony. She landed on its roof, grimacing when her horseshoes clanked against the tough red coating. Celestia took a deep breath, preparing herself to negotiate with an insane Evolved.

It didn't take long for Elizabeth to arrive. Celestia saw her long before she arrived, jumping across streets and flipping along rooftops. As she approached, Elizabeth leaped high, high into the air and landed, slamming a fist onto the ground right before Celestia. The shockwave made her mane blow back, briefly overpowering the solar winds in it, but otherwise Celestia stood firm.

"Elizabeth Greene," she said coldly.

Greene raised herself from her kneeling position to regard Princess Celestia coldly. "Celestia," she said, her terrible voice rasping with the buzzing of insect wings and echoing. It wasn't just Celestia's imagination; there was certainly something more to the echos now. They weren't louder, but they seemed to push ever so slightly against her mind with a certain force. "Talk inside," she demanded. As she said this, the red mesh between them pulled back, exposing a hole into the middle of the Colony. Without waiting for Celestia to agree, Elizabeth hopped inside.

Celestia carefully weighed her options. If she followed into the wet, slimy and in some places glowing interior, she'd be in Greene's territory fully. However, it was also the best choice to appease Greene for now; yield on the little things so that she could win on the important things. Her subjects were counting on her.

Hovering down into the depths of the Prime Colony, with the hole above her sealing up, Celestia's stomach sank. She pushed past it, of course, but being inside gave her such a terrible sensation of being trapped and on display.

She landed, grimacing when her hooves squished on the web of red and white tendrils that had encompassed the floor. Elizabeth Greene stood across from her, and the two of them weren't alone. Celestia bit her lip.

On either side of Greene was a Breaker. The one on her left had strands of blue fur on random spots, and a useless black stick grew from its forehead. The other sported the remnants of a peach coat, and where its legs became twisted, mutated claws its pink flesh turned rotten black. From the black paws, dark vines twisted up its legs to its torso. Elizabeth rested a hand on the one that had evidently once been an earth pony, staring intently at her.

"Wanted to talk," Elizabeth rasped, looking her straight in the eyes. "Talk."

She nodded. "I was hoping that we could come an agreement." She looked at Elizabeth as she protectively stood before the two Breakers. "It is clear that you care deeply for your... children. Likewise, I care greatly for my little ponies, and it saddens me that the two must fight. It does not have to be that way, of course, so we could come to an agreement - "

Greene cut her off, something which very, very few ponies dared to do. "Agreement? Only you you you. You attacked, you did this. Yourself to blame." The tendrils obscuring the middle of the wall far behind Greene peeled away, exposing an exit. The two Breakers turned around and walked through the opening, which closed behind them. Unconsciously, Celestia relaxed ever so slightly. "You attacked, sent order."

Celestia frowned. "I'm sorry Elizabeth, but it was your children and by extension you who initiated hostilities. You attacked the crystal generators."

"Choice? Crystal generator blue circles stop blessing. Stop stop stop. Can't stop from there. Have to turn circles off, won't let, have to have to have to. Attack first, before you. You put blue circles up. Your fault yours yours yours," she hissed.

Celestia sighed. So Elizabeth saw it as a preemptive attack. She... couldn't truly say she'd been wrong. "Either way, neither of us want to fight."

Greene looked down and frowned, nodding. "Yes yes yes, don't want to fight," she murmured. "Don't want to fight you, kind to me. Kind. Helped helped helped meal shared." She looked back up, her mouth a thin line and tilted her head at Celestia. "You don't want to fight me. Can't can't can't win."

Celestia creased her brows. "I beg to differ, Elizabeth. You may have subsumed the Royal Guard, but Equestia's military has mobilized against you, as has the Crystal Guard. My sister and I have both repeatedly taken the field."

"Know that," she hissed, then instantly calmed down. "Doesn't matter. Blessing still spreads spreads spreads, still winning. Tricks left. Can't win; more children makes more children easier. Can't fight blessing. Crystals break. Blades can't cut. Fire can't burn."

As much as Celestia hated to admit it, Elizabeth Greene had a point. Despite the escalating measures Equestria and the Crystal Empire took - more enchanters, more ponies joining the army to protect everything they loved - Greene's infection marched on. Still, she had just conceded a point to Celestia, so she galloped with it.

"Then we are in accord, Elizabeth. Neither of us wants to fight the other."

Greene smiled. "Good good good. Stop fields and soldiers. Let blessing - "

"Stop, Elizabeth. I didn't come here to surrender to you. I want to convince you to stop." There. She'd made her point clear.

Greene's smile disintegrated. "Stop."

Celestia nodded. "Yes. I understand how this must seem to - "

"Won't stop, can't no no no. Never. Why?"

After a moment, she realized Elizabeth was asking why Celestia wanted her to stop 'blessing' ponies. Princess Celestia sighed. Here came the difficult portion. "Elizabeth, if I may, I will answer that with a question. Why are you so insistent on spreading your blessing?"

"Good thing, make children happy happy happy, no need to worry or think protect forever. Good thing, don't age don't sick."

"Whilst I agree that making somepony impervious to disease is a good thing, the other portions of your plan simply do not make any sense, Elizabeth." The Evolved narrowed her eyes, but Celestia carried on. "If nopony were able to die, if everypony were immortal like you or I, the population would increase dramatically and soon there would be not enough food to sustain the population. Naturally it would level off at a certain point, but either way it would put great stress on the ecosystem that is not needed."

"No problem," Greene countered. "Feed from me, feed from me. Plenty to give, send love."

"Elizabeth, please elaborate on what you mean by that," she near-demanded.

"Eat drink love, children do that now. Strange strange strange don't know how." She shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Good."

That wasn't good. Elizabeth's infected could eat her love over the telepathic link, apparently much the same way changelings could. Her apparent confusion indicated this wasn't something that had happened on her world either; it only happened in Equestria. That raised a whole slew of questions, but they weren't pertinent at the moment beyond reassuring Celestia that those of her little ponies under Greene's domination would not starve. It was a small comfort, but she took it regardless.

"Even if there is indefinite food, there is not indefinite space Elizabeth."

She tilted her head, confused. "Children don't make more children. Prepost... prepister... pre... silly."

Greene either did not know how basic reproduction worked, could keep her infected from reproducing, or the infected were sterile. Celestia didn't know which one it was, but given how knowledgeable Elizabeth was with her own infection she was inclined to believe her.

Though that thing with the love eating...

"Then I suppose we should simply cut to the heart of the matter, Elizabeth. Nopony approves of your plan to remove free will. Our individuality is very dear to us, and though you may not see it that way it is precious to us. If somepony came to you and asked to be blessed while understanding the enormity of what they asked, I would have no qualms with it. But as it stands now, you are forcing this change upon everypony, violating their right to choose the direction they want their lives to take."

Greene narrowed her eyes. "Right to choose." Celestia nodded. "No right. Fake right. Not not not real. Even if real, harm themselves. Should know; Similars had all-decide government. You have you-decide government. Should agree."

Celestia bit her lip. "My sister and I are not tyrants, Elizabeth. While we are the highest level in our government, we pass laws that benefit the good of the populace. Should we do otherwise we would not be worthy of our stations. And though diarchy has worked for Equestria it too is not the only way; the Minotaurian Republic is proof of that. Yes, sometimes ponies make mistakes and do not know what is right for them, but the difference between us is that they trust us to lead them to right way. They do not trust you. Furthermore, we do not control their thoughts and actions."

Princess Celestia flicked her prismatic tail briefly. It was really hot inside the Prime Colony. "Making what you will of your life is not a false right, Elizabeth Greene. It is a legitimate one. Why should you have the right to say others do not have it? Why are you allowed to keep your individuality, but not them?"

Elizabeth frowned and looked down, clenching and unclenching her fists. Just when Celestia hoped that maybe, just maybe, she'd gotten through to Elizabeth... "Don't want to," she said. "Want to be like them, better better better. Don't know how, don't don't don't. One needs to control. Don't trust other. Trust self. Want to be like them, but then who controls?" She shook her head. "Even even even if found, wouldn't know how. Best alternative."

"And you can't 'pass off', as you will, the control to a subject?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "Thought of. Couldn't figure out." Greene bit her lip for a moment and seemed to deflate. "Not not not smart enough. Not for that."

She was stubborn, wasn't she? "I hardly see how wanting to lose your individuality is a good thing, Elizabeth."

"Only reason for action happiness. All things for it. More happiness, less sadness, all time." She tilted her head and suddenly, with surprising intensity, asked Celestia, "Why do you rule ponies?"

She raised a gilded hoof to her chest. "Me? I can not speak for my sister - "

"Not Luna. You."

" - but, I remain on the throne so that I can help guide my subjects to the greatest quality of life I can. With great power comes great responsibility; I have the former and so I have the latter."

"Why care? Why guide?" she asked. "What in return?"

"I do not ask for anything in return, Elizabeth. While my subjects insisted on granting my sister and I great luxuries, I would have been perfectly happy with much less; aiding them is all I need."

"Why aid?" she pressed.

Celestia almost frowned. She saw where this was going, but played along and kept up her diplomatic mask. Her subjects were counting on her. "Because it brings me great joy to see them prosper."

Elizabeth smiled, as if that answered the greatest questions of the universe. The pulsing light-sacks seemed to brighten for a moment. "Only purpose, only only only. Blessing skips actions. Right to reward."

"Even if you're true that the pursuit of happiness is the only purpose in life, simply being given the reward is hardly as satisfying as achieving it yourself."

"No no no... achieving self is for happiness, skip skip skip," she chittered to herself in her heavily accented Equestrian. The mysterious force behind her bouncing rasps was starting to give Princess Celestia a headache.

"You're wrong you know," Celestia said. "You claim that because everything is done for happiness that it's only joy which matters. It's not."

In a blur of movement Elizabeth leaped, releasing a burst of dust around her and sailing backwards and slamming into a wall. She stuck fast to the red webs, crossing her arms and glaring down at Celestia, who refused to be intimidated. "Prove."

"First of all from a biological standpoint that isn't true. The purpose for doing anything is to reproduce, or aid others of your species to reproduce in my case. Joy is a stepping stone to that; food makes you happy, and keeps you alive, so you can have children. Furthermore - "

"Wrong."

"I'd appreciate if you didn't interrupt me, Elizabeth. I am trying to be cordial with you."

"Interrupt, was wrong, keep from being being being wrong. Maybe true for essence, maybe. Essence wants that." She shook her head, still firmly stuck to the wall. "Not for people people people. Happiness for them, for them."

Stubborn, wasn't she? "If that's their only goal, then why do all people of all races not seek out simple addictive substances that manipulate their emotions; why do they not do to themselves what you force upon them? Why do they engage in activities that merely serve to frustrate them?"

"Calculate wrong," she said simply. "People forget things; no advantage. People calculate wrong."

Heavens above, she really does think what she's doing is good.

"And you do not?" Celestia raised a brow. "Greene, I hardly think you are in a position to tell ponies that you know what's good for them more than they do."

"Said ponies make mistakes in what's right," she pointed out.

"And you do not?"

Greene fell silent, and dropped off her web. She looked down sadly, flickering her unchangeable emerald irises left and right. "Made mistakes," she whispered, the echoes as noticeable as ever. "Made made made. Right in this though. Saw minds, good good good."

After a moment, Celestia deciphered that Elizabeth could read the minds of her infected and judged that they were well. While it did Celestia good to know that the infected weren't suffering, she could hardly let that impede her judgement. "And can you compare them to how they were before?" she asked.

"No, no link to then. Forgot." She forgot to establish her hive mind early, or - worse - her infected had forgotten their pre-virus lives? Princess Celestia dearly hoped for the former.

"Then how can you tell they are better off under your control than before?"

"Compare to self," Greene said, as if that was that.

"And a sample size of yourself alone is enough for something like... like this?"

"Yes."

This was going nowhere fast. She restrained a sigh. "Elizabeth, what would it possibly take to convince you that what you are doing is wrong? What would I need to show you to demonstrate that blessing everypony against their will is, in fact, a heinous crime? The panic in the streets when somepony so much as sneezes? A mother huddling their foal as your 'children' walk by their home? The empty, windswept streets where your so-called blessing has swept through and destroyed the hopes and dreams of everypony inside? What would it take, Elizabeth?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Some some some things known true; planet round, snow wet, blessing good. Nothing changes. Nothing convinces."

So that was it then. Negotiations had broken down; normally Celestia would follow this by taking her leave, purging herself of the virus, and then heading back to her sister. But admitting her wrongdoing or not, Elizabeth Greene was still a dangerous criminal, and she was still the highest authority in her vicinity.

"Very well then. Elizabeth Greene, you are under arrest." The Evolved's head snapped up and she locked gazes with Celestia. "You will spend a brief stay in a prison cell until such times as a court can be arranged to try you. You have the right to have such a court arranged in a rapid manner. You - "

If she'd blinked, she would've missed it. Elizabeth's eyes narrowed and then she was a gray, white, and red streak. She reached Celestia before she could even think to react and punched her in the chest, right below her torque.

Half a moment later Celestia slammed into the wall on the opposite side, groaning. Her ribs were broken, and that was terrifying because her ribs were very resilie -

Before she could finish that thought, Elizabeth was on her again, left hand pinning her throat to the wall and right hand instantly punching her in the stomach. She drew her fist back and prepared to punch her again, but with her eons-developed reflexes Celestia teleported behind Greene and wove a quick regeneration on her wounds.

"Elizabeth, there is no need to - "

The Evolved darted at her again, but this time Celestia was ready. She sidestepped the charge and lifted Elizabeth in her magic, who started immediately flailing about but, without leverage, couldn't use her tremendous strength. "Calm yourself!" she told her, lighting up her horn and sending a sleeping spell at Greene. The yellow ray hit the Evolved but... nothing happened. She hadn't defended herself; Celestia felt the spell impact. It was like the spell had... dispersed in nearly a million different directions.

Before she could try again Elizabeth slammed her fists together. The air around her distended and blew outwards, interrupting Celestia's magic and tossing her back like a rag-doll, horn over tail until she came to a rest. She flipped over to her hooves and eyed Greene, who was cracking her neck and flexing her hands, a faint buzzing filling the air. She zapped Elizabeth Greene with another sleep spell, pouring as much power into it as she could, but as before it seemed to dissipate upon contact, leaving its target untouched.

The hive mind, Celestia realized. It's spread out through the hive mind, leaving her alone.

She tried another spell, one to soothe Elizabeth and calm her down, but just as the magic was taking form the buzzing intensified, followed by a brilliant CRACK of thunder and a single arc of green lightning from Greene's outstretched palm. In an instant it crossed the distance and slammed into Celestia's horn. Her pegasus magic kept the lightning from doing too much harm to her organs, but it still discharged her magic in a violent golden burst, sending her into the next wall.

She groaned, dazed, and instinctively sent a wave of force forward. It caught Elizabeth mid-charge, not throwing her back but still stopping her in her tracks, which was enough for Celestia to regain her hoofing and heal her newest batch of fractures. She reached into her deep, deep well of magical knowledge and began to throw out tricks and traps to pacify Elizabeth Greene.

None of them worked.

She entrapped Greene in telekinesis and tried to distance herself, but Elizabeth blasted her horn with lightning the moment her feet left the ground. She hit a random pebble with the strongest Want-It-Need-It she could muster, but Elizabeth didn't do more than momentarily flick her gaze to it. She formed a cocoon around her and filled it with paralytic magic, but five furious strikes shattered her golden, nigh-on-impervious barriers like glass and freed the Evolved. She whipped the wind into a miniature hurricane, placed entrapment wards on the ground, stunning fields, electric prisons, space-time warps where you could not get out, solidified air, summoned adhesive slime, reaching deeper and deeper into her bag of pacifying tricks that spanned the millennia.

But despite all of them, Elizabeth Greene simply powered through them with brute force. She walked through the winds, overpowered the wards. She sprinted around the electric prisons and leaped over the manifold's obvious distortions, or simply waited for them to fade at which point she shattered the shield Celestia put around her. Nothing that she threw at Elizabeth Greene could keep her down, and each time she escaped a trap she injured Celestia in some way or another, flying or grounded thanks to her prodigal jumps.

Celestia groaned, magically tossing Greene aside to give herself an opening to heal her broken hind legs. She couldn't trap Greene or even approach her; she had simply too much raw strength. As much as it pained her, she had to wear her down first. Couldn't diplomacy work just once with a supervillain? Just once?

She squared her body and lit up her horn with brilliant radiance, focusing on Greene's body just as she finished falling down. From her heavenly orb she summoned the barest amounts of its plasma, surrounding Elizabeth in an orb of solar flame.

That had been the plan at any rate; the instant Greene hit the ground she rolled out of the way; Celestia's short-lived fire orb hit nothing. Of course, that didn't demoralize her. She flapped her wings and darted at Elizabeth for a change, then as she approached reared up on her hind legs and flapped her wings forward at the Evolved. The winds sent her flying again, and the next plasma sphere engulfed her.

When the flames cleared, she investigated the damage. Elizabeth was on her knees, looking over her arms almost curiously. Patches of her skin and suit glowed brilliant orange, but even as Celestia watched the scorched portions fell off like shed fur, and new skin and clothes regrew themselves. Elizabeth stood up and looked at Celestia hatefully.

She summoned her magic again, but this time did not use the sun. Instead she shot two head-sized fireballs out at Greene, with a coil of burning wire between them. They wrapped around Elizabeth, but she didn't seem to notice them as her entire body flickered with red and white tendrils, she took a deep breath, and her eyes turned bright yellow.

Celestia was no fool; she leaped into the air to avoid whatever was coming, but she wasn't fast enough; Elizabeth turned her head to follow her.

Her wings failed her and her eardrums burst. A conical blast like nothing she'd ever felt before swatted Princess Celestia out of the air like a fly, crushing her against an overgrown wall and shattering her bones. Greene tried to flatten her as the waves of crimson force continued for a few more seconds. It finally stopped and she fell to the ground, panting and healing herself. There was a rush of movement, and Elizabeth Greene was before her again, ready to punch.

Ignoring the fading agony around her body, Celestia threw herself to the side, and then was tossed through the air when the shockwave of Greene's missed punch caught up with her. She got back on all fours and narrowed her eyes at Elizabeth Greene. Alright then. No more nice Princess. Elizabeth wanted to do things the hard way? Very well then.

She began lashing at Elizabeth's left side viciously. Streaks of telekinesis-powered flames came into being and cut a deep slash in her suit, spraying a small amount of blood - was that blood? It looked too thick - and as the wound closed, they opened another. She stumbled away under the assault, one hand raised as if it could block the magic blasts.

But all things came to an end. Greene got her footing back and surged at Celestia, this time not straight on but to her right. She turned her head to track the Evolved as she reappeared from her streak at Celestia's right. She prepared to slam her back, but before the magic could take hold Elizabeth dashed again, ducking beneath Celestia's barrel and coming out on her left in a feint, poised to punch her in the horn and shatter the magical organ. It was a high-speed variation of a classic feint and it would've worked if Celestia hadn't seen it before so many times.

She swung her frame around to avoid Greene's calamitous punch and, now with Greene behind her, kicked her in the back with a single hind leg.

Elizabeth was sent through the air, but Celestia grimaced and lowered her aching leg to the ground; it was like hitting a mountain. She spun around to face her adversary and lashed out with a lance of flame, scorching the tendrils Elizabeth had stood on a moment before she had hit the ground and sprung into the air.

She followed Greene's arc, intending on hitting her with more and more spells until she submitted to arrest, but as the Evolved soared through the air something sparked. Celestia's eyes widened when she saw two pony-sized orbs form in Greene's hands and hover in place; crackling orbs of emerald lightning that immediately began to close in on her.

She sprung into the air, and the orbs turned to follow her. They moved ridiculously fast, and with the limited flying space in the Prime Colony it was difficult to evade them. When she was certain her latest dive wouldn't be enough, both balls popped harmlessly out of existence. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Then she gasped and healed her ribs, because a boulder had just hit her. She looked down to see Greene lean down and grasp the tendrils coating the floor. She pulled up, and a piece of rock the size of a carriage rose up, tendrils flowing off of it like water. She chucked the boulder at Celestia and immediately prepared another. Celestia dodged the rock with a deft movement of her wings, and started slashing at Greene with summoned flame arcs that the Evolved seemingly ignored. The next rock she gripped in her magic and with a heave of effort - it was moving surprisingly fast - tossed it aside. The next one she threw back at Elizabeth who, in the process of lifting another one, was caught by surprise and fell to the ground.

In dark ages past, Celestia would have taken this opportunity to swoop down on her downed opponent with her earth pony strength, but she knew that was a tremendously bad idea against an Evolved. The Breakers that defended Colonies were strong, but they may as well have been foals next to Greene.

Instead, she called more plasma from the sun and summoned it to a point just under the Prime Colony's roof. The pillar of flames surged downwards onto Elizabeth and surged outwards, briefly engulfing the entire floor. The plasma hid what happened for a moment and Celestia kept flapping, waiting for Greene's injuries to show themselves.

She jerked when, out of the fading fire, an unscathed Elizabeth flew up and grasped her by the shoulders. She flailed her limbs briefly in panic, and then Elizabeth turned them over so Celestia was on the bottom. Then gravity did its thing, pulling them onto the sooth-covered tendrils where the force of the impact, with Greene's mass above her, shattered a good portion of Celestia's spine.

They bounced back up, where Elizabeth grabbed her again and repeated the action, breaking her healed back again, and then a second time.

The third time, Celestia got her senses back and teleported herself behind Elizabeth. The Evolved spent no time with wondering where she went and threw her arms out to the sides, releasing two orbs again. As they began to approach her, Celestia gasped in pain. Her hooves burned, and sparing a glance down she realized why. The mesh of red and white was growing over her horseshoes, burrowing through the enchanted metal. But that wasn't the worst part; they grew over Celestia's hooves and actually began to impale her flesh.

With a panicked yell she pulled her hooves away and let the corroded slippers fall to the ground, yanking the tendrils out with the movement. But the moment she set her hooves down again they began to ever so slowly wrap around her again, forcing her to keep all four legs moving lest the tentacles spread throughout her body.

In her horrified distraction, Elizabeth had zipped behind her and, with a kick, sent Celestia flying forward... right into the two orbs.

Pop!

A strangled scream escaped Celestia's lips as she flew through the air, flesh charred by the explosions. She healed herself again, but she was spending far too much magic on repairing her body and not enough on stopping Elizabeth. Speaking of which...

She teleported to the side just as Elizabeth reached her, having tossed her body through the air in a cannonball. The blast of air lost its danger by the time it reached Celestia. She lowered her head and pointed her horn at the recovering Greene, and opened her link to the sun again; the same spiritual link that let her bypass the star's incalculable mass and move it across the sky. She reached into the very heart of her star and summoned plasma straight from its core to her horn, projecting it towards Elizabeth Greene.

Several things happened at once. The massive pressures on the plasma sent it shooting at Elizabeth, through the Prime Colony, and several more buildings before fading. The plasma itself was so incredibly hot it glowed in the gamma spectrum; it was completely invisible. However, it burned and exploded the air around it into a white hot beam. So while in reality she sent a near-instant ball of plasma through Greene's chest, it appeared to others that she blasted Elizabeth with a massive coil of white lightning.

With her affinity for light magic, she peered through the blinding flash to see the damage. Celestia's blast had sent Greene flying, and the perfectly circular hole in the Evolved's chest threatened to tear her in two. Elizabeth stuck to a wall with her back to Celestia, which gave her the perfect view of the organs and flesh re-knitting themselves in moments, hiding the hole. It was demoralizing to see how quickly her most powerful attack's mark was erased, but Celestia knew that Elizabeth couldn't regenerate forever; she'd eventually have to run out of flesh.

Elizabeth fell to the ground, and the fight resumed. Celestia pulled out all the stops, attacking Elizabeth with the same fury she had exercised so long ago in the Dark Times, the Post-Discord Havoc, and thankfully few other times. Greene moved quickly, unpredictably, and across the entire Prime Colony, but Celestia was old enough to see a few general patterns and plan for the alien movements.

She created a gravity well under Elizabeth and, as she fell in, speared her with a shaft of solidified light, followed by shattering it into pieces. She tossed Elizabeth into the air with telekinesis and, using her pegasus magic, surrounded her with a hailstorm. She created a shell of golden magic around her and filled it with solar plasma, burning her ruthlessly until the Evolved broke through the shield.

The Prime Colony's interior shimmered with intense heat as Celestia reached into her link more and more, bringing down sun strikes and unleashing core blasts at Greene, a great many finding their marks. Whenever Greene summoned her orbs, she summoned magnetic fields around them to disperse the energy harmlessly. When she took a deep breath and changed her eye color, Celestia waited for the last moment before teleporting behind Elizabeth. As time passed, she felt her telekinesis ease up as Elizabeth Greene's mass decreased.

But for every strike she scored, Greene scored two.

The tendrils along the ground continued to grasp and tear at her whenever she stood upon them, forcing her to either keep to the air where Elizabeth could easily leap at her, or continuously dance around trying to keep them from getting a firm grip in her. Elizabeth was impossibly fast and brutally strong; for all of Princess Celestia's vast wisdom she simply did not have the reflexes to do anything more than react as Greene ran circles around her.

Greene ravaged Celestia with stone-shattering punches and iron-snapping kicks. Normally they wouldn't hurt her; there was no armor on the planet that could protect her better than her natural, prodigal earth pony magic, but Elizabeth Greene was in a class all of her own. Whenever she tried to light up her horn and teleport to safety - because this was too dangerous - an arc of lightning struck her horn and unleashed a backlash. And when Celestia adapted to magnetic redirection, well. Her teleportation was fast, but Elizabeth's run and punch was faster.

She avoided most of the crimson shockwaves, but every now and then Elizabeth threw a giant boulder at her, which distracted her from the approaching pair of green orbs, which in turn distracted her from the impending roar that put the Royal Canterlot Voice to shame. And even when Elizabeth's strikes missed, the shockwaves they released never did, constantly buffeting Celestia back and forth.

She was in a tough spot; hoof to hoof combat was completely incapable of hurting Elizabeth; only her magic did anything. But she also needed that magic to repair the brutal damage she kept taking. She also couldn't teleport away; Elizabeth did not give her even the half second it would be needed to do so.

She took to the air again, healing the multitude of tiny holes that Greene's tendrils had stabbed in her hooves, and released a blinding flash of light in all directions earning a pained hiss from Elizabeth. She peered through the light and linked to the sun again, blasting another 'lightning bolt' at Greene. The Evolved dodged it with a backflip, leaving behind two flickering ball lightnings that instantly started to home in on her position.

She pulled them apart with a magnetic field, and then turned around to face the seemingly invincible Elizabeth. The Evolved had sprinted up the side of a wall and was now actually above Celestia, and leaped outward. Celestia winged out of the way, but before she could readjust her course Elizabeth bounded off the wall and headed straight for her, one foot extended.

All the air fled Princess Celestia's body as Elizabeth's kick drove her into the ground, stomach up. It didn't stop there, though. Using her momentum, Elizabeth surfed Celestia's body across the burning, nipping tendrils before finally shifting her footing. Once she did that she flipped Celestia out from under her, breaking her broken ribs and sending her careening into another wall.

She groaned in pain and tried to teleport away, this time shielding herself beforehoof, but a wave of nausea forced her to stop, leaning over and dry heaving. More healing magic solved the issue of her broken bones making her feel sick and the red mesh stopped trying to burrow into her flesh, but by then Elizabeth's orbs had broken her shield and the Evolved was high up.

Elizabeth Greene stood on what may have once been a second floor, but was now a narrow strip of floor suspended from the Prime Colony's ceiling by two metal rods. She had both hands wrapped around said rods and stared down at the alicorn. Her eyes hardened when another blast of solar core plasma burned a hole through her chest, and then as it healed she shifted her hands and flew down at Celestia again.

Battered, bruised, and running dangerously low on magic, Celestia could only finish mending her ribcage in the time it took Elizabeth to fall down onto her. The alien placed her knees on the Princess's belly and leaned over. Elizabeth Greene grasped Celestia's throat with her left hand, brought her right hand up, and shoved it at the Princess's forehead.

Her eyes widened and her horn blazed to life, a golden glow forming around Elizabeth Greene's approaching hand. They both began to shake under the effort as the hand, now closer to Celestia's head than her horn, was held in place. She gritted her teeth together, trying to push the Evolved away. Celestia's enormous magic strained against Elizabeth's monstrous strength. Her hand started to move away, and Celestia thought she might have the spare time to finally teleport away from here.

In a flash, Elizabeth's right hand stopped pressing its advantage, but the nearly-forgotten left hand around Celestia's throat snaked up and pressed itself to her forehead just as the telepor -

Confusion child grave born in earth pony town convert town to family enormous power rising up from shattered stone to face Discord there's hope there's no hope he's going to kill me and trap me in cold dark place that she had sent her sister to what had she done what had she done her own flesh and blood trying to kill her kill him in return couldn't save him couldn't save Twilight's friends from Discord she was a failure she couldn't stop the Similars from striking her down as her Captain was hypnotized and nothing would ever save the ponies she had sent to the necessary war she delighted in, ripping vehicles apart and pulling helicopters from the sky to crash around her in a raging inferno as she linked to the sun it hurt it hurt it hurt so much it hurt hurt hurt cursed her burned her stopped started time travel into the past by her faithful student it hurt hurt hurt make it stop hurt hurt hurt -

- hurt hurt hurt -

-HURT HURT -

- sleep.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

Celestia was gone, and Elizabeth sat on the pointed spire of Canterlot Castle's highest tower, looking out at the nest. How should she feel about what had just happened? So many things happened there in her Home between her and Celestia, she didn't know how to feel about it. She was confused confused confused, and she couldn't make sense of it.

The sun alicorn had come to her Home and wanted to talk, so despite her growing grudge against her she went and talked. For a moment she'd been hopeful Celestia was there to tell her in person they were going to stop holding back her her her Blessing, but no such luck. She wanted her to stop Blessing the equines, and while the reasons Celestia described made some limited modicum of sense, none of them could match up to her Reason for doing things.

And then... then Celestia had threatened to imprison her, for the third time in her life. In a moment she'd become terrified, then angry, then fearful for her children, fearful of Celestia, defiant of Celestia, then furious at Celestia and flung herself at the alicorn with reckless abandon.

In retrospect it had been the the the dumbest thing she had ever done; this was Celestia, an ages old alicorn with magical powers that let her move the sun across the sky with her mind, and she fought her and... and...

She'd won.

She had defeated the first friend she'd ever made, the friend whom she had greatly overestimated in terms of power. Celestia was not as dangerous as she had feared and she had sent the alicorn fleeing. Through her children's eyes she'd seen the alicorn teleport into Manehattan, passed out, where she had been swiftly rescued by guards. The alicorn would recover, and if the healing spells she'd demonstrated were were were anything to go by, she would fully recover within a day.

If only she'd gotten a good hit on her horn.

Celestia had made her position clear; she would never let her children be. Elizabeth's first ever friend had become her enemy, and she'd attacked the alicorn.

She felt... somewhat proud of herself. For too long she'd failed her children; she was too new to the world to defend herself in Hope, and while she outstripped her Wayward Child in strength, speed, and durability, all the power she could muster still couldn't match his weapons and his method of healing himself with his Curse. But now, she had just sent her greatest threat on this world running, injured, and she knew that she could do it again. She didn't have to be afraid to walk outside her Home and spread her Blessing directly; if Celestia could not stop her who who who could?

She stopped those thoughts before they could get too much farther. She'd beaten Celestia, but it certainly hadn't been been been easy. The alicorn's actual attacks hadn't hurt her. What was a hoof compared to a boulder-like fist? The fires that lashed around her had stung, wearing her down with attrition, and that strange glowing-gas-almost-fire burned horribly, hotter than anything the Similars ever hit her with. To say nothing of the massive white blasts.

She idly brought a hand up to her stomach, rubbing the regrown suit. Underneath, she winced as muscles pulled against charred flesh; that fight was much closer than her appearance had let on. But in the end, she had hurt Celestia more than she had hurt Greene.

Suddenly guilt stabbed stabbed stabbed her heart. Hurt Celestia. Her oldest friend and she had hurt her, tried to kill her in her rage. She'd been defending herself of course. She'd never go back to a prison ever again, especially when it seemed each one was worse than the last last last. But she'd tried to kill her. What if she had? Could Luna move both the sun and the moon? Would Fluttershy understand her, forgive her?

She was glad Celestia had gotten away.

What was she going to do? How should she feel? She'd barely defeated Celestia, and if she encountered her again and the alicorn had any help, things would go very badly for her. Sure, she'd have her children around her, but she'd never put them in the solar equine's way. If Celestia wanted her children, she'd have to go to them.

No, she could defeat Celestia, but Celestia and Twilight Sparkle? Celestia and Luna? Celestia and Shining Armor? Not a chance chance chance.

The sun slowly headed towards the horizon, and she looked across Equestria. Her Blessing was spreading, of course. She was winning. She didn't need to do anything different; keep doing things as she'd been doing and she would win. That was no excuse for for for sitting around. Celestia and Luna - her enemies - would be thinking of something to stop her. She had to stay ahead of them and she could do that because she was ever so smart, smart enough to overcome the Similars in their full force, almost enough to overcome her Wayward Child.

She still felt for Celestia, deluded as the alicorn was, but she couldn't let past friendships hurt her family. As for the moment, she needed to recover. Her flesh inside had been charred fiercely and it wasn't healing. She had to seek out her Warm Children and draw in the warmth they created to to to heal herself.

She still didn't know how to feel.

Queen Bees

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DAY 10 OF INFECTION: 17% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Chrysalis

Queen Chrysalis had, over her long life, developed a sort of sense for when something was horribly, horribly wrong. It was necessary given the parasitic lifestyle of her people; when your 'host' discovers you, it's time to jump ship before you are eradicated.

Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

The sense had served her well in the past. She'd ducked the Zebran Inquisition when the natives had suddenly wondered where the sudden outbreak of fatigue in their government officials came from. She had, ever so briefly, brought her people's love supplies out of the red and into the black with the diamond dogs. It had told her where to go to dodge the patrols Canterlot sent out after her. Her sixth sense for bad events had never failed to help turn something calamitous into something merely bad.

Now it was telling her to return to that accursed place, Canterlot. She knew why too.

Despite the failure of her invasion and subsequent changeling hunts, complete with revelation magic, she still had a rather intricate spy network. Not as absolute as she would've liked, of course; the Crystal Empire was still off-limits to her. Her network, combined with the telepathic link present between all changelings, let her know of the situation in Equestria.

She grumbled to herself and lit up her horn, illuminating the inside of her private chambers. She strolled over to the wall holding maps of various countries, and looked at the one depicting Equestria; it was to the northwest of the Badlands that were her home, and covered in various tacks of differing shades of green.

She sighed. She really didn't want to do it, but she looked at the dark green and light green tacks on Canterlot; the changelings in the dungeons and the ones she'd inserted as spies post-invasion. Chrysalis had been planning to free them for so long, coordinating with them through the link, but the day before she had prepared to let her infiltrators do their work, something had happened.

Just before she'd prepared to free her kin she had felt something overcome her link to them, crushing their ability to talk to her across the world. It was like a minotaur had grasped her connection and peeled it off with its fingers, until they were utterly severed from her.

She wrenched the tacks off and placed them into the black box that rested on a nearby table, locking it. Oh how the thought of that infuriated her. At first, she'd thought that the pretty pony princesses were ousting them, but as the days passed and her infiltrators throughout Equestria reported to her, she knew that it was this new disease spreading throughout the country. One that seemed Tartarus-bent on infecting everything, changeling and pony alike.

She sighed and looked at the map, now bare of a few tacks. She was really going to have to do this, wasn't she? She was really going to investigate Canterlot and see just how bad things were. Her sense for danger had never led her astray before.

She strode out of her chamber, the two Imperial Guards that had waited outside the curtains falling into step besides her. The black tunnels of her Hive were complicated, twisted, and illuminated only by the faint glow given off by the eyes of herself and her subjects. She knew them like the frog of her hoof, and meandered the paths easily. She had a mission, but before she could start working on it she had several things to get in order.

'Hive Coordinator, meet me in the Chamber of Observation post haste.' She switched the target of her telepathy, her stomach giving a quick growl at her. 'Swarm Commander, come to the Chamber of Observation immediately.'

Two sets of 'Yes Your Highness' followed immediately after, leaving Queen Chrysalis to nod. She caught herself, given that the only ones around to see her nod were the two Imperial Guards at her sides. She strode on, avoiding her throne room entirely, and soon she left her Royal Chambers behind and walked through the military tunnels that surrounded them. Guards snapped to attention as she passed by them, but she paid them no mind as she left the military tunnels and entered the heart of her hive, where the civilians lived.

It spoke of her people's military power that the two were equal in size. Many, many enlisted.

The Chamber of Observation was where real time maps were updated. Though the ones in her personal chambers were good for overviews, the global map in the Chamber was far more detailed.

She was, no surprise, the first one there. Her Imperial Guards took posts on the inside of the tunnel she'd entered through, and stood at attention.

The Chamber of Observation was a large, ovoid chamber carved into pink granite, though given how the only light came from herself and her subjects' eyes it seemed more of a rotten purple than anything. In the middle was a giant square desk with two stacks of maps upon it, one for each hemisphere of the world. Not that there was much on the other hemisphere; a gargantuan ocean with only a few smatterings of islands. Underneath the other map of the main continent were various maps of smaller and smaller areas, each covered in enchantments.

Five tunnels led in, spaced in a perfect pentagon around the walls. From various spaces hung portraits of past queens, starting with the first queen of all changelings, Queen Tenodera the Green, all the way to Chrysalis's own mother, Queen Thorax the Orange. One day she too would get a picture, but she wouldn't ever be able to see it.

Chrysalis lit up her horn, producing that much more illumination in the room. She shuffled the maps around until she produced one of the Crystal Empire and Equestria, which was where everything interesting in world news seemed to happen these days. Wasn't a big surprise, every nation got its turn; she'd been regaled with nymphhood stories about the return of Bronze Talon in the Griffon Kingdoms, followed shortly by the Feathered Fiend.

Eventually, Hive Coordinator Bztik and Swarm Commander Polin entered, each from a different tunnel. Bztik was a fairly large changeling, with three distinctive notches on his ears, wide forward facing holes on his forelegs and backwards facing ones on his hind legs. He wasn't much to look at either; the holes on one wing were a perfect mirror of the other. Still, he possessed a fierce mind and he was the one who handled most of the civilian duties. She had him to thank for smoothing things over after the catastrophe, though he didn't seem to be aware the only reason she still had a throne was him.

Polin, on the other hoof, was exactly the opposite of Bztik. He was remarkably small and thin, even for a male, though the vast asymmetry of his holes made him quite attractive if she did say so herself. His ears were almost entirely unnotched, similar to her own. They both bowed to the ground when they saw her.

"Get up and come here," she demanded. They did so, arranging themselves around the table. "Swarm Commander, report on the status of Equestria's... condition."

"We have identified that the origin of this disease is the alien, the same one Cliklat tried to feed from in Canterlot," he said in his painfully shrill voice.

She remembered Cliklat, he had given her the first reports of the alien. He always was trying to bite off more than he could chew.

Was.

"She appears to be actively spreading the contagion to the ponies, resulting in the wide-spread mind control our scouts report."

Chrysalis scowled. "And it's afflicting us too, isn't it?"

"Well..." he said. Chrysalis could sense his worry and reluctance to say the bad news.

"It is, I know it is. The problem is, now that we know this isn't just some natural plague, what are we going to do about it? How does this affect us?" she asked rhetorically.

Rhetorical or not, it was the Hive Coordinator's job to answer her questions. "It's uncertain. On one hoof, the disease is extremely contagious and needs magical precautions to even partially hold it off. Unless the ponies have a great trick up their wings, Elizabeth Greene will eventually subjugate their population entirely, enslaving them forever."

Hmph, at least she'll finish what I started, Chrysalis thought ruefully. Even if she doesn't get anything out of it.

Btzik went on, heedless of her untransmitted thoughts. "Whether or not we can still feed off the ponies afflicted is a major question, as is how we can safely do so without being infected ourselves. It's horrible in Equestria, Your Highness. The reports given by our spies indicates - "

"I know what they indicate, I've heard them too!" she snapped. "There's also the matter of whether or not Greene will stop with Equestria. At this point in time there are too many unknowns regarding the infection and that is not acceptable!" she snarled.

Swarm Commander Polin bowed his head. "My apologies, Queen Chrysalis. Shall I send infiltrators to question - "

"No," she said sharply. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this myself."

"My Queen," Polin said hastily. "I must protest, if you were to succumb to this disease - "

"I'll maintain a hard light barrier around myself with clean air, and teleport away if I start running low. I don't trust anyling else to do this correctly. I will inform the both of you of my progress and any conclusions. Until then, maintain stability in the hive during my absence."

He didn't look happy about it, but Polin nodded. "Y-Yes, Your Majesty."

Chrysalis nodded, and tapped the map of Equestria with her magic, lighting up the little dot that read 'Canterlot'. "The alien resides there, yes?" They both nodded. "Good, then I know my destination. I am taking a day's worth of love and heading out; keep stability or else," she warned. Letting that threat hang in the air she stepped back from the map and stomped a forehoof. A ring of green flames rose up around her, fraying the nature of reality and reconstructing it...

... reconstructing it far beneath her.

The uninviting, uncaring Badlands stretched all around her, flat blackened stone as far as the eye could see, scorched by the baking sun overhead. A dry, hot wind blew through the land. There were no landmarks as far as the eye could see, but Chrysalis could easily make out the subtle little dent in the ground that was the entrance to the lands of the Unified Changeling Swarm. Otherwise, the windswept plains were remarkably unremarkable.

It was home.

Taking quick directions from the sun overhead, Queen Chrysalis began flying northwest towards Equestria, putting all her strength into her buzzing wings. She'd need speed if she wanted to make this journey in one day.

As she left her hive behind, she reached through the telepathic networks inherent in her kind to the store of love. It was small, far too small. The trickle of loving pouring into it from her adoptive children out in the field was just shy of being enough to sustain it; the consumption was ever so slowly draining it. Her only saving grace, as she pulled a hefty amount of love from the storage, was that the Canterlot Invasion had still given them a remarkable amount of love in a short amount of time. They weren't starving, but even with heavy rationing they were headed there.

Time passed and the sun slowly moved across the sky as Chrysalis flew. Soon, the air turned less arid and more humid, the land rougher and rougher, with some patches of vegetation eking out a living in little cracks. As the sun slowly crept towards the horizon, Chrysalis's long journey came to an end as the desolate Badlands gave way to fertile, disgustingly overgrown Equestria. Far off in the distance she could see Canterlot Mountain, with the city that gave it its name wreathed in a faint red miasma, the castle sticking up from the fog like an ocean-locked volcano.

She couldn't help but gulp. If she could see that all the way from Equestria's border, then who knew how bad things truly were? The Queen of all changelings lit up her horn with emerald light, encasing herself in a transparent green sphere. She knocked on its inside with a hoof; it would hold. There wasn't an eternity of air, but as long as she only let it down in uninfected areas she would be fine. With a flash of flame she concealed her barrier and disguised herself, just another faceless pegasus.

The empty plains of Equestria flew by beneath her as she approached her target. She certainly wasn't going to go to Canterlot directly, especially not with the giant, red-encrusted building there; she circled around and took a perch underneath one of the castle's long shadows. A glance down revealed one of Canterlot's many streets, Alicorn Way if the sign was anything to go by.

It was as she'd heard; the ponies wandered aimlessly, covered in cancerous growths. She couldn't smell the diseased air through her invisible shield, but the towering monstrosities that walked the streets made her glad she couldn't. On first glance it confirmed everything she had known, but it didn't answer any of the unknowns. Could she still feed on infected ponies? Could she do it safely? Would the Evolved infect her people once she was through with Equestria?

Twitch twitch twitch went her left ear, then right, then left again. Chrysalis smirked and opened her emotional senses up. She stifled a gasp; the air was absolutely inundated with love. Before she could even begin to wonder where it came from she lit her horn with a dim glow - disguised or not - and started drawing it in, gulping it down fervently.

It was familial love, and there was lots of it. It flowed through her invisible horn, down her throat and spread throughout her body, filling her with warmth and energy. While it wasn't the intoxicating rush of power and well-being given by romantic love it certainly was enough, and it didn't seem to be depleting. Chrysalis kept feeding, her disguise's wings fluttering as she did so. Once she'd fed enough that she was warm and full for the first time since the invasion, she opened her mind to the telepathic link. She kept feeding, sending the love back to storage, and they were once again gaining more food than they were using.

Still... it was subtly off. There really wasn't any appropriate analogy for emotions, given the lack of flavor, texture and substance, but the closest thing she could compare it to was this love being overly sweet, almost a little spoiled even.

Oh well. Food was food, and she wasn't about to complain. Still... where was all of this love coming from? Normally, feeding this much would've exhausted her victim to the point of unconsciousness, yet none of the diseased little ponies seemed any worse for the wear.

She stopped draining the love from the air and licked her lips. That had felt good.

Queen Chrysalis wrapped one of the dumbly staring infected in her magical aura. It didn't take long to find what she was looking for; there was some sort of hive mind around it. It was similar to her own, but where the link between changelings served only to allow verbal communication, this one was much more firm. If her network was a series of threads connecting every changeling, then this hive mind was a network of alicorn-blessed heavensteel rods as thick as her hooves. She could feel it connecting the infected to... something, but she couldn't pinpoint who, what, or where.

Each of the dozen infected she examined had the same link, and it was from these links that the tremendous outpouring of food came. It almost made Chrysalis shed a tear by how much love was being wasted; whoever crafted this hive mind had made it impossibly firm but also sloppy, as was expected with non-magical telepathy. The love that these infected felt for... someling and vice versa was leaking out from them, filling the air before dispersing into nothing.

They could feed from the infected. In fact, given the vast amounts of love she had gathered from just this sitting and the lack of struggle, it'd be better for them to let Equestria be infected. Now if only she could figure out how much of a threat this was to her people.

As if hearing her request, there was a slam behind her. Chrysalis whipped around, and shed her disguise in shock when she saw the figure.

Queen Chrysalis was tall. As such she was used to looking down on lesser beings. She rarely faced anyling as tall as her; she had no interest in the Minotaurian Republic or the dragons, so Princess Celestia was one of the few she had met she could look in the eye. This being, however. She'd heard about it from her infiltrators, of course. Tall as an alicorn, bipedal like a minotaur or diamond dog, but practically a skeleton. It hadn't prepared her, however, for the appearance of something so light weight that could match her height.

The alien's orange mane was wispy and unkempt, as if it had been cut by scissors enchanted with Come-To-Life and never grew back. Chrysalis's keen eyes could make out hundreds of thousands of furs along its face and hands, but they were so thin and short as to be nearly invisible. The gray suit, covered with tubes, wires, straps and metal clasps, covered almost its entire body and pressed tightly onto the creature's skin, leaving only its hands and head uncovered. Not even the neck was uncovered, and on the clearly-female creature's left shoulder was a thin spread of blood that made the shoulder appeared unclothed and afflicted with a rash.

The eyes were impossibly small, dead green, curious and raging all at once. The nostrils rested on a beakish nose over a thin mouth. To the left of its left eye was a massive bloodstain that tinted a bit of its mane, and there was a smaller such splotch to the right of its mouth.

The alien opened her mouth, and Chrysalis was taken aback. The voice had a hissing undertone to it which started even before the first word formed. Each heavily-accented Equestrian word rippled and echoed, far more than Chrysalis's own voice did. "Who? Doing what what what?" Queens before her, even once she'd stopped talking her voice still kept echoing, with a strange, subtle pressure on the inside of the changeling's head.

Queen Chrysalis scowled. She hated having to speak Equestrian. "I hardly see why I should tell you who I am." She began to pace sideways, keeping an eye locked on Elizabeth Greene. "I have some questions for you, as well as issues with you." The alien turned to follow her, silent but leaking emotion, filling Chrysalis with curiosity and offense-taken that wasn't hers. "I hear you've been busy with the ponies, doing..." She waved a hoof over at the infected that were now staring intently at her. "This."

"Yes yes yes," Greene said uncertainly. "Am. Why?"

Chrysalis scanned the Evolved, and confirmed her suspicions. Extending from the alien in all directions were the unbreakable hive mind links. This was the center of the infecteds' web. "First off I want to thank you for that. It's making feeding my kind so much easier, with all the love the ponies you afflict give off. However there are a few questions I will ask you."

Now smiling slightly, Elizabeth nodded. "Ask." Heavens, that voice was going to give her a migraine before long.

"You have afflicted a dozen of my subjects to date with your virus." Greene tilted her head, confused. "While I can let it slide given how they were caught in the crossfire," she lied, already planning on how to get vengeance for that. "I must know if you intend to keep doing so to my subjects."

Elizabeth looked down, muttering to herself. "Subjects... anomaly? Feed, changelings..." She looked up at her. "Queen," she stated.

"That is correct, I am Queen Chrysalis of the Unified Changeling Swarm. You have yet to answer my question. What do you intend to do once you have finished with Equestria and the precious little Crystal Empire?"

She shrugged. "Other species species species. Change blessing for them. Not for you. Works for you," she said gleefully. "Changelings next? Maybe maybe maybe."

That raised Chrysalis's hackles. "I forbid you. You are to keep away from my hive and that is nonnegotiable. I have no problem with you doing whatever you want to the other races, but if you come to fight us then you'll feel the full force of the military that brought Canterlot's Royal Guard to its knees."

Elizabeth frowned. "Can't can't can't win. Can't fight." Greene stepped forward and placed a hand on the outside of Chrysalis's barrier. How had she known it was there? Regardless, it began to fold ever so slightly under the tremendous force Elizabeth put on it, seemingly without trying. Queen Chrysalis reached into her now-ample store of love and strengthened the shield spell. If it broke, with her in the middle of the infected miasma... "Can't beat. Children strong, more than you more more more. You can't stop blessing, no crystals no no no. Even then, fight direct, protect children." She took her hand off the barrier.

It took Queen Chrysalis a few moments to understand what she'd said. Despite being fluent she still struggled with Equestrian, especially when the grammar was so lacking. "Oh really? And if I were to fight you?" She puffed herself up with bravado and pride. "I, Queen Chrysalis, who fought and defeated Celestia herself in single combat? You would fight me?"

"Beat Celestia too." Greene didn't sound happy about that, but it was enough to make Chrysalis's confidence crumble. She couldn't detect any lies on Greene's voice, emotion sensors or otherwise. Regardless, if Elizabeth truly had beaten the Goddess of the Sun, then Chrysalis was in no hurry to fight her. She didn't have that little captain's love fueling her and she didn't have her subjects to fend off the infected.

Regardless, she stayed strong and proud. "Is that so?" she cooed, eating more of the familial love that leaked into the air. "In that case, what could I give you to come to an agreement? You leave my people alone and in return I help you grind Equestria's military into the dust?" She subtly cast a suggestion spell at Greene, but it seemed to just slide off of the alien's mind.

"Help... but no. Will bless. Will bless, bad not to. Could use help but don't need winning don't need only want." Elizabeth shook her head, the ragged mane flying about. "No no no deal. Will bless, show you, understand."

Chrysalis fought the urge to frown but kept pacing around Elizabeth. "No deal, so certain? It would be so easy for you. All you have to do is not come to the Badlands. It would take literally no effort and in exchange you don't have to put your..." She looked behind her at the infected ponies. "... kin at risk."

"No. Entire world, all all all."

Queen Chrysalis frowned. "You're very set on this, aren't you?"

"Reason for everything," Greene rasped. She began approaching and smiled. "Don't understand, you don't. Change change change." Elizabeth Greene reached out with her hand and began pressing against Chrysalis's shield, which instantly started to give way.

With a panicked snarl she backed up and, with a quick buzz of her wings, flew out of reach of Greene. She was not getting infected. Though she was starting to run out of fresh air; she had to wrap this up quickly. "My final offer Elizabeth Greene, consider this very carefully. I aid you in return for you not afflicting my people, or I give you nothing. You're with me or against me."

"Wrong, black white no gray wrong. Will Bless." Elizabeth crouched down, red and white tendrils flickering about her legs, and Chrysalis had to suppress a laugh. Was she really going to try to jump at her? She was as high up as two buildings!

Of course, that thought flew right out the window when Greene leaped up and... she just kept going up. In no time at all the Evolved was on her, forcing Chrysalis to dodge to the side lest her hard light barrier be shattered. She flew higher and higher, and when she was certain she was high enough she went higher still until she passed the tip of Canterlot Mountain, the diseased city far beneath her. The giant ensnared structure stuck out among the gold and purple architecture like a sore.

She took a deep breath and reviewed what she had learned. Afflicted ponies could still be fed upon and, in fact, were easier to do so than their healthy counterparts. That was where the good news ended; the disease would afflict anyling that didn't take great safety precautions and Elizabeth Greene was fully intent on spreading it to her hive in the future. She didn't doubt that, with those of her subjects already enchained by the enormous hive mind of the Evolved, Elizabeth already knew where to find her.

What could she do? She couldn't very well fight the Evolved; discounting the impossibility of fighting the entirety of Equestria's population alongside an infectious disease that would take from her people and add to the enemy, and of fighting any other races Elizabeth could possibly enslave before turning her sight on the changelings, Chrysalis was not keen on crossing horns - hooves? Arms? - with someling else that had bested Celestia. And under their own power, if the subtext was correct.

She couldn't hide from the infected. With a hive mind like that and the ability to spread throughout the world, where could she run? How would she possibly feed off of them without being noticed? Disguises wouldn't work; the infected would 'notice' that one of them wasn't in the hive mind and her cover would be blown in an instant. Not using a feeble link that barely qualified as telepathy during the heat of battle to oust the Element of Kindness was one thing, but mulling around listlessly with a hive mind that strong was something else entirely.

She grimaced as she realized her only course of action left. She couldn't hide from Elizabeth and couldn't beat her on her own. She dissipated her barrier to let fresh air in, and then summoned another shield. Just in case.

Queen Chrysalis sent out the telepathic message to several changelings back home to come to her location. So that they'd do what they had to. Pride was a terrible emotion to eat. Using the woefully inaccurate flavor analogy, it was strong, bitter, and far too spicy...

But she would just have to swallow hers.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

A quill scribbled away and mathematical charts spun around Twilight's head, figuratively and literally. This was quite possibly the most difficult mathematical undertaking she had ever performed, and she loved it.

A chaotic system was the name of the game, in this case it was modeling the growth and expansion of the infection. It certainly took her mind off what she had been doing prior, helping evacuate a street while trying to levitate two Breakers into the air, long enough for the military to arrive and... take over.

Still, while she could always appreciate a good math problem this one was unnerving. Not to say it was too difficult; while predicting the movement rates of ponies within the rapidly-expanding quarantine was a challenge and with the effect of Colonies and Breakers the routes the infection could take were numerous it was still well within her abilities. Oh no, the math was hard but it certainly wasn't impossible if you forewent lunch. It was unnerving because of the enormity of what it described.

Frowning as she got the same predictions for the twelfth time in a row, she sighed and stacked her papers together. With a flick of magic the papers entered her saddlebags, which then settled against her body. She pulled away from her study desk, glanced at Spike sleeping in his basket, opened the door and slipped out.

She was in the Stalliongrad Town Hall, since their previous 'base of command' had been taken by the infected just yesterday. Utilitarian was the only word to describe it; perhaps it had been different in the past but now the marble corridors were almost empty of all decorations, while the mayor's office was a hastily repurposed infirmary for injured civilians. The hospitals were either taken by the infected or overflowing. Twilight didn't feel keeping anypony in close quarters was really a good idea, but the nurses and doctors were very good at separation fields.

Soon enough she crossed paths with Applejack. Her stetson was torn on an edge and she didn't look like she'd been getting enough sleep, despite Applebloom being safely in the Crystal Empire with her friends. Even her amulet-induced sparkles seemed dimmer. "Rough day?" Twilight asked, ready to be the supportive friend. It was her turn, right? Or had she lost count? She knew she shouldn't have left the catastrophe-chart back in Ponyville. They started to trot and walk.

"Ugh, ya have no idea Twi. Ya'd think ponies would listen to good old fashioned common sense in these times, but all I hear is 'how come you get an amulet' and 'how do we know you won't get us sick' and 'I grew up in this home I'll die in this home'. Ponies don't seem to get that it ain't worth losin' their heads over, and that they'll be goin' back once all this is over."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Twilight said earnestly. "Have you at least been steering clear of the infected?"

She nodded. "As well as could be hoped. Still, had ta distract one of them big ones long enough for everypony in Trotlagar Square to run. How's the math goin' on your end, Twi?"

She couldn't help but grimace as they turned a corner. She could smell the fresh air already, coming from the open pavilion where they'd be eating. The Princesses were out today, busy with a dangerous amount of Colonies. Rainbow and Pinkie were also out, while Rarity had retired to bed early, explaining how nopony would listen to her when she helped evacuate if she didn't get some beauty sleep beforehoof.

The pavilion held two tables and offered a perfect view of the Crystal Mountains up north, the dome of the Crystal Heart, and the twilight sky. Her BBBFF was already at one of the tables, munching away on a salad, the plate that had once held an omelet pushed to the side. He looked much better than he had; his sparkling coat was groomed, his hooves polished, and his eyes were alert. Twilight liked to imagine she too was rebounding up.

"Heyth Twilith," he mumbled through a mouthful of baked grass. "Athhlejath."

She rolled her eyes as the two of them took a seat by their own prepared meals. "Shiny, that's gross!" she complained.

He swallowed the food in his mouth and rinsed it down with a glass of water. "Sorry. So how are you two?"

"Well," she said, levitating the most important of her papers out of her saddlebags and setting it next to the plates. Align by point three millimeters to minimize chance of staining... perfect! "I finally finished the math and... it doesn't look good."

She took a sip of water and, grabbing her fork in telekinesis, brought a sliced carrot into her mouth. "Not good how?" Shining asked. "I know it's spreading fast but it can't be that bad, can it?"

"I have three predictions; a best case estimate, worst case, and most likely, all based off how fast the infection's spreading, how well it's being fought off, how the public is reacting, wind current schedules from Cloudsdale, so on. It's not a pretty picture."

"Lay it on us Twi," AJ said. "It can't be that bad, can it?"

"Alright, so look. We're on day thirteen now, the end of it anyway. Already the infection has gotten more ponies sick than Black Spread ever did, number and percentage wise. Nopony's died to it outright, but that's a moot point because if anything, the infection's speeding up. I did the math, and all things considered... we're looking at a - mmph, onth momenth." She finished chewing a piece of omelet and swallowed it. "As I was saying. By the end of the infection it'll be a lot slower, since the only unaffected ponies left will be hiding in holes. We're looking at greater-than-or-equal-to ninety-nine percent by day twenty one. That gives us a week, unless we do something to slow it down."

"A-A week?" Applejack stammered. "Only a week?"

She nodded grimly. "And that's not even considering that as we approach that, things will be getting much worse. It's not a sudden thing, it's gradual. My best case scenario involves us developing new techniques to slow down the infection but we don't succeed in containing Greene; that gives us to day thirty. Worst case scenario... Elizabeth Greene figures out a way around the crystal barriers, creates a ton of new types of infected to overwhelm the military, and we don't come up with anything. That gives us only to day seventeen. But all in all, twenty one is the most likely point."

"Sweet Celestia," Shining Armor muttered. "That's no time at all. We can't... it's too much space! How the hay are we supposed to do anything in a week?!" he demanded. With forceful, snapping telekinesis he downed more water, looking like he wished for it to be something stronger. "How are we..."

"I don't know, BBBFF," she said sadly. "But we better start thinking of how to make Elizabeth stop this."

"How in the hay are we supposed to do that, Twi?" Applejack demanded. "She beat up Celestia all on her lonesome, without any of those big things helpin' her or freaky powered-up magic. She doesn't go where she doesn't want to go, she's smart enough to avoid fights she can't win - "

"I don't know how!" she shouted. She chewed angrily on her salad, ignoring the slight buzzing sound in her ears. Take that, salad. "I don't know. The only thing we can do is slow down the disease as much as possible while we make some sort of trap. But what sort of trap I don't know!" The buzzing got louder, and slowly everypony at the table put down their utensils and turned to face opposite the sunset.

Before Twilight could fully register the approaching black shapes they touched down, and the buzzing of wings stopped. There were three of them, the two to the sides wearing dark blue armor and the middle one much, much taller with slightly luminescent eyes. Applejack gulped, Twilight's breath froze, and she heard Shining Armor snarl as the central figure stepped forward. One of the side figures had a white flag attached to their flanks with green slime.

Before either her or her brother could summon their magic to either defend or attack respectively, the tall changeling spoke, her voice as doubly resonant as she remembered. "Elizabeth Greene must be stopped."

Enemies and Allies

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DAY 13 OF INFECTION: 32% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight's mouth opened and let out a strangled little, "Eeeh?" but she summoned magic to her horn regardless, as did her brother. All three of them got out of their seats, dinner forgotten in an instant.

"What are you doing here?" Shiny growled, his horn a blazing torch of energy. His magic shot forward but, before it got halfway to the three changelings, it curved back and formed a glistening shield in front of him. Twilight also finished casting a spell, warding all three of them from any mental manipulations she might try.

Chrysalis rolled her multi-irised eyes. "Hmm, so this is how Equestria greets diplomatic envoys under a white flag," she snarked. "Color me unimpressed."

"You'll have to forgive us if we're not in a diplomatic mood," Shining Armor spat. "What do you want?"

The changeling with the white flag placed it on the ground, leaning against another table. At the same time, Chrysalis spoke, raising a forehoof to her face and examining it tiredly. "Weren't you listening? Of course not. I want that wretched alien to die." She sighed. "Where are those little princesses you call leaders? I had assumed they would be here, and I wish to speak with them."

"Ya don't get ta speak to the Princesses, varmit!" Applejack said, her voice understandably venomous. "I suggest y'all better mosey on back to whatever hole y'all crawled out of."

"Tsk tsk," Chrysalis said. "And here I thought you didn't have the infection under control."

"We do have it under control!" Twilight shouted. Shining's barrier continued to grow until it formed a perfect sphere around them. The sun set and the moon rose.

"Which explains why there's almost a third of you ponies infected," Chrysalis said snidely, pacing around them. Her carapace glimmered oddly under the influence of the local crystal field. "Don't think I don't know. It's not that hard to see, especially on a flyover. You are losing, and you cannot win on your own."

"That's what you thought last time," Shining retorted. "And look where that lead."

She snarled. "Yes, look indeed." She threw her head back and tossed her moth-eaten mane, pacing back to her guards. "I did not come here to have a shouting contest with a puny little unicorn. I came here to speak with your princesses, and I'm not leaving until we have negotiated."

"Well then I'm sorry, Queen, but you're going to leave disappointed," Shiny snarled.

Chrysalis reached her guards and turned back around, a fanged smirk on her face. Her focus was on some point past Shining. "No... I don't think I am." There was the sound of eight hooves touching down behind them, inside the shield, and all three of them spun around, moving to bow when they recognized the forms of Princesses Celestia and Luna.

"Thou hast some nerve, Queen, to show thy face whilst we are engaged in such high-importance hostilities with Elizabeth Greene," Luna snarled, effortlessly stepping forward and out of the shield. "Why should we not smite thee where thou stands, as thou hast done to our sister in the past?" Twilight, her brother, and Applejack all rose out of their bows.

"White flag," she said with a smirk. "That's two threats already. Such a noble, diplomatic, and peaceful people you are."

"Thou wouldst speak of nobleness? Thou, who imprisoned an innocent mare in caverns, who assaulted a peaceful nation without declaration of war or attempts at negotiation, who - "

"Luna," Princess Celestia said, walking next to her sibling. Yet neither one of them took their eyes off of Chrysalis. "I don't think she came here to listen to a list of her crimes against Equestria. Did you?"

Queen Chrysalis chuckled, a simply awful noise with her double-voice. "No, I did not. You see, your little outbreak has been noticed. Specifically, it's become quite intriguing to my people, given our relationship of predation with you."

"Thou means parasitism," Princess Luna remarked coldly. Twilight scuffed a hoof on the ground nervously. She felt so... out of place listening to this. Not to mention angry and scared of Chrysalis. "And we hardly see how it is interesting to thee."

"You're our primary food source," the changeling queen sneered. "You're so much more efficient to harvest love from than other races we even evolved to resemble you. I'll cut to the chase. It's not in my interest to let anything overly bad happen to you, so I propose to help you with your little virus problem."

Blink.

"Everypony, and everychangeling - " Princess Celestia began.

"Everyling," Chrysalis remarked quietly.

" - inside." She regarded the changeling queen harshly. "Queen Chrysalis, you are under diplomatic immunity and therefore we are obligated to listen to what you have to say. However, there are still conditions for you to follow. Your immunity is fragile as the white flag you bring; attack and all negotiations are off. Impede our containment of the infection and all negotiations are off. Any form of manipulation, magical or otherwise, and negotiations are off. Any attempt to circumvent all four of these terms, and negotiations are off. Do you understand these terms as I have explained them to you?"

Twilight's jaw dropped. Princess Celestia couldn't really be considering actually talking with Queen Chrysalis, could she?

Chrysalis nodded. "Duly noted, princess."

A faint smile tugged at the corner of Celestia's lips. "Good. Twilight, Luna, follow me. Applejack, you may retire to your quarters if you want." Shining Armor took that as a cue to reluctantly drop his shield.

"Thank ya kindly, Princess," Applejack said. "Don't let this so-called queen pull the wool over your eyes."

"I won't, don't worry," Celestia said, not taking her eyes off Chrysalis as the farmpony walked back into the town hall. "Come, let us go. Shining Armor, I require you to attend a meeting with General Hard Gaze regarding the new sightings of Elizabeth Greene; you'll know where to find him. Twilight, I need you as a recorder."

They both nodded resolutely, and Shiny slipped out of sight. Chrysalis and her guards followed not far behind the two alicorns, Twilight nervously behind them. She kept her horn slightly glowing, in case they did anything. Eventually, the Princesses lead the changelings and Twilight into what may have once been a place where budgets were negotiated for the city. It was spacious enough for the two alicorns and the alicorn-sized being. The seemingly identical changeling guards each took a position by the only exit, still as stone.

The room was dusty, and the air was stale. Not infection-stale, but unused-stale. In the middle rested a long rectangular table of marble, covered in a few sheets of paper, ink wells, and pegasus feathers. Around the walls were smaller tables, cluttered with papers on taxes and reforms that would invariably come later, which were important but second to the armageddon.

Princesses Celestia and Luna each took a seat on one end of the table, with Twilight in between and behind them. Chrysalis took her place across from them. "Are we ready to get this over with?" she asked impatiently. "There's an alien I want vaporized."

"In a moment," Celestia said, her horn pulsing. She looked over her withers at Twilight. "Twilight, will you please get ready to record?"

She nodded. "Yes, Princess." She levitated a stack of papers, one of the quills, and an inkwell over. She uncapped it and dipped the quill in. "Ready when you are."

"Excellent." She turned back to the Queen. "We will begin the negotiations momentarily. I've just sent out the message for my niece to join us, but I fear she may have been sleeping, so it may be - "

The rippling, blue illusion of Cadance's head appeared to Celestia's left. "Auntie, what is - " Cadance's eyes noticed Chrysalis and narrowed. "YOU!" Cadance's headshot vanished, briefly showing her mane's fibers, and then nothing. There was the sound of a crash, muttering and growling, until the Crystal Princess pulled her head back into range of the spell. "Auntie, what is she doing here?" Twilight wrote down everything that was said.

Princess Celestia sighed. "I think it'd be best to let her explain."

Queen Chrysalis smirked at the azure portal. "Hello Cadance. Feeling blue?" The alicorn snarled, which looked utterly uncharacteristic for her. "Regardless, I want to help you grind that disease-ridden biped into the dirt. I spoke with her briefly before coming here, and she made her intentions quite clear regarding my kind."

Princess Luna huffed. "Is that so? Even when her disease only affects ponykind?"

Chrysalis snarled. "You think it only latches on to your kind? No surprise there. Let me tell you, it is just as virulent for my people as for yours." She smirked. "You honestly didn't think you caught all my infiltrators, did you?" Twilight's eyes widened as she continued writing, connecting the dots. How many changelings were in the cities? How many were infected, giving Elizabeth Greene access to shapeshifters? "Your arrogance is very becoming of you, Princess. So no, it affects my changelings as well, and when she's through with you she will, at some point, come for me." She tossed her sea-green mane. "I'd much prefer to stop her while she has more enemies than slaves."

"So you're in this for yourself," Celestia said.

If Chrysalis snarled before, she absolutely growled now. With her resonant voice it was a very strange noise. "I'm doing this for my subjects! Granted, not being infected myself is certainly a plus, but their well being comes before mine. If it didn't, I'd have had them attack you en masse in my stead."

"Very well," Princess Luna said. "We art not here to discuss thy past crimes, as our sister hast said." She looked at the other two alicorns. "We understand the past history between our nations, but we art in no position to turn down aid of any kind." She eyed Chrysalis warily. "Despite the strange... strange sources of it. Sister, thou knows how dire the situation is. Even if we were to defeat every one of the infected this night, it would be for naught while Greene still walks free. We need all the help we can get to defeat her." She kept eyeing Chrysalis cautiously. "Tell us, Changeling Queen, what could thou provide Equestria in its time of need?"

"Soldiers for one," she said dryly. "You're in desperate need of those. Tell me, how large is Equestria's military, now that there is no more Royal Guard? Thirty thousand, fifty? I can easily supply many times that, and look out there and tell me you don't need more deployed soldiers." Twilight frowned as she wrote it down. She really wished there could've been a peaceful solution, but the alien had attacked her mentor and nearly killed her. Force was literally the only available option.

"I see," Princess Celestia said. "What are the precise numbers?"

"You do not need to know," she said sharply.

"If you're going to ally with us," Cadance said. "You're going to have to tell us what you can do." Suddenly she looked a lot more smug than Twilight had ever seen. "Or you can not, and you can fight off all the rest of the world once they're infected."

Chrysalis snarled. "Fine then. Five hundred thousand total."

Twilight gaped. Five hundred thousand?! Then how many changelings were there period?

Seeing everypony's shocked faces, Chrysalis added, "What, you thought I brought my entire swarm to Canterlot? You don't just do an all-in attack like that; what if something goes wrong?" She snarled again; it was characteristic of her. "Like it did. So then, now you know what I can do for you, and Swarm Commander Polin will be able to coordinate the majority of my army. But as for now what can you do for me?"

"Thou speaks of a ceasefire," the Nightbringer said. "Though thou hast still not answered a critical question. How will thou feed thy military while in Equestria?"

"Oh you don't have to worry about that," Chrysalis said with a little smirk. "The infected are a buffet. I really should have thanked Elizabeth for that; they absolutely leak love into the air. There's really no problem with feeding us, not with them around."

"Sounds to me," Cadance said with a slightly frayed mane and a coldness that was very uncharacteristic of her. "Like it'd be better for you to help Elizabeth instead."

Chrysalis snorted. "Yes, help the alien. A few weeks, maybe months of feeding well, and then she turns her gaze on us. No thank you." She sighed. "We are wasting time. Every second that passes is another four ponies infected," WHAT?! "And it's speeding up. Let's just sign a stupid ceasefire so we can get to talking about killing Elizabeth."

"Imprisoning her," Princess Celestia corrected. "We will strip her strength away and try her in a court of law. If the court decides on the death penalty it decides on the death penalty, but before that we are imprisoning her if at all possible. We kill her only if we can't contain her. We are not monsters," she said with the slightest hint of accusation. "Though it matters little. She's so durable we need to nearly kill her at any rate."

"Right," Chrysalis said. "Anyhow, we can also provide you espionage. Our shapeshifting is worth little against the infected, but our telepathy is useful. A report from everywhere in Equestria, real time, twenty four-seven. When and where what's happening." She smirked, showing off her fangs. "We may even be able to pin down Greene's location, something you'll desperately need if you want this to end."

Cadance sighed. "As much as I hate to say it, Auntie, she's right. We need all the help we can get. Let's just sign this stupid ceasefire and get it over with."

"Luna?" Princess Celestia asked.

"We agree, this is a necessity."

"Very well then."

The Princess's horn lit up, and a piece of paper popped into existence before her, floating down onto the table. Everypony else dropped silent. Chrysalis levitated it before her, scanned it briefly, then poked her head out from behind it, one brow raised. "... Princess Celestia. You had a ceasefire between my nation and yours already written up, prepared, and memorized so thoroughly you could teleport it to you from wherever it was?"

Celestia shuffled her wings but otherwise betrayed nothing. "I like to keep my options open," she declared.

Queen Chrysalis rolled her eyes and moved the parchment, still wrapped in her bubbling, acidic aura, back before her. As she read, she muttered. Whether or not it was for her benefit or theirs Twilight didn't know, but all the same her quill kept scribbling. "... shapeshifting restrictions... voluntary feeding, not important... possible exports and imports... end of hostilities for so much time..." She pulled it away. "Seems alright to me." Her horn stayed alight, but the paper fluttered to the table and was tended to by an ink-dipped quill. It moved with a flourish, and Chrysalis passed both to the Princesses. After that she seemed to focus on some far off point.

Celestia and Luna signed their names on the bottom, and then it was Cadance's turn. She sighed. "Um... hang on. Let me see if I can get my magic through this thing."

"I'll help you," Celestia said warmly, both her and her niece's horns illuminating. A golden glow surrounded Cadance's viewing portal, and at the same time a teal aura enveloped the quill. A moment later, Cadance had signed the ceasefire and the flow of magic stopped. Celestia picked up the scroll. "Excellent. Queen Chrysalis, as of now hostilities between both our nations and yours have come to a standstill. What are your plans now?"

The changeling queen opened her mouth in a great, fanged yawn. Twilight idly noted that, while still unsettling, Chrysalis's double-voice was nowhere near as intimidating after Elizabeth Greene's echoes and rasps. "I and my guards are going to find some place to sleep; we will find it ourselves. It is late, and there will be much to do tomorrow, regarding your military commanders. No sense plotting when sleep deprived. Good night to you," she said, turning tail and marching out the door. The two guards left their positions and flanked her. The three changelings left, and Twilight put down her quill.

"Well," she said. "That was..." She searched for a word. "Interesting."

Princess Celestia sighed. "I agree, my faithful student. To think that it'd be Chrysalis, of all beings, who would offer aid when our allies denied us is certainly not something I predicted would happen."

"Indeed sister." Princess Luna turned to Cadance's head. "Mi Amore Cadenza, art thou alright? Thou seems rattled."

"Of course I'm rattled," she breathed. "That was the mare, or whatever you call female changelings, that has plagued my nightmares for months, and now we're supposed to be buddy-buddy with her. Yes, I'm rattled. I swear, if she decides to come up to my Empire she's going to get a very up close and personal taste of the Crystal Heart."

"Such anger is unbecoming of thee," the Lunar Princess remarked. "Though we suppose we cannot blame thee. All things considered, things went well. With the changelings' aid we may even turn this war around."

"I suppose," Cadance said, sounding none too pleased. Twilight could hardly blame her. "But you know we have to keep an eye on her! Chrysalis is a monster, and I wouldn't be surprised if she were scheming right this second instead of sleeping." She cut herself off with a yawn. "Oh, my. Well, good night everypony." The image vanished.

Twilight sighed. "Well, that happened," she said conclusively. "I think I'm gonna go sleep on this too. There's just... so much that just happened."

Princess Celestia turned to her with a slight smile. "Actually Twilight, I was hoping you could give me a report on the estimated time we have." Oh? Hadn't she... oh!

"Oh! Right, Princess. Um..." She laughed nervously. "Well, in all likelihood eight days from now less than one percent of the country will be uninfected, presuming nothing changes. Though I have to admit, I made those calculations before Chrysalis arrived so we either have more or less time than that."

Both alicorns gulped. "W-Well, that is not good, Twilight Sparkle. Thy skills in mathematics is beyond reproach, and the infection is certainly rapid, but even so we were not expecting a forecast so dire." Princess Luna flicked her gaze at her sister. "Tia, the two of thee should get some rest. We shalt watch over thy dreams, as well as watching out for the changelings. Aid they may give, but we have still many details to iron out and t'would be best for all parties involved if the changelings were not given the freedom to move about us as they wish."

Twilight nodded, organizing the papers she had written on. "I will, Princess." With another quick bow, she left the same way the changelings did, heading towards the room that had been made into a makeshift bedroom for her and a few others. Along the way, however, she passed by an open room. Inside of it were two glowing, double-irised eyes. One of them winked at her mischievously.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Covert Confidence

Avoiding the infection was easy.

Alright, maybe easy wasn't the best word. Easier, surely. Much easier than keeping out of sight of Elizabeth Greene before she had started the plague. The infection was easier to avoid than Greene had been, but all the same that didn't mean it wasn't a living Tartarus for Covert to get to Stalliongrad from Manehattan, leaping from crystal field to crystal field, never stepping hoof out of one unless it was absolutely necessary. Given how quickly things were going to Tartarus it was tricky, but manageable.

The hard part was finding out where the Princesses were! She had to keep her ear to the ground for that, and given how Equestria's population was either locking themselves indoors or evaporating out of the cities into the countryside, there wasn't all that much to hear.

All things considered she'd done fairly well. Tin Foil would've been proud of her.

Sailing across the night sky, her eyes drooped. Brother... she thought sadly, blowing a lock of steely-green mane out of her eyes.

She passed through the teal dome of the next crystal field, her coat taking on a shimmering hue. She looked down at the town hall and angled her wings, slowly circling down towards it. Covert's hooves clipped sharply on the stairs as she touched down, and she walked up to the entrance. Two guards, clad in full uniform, stood by the entrance. As she approached, the one on her right craned his head to her and spoke.

"I'm sorry miss, but this building is off limits to civilians. You'll just have to find someplace else to spend the night."

"Oh no," she said. "I'm here on business with the Princesses. I have information they desperately need to hear."

"I'm afraid that if we let in everypony who said they had something the Princesses need to know," he said. "There would be no time for anything except Noon and Midnight Court, both of which are suspended in accordance with state of emergency. Terribly sorry for the inconvenience, miss...?"

"Covert Confidence," she said. "And I'm afraid I have to insist, it's vital information regarding the infection."

"I'm sure we can pass it on," the other guard said.

"I - I don't want to risk it being distorted by word of mouth," she said nervously. "It's imperative that this is done exactly right."

"Miss Confidence, I understand your concern, but - "

"Prithee, what happens here?" asked a regal voice. Covert and the guards snapped their attention to the new pony; in their conversation they hadn't noticed the door open and an alicorn step out. The guards saluted while Covert hastily bowed before Princess Luna. A wave of blue magic washed over her, which she identified as a changeling search. "Ah, a visitor? Rise and tell us what hast brought thee to our doorstep."

"Your Majesty," she said. "My name is Covert Confidence, I have important news on how to imprison Elizabeth Greene."

The Nightbringer's eyes widened. "Come inside, now," she demanded. "Guards, maintain thy posts." Without further word, the alicorn turned around, Covert nervously following after her, looking left and right. Covert was terrified. She had hoped that Princess Celestia would still be awake, but no such luck. Princess Luna scared her. Still, it was a stroke of luck she bothered to listen to her at all. They must've been really desperate for a way to stop Elizabeth.

At length, the corridors ended and the Princess turned to her. A dead end. She felt like she'd been herded, away from prying eyes and anypony who could hear... "Speak what thou hast to say. Start with the beginning; how hast thee gotten this information about Greene?"

"Heh," she said, sweating buckets. "You see, funny story."

"Then begin at the start," the alicorn said.

"Right. You see, um, my brother's special talent is - " Was. " - finding patterns in social and political events. He was very good at it, even if he formed some rather strong opinions about politicians, or found relations where there weren't any and kept most everything to himself. Got some of his foalhood friends together with him to watch out for things, and he made a pretty bit by predicting where to invest." Fat lot of good it did him, she thought.

"He predicted our return, we assume?" Princess Luna asked.

Covert shook his head. "No, that took everypony by surprise, but he did anticipate something like Discord once you did." She blinked. "My apologies, Highness, I'm getting off topic. So, um, he eventually became very paranoid and so did his friends, and he dragged me into more than one of his warnings of conspiracy. When Elizabeth arrived, well, he looked at the patterns of the previous events to happen to Equestria and determined she wasn't good news. After all, neither was Discord, or the changelings." Luna's eyes flicked left, then right at the mention of changelings. "So he decided to take action against Elizabeth."

Princess Luna's eyes darkened. "Thou were the ones attempting to assassinate Elizabeth Greene, were thee not?"

Covert shivered and lowered her ears, taking a sudden interest in the floor's design. White and teal mosaics. "I didn't actually do anything to Elizabeth myself," she said. "But Tinny had me spying on her to find any weaknesses that the rest of his friends could use to stop her before she did anything drastic." She scoffed. "Fat lot of good that did."

Luna pursed her lips. "Under normal circumstances we would arrest thee and thy friends for assault and conspiracy against a foreign dignitary, however... t'would seem thou were correct in thy ambitions. Though, why did thee not come to us?"

Covert shuffled her forehooves. "We... may have been under the impression that Greene had mind controlled you. We didn't know what she could do, and imagination tends to breed worst case scenarios. Forgive me, Princess Luna, it was no excuse."

"Thou may be forgiven," she said coldly. "And we assume that the information thou hast uncovered during thy spying is what thou hast come to give?"

"Yes, Princess. My special talent is keeping things hidden, such as myself. I found several things about her. One is that she reacts poorly to water - "

"We know of this already," Luna mentioned. "Thy comrades attempted such on her in Cloudsdale. It was not successful."

"We were relying on the fall to injure her. We didn't know she could just take it. From what I hear, sleep spells don't work anymore either. But there's something else I noticed, earlier actually, when she was in the castle."

That got Princess Luna's attention. "Thou snuck into the castle to spy on a foreign ambassador?" Technically she just hovered outside the window... "Whatever the situation is now t'was not so then, so that constitutes a significant crime. What... precisely... did thou see?"

She scooted back as far as she could, looking up at Princess Luna fearfully. "When she threw up blood, she claimed it was from taking your sister's essence, correct?" she said hastily, fearing for her life. "The essence of alicorns is poisonous to her. If you can inject her with it, she'll be incapacitated."

Princess Luna blinked. "We beg thy pardon?"

"If we can get a... a vial, or syringe of alicorn blood, and get Greene in one place long enough for somepony to inject her with it, it'll keep her down. She'll go for a fight she thinks she can win; get somepony antagonizing her, and somepony else hidden with the blood, and when Greene is distracted they hit her with it. Simple."

"We see," Luna said quietly. "And thou wishes to be the one who injects her."

Covert's eyes widened. "N-No, Princess! Elizabeth... she scares me. She glanced at me one time in Canterlot and I barely got away, I think. There's gotta be somepony better. Your night guards?"

Princess Luna's gaze dropped. "Compromised. We believe that thou art afraid, yet we also suspect thou desires to hurt Elizabeth Greene. Tell us, why?"

Covert took a deep breath, tears beginning to sting her eyes. "Me and my brother, and our friends, are all from Baltimare. We moved to Canterlot a year ago, and his friends followed after us. I was out on errand in Manehattan when it happened, but... but..." She lowered her head and her wings drooped. "They were there."

She started when she felt a hoof on her withers and looked up to see Princess Luna's concerned face. "We art sorry for thy loss. We do in fact remember the occurrence thou mentions with Elizabeth Greene, and we thank thee for returning it to the forefront of our mind. But whilst thy plan's outline is most assuring, the details are lacking. Who would draw her attention? Where? How? Who would stab her, and how would they keep Greene from leaping away beforehoof?" She pulled the hoof away.

Covert tried to open her mouth, but didn't succeed. Princess Luna was right, it was a terrible plan. What had she been thinking? "Y-You're right, Princess. I'm sorry to have wasted your time," she said with a weak, nervous bow, looking at her gray coat.

"Hold, Covert Confidence. That is not to say thy plans were faulty, merely incomplete. And whilst judgement for thy actions against an ambassador without proper evidence as well as spying on royalty and trespassing on royal property will come 'tis neither here nor there. Thy suggestion to poison Greene with our blood, while unsettling, is far better than any plan we hath created thus far. Dost thou have a place to stay for the night?"

"I was thinking of just moving into a random house," she admitted. "Lots of free space."

"Neigh to that!" the Princess of the Night exclaimed. "When the sun rises thou will need to communicate with our sister and our..." Princess Luna grimaced. "... and our guests about the information thou hast brought to our attention. Understand our little pony, that this is great news, but it must be done carefully. Our opponent is powerful, vicious, and intelligent. Her only true weakness is her insanity, and any plan must take that into account." Princess Luna sighed and ruffled her wings, making Covert unconsciously shift her own.

"You, um, flatter me, Your Highness."

She smirked. "Perhaps we do. Come, we hath much business this night, and thou needs sleep." Princess Luna started out of the dead end, paused and looked over her withers at Covert. The pegasus shrunk back. "Art thou coming?"

Covert hastily nodded. "Oh! Um, yes Your Majesty." She followed after the alicorn, who opened a door seemingly at random and lead her into a room with several blue cushions laid out. Other ponies were already sleeping on the others, and she recognized one as Princess Celestia's student. One cushion was unoccupied.

"Tis not much," the Princess said. "But it should suffice for the time being." Covert looked at it nervously, then at the intimidating Moon Goddess. She nudged her head at the cushions. "Go on, they will not bite thee. We have much to do, as we said, and thou art now holding us up."

That got her moving. "Apologies, Princess!" she said in a whisper-shout after leaping to an oversized blue pillow. Covert rested on the cushions and lowered her head. "So I'll tell your sister what I told you tonight?"

"Quite," Princess Luna said, already opening the door to leave. "Remember, tell our sister what thou and we hath said about thy plan." Before leaving, Princess Luna seemed to remember something. "Oh, and do not attack the changelings, we've allied with them for now." With that she was gone, closing the door.

Cover Confidence blinked.

Wait, what was that last part?

The First Monster

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DAY 14 OF INFECTION: 39% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Covert Confidence

Covert Confidence got very little sleep that night.

Princess Luna's last words to her rang loudly in her mind, causing her to toss and turn restlessly in her sleep. Allied with... the changelings? Why in the world would the Princesses ever ally with those bugs? Were her brother's theories about them correct? What if these weren't ponies around her at all? That wasn't Twilight Sparkle. That wasn't Rarity or Applejack and that hadn't been Princess Luna.

She laid there, eyes wide in panic, attempting to reach a sleep that refused to come. She wasn't even really sure if she wanted to. After all, these were all changelings and if she fell asleep she might never wake up...

Covert forced herself to control her breathing. She needed to think reasonably. Panic would do nothing except alert the rest of the changelings. First, she had to look at what would make the Princesses actually ally with the bugs, and what the bugs would get out of making her think that.

If they allied with the changelings, they'd certainly get a lot of help with the infected, as well as the neutralization of the changeling threat in its entirety. Sort of. Not really, they would still feed off of them and that was very bad but Covert knew that the infection was worse.

Why would the bugs make her think they had allied with Equestria? Surely the Princesses knew that would come back to bite them in the flank. It made no sense to do it just to deceive her but to trick the rest of Equestria? Undermine their efforts to stop the infection? Then again, maybe there was a common enemy...

All her logic and reasoning amounted to nothing, and so Covert Confidence tossed and turned restlessly until she eventually fell into an even more restless sleep.

In what seemed like an instant she was awake, but didn't want to move from the cushion she rested on. She kept her ears flat to block out noise, and her entire body was pins and needles. She groaned, ears moving. Then the pins and needles stopped, and were replaced with dread. She wasn't alone. There was somepony in the room with her! Who was in the room with -

"Good morning, my little pony," said a gentle voice. Covert slowly opened her eyes to look at the face bent down before her, covered in a white coat with a flowing pastel mane, and then grumbled out a terse 'five more minutes' and closed her eyes.

...

...wait a second.

With a strangled yelp Covert blasted out of her makeshift bed and bowed so low she hit her muzzle. "P-P-Princess!" she stammered. "My deepest, humblest apologies for - "

"Please, there's no need for that," Princess Celestia said with what was almost a smirk, standing at her full height. Covert breathed a sigh of relief and stood. Her brother might not have had respect for the Princesses, but she wasn't her brother. "The others are already awake and getting ready. Luna told me you have a plan to incapacitate Elizabeth?"

Mutely, she nodded. Then, Covert wrested back control over her vocal cords. "Your Majesty, your sister told me you'd allied with the changeling queen," she said warily.

Princess Celestia's eyes seemed to widen for a moment, and then she grimly nodded. "An unfortunate necessity. Our allies have turned their backs on us, so we need aid from whatever source we can get. It just so happens that Queen Chrysalis is just as interested in retaining her mind as we are."

"How do I know you're not a changeling?" she asked, certain she was going to be cocooned for daring to ask.

Princess Celestia - maybe? - winced. "Oh, well my little pony, I'm afraid there is not much I myself can do to prove such to you. I hope you will take your continued well being and lack of fatigue as evidence, but beyond that you'll simply have to take my word for it. I realize it is not comforting to hear."

Princess Celestia was right; it wasn't comforting at all.

Still, Covert's anger at Greene was greater than her fear of changelings, by however marginal an amount. She nodded. "I understand, Princess."

Celestia smiled. "Excellent. Please follow me, we can discuss it with everypony else. Shining Armor, Hard Gaze, and... Swarm Commander Polin along with Chrysalis are already in the war room. It wouldn't do to keep them waiting." Covert did just that, following Princess Celestia out as she left the room and turned through the corridors she really should have tried to memorize last night.

As they walked, Celestia talked. "Twilight and her friends are already out doing what they can," she said somewhat morosely. "And Luna decided to roast a few more Colonies before going to sleep." She caught Covert's uneasy look. "Relax, my little pony. I assure you, I am who I say I am."

You haven't claimed to be anyone, she thought, then paused and rolled her eyes at herself. Great. I swallowed Tinny; why else would I be this paranoid?

Before long, Princess Celestia guided her into a room with a long rectangular table in the middle. Off to the side, she saw a sheet of parchment that, at first glance, seemed to be a diplomatic document with four signatures. Around the table, looking at a map of Equestria, were two ponies and two bugs, all shimmering under the effects of the local crystal field.

Shining Armor was there, without his armor. Next to him was a pony who must've been General Hard Gaze of Equestria's military. He was a very old pony, with a faded blue coat and grayed mane that was shortly cut. He was dressed up in uniform, a deep blue suit with golden seams that covered his cutie mark, replacing it with the emblem of Equestria, the alicorn sisters in a circle with their respective cosmic bodies. He stared intensely at the map spread out before him, like if he could narrow his eyes enough victory would reveal itself.

The other two were clearly changelings. She recognized Chrysalis easily; it was hard not to. The other bug in the room was a very thin, wiry changeling - apparently a mare - wearing the dark blue armor Covert had seen on some changelings during the invasion of Canterlot. Probably the 'Polin' character. She looked at the map with the same intensity Hard Gaze had, compound eyes narrowed, while Chrysalis and Shining Armor both glared at each other.

Princess Celestia cleared her throat and walked over to Hard Gaze. Everypony - and everyling, Covert supposed - there snapped their attention to her, the General saluting. "Everyone, I would like you to meet Covert Confidence. According to my sister she has legitimate information on how we may weaken Greene enough to contain her."

Suddenly everypony's eyes were on her. The smaller changeling opened her mouth and startled Covert with a very male voice, despite the buzzing undertone. "Well then, what are you waiting for, pony? Spit it out!"

"You're a stallion," she said dumbly.

Chrysalis snickered while Polin rolled his eyes. "Yes, I am," he said coldly. "Now what's this about Greene?"

She took a deep breath. "A while ago, when she was in the castle attending breakfast with the Princesses, Elizabeth accidentally poisoned herself with what she called Princess Celestia's 'essence'," Covert said, rearing onto her hind legs so her forelegs could make the quotation marks. "We get some of her blood and inject it into Greene, she goes down," she said, her coat itching where the changelings looked at her.

"Hmm," Hard Gaze said, now looking at her with all the intensity he had looked at the map with. "How poisonous are we talking?"

"Coughing up blood, on her knees for minutes, from so little blood that Princess Celestia didn't even notice," she answered. "It wouldn't take much to get a strong reaction."

Shining Armor nodded. "Problem is, we have a fair bit of difficulty pinning down Greene's location long enough to do so." He looked at Chrysalis. "Where is she now?" he asked.

"One moment," the changeling queen said before gazing off into the distance. "East Baltimare, making a Colony. My scouts say she's just about done."

Shining Armor rolled his eyes. "Great. Well then, how are we going to get her? We can't exactly sneak up on her while she's making a Colony; those are swamped with infected that will see us. And she sure as hay isn't going to come inside a crystal field just because we ask her to."

"What about an untouched zone? Like... say, downtown Manehattan? Hasn't gotten there yet." Hard Gaze asked. "No infection, no crystal aura, it could serve as a neutral ground of sorts. From what I've heard, she does respond to summons, even more so if it's a challenge she thinks she'll be able to win. But that still leaves the problem of keeping her in one place long enough for somepony to inject her."

"My sister," Princess Celestia said with the calm authority of the leader she was. "Knows a spell that could hold her down for a few seconds, and it doesn't attack the mind, so her hive won't protect her. Who will inject her? I doubt that piercing her skin will be easy, so we need the strongest pony - or changeling - we can find with the sharpest needle."

Polin - seriously, he was a stallion? - smirked. "I know just the changeling." His frown vanished. "And what about who calls her? No, forget that. Downtown Manehattan is going to be packed with civilians, unprotected from the virus, and we're bringing the source of it to them. How are we going to evacuate that many ponies so quickly?"

Looking back, Covert Confidence saw Princess Celestia give the bug a knowing smile. "I know just the pony."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

"Bravely galloped away!" sang the pink pony, already vanishing off into the horizon.

"AWAY!" shouted the chorus.

"Away! Bravely galloped away! Away..." they kept repeating, slowly disappearing from sight, taking the sound of instruments with them.

Covert Confidence stood on a roof in Manehattan, her jaw on the floor and left eye twitching. Not from the musical, those were nothing special. But... that pink pony... instruments... how had she... her mane? She didn't understand! It wasn't possible!

Everything had gone according to plan, more or less. They'd found a high-end bone marrow transplant syringe in an abandoned hospital and Princess Celestia had, after purging it of the virus, taken a sample of her golden blood and then sharpened the needle as much as she could, enchanting it for resilience. The changelings, and herself, received crystal amulets. The weight of Covert's was heavy around her neck.

They were in the town square, which was now utterly deserted of everything but carriages. Covert was perched on a building overlooking an alleyway, and there, behind a trash can, hid a changeling with the syringe of immortal ichor in its hooves.

In the middle of the street was Princess Luna, holding an infected earth pony down with her forehooves. Her coat shimmered in tune with her bellowing voice, the amulet around her throat bouncing back and forth. "Elizabeth Greene! Art thou afraid of us? Dost thou fear us? Even as we hold one of thy children down, poised to end their lives with the slightest of movements?"

Covert had to admit, if she were a crazy alien who thought the infected were her 'children' she would certainly be angry. But where was Greene? She knew how fast she could run, so where was she? What if she didn't take the bait?

She really hoped the plan would work. The plan was that Elizabeth would be brought here, Princess Luna would hold her down with a spell while that bug ran up to her and injected her, then both alicorns and the changeling queen would subdue the weakened Elizabeth. But what if she didn't show up? Or sent infected in her stead? Or what if the bug simply wasn't strong enough to inject her?

She glanced over at the town square. Technically she wasn't supposed to be there, but she wasn't in the way and she wanted to see this happen. It was slightly tinted with purple, carriages and carts pushed to the sides, businesses closed. In the center stood Princess Luna with the tumor-covered pony still beneath her hoof. She was impatient. She wanted to see Greene hurt. She had to be hurt, she had to!

A crackling sound filled the air, and Covert's eyes widened in fear when two emerald orbs of changeling magic descended and smashed craters on either side of the Princess. The impacts were far enough away to not cause harm, but close enough to startle her into letting the infected go. Covert Confidence's voice caught in her throat. They'd been betrayed! Deceived! They never should have trusted those disgusting -

Then fear gave way to horror when she realized that that wasn't changeling magic.

The infected pony galloped away, but Elizabeth Greene descended from the sky with a catastrophic impact. It blew a wide ring of dust away and made the pavement roll like water, forcing Princess Luna to spread her wings and let it carry her away from Greene. Once the shockwave was over she trotted back up to Elizabeth Greene.

Even from such a distance, Covert could feel the waves of anger washing out of Elizabeth, making her heart and stomach clench. She could feel her fury and indignity at the alicorn that she'd thought was her friend but had held her child down by the throat and threatened to -

"Luna," she said. That one word forced Covert to duck down as the echoes washed over her, pounding inside her head. "What?"

"Ah, so thou hast seen fit to show thy face!" Luna bragged. Covert was suddenly terrified, and she couldn't tell if it was her or Elizabeth's emotion. She backed away to look at the changeling peeking out from behind the trash can, syringe floating in his green aura. But Covert's attention wasn't on the changeling, but rather the infected unicorn stumbling towards him, the mare's horn lit up with orange light. What was an infected doing there?!

Time slowed down. In the distance she still heard the Moon Goddess and the Plague Goddess exchanging threats, but it didn't register above the sound of the infected mare's horn charging up. She vaguely considered how shouting a warning would be faster, but also compromise their one shot at this plan. She dove from her perch into the disgusting alleyway, ready to buck the infected as hard as she could.

Covert wasn't the best flyer. She could certainly hold her own, she wasn't slow, but she was certainly no Rainbow Dash. So she managed to land a kick on the unicorn and send her to the ground only a split second after the beam hit the inattentive changeling in the back of the head and knocked him out. The syringe clattered to the ground and rolled out from behind the trash can.

She didn't waste any time. She knew how good Elizabeth's senses were, and more importantly, how she could see through the eyes of any infected. She lunged for the blood and grabbed it in her hooves and looked out of the alley. Her steel green eyes locked with Greene's, which were wide. Princess Luna's gaze was also surprised.

"Trap," Elizabeth said fearfully, pulling one hand up to waist level. Covert flew at her with all the speed she could muster, but as the Evolved's legs began to writhe and flicker she knew she wasn't going to make it in time.

Princess Luna scowled and, with a burst of green fire, was replaced by Queen Chrysalis. "Get her!"

The purple tint on the town square rushed together and formed a cloud, which became the real Princess Luna right next to Chrysalis. At that point, Covert shot out of the alley and made her mad flight across the town square.

Just as Greene was about to jump, Princess Luna's horn lit up and she tilted her head back. The flickers around Greene's legs vanished instantly, and there was a shadowy explosion under her. A dark pit of some fluid opened beneath the alien, smoke rising into the air with a purple beam of light that was centered on Elizabeth.

Before Elizabeth could do anything, arms began to rise out of the pit. Skeletal griffon talons, minotaur arms, pony and zebra hooves, as well as several things Covert couldn't identify, raised themselves up, clawed at a thrashing Greene, and sunk back down to be replaced by another. The nightmares made real kept Elizabeth flailing in place, as a green beam formed on her chest and was sucked into Chrysalis's horn.

Covert was suddenly right before Greene, still held by the nightmarish arms that parted around the pegasus. She held the syringe with the adhesive magic in her forehooves and pressed it against Greene's suit, right where the green light of changeling magic flowed out, and pushed with all her might, wings and all. The syringe shook, but didn't budge. Then the beam of magic grew brighter, and the plunger ever so slowly slid down, pushing some of the golden alicorn blood into Elizabeth Greene's bloodstream just as Princess Luna's spell ended, the dark pit closing.

Covert Confidence wasn't entirely sure of what happened after that. Elizabeth's eyes widened in shock as her feet touched the ground, and then Covert was flying through the air, tumbling this way and that until her stomach slammed into a building and she'd fallen over, gasping in a vain attempt to recover the air that had been knocked out of her. Her vision was sideways from how she laid but she could still make out what was going on in between her wheezing attempts at breath.

Chrysalis, an exhausted Princess Luna, and a newly-teleported Princess Celestia faced Elizabeth, the elder alicorn preparing magic. The alien choked, brought her hands to her stomach as a glob of something too thick to be blood dripped out of her mouth. She screamed, a horribly keening noise, and threw her head back, hands at her throat as she sprayed red flesh everywhere.

Covert got to her hooves as Elizabeth fell to her knees, choking and vomiting up vast amounts of blood in a scene of horrific gore that was like something out of a night terror. Slowly, in time with Covert getting her breath back, Elizabeth stood up and startled to stumble back, still vomiting. She lurched backwards as Chrysalis shot a blast of magic at her, the blast forming a splatter of slime where Greene had been a second prior.

Chrysalis snarled and prepared another blast, Princess Luna panted heavily, and Princess Celestia lowered her horn at Greene, aiming her prepared spell carefully. There was a flash of white, a clap of thunder, and a rush of scorched air over Covert as the Daybringer unleashed an enormous bolt of white lightning at and through Elizabeth Greene. The Evolved was sent flying and landed on her hands and knees, looking at the alicorns in pain as the hole in her chest slowly closed up, blood dribbling down her lips. The three members of royalty stepped forward...

The ground exploded around Elizabeth, throwing up a wall of shattered stone and dust that completely obscured the alien at its core...

"KkkrrrraaaaIIIIIIEEEEE!" The scream tore through the air like a knife, a wailing cry of anger and rage. The dust cleared and Covert's jaw dropped.

Surrounding the spot Elizabeth had been before was a ring of six... things.

Just one of them was six times taller than Princess Celestia, bottom to top, and its base was a little bit larger in diameter than the Solar Princess was from horn to tail. Each creature was skinless, angry red flesh, covered in veins. Near their top the flesh gave way to a bony, blood-covered scythe. As one, the creatures bent over so that they were 'only' four times as tall as the Princess. The way their bodies bent indicated that they were all muscle, no bone. The scythes opened wide, revealing stiff tooth-covered rectangular tongues and, where the two bony scythes connected, a tiny hole.

Covert's eyes widened and she flapped her wings, hastily taking to the air. She winced when her new bruises - maybe a broken rib or two - made their existence known. Something snapped through the air next to her, and chancing a look back she saw that it was a thin red cord that speared the air where she had been a moment before, extended from one of those giant things.

Covert was not a fighter; she'd hid in a wine cellar during the changeling invasion. As such, instead of trying to help the three figures taking to the air, she flew back to the unconscious changeling and recovering infected, grabbed the bug, and with a heave of effort flew with the surprisingly light changeling back to the roof she had perched on before.

Three of the things had vanished, and returned from wherever they had submerged to by bursting from three new positions all around the town square. The original three, under fire from the figures in the air, that had surrounded Elizabeth each used their scythes to pick up a boulder, and as one, reared back to throw one at each of Celestia, Luna, and Chrysalis.

The three figures deftly dodged out of the way and retaliated with their own blasts of magic, which simply bounced off of the things.

Chrysalis shouted, "Everyling, attack!"

From the various buildings around where the creatures were busy picking up rocks to throw, a swarm of maybe a hundred changelings erupted, shattering windows as they streamed into the open air, hovering above the six giant infected and pelting them with emerald darts of magic. Every now and then one or more of the changelings engulfed themselves in green fire and body slammed one of the giant monsters, flying away before they could be smacked out of the air.

Covert watched in awe as the battle unfolded, the six shrieking beasts tossing assorted rocks at the swarm above them. Sometimes they lashed out with their tendrils and reeled in a carriage to throw, or aimed the barbs directly at an enemy.

Princess Luna's horn lit up with power, and then she tossed a volley of silver points at each of the infected monsters, exploding on contact with silent bursts of light. One of the creatures shrieked and sunk beneath the ground...

... only to reappear in another part of the square. It spat out the tendrils through the hole between its scythes. They found their mark... in Princess Celestia.

Covert's breath caught in her throat as Celestia was pulled in midst a shower of golden blood, landing right in front of the monster before it released her. It reared back, ready to smash her with its enormous bulk, but before it could there was another clap of thunder and a heat wave as the Princess sent out a blast of lightning, The creature, now bleeding copiously and horrifically through a hole that went through its body and shattered its scythe, shrieked once before falling limply to the ground. Celestia healed her wound and took back to the air, four tendril barbs smashing the ground she'd stood on a moment before.

Covert Confidence watched in awe besides the unconscious changeling as they battled, dancing around thrown projectiles and tentacle spears. The alicorn sisters dominated the field with amazing feats of magic; Celestia engulfed the floor in solar plasma that glassed the ground and Luna whipped a hailstorm of white rocks around them, riddling the creatures with holes. Chrysalis kept her green beam flowing, drawing something - love? - out of one creature at a time while her subjects blasted them and body-slammed them.

One by one, the enormous things fell, but that even as their numbers dwindled, sometimes somepony's reactions failed them and were downed in one hit, falling to the ground.

Eventually, the last of the six monsters was felled. Chrysalis gave some kind of an order, and the changelings flew away in a nearly solid mass of black, headed north. Then it was just the Princesses and the Queen, flying towards her and touching down. Queen Chrysalis growled at her.

"What did you do to him?"

She tried to keep control of her bladder under the changeling queen's fury. "An infected snuck up on him, a sleep spell I think. If it didn't run away, it's down in that alley," she said, pointing in said direction and stepping back to get some distance between herself and the incredibly powerful beings before her.

Chrysalis softened immediately. "I see. I'll ask him after. If it is true, thank you for performing Kriak's task in his stead." She frowned and looked at the alicorns, giving her wings a quick buzz. "It's a shame she got away," Chrysalis said. "If we're lucky, the poison will finish her off."

Princess Celestia frowned. "Yes, perhaps. When she took my essence she was able to recover within a minute, but that was when she took it into her on her own terms. With any luck, she won't know how to expel my blood and will remain incapacitated for a while yet." She stomped a hoof, which looked odd without her horseshoes, then looked at Covert. "You followed us. Did you plan this?" she asked evenly.

Covert shook her head so hard she was afraid it would fall off. "N-No, Princess!" She bowed, which made the pain in her barrel spike. "I just wanted to watch, but then I saw the infected, a-and if I warned him then Elizabeth would've heard and, and, and..."

"Hush," Princess Luna said, motioning for her to rise from her bow. "Accidentally or otherwise, Covert, thou salvaged an operation that would otherwise have been a complete failure. For that there shall be commendations, but for now let us bring thee to a hospital." The night alicorn looked worried. "Elizabeth Greene struck thee. Though she was disoriented and injured from our spell, 'tis still nothing to laugh at. Let us bring thee to a hospital to recover."

Covert let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "Thank you, Princess."

She looked back at the square. Manehattan's roads had been glassed by Celestia, holes punched in it from the enormous beasts. One, in particular, looked almost like a snowflake; six giant holes around a seventh, where Elizabeth had retreated.

Suddenly, not even the ground beneath their hooves was safe.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Fluttershy

Ponyville was never the busiest of towns, but even so, this was terrifying.

It was a ghost town. After convincing Elizabeth she needed to take care of her animals - which really wasn't too difficult, Elizabeth understood - she'd flown back to Ponyville and done just that. Now, walking through the streets, Fluttershy was taken aback by just how empty it was. The entire town had fled since she'd last been there, two weeks ago. It was late afternoon, but she still felt like it was the middle of the night, a chill wind blowing through the streets.

She shivered in fear. Ponyville wasn't supposed to be so... quiet. Where were the flower sisters acting as their early warning system? Pinkie Pie bouncing around with some inconceivable task in her head? Where was Lyra's music and Time Turner's snores? Fluttershy opened the door into Sugarcube Corner, taken aback by how cold and dark it was despite the brilliance of the sun outside. She shuffled in, looking left and right.

"Hello?" she asked. "Anypony home?"

Of course there wouldn't be anypony. Elizabeth had unleashed her virus upon Ponyville long ago, hoping to catch anypony that had stayed behind. No such luck, but either way the town was now completely contaminated. She just hoped it wouldn't cross species to her animal friends...

The displays of Sugarcube Corner were still out, testament to how quickly they'd fled. Fluttershy looked at one red cupcake with green sprinkles and took it. She placed it on a nearby table and flipped open her left saddlebag, fishing around inside with her mouth until she pulled out a little bag. The sign had said they were two bits, so she put two bits on the counter. She really hoped the Cakes were alright.

As she nibbled the stale cupcake, she wondered when her life had turned so crazy. Had it been when she moved to Ponyville, or when she'd befriended Elizabeth, or became the Bearer of Kindness? Fluttershy wasn't sure about the answer to that.

Eventually, she finished up her food and left the emptiness that was Sugarcube Corner. She wondered where to go next. The library maybe? It was a public building, after all... oh but thinking about the library made her think about Twilight and the rest of the girls, and that made her worry for them. Were they alright?

As she walked through the streets, she spotted somepony walking towards her. Her eyes widened. What was somepony doing here? Didn't they know they'd get sick? Sure, she wasn't but that was because Elizabeth was directly keeping her from getting sick. When the pony got closer, she realized that they were already infected. It was a unicorn stallion, his eyes dull but focused intently on her. He stopped in front of her and spoke.

"Fluttershy, hurt. Strong child coming to pick you up, ride her back," he said, reciting Elizabeth's words with a hideous, grating voice that made Fluttershy's coat stand on end. Once he was done, he stood as still as a statue.

Strong child? Those were the big ones, but why? Fluttershy wasn't hurt, was she?

There was a slam behind her and she whipped around with a startled yell, but calmed down when she took in the form of the enormous infected. From its sides grew two black limbs, no more than bone with black skin stretched on them, the pegasus feathers long gone. She gulped. Clearly Elizabeth wanted her to get on it... alright, she could do that.

Fluttershy flew up and landed on the former pony's back, and wrapped her forehooves around its neck. She'd seen how strong they were, so she had almost no worries about accidentally choking it. Then it was off, bounding through Ponyville at speeds she hadn't experienced since her ride with Elizabeth back when they'd been late for the train.

She squeaked and bent her head down, mane and tail billowing uncomfortably in the breeze. Meanwhile, she wondered what had happened that made Elizabeth want her back so urgently. Suddenly it dawned on her, and she felt like such a bad friend for not realizing it sooner. Elizabeth was hurt. She didn't know how much, but if she was hurt at all then that meant something terrible must've happened to her.

As the infected bounded across Equestria, closing in on Canterlot, Fluttershy had a few minutes to think. What exactly did she think about Elizabeth? She was oh so very nice to her, and it'd be so rude of her to think otherwise. Still... she really didn't know what to think about her plans. Enslaving everypony - and everytaur, everyzebra... - in the world? Fluttershy couldn't support that, which made her sad because it clearly meant the world to Elizabeth.

And what really drove the knife in was that she'd promised Elizabeth to help, Pinkie Promised. She was fairly certain that Pinkie would forgive her for breaking this promise, but could she ever forgive herself? Despite all the monstrous things Elizabeth had done recently, Elizabeth thought they were all good things, and Fluttershy still really wanted her as a friend.

The infected charged up the mountain to Canterlot.

What was worse was that Fluttershy was less and less sure that Elizabeth was really in the wrong. She assured her that her children/infected were happy as could be, and given how she could read their minds Fluttershy really had no reason not to believe her. She was still uneasy about the fact that Elizabeth planned to do that to her one day, but...

If only she could spend some time as an infected, change back, then choose which one was better.

The giant infected stopped next to a building and motioned with its head for her to get off. She did, her mane and tail frazzled from the journey over.

She gasped. "Oh dear," she whispered, looking at the hole in the ground that she was really quite certain hadn't been there before. It was a tall and wide thing, maybe three times the size of the infected next to her, and vanished into almost-darkness, illuminated on the inside by those glowing sacks Elizabeth was so fond of. "Down there?"

The giant infected leaped away, and a green earth pony mare, with large tumors on her left foreleg and right hind leg, stumbled next to her. "Follow," she growled, plodding forward.

Fluttershy nervously did, going into the deeps. The infected mare moved methodically and stiffly, seeming to not even need the orange, biological lights. Though Fluttershy had to admit, the lights were nice. Very alive.

Eventually they entered a chamber shaped like a squished sphere, multiple tunnels leading out of it and filled with the sound of labored breathing. The infected mare turned around and walked back, and Fluttershy was momentarily afraid she'd get lost. But then she noticed the occupants of the room and she gasped.

"Elizabeth!" she said, bounding over to the Evolved. She laid on the ground, and surrounding her were five of the 'warm children', giant furless ponies with skin covered with rashes to the point of saturation, and on their backs water-filled pustules grew the tendrily mesh that Elizabeth could produce. Elizabeth was on her side, head resting on the ensnared floor. Her arms were crossed just above her breasts and her knees slightly drawn up, though not quite into her stomach. She was the source of the labored breaths and, even as she watched, she coughed up a glob of blood that drained away into a tiny hole in the middle of the room.

"Elizabeth, Elizabeth what happened?" she asked nervously, standing in front of Elizabeth. Her skin had always been deathly pale, but even in the orange light of the sacks Fluttershy could see the deep, dark circles around her eyes and gaunt features on her cheeks. Fluttershy sat behind Elizabeth and rested the alien's scorching hot head in her lap. She was horrified by how light she was, how easy to move.

"H-H-Hurt," Elizabeth rattled. Slowly, red and white flickers broke out along her body and vanished, followed by vomiting more blood.

"Oh Elizabeth," she said quietly. One of the bloated infected moved forward and let their mesh lightly touch the soles of Greene's feet. In seconds it was siphoned into Elizabeth, who became slightly heavier. "Who did this to you?"

"Pony, changeling queen distracted. T-Trusted Luna. T-Trusted." She punctuated the sentence with a fierce spell of coughing and more blood. "Huuuurts," she moaned, the word echoing around the chamber like the wails of the dead. To say it scared Fluttershy would be an understatement.

But scared or not, her friend was really really hurt. "Shh, shh, it's okay Elizabeth. You'll be fine. Shh," she said, stroking her ragged mane with a hoof as the alien lightly shook in her lap, somewhat ironically the very image of illness. "It's okay, I'm here," she whispered.

Fluttershy looked around as Elizabeth kept shivering and coughing in her lap, her body flickering and throwing up extremely thick blood. It was almost the same as when she'd taken Princess Celestia's... oh. That was what happened. That made her sad; she thought they were friends. Friends don't poison friends.

All the same, what was done was done. Fluttershy kept trying to soothe Elizabeth as best she could, the next infected feeding her their web. She frowned worriedly, took a deep breath to steady her nerves, and began. Elizabeth needed her help. Whatever she could say about her plans, Fluttershy didn't want to see anypony hurting so much.

"Hush now, quiet now..."

With Friends Like These

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DAY 16 OF INFECTION: 40% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Twilight Sparkle

It was early in the morning, right after breakfast. All five of them were in the room they had slept in, while Spike was out running an important errand for quills, each of the girls wearing their crystal pendants.

She really couldn't help but smile as the girls talked to one another in the 'bedroom' they had been given. They had been apart for the better part of two weeks, trying to help Equestria with evacuations and morale and infected. It had been busy, but finally they had a moment to breathe, and the five of them could get together and just... talk.

"Oh," Rarity said. "You should have seen the stores in Manehattan! Completely emptied out. It's a tragedy, I tell you. A tragedy! I understand that ponies want to keep their belongings with them when they move but..."

"... but ponies are all riled up, I hear ya," Applejack said with a sage nod.

"I know!" Pinkie said, despair ever so slightly notable in even her voice. "Everypony's so afraid, and nopony's leaving their homes, and nopony's buying cupcakes! Not even the cows and donkeys and everypony who isn't a pony in Equestria; they're afraid they'll give it to somepony else!"

... the topic of discussion had gotten depressing very fast. They'd spoken of much happier things initially, but inevitably gravitated towards the infection. Twilight stepped in to avoid it. "Everypony, how about we talk about something besides the end of the world?"

"Twilight's right," Rainbow said, hovering in place. "We've been focusing so much on it for these two weeks, I think we need to take a load off of the infected." She flew down next to Twilight and put a wing over her withers. "So, speaking of 'something else', what's with the changelings?"

Twilight laughed nervously and shared a look with Applejack, the latter's legs folded under her and into the blue cushion. "On second thought, talking about the infected isn't that bad..."

"Dashie's right!" Pinkie said, bouncing around the room while keeping her head locked on Twilight. "I mean, at your brother's wedding we were all like 'wham! bam!' to the changelings and they were all 'grr ponies grr' and now I see them flying around the infected zones keeping them inside and in the big blue crystal whatchamacallits helping everypony else keep the infected out and that's tooootally strange because during the wedding they were all 'grr ponies grr' like I said before and - "

Rainbow had flown over and put her hoof in Pinkie's mouth before she could really get going. "Yeah, what Pinks said. AJ, you were there. Why are we letting that overgrown fly stay here?"

Applejack sighed and tilted her hat down slightly. "It's 'cause we ain't got much of a choice, RD. Y'all saw how fast Greene was doin' things, Twilight even got the numbers crunched."

Twilight nodded. "She's right. We'd have completely lost by day twenty one without any help. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's thanks to Chrysalis that Elizabeth's as hurt as she is." Okay, so there's really nothing to talk about except the infection, she thought, resigning herself to that fate.

"What did happen, darling?" Rarity asked. "It's plain to say none of us were there when whatever happened, happened."

"Yeah!" Pinkie shouted. "I don't get to use my everypony-flee-there's-big-official-business-coming song often, let alone during the end of the world!"

"Well," Twilight said, flopping her left ear. "I wasn't there for it, but apparently this Covert Confidence mare arrived and gave the Princesses a plan. They took some of Princess Celestia's blood and tried to inject Elizabeth with it."

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at that. "Err, really Twi? What would that do?"

"Apparently it's poison to her," Twilight said, itching under her coat from the uncomfortable topic of poison. "So they got Chrysalis to disguise herself as Princess Luna and taunt Elizabeth by taking one of the infected hostage, while somepony else hid with Celestia's blood in a needle." She shrugged. "Apparently, when Greene showed up the real Princess Luna intervened and held Elizabeth in place long enough for the blood to be injected."

"And it worked?" Rainbow asked.

Twilight frowned, both ears flopping. "No, it didn't. I mean, they got it into Greene and according to the Princess she was really hurt, but she got away."

"What do you mean, 'got away'?" Rainbow asked, her wings briefly flaring. "Wasn't like, the changeling queen and Princess Luna there? How could she just 'get away'? I mean she's fast but you just said she was really hurt!"

"Well..." Twilight said, not knowing the answer to that question. She really hadn't asked Princess Celestia about it too much. For one thing, she was just too busy and second of all she really wasn't too keen on knowing the details about how the monster who had taken her parents away had escaped justice.

There was a knock on the inside of the door and all five of them jumped, wheeling around to face whoever had let themselves in.

All five of them were instantly on end as they took in the form of a changeling. It rolled its eyes and stepped further in, speaking in its chittering voice. "Ah, the famed hospitality and forgiveness of Equestria," the changeling said. Twilight wondered if that was proof enough of emotion sensing. "She got away by using a new type of infected," he said. He, despite looking on the small and lanky side. Twilight wondered if that was normal among changelings or if this one in particular was an exception.

"And who might ya be?" Applejack asked in a level voice.

"Swarm Commander Polin, at your... well I shouldn't say service." He snickered and closed the door behind him. Twilight tensed; they were in a room with a changeling. Granted, she had no doubt about being able to brute-force overpower him, but soldiers had many more tricks with their magic than she did in those regards. "So, what was this about Operation Smite?"

That was what they were calling it? "How did Elizabeth escape, buster?" Rainbow asked, getting up in his face.

Polin hardly seemed impressed by her hostility. "Shriekers," he said. "That's what your princesses elected to call them anyway."

"Shriekers?" Applejack asked, looking at Rarity confusedly. The unicorn shrugged back.

"I know less than you, darling. I've seen those Breakers of course, brutish things, but Shriekers?"

"Giant things, can't even tell they used to be ponies or 'lings," he said nonchalantly. "Burrow underground, taller than an ursa. They throw stuff, and grab things by spitting a tentacle and pulling it in. Par for the course with the infected."

Everypony looked at each other nervously. "So..." Twilight said. "Shriekers?" Great, a new type of infected, she mumbled internally.

"That's the sound they make when they erupt from the ground," he said. "I'm not the one who came up with the name, alright? I was just one of the changelings who helped Her Majesty fight them off after they blocked our sight of the target." The target, Elizabeth. But then, wait...

"So there must be a network of tunnels beneath Equestria," she breathed. "Celestia, this is bad. If these Shriekers can just burrow anywhere, then the crystal fields are all vulnerable! We've got to find some way to defend against that!"

The changeling nodded. "Good head on you, pony. Yes, we are thinking of something to defend against the Shriekers, other than going into the infected tunnels because that is suicide. The thing is though, Greene's not making much use of them. She wasn't just chased off after being poisoned. She still is," he said.

"Huh?" Pinkie asked.

"Sometimes the infected do intelligent things, but mostly they've stopped strategizing. Elizabeth is extremely focused on something else, and I can only imagine that this 'something else' is curing herself of the poison. The infected are disorganized, your princesses have destroyed all the Colonies, and the infected are even grouping up past the Hurricane Limit. I got a good chain reaction off yesterday, it was a thing of beauty."

Twilight's friends looked at each other in confusion, but having a BBBFF in the military meant she understood what the Hurricane Limit was; it was the point where an army was so dense that an enemy's chaining or area magic outweighed the advantage of having many soldiers. The Hurricane Limit was higher for an army that had magic of their own since they could counterspell, which let them group up more, such as in the invasion of Canterlot by these very creatures!

But while the infected included unicorns, they knew just as much magic as Elizabeth Greene did, and certainly wouldn't think to cast on their own. Their Hurricane Limit wouldn't be that high at all.

"So, what?" Rainbow asked. "We're winning now?"

All five of them started when the changeling buzzed his wings and flew up, standing on a wall, close to the ceiling. He looked down at them. "I wouldn't say winning per say, but you're getting more crystal fields made, no more Colonies, stupid infected. It's still getting worse in most cities, but no more small towns are getting picked off and, here's the best part." He smirked, seeming to make a point in showing off his fangs. "In Baltimare, the infected are actually getting pushed back, and we've almost completely cleaned up Stalliongrad."

Her ears perked up and she couldn't help but smile. That was great news! Once one city was clean, the soldiers there could help out the other cities, which would in turn save those cities faster, cascading until they were ready to take back Canterlot. But in the meantime...

"What about Elizabeth?" Twilight asked.

The changeling, still clinging to the wall - she'd have to do research into how, her guess was a modification of pony adhesive magic - grimaced. "She's gone dark. Your alicorns can't find her under the sky, so everyling assumes she's in the tunnels. That means that she's gone. It's suicide to go in there. Not to say we aren't trying to scry her location, but success is..." He pursed his lips. "Limited."

"You lost her," Rainbow said bluntly.

Polin growled, the sound sending shivers down everypony's spines. It was almost as bad as Greene's growls. "Yes, we lost her. Can you blame us? To get to her we need to get through all of the infected, which are all early warning systems for her. The moment we so much as set hoof in the tunnels, she'll know we're coming. We're thinking of ways to reliably find her, but until then we only ever fight her when she wants to."

Everypony sighed, and Applejack stomped a hoof. Normally it would've made a sharp sound, but it was muffled by the makeshift bed she hit. "Well, that's great. Which of course begs the question of why ya ain't out there looking for her, instead of making small talk with us."

"Off duty," he said simply. "At least for the moment. Her Majesty thought it would be prudent for us to exchange some noncritical information." He grinned, showing off his fangs, and drifted down to the floor amidst buzzing wings. "Call it a show of good faith."

"So we ask you a question about changelings and you answer it?" Pinkie asked.

"That's the gist of it," Polin said, holding out a perforated hoof and inspecting it, like it held the answer to life, the universe, and everything. "Obviously I can't answer anything too sensitive, but - "

"What's the big idea, invading Canterlot, huh?" Rainbow demanded, flying into his face.

Before Twilight could do anything, the changeling's horn lit up green and pushed her away. That made everypony tense up, even Twilight. Sure, she was about to do the same thing to Rainbow, but she was her friend! This changeling wasn't even close. "Oh, how dare we go after the enormous pile of food sitting there, in order to relieve our rapidly deteriorating situation," he said flatly. "The nerve of us."

"That would be all well and good," Rarity said with an incline of her head. "If your so called food wasn't acquired from us. And would it have been so difficult to simply ask?"

"Do manticores ask frogs and wolves to simply talk to them?" he retorted. "You are our prey, nothing more. Why should we care?"

Twilight facehooved. "Alright, first of all. That argument fails to hold merit with intelligent beings. Awareness is the great equalizer. Second of all, what is it with you changelings? First Chrysalis, now you? You're not predators, and we're not your prey." Her eyes narrowed. "You're parasites."

"Fine, parasites then. What does it matter? You had food we needed, you wouldn't have given it to us, we needed it badly, what do you want us to have done?"

"You seem pretty sure we wouldn't have helped," Twilight said, stepping forward. Everypony else shared nervous looks with each other. "What about the griffons? Zebras? Hmm? We're neutral with the Diamond Dog Alpha Pack, despite some of the practices their roaming packs undertake."

"None of them have to rip emotions out of you, do they?" Twilight hesitated, backing off slightly from the changeling. "I thought so. Our food stores were starting to run out, Her Majesty saw a solution, and she went for it." He growled. "Nice job ruining that, hero."

"Excuse me for not wanting to be enslaved," she snapped. "And besides, how would that have even worked? Take over Equestria and so forth, I think you'll find there'd be very little love to go around."

Polin laughed. "Maybe between our species, little pony, but ponies would've drawn closer together, amplifying what was there, and making things even better for us."

She snorted, but backed off. "Okay, fine, next question." She tilted her head, scientific curiosity beginning to bubble up in her. "Why is all changeling magic the same color? That's been bugging me for so long. I mean, every unicorn has a different color of magic even though it all falls under unicorn magic, but changelings..." Was it possible that the changeling guards only recruited those with green magic?

Polin sat on his haunches and shrugged. "That would be the link. Queen Chrysalis has green magic, therefore we have green magic."

"Huh?" Applejack asked. "Link the whatsit now?" She looked at Twilight. "How the hay would that work, Twi?"

"If you'll let me explain," he growled. "Thank you. We can all talk to each other with the hive mind, but it takes a fair bit of focus and we can't do anything else with it." He shivered. "Not at all like Greene's hive mind. That... thing is just a twisted perversion of our link." He shook himself out of his horror. "Anyhow, because of that all our magic is the same color as the current Queen's. Her Majesty's full title is Queen Chrysalis the Green."

"Huh," Twilight said, her indignity at the changeling's casual disregard for pony life forgotten. "So other Queens have had other color magics. Does that mean the cocoons, or whatever, also change color?"

He snorted. "Don't be absurd, that's always green."

Twilight creased her brows. "But you just said - "

"Our magic changes color. Queen Thorax the Orange, when she laid Her Majesty's egg, still laid a green one. But Queens with green magic traditionally bring about great reforms and improvements to changeling society, leaving their mark on history," he said, puffing himself up.

For a few moments awkward silence reigned supreme, Twilight looking at her friends, shrugging, then motioning at the changeling guard. "... such as?"

Still puffed up, Polin said, "Queen Tenodera, who united the hives. Or Queen Odona, whose work in love harvesting did to us what inventing agriculture did for you ponies." He stopped to consider for a moment, briefly muttering under his breath. It was strange for Twilight, watching a changeling mutter. "Hmm... history never my strongest... oh, Queen Lakasia, she got under your coats good after the aftermath of the Black Plague. Probably delayed our current situation by a good few decades." He tilted his head. "A lot to live up to, wouldn't you agree?"

"Ooh! Ooh! I have a question!" Pinkie shouted, not giving them a moment to digest what he had just explained. "How many changelings are there?"

"That is sensitive information, but suffice to say there's a lot of mouths to feed."

"Alright then, another question!" Pinkie said as Rarity was going to open her mouth. Rainbow eyed her with annoyance. "What are your fangs for?"

"Huh?" he asked.

"I mean, you eat love right? Do you need fangs for that?" Something was... happening to Polin's face, but it was too early for Twilight to place what. "Is it chewy or something?" Pinkie got closer to him, inspecting the sharp fangs. "Or is it to - "

"Oh, um," Polin said, his cheeks a fluorescent green. "I believe I need to go. Bztik needs my help with something." He darted for the exit and slammed the door.

"Well," Rarity said. "That was... interesting. Pinkie, what did you say to him?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. Hey, you think the whole color-thing is why Chrysalis attacked?"

"What do you mean, Pinks?" Rainbow asked. "I thought she was just being a villain being evil." She crossed her forelegs, hovering in the air. "That's all I gotta know."

"Well think about it! If green is really really super-duper important to changelings, then eeevery queen with green magic like Chryssy - " Chryssy?! " - is being told- " There her voice dropped into an eerie, creepy over-the-withers tone. "Hey do this hey do that don't mess up hey you'd better do great a-a-all the time. I think anypony would go a li-ittle bit crazy after that kinda pressure."

"Pinkie has a good point," Applejack said. "But that ain't an excuse to be invadin' countries and foalnapping brides."

Twilight nodded. "That's true, and it also brings up another point." She looked at the four of her friends that were present, trying not to remember where the other was. "Keep your eyes and ears open. Watch the changelings and tell the Princesses if you see anything suspicious."

"You mean what we've been doing all this time?" Rainbow asked, still cross-forehooved. "Why the sudden emphasis?"

"If what Polin said was true, and that Chrysalis is under pressure to be a 'great' leader, then the moment the infection is contained, Chrysalis will try and take over Equestria."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Chrysalis

The moment the infection was contained, Chrysalis was going to take over Equestria.

Really, there was no reason for her not to, and Elizabeth Greene was doing a fine job of softening up the ponies even more than they already were. It was obvious to everyling that the infection would eviscerate Equestria. Already, almost half the population was gone, and the Breakers and Shriekers would destroy whatever military there was, making it an easy sweep for her army. There were, however, still a few problems with taking over Equestria.

The first and foremost problem was containing the infection in the first place. While the sudden weakening of the infected was welcome and gave them both time and breathing room, Chrysalis was no nymph. Elizabeth would recover and return with a vengeance. They had to get as good of a head start as they could while she was still indisposed. It would be too easy if Celestia's blood outright killed her.

The second problem was directly related to the first; making sure enough of the ponies escaped the infection to feed her kind, but not so many that they could put up a fight. It was a delicate balancing act, but unfortunately it wasn't one that Chrysalis had any real say in it. While she could in theory sabotage the fight against the infected so that the ponies were even more weakened, that was outright foolish against such a vicious foe. That was something she simply couldn't control, and it got under her carapace.

The third issue was the alicorn sisters. She'd seen Celestia and Luna's abilities firsthoof when they fought the Shriekers. While once upon a time she may have exceeded Celestia in raw strength, that power also hadn't let her reach through a spiritual link and summon stellar plasma. The destructiveness of that was likely why the solar alicorn hadn't done that back in Canterlot; even that focused stream destroyed several houses behind Elizabeth when she used it.

At the moment she didn't even have raw power to fall back on. While the surge of love from the infected infused her and her people, it'd take a week for her to gain the strength she'd had in the invasion. And while she could in theory gain that kind of power to challenge the Princesses with a second time, Celestia would not underestimate her again. It would not be a mere test of power. Still, if she played her cards right, she could break the alicorns when the time came, one way or another.

While thinking of all the ways she could swoop in once Greene was dealt with, Queen Chrysalis kept buzzing her wings, soaring across the frigid tundra north of Stalliongrad. Not too far, she could see her target. Her tasty, tantalizing target...

She sipped more from her hive's rapidly growing reserves to stem the thoughts of swooping down and grabbing the Crystal Heart in her forehooves and sucking it dry and using the power to -

Eat more, she scolded herself before doing just that. There's plenty to go around, no skimping out.

While before the infected she hadn't dared send anyling into the Crystal Empire despite the advantages of doing so, with its military otherwise occupied she'd gotten infiltrators in. While the crystal ponies knew of her relation to their pretty little Princess, they'd never actually encountered her people (That they knew of) and so were relatively neutral on the matter of changeling existence. Which suited her just fine, because it let her fly through the air, crystal brooch thudding against her thorax, without doing more than turning the heads of the ponies beneath her.

Reaching the Crystal Palace, the Heart blazing brightly, she set down on a parapet almost at random and set about the task of finding her target. But before finding Cadance, she found two guards. Likely part of a skeleton crew.

"Hello," she said coldly, making them stiffen and look at her. "Where may I find your Princess? I have important news to discuss with her."

"The Princess has asked not to be disturbed," the one on her right explained.

"Oh, she'll make an exception for me," she explained. "This is urgent news regarding the spread of the Greene Virus."

The guards looked at each other, and the one on her left nodded. "Very well then, Queen Chrysalis. If you'll follow us." Too easy, she thought to herself. Oh, the infection made infiltration so easy. After all, noling was concerned about her when faced with such an obvious yet insidiously hard to see enemy. Before too long, she was brought into the interior of the Crystal Palace, halls gleaming with a wide variety of gems, banners hanging from the ceiling. The guards, from which she gently drained love the entire way, brought her to a door engraved with Cadance's cutie mark.

One of the guards rapped on it, while Chrysalis pulled in the ambient love given off by the Crystal Heart and sent it to the hive mind's repository. He knocked on the door, and there was a muffled voice on the other end that Chrysalis, to her chagrin, couldn't make out.

"Your Highness, there's somepony here who says you'll make an exception for her. Flew right in."

More noises.

"Your Majesty, I understand the breach in security but... you'll understand when you see that she is an ally."

Grumbling, and the guard turned to her. "Princess Mi Amore Cadenza will see you momentarily."

Not a moment after the little pony had said that did the doors swing in, revealing Princess Cadance in all her 'radiant glory'. She opened her mouth to speak to the guards, but cut off with a horrified look when she spotted Chrysalis standing there with an altogether bored look on her face.

"You look terrible," Chrysalis said.

It was true. Cadance had deep circles around her eyes and her mane and tail were both frazzled. Her coat was unkempt, like she hadn't had a proper bath in days, and her eyes were bloodshot. The spirals of her horn gently smoldered with teal embers, a spell perpetually in casting. She had none of her royal attire on, and Chrysalis could see parts of it in the background, on a table next to a fairly large bed.

"What are you doing here?!" Cadance half screeched.

"Checking in on the only pony keeping us all from losing. You look terrible," she said, genuinely concerned. Not for Cadance's sake, certainly not. But if the young alicorn failed then she was wide open for infection. "Hang on, let me take care of that."

Before Cadance or the guards could protest, she lit up her horn. To her credit Cadance's own magic blazed to life quickly for her downtrodden state, but not quick enough. Chrysalis reached to the guards next to her and drew in, similar to how she fed off love but so much more primal, invigorating, and less filling. She drained their life to her horn, leaving them gasping and panting on the ground, and then directed the spell towards Cadance, only in reverse.

"What did you - " Cadance was cut off when Chrysalis pushed the guards' vitality into her. The change was immediate. Cadance's legs were sturdier, the dark splotches under her eyes gone, and the glow of magic was steadier. "What did you do to them?!"

Chrysalis waved the anger away, it's acrid 'taste' making her wrinkle her snout. "Life drain spell on them, reversed it on you. Cadance, how long have you been keeping this up?"

"You're just going to ignore their suffering like - "

" - like they have taken an oath to protect their ruler? Yes, I am, and that includes protecting her from herself. I've simply helped them by draining the energy they didn't need and giving it to you. You, unlike them, actually need to stay strong." The guards had fallen asleep by now. Oh well. "Need I remind you of just what happens if you stop that," she said, pointing to Cadance's glowing horn. "For more than an instant? No pressure or anything, but you're the only one keeping the infection from simply devouring Equestria!" Chrysalis closed her eyes, nodded, and opened them again. "If anything you should thank me."

With gritted teeth, Cadance forced out a terse, "Thank you, Chrysalis. What do you want? Don't you have an army to be leading?"

She waved the blame away with a hoof. "Polin can more than handle it in my absence. It's his job. I'm here because I'm concerned about you." Even if at the moment Polin was raising trust with the ponies to lower their guard. Useless cultural trivia would do them no harm.

"Me. You, concerned about me."

"I heard from around Equestria what you did here when you arrived. King Sombra was his name, yes?" Cadance nodded. "It seems to me something similar is happening again." She stepped into Cadance's chambers, and was satisfied to see the alicorn scramble backwards to put distance between them. "You needed your magic to keep a barrier up, lest all be lost, but it strained you nearly to death." Cadance rolled her eyes. "Just like what's happening now. If you don't keep that little trinket fired up full blast, all our crystal fields mean nothing and I get infected."

"So nice to see - "

"And so do Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor," she said without a break in her step. That shut her up. "Listen, I'm not an idiot. You're terrified of me and I despise you," she said with a little growl. "But we need each other. You need me to slow down the infected and, when the time comes, lend horn and hoof to the capture of that alien. I need you to keep us from being enslaved by her in the process. Therefore, it is in both our interests to help each other." She tilted her head. "How much sleep have you been getting?"

"Enough," Cadance said, taking another step back.

"And fluids? Food?" Chrysalis asked, looking at the pony's slimmer than normal frame. With a flick of magic she closed the door to allow them privacy.

That triggered a big reaction in the pony. She leaped into the air like a deer and scrambled backwards, eyes wide and pupils comically small. "Y-Y-You - "

Chrysalis raised a forehoof and spun it in the air for emphasis. "I-I-I what?"

"Hypnotize... oh sweet Celestia," she breathed, slumping down and resting a forehoof on the table that held her jewelry. "No no no no no no no..."

She rolled her eyes. "I did not hypnotize you. Do you feel hypnotized?"

"Would I?" she breathed. "The green beam, feeling better, just like he said oh Celestia help me..."

"Listen, Cadance, listen. What benefit would I have to hypnotizing you? I don't know the spell to keep the Heart at full blast. Your friends would find out soon enough if I did."

"But then, what was... changelings can drain life?!" she demanded, growing more horrified by the second.

"Don't be absurd." She grinned. "I can drain life. It's a modification of how we eat love, passed down from queen to queen every since Queen Spiracle." She grinned wider. "You'll be thanking me tomorrow."

Cadance pulled herself back to her hooves. "And... why will I be thanking you tomorrow?"

"Because you're still a mess! You think what I gave you from two guards is enough for nearly two weeks of casting?" The alicorn's eyes grew wide at the implications of what Chrysalis was suggesting. Good. Let her stay afraid. "Oh no, you need much more, especially back up plans to keep the Heart going if something tragic were to happen to you." She tilted her head. "Like your heart giving out from the strain you put on it." Okay, that was a long shot, but hyperbole helped her point.

Queen Chrysalis let her grin grow wider and showed off her fangs. "Why dear Cadance, I'm here to help you."

Godslayer

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DAY 18 OF INFECTION: 41% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Greene

Four days.

That was how long she'd been sick. Four days. She didn't know it at the time, of course. She'd been far too... busy. But, when she went up and asked Fluttershy she'd, said it had been four days. Four days of coughing, retching, of colors and forms twisting together into shapeless shapes, burning inside of her. The longest four days of her life, not counting the timeless prison of her Wayward Child because she really didn't know how long that was and it didn't matter in such a timeless place -

The longest four days of her life.

Elizabeth stood on the highest spire of Canterlot Castle, grimly looking at Equestria. Her wonderful wonderful wonderful eyes made out Cloudsdale, wreathed in red, but also in shimmering blue. Elizabeth winced, bringing a hand to her stomach.

She'd figured out how to make it not-hurt. How to make the burning hurting whatever-it-was stop burning hurting her so it never would ever again. Just pushing it out of her wasn't enough. What if they tried it again?! So she'd spent the four days focused almost entirely on herself, selfishly forgetting her children!

That made her feel so sad sad sad, especially when she saw the three equine nests that had forcibly expelled most of her children. Her Throwing Children, however, remained burrowed underground, so far untouched by the equines.

Thinking of her Throwing Children made her think of the six that had protected her when she was poisoned, whom she had sent to their deaths. Greene tried to tell herself it wasn't her fault, but it was. She was in too much pain and fear and so, she'd only had the presence of mind to give them one instruction: 'Kill them! Now!'

She had a lot of slack to pick up, and the day was young. With a fierce leap, Elizabeth fell to the ground and began her sprint. As she made her way across the country, however, she was anything but idle in her thoughts. First of all, she took inventory of the few new parts of cities she had, and had her children run a sweep through them to turn off any device that might have caught fire.

Elizabeth quickly ran through her children that were either in the open or in outright combat, and took notice of several closely clumped groups. She promptly spread them out; a unicorn female that no longer lived had taught her that lesson the hard way early on. There was one equine nest that she had had her eyes on for a while; she'd been ready to remove that thorn in her side when she'd fallen like an an an idiot into the trap.

Her Throwing Children had carved beneath it, using helpful hints from Fluttershy to make sure they didn't cut under any unstable points and collapse the city. They were in position, and the plan was simple. Her Throwing Children would punch holes in the streets and then sink back down, letting her Strong Children through. Then they'd erupt elsewhere and attack. She gave the mental orders - orders to her children, dire dire dire times indeed - and they Listened. The armies would, if not outright killed, be forced to leave Stalliongrad and any plans they had there. And with that done, she could finally, finally help the poor equines in that city.

But that would be later. She couldn't focus entirely on all her children's efforts; they were starting to become too numerous and while she was so smart ever ever ever so smart she had her limits and she was approaching them. Which was why she had her Thinking Children.

They could have free will to an extent, they would coordinate, they'd plan and be there for her children when she herself was spread too thin. Of course, Thinking Children was somewhat wrong wrong wrong; they only had the ability to think for themselves, they didn't always have to. Elizabeth wasn't cruel: when there was no more need for her to focus intently on each of her two and a half million children she'd let her Thinking Children not think again.

Elizabeth flicked her thoughts around, checking through her pegasus children - and one or two changeling children - just how bad things had gotten. The equine nests had taken her illness as as as opportunity to entrench. She'd have to break them before too long or she would lose!

But that was later later later. At the moment her sprint had brought her to her destination, Appleloosa. It was dry out there, a good good good thing. She didn't waste any time; a crystal field had been placed over the city to shield it, but it was out in the open. Elizabeth vaulted over a building, crystal-looking equines pointing at her and gasping as she sailed over to the generator in a single bound.

It wasn't much to look look look at. The pale blue crystal was the size of her head, perfectly cut into an octo... otcadro... octohed... eight triangle shape. It was held in a metal brace, nailed into the ground, and emitted a blinding blinding blinding glow that made her hiss and flicker with tendrils.

The equines around her were panicking as they saw her, rallying for soldiers and hiding in houses and none of that mattered as she grabbed the rock in her hands. She squeezed lightly, and it broke into shards with a screech, as if it were alive. The blue aura around the town fell and the equines turned not-crystal.

She wasted no time. Her Blessing surged within her and she bent over, red and white tendrils lashing at the ground furiously. She coughed, red mist coming out of her mouth, and then she threw her arms up and to the side, a nova of ruby fog of her Blessing washing out from her, engulfing the town in moments.

That done, she sprinted away. Through her mind's eye she could see her children fighting the equines and dying. A lot of places had changelings. She looked through them, jumping from scene to scene to see where she could help best... there! A group of equine soldiers, under a crystal field, had barricaded a street in Trottingham, and were dealing with her Throwing Children with pegasi and her Strong Children with a clever application of move-thought. Elizabeth adjusted course and told her children to back off; she was going to take care of it herself.

Her pounding feet tore up Equestrian soil as she bounded across the country, reaching the nest of Trottingham within minutes. The streets were still barricaded, and she could hear the equines conversing. All soldiers. None civilians. Anger blossomed in her, thinking about the soldiers.

"We might just hold this!"

"Look lively, everypony! Remain diligent! Pegasi, report!"

"Why did they just leave? Except..."

Then she was upon them, leaping up from a building and looking down at the street.

The earth ponies had formed a solid wall of bodies, with archers and unicorns behind them, roughly fifty-fifty. There were pegasi in flying in formation. There was one earth pony in particular with very elaborate armor. She'd save him for last.

At the apex of her leap, with pegasi shouting in alarm at her appearance, she tensed an organ at the base of her spine and moved the resulting tingles to her hands. She formed the energy into twin orbs of green electricity and flung them to the side, mentally directing each towards a given pegasus. Then she drew her fist back and let herself fall right into the middle of the ground equines.

But right before she could slam her fist into the ground a dark blue aura wrapped around her, suspending her just above an earth pony who hastily backed off, shouting 'Contact!' repeatedly. She blinked.

Elizabeth twisted around in the move-thought, watching as unicorns zapped her with beams that either tickled or did absolutely nothing to her, and as earth ponies and pegasi (Her orbs exploded, taking out five) shot her with arrows that bounced off her skin and suit. She soon spotted the unicorn soldier holding her, with a dark blue coat that matched the female's magic. Elizabeth growled and shoved her palms in her direction, the blast of air sending her and several others flying back, disrupting the magic and letting her fall to the ground.

Elizabeth Greene snarled and went about her business. She viciously mauled the unicorns, slamming them into each other and the ground. Once or twice more they tried to lift her, but even without leverage she was far from helpless, freeing herself with blasts of air or strikes of emerald lightning. They were her priority target, and though her unstoppable strength released blasts of force that knocked the other equines around, her red-tinted focus was on them.

Before too long there were no more unicorns, and she turned, a light cackle in her throat, to the pegasi. Not as dangerous as the earth ponies, not to her, but they could easily run away when they realized that was their only option. She had had had to take care of them right away.

The red around her sight - they were touching her how dare they touch her! - faded to gray, black and white tendrils lashing around her as Elizabeth's entire body, suit and all, turned numb. She lifted her head up, at the swarm of pegasi soldiers shooting her with useless, sharpened sticks, and roared.

The equines around her on ground level were blown back, the one in charge caught in the midst of some order or another IT WAS NOT IMPORTANT as the air in front of her compressed in a cone, a red flash of light behind her eyes replacing the gray. The crimson shockwave exploded out of her mouth with unstoppable force, force that had in the past, rent Similar machines to dust and brought her Wayward Child to his knees. The blast ended, and there were no more pegasi.

She turned her gaze to the earth ponies around her, striking with spiked horseshoes and blades and arrows. They felt like gentle taps, but roused her fury nonetheless because they had the nerve to lay their hooves on her! She tore through them just as easily as she had with the unicorns, armor ripping as easily as flesh, showering the area in blood and screams and she liked liked liked that because they deserved whatever happened because these equines were murdering her CHILDREN!

In less than a minute, there was only one equine left, the earth pony commander. Elizabeth could see that she'd broken both his front legs, so he couldn't run. Couldn't do anything except lie there, sword and shield just out of reach, helmet dented. He panted and tried to shimmy away, but one step and Elizabeth was on him, pinning the equine to his back, left hand around his throat.

"D-Do your worst, monster, I'll - "

That was the time it took for Elizabeth to decide what she wanted from him. Her right hand reached out and pressed to the equine's forehead. There was a rush of wind in her ears, a spike of pain in her head, and a flash of sudden knowing.

She stepped back as the equine passed out, hands held to her head as the memories bounced around. With an 'ugh' the earth pony went limp.

A moment later, she'd resolved the memories in herself. She'd gotten little from her general drain - useful things I don't know - but there was still some. Such as who was guarding the crystal field here. Where it was. Elizabeth turned to sprint after it, but paused and looked back at the sole surviving equine, laying in a puddle of blood that wasn't his. She raised a foot and put it through his chest, then sprinted away, searching for the crystal.

She found it not long after, in an abandoned warehouse under heavy changeling guard. They gave her marginally more difficulty than the equines; their shapeshifting did nothing, but they had flight, magic, and strength. Like a swarm of weak alicorns that bled green. But even so, they couldn't hurt her, and she could more than hurt them, and then shatter the crystal and let her Blessing sweep through.

Elizabeth walked through the streets of Trottingham. They were surprisingly empty, but even so she could feel new Blessings moving away from the failed, misguided attempt the equines had made of warding off her gift. Soon enough those ones would understand, be happy, and she'd protect them. At the same time she felt the dormant Blessing in Fluttershy, who wanted for nothing in the vast nest of Canterlot and and and smaller nest of Ponyville.

The changeling queen had vanished, presumably to the Crystal Empire, but through her scouting children's eyes she could see many other things. A unicorn in Los Pegasus, helping equines run while shouting down her children about not being great or powerful, Celestia and Luna incinerating her children.

That made Greene sneer. It would be time to start giving them new targets. She walked out of the warehouse and placed a hand on its outside and pushed out from her. Her warmth emerged and went down, underneath the warehouse and carved it from its foundations. One hand still channeling the mesh, Elizabeth lifted. The red and white webbing lifted with her, and the warehouse rose into the air, weighing nothing at all. She dropped it on a nearby building.

Elizabeth continued the process, lifting several buildings over her head and placing them together with others, forming a large 'box' of them. At the same time she summoned ten of her Warm Children from the tunnels beneath the city in preparation, red and white tendrils trailing far from their backs as they eagerly munched on her love.

Once the buildings were together, she flung herself at the seams, using her webs to hold them together, turning the nine buildings into one, giant empty spaces around the street where they had been before. Once they were secure, and fastened to the ground, she went inside. It took hardly a minute to smash the walls down and hollow out the interior, and then a little bit longer to engulf the insides in her warmth.

That done, Elizabeth dropped to the ground and opened the warmth near the bottom, walking out and sealing it behind her with a thought. She pulled in the warmth from four of her Warm Children, and then went to cover the outside of the Home-in-progress with her red mesh, making empty cocoons that her children could use to become Strong Children or Warm Children or Thinking Children.

Once that was done, she pulled in the warmth from the remaining six of her Warm Children and dismissed them back to the tunnels, where it was safe. She took the warmth she had just pulled in, burning and heavy and good within within within her, and started coating the outside of her Home with it. The cocoons, the walls, everything. She turned the mesh from squishy, bending but not breaking, into unyielding armor. The light red tint of the building became dark maroon, even blackened in some places, encrusted around the cocoons. The mesh grew out, spilling over onto the street. She made a Home that could effortlessly resist attacks, one that it took the Similars their more powerful weapons to destroy.

Satisfied that she'd created something that would occupy the alicorn sisters, with her children already coming around it for the miasma of safety and family it gave off, Elizabeth sprinted away to repeat the process elsewhere.

She found a place where her children were in trouble, and had them back off. Then she went there, smashed the soldiers, the crystal field, then created and armored a Home. Greene was careful to always keep at least one of her children looking at the alicorn sisters; she had barely defeated Celestia even with the home field advantage, and was not keen to try her odds against both.

She flew through Manehattan, sealed the little town of Oaklamp with a ring of her Throwing Children and Blessed the equines. She plummeted through the sky and into the Blessed streets of Stalliongrad, eviscerating changelings with the horns she ripped off of others, countering barely-warm green fire with emerald shocks. Time passed and Celestia's sun - strange strange strange to belong to someone so so so strange - moved across the sky.

It... somewhat disturbed her how easily she did it. How easy it was for her to go from loving mother to bloodthirsty engine of destruction. The equines and changelings deserved it, of course. They dared to harm her children, their own kin, while she still drew breath and they would pay with their lives for taking lives. Still, she couldn't help but wonder what Fluttershy would say if she saw her ripping apart crystal ponies and using their carcasses as projectiles. She wondered what Fluttershy would say, seeing her acting like... a monster.

She couldn't even blame it on the time she had spent in her Wayward Child's prison. Elizabeth could not blame it on the Similars and their Cold Dark Place that forced the Time for Waiting. She would have done that even in Hope, always done so to protect what was hers. It was needed, and it wasn't glorious but she took satisfaction in how easily they broke beneath her. Proof that they were broken without her Blessing, one way or another.

To her, there was no doubt about it; in a fight, Elizabeth Greene was a monster.

She didn't feel bad about it either. But she couldn't feel proud about it. Viciously defending her sons and daughters was one thing. Taking pleasure in the still-not-warm showers of blood and sound of screams and smell of fear was something else. Elizabeth wished she didn't feel that way. It would make Fluttershy so disappointed, and if Fluttershy was disappointed in something, someone, then they truly were doing something horribly horribly horribly wrong.

There was also the duality of her not crushing Equestria. She knew she could have. She knew she should have. Back on the Similar world, she had been limited by amounts of flesh, rationing out how many Throwing Children, Strong Children, and so on she could create. But her family's new way of feeding off love bypassed that. She could have transformed every last one of her children and obliterated the fiendish armies that opposed her and ended the war within a day or two but, but...

... if Elizabeth was honest with herself, her heart just wasn't in it.

She did not want to fight the equines. Against the Similars it had been easy; they did horrible things to her. But the equines? She did not want them to fight her. She wanted it to end, so that everything could be so much much much simpler. All the death was pointless! Each one that died on both sides was a child she would never care care care for ever. She wanted it to stop... she wanted to finally finally finally help Fluttershy.

She took a deep breath, and cracked her fingers with enough force to topple a building. No. She had to keep going. Greene had to keep being a monster and a mother until she'd seen it through. She'd come too far to stop. Failure for a third time was not an option. Each successive failure was worse than the last; she wouldn't survive this one.

Through her eyes she watched the alicorns fly, searching for her. She watched Shining Armor and that changeling captain fight side by side, outmaneuvering her children as they tried to break a crystal field. She directed and helped and spoke, and her children Listened. But as she was walking through a street in Stalliongrad, now totally under her control, she heard something.

The street in question was totally empty. She could feel newly Blessed equines hiding in their buildings, felt their dread and horror at realizing what had happened to them. That made her sad, but she knew that they'd soon understand it was the best thing to ever happen to them, especially once the painful transition was over. However this noise came from a closed-up house, doors and windows boarded over furiously.

She stepped towards the building, a quaint little thing with the sky-blue paint peeling off, and blinked. The world turned red, she turned white, but there was no yellow inside this building. Yet a noise had come from within. It was easy for Greene to conclude that someone in there hadn't been Blessed. She resolved to fix that.

Elizabeth took another step and raised her left hand. She gently pressed the fingertips to the blocked off door and pushed her warmth out of herself. It ensnared the boards, the door beneath, and even nearby parts of the wall, and then she pushed the warmth further in. Satisfied, she pulled it back, opening a plethora of invisibly small cracks. Once the last of her warmth was back inside of her, she took her hand off the wall.

A moment later there was a slight rumbling, and the section of the house she'd had ensnared collapsed into rubble, kicking up dust. Further inside, Elizabeth heard a scream and a whimper. At least two equines then.

"Shh, shh," she heard. "Quiet. It's alright." Elizabeth concluded that it was a female equine.

The inside of the house was decidedly simple. The roof was so low she almost hit her head. There were no stairs, so considering it was a two-story house the second story was for pegasi or the stairs were hidden. The initial room was a living room, with a couch and desks covered in pictures and knick knacks that Elizabeth cared not for. She ignored the egg-yellow paint, the pictures of a male, a female, and a young equine. She had people to Bless.

She walked through a doorway in the back right of the living room and entered what must've been a kitchen. The shelves were all closed. Dishes put away. Chairs pushed in. Doorways that perhaps lead to restrooms or bedrooms or whatever-not-important. All was as it should've been, except for the two cowering equines in the farthest corner from her. She slowly walked towards them.

They were both female. The larger one had her back against the corner, and had a pale purple coat and her secondary colors were dark blue. The mane and tail were both frayed and tangled, and from her angle Greene couldn't see her mark. The equine was shivering furiously, and the sharp scent of fear reached Elizabeth from across the kitchen.

The adult equine was holding her legs around... a child! A little green thing with a white-yellow swirl for secondary color. The pegasus child's eyes were closed and she'd buried her snout in the older equine's chest. Elizabeth's joy deflated when she realized her situation. They were afraid of her. That made her sad. These two weren't soldiers, she didn't want them them them to be afraid of her. She stopped her approach when the older equine spoke.

"N-No," she whispered hopelessly. "Please, please no."

Elizabeth had been passively releasing her Blessing. The two were already Blessed, but she wanted to help them before the transition began. She suppressed it within them.

The adult looked at her, red eyes wide and shimmering with tears. The child still shook shook shook. "Afraid, why?" she asked, her voice echoing powerfully within the confines of the house. Both equines flinched. "No need to be afraid," she said, creasing her brows.

"I - I don't want to be infected," she whimpered. "Please, please have mercy. S-She's just a filly please she's just a filly," she said, trailing off into light sobs.

Elizabeth bit her lip. The equine was terrified of her and her Blessing. Elizabeth didn't fully understand why they called being Blessed 'infected'. Probably the biased tales of the alicorn sisters. She pushed her warmth out of her feet and twisted it with her thoughts, pulling it up and forming a seat for her. Greene sat down in it. She looked at the child longingly. She wanted to hold her and protect her and whisper to her and make sure nothing would ever happen to the child child child precious child ever again. "Names?" she asked, trying to find a way to calm the equines down.

"C-C-Clay Slip, Clay Slip." The earth pony looked down at what must've been her daughter. "And she's, she's Spring Breeze. Please, please don't do it to us..."

"Spring Breeze," she said, trying out the child's name to see how it was she liked it. When she did, the little filly looked her way for a moment before closing her eyes even tighter and burying her snout in her mother's coat. There were specific chambers she had for her children children. Keep them safe safe safe. Keep them warm. "Why? Good thing, good thing."

"No, no it's not please it's not a good thing. Y-You won't fool me." Clay Slip closed her eyes. "Oh dear Celestia somepony help, somepony help..."

"Here to help," Elizabeth said. "Promise." She stood up and pulled her seat back into herself, Clay Slip looking at it in horror as it vanished. In her mind she could still see many things happening outside. The changeling queen had been spotted in the Crystal Empire, just as she'd suspected. Celestia and Luna were on the other side of Equestria.

Elizabeth took one step forward and put her hand out for Clay Slip, who let out an 'eep' and squeezed herself further into the corner. "No, no please, stay back! Stay back!"

She backed off. She had to go about this another way. "What think it does? What told?"

Once Greene had backed off, Clay Slip relaxed marginally and the scent of fear ebbed. "Please, please j-just stay back, stay back. S-Spare us please." Elizabeth opened her mouth to remark that that wasn't an answer to her question when she continued. "Or just her, please I beg of you, spare my daughter please I am begging you, Elizabeth."

She looked down sadly, her right hand fidgeting with the metal clasp of her waist-strap. "Cruel not to, cruel cruel cruel not to. Promise, not bad thing." She shook her head slowly, a strand of her hair falling in front of her left eye. "Why think bad?" Another crystal field in Manehattan fell, but the equines also created a new one in Baltimare. "Alicorns say?" she guessed. "Not bad, promise promise promise, Blessing good."

"Y-You won't trick me," Clay Slip whispered, hugging Spring Breeze close to her. "I know your plans. Y-You won't trick me, Elizabeth. Please, please spare her. Please..." she said, tears running down her face.

Greene's stomach twisted inside of her. She wasn't going to convince them with words. Only only only with actions. She bowed her head, so so so guilty at having terrified them. Then she stopped. No, she hadn't scared them. Celestia and Luna had, twisting what her Blessing did, making the equines think it monstrous instead of wondrous. She clenched her fists and relaxed, looking at Clay Slip and Spring Breeze. "Drink much," she rasped powerfully, before turning around. She left their house and let the Blessing inside of them do its work.

Once outside, she leaped to the nearest rooftops and sprinted away. She left Stalliongrad and angled for Los Pegasus, arriving in mere minutes. The unicorn was still there, throwing smoke barriers and explosives to help help help other equines flee, holding back her children and hurting some of them! So far that one hadn't killed any, but she was doing great harm regardless. Elizabeth listened to her through her children.

"Watch in awe as the great and powerful Trixie gives you all the chance to flee for your lives!"

"Be amazed!"

The unicorn kept boastfully holding back her children with surprising skill, letting other equines flee to another crystal field. She herself moved to it as the old one was broken. Elizabeth snarled and reached Los Pegasus, tearing through the empty buildings and reaching the unicorn, her children backing off. The blue unicorn had her back to Elizabeth and stood on her hind legs, forelegs out in a show of power. "See how the infected back away before the great and powerful Trixie? Now go, flee!" she shouted at the small gathering of equines.

She approached her from behind, Greene's shadow falling over Trixie. The clothed unicorn landed on all fours and turned around to her, horn glowing, a self-satisfied smirk on her mouth. When the equine realized who she was, green lightning arcing between Greene's fingers, her magic went out and she gulped nervously.

Elizabeth did not find her so great or powerful.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

She landed in Canterlot again, in the castle gardens. She walked through them carefully, under the silvery not-too-bright light of the moon. A wide variety of plants and flowers blossomed around her, some shrubs trimmed into elegant shapes, a large one into a maze that was really very easy to figure out.

There were statues, too. But only one statue she wanted.

After a productive day, she had returned to Canterlot to personally spend some time with her closest friend. Currently Fluttershy was sound asleep in one of the houses in Canterlot, two of her Strong Children guarding over her. Tomorrow she'd go to Ponyville to check in on her animals. It made Elizabeth sad she couldn't be with her when she did that - she liked to help - but there was too much for her to do. Crystal generators to break, equine soldiers to tear apart, Homes to make.

And now, a danger to secure.

She'd been sure to take care of the Elements of Harmony long ago. She doubted Fluttershy would ever use them against her, but there was no record of what happened if only only only one was used. Did they have any abilities on their own, and they just grew exponentially together? Or was it all or nothing? Elizabeth wasn't keen to find out, so she hid them. Each one was buried in a random place in Canterlot, encased by a splatter of her webbing so she could keep track of them in case she ever forgot where they were.

The Elements were no danger to her, not anymore. Now it was time to remove possibly the greatest danger she could think of.

She reached the statue and felt a lump rise in her throat. She didn't want to be there. She didn't want to be around him. Elizabeth had never met him but just the stories were enough enough enough. But she had to do this. She swallowed her fear - it stuck in her throat - and approached the tall, twisted statue, its face frozen in terror, horror, and failure. She stopped right before the statue of Discord and took a deep breath, steeling herself. Not far behind her, the child-that-was-once-Blueblood meandered along the patrol she had given him.

She gulped, and pressed her hand to the bottom of his lizard leg, pushing some of her warmth out -

'Well well, if it - '

"AH!" she shouted, leaping back. She landed low to the ground, flickering wildly with red and white. After a minute she composed herself and rose, stepping back to Discord. He hadn't changed a bit, save for the finger-sized mesh on his leg. That meant he could only talk to her. She took a deep breath and touched the mesh and began -

'Well how rude! I know I don't exactly have many options to keep myself groomed but I like to think I'm not that ugly.'

She shivered. "What want?" she asked him, spreading her tendrils further without moving her fingers. He can't hurt me, she kept repeating to herself. He can't hurt me he can't hurt me he can't hurt hurt hurt me.

'Well just to talk to the lady of the day! And week. Coming up on month, too.'

"Talk about what?" she asked, fully ensnaring his lizard leg and moving to his hooved leg.

'Well I gotta congratulate you of course! I mean, it's not everyday you see somep... err, what are you again?'

"Evolved, Elizabeth Greene," she rasped, done with his goat leg and starting on his tail.

'Not everyday some-evolved just goes and takes over Canterlot! That old bug almost did it, but you didn't even need an army! Gotta give you props for that - oh that tickles!' That was her finishing with his tail and slowly working her way up his torso. 'Though your taste in decoration could use some work. I mean, why keep things as they are now?'

"Castle not mine. Alicorns'. Not not not mine. Work on Canterlot but not artist." She thought of her Home, and she could feel Discord looking the mental image over.

'Pfft, not an artist is right! You need to mix it up more! Some polka dots there, stripes there... and what's with all the red? Throw in some blue! Or white! Or ultraviolet - hey what're you doing?' he asked as she ensnared both of his wings, continuing up.

She sneered. "Know about you," she rasped, the repeats of her voice drenching the area. "What did, what can do. Not again." She finished with his torso and began to engulf his eagle/griffon talon.

'Oh ho ho! Looks like somepony's been talking to you about little ol' me. Was it wittle Woona? Sunbutt? Hey hey, not the paw!'

"Doesn't matter who," she intoned, fighting down her fear. "Know what done. Twist. Won't twist me. Never never never. Prisons fail eventually never never never." She was halfway done with Discord's lion paw.

'I hardly see how that's your problem. I mean, I was stuck like this for ages! Cut a draconequus some slack. I kinda doubt you'll still be around when I get out if you get what I'm saying, hmm? Besides, this stuff is so boring. Would some brown and pink kill you?'

"Don't age, would be there." If she didn't fail in her mission a third time, at least. She started winding her tendrils up his neck. "Son twisted Cursed. Won't let you Curse me. No no no." They passed over his eyes.

'Aw darn, I can't see! Hey, come on now, Lizzy! Black is so boring. Cut a strife god some slack.' Over his horns. 'Oh, I see how it is. Creepy tentacles of doooooom to take down the big bad monster. What are you gonna do, use these to bore me to death?' Now that Discord was completely ensnared by her tendrils, she began to push them in. 'Ah ah, you don't want to do that!' he cautioned.

She stopped. "Why not not not?"

'Ha, repeats, cute. But if you're really so worried about me - cute again, by the way - then you don't want to break this statue. I mean, come on. I'm Discord, you know? God of disharmony and chaos and strife and all that jazz? You really think being in pieces hurts me? I pull myself back together all the time! It's really funny to see the little ponies scream when I lose my head.'

She considered that. "Break you, free you..." she whispered to herself. Her tendrils began to pull out of Discord.

'Well duh! Come on, you don't get phenomenal cosmic powers like THIS without being able to survive something as simple as getting sliced and diced.'

Elizabeth stopped pulling her tendrils out and thought for a moment. Then she scowled, fear burning away. So that was his game.

'I feel scowling. What's the matter, Greeny? Turn that frown upside down.'

"Liar," she said, pushing her tendrils back into Discord. "Power lets reform when broken."

'And ten bits to Queen State-The-Obvious! Hey, ow, that hurts you know!'

"Power lets reform. Don't have power now."

'W-Well of course I do!' he said hastily. Elizabeth smirked. There was more more more than a hint of fear in Discord's voice. Good. Let him be afraid! He deserved it for corrupting Fluttershy. 'I'm talking to you right now aren't I? Aren't I?!'

"Touching you lets. If had power, wouldn't be here."

'Are you really willing to take that risk?! If you're wrong - '

"If wrong, will escape eventually anyway. All to gain none to lose." She pushed them deeper.

'Whoa whoa whoa hey now! Easy with the tentacles of doom! Ow! Hang on let's be civil about this, Elizabeth! We can talk this out! We can talk this - !'

With a thought, Elizabeth pulled her warmth back to herself. Once Discord was free of tendrils she stepped back to admire her work. Discord was almost completely unchanged, but then an idle wind blew through the night. With a crack and rumble, the cracks she had placed in Discord's statue made themselves known, and he broke into two dozen pieces, sliding off each other and down the pedestal.

Greene watched the pieces that had once been a draconequus, daring them to reform. They didn't. But just to be sure, she took a deep breath. Her body went numb with pins and needles, tendrils angrily whipping around her as color drained from the world...

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DAY 19 OF INFECTION: 50% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Chrysalis

Queen Chrysalis, with a flurry of buzzing wings, opened her mouth and yawned. For a moment she forgot where she was, so when her sleep-encrusted eyelids opened to reveal her splayed out on a powder blue couch in what were certainly not her chambers, she panicked.

"Grah!" she shouted, flopping off the couch onto the floor. "Ow." Chrysalis, the very image of power and poise, stumbled to her hooves and blearily looked around the room she was in. It looked like Cadance's bedroom, but it had been overtaken by a storm of papers and notes. Chrysalis shook her head, then glowered at nothing when her mane flopped in front of her and obscured her vision.

"Mmr," she huffed, blinking the sleep out of her eyes and trying to remember what she was doing there...

... oh right. She'd been trying to help Cadance with her Crystal Heart. How to keep it blazing with less effort on her part, keeping Cadance refreshed with the life force of her subjects - the alicorn had stupidly insisted on volunteers only - and how to use the Heart to summon people from other worlds.

Oh right, she thought. That's what the notes are for.

Lighting up her horn, Chrysalis picked up one at random and floated it to her. This one described a mechanism that the Crystal Heart used to move things from one place to another - latching onto the one with the most love or something, she was tired dammit - in vague detail. She switched it for another paper. This one described the radius of the magical field of Equus - of course it was named after ponies in Equestrian - and the effects of leaving it.

Leaving the magical field, which spanned the better part of the galaxy, didn't incur pretty results. Instant death, actually; disruption of brain waves and heart pulses and a lot of other medical jargon she and Cadance had needed a dictionary for. Long and short, the Crystal Heart could bring humans to their world, but the reverse process was lethal.

It'd have been a good solution for their problem, but if they wanted to use it on Greene then they'd need to get her to stay in one place for a long time. Time enough for Elizabeth to shatter the Heart herself.

So... no using the Heart on Elizabeth Greene. Chrysalis lowered the paper when she heard a snort. Splayed out in her bed, Cadance rolled onto her stomach. "Shiny..."

"Isn't here, would you like to leave a message?" she asked cheerfully.

"Hmm?" Cadance asked, cracking open an eye to look at her. "Oh. You." That was a shame. When they woke up after the first night of research, Cadance had practically leaped through the ceiling in fright. Good times...

Cadance pulled herself out of the bed. "Auntie said that she has a favor to ask of you." Cadance's horn lit up more brightly than it already was - sleep casting, she truly was an alicorn - and floated her regalia onto herself. "I'm going to get coffee. You'll join me whether or not you're welcome," she grumbled, headed for the door and stepping around magical notes. Chrysalis smiled wickedly and followed after her, closing the door behind them.

Two Crystal Guards fell in step behind Cadance, giving her not a second thought. Chrysalis followed the alicorn through the halls until they reached the downstairs, where the ponies had once waited for court. Today it was empty save for guards, and Chrysalis was happy to note that not quite all of them were Cadance's; two Imperial Guards fell in beside the Queen, clad in their traditional dark blue armor.

Cadance's court hall had, to the side, a little coffee machine. It was there for both the ponies who used to wait in long lines, and the alicorn who had to deal with said lines; personally Chrysalis felt the whole open-court idea was stupid, but whatever made the ponies happy. While Cadance went to get herself that disgusting brown liquid, Chrysalis let her horn smolder and drew in the ambient affection in the Crystal Empire to achieve the same effect.

Once they were both sufficiently awoken, Cadance trotted up to her, still holding the empty cup of coffee in her magic. "Alright, follow me." She narrowed her eyes. "No funny business."

Acting offended, Chrysalis brought a forehoof to her chest. "I'd never!" she said in mock indignity. She chuckled and put her hoof down. "Lead the way, there's no sense in wasting time."

Cadance nodded and turned around. "Good." She kept walking, the two royals flanked by four guards passing through the Crystal Palace, ascending a few floors. They went deeper into the castle, and then somewhat to the side and into the dining hall, where servants had already made Cadance breakfast. Another pony was also there, eating breakfast...

... or was it dinner for her? Queen Chrysalis didn't know how it was with Princess Luna.

Cadance trotted up to the elder alicorn and the two shared a greeting before Cadance took a seat next to Luna. Chrysalis took a seat across from the two, so she could keep both of them in her sight. There were a grand total of six guards in the room; her Imperial Guards, the two Crystal Guards, and much to her surprise two bat-like Night Guards, each pair taking up residence at a given door and guarding it.

"And here I thought your Night Guard was infected," Chrysalis mentioned.

Cadance pointedly ignored her and began nibbling away at her pancakes, while Luna huffed and drained her coffee. What was it with these ponies and that disgusting beverage? Even when she took the form of a pony, she couldn't stand it. "Mostly, yes. However not all of the Night Guard was stationed in Canterlot when Elizabeth Greene made her move. Their numbers have been decimated, but not completely. They art mostly involved with our efforts in trying to find Greene."

Chrysalis nodded and sustained her feeding. The love here tasted much better than the overly-sweet stuff the infected gave off. "And how's that been working out for you?" she asked snidely.

"So as for why we called thee here," Luna said, unashamedly changing the topic after cleaning the last crumbs off her plate. "We require thy assistance in a new matter that hath arisen."

Chrysalis tilted her head ."Oh, and what would that be?"

"The colonies are armored," Luna said simply. "Our opponent hast done something to her colonies that makes them nigh on impervious, and we wondered whether or not thou would be able to find a way to pierce this armor."

"Armored? Can't your sister just go all 'wrath of the sun' on it?"

Luna shook her head. "Neigh, this armor is stronger than heavensteel. Her magic on its own is not nearly potent enough, and only the hottest plasma she can call is capable of piercing it, a spell which is too narrow to do much. We were wondering if thou were capable of investigating on thy own."

Chrysalis considered the implications of what Luna had said. Armored colonies. Normally the two alicorns could take down the colonies about as fast as Greene herself could make them. The colonies seemed to rally the infected, giving them a base from which to attack and, even worse, actively producing the more advanced forms of infected without Greene's direct intervention. More Breakers were always a bad thing.

If the alicorns were unable to break the colonies, then they would build up. Then there would be more and more Breakers, and then...

... well, there wouldn't be much of an 'and then' after that. "And what do you want me to do? Poke one with a stick?"

Luna rolled her eyes. "Thou infiltrated our capital and avoided detection for weeks; thou can figure it out."

Chrysalis hummed. "Well, I suppose I can figure something out. It'll be good to check on Stalliongrad anyhow." She frowned. She couldn't believe it. The ponies had held that city through the pre-unification wars, both of Discord's reigns, and who knew what else. Then Greene came along and cracked it like a walnut, and now the entire city was gone, second only in danger to Canterlot. And it was very, very close to the Crystal Empire.

"We may need to move the Heart," she mentioned offhoof.

Luna blinked owlishly and Cadance nearly choked on her food, punching her chest several times before gasping for air. "WHAT?!" she shrieked. "Why, so you can get your hooves on it easier?"

Chrysalis chuckled. "Glad to see you're as forgiving as I thought. But no, the reason is to keep it out of the wrong hands. If Greene doesn't know the Crystal Heart is keeping her virus back, then I'm a nymph." Cadance and Luna shared a confused look. "She'll come, either in person or with her infected, I'm not saying get rid of it now but to have an evacuation plan in place in case she does."

The Crystal Princess nodded. "Well, I guess it makes sense. I'll go talk to Rainbow Dash; worst comes to worst she grabs the Heart and flies off with it."

"A sound warning," Luna said. "Now if both of thee will excuse us, we must sleep so that we may blast the colonies in the night." Luna scooted out of her chair and dabbed at her muzzle with a hoof-held napkin. She paused and looked at Chrysalis. "Hopefully." Without further word, the Moon Goddess turned into a dense cloud of purple mist, which snaked through the air towards the two Night Guards. Luna squeezed herself underneath the door, the two ponies following after her after opening the door.

"I suppose I better get started." Chrysalis said, scooting away from the table with a warm, full stomach. "Thank you for the meal, Cadance."

"I didn't give you any - " She stopped herself and deadpanned. "Oh, right." She followed Chrysalis with her gaze as the changeling queen walked over to her two Imperials. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but stay safe Chrysalis. It'd be bad for us all if something were to happen to you out there."

She looked over her withers and smiled. "I guess I appreciate the sentiment. Now." She turned to her guards. "Until I am returned, you are assigned to Cadance there. Protect her with your lives, though remain in disguise when your true forms are not needed."

Both saluted without question. "Yes, my Queen," they said in unison, before being overtaken by a flash of fire, which faded to reveal two Crystal Guards standing just as stoically as the real ones.

Cadance swallowed another bite of pancake, suddenly a bit green through her face. "Oh no, you don't have to do that." The smoldering of her horn briefly lit up a bit more before subsiding. That gave Queen Chrysalis an idea.

"You're right, I don't," Chrysalis said, stepping over to her. Given that the alicorn was sitting down and Chrysalis was taller than her even without that, she took great pleasure in having her shadow fall over Cadance. "However it is important I do this." She lit up her horn.

Cadance's irises imploded. "No, you don't have to - " Too late. She cast the drain life spell on Cadance in reverse, but only for a moment. Still, the moment where a river of green energy flowed from her horn to the pony's felt like a solid buck to the chest, leaving a lingering ache. She cut the magic and stumbled back, panting. " - do that," Cadance finished. The Crystal Guards hadn't even moved; they'd seen her do this plenty of times in the last three days to keep their Princess's strength up. "Thanks, I guess," she muttered.

Queen Chrysalis grunted, shaking the stars out of her vision. "Don't mention it. If I don't send word back by sundown assume something terrible has happened." Without giving Cadance a chance to get the last word in on her, she focused through the haze of nausea and summoned a ring of flame around her. The flames rose higher, and then there was a flash. Suddenly, she wasn't in the Crystal Palace, but rather hovering a fair distance above it. Her wings buzzed to life and she flew towards the train station, swerving as if she was drunk.

She was too far up to be able to reliably see the crystal ponies, but the emotional sensors in her ears could pick them up clear as day. They were nervous, and afraid, and skittish. Among them were points of confidence and points of anger, and then protectiveness that was likely guards. Both Chrysalis and Cadance had distributed their forces evenly around the Crystal Empire; the Shriekers could burrow anywhere.

She sunk and, still dizzy, landed at the train station. She didn't get into a line, ignoring the unmoving train and instead made a beeline for a group of Equestrian guards who kept watch over civilians and handed out crystal amulets, which were now being produced en masse. Stopping right before them, she telekineticaly dragged one to herself and fastened it around her neck.

"Hey!" one shouted. "What are you doing, you can't just - "

"Oh buck off," she said. "I need this much more than anyling else here." Without waiting to be chastised by the little ponies, she summoned another teleportation ring around herself, leaving the Crystal Empire entirely, turning around and flying for Stallliongrad.

Maybe the ponies would be angry at her for what she had just done, but what did she care? Forgiveness was easier given than permission, even in her case, and what were they going to do? Fly after her into infected territory?

She shivered, flying across the snowy landscape. The warmth given off by the Crystal Heart had made her forget just how cold it was outside; it was getting near winter for the already-cold tundra. Sure, it wouldn't actually get to winter; Equestria would be long gone by then, given the glacial progress with the Crystal Heart. Alex Mercer would not be summoned in time to save the ponies. In time to save the dragons? The changelings? The deer? Maybe. But not in time to save the ponies. At least Chrysalis was still gaining power...

She spotted Stalliongrad in the snow easily; it was engulfed in the rust-colored aura that was typical of Greene's plague. Closing in, she could see a variety of things from the air. Infected stumbling around. Breakers leaping from roof to roof. There were no Shriekers, but there were plenty of holes in the streets where they might've once been. Buildings were collapsed, and some were outright missing, leaving holes in the rows of houses where they had been plucked out. Near these holes were the Colonies, giant buildings made of smaller ones, glued together with Greene's signature red and white mesh, large pulsating cocoons along the outside of the walls. But Luna was right, something was different with these.

True to the dark alicorn's word, they were armored. Dense red masses covered the things, forming what looked like shells around the alicorn-sized cocoons and turning into blackened tar at the base. Chrysalis bit her bottom lip, but flew on. Maybe the others weren't quite the same.

She flew around the outskirts of Stalliongrad, looking down at the subsumed city, until she noticed something. Flashes of light. Flashes of unicorn magic. Either Greene was having her infected practice spellcasting, or some of her - ugh - allies were trapped in the city. She supposed she'd better go help them. Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "They'd better appreciate this," she muttered to herself, buzzing towards them. Once she was above them, she looked right down.

That was Shining Armor's magic. He was there with a company of a few crystal ponies, backing up to a pair of Equestrian unicorns. Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. They seemed to be having a lot of trouble with infected ponies. They weren't Breakers, but they were still moving far too quickly and jumping much too high to be regular infected. Still, there were a lot of them, and she needed the little ponies.

Stopping her flight just above them, Chrysalis called out her magic and encased herself in emerald flames, then dove straight down. Wind blew around her magical fire and the streets closed in rapidly, the infected growing larger and larger as she reached her target, the middle of the group. She flipped over and landed on her hooves, the magic protecting her from the impact and simultaneously changing the green fire around her into an explosion. The infected were sent flying away, mewling in pain as Chrysalis recovered and looked around.

The ponies quickly subdued the infected she'd launched into them, and Chrysalis took the moment to find Shining Armor's eyes and smirk. "Miss me?"

He didn't respond beyond lighting up his horn and firing a blast at... Chrysalis's left. She whipped around to see one of the new types of infected sent sprawling, groaning at them. "Eyes on the infected!" the unicorn behind her shouted. "Fall back, get to the teleportation matrix!"

Right. The fight. Chrysalis narrowed her eyes at the new type of infected... and immediately recoiled in horror. These were the ugliest things she had ever seen in her entire life!

Shriekers, you couldn't even tell they used to be ponies. Breakers had several vestigial traits; burnt horns, wing stumps, none of which did anything. The regular infected were easily recognizable, but were often covered in their own blood and had disgusting tumors on their bodies. Ugly, and probably horrifying to the soft ponies, but nothing too bad.

These things, though? She could hardly even recognize any facial features. The infected's coat was falling out; not to the degree of the Breakers but enough to have patches of furless skin, which revealed red skin covered in boils. The worst part was their right foreleg, however. It no longer ended in a hoof. But while the Breakers at least had their hooves mutated into something recognizable - claws - this was completely different. The right foreleg had no fur at all and the skin, instead of red, was necrotic gray. Spikes which looked awfully like overgrown bone jutted out of the skin, and the end of the hoof turned into a stubby, curved blade.

And one of them had already recovered from her drop and was running right at Chrysalis!

With a strangled yelp she lit up her horn and fired the first spell she could think of at the infected. The blast hit, and solidified into a feeding cocoon around the monstrous not-a-pony. It looked startled for a moment and waved its legs around, but before it could puncture the walls with that blade the sedatives kicked in, and it went still.

Then the others were on her. Six charged at her, and another four ran to the nearby buildings and climbed right up them. The half dozen on the ground were already on her, so Chrysalis acted on reflex again, surrounding herself in flame and dashing to the side, before turning back to them and firing two more cocoons, but one of the infected escaped before it could be sedated.

The cocoon spell was something she had decided to practice when the infection made itself known. For starters, it was easier than actually hacking up the stuff. Easier on the throat, too. But with some practice, she could give the cocoons different properties. Nothing too radical, but if she did it just right Chrysalis was sure that she could come up with a spell whose cocoon would continuously sap its victim's strength, rather than just initially.

Another one tried to get to her, but she blasted it back with a zap, and cocooned it. Meanwhile the ponies were retreating to the unicorns, after which they vanished in flashes of light. Chrysalis blasted another one, fire dashed away, and then...

A terrible weight settled on her back, and she felt the bladed leg digging into her turquoise shell. An uncharacteristic shriek built in Chrysalis's throat - get it off get it off get it off! - but before she could vocalize it, the infected riding her was gone, a lance of pink energy throwing it off.

Chrysalis snarled and encased it in a ring of emerald fire, and then teleported the infected far out of sight and mind. Before long, she and Shining Armor had subdued the last of the infected, so the only bodies on the street were dead infected, cocooned infected, or soldiers that the pony had lost. There was one left, dangling before Chrysalis in her magical grip as she sucked the life out of it before discarding the lifeless husk.

She approached him, shaking slightly from the one landing on her. "What were those?"

"We're calling them Leapers," he said. "Just showed up, too." He scuffed a forehoof over a jagged hole in the street. "Those blades are nasty, don't get hit. They can also really take a beating. Not as much as the Breakers, but it's still unnatural."

"You don't say?" she deadpanned. "What are you doing here? Isn't this city entirely infected?"

"Some of my soldiers were trapped here," he said resolutely, not looking that intimidating in his armor. "I had to rescue them. Something you wouldn't know about."

"That was a stupid thing to do," Chrysalis said, making a point to glare down at Shining Armor. "If you were lost, who knows what could have happened?"

"Alright then, what are you doing here?" he countered.

She turned away with a snap. "Investigating the colonies. I need to see if there's a way around their armor."

Shining Armor did a double take behind her. "Armored colonies? What?"

Chrysalis turned back to him, surprised. "You mean you didn't know? Aren't you in the military?"

"I was out in the field until now. I haven't had the time for a debriefing. And I'm guessing it's going to take a bit longer, because I'm helping you with these colonies," he said resolutely.

"What?! Why? You should be headed back, after all, you've been out here too long!" Chrysalis approached him, fighting down her anger at the pony. They were allies... for the time being. Once Elizabeth Greene was dead, then she could take her frustrations out on him.

"I can take care of myself fine, Chrysalis. And besides, by that logic you should skedaddle as well." He stopped and muttered to himself, "Skedaddle? I've turned into dad..." He shook his head. "Either way, it would be best we go back for reinforcements before we go poking at a colony, but time is of the essence. Let's go, I think there's one this - " Queen Chrysalis lit up her horn and encircled both of them in fire. Shining Armor started and shouted, "Wait!" but by then they had teleported on top of the armored colony she had spotted earlier.

It wasn't much to look at. It towered above the rest of the city's buildings, and was an even, flat rectangle. It was, naturally, completely overgrown by dense tendrils, and Chrysalis didn't know how thick they were. Still, instead of squishing beneath her hooves, it clacked.

She stumbled back, winded from such a far teleport involving two beings. "Okay," she panted. "Let's see what I can do with this. Stand back." Chrysalis raised her head to the red-tinted skies, bit off some of the ambient love, and summoned her magic. The unicorn with her stepped off to the side and conjured a pink half-dome right in front of him. She growled, and fired a narrow beam of her magic at the armored building, forcing as much power into it as she could.

Despite it being early morning, with the sun only being minimally dulled by the viral miasma, the light of her magical laser hitting the colony cast flickering shadows around them. Chrysalis snarled, and tried to push harder. There really wasn't anything pushing back, but the damn thing just wasn't yielding! Even when Shining Armor joined in with his own ray, they had to concede defeat.

"Alright," she panted. "Let's try chemicals then." She decided to hold off on magic, and instead clenched several glands inside of her barrel, mixing certain substances. She experimented a bit, and pushed the most acidic thing she could come up with into her crop, before hacking it up before her.

"Aw, gross!" Shining shouted, raising a forehoof when the green slime splattered on the ground before Chrysalis. She inspected it as it hissed and bubbled, but before long its acidity was all used up and the colony was untouched.

"What is this stuff made of? I know Greene leaves this behind but gods!" A horrible thought occurred to her. If Elizabeth Greene was made of this stuff, then in order to hurt her...

... but she wasn't! Sure she was durable, but Elizabeth also wasn't ridged and plated like this was. So whatever the monster did to armor-plate her colonies, it took whatever substance made up her flesh and made it tougher than it already was.

Long and short, Luna's story checked out. Chrysalis had about as much chance of chipping the armor as she did of tearing down Canterlot Castle by beating it with a toothbrush.

Before Chrysalis could contemplate how to go about finding a way around the colony's armor, such as bases instead of acids, she was roughly pushed to the side by Shining Armor's magic. "You little - " she started.

SLAM!

The blast of air sent Chrysalis tumbling, ending up on her left side. She gawked at the monstrosity that had created the shockwave, standing where she had been just a moment ago, staring down a still-shielded Shining Armor, ignoring the magical beams he was blasting it with.

It was... tall. Even on all fours, it stood a head taller than Chrysalis, horn included. It resembled the Breakers, but there were key differences. For one thing it was much bigger and bulkier than even the heavily muscled Breakers, so much so that there was no neck to speak of. Second, its skin was, instead of pinkish, an earthy brown and seemingly covered in a layer of mucus-like slime. Its arms ended with bloody, four-clawed webbed paws. Its mouth was open in a snarl, giving Chrysalis a side view of a gaping cavern lined with very impressive fangs, if she did say so herself. She couldn't see any eyes; how did it see? There were also no qualities to show what this beast had been before infection; it was infected, through and through.

But perhaps the most unusual part of it was what was located on the back of its head; a second mouth, complete with fangs just like the front mouth.

"Two mouths," Chrysalis said silently to herself, getting back on all four hooves. The monster shook its head with a snarl as one of Shining Armor's beams got inside of its maw, and then moved. It reared up on three legs, a foreleg raised high to slam down on Shining Armor.

No you don't, she thought, summoning her green flames around her and dashing at the monster. She came out of her inferno-dash on her forelegs, her momentum spinning her around as Chrysalis brought her hind legs - still encased in flame - up to kick the monster in the side as hard as she could. There was a sound like a cannon, and the infected, already off balance in its prepared attack, fell over. Chrysalis stumbled away, cursing herself. Her hind legs hurt. Her magical flames had protected them from most of the impact but they still ached like she had bucked a solid wall.

"Thanks," Shining Armor said, taking up position next to her as the infected flailed about, getting back to all fours. "Fight or flight?" he asked. The sour scent of his fear wafted around Chrysalis.

She snarled. "What do you think?" As the towering infected got back onto all fours and looked their way with a snarl, Chrysalis lit up her horn and shot it with a cocoon spell. The front half of the monstrosity was engulfed, but it tore its foreclaws through the shell like it was nothing, and then rose up again, ready to slam Chrysalis.

"Move!" shouted the pony next to her. Then there was a shield expanding between them, shoving them aside. The infected's paw came down on the shield and shattered it into pieces, not even slowing down as it hit the surface of the colony - cracking the armor, Chrysalis noted - followed by the shockwave blasting her and Shining Armor back. The infected looked her way and rose up again, ready to repeat the action.

Before she could be hit, Chrysalis flattened herself to the ground and inferno dashed under its swing and out behind its hind legs. She rose and locked her magic onto it, pulling. A rippling green beam flowed from the infected's chest and into her horn. It felt... amazing. Warm and alive, infusing every inch of her being. Even better, the life drain would bypass most if not all of the infected's durability. The question was, how much life did it have...

The wind given off by its slam made her mane blow back, and without wasting a moment the beast was rearing up again to smack her, ignoring the rapidly forming shields around its joints as it prepared to squish Chrysalis. She inferno dashed behind it again, sustaining her life drain. She repeated her dodge again, and again, and one last time.

After she dodged the latest of the infected's slams it stumbled back, shaking its bulbous head and snarling through its back mouth.

She took a moment to stop draining life, and instead cast another spell at the monster. With the quickly-fading high of excess life in her, Queen Chrysalis cocooned the entire infected, and Shining Armor placed a rapidly-thickening shield around it.

The infected shook its head and, with its left foreleg, batted through her cocoon and Shining Armor's shield like they were nothing, freeing itself in moments. Chrysalis fired another cocoon at it, but this one didn't even slow it down as it charged at her, breaking the shell of slime and lunging at her with its fang-filled maw. She threw herself to the side, but was still struck under her barrel by a hind leg and sent flying.

Chrysalis had pulled her stomach in as fast as she could to minimize the damage, and she caught sight of the tell-tale pink of Shining Armor's magic around her chitin. Even so she knew she was going to die. All the life she had drained seemed to flow right out of her as her chest dented inwards, chitin broken and organs punctured. She gasped for breath, the world spinning around her. That was it. The infected was going to kill her, now that she was defenseless.

But... I wasn't finished, she thought sadly.

"Do... something!" she heard Shining Armor shout, somewhere else on top of the Colony. "This thing's really heavy!"

Chrysalis focused her gaze and, sure enough, the infected was floating, the casting unicorn's face twisted with effort. She didn't waste any time focusing her magic on the infected and drawing in, healing her fatal injuries in seconds and the paralysis - she'd broken her spine?! - in another few moments. She was back on her hooves, draining the helplessly flailing infected desperately, feeling the energy she stole from it pooling inside of her. It was a little scary how quickly it healed her; that thing had a lot of life in it.

"Alright," she panted. "Keep it up as long as you - "

The creature twisted in Shining Armor's general direction and opened its mouth to roar. The air around it shimmered and a faint red mist blew from its mouth over the little pony, knocking him down and stopping the telekinesis.

Chrysalis took the initiative. Before the thing could rear up to slam a forepaw down on Shining Armor, she summoned a giant ring of flame around it. It looked around curiously as it was wrapped in fire, raising a foreleg and turning back to look at Chrysalis. Then there was a flash of emerald light, and it was behind her. Chrysalis had placed herself between it and the now recovered pony.

The infected shook its head, clearly dazed from the forced relocation. The changeling allowed herself a smirk. She was wearing it down. She just had to keep dodging around it, and eventually it'd die.

It was that line of thought that nearly got her killed a moment later when, instead of charging her, the brute grasped the colony's roof. Much to Chrysalis's surprise, the armor didn't hold it back. The exact opposite; the tendrils parted around its webbed claws to allow it to pull out a massive chunk of stone before flowing back over the hole. It stood up on two legs, hefting the massive chunk of rock over its head.

"Holy - " she whispered, frozen on the spot when it tossed, the boulder flying at her. But right before it could impact, it hit a shimmering barrier, which sparked and rippled angrily, and fell to the ground.

"Would you hurry up and kill it?" Shining Armor asked, forming tiny shields and throwing them like hoofballs at the infected, which swatted them away like flies. "I don't exactly have the hornpower to hurt this thing!"

"On it," she snarled, inferno dashing behind the infected and bucking it. It didn't budge, but that did get its attention.

It spun around and swung at her, but she ducked down and zipped behind it, siphoning from its life force. It turned back around - Chrysalis noticed it had a shield forming in its mouth - and swung at her again. She ducked and dashed back from it, avoiding a blast of air from the powerful legs. Kneeling down, Chrysalis built strength in her legs and then leaped into the air, wings buzzing to life to keep her suspended, draining it from above.

She'd expected it to at least go for Shining Armor and his puny little magic beams, but noooo. Instead it jumped all the way up to her, forcing Chrysalis to dodge to the side. Much to her surprise the infected didn't fall down, instead landing on a horizontal sheet of unicorn magic, the beast's weight bending it like paper and its claws sparking like they were touching metal.

"You're set!" he shouted from below. Chrysalis smirked, and launched herself higher into the air. Once she judged she was high enough, she inferno dashed down to the confused monster, just as Shining Armor stopped channeling the magical floor. She caught up with it quickly, and calculated her trajectory so that she would hit the infected's back the moment it hit the ground. She flipped over and landed on it's slimy spine with her green fires all around her...

BLAM!

The infected's legs actually gave out and Chrysalis didn't take a moment longer to leap away from it. It got up slowly, shaking its head, snorting and snarling. "Ha!" she laughed. "See what becomes of those who challenge the Unified Changeling Swarm, Greene?" Chrysalis lit up her horn again and resumed draining life from the giant infected, which ignored the magical siphon as well as Shining's shield slams and lifted its head, opening its forward mouth.

Again it roared, red mist blasting into the air from its jaws while the air around it bent and burst outwards in a perfect circle, sending her mane and tail straight back. It lowered its head, and the changeling queen saw her opportunity. She stopped her life drain, and instead concentrated her magic into a powerful, narrow beam. Beside her, Shining Armor did the same. The infected charged, rapidly picking up speed... and reared back with a cry of pain when both of them fired their magic into its front mouth and down the monster's throat.

Chrysalis engulfed herself in magical fires again and dashed under the infected as Shining Armor lifted it, her jagged horn cutting a deep gash under its stomach as she came out behind it. She spun around when she came to a halt and launched a green fireball at it, leaving a scorch mark that healed over quickly. Shining Armor dropped it, panting heavily. No surprise; he'd been fighting to rescue his 'soldiers' for who knew how long before Chrysalis had pulled his flank out of the fire.

The infected turned to her, but then was battered back by one of Shining Armor's shields. It roared and tore through the rapidly-closing barrier, but that was enough time for Chrysalis to resume her life drain, gasping and swallowing as the infected's life force infused her body, the excess rapidly dissipating into the surrounding air.

It stumbled back, shaking its bulbous head back and forth while blood dribbled from both mouths. She drained a little longer, and then her spell suddenly cut out on its own. The monstrosity reared back with a rippling, echoing screech, and then limply collapsed to the ground, slimy skin still reflecting the light in a way that made it appear to pulsate.

Queen Chrysalis panted. She was physically unharmed, but still magically drained despite the constant inflow of love. She stumbled her way around the infected, giving it a wide berth in case the corpse decided to get up, and sat down next to Shining Armor.

"We... we did it," she said. She looked his way, smiling.

He chuckled and looked at her too. "We did it." He held up a hoof and she bumped it with a firm clack. That was a job well done. They pulled their hooves away and blinked. She looked at Shining Armor. He looked at Chrysalis. They both narrowed their eyes.

"I still hate you," they said together.

They turned back to the infected sprawled out along the roof. Its pounces had left a series of cracks along the mesh, but when Chrysalis tried to blast one of the weak points it still held firm. The beast itself was firmly unmoving, but just to be sure she and Shining split up, him headed to its left and her to its right. "What is it?" she asked, checking to make sure her crystal amulet was still in place.

"Looks like some form of Breaker, but this is just absurd. It's huge," he stated. "And two mouths? What is wrong with Elizabeth?"

They reached the other end of the monster looked at it. "Many things are wrong with her," Chrysalis muttered. "What are these things even used for? I mean, they're big and slow." She smirked. "Did you see me galloping circles around it?"

"Maybe, but they can break the colony armor. Imagine if you'd taken a direct hit." Chrysalis shivered at the mental image Shining gave her. "Whatever it's for it's dead now, thank Celestia. We should head back now, deliver a report."

"Good idea," she said, then tilted her head. "But why do you think it attacked us on its own?" A horrible thought occurred to her. "You don't think... that this one told the others to stay out of the fight?"

"I sure as hay hope not." Shining Armor shook his head and looked at the horizon. "Is that... oh no."

"What?" She looked in the same direction he was, deep lines forming under his eyes. In a moment she found it. A rapidly growing dot rushing at them, flipping over rooftops, a trail of dust in its wake. Her slit pupils turned even thinner in shock. "No, no no no no no."

It grew even closer. "We're bucked," Shining Armor said.

Then she had arrived, leaping into the air and landing with a slam on the colony. The infected was between them, but Queen Chrysalis was under no illusion that it would provide them any protection from Elizabeth Greene. The alien's body radiated anger and sadness and why-did-he-do-that-should've-ran-quicker over her with almost physical force, drowning her in the emotion. She stood and locked faded green eyes with the changeling's vibrant emeralds... and hissed.

"Nope." With that, Chrysalis draped a forehoof on Shining's withers and summoned a wall of green fire around them. Faster than she ever had done before, they teleported away. Then again. And again. And again, until they were on the other side of Stalliongrad in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. A stroke of luck; there were no infected with them to give Elizabeth sight. "Okay," she panted, folding her legs under her. "Let me just... take a break. I got... I got to rest."

"I can message the colts back up in the Empire to come help us...?" he suggested, tapping his horn.

She shook her head. "No, no," she breathed. "I just... need a moment to get my magic back. Just a few minutes."

Suddenly there was an ever so faint pressure on the outside of her head. 'My Queen, urgent report for you!' her Swarm Commander said.

Chrysalis shook her head and looked at Shining. "Excuse me, I have to take this." She stared blankly at a wall. 'Well what is it? Spit it out!'

'The Crystal Empire, it's been attacked. We managed to push the infected back, but - '

'Cadance! Is Cadance okay? She's not hurt is she?!'

'No Your Highness, she's fine. Civilian causalities were low but property damage is high. The alicorn sisters have requested your presence in their little palace to discuss what comes next, now that Elizabeth Greene can attack anywhere at any time.'

'I'm on the way, as soon as I get my magic back. Tell the alicorns I'm also bringing back Shining Armor, and that we've discovered a new type of infected.'

'The Leapers? Apologies Your Majesty, but we already know about those.'

'Not the Leapers! These giant... Lead Breakers. Like a regular Breaker but much bigger, tougher, and with two mouths.'

'Two mou - '

'Yes two mouths! Now, tell the pony princesses. We'll be there in a few minutes.'

'Understood, my Queen.' The communication shut off and she looked back to Shining Armor.

"Think you can keep the infected away?"

"One Somepony-Else's-Problem, coming right up," he said with a nod, followed by a brief pulse of his horn. "So... now what?"

"Now, we wait for me to get enough power to teleport us close enough to the Crystal Empire."

"How long should that take?" he asked, eyeing her warily.

She shrugged. "There's a lot of love for me to eat, shouldn't be too long. Until then..." Chrysalis narrowed her eyes at the pony. "You stay on your side and I'll stay on mine."

Day in the Life

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DAY 21 OF INFECTION: 70% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Lyra

Bon-Bon said that the beds in the tiny vacation home they owned in Vanhoover were horribly lumpy, stiff, the sheets were too thin, blah blah blah. Personally Lyra had no idea what the hay she was talking about; the bed was fine! After all, a bed was a bed was a bed. She snuggled deeper into her pillows, groaning when the first rays of Celestia's sun sought her out. She tossed over and, with a tug of a forehoof, brought the covers over her eyes.

"Five more minutes..." she muttered.

Two minutes later, she tossed and turned.

Three minutes later, she groaned and curled up into a ball.

Four minutes later Lyra decided that she needed coffee and dragged herself out of bed, leaving Bon-Bon where she was; snoring. Lyra was particularly exhausted on this unusual morning, and it would be a great quest to find the little coffee machine, move the parts into place, and then let the magically powered contraption do its work.

The vacation home wasn't much. It was certainly a far cry from their home in Ponyville, but they'd bailed when the Princesses had said that an apocalypse virus was coming. Not as fast as Rose, Lily, and Daisy, though. It had three main rooms; a living room that one cantered into right from the door, which split into four; to the left it went to the kitchen, to the right it went to the bedroom (Singular) and at its back were the doors that lead to the two bathrooms.

The walls were a hideous shade of sky blue, a few shades darker than Rainbow's coat, that reminded Lyra she never should've let Bon-Bon try her hoof at interior design, no matter what anypony else said. Every here and there was a surprisingly lovely painting of an Equestrian vista. The living room had a few odds and ends, such as a radio and a bright-as-the-sun yellow sofa. A few bookshelves, and turned-over magazines that she'd read through what must've been a trillion times in the past three weeks. After all, it was a really bad idea to go outside, crystal aura or no.

Stumbling into the kitchen, her magic flailed to life with all the grace of a drunken griffon, bashed about the counter a few times, before pulling the required thingamabobbers together and turning on the coffee machine. As she pressed the button, Lyra leaned her head back and sneezed hard.

She wiped her nose with a fetlock. "Ugh. Where'd Bonnie put the tissues?" Lyra stumbled into the living room, found a box of tissues on the ground, and trotted over to it. Once that was done with, she threw the used tissue into the wastebin over by the corner.

Today was another normal day, as normal as things could get with the Plague Goddess running amok. To think, Lyra had touched her hands! She felt unclean and dizzy just thinking about it - no, wait, she was just dizzy. She grabbed another tissue for her runny nose, used it, and tossed it.

Lyra heard the clip-clop of hooves on hardwood floors and looked over to see Bon-Bon walking out of the bedroom, rubbing an eye with her forehoof. "Is that coffee I smell?" she droned.

"Knock yourself out." Lyra couldn't put her finge - hoof on it, but something was missing. Of course, it didn't help that the light from their crystal coats was constantly - where were their crystal coats?! "Uh, Bon-Bon? Why aren't we sparkly?"

Already she was thinking it. Already, ice-cold terror was forming in Lyra's heart and dragging down her normally cheerful demeanor. "No," Lyra whispered. "No, nononononono." She needed a tissue. Oh sweet Luna her nose was runny! And she was dizzy! "No, no, no..." she said, trailing off and sitting down, head hanging limply.

"Lyra?" Bon-Bon asked, sniffling sickly. "What is it?"

"W-W-We're not, no crystal field, oh sweet Celestia she got me, she got me." She curled into a ball and started hyperventilating. "She got me she got me no no no no I don't wanna I don't I-I don't wanna..."

Right away Bon-Bon was behind her, wrapping her hooves around Lyra's front. "It's okay," she told her. "It's okay, it's okay."

"How?" she breathed. "She got me, I'm infected. I'm turning into one of them Bon-Bon, one of them!" She paused, and her eyes went impossibly wider. "No, no no, you too, no please no..."

The earth pony at her back stifled a gasp, but Lyra felt it clear as day. Still, she didn't let go, squeezing her tightly until she stopped hyperventilating. Suddenly, Bonnie turned her around so she was face to face with her, both of them laying on the tan carpet. "Lyra, look at me. Look at me!" she insisted, forcing Lyra to look into her slightly-reddened eyes. "Breathe, breathe. We're gonna be alright, okay? We're... we're..."

She trailed off, looking down, then looked back up. "Come on, lets get you to bed. You're sick, y-you need plenty of rest alright? Get your lyre and... and play something. Anything you want. That always cheers you up."

"Yeah," Lyra said, pulling away from Bon-Bon. "Let's just get br-breakfast first," she said, wiping away some tears and floating another tissue her way. Once that one was spent and tossed into a wastebasket, Lyra and Bon-Bon trotted over to the now-completed coffee machine, got a few cups, milk and sugar, and sat at the checkerboard table to drink. She lifted her cup, with plenty of sugar and milk because why not to her lips.

"Bleh!" she spat. "This tastes awful!"

"You're sick," Bonnie said, putting her own cup down after a long sip. She briefly gagged. "Of course it tastes bad. Now stop whining you big foal and drink."

"Okay," she grumbled, finishing her coffee. They opened the icebox, a Never-Melt, for some more milk. Then one of the cupboards for a sandwich, some mayo and fried hay, tomatoes, and finished breakfast.

All the food tasted like sawdust. It wasn't just the soul-crushing despair of being infected, it was the infection itself. As breakfast passed, both she and Bon-Bon got worse quick. She had to keep coughing to clear her throat, and as her beverage went down it felt like her windpipe was trying to close up. To say nothing of the buzzing heat that made her woozy.

"Oooh," she moaned, pushing herself away from the table. " 'm gonna go to bed."

"Good idea," Bon-Bon said. "I'm gonna go see if the paper's out."

"What about the outside?"

"What about it?" she asked. "If we're infected then so's everypony else in the area. Not like we can make it worse."

"Mrr, true." Lyra clip-clopped her way back into the bedroom and dove under the sheets like a whale, the pale blue sheets resting heavily on her. Even then she shivered uncontrollably. Lyra curled into a ball and huddled her legs to herself. It was so cold. Bonnie had suggested she play her lyre, and it was a good idea. That always did make her feel better. But laying there in her bed, with the specter of a fate worse than death looming over her, Lyra just couldn't muster the energy to do it.

Eventually she heard Bon-Bon sluggishly trot into the room. "You're sick too," Lyra groaned from under the covers. "Get in the stupid bed and rest, you stupid pony."

"Fine," she said. There was rustling, and then Lyra felt Bon-Bon's weight settle onto the bed, making herself comfortable.

She hogged the blankets. The fiend. In response to that, Lyra did the only thing she could do in response; she hogged them back. After all it was so cold, she needed the blankets!

Bon-Bon tugged them back. Lyra did as well. "Gimme," she murmured.

"No." Lyra was suddenly lacking blankets. "You gimme," Bon-Bon said.

"No you." Tug.

"No you." Yank.

"No you!" Pull. Tumble, complete with startled whinny. Fall. "Ouch," Lyra groaned. Dazed, she opened her eyes and looked up at the dandelion yellow ceiling. A moment later Bon-Bon's head poked over the edge of the bed, her eyes bloodshot.

"Oh my gosh Lyra, I'm so sorry!"

"Mrr," she groaned, stumbling around and getting back on her hooves, her joints aching every time they moved, and even when they didn't. Her head was fuzzy and her brain was stuffed with cotton balls. She pulled herself back into bed, and this time she and Bon-Bon came to a quick truce, settling for splitting the covers and leaning back against the headboard. She looked over to her right, at the nightstand. There was her lyre. She lit up her horn with golden magic and dragged it to herself, holding it in her forehooves.

"What do you think I should play, Bonnie?" she asked. "I'm drawing a blank."

"Whatever you want," the pony next to her said. "Make it a good one."

Right, she thought. Last time I'll ever play, she mused sadly. Now that her initial panic was over, she couldn't work up the endless despair again. The flu symptoms probably had something to do with it, but mostly she wasn't terrified, despairing, or even feeling dread. Lyra just felt... sad. Like she'd been given a project in school and hadn't turned it in on time. She began magically plucking the strings, and after a few minutes closed her eyes to alleviate the burning under their lids.

She knew her lyre like the frogs of her hooves, so she didn't need to look at it to play it. She went through her tune-up, and some basic warm-up tunes. Once that was done, she sighed and began playing in earnest. Lyra made far too many mistakes for her personal standards. She plucked some of the strings too hard, others too soft, and sometimes the wrong one entirely! It also didn't help that she kept having to pause to blow her nose.

After some time she rested the instrument on the covers and panted. She was still so cold and... was she sweating? Ew. Glancing up at the cuckoo clock hanging over the door, it was barely noon. Lyra wasn't hungry. "That was beautiful, Lyra," Bon-Bon said.

"It was terrible," she muttered. "I'm so disappointed with myself."

"It wasn't that bad, if you consider the circumstah... ah..." Bon-Bon reached over to her own nightstand and brought a hoofkerchief to her face. "Ahchoo!"

"Bless you," Lyra said instinctively.

"Ugh, thank you," she said, throwing it away. "But really, you're too hard on yourself Lyra. It was stupendous, even if you are sick."

"Heh, yeah," she said.

"Tell you what, I feel better after listening to that. You just take a nap while you still don't have insomnia, and I'll go whip up something sweet."

"Doesn't sugar make you more sick?"

Bon-Bon scoffed, almost falling out of bed in her attempts to get out. "More sick than we already are? Take care Lyra, I'll be right back. Try and get some rest."

As her roommate left, Lyra sunk deeper beneath the warm, comforting blankets and rolled her eyes. "Yes, mom," she grumbled. She closed her eyes and attempted to sleep, but despite her illness she simply wasn't able to. Was the insomnia there already? The Princesses had said it only arose at the ending stages of the... the transformation, but what if it was always there and nopony had noticed it during the day?

She rolled over onto her side, groaning into the bedsheets. Lyra wanted to sleep, but at the same time she didn't. What if she fell asleep and woke up as one of them? She wanted to spend as much time as herself as she could. She didn't... she stifled a sob. She didn't want to die.

Very quickly, she had to roll back over, her joints protesting like she were an old mare, and fired her horn to get another tissue. She heard Bonnie grumbling from the kitchen sometimes, but didn't care enough to really look her way. The cuckoo clock continued to tick the minutes away as she tried to get some rest and Bon-Bon cooked, and at three in the afternoon, after going through a box of tissues, several bathroom breaks, and going once to the kitchen for a glass of water and certainly not to sneak one of Bon-Bon's salt water taffies, the food was done.

It was dinner... lunch... whatever in bed. Bon-Bon had made a whole platter of... well, everything by the time it was six at night. Both of them laid in the bed, under cushions with ample amounts of water, and Bonnie's trays of caramels, chocolates, taffy, lemon drops, and a whole host of other candies.

They all tasted like pale, sickly versions of the sweets that Lyra had eaten in Ponyville. But hey, it wasn't like she'd get many chances to enjoy them later on.

Celestia's sun descended beneath the horizon and Luna lifted her moon, forcing them to turn on the lights. As they finished up the last of the food Bonnie had made, Lyra pulled her musical instrument back into her hooves and played again.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Lyra was just finishing up her last song, the disease's sapping of her strength making her unable to go on. Predictably, she hadn't gotten better, and the symptoms only got worse. While playing, this time, she hadn't needed to blow her nose, her eyes stung and burned and her forehead buzzed with fever. She shivered in the relatively cold air of their vacation home, and her eyelids drooped. Every one of her joints, including some she didn't know she had, ached. Her neck in particular felt like it was going to snap off.

Bonnie clapped her hooves when she finished. "That was great, Lyra," she said, then cleared her throat. "I'm going to go get us some water."

"N-No," Lyra said with a random chatter of her teeth. "You were up all afternoon baking, lemme get it." Bon-Bon may have tried to protest, but Lyra was already out of the bed and stumbling out. She went into the living room, and the kitchen. Blearily, she found two cups and poured a bunch of water into them from the sink. By some miracle of ponies not letting their infrastructure implode, they still had running water.

That was when it first happened. Just as she was getting ready to bring the cups back her stomach lurched, making her drop the two plastic cups. Lyra bent down and groaned, then her stomach lurched again. She leaned down and opened her mouth, then vomited a small amount of blood. Once done she stumbled back, watching the red fluid mixing with the spilled water and turning pink.

She shook her head. "Ugh, so halfway there huh? Great," she complained, getting another two glasses of water in her shaky magic. Lyra was about to return, but then she looked left, then right, and downed both cups before refilling them. The cool water felt heavenly flowing down her parched throat, but immediately after the soothing sensation was gone. She took the two glasses and brought them back to the bedroom, floating one over to Bon-Bon and releasing it when she grabbed it in her hooves.

"I heard something spill," Bon-Bon groaned, downing the water in a moment. "What happened?"

"Eh," Lyra said dismissively, crawling back into bed and pulling a trashcan to her side. "Threw up blood. Guess it's that part now." Internally, Lyra knew she should've been freaking out, but she couldn't muster anything beyond regular fear. Normally when she was sick she slept most of it away, but she couldn't. Add the exhaustion from the infection to the natural tiredness from the end of the day, and she just couldn't care that much anymore.

She still really didn't want to become a zombie, but panicking about it was too tiring.

"Really?!" Bon-Bon said. "Huh. Get me that trash can, please." Lyra did, floating the other wastebasket over to Bon-Bon's side of the bed. "Thank you." She brought it up to her muzzle and retched into it, then placed it back down. "Well, I guess we got twelve hours left. At most. Whaddaya wanna do?" she asked.

"I think..." Lyra said, placing a hoof to her chin and looking up contemplatively. "That I want coffee. Then we should, I dunno, say our last words to each other? Secrets and stuff like that while we still can?"

While Bon-Bon nodded, Lyra was suddenly overcome with a faint buzzing in her head and the sudden sensation that she was being watched. She snapped her head over to her right; there was nopony there. She was being silly, no concern. What had she been on about? Oh right, coffee and deepest darkest secrets.

A few minutes and a couple dry heaves later, she and Bon-Bon were drinking their tasteless black coffee in the living room. Bonnie, the pig that she was, had hogged the couch and was splayed out on it face down.

"So," Lyra asked. "You wanna start?"

The earth pony considered that for a moment, took a sip from her coffee, and nodded. "Alright. Remember back in school, for Hearts and Hooves day when Thunderlane got a letter from a secret admirer?"

"Get out," Lyra said, widening her eyes.

Bon-Bon smiled, blushed, then vomited blood into the trash bin she'd brought with her. "Guilty as charged," she muttered into it dejectedly. "What about you?"

Lyra grimaced, and steeled her nerves. "Alright. You, um, remember back home, last month? I... kinda used your toothbrush after I dropped mine in the toilet."

Bonnie leveled her with a cold glare, then shook her head. "That is disgusting."

"Well it doesn't matter anymore, does it?" she asked cheekily. "Anyway, I'm sorry."

"Eh, water under the bridge. Oh, anyway. I got a secret, it's a... um." Bon-Bon looked around fearfully, as if somepony was going to suddenly appear out of nowhere. "... doozy?" Nopony appeared. "Right. So." Bon-Bon suddenly caught fire, the green flash of light making Lyra scream and hold a leg to her eyes.

The light faded and Lyra lowered her foreleg. "Gimme some warning next time! Darn, that's bright." She blinked a few times at the black figure on the couch. "Huh, so how's this work? You foalnapped Bonnie or made her up completely?" It didn't really surprise her. Sure, it was completely out of the blue, but Lyra found that she really couldn't care too much. Her head hurt...

"The, uh, second one," the changeling said. That made Lyra frown. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. After all, if the real Bon-Bon wasn't cocooned in a cave somewhere, then the real Bon-Bon was infected. That was sad.

"Oh," Lyra whispered. "So, changeling huh?"

The changeling, who looked more like a stallion than a mare, nodded and spoke in Bonnie's voice, but with the double-echo. "Yep. I've been Bon-Bon ever since I learned to shift."

"Hmm," she hummed. "Secretly a changeling. Gonna be tough to top that."

Bon-Bon smirked. "Just try it."

Lyra placed a hoof to her chin and spent the better part of ten minutes thinking. The coffee helped, but the spikes of paranoia and overall not-being-well didn't exactly grease the wheels of her train of thought. "Um... yeah I got nothing."

The changeling laughed, showing off fangs. "Guess I win. Urk!" She leaned over and threw up green blood into her trash can. "Ugh, it's even worse like this." Emerald fire began to spark along the chitin, but then stopped. "Eh, to Tartarus with it."

"Aha!" Lyra shouted. "Got it! I actually dropped out of Princess Celestia's school for Gifted Unicorns."

Bon-Bon looked at her with narrowed blue eyes. "Lyra, I already know that."

She threw up her forehooves. "Fine then! You win." She slumped back down. "Stupid Bon-Bon."

"Actually," she chittered. "Could you just call me Gena?"

"Meh, not like it matters much. Sure thing, Genie."

"But - "

"Genie," Lyra insisted with a chuckle. There was a familiar tug in her stomach, making her eyes bulge out. She pulled her head over her own trash can, looking down at the fluids already within, and retched. Gena patiently waited for her to finish. "So, what's with the whole living in Ponyville thing? I mean, if you're looking for like, government stuff there's better places."

Gena snorted. "Please! Spying is what infiltrators do, they're army." She huffed and looked away from Lyra. "Bunch of stuck up horseflies. I'm a harvester; get love, send it back, don't starve."

"That's nice. So you're like... I dunno, like the farmers of changelings."

Gena smiled. "Very."

They both put their heads down and groaned. Lyra felt another wave of illness wash over her, her feverish head throbbing. Her neck really hurt, like she was growing a second head. She could feel the disease in her, changing her, spreading throughout her body and devouring the pony that existed before. Gena got off the couch and buzzed her way into the kitchen, bringing back two more glasses of water. "Thanks," Lyra said, taking her water out of the changeling's green aura and into her own.

"No problem," she muttered.

The next few hours passed in painful monotony. Neither of them had the energy to do anything but make small talk and lie there, vomiting into their trash cans and drinking water. Lyra knew that she was almost out of time, and she was scared. The clock continued to tick as she and Gena spoke about their foalhoods - nymphhood for her - and of how they felt about everypony. Clear the air, as the clock ticked past midnight.

"Something I don't get about this," she told the changeling. "I mean, you say it was always you, but I've met your parents."

She nodded from the floor; they'd traded places and now Lyra held the couch. "Yeah, you have. Harvesters all the way back." Gena winced and placed a hole-riddled forehoof to her chest. "Ow."

"Hmm, what's causing that?"

"Hay if I know," Gena groaned. "Tumors?"

Lyra nodded, her head swimming with the motion. "Maybe. So anyway, whaddaya think of the Princesses?"

The infected changeling shrugged. "They scare me. I mean, I know they're nice and all but still. If they found out about me..."

"Eh, don't sweat it. Everypony's got bigger things to worry about."

Gena chuckled. "Yeah, you're telling me. Everyling back home's so worried about me. Especially since I told them about what's happening."

Lyra raised an eyebrow, and instantly regretted it when the motion made her headache flare. "Thought you never left."

"Eh, hivemind. Getting kinda quiet though. Stupid alien can't even let me keep that."

"Aw, cheer up Genie," she said with a tired smile. "You'll be getting a new one soon."

Genie groaned and placed her muzzle in her hooves. "Ugh, don't remind me."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Things progressed. Eventually she and Gena both gave up on the trash cans and just threw up wherever. On the couch, the rug, hay even on themselves. They really couldn't care and besides, it felt kinda nice. Both of them laid on the ground, Gena's shimmering wing resting over her.

"You know," Gena said, her voice cracking from dryness that was unusual even for changelings. They'd long ago emptied the house of all food, and the running water was gone now. "I think I love you."

"Hmm?" she asked. "Really now."

"Yeah," the noticeably taller changeling said. "You're like... you're like a sister to me, Lyra."

"Mmf," Lyra muttered. "You too, Genie."

Lyra's neck really hurt and beneath the coat, felt a bit wrinkled. Same with the back of her hind legs. "I dunno," Gena continued. "If that's the infection talking or not, but you really are like family to me. It was... nice knowing you, Lyra."

She wiped a tear out of her eyes. "Y-Yeah, you too Genie." Overcome with exhaustion, Lyra closed her eyes and rested her chin on her forelegs. Behind her eyes was familiar blackness. She knew she couldn't sleep. It wasn't possible; she'd tried not long ago and gotten nowhere. But closing her eyes, despite the burning sensation behind them being gone, still felt good.

There were flashes of light. Not the familiar squiggles caused by the faintest amounts of light interacting with the blood vessels in her lids, but actual flashes of light and color. All at once, there was a massive flash that was gone as soon as it came. Lyra felt Gena shiver next to her. She knew what it was, of course. It was a picture of eyes, gone the moment they appeared. Alien eyes, watching her.

The flashes came more times, until Lyra's eyelids had Elizabeth Greene's watchful eyes imprinted on them, a web of red and white tentacles extending away from the immediate area around them. Lyra tried to look away, but it was impossible. Like one of those paintings that always follows you.

Her fever had broken, mostly. Her head still felt so hot, her horn and brain buzzing. She... wasn't as creeped out by that as she probably should've been.

There were... whispers in her ears, she realized. They weren't coming from the deserted street outside, or the changeling that was her friend next to her. They were... from inside her own head. Right beneath her ears in fact, too quiet to make out but growing louder and clearer.

Greene's eyes flicked left and right, and settled on Lyra. 'Child, children, children oh, care care care.' Lyra felt an unexpected spike of emotion at those words. They made her feel... happy. Why did the desiccated echoes of an Evolved make her feel happy?

'You all you, go south Baltimare. You all you, go Manehattan. Burrow. Rise. Behind. Coming, hold out.' Lyra shivered. So that was what Elizabeth's hive mind was like? Creepy.

'Warm warm, care. Over there, run. Alicorns, flee,' Elizabeth urged. Suddenly, there were more voices, deep and suave stallions.

'Chrysalis here, forced to retreat.'

'Life here gone. None to bless.'

'Mother, need help. Shining Armor here, Twilight Sparkle here.'

'Coming,' Elizabeth rasped in response to that last one.

She wasn't just hearing Greene now. She was also hearing other infected. There were more and more of them, but mostly they weren't actually words but mental pictures, forming a sort of high-speed slide show behind Elizabeth's watchful eyes. A deep sense of belonging settled over Lyra. She really didn't want to be a zombie but... it wasn't really that bad. Warm and fuzzy, really. Like she were wrapped up in snugly blankets. Next to her, the changeling shifted.

'Crystals down. Bless them, mother?' asked another deep voice.

'Bless them, fall back. Go there, check quarantine strength, come back. Going to Bless,' Elizabeth said in response. Lyra had to admit, she was really smart if she could split her attention like that. She was inexplicably happy about that, and gave her a small point of pride. Like somepony had complimented her parents.

... who were her parents? She was having trouble remembering their names, their faces. That was probably a bad thing.

I don't want to be a zombie, she thought slowly and carefully. Immediately she was greeted by a maelstrom of emotions, comforting her and placating her and Mother-will-make-it-right. Would she? Mother - Elizabeth she meant, how could she help? They were so far away, and she was the cause of all this trouble, wasn't she?

Suddenly the eyes focused on her, narrowed, then lightened. 'Transition painful painful painful sorry,' she apologized as Lyra's connection to the hive mind deepened. 'Will be nice now, Blessing almost done, family. Daughter oh my lovely daughter... please stand.'

Unsure of what else to do, Lyra stood. It felt rather good to do that. For one thing her joints were getting tense, especially with the bulges on her hind legs. For another it felt good to obey her, to listen to what Greene told her to do. That was new. It couldn't really be that bad. Nothing that made her heart tingle like that could be bad. All she had to do was listen to Her and everything would be fine. She'd make sure of it.

Her head stopped buzzing and her headache vanished.

'Check room, make sure no fires start.'

The pony did just that - she knew her name was similar to something she'd done but she just couldn't put her hoof on it - and went for the kitchen while the one next to her - was her name Bonnie or Genie? - went for the bedroom.

She inspected all the various appliances through bleary eyes and, satisfied nothing would catch fire, nodded her head. It was a little difficult to do with the tumor on the back of her neck, but nothing too bad. She opened her mouth and let a trickle of Mother's love in, tasting like honey.

'Come outside,' Mother told them. She and her changeling sister did. 'Crystal field nearby.' In her mind's eye, a shimmering blue aura that stopped and singed Mother's Blessing appeared. Her happiness dipped from ecstatic to joyful for a moment. 'Break it.' She started in the direction that She had so graciously provided. Next to her, several dozen of her brothers and sisters did the same. One of her Strong Sisters bounded across the rooftops and overtook them. She didn't envy her for her strength; why would she? Mother had made her like that and chosen not to make her like that, so it was for the best.

She continued on, wrapped in the warmth of Mother and her millions of siblings, approaching the shimmering blue wall that had angered Mother. Mother told her She wanted it gone, so she would destroy it.

Of course she would. She'd do anything to deserve the joy that She gave her, that the most sacred of beings saw fit to give Her children. There was nothing she wouldn't do for Her, nothing.

This was good. This was right, and it had always been that way. Whenever she blinked she saw Her warm, caring gaze drift across her, watching out for her and that made her so joyful, that Mother saw fit in Her infinite glory and holiness to watch through her eyes! Anything for Her. Anything at all.

She loved her Mother.

Last Resort

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DAY 22 OF INFECTION: 81% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Twilight Sparkle

"Hey Twilight," said a muddled voice. She opened her eyes a crack to see the purple and green blob before her. "Get up, the Princesses need you."

Groaning, Twilight rolled out of her bed and blinked blearily at Spike. "What's going on?" she asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "What time is it?"

"It's just about ten in the morning," Spike said. "Princess Celestia wants you to come down to the w-war room," he explained, stumbling a bit over the word. "She also says not to worry, there's breakfast waiting for you there."

Twilight nodded. "Did she say what it was about?"

"Finalizing the plans to catch Elizabeth or something," he mentioned off-hoofedly (off-clawedly?) "Can I go see how Rarity's holding up?"

"Of course you can," she grumbled, still slightly sleep-incapacitated. Firing up her horn, she dragged her saddlebags, complete with a quill, inkwell, and paper, to herself. "I'd better go see what's going on." Stumbling out of her room in the Crystal Palace, Twilight and Spike parted ways. He went left, she went right. After going down several flights of stairs and, at one point, nervously asking for directions, Twilight found herself trotting into the Crystal Empire's war room, repurposed and remodeled from the intent and design Sombra had when constructing it.

It was a subterranean room, protected from pegasus lightning clouds. It was surprisingly non-utilitarian, with luxurious cushions around a large circular table. Around it were all three Princesses, Chrysalis and her commander, and Twilight's BBBFF in full uniform. He was looking rather distraught, more than anypony else. Curiously, the general of Equestria's military was missing.

The walls of the triangular room were decorated lavishly with crystals of all colors, illuminated by several fluorescent crystals in the walls whose gentle white light refracted to create a scintillating kaleidoscope of colors each time Twilight turned her head. Behind her, two crystal ponies guarded the open door; there was little point in secrecy anymore. Anypony insane enough to have agreed with Elizabeth's plan had been swept up in her tide long ago, if there had been any at all. Twilight crept a bit closer when Princess Celestia looked her way and motioned with her head, sitting on one of the cushions and looking over the table.

It was a remarkably accurate map of Equestria and the surrounding regions. She could see the miniature spires of Canterlot and the blue dome of the Crystal Empire, and the sun-swept plains of the Badlands to the southeast. She could see many ugly, red splotches throughout Equestria, ruby hazes hanging close to the ground. Around the borders of Equestria and the Crystal Empire was a thin black, irregularly dotted line.

"Thank you for joining us, Twilight," Princess Celestia said. "I trust you brought items to record with?"

She nodded. "Of course, Princess!" Twilight pointedly ignored the way Chrysalis mockingly moved her mouth in tune with her words, and instead levitated out her materials. "I'm ready when you are, and I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

Shiny shook his head. "Nah, Polin just got here a moment ago, you're right on time." He looked so tired, so broken down, with those heavy rings under his eyes.

Then he turned back, and everypony spent a few minutes looking silently at the map, before Celestia finally sighed. "Alright, let's update this. Chrysalis?"

The changeling queen nodded and lit up her horn, to Twilight's immense discomfort. Princess Celestia closed her eyes and brought her magic to bear as well, lighting up the interior of the room like a miniature sun. A narrow beam of emerald magic flowed from Chrysalis's horn into Celestia's, stopping after a moment. With a grunt of effort, Princess Celestia shot a ray at the table.

Immediately, the map changed. The red auras grew larger. Several of the tiny, hoof-sized cities seemed to be in even worse condition. The shiny blue auras shrank in number. Twilight gulped, seeing the current state of her country. There was a lot of red everywhere. She wondered if she'd ever be able to stomach tomatoes again once all was said and done.

Shining Armor shook his head. "We can't do it," he said. "We simply cannot beat the infected on a military level. Not like this."

"What was your first hint?" Chrysalis sneered. "The fact that, what, only a fifth of you ponies are left?" She quieted down and looked back at the map. "This infection is... unlike anything that's ever come before. How does a virus do something like this?" She shook her head. "Anyway, it's not like we can do anything against the bulk of the infected, now that they've got this much momentum behind them. The cascade plan is a failure. There's only one thing we can do now." Her horn lit up green, and Canterlot briefly glowed. "Cut off the head of the snake."

Cut off the - what?! What kind of culture did changelings have that that was an idiom?

"Greene's the worst out of the Evolved by far, but I think we proved with Celestia's blood that she can be hurt; we had her hiding for four days after the ambush, and she hasn't been as aggressive in showing off her strength since then. Everyling here knows that the infection won't end without taking her out, but I propose that taking her out is what will end the infection." She smirked. "She's the infection's strongest and weakest point. Without their 'mother' to guide them, the infected will mindless, not as driven. They won't be a threat."

"You're certain?" Princess Celestia asked.

"Positive. The infected were just standing around when you first confronted Greene, right? She hadn't given them any instructions. No instructions, no action."

"Or removing Greene from the picture sends them into a frenzied rage, since there wouldn't be anypony to tell them to sit still," Shining countered. Noticing the strange looks he was getting, he snorted. "Don't tell me it's not a valid possibility."

"Then what do you suggest? Leaving Elizabeth to her own devices?" Chrysalis countered. Shining huffed, but stayed silent, prompting the changeling queen to nod. "As I was saying, if we get another clear shot at Greene, we can take her."

"If we can get a clear shot at her," Princess Luna interjected. "Truly, thou dost not believe she will be foalish enough to confront us just because we ask her to?"

"She did last time," Chrysalis remarked.

"And thou truly believes she will not hath learned better? On one occasion our sister fought her to within an inch of her life, and after that we poisoned her. How dost thou plan to force her into a confrontation, hmm? Hold one of her infected hostage? She shalt send the Shriekers and Lead Breakers in her stead."

Chrysalis's eyes trailed to a spot on the table, and so did everypony else's, even Twilight's. All of them stared at the spires of Canterlot.

"My queen," Polin began. "You can't really be suggesting - "

"Why not?" she insisted. "I'm not getting any stronger, not anymore, and if we wait any longer to force a confrontation we won't have the 'ling power to pull it off. We go into Canterlot full-throttle, show Greene that we can overpower the infected, and she'll have no choice but to come herself. It's that or let us keep slaughtering them."

Shining Armor barked a laugh. "Overpower the infected, right. How? In case you didn't notice, we're getting our flanks handed to us. What's a broken Colony or a reclaimed street here and there, when each of our victories equals six for them?"

"If we can focus all our military strength into one spot, then we can pull it off. If the alicorns and myself go, we can take a lot of the pressure off." Chrysalis let her horn glow bright green for a moment to drive her point home. "We focus all our strength onto Canterlot, and Greene will have two options: come face us herself, or let us keep killing her so-called children. Guess which she'll choose?"

"Your plan relies an awful lot on Elizabeth making the same mistake twice," Princess Celestia pointed out. "That's not very reliable, given how high the stakes are. We'd be much better drawing out Greene to our location."

"And how do you propose that? We just get her to leave the place she feels in control and come to our location?"

"That's roughly what thou art asking!" Princess Luna interjected. While writing, Twilight couldn't help but notice a table pushed to the side, with buttered rolls on it. Her mouth started watering. She looked at Shiny, and he'd apparently noticed. He gave her a slight grin and nodded.

While Twilight pulled a crystalline roll over to herself, Princess Luna continued. "Whether we go to confront her in her base in Canterlot or have her confront us in the streets of Manehattan, thy plan still revolves around Elizabeth Greene being ensnared by our words and actions and coming to confront us herself! Best to do it where we have as much advantage as we can."

"If you do that she'll be less likely to come! We need her to be confident and to cater to her emotions; they're unstable, and she'll come. There is no other option. Unless you want the three of us," Chrysalis said, pointing to herself and the two alicorns. "To go on a merry trip around Equestria, hunt down Greene, and put her down ourselves while fending off her army, it has to be this way!" she snapped. "We're running out of time, we must gather our forces and march into Canterlot."

Polin chuckled. "Just like old times." He noticed the sour looks everypony, including Twilight, flashed him. "Oh boo hoo. Her Majesty is right, though. Greene will be more likely to initiate a confrontation if she feels she is in control."

"She is in control," Cadance remarked sourly. "For the record, I agree with Chrysalis's plan." Twilight nearly choked on her bread roll as she wrote that down. She agreed with who now?! "We're not going to stop this at the source by forcing back the infected until we get to her, we have to go straight for that monster right away. Princess Luna, I know she's been eluding your Night Guard, but we have to try."

After that, the conversation melted into what could best have been described as the Military Tactics Mind-meld. She followed along as best she could, but her studies had never included the fine details of military combat. Sure, she'd picked up some things from her BBBFF, but not that much. Still, Twilight dutifully wrote down whatever was said.

"We can move the bulk of the armies there if we use a cosmic portal relay," Celestia said. "But we can't just bring everypony and leave the country defenseless."

"Truth, sister, and too many simply will not fit in Canterlot."

"Where in Canterlot are we even going to go, my Queen? Anyling have a map?"

"Mane street is a viable option, but getting there's gonna be tricky," Shiny said. "It's wide open, plenty of space to maneuver around Greene."

"Or for her to maneuver around us, but I agree. Mobility will be key to avoid her crushing us with her strength."

"Pegasi can arrange storm clouds overhead, give us weather support." Princess Luna said.

"Water does... what to her again? Does it actually hurt her or just slow her?" Polin asked.

"All the same, we can't leave everything else open. We should reinforce the lines here and here, and move these crystal generators back here."

"We should send in a smaller force to handle Elizabeth, no sense in drawing all that attention," Cadance said, then immediately seemed to realize why she was wrong. "That is, if it was only Elizabeth and not her infected army too."

"We can try and ground her electricity, but there's too much of it to do so safely," Celestia said. "It's much easier to simply wrap magnetic fields around her."

"We'll have a very low Hurricane Limit facing her if we can't stop her shockwaves," Polin mentioned. "Positioning around her will be tough."

"What if we take the south entrance? It's much harder to fortify and gives us a shorter gallop to the Prime Colony."

"We can hold her down a second time, and the rest of thee can incinerate the monster."

At great length, the meeting started wrapping up. Leaders said their farewells to each other, and began departing. Shining Armor and Polin left side by side, talking rapidly and heatedly of some smaller military matter between them. Princess Luna dissolved into mist and whisked herself away.

"Princess Cadance, I need to speak with you," Chrysalis said. The changeling queen exchanged a nod with Celestia, and both she and the pink alicorn walked out of the room, leaving only Twilight and Princess Celestia.

Princess Celestia walked around the table and put a wing around Twilight. She stiffened and looked up at Celestia. "Princess?" she asked. "Is it really happening? We're going to get her?"

Celestia frowned. "Yes. Twilight, listen. I do not fully agree with the plan Chrysalis came up with, but it is our best bet at getting a clean shot at Elizabeth Greene. That said, it's difficult. To say nothing of the logistics of getting enough soldiers there by tomorrow, we will be invading Canterlot, the most heavily infected place, in order to draw out Greene by way of killing her 'children' en masse." Twilight couldn't help but shiver at the sheer gravity of what Celestia spoke of. Killing...

The goddess of the sun went on. "It will be very difficult, and we'll need all hooves on deck for this. I've heard about what you've been up to, and I'm confident you can defend yourself, but..."

"... you don't want me to come," Twilight finished, relieved.

"But you have to." Twilight stopped being relieved. "And your friends too. Twilight, I hold no illusion of the dangers, but consider this. Fluttershy is held in Canterlot, Luna can tell me as such through her dreamwalking. If you and your friends go, we may stumble on Fluttershy and get her a crystal amulet, and then..."

"You think we may be able to use the Elements," Twilight breathed. "Are they even in their location?"

"I haven't been able to tell," Celestia said honestly. "Greene keeps the tower too well guarded, inside and out. Nevertheless, it is a possibility we must be open to, to end this outbreak with one decisive strike. And even if we can't, then you and your friends will be able to help greatly against Elizabeth using your talents, of that I am sure. Twilight, I wouldn't be asking this of you if we weren't absolutely desperate, but again, we need everypony we can get if we're going to pull this off. Again, I won't force you or your friends to do this, but promise me you'll at least talk to them?"

She nodded. "Of course, Princess. We should all be having lunch together. Should I go tell them now?"

Princess Celestia nodded, still grimly serious. "Please do so. I hate to cut this short, Twilight, but there is a lot that needs to be done." Without further word, Princess Celestia vanished with a burst of sunlight, leaving Twilight Sparkle alone with the two crystal guards. Twilight lit up her own horn, scanned her target area for anything solid, and teleported there.

She blinked the light from her eyes and looked around the suite. Her friends were all there, obviously sans Fluttershy, looking her way as if they'd expected her to teleport there. Rainbow hovered in the air, her wingbeats the only noise. Spike sat on Applejack's back, and Pinkie and Rarity stood silently next to each other. They had been in danger of being cut off from each other by the infection, and so they had all come to the Crystal Empire. Rarity and Applejack weren't helping evacuations anymore. She and Rainbow weren't fighting and Pinkie wasn't helping to quell the panic.

"So Twi," Applejack began. "What's the plan?"

"We're going straight for her," she said bluntly. "By tomorrow, the Princesses hope to bring the army into Canterlot and force a confrontation with Greene; they'll be going themselves to help even the odds."

They were silent for a while. Finally, Rainbow spoke up. "So, guess this is it then, huh?"

"Isn't that risky, Twilight? I understand that they're the only ones that can stand against... her, but must they risk their continued leadership on such?" Rarity asked, raising a forehoof slightly.

"The alternative is much worse," Twilight said. "But Princess Celestia also wanted me to ask you girls something. She wants us to come with the army. There's a chance that we can get Fluttershy, get the Elements, and set things right. And if not, then we've gotten pretty good at fighting over the past three weeks..." she said, trailing off.

Everypony, and Spike, looked at each other uneasily, not willing to remember the things they'd had to do. There hadn't been things like that in Equestria for centuries. Elizabeth Greene had come from a dark place, and when she came to Equestria she had brought that darkness with her.

"Well," Rainbow said. "I'm in. I mean, who's gonna rainboom the hay out of Greene's pegasi?"

"Err, RD, you do realize this is Canterlot we're talking about, right? Way I see it, Greene's gonna have a whole bunch of things to knock ya clean out of the sky. Like those Shriekers, or maybe some changelings to magic you up." She tilted her hat back. "We're gonna hafta really put a hurt on them ta get Elizabeth to feel only she can stop us."

"Well then, Applejack, what do you suggest? We can't simply do nothing, can we? And besides, if we get the Elements none of that will matter."

"I'm in too," Spike said. "Teach her to mess with my friends."

Twilight bit her lip. "Spike, you're not coming," she said nervously.

Spike blinked and shook his head as if he'd been slapped. "What? Why not? You just said that you'll need all the help you can get, and I can breathe fire and my scales are pretty tough - "

"Tough enough to hold against a monster that can lift Canterlot Castle if she wanted to? Spike, I know you want to help but - "

"But let me guess!" he said indignantly, tearing up. "I'm too little, it's too dangerous, it's too risky, you don't want me to get hurt, well in case you haven't noticed Twilight - "

"It's not that," she said quickly, almost choking up at how closely he'd come. "It is dangerous and it is risky, and that's why I want you to help, but we can't risk everything on this Spike! What if something goes wrong? What if Elizabeth beats us, or worse? What then? Spike, listen to me. Look at me, Spike." He did, looking up from where he was clenching his claws. "If something goes wrong, Cadance will still need help. She'll be the only princess left, and she'll still be leading her own Empire, and Elizabeth will still be on the warpath. I need you to promise me..." She blinked and swallowed. Oh dear Celestia, her throat was so dry... " I need you to promise me that you'll be Cadance's number one assistant, okay? Promise me, Spike. You have to do this. You have to!"

He looked down, and then came in to hug her. "I promise, Twi." She hugged him back. He was shivering fiercely, and it wasn't the least bit cold. "I will, I will. Hey, number one assistant, right?"

She pulled away and gave him a tired smile. "Yeah. Thank you, Spike. I know Cadance will be in good claws if something... something..."

Before she could finish her sentence, Spike interrupted. "Eh, its okay. I should probably go help Shiny out anyhow, his blood pressure's probably through the roof trying to get everypony from the Crystal Empire to Canterlot in a day."

It was going to be tricky, but with two alicorns and an alicorn-level changeling, and their knowledge of portal relays and teleports, Twilight was fairly certain they could come up with something. Spike left, gingerly closing the door behind him, his claws shaking nervously. Twilight wiped her eyes with a fetlock.

"What about ya, Pinkie? Been awful quiet this whole time," Applejack asked.

Twilight realized she had been really quiet, not a word so far. Pinkie Pie was sitting on a bed, looking down at her hooves with frightening intensity. Slowly she looked up, no trace of a smile on her face, and climbed down from the bed. "That meanie's got Fluttershy. She's been keeping her with her all this time in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Fluttershy must be so afraid and it's all Greenie's fault. Let's get her."

Rarity's face hardened. "I agree, darling. Let's go into Canterlot. For Fluttershy."

"For Fluttershy," Rainbow agreed.

"For Fluttershy," Applejack repeated.

Twilight looked at her friends and nodded, eyes hardening. Elizabeth Greene would be brought to justice. For terrorizing the world. For unleashing a record-breaking plague on the planet. For betraying their trust and spitting on their friendship. For hurting Princess Celestia. For breaking and enslaving her parents. "For Fluttershy."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Chrysalis

"Princess Cadance, I need to speak with you," Chrysalis said. She looked over at Celestia, who was flicking her gaze at her pretty little purple puppet, and they both nodded. She and Cadance stood from the table, walked past the guards and through the doors, and up the stairs.

"What do you want, Chrysalis?"

She shrugged. "Well, it's about this plan. Specifically, what happens if we fail." There was a very high likelihood she wouldn't survive. After all, she had the most raw power out of any of them, and that would make her a target. "It'd be preferable if that didn't happen, of course." The stairs ended and they turned a corner. "But Greene has surprised us before."

"You'll find a way," Cadance said. "You almost had her last time, if it weren't for the Shriekers. I have faith in you, believe it or not."

That actually spoke volumes, that Cadance of all beings had faith in Chrysalis. The pink alicorn wasn't at all the arrogant, stuck-up noble Chrysalis thought she'd have been based on Blueblood; learning how badly she'd botched that stung her pride fiercely. "I... thank you, I suppose," she said. "But it stands to reason that something may happen. We may very well fail. Elizabeth's not an idiot. She's insane and that keeps most of her genius buried, but she'll probably be able to manage threat prioritization when we get her." Chrysalis kicked a forehoof at the crystal floor. "And she'll have all her little pets around to keep us off her."

"The Lead Breakers," Cadance said icily, keeping her eyes forward. "Are they really as bad as you say?"

Chrysalis shrugged. "One on one, I could probably take one now. But they're... big. And for the rest of the army they're completely invincible, so it'll be up to me and your aunts to take care of them when they show up. We can keep planning all we want, Princess, but there's still a very big chance that this gamble will not pay off."

"And then what? You don't think Elizabeth will actually... actually kill Celestia and Luna, will she? She's got to be smarter than that."

She sighed, a buzzing undertone to it. "I don't know. On one hoof, I like to believe she's smarter than that, but on the other hoof she may not restrain herself in the heat of combat." She could picture it already. Her changelings and the ponies frantically fending off the infected, while she and the alicorn sisters frantically chased a lightning-quick Plague Goddess. "But I'm getting sidetracked. I want to ask you, what do you plan to do if it all goes wrong and we fail in Canterlot? Hmm?"

"I was thinking pull the Crystal Guard back to the Empire, send everypony down to hide in the mines under the castle, shrink the shield, and protect a smaller area."

Queen Chrysalis shook her head. "No, Cadance. What you need to do if we fail is run. Grab the Heart and run. Run as fast as you can and never look back."

She blinked, purple irises constricting around their pupils. "W-What?" Both of them stopped walking.

"If we fail, you need to grab the Crystal Heart, power down its aura, then collect the most talented spellcasters you can. Once that's done, run as far away from Canterlot as you can, find as deep a hole as you can, and hide in it. Burn the bridge behind you."

"But, my subjects! Without the Crystal Heart they'll freeze!" she protested, looking out a nearby window. The Crystal Empire's streets were still pockmarked with holes where Shriekers had burst through, and repairponies were working as fast as they could but there was so much damage.

"It doesn't matter! Cadance, listen to me. Look at me!" The alicorn did. "Invading Canterlot is the best chance we have of stopping Greene. The sisters and I are the only ones, at present, who can hurt her in any way. If we fail there will be noling else to stop her, noling else to deter her from charging here and breaking the Crystal Heart over your dead body." Cadance gulped at that. Good. Let her understand how deadly serious she was. "After that she'll go for your subjects, and then from there who knows? My changelings, the griffons, the dragons, the diamond dogs, the deer, and more, until everyling everwhere is gone." Hive Coordinator Bztik was already setting up measures for hiding her people as long as possible if things went way south, but Chrysalis didn't believe for a second that even changelings could hide forever from the infection.

Cadance didn't need to hide forever. She just needed to hide long enough.

"But - " she attempted.

"No! If this doesn't go well there's noling on the planet who'll be able to stop her. You need to gallop as far as you can and hide, and then not rest until you can bring Zeus here. Find a way to get around the language barrier, I don't care if you need to use a nymph's picture book, or feed him one of your subjects, or even one of mine! Get him to help. If the three of us are gone, then he's the only one who can hurt her. Cadance, you have to do that. If this fails you are the world's only hope."

Cadance closed her eyes, swallowed nervously, and let out a deep breath before opening her eyes. She looked up into Chrysalis's eyes. "You're right. Okay. If worst comes to worst, I'll take a few magicians, the Heart, and hide. I'm thinking in the islands east of the Badlands. Lots of fertile ground, no inhabitants, perfect place to hide from a psychotic virus monster."

Chrysalis smiled, making no effort to show off her fangs. "Thank you, Cadance. Now, I need to go. Need to prepare so that you don't need to go dig a hole on some deserted island."

"Right. And I need to go gather the team of magicians. Just in case."

With that done, they parted ways. The changeling queen sighed, and reached into her telepathy. 'Swarm Commander Polin, when we march on Canterlot I am authorizing the use of rapid reserve draining. Let noling's magic run out.'

'My queen, are you certain? We've only just gotten a good store of love, and that'll deplete it in - '

'I know how quickly it'll deplete it! I'm authorizing it anyway.'

There was silence. 'I'll send the message down, my queen. I hope you're right about this.'

Chrysalis sighed, and spoke to herself. "I hope so too."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

In Canterlot Castle, in Fluttershy's room, Elizabeth Greene sat on the bed with Fluttershy's head in her lap, slowly running her fingers through her mane. Her gaze was out of the large window, where the day was just getting started. Her thoughts were in in in a frenzy, directing and redirecting her children only a small part of her thoughts.

Tomorrow, they were coming for her.

It wasn't a hunch. It wasn't a feeling feeling feeling. She knew it for an absolute fact. The attack on the Crystal Empire had let her know that; destroy a bunch of buildings, bring out their guard. In the process, capture some of them and steal their memories, then send in her changeling children to take their place and get close to Cadance. She didn't want to risk them attacking the Princess; for one thing Elizabeth didn't want them to get hurt on a plan that likely would fail, and second she still owed owed owed Cadance such a debt for bringing her back to life.

They'd been there in the meeting, guarding the door, and listening to them and Listening to their mother. And now, Elizabeth knew that tomorrow they would focus all their strength into coming to Canterlot.

She wasn't quite quite quite sure what to do with that information. She could take her family and flee, flee into the tunnels and hide. But what would that accomplish? Celestia and Luna and Chrysalis would come for her again, and again, and again, and while she could wear them down by attrition Elizabeth was certain certain certain they had another trick, one that she didn't know of, one that she had to hurry to stop.

This was an opportunity. Instead of hiding, she could face them head on. She could let them get close to her and then trap them in her grip and destroy them, once and for all shattering their threat. They'd come to her, confident in their power and exhausted from her family and then Elizabeth, with her children at her side, would bring all her power upon them. The equines would seek to trap her, but instead they would walk into her own own own trap.

It was risky, a gamble gamble gamble. For both of them. She just had to make sure as many things were in her favor as possible. Elizabeth knew which side of Canterlot they were coming from, and where they intended to go. That wasn't where she wanted to fight them. She wanted clustered streets, filled with houses and carts. She reached out through her children in Canterlot and, in seconds, spotted the place. She memorized it.

Good. Now now now how would she get them there? By leading them through the path of least resistance. Deter them from one passage, encourage them to go another way.

Elizabeth began asking her children in some places to go back into the tunnels, back to Canterlot. She couldn't pull back everyone, the equines would be suspicious that she knew knew knew for sure. But she could call back enough of her darling precious children that they wouldn't be the wiser.

She could do it. She could break them. It was so so so risky bringing them close to her like that, her four days of sickness were proof of that, but Greene was confident they didn't have anything like that. And she had her own surprises, of course.

Elizabeth... worried about Celestia and Luna. It was clear to her now that, past friends or no, moving the sun and moon or no, she couldn't spare them. She would - she frowned and was ever so sad sad sad at the thought - have to kill them. Then who would move the cosmic bodies?

Maybe she could. She could transfer the memories of how they did from Celestia; she'd moved both, after all. Then her unicorn children could move them. Maybe maybe maybe. Possibly probably certainly. She could do it. Elizabeth was confident in her abilities and more confident in her children. There. Now she didn't have to worry about killing Celestia and Luna.

Only feel guilty about it. So so so guilty...

"Elizabeth?" a soft voice asked in the neighing language of the equines.

She snapped her gaze down into Fluttershy's bright blue blue blue eyes. "Yes?" she asked, her voice bouncing around the small room powerfully.

"I, um, have a question. I-If you don't mind that is..."

"Don't."

"Alright. Um, don't be mad but, you're trying to, um, Bless everyone in the world?"

She nodded. "Yes yes yes, am." Where was Fluttershy going with that? She already knew her plan, her Reason.

"And then?" she asked.

Elizabeth cocked her head sideways. "Don't understand," she rasped.

"Once you've, um, Blessed the entire world, a-and you're the only one with free will left... what will you do then? Won't you, um, be bored?"

She blinked. She... hadn't expected that question. Really really really, she hadn't thought that far ahead. Instinctively and intellectually she'd always known she wanted to Bless the entire world to silence the cries of pain and sorrow forever forever forever, but she really hadn't thought about what she herself would do for that forever.

"I... keep children happy," she eventually settled on. "In warmth. Forever."

"Oh, okay," Fluttershy said sadly, falling silent and contemplative again as Elizabeth continued to stroke her mane comfortingly.

Her answer seemed to have satisfied Fluttershy, and it satisfied her, but it did did did get her thinking. What would she miss? What things from this current broken world would she selfishly wish for in the future, fixed world? She'd miss... she'd miss cooked-burnt flesh, which tasted so so so good going down her throat. She'd miss watching Fluttershy speak and Listen with her animals. She'd miss the way the little dragon child Spike spoke of his adoptive mother. She'd miss the lively streets of Canterlot, she'd miss being able to thank Cadance for saving her. There were.... there were so many things she'd miss...

Elizabeth shook it off. It didn't matter if she'd miss it. It was selfish of her. She still had so much in her, so much generosity to give and honest truths to reveal. Her family would miss nothing and they'd be the better for it; she'd be the better for it. She just had to pull off this trap on the alicorn sisters and everything would fall into place.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder how much she'd miss her conversations with Fluttershy.

Things to Come

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DAY 23 OF INFECTION: 85% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Celestia

The time had come.

They were ready to bring the fight to Elizabeth Greene. The sun had risen to rapid preparations, formations, and last minute checkups. Cadance was safely inside the Crystal Palace, keeping the Heart ignited. She and Luna were outside on a platform, standing before the army. Behind them, her faithful student was aiding the most talented spellcasters outside of herself in opening a stable wormhole relay to just outside of Canterlot. They could open one inside the city, but that would've been nothing short of suicidal.

Luna, to her right, was busy giving a speech to their little ponies, but otherwise everything was ready to go. The ponies of Equestria's and the Crystal Empire's military listened stolidly to Luna, Celestia having already given her speech. They were clad in armor, armed with spears and crossbows. Everypony had checked, double checked and triple checked. They would never be more ready to carry out the plan than right then.

She was only half listening to the inspiring words of her sister. Princess Celestia could only focus on what they were going to do. Elizabeth Greene had made a foal out of her in the Prime Colony, and she was not going to let it happen again. Too often, she had not been there when her subjects needed her. Too often, she had failed to protect them.

That ends today, she thought grimly.

She wore her standard crown and torque, but she'd lost her horseshoes in the Prime Colony and they simply weren't important enough to spend time recreating. Luna, in comparison, had replaced her crown with a helm similar to that Nightmare Moon had worn, but pitch black instead of pale blue. It was purely symbolic, of course; their tremendous amounts of earth pony magic protected them better than any armor ever could.

" - that she shalt never prevail over our people!" Luna finished. This was met by cheers from the Equestrian soldiers before her, as well as from the Crystal Guards. Chrysalis's changelings were wrapped around them, a shell of black around the multicolored ponies in the center, forming a nearly perfect semicircle. Princess Celestia estimated there must've been, altogether, tens of thousands of them, with more on the way. They couldn't bring everyone, of course; they'd be clustered too closely, and one erupting Shrieker would decimate them.

With the speech done, Luna lit up her horn with blazing magical power. A hush fell over the world as the sky slowly turned dark blue, then purple, then a dark gray as a full moon rose from over the horizon. Luna kept the magic going, forcing the moon to creep up the sky and catch up with the high-noon sun. The moon slipped before her sun, and darkness fell on the world, which caused the crystal field generator they were bringing with them to sparkle all the brighter.

Once the disk was perfectly enshrouded, Celestia looked up at it. Her eyes resisted the still-fierce light of the eclipsed sun, letting her see the wispy corona around the moon. It looked like somepony had punched a hole right through the sky, but it was for the best. With a total eclipse, both she and her sister could more easily use their link to the heavens to cast their most powerful spells.

The portal relay was almost complete, five unicorns channeling power into it. Twenty others stood by in case they tired. The relay was a massive shimmer in the air where the world discolored and distended into a gray blob. Once the noise from Luna's speech-induced cheer died down, they both turned around and Luna fired a midnight-colored beam of magic into the heart of the wormhole. The gray warped and collapsed, revealing the mountainside just outside Canterlot's gates. Said gates were nowhere to be seen, leaving an open entrance. Celestia took a deep breath, steeling her nerves. This was it. It was time. The three of them would lead the charge, cutting through the infected like the tip of a spear, right to their heart.

That was the idea, at least. Personally, Princess Celestia was having fifth doubts.

Doubts or not doubts, she lifted her wings along with her sister. From out of the crowd Queen Chrysalis walked up to her right, buzzing her wings. Twilight walked around and behind them, taking up position with her friends, behind Shining Armor; Chrysalis's commander was near the back of the crowd.

She took another breath to ready herself. No more stalling, she told herself. The Outbreak ends today. With a pump of her wings she flew towards the portal and into it. Space-time distorted and collapsed around her, miles transformed into plank-lengths, and in an instant she was right outside her nation's capital.

She chanced a look behind her; Shining and the Elements were just coming through an invisible portal. It was one way; no sense in letting the infected go through it into the Crystal Empire. Far down the mountain, Celestia could see the gates, thrown like foal's toys down the land. Combined with the gaping entrance into Canterlot where they had been, it was almost like Elizabeth Greene had thrown open the city and was saying, 'Come and get me'.

Milling around, right in front of them, was a small herd of infected ponies, already stumbling towards them. All three tribes were there, covered in blood and galloping at them faster than their hooves could carry them, resulting in a skipping gait that was more constantly falling forward than actual running. Families, friends, neighbors.

Chrysalis lit up her horn with bright, incandescent emerald power, and shot out a starburst of rays at many of the approaching infected. Each one caught fell over, trapped in a cocoon. They flailed momentarily and then were paralyzed.

Luna's horn burned bright, and a half dozen head-sized sparks of silver light appeared around her. With a motion of her head the miniature stars flew out, each to a different infected, and exploded with silent bursts that vaporized any organic matter they touched.

Princess Celestia blinked hard, and summoned her magic. Several of the infected pegasi were taking flight and the remaining infected unicorns were preparing to cast. She lashed out, golden tendrils bursting from her horn and wrapping around them like ropes of sunlight, inhibiting all kinds of magic. The pegasi dropped to the ground, and then Celestia cast the second stage of her spell. The ropes flared bright, and when they faded there were only piles of ash. The entrance was clear.

"Alright everypony," Shining Armor said to the forces arriving. "Let's move! Keep your heads on a swivel. Pegasi, make sure to report to ground forces on enemy movements. Stick together, do not get cut off from the main group, and whatever you do do not get surrounded!"

The three of them led the charge in, and already there were more infected coming, spilling in from streets and houses, snarling and growling menacingly. It wasn't that hard to keep the ones in front blasted back, and she could hear the infected being fought off at the sidelines of the army. So long as none of the more dangerous strains made their appearance...

... Celestia knew it wouldn't be that easy. She lit up her horn and sent a wave of fire forward, cantering further in. She couldn't move too fast; her little ponies couldn't gallop as quickly as her.

There was a horrible buzzing noise. It wasn't the changelings flying in; it was the infected. Before her eyes a multicolored swarm of pegasi, with one or two spots of chitinous black in the swarm, lifted out of Canterlot's buildings.

"I'm going up," Chrysalis snarled, before wrapping herself in emerald fire and launching skyward. Celestia remained on the ground. She could've gone up to fight the aerial battle, but only regular infected could take to the air. Meanwhile, the heavyweights would be down on the ground, where she was needed to provide a target so they wouldn't instead go for her little ponies. Within moments, the air above was teeming with flashes of magic as the changeling swarm took to the air.

A Leaper hopped off a building in front of her, followed by two, ten, twenty. "Luna?" she asked, preparing to summon an orb of solar plasma.

"Done, sister!" Luna's horn lit up almost pitch black, and there was a distortion in the middle of the rapidly - so rapidly! - advancing Leapers. The foul air rushed in to fill the vacuum, bringing some thirty infected with it with a loud crack! They recovered quickly...

Celestia conjured a sphere of glowing hot gas where the void had been a moment ago, the immense heat causing a gale wind outwards from it. The plasma only lasted a moment before dissipating into a hot breeze, but when it did there was a fairly large crater in the street. The battle around them did not cease - she hoped her protective wards on Twilight would be enough - but Celestia took a moment to get her bearings. They'd gone in the south entrance of Canterlot, and the Prime Colony - where Greene was most likely to confront them - was a fair distance away. They'd need to take a left soon, but first they had to progress down the street.

"Forward!" she shouted, galloping ahead. Her and Luna's spells had created a pocket in the infected in front of them, and they took ready advantage of that to move forward before it closed. Once they'd done that, she rose slightly into the air and turned around.

Prince Shining Armor was fighting with a Leaper, while Twilight and her friends were managing to hold their own against three. And in a column behind them was the army, keeping ranks so far but besieged on all sides by infected.

She could do something about that. Calling magic to her horn, setting up the parameters and friend-foe analysis, she sent an enormous orb of flame backwards. As it flew, it sent out little darts of fire at any infected it passed, diminishing in size as it traveled. With that done, Celestia turned back to face their path.

"Again!" Luna shouted, opening another void in the approaching mass of infected in front of them. Like before, she engulfed the now-clustered infected with plasma, and they moved forward.

She and Luna repeated that a few more times, leap-frogging their way up the street until they came to the corner. They prepared to turn left...

KkkrrrraaaaIIIIIIEEEEE!

The ground before them exploded, and when the dust cleared the Shrieker was already rearing back to throw a chunk of rubble at them.

"We've got more of them!" Shining Armor shouted, several more eruptions sounding behind Celestia. But she couldn't focus on them, only on the twisted mass of red flesh rising before her. It threw the debris and, reacting quickly, she surrounded it in her magic.

It took a surprising amount of effort to toss it aside. Not exactly a great deal, but she'd moved heavier objects more easily in the past. It never ceased to amaze her how horribly strong the infected were.

"Tia, the smaller ones!" Luna shouted, sending out another barrage of stars at the approaching, lesser infected. Taking the warning, Celestia jerked her head to the side just in time to avoid a lance of blue magic, and retaliated with a wave of frigid ice that cut a wide swath through the ordinary infected, but simply spilled around the Shrieker.

"I'll take this one," she offered, flapping her wings and bursting forward to the towering monstrosity. She stopped right below it, Luna's blasts of magic clearing away the Leapers around her. As Celestia had expected, the monster reared back to slam down on her, something she doubted even her endurance could withstand. But she didn't need to withstand it; once it was far enough back she reached through her link to the sun and summoned as much of its core plasma as she could to her horn, and blasted it forward in what looked like a bolt of lightning.

The effects were devastating. There was a tremendous clap of thunder and a wave of heat; both of the Shrieker's blades were shattered and there was a deep hole going through its body, hemorrhaging biomass. It shrieked again and, still bleeding copiously, slithered beneath the ground and left nothing more than reddened, disturbed pavement where it had been. Celestia winged her way back to Luna and nodded to her. "Let's keep moving."

They took a left, and continued to trot down the streets of Canterlot. Given how this was the single most infected spot in the entire nation, where Elizabeth Greene made her home, it was surprisingly easy to go through them. Shriekers were only dangerous if you were too slow to avoid the projectiles or you got close. Leapers were strong enough to cut through marble with their blade and durable enough to survive a divebomb from Queen Chrysalis, but still not that bad. She hadn't even seen a Breaker yet, let alone a Lead Breaker.

It didn't sit well with Princess Celestia. What was Greene playing at...?

Above her, the aerial fight seemed to be turning in their favor. Chrysalis was impossible to miss, being twice the size of the others in the air, lashing out with emerald fire and sucking the life out of infected. Both sides were forming impressive formations, whirling around each other and picking chasers off, and the irony of helping the changelings invade Canterlot was not lost on her.

Celestia had to duck when a V-shaped wing of infected pegasi swooped by, throwing rocks at them. One clanged on the back of her head, making her snort and shake it off. As they passed, her sister wrapped them in a dark blue net of magic. Then Luna created another vacuum, and when the infected were pulled in by the rush of air Celestia created another plasma orb, opening up the path to move further ahead.

The next intersection had once been three way; left, right, and forward. Now however, there was only right, seeing as how the other two paths were overgrown by pulsating flesh. Celestia was confident that she and Luna could've burned through the one in front; it was the shorter path to the Prime Colony. But in that that they could go further with the open path, and they wouldn't stop moving. Flying over them and leaving everypony else behind wasn't even worth considering. She made her decision, and motioned to the right with her horn. "That way," she decided, launching another spitter fireball at the infected there.

"Right!" Luna shouted. "Everypony keep strong!" They headed down the path, bringing the crystal field generator with them. The path in question lead through one of Canterlot's former nightlife areas. The ruined signs of nightclubs and bars formed eerie reminders as to who had once been here, and the red dust gathering on the signs and pooling in the streets an even firmer reminder of what they were doing now.

Chrysalis swooped down, her horn aglow. "What are you doing?! I thought we decided to provoke her at the Prime Colony!"

"The path's blocked," Shining Armor responded. "It's quicker to take a detour than to blast through that stuff."

The changeling queen huffed, but instead of arguing the point, blasted a fireball upwards and flew back into the aerial fight, leaving Celestia and Luna to continue leading the charge.

By their third 'leap frog', there was another deafening cry and rupture, before two Shriekers exploded from the ground, along with another couple dozen Leapers jumping in from other streets.

"Whoa," she heard Twilight say from behind her. A moment later, half of the Leapers were flailing in mid air, held by a purple glow, and drifted together. Not as close as Celestia would've liked, but still close enough for Luna to dispatch them with another volley of explosive stars.

In that time, the Shriekers let loose their chunks of building.

Luna deflected the one coming for her, but Celestia was too slow seeing the one coming her way to do anything but dodge to the side, letting the slab shatter into a dozen pieces on the ground where she'd been a moment ago. She locked her gaze to that of the Shrieker on the left, and let a pulse of magic blast out of her horn. The kinetic blast hit the Shrieker center mass... and the infected didn't notice at all.

Celestia sighed and started blasting away at it; she couldn't reach into her solar link to summon another solar core blast, seeing as how she'd recently conjured a plasma orb. Her Shrieker buried its rectangular tongue into the ground, pulled up another chunk of debris, and prepared to throw it at her.

Princess Celestia wasn't about to give it the opportunity. She ran a slight charge through her wings and sent an arc of blue lightning - actual lightning - at the base of the monster, forcing it to drop its cargo with a shriek. It fell over to its curled-up stance, and spat a cord of blackish-red tendrils from the base of its mouth.

She remembered very fondly how much it hurt getting speared and pulled in by that, so at the last possible second Celestia sidestepped and let the barbs stab a perfectly circular hole in the ground.

Somepony screamed, and looking over Celestia was horrified to see that it was her sister, who'd been stabbed through the chest and was even now bleeding gold blood. The Shrieker that had grabbed her pulled Luna in and let go, depositing her at its base, and then reared back to slam down on her.

"Luna!" she shouted, telekinetically pulling the other alicorn back, moments before the Shrieker landed with earth-shaking force that sent the ground beneath their hooves rolling. Once she was satisfied that Luna could magically regenerate the wound, she turned her gaze on the infected that had dared hurt her sister, ignoring the Leapers battering on a pinkish shield erected around them. Princess Celestia's horn lit up, and a portal opened right above the infected. Brilliant yellow flames gushed down, covering the monster before the portal closed and the sunstrike ended.

The sunstrike had charred a wide circle around its target black, including the base of the other one, but the main target was utterly blackened. Even as it healed, it sank back beneath Canterlot.

Luna got back on her hooves and snarled at the one remaining Shrieker. Her horn lit up dark blue, bits of the magic splitting off and forming tiny stars around her, before with a heave of effort she sent every one of the explosive sparks at the Shrieker, the barrage forcing it to retreat.

"The way be clear!" she bellowed. "Let us progress to the destination post haste!"

Celestia quickly lost track of how far they were in Canterlot. Many of the paths had been sealed off with red tissue, clinging to buildings and stadiums and overhangs like demonic cobwebs. As they went deeper, the number of Shriekers that Elizabeth sent after them increased, which hinted that they were making her unsure if she could drive them out. The air fight was largely won, which let the changelings and pegasi fire magic and arrows down below, picking off the weaker infected.

Even the streets seemed to have been... shifted. She knew Canterlot like the frogs of her hooves, but this was different. How drastically had Greene redesigned Canterlot since she'd last been there? At least her castle, from what she could see, was untouched.

As they closed in on the Prime Colony, Elizabeth sent three Shriekers after them, but with the aid of Chrysalis, Shining, as well as Twilight and her friends, they managed to overcome them. The rest of the army, trailing behind them, was also holding, forming a line of equinity that pierced the infection right to the Prime Colony.

As they walked before it, Queen Chrysalis landed amidst buzzing wings. "Here we are," she said, draining the life out of a nearby Leaper. Princess Celestia couldn't help but wonder who they'd been, before. "Now what?"

Princess Luna walked forward, everypony else providing covering fire for her, and looked up at the Prime Colony. It was by far the most heavily armored of all the Colonies, its flesh more black than red. Princess Celestia privately wondered if she could pierce it at all, and whether or not she'd even have to to get Elizabeth's attention. It was an incredibly tall, cubical building, towering three, four times the height of the surrounding structures. As such, there was a clearing right in front of it where the former houses of the residential district had been uprooted for Greene's structure.

There was a deep rumbling, and the ground beneath her hooves quaked. Everypony looked down, anxious as to what was happening. Celestia looked down, around, and then back up at the Prime Colony.

Her jaw dropped.

The armor was draining away. Thinning and reddening at the top and slowly, ever so slowly, going down.

"What is she doing?" she heard Rarity whisper behind her.

Celestia nodded. "Stay alert, this may be another of her tricks."

No sooner had she said that than the ground around them exploded, revealing not two, three, or four Shriekers, but six arranged in a hexagon in the clearing. Normal infected were, as always, arriving in an endless trickle. Perfectly spaced between the six Shriekers, three Lead Breakers slammed into the ground, growling low in all six of their mouths. One by one they roared to the heavens, red mist spewing from their maws, revealing at least a dozen Breakers on the rooftops.

Princess Celestia paled.

"Oh," Chrysalis sneered. "That little - "

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Fluttershy

Um, Elizabeth, where are we going?

Was what Fluttershy wanted to say, but at the moment she was squeezing her mouth together as tight as she could and clinging to Elizabeth's back like her animal friends' lives depended on it.

Like they had done two or three months ago, Fluttershy clung to Elizabeth's back, held there by a mesh of red and white tendrils which had, at her request, also overgrown her eyes so she didn't accidentally open them as they soared past Canterlot, wind whistling in her ears as Elizabeth sustained her mad pace.

She wasn't entirely sure what was going on. Elizabeth had just, just barged into her room looking more worried than she'd ever seen her, and requested that Fluttershy let her bring her to a 'safe place'. Was something bad happening? Would her friends be alright? Either way, she'd climbed onto Elizabeth's back and had her ensnare her with those really hot, pulsing webs.

Eventually, Elizabeth slowed. There was the sound of something metallic being kicked open, and then Elizabeth ran a little more.

"Here," she rasped, making Fluttershy cringe as the phantom force pounded at the inside of her head. "Get ready, letting go."

Sure enough, Fluttershy could feel the tendrils peeling back, melting off of her and back into Elizabeth. She dropped down and, despite being ready, fell on her shaking forehooves. "Oh, sorry," she whispered. "I should've been more prepared."

"Fluttershy," Elizabeth said urgently. "Listen. Little time." She zipped away to a nearby wall and placed both hands against it, her standard web slithering out with a wet shlkk.

Fluttershy took a moment to look around. She was in what looked like a safe room. A few of those had been constructed after the changeling invasion, in case anything really bad happened. There were shelves, with cans of preserved food on them. Fluttershy wrinkled her snout; she'd been living mainly on canned food the last three weeks, and while it was thoughtful of Elizabeth she really didn't like the taste.

... not that she'd ever mention that to Elizabeth, of course! That'd be rude.

As the web grew, Elizabeth spoke. "Coming for me," she rasped. "Celestia, Luna, Chrysalis, coming for me." Sickening worry, so much Fluttershy was amazed it didn't turn corporeal, surged outwards from Elizabeth and seeped into Fluttershy. "Coming for me."

Fluttershy's eyes widened. She knew, in the back of her mind, that Elizabeth was fighting them, but it was still so hard to imagine them doing so. Okay, well, maybe not for Chrysalis. And Princess Luna was really scary, even though Fluttershy knew that wasn't fair and that the Lunar Princess was very nice. But she really had a hard time picturing Princess Celestia being aggressive towards Elizabeth.

"Oh my," Fluttershy said, putting a hoof to her mouth. The mat of tendrils on the floor wormed past her, tickling her as they went. "Really? Can't you, um, just run away? Y-You're good at that." Her eyes widened. "Not that you're a coward, but - "

"No." The finality with Elizabeth which said that was really startling. "No more running. Go to them, end it now." She removed her hands from the wall and the web stopped growing. Looking around, Fluttershy realized that it had completely overgrown the inside of the safe room, glowing a soothing orange in some places and... oh, was that the door over in the corner? It was really big... a-and made of metal... had Elizabeth just kicked it open? She'd never truly gotten used to her friend's strength.

Elizabeth walked over to the door and took something out from under it, then walked over to Fluttershy and knelt to her level. Elizabeth held two things; one was a piece of paper that she placed face-down next to her, and the other... "Here," she said, handing over what was in her grasp and... oh dear.

"My Element?" she asked weakly, taking it in her hoof and, almost instinctively, clicking it around her neck. The moment she did, Fluttershy felt a sense of calm briefly wash over her, like being reunited with an old friend, and a faint buzzing in her veins dissipated. She looked up at Elizabeth's withered green eyes. "Why?"

"Celestia, Luna, Chrysalis. Strong. Me and my children stronger, but still strong." Elizabeth briefly glanced down, then back at Fluttershy. "Chance I'll fail."

She gasped, horrified. "Elizabeth, no..." she whispered, reaching out with her forehooves to take Elizabeth's hands. The Evolved accepted the gesture, wrapping those spindly, almost scorching hot fingers around her hooves. "No, you're going to be okay," she said, even though she herself didn't know what to think. As much as it pained her, she knew that Elizabeth not getting hurt translated to her Princesses getting hurt.

"Maybe not. If I'm hurt, can't protect. You need to," she said. "Gave you Kindness Element." She tapped the paper. "Hid other Elements. Here are places. If I can't protect, Elements protect."

Fluttershy blinked back tears and looked at the paper, then back at Elizabeth. "Okay," she said with a nod, pulling her hooves back to wrap them around her barrel. "Okay."

Elizabeth's face softened. "Thank you, Fluttershy." She reached out with her right hand and stroked Fluttershy's cheek, blistering hot. "Never forget. Good friend." She stood back up and grabbed the door in one hand, bringing the metal fixture back with herself. "Safe in here," she said. "Door won't be sealed completely. Can open it." Elizabeth looked down, frowned, then shook her head and locked eyes with Fluttershy again. "If I don't come back, leave. Find other Harmony Elements."

She could hardly see, despite blinking back the tears. "O-Okay Elizabeth," she said, her voice cracking. "I will, I promise."

Elizabeth smiled and affixed one part of the door in place, so that it was perpendicular with its hole. She turned so that her back - with the tubes running down it and everything - was towards Fluttershy. She watched the tall former human clench her fists, look up, and then -

Fluttershy yelped when a gray and red blur crashed into her. It took her a moment to realize it was Elizabeth, wrapping her arms around Fluttershy and resting her head on top of hers. "Thank you, Fluttershy," she rasped. "For everything."

After a moment, she wrapped her own hooves around Elizabeth's narrow waist and nuzzled into her plastic suit. "It was my pleasure, Elizabeth. You're a great friend, a-and a great mother. Don't let anypony tell you otherwise." She pulled away and looked up at Fluttershy. "Please, be safe Elizabeth."

The Evolved stood and returned to the door. She looked at Fluttershy and smiled. "Thank you." And then she left, closing the door so that only a halo of light could be seen around it. On one side of the halo, that light vanished as Elizabeth sealed it over.

Fluttershy gulped, sitting alone in the room full of orange lights and canned food. She glanced at the paper that held the location of the other five Elements of Harmony, still face down. She brought her hoof to her neck and rubbed the gem of Kindness. "Oh girls, wherever you are, please be safe," she murmured.

There was a shimmering pink light...

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

Why couldn't she hurt the Tartarus damned thing?!

The thought was rather atypical of her, but she just didn't understand why nothing she did seemed to register to the Lead Breaker. She could rupture the skin of Lead Breakers with some effort, but they just didn't seem to care. At the very least Rainbow could easily distract it while she blasted away at it, keeping away with her wings.

Everything was falling apart. The air guards were still doing their best to help out, but were besieged by even more flying infected, and everypony was completely pinned down next to the still-draining Prime Colony. The Princesses and Chrysalis were doing their best to deal with the other two Lead Breakers, but with the dozen regular Breakers, remaining Lead, and six Shriekers, on top of the regular infected, it was a miracle she hadn't been hurt yet.

To her right, her brother was aiding an earth pony phalanx against a Breaker. To her left, Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack were galloping circles around a Breaker while three flying changelings slowed it with their magic. Somewhere off to the side Princess Luna held a weakly struggling Lead Breaker in her nightmare pit while Chrysalis drained its life, and Celestia was flying in between the tossed carriages of the Shriekers.

The Prime Colony's armor was about three-quarters of the way down, revealing the houses that had been mashed together like a jigsaw puzzle to form it. Twilight wasn't sure what would happen once its armor was completely gone, but she didn't expect anything good.

She ducked beneath another unicorn's magic bolt and retaliated with a sweep of force, launching a dozen regular infected back. She sent another streak of spellfire at the Lead Breaker, catching it in the left flank and doing absolutely nothing to it. The monster reared up to slam down on a trio of unicorns trying to push it back, so Twilight lit up her horn and lifted. The Lead Hunter was smaller than an Ursa Minor, yet it was much heavier and taxed her quite a bit.

That was still enough time for Princess Celestia to fly over in front of it and light up her horn. A moment later there was a blinding flash of light, a crack of thunder, and an immense heat wave that made her accidentally drop the infected.

The Lead Breaker stumbled back, bleeding copiously from a massive hole that cut straight through it. Even as Twilight watched, horror stricken, the injury sealed up and it roared to the sky, calling more regular Breakers.

"Twi, behind ya!" Applejack shouted.

She didn't have time to turn around, so she just aimed a wall of force behind her and then whipped around. She found that she'd just sent a Leaper sprawling. It was by far the most gruesome of all infected, with its unrecognizable features and a foreleg reconfigured into a blade. Initially it'd been on its back, but in the time it took Twilight to take in that it was a Leaper it was already on its hooves and charging at her.

She only hesitated for a moment, and it was already on her, jumping to carve her with its blade. She dropped down and the bloated infected passed by, and gave it a push to make it stumble and fall. Once that was done, she tossed it aside with a flick of telekinesis, right into one of Princess Luna's exploding stars. It didn't get up.

She turned her attention back to the Lead Breaker that Celestia had blasted with lightning only moments prior, her limbs burning with exhaustion after the charge into Canterlot. The enormous infected shook its head and backed off from Shining, something too thick to be blood dribbling from both mouths, and then gave out a piercingly high shriek and collapsed.

At that moment another Lead Breaker jumped down on them from the surrounding streets, sending the prior phalanx of guards flying. Twilight's heart sank, and she sent an approaching earth pony tumbling back; she tried to only knock the infected unconscious, despite her logical mind telling her to do otherwise. They couldn't keep it up forever. Except for the changelings and the pegasi above their heads, they were cut off from reinforcements thanks to the sheer numbers of the infected.

Princess Celestia landed and sent a river of fire out from the tip of her horn, washing over the Lead Breaker. But Twilight knew it wouldn't work. For every infected that died, another one took its place. And while the Princess kept the - she swallowed bile - bodies from piling up, they just kept coming. Five and a half million was a lot, after all.

The Prime Colony was still draining, but right before it emptied out, there was a light tingle in the air. Twilight froze and cocked an ear. Then the world was awash in pink light, filling her nostrils with the scent of fresh pine needles and morning dew. The light seeped into her aching muscles and whirled around her racing heart. It got inside her head, reassuring her that it wouldn't hurt her and that everything would be made right.

The light faded, and the air was filled with dull thumps as whatever infected were still in the area dropped dead, the few flying infected smacking into the ground.

They regrouped, Rainbow hovering in the air. Twilight looked around and gulped. It was just them. The Princesses, Chrysalis, her brother, and her friends. Who knew when reinforcements would arrive?

"What... was that?" Queen Chrysalis asked, looking around cautiously. "Did it just... the infected...?"

"It seems so," Princess Celestia said. "And I feel... much better after that."

"So do I," Pinkie said.

"As do I, princess," Rarity said.

"So," Shining said. "It healed us, and took away our exhaustion, but instantly killed the infected? What could do something like that? I think we'd know about magic that powerful."

Realization dawned on Twilight. "Fluttershy," she whispered. "That was the Element of Kindness. Fluttershy must've done something with it."

"Twilight," Princess Celestia said. "That is a great idea, but then why would an Element of Harmony kill infected?"

She looked away sheepishly and rubbed her crystal amulet with a hoof. "Y-You're right, it was a pretty dumb idea." Twilight noticed that no more infected were coming. Whatever that had been, it had at least given them a moment to catch their breaths.

The Daybringer shook her head, aurora-mane flowing in waves as she did. "No, Twilight, it's most likely correct. Even if it does raise more questions than answers."

The Prime Colony's last bits of armor vanished beneath the streets of Canterlot.

The ground before them shook and bulged upwards, cracking. A moment later there was a resonant cry as a Shrieker burst forth, silhouetted against the eclipse. Everypony prepared to open fire, but paused when they saw that, balanced on the tip of its bony scythes, was a familiar figure.

The Shrieker lowered itself into its curled-over stance, and Elizabeth Greene walked off. The moment her feet touched the ground, the Shrieker slid back beneath the ground and left behind a region of shattered stone. "Last chance," she said, instantly causing Twilight a massive headache. "Stop now, go back. Stop fighting. Or I will kill you." A chill ran down Twilight's spine at how casually Elizabeth threatened murder.

"Big talk for an alien who can barely take on Celestia on her own," Chrysalis shot back. But Twilight knew the undertone in her voice; they were stalling for time, for the rest of the army to catch back up. Greene had something nasty up her freaky plastic sleeves.

"We'll see," she rasped, the strength of five million minds hammering into Twilight's brain. "Again, last chance. Stop fighting. Family good thing. Show you," she said, her echoes traveling through the streets long after her mouth stopped moving.

"If we want," Twilight said through gritted teeth. "To be part of your so called family, then we'll tell you!" she spat.

Elizabeth Greene narrowed her eyes at Twilight. "Can't trust yourself. Don't know what's good for you. I do. Stop fighting. Take amulet off."

Princess Luna stomped a forehoof. "Enough of thy games, monster! Thou shall not corrupt us, and on this day justice will be done!"

Elizabeth nodded. "Yes. It will." She turned to look at Princess Celestia. "Stop now."

She shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Elizabeth. You have done horrible things to my little ponies, and you will be held accountable."

Elizabeth paused, and looked down. She clenched her fists, and then unclenched them. "Was wrong about you," she whispered, the shredded repeats making it easily audible. Elizabeth looked up and locked eyes with the Solar Princess. "Was wrong about you. You're not better than them. You're no different than them..." She snarled. "You're just like the similars!"

There was a flicker of gray and red, and Elizabeth Greene was on Princess Celestia, her hand pressed to the alicorn's forehead. Celestia gasped in pain, and they all opened fire with their magic, but Greene was already retreating. She leaped up high, then landed on the shattered stone left by the Shrieker and sank into it like it was water, vanishing from sight.

"Something scary," Pinkie Pie whispered, breaking the eerie silence.

“Did... did she just retreat?” Shining asked.

The ground heaved once. Chrysalis's voice turned frantic, and she stepped backwards, eyeing the spot where Greene had vanished. “No, no she didn't.” Another heave, greater this time. Twilight saw the street beneath her hooves actually bend upwards, cracks forming in the stone and throwing off her balance. “Everyling back! Now!” They did just that, turning tail and running.

They hadn't gone five bodylengths before the cracked street exploded. Twilight flattened her ears just in time to avoid being deafened by a piercing, thunderous screech that shook her to her bones and echoed down the streets of Canterlot. Dust and rubble clouded Twilight's vision as the street bucked and rolled beneath her, sending her flying back to land in an undignified heap with the rest of the girls. The others fared no better, the three ponies and one changeling landing in a tangled pile. She looked in the direction the explosion had come, obscured by rubble, searching for the source. The dust cleared, and Twilight found herself looking up.

And up.

The... thing was big. It towered as high as four Ursa Minors, and had the sickening red, veiny texture of infected flesh, but so much more so than even the skinless Shriekers. It had a bulbous, enlarged head and a neck just as wide as said head that stuck up from the shattered stone. Its gargantuan spine jutted out from the flesh in a way that threatened to make Twilight retch. The neck... just the neck was as tall as a Shrieker in its usual curled-over stance.

The head was reared back, but Twilight could see how misshapen and lumpy it was, like a potato. Where a pony's left ear would be, its flesh twisted into three limp tendrils, each one slightly shorter than the one above it, with the nub of a fourth between the highest and middle one, giving the whole thing an asymmetrical, broken look. The beast had a rippling, flowing quality, as if water was being eternally poured upon its body. The head had no eyes. No nose. No ears. No face, no features at all except for a 'little' indent in the middle filled with a web of ever-so-slightly less red flesh. And in the middle of those tendrils, covered in infected tissue with her arms and legs spread out, was Elizabeth Anne Greene.

Her jaw dropped as the infected monstrosity – Elizabeth Greene, that thing is Elizabeth Greene! - turned its head down to look at them.

“Well,” Rainbow said weakly. “Buck.”

On Instinct

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DAY 23 OF INFECTION: 89% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight Sparkle was scared.

The rest of the army's cut off, she thought. Cadance hasn't figured out yet how to summon Alex Mercer. Both Princesses are already here. Elizabeth's turned herself into an enormous flesh golem. She could already lift houses. She could already defeat Princess Celestia. Who knows if Fluttershy even knows what she did?

Nopony's coming to save us.

It went so much deeper than fear, though. She wasn't petrified. She wasn't frozen in terror. Oh no, she was way beyond those, to the sort of numbing fear where you didn't think, just acted slowly as if in a stupor. The kind of fear where your heartbeat slows down, and time crawls to a near stop.

They untangled themselves and looked up - way up - at Greene's enormous bulk as she turned around slightly, raising her head as high as it could go.

"Well my dears," Rarity said shakily. "It's been fun."

At that moment Elizabeth Greene seemed to finish getting used to her new form, and curled back over. Immediately Twilight gasped, and next to her Chrysalis gagged as a horrendous amount of hatred and adrenaline settled over them, sucking color out of the world and thickening the air around Greene. Red and white tendrils, each as thick as a pony was long, thrashed around her entire body.

"Shields!" Shining bellowed, lighting up his horn. The Princesses did the same, creating a multicolored wall right before them. Chrysalis added in her own barrier, and so did Twilight and Rarity. The shields thickened and crystallized, a rainbow of yellow, blue, green, pink, purple and teal. The barrier continued to thicken as more power flowed into it. Meanwhile a thick band of yellow light - the only thing not having its color drained - rose up Elizabeth's base and rippled around her head. Greene leaned forward...

An enormous scream, like nothing Twilight had ever heard before, nearly burst her eardrums. A spherical blast of air quickly rippled outwards from Greene, bouncing off their shield. But the worst was yet to come.

Just as the world had gone grayscale before, it reddened now. A nova of maroon light blasted outwards from Greene as a massive shockwave, taller than a Lead Breaker and made of rippling crimson energy, expanded outwards from her in a ring. It cleanly cut any irregularities on the ground, closing in on them and their still-strengthening shield. The shield made with the power of two goddesses, a three unicorns - two of them magical savants - and a godlike changeling. The most durable shield ponykind had ever constructed.

It shook, resisted, then broke like glass. They collapsed from the magical backlash, and what was left of the shockwave rolled over them. Twilight's stomach flipped inside of her as she was picked up like a newspaper and tossed further down the street with everypony else.

They all got back on their hooves, now much further from Elizabeth, watching as the red glow faded and the rest of the blast dissipated. The buildings around the monster had been leveled by the blast, creating an enormous ring of rubble around Elizabeth.

The Evolved's bulbous head curled down, and the world turned monochrome as an intense yellow glow rose up the alien's body as she prepared to unleash another decimating blast.

"Fly?" Rainbow suggested as the band of light reached the top of Elizabeth's neck.

"Fly!" Shining Armor shouted. Immediately, everypony who could fly took to the air. A blue aura wrapped Twilight and her flightless friends, hoisting them up into the air. Chrysalis lifted Shining from the ground just as color was completely drained...

The pulse of air nearly knocked them out of the sky and made Twilight gasp, but other than that the red flash and crimson shockwave rolled beneath them harmlessly, and once it had passed they were deposited back on the ground.

The two shockwaves had really cleaned out the area around the monster. Around her was a perfectly circular arena, blasted smooth, with streets leading into it at strange angles from which the regular infected were already streaming in. The Prime Colony was completely gone, no evidence it had ever existed was left. The nine of them faced Elizabeth, and Chrysalis bellowed, "Attack!"

They charged forward, Princess Celestia flying ahead. Elizabeth leaned back and thrust her head forward. A small torrent of blood exploded outwards from Elizabeth's 'mouth', followed immediately by a stream of boulders the size of carriages with edges as sharp as knives. The rocks flew through the air and slammed into Princess Celestia, knocking her out of the air. Twilight's mouth opened to scream her name, but no sound came out as Celestia hit the ground, covered in cuts from the rock barrage. Greene reared back to release another stream, which connected with Celestia again. Greene released a third stream in as many seconds...

With a heave of telekinesis Twilight pulled her mentor out of the way, leaving the boulders to strike the ground and create craters or, in some cases, become stuck in the ground as obstacles. Celestia groaned and, with a flash of golden magic from her horn, her injuries healed and vanished. Elizabeth Greene groaned as well, a low murmuring roar, and not two, not three, but five emerald orbs shot out from her head in a semicircle.

"Stay away from her," Princess Luna warned as Celestia finished healing herself. "Fire!"

Twilight lowered her horn and shot a blast of pure kinetic force at Elizabeth's head, as did Rarity. Shiny tossed hardened shields at her, Chrysalis launched fireballs, while Luna summoned another volley of stars and sent each of them to seek another position on Elizabeth's 'face', silently exploding. They didn't even make a scorch mark on the infected tissue. The green orbs began moving, and Elizabeth summoned another five.

Twilight was briefly blinded and deafened. Acrid heat washed over her as Celestia unleashed her lightning bolt at Elizabeth, doing...

... nothing. The same spell that Twilight had seen shatter Shriekers and go straight through the seemingly invincible Lead Breakers simply deflected off of Greene, streaking through the sky and out of Canterlot. Elizabeth was completely unharmed.

There was a deep, sinking feeling in Twilight's stomach. How are we going to hurt her?

The orbs began to close in, each headed for one of them. Twilight gulped and summoned her magic, wrapping one of them in a magnetic field and trying to disperse the electrical energy into the ground. The orb slowly diminished, but it was still closing in on Applejack because there was so much energy bound up in it. Twilight redoubled her efforts, barely destroying the sphere in time. Meanwhile, the Princesses had destroyed the other four...

... another five were on their way. Chrysalis surrounded herself in fire and streaked up to Elizabeth, who responded by spitting another rock stream at her, only for the changeling to dash away. While Chrysalis kept Greene occupied, they destroyed the other orbs, and her brother put up a one-way shield around them to keep the approaching infected away. They fired ineffectively at Greene, Chrysalis dashed away from another rock stream, closer to Elizabeth and...

Twilight's jaw, again, dropped. A good third of Elizabeth's neck peeled away from the rest and slammed the ground, the changeling queen narrowly avoiding being crushed. The massive tendril rose back into the neck, and then the third on the other side tried to crush Chrysalis as well.

It's not a neck, she realized. They're tendrils. Support tendrils.

"The neck!" she shouted. "Go for the neck!" It was a long shot, but...

Celestia launched a brilliant yellow fireball at the neck, leaving a scorch mark on Greene's right tendril before it healed over. Twilight's hypothesis was confirmed; they could hurt the tendrils beneath Greene's head. It wasn't much, but it was a better idea than attacking the indestructible core. Twilight lowered her head and fired a beam of pure kinetic force; it left a sizable mark on the same tendril Princess Celestia had attacked, which healed over immediately. If there was one good thing about Greene's surprise transformation, it was that she was now a very big, very immobile target.

Elizabeth groaned and released another five orbs into the air, and spat a stream of boulders at Princess Luna, only for her to fly out of the way. Twilight shredded one of the orbs and Princess Celestia another three, leaving two of the orbs to take flight at them just as Greene summoned another five. A stream of green energy flowed out of Elizabeth's right tendril and into Chrysalis's horn, even as she inferno dashed away from an earth-shaking slam. Twilight didn't know how she was going to drain the two orbs closing in on Princess Luna in time, but she didn't have to.

Rarity, using her precise telekinesis, hit both electric spheres with a rock, detonating them midair.

"Good idea," she told Rarity, levitating five stones that Greene's boulder streams had dislodged and chucking them at her newest series of orbs. The Princess and Queen continued to maneuver carefully around Elizabeth, focusing their fearsome power on one of her tendrils while making sure Greene didn't hit them.

"Thank you darling, now if you'll excuse me," she said as the infected continued to pile around the shield Shining had around them. Pinkie, Applejack, and Rainbow stared at them nervously. Then Rarity took a deep breath. "Get away from us you brutes!" she shrieked, running to the edge of the shield and bucking a pegasus stallion in the snout. She then grabbed the infected in her aura and spun around, the infected being dragged along the barrier and knocking away the infected climbing up the shield. Their sights were clear, especially once Shining punctuated it with a pulse of his shield.

Twilight lit up her horn and slightly nudged the trajectory of one of Greene's boulders. She didn't think she could stop one of them, not with the speed they traveled at, but she could redirect them just enough to not pound Chrysalis into the ground. She fired her magic at the base of Greene's right tendril, leaving a mark that briefly bled... and then the next blue laser from Luna made it collapse to the streets and slither back underground.

Greene moaned deeply, and suddenly Chrysalis, mid dash, was lifted into the air by a rainbow of colors. Twilight reacted quickly and dispelled the dozens of levitation spells around her just before Greene could nail her with a barrage of rocks, the changeling queen zipping away to safety.

"Keep it up!" Shining ordered. "We can do this!"

There was a familiar roar, nearly forcing Twilight to facehoof. Breakers. Of course Greene wouldn't make things easy.

The two Breakers - one with a shriveled unicorn horn, one with black vines over its legs - arrived right before Shining's barrier, raised their arms and, before they could react, slammed down and broke it like glass.

"Uh, right!" Rainbow said. "Hang on a moment, I got an idea!" With that, she zipped away into the cloudy sky.

Twilight gritted her teeth and slashed one of the Breakers with her magic, while Shining knocked the other one onto its back. The one she'd just attacked charged her way and raised a paw to claw her, only to be bucked in the side by Applejack. It slowly raised its paw and looked her way.

"Uh, girls?" Applejack asked nervously as the Breaker roared at her. A moment later she was running away, weaving through normal infected with a monstrously fast but slow-to-turn Breaker on her tail. Pinkie and Rarity ran after her to help, while Shining faced off the other Breaker.

Twilight gulped and raised a shield around herself, keeping the infected ponies away, and looked at the horrific form of Greene. Currently the Princesses were flying complex circles around her, blasting her with fire and ice and lightning, a string of electric green spheres chasing them, some breaking off to try and cut them off. Chrysalis's horn was drawing in energy from Elizabeth's left tendril even as it thrashed at her, forcing the changeling to keep at a safe distance.

Greene herself was facing Twilight and, with a spurt of biomass from her maw, she sent a dozen boulders her way.

Twilight shrieked and teleported away so that she was behind Elizabeth. It was at that point that Rainbow Dash returned, carrying a very dark, very large thundercloud in her hooves. As Twilight reformed her shield around herself so the infected could beat away at it instead of at her, Rainbow parked it over Greene.

She had an inkling of what Dash wanted to do, and she couldn't say it was a bad idea. Twilight gripped several more rocks in her magic but before she could toss them at the orbs, her brother did the same and popped them harmlessly, leaving her to throw them at the infected nearest to her, conking them on the backs of their heads and sending them down.

She lowered her head and blasted Greene's tendril, and again, and again. A torrent of rain washed down from Rainbow's cloud, and where it ran down Elizabeth her skin broke into flickering tendrils. Applejack ran by Twilight nervously, a unicorn Breaker hot on her tail, Rarity and Pinkie hot on its tail. Twilight didn't see her brother at all, but she was confident he could hold his own against a Breaker.

Elizabeth turned around and leaned over, spitting boulders at Chrysalis. The changeling, in the middle of galloping through a horde of infected, stopped and reared up just in time to let the rocks pass in front of her. Rainbow moved her cloud off to the side and struck it with her forehooves, a bolt of lightning striking the Breaker that had been chasing Applejack. A moment later Shining was there, battering it with shields and razor-sharp magic blades.

Twilight had an idea; she magnetized the Breaker. Immediately, the newest of Elizabeth's orbs - how many could she make?! - locked onto it, then froze in the air, and a moment later exploded.

She wasn't entirely sure why they exploded, but Twilight wasn't complaining. She fired at Elizabeth again. Princess Luna and Chrysalis both sent colored fireballs at it, and Princess Celestia landed. She faced Elizabeth, lowered her horn, and fired another bolt of white lightning at her.

By the time the flash of light faded, Twilight could barely see the tip of the tendril sinking below the ground, leaving only one; the one around Elizabeth's neck.

"Not so bad," she panted, teleporting away from the infected who were starting to break her shield. But before Twilight could do anything else, the dry air shimmered. Elizabeth gurgled deeply and writhed with tentacles, a band of intense yellow light rising along her one remaining tendril and sucking the color out of the world.

Time slowed down for Twilight. Everypony who could fly took off, and for a moment Twilight was sure she'd have to teleport herself, her brother, and her friends away. Then bright green magic surrounded her and lifted up. Twilight shrieked and flailed as Chrysalis hoisted her into the air. There was a clap of thunder as Rainbow struck Elizabeth with lightning from her cloud, and then...

The roar nearly deafened her. The pulse of air that went through the sky sent Rainbow off her cloud and everypony else flailing to regain their balance, lest they fall into the crimson shockwave down below. Eventually the roar ended, but before they could descend Elizabeth turned her head back much further than Twilight thought she could in that form, and sent a barrage of rocks straight up, smacking both Princesses and Chrysalis.

Naturally, that interrupted the levitation magic keeping them so very, very high off the ground. Twilight screamed for a moment, then wrapped the others in her magic and gently lowered them, her brother doing the same for her. They landed, and Twilight noticed that, while infected were still coming in from the streets, the actual arena was very... clean after the blast.

Greene turned her head down, seemingly ignoring the blasts on her last tendril, and sent a stream of boulders at Shining. He squeezed between them, wincing. Elizabeth sent out another volley, and another, and another, groaning and moaning loudly as she relentlessly bombarded Shiny with rocks.

Twilight's eyes widened, and she deflected another barrage around him. She imagined the rocks hitting a narrow cone of telekinetic force, pushing them just far enough away, and made the vision a reality.

But the rocks were just moving too fast, forcing her brother to dance around in between them. And it didn't take Greene long to wisen up, having her infected unicorns grab him with their telekinesis. Before long it was all Twilight could do to counterspell them, her ground-bound friends holding off the regular infected, Chrysalis and Luna pelting and draining Greene, and Celestia and Rainbow providing air support against the Breakers that kept showing up. But Elizabeth just did not relent on Shining, sending a barrage of rocks every second or so until...

There was a wet shlick and the last of Greene's neck tendrils submerged beneath Canterlot. Instantly her bulbous head froze, and then let out a warbling shriek. She fell, resting on the street limply with her gigantic spine bent over.

"Now, now! Get her!" Chrysalis screeched, her horn firing a blazing beam of magic onto Greene's tough hide. Luna launched a salvo of stars onto her, and then followed up with her own beam as Rainbow created a new thundercloud from the wisps over Canterlot and began blasting down lightning.

Twilight understood in a moment, and teleported Applejack and Pinkie next to her, before she began firing her own blazingly bright beam. Her brother kept the rest of the infected back as they attacked Greene. Applejack kicked and bucked at her, and Celestia peppered Elizabeth with hoof-sized darts of stone. Wherever Greene was hit, the formerly impervious core spewed biomass and she moaned deeply. Pinkie had, much to Twilight's surprise, pulled a water gun out of her mane and was now spritzing Elizabeth, making her body flicker with colossal tendrils where she was hit.

Twilight momentarily tried to pull Greene out of her monstrous form, but the tendrils held her tight. She switched back to blasting.

Each time Elizabeth's body was struck, her actual body, spread eagle in the middle, shifted a bit and flashed yellow. They continued the attack for maybe fifteen seconds before Princess Celestia landed.

She faced the downed Evolved, her horn brightening even more, and shouted, "Traitor!"

Then she let loose another one of her enormous bolts of lightning. Unlike before, it didn't deflect off, and cut a deep hole through Greene.

She pulled up, straightening out her spine even as she hemorrhaged, and sank beneath the ground with a great rumbling of displaced rock, leaving a sizable crater in the middle of the ring her shockwaves had blasted.

"I don't get it," Pinkie said, reappearing next to Twilight, hitting an earth pony over the head with her water gun. "Did we win?" One of Shining's hoofball-sized shields appeared and clobbered away a divebombing pegasus. Twilight thought she heard something. The buzzing of distant wings, the marching of hoofsteps...

Princess Celestia, still in the air, shook her head and used her magic to clean off the sticky biomass from a disgusted Applejack. "No, Pinkie. Elizabeth would not make it so easy." With that said, Princess Celestia turned a dozen infected into ash, and Rainbow dive-bombed somepony sneaking up behind Rarity. "Everypony remain alert. We do not know what tricks she still has."

The ground shook, and then there was the same echoing shriek from before as Elizabeth burst from the ground, all three neck tendrils returned. Three Shriekers rose around her in a perfect triangle, crying out in their own high-pitched voices.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Celestia

Princess Celestia was angry.

Here was the greatest threat to ponykind in history. She'd accomplished much worse than the windigos ever had, far beyond what Discord's chaos or Tirek's lust for power did to the population. She'd gotten much further than Nightmare Moon had, and was a worse slaver than even Sombra. And now, instead of coming to her senses and standing down, she had elected to cause an even greater senseless loss of life. Even when they won this battle, the damage done to her ponies would be so, so grievous.

Princess Celestia was angry, and for the first time in centuries it felt good to be able to vaporize her foes and ionize the air.

Celestia looked way up when Elizabeth returned, with more infected with her, and then smiled when she realized that their own forces had caught up. They were not alone in this battle. Soldiers galloped in from one of the streets and changelings flew in overhead; whatever had been holding them all back had been dealt with. Unfortunately, they wouldn't get air superiority that easily; another swarm of infected pegasi took to the air.

She sent a fireball at Elizabeth... and it simply fizzled into sparks when it hit her. Celestia had hoped that Greene would've remained vulnerable, but no such luck.

Then the Shriekers each tossed a boulder; one at Celestia's sister, another at a trio of changelings on the ground, another at Rainbow Dash as she took to the air.

Adrenaline coursed through Princess Celestia's veins. Her horn was permanently aglow, casting spells left and right. A flamespitter orb to take the pressure off that unicorn group, blasting their way through Leapers to get close enough to aim at Elizabeth. A gravity well to slam a Breaker into a shaft of solid moonlight her sister had conjured. A pillar of flames to clear a pocket in the normal infected.

Celestia teleported forward towards one of the Shriekers, making sure the burst of her emergence would toss away the infected around her. As it leaned back to slam down on her, she summoned core plasma to the tip of her horn and shot it forward at its bony scythes...

... and missed. The Shrieker, instead of slamming down on her, pulled its body to the side at the last second and swept the ground in a wide arc, the bone slamming into Princess Celestia's flank hard enough to break her ribs in spite of her earth pony resistance, tossing her into the air like a rag doll as the tip of the scythes cut a long gash along her side, bleeding gold blood.

Before she could control her flight, pain erupted along her flank, head and wings as boulders broke on her. She flailed and hit the ground hard, another barrage of stones pushing her into the pavement. Then she was pulled away, letting her see another volley shatter harmlessly on the ground where she'd been a moment ago.

Luna's magic set her on her hooves and healed her wounds, the Night Goddess appearing next to her. "Sister, prepare!" Luna raised her horn and lightning crackled. Knowing what she was planning, Celestia lent her own magic, quickly while Elizabeth was sending electric orbs at somepony else. She turned her horn into a makeshift lightning rod, while her sister used her pegasus magic to summon lightning from the mostly-cloudless sky and strike Celestia.

She kept the charge around her horn as more and more lightning coalesced, then when she could hold no more she directed the blast at the nearest Shrieker, under heavy fire by magic and arrows. The initial shock blackened its red skin, and Luna's sustained barrage of lightning continued to electrocute it, holding it in place long enough for Chrysalis to maneuver around Greene's onslaught and send the Shrieker back underground with a gout of fire. Luna stopped the lightning, and they split off again to avoid a trio of emerald spheres.

Celestia landed elsewhere in the area, Elizabeth having turned away to fire rocks at an earth pony phalanx. She raised a shield around them moments before the rocks struck, but she didn't have time to give it any real substance and so it collapsed, and the pony formation was sent into disarray. Celestia spotted two Breakers headed their way, and snarled.

The two remaining Shriekers were being dealt with, Queen Chrysalis doing her best to keep the Evolved's attention solely on herself. Celestia flew over to the downed guards, and lifted the two Breakers into the air. Both flailed against her telekinesis, and several infected unicorns around her tried to free them, but that didn't stop Celestia from bringing the two monstrous infected together and engulfing them in an orb of brilliant yellow plasma.

She landed and cast her wings to the side, as if the protect her little ponies, and ended the plasma. Both Breakers were blackened, but were already healing. So she tossed them to her sister, knowing she could easily finish off the two.

Celestia flew from place to place, helping out wherever she could. Unfortunately, with the high number of infected they simply couldn't disarm Greene as easily, even with the soldiers' aid. As such her electric orbs crackled through the air of Canterlot, seeking out their targets and exploding with lethal force. Eventually, Chrysalis's life drain made Elizabeth's middle tendril sink beneath the ground.

Celestia teleported next to her and, as Elizabeth spat yet another stream of rocks at the changeling, she conjured a wall of telekinetic force and pushed, shoving the rocks sideways to stick in the ground harmlessly. The queen's horn glowed acidic green, a steady river of energy flowing into her. They were close enough to Greene to have a lot of her attention, but not so close that her thrashing tendrils could smash them.

Chrysalis looked at her for a moment, and then her life drain changed targets. From the changeling into Celestia, emerald energy flowed like a river, replenishing her magic at an incredible, breath-taking pace. Then Greene thrust her head at them, eight electric orbs forming in her maw and flying right at them with yellow streaks behind them.

Celestia's eyes widened, but she took Rarity's example and tossed a volley of rocks at the orbs... which swerved around them and closed in more. Chrysalis engulfed herself in fire and dashed away, while Celestia flapped her wings and flew the other way, even as Greene spat another eight orbs at her. A drizzle of magical bolts peppered Elizabeth, a great many impacting ineffectively against her head but a few finding her neck tendrils.

She blasted the one Chrysalis was draining with kinetic force, and she noted that it seemed... tougher than before. As if Elizabeth was slowly remembering how to make her neck as impervious as her head. She didn't like the thought of that, and as her left tendril whipped the ground, Princess Celestia was forced to retreat to a safer distance, the shockingly fast orbs still on her tail. Elizabeth returned her focus to Queen Chrysalis, and Celestia continued to fly around at a moderate height, blasting Greene with her magic and the sun's plasma.

The entire circular ring around Elizabeth was thrown into chaos. She saw Shining Armor and the changeling Swarm Commander facing off against a Breaker. She saw her faithful student standing her ground and firing at Greene, protected by four changelings around her. She saw Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack back to back against a group of Leapers, and she sent them aid in the form of a flamespitter orb. She saw her sister flying around Greene's head, shouting long-obscure obscenities at her as she sent stars at the right tendril.

Above them, the changelings swarm fought viciously with the infected pegasi, bolts of green lightning illuminating the reddish sky, darkened by the eclipse. Rainbow Dash flew haphazardly between them, pursued relentlessly by the streak of flame that was once Spitfire. A V-wing of changelings flew down, blasts of green energy flying from their horns and cutting a scythe through the infected on the ground, before a Breaker tossed a lump of rock at them. Two of the changelings fell, and the Breaker bounded onto them.

Breakers were fast, but Celestia's teleportation was faster. She reappeared standing over the two fallen changelings, and reached into her spiritual link. A moment later the Breaker was flying back, dead, with a giant hole carved through its body by her solar core plasma. Princess Celestia got off the two soldiers and helped them up. They nodded their thanks to her as she healed the cracks in their exoskeletons, and took back to the air. Celestia chanced a look at Elizabeth; she had one tendril left supporting her, the one on Greene's right.

It happened again. The changelings all around her began gagging as a yellow light rose up Elizabeth's base and tendrils thrashed around her. Color didn't drain for Celestia, but she still knew what was to come.

Flying over to the Elements, she gripped them in her magic and took them with her into the air. The yellow light reached Elizabeth's head, and then there was the flash of red, the burst of air that nearly sent her tumbling to the ground, and the enormous shockwave rolling across the plaza. To Celestia's horror, a great many ponies and changelings were down there, held in place by the infected, and they simply ceased to exist as the shockwave rolled over them.

The blast ended, leaving the area desolate. They landed, and new infected were already entering. Elizabeth spat more rocks at Celestia, but she squeezed inbetween them and summoned flaming streaks along the last tendril. With the combined assault of everypony else, it wasn't long before the third tendril once again sank, and Elizabeth Greene fell shrieking to the ground.

She was instantly beset by attacks. Celestia called down a pillar of flame onto her. Pinkie sprayed her with water, Luna with stars, and so on. Even the changelings in the air broke off from their fights to engulf themselves in green fire, body slam into her, and then take off in time for the next ones to do so. Elizabeth groaned and her smaller body shook, flashing yellow.

Before long, Princess Celestia's link to the sun cooled down enough for her to use it again against her most hated of enemies.

"You enslaved my subjects!" she accused, releasing another core blast at Elizabeth Greene, striking dead center in her central form.

Bleeding copiously and slowly regenerating, Elizabeth Greene rose up and sank beneath the ground a second time, three Breakers erupting from the crater moments later. She levitated them in the air helplessly, leaving the others to blast them. Chrysalis, however, instead began imparting life into Celestia and her sister, healing them and replenishing their magic.

Before too long, the Breakers had been dealt with. They stepped back, holding off the infected and Leapers with relative ease for two minutes, the rest of the army returning to help. Then, there was a shake, an upheaval, and the Plague Goddess returned in all her power and horror.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

Elizabeth Anne Greene was excited.

They were here. They'd come. Chrysalis, Celestia, and Luna. And she was there with them. She could break them, right there and right then, and once she did nothing would be able to stop her children. After that, it was just a matter of finding out what their backup plan was and stopping it in time. She could do it; she suspected the Crystal Empire.

Adrenaline coursed through her her her veins as she pierced the surface and prepared to fight her enemies once more, towering above the puny little equines. Immediately she gathered her anger and took a deep breath, drawing in the colors of the world. She told several of her children to keep the equines down so that they couldn't avoid her attack, including having her Strong Children hold down the alicorn sisters. The alicorn sisters teleported to safety, sadly.

She finished taking in air and then let out a scream, the crimson shockwave exploding outwards from her in a flash of red light. It vaporized any it came across, friend or foe, ally or enemy, and then it was over. Four of her Throwing Children pushed their way free of the ground, forming a square around Elizabeth.

More of the equines were coming, and she was ready for them. She pulled up rocks and spat them as they emerged from the streets, concussing them and breaking their skulls. She clenched her spine and a tingling traveled up from its base, into her head, and outwards as five crackling green spheres. She mentally directed them up, each one finding a changeling in the air and obliterating not only them, but anyone immediately around them.

The alicorn sisters and and and the changeling queen began fighting her, the bug-like equine dashing irritatingly close to her legs and draining the life out of her left leg. She ordered her children to assault Chrysalis in according patterns, spat rocks at Celestia, had her children cut off that earth pony or chase after that pegasus. She wasn't just in her powerful, powerful body, she was in the entire battlefield. She and her Thinking Children coordinated perfectly, cutting off retreats, limiting how many of the enemy's soldiers could come. This was where she belonged, at the front lines, destroying those who would cause her family harm.

It didn't sit well with her, of course, that she'd vaporized many of her own own own children with her shockwave, but there was no other way. She had to have them hold the equines down. Now wasn't the time to worry about them, now wasn't the time to be squeamish about sacrifices. Fighting for her life, her future, her Reason, was the time to be cold and calculating, analyzing threats and dispatching them.

That didn't mean she couldn't enjoy it. She enjoyed electrocuting pegasi with her empowered orbs, having her Throwing Children knock Celestia out of the sky, scattering changeling swarms with her boulders. She lent her aid to her children that needed it, and nine times out of ten the threats were neutralized.

Chrysalis darted to Elizabeth's left, so she had one of her Throwing Children stretch towards herself, forming a massive wall of flesh that the changeling slammed into. Her Throwing Child swept left, sending Chrysalis flying, an easy target for Elizabeth to spit rocks at.

Dead center, she thought, directing three three three of the eight orbs she had in the air at the changeling. One of them was prematurely detonated, the other was was was shredded by Luna's magic, but the other hit Chrysalis and sent her tumbling through the air, into the arms of one of her Strong Children.

The other five orbs, she moved around to independent spots, exploding each of them in the middle of a cluster of equines. She reared her head back, groaned deeply, and summoned five more. Two of her Throwing Children died died died, making her moan angrily and send four of them at Celestia, splitting up to close in on her from all directions.

She turned around, and anger joined the buzzing energy in her veins. There they were, the three of them fighting back to back, not really going anywhere but providing a point of stability for the rest of the equines. She summoned more orbs and moved them towards the trio. Pinkie Pie. Applejack and Rarity.

I TRUSTED YOU! she thought angrily, even as they popped her orbs with thrown rocks despite her trying to make the spheres avoid them.

She groaned and spat boulders at them, forcing the unicorn and two earth ponies to take cover. She swiveled around and spotted Shining Armor, collapsing shields around two of her Strong Children. She spat a barrage of rocks at him, but the armored changeling beside him knocked the equine to the side and took the barrage instead. The changeling didn't get back up, so Elizabeth considered it a success. There was another advantage she had, too; she couldn't get tired, something that was certainly coming into play after forty minutes of fighting.

She was incredibly strong, but even she wasn't all-powerful. The fact she was in Equestria was proof of that. Her four Throwing Children were either dead or so injured they had to retreat back beneath the streets. A half dozen of her Jumping Children were pulled together by Luna's vacuum and then engulfed in an orb of glowing gas by Celestia. She was peppered by useless arrows that bounced off of her, and by spells that she hardly even noticed hitting her face, but gently gently gently stung her legs.

She was so dizzy. The two prior times they'd cut off her legs and they'd hit her head, it made her so nauseous nauseous nauseous. She felt like she was going to throw up; Elizabeth wanted to throw up, so badly, but she couldn't. If she threw up in her current form then it was over.

Chrysalis had recovered, and had begun to siphon her life again. She slammed the ground with her legs, two at a time, in hopes that the shockwave would upset Chrysalis, and launched dozens of orbs directly from her maw that chased after her, some of them splitting off to try and surround the changeling. At the same time she had one of her sons leap to the side to evade an arrow, time enough for one of her Strong Children to kill the pegasus archer with a leap, and at the same time as that she had one of her few changeling children cast a cocooning spell at Rainbow Dash, which the pegasus moved out of the way from.

She slowly tightened the muscles in her three legs, making them tougher and tougher, but it was slow going. There was another immense flash of light and heat, and suddenly there was a sharp pain in her left leg. She groaned deeply and spat a stream of rocks at Celestia, which the alicorn winged away from. At the same time she pulled her injured leg back beneath the ground where she and her Warm Children could begin healing it.

All around the country, Elizabeth's orders had gone out. All of her children were making their way back to her. Not all of them made it, and it was a long journey, but now there was no more reason to hide her hand hand hand. Most of her Thinking Children and Throwing Children were engaged in fights elsewhere, leaving Elizabeth without much of their support... but she could make do.

She had to make do.

The assault continued. Her children and the equines held each other in rough equilibrium, herself fighting the three biggest threats. Sometimes they broke off to aid the armies, but mostly they faced each other. Slowly but surely, they struck her middle leg, numbed it, made it tingle, then sting, and finally burst into pain so intense she had to withdraw it.

Chrysalis was a big threat; not only was she more powerful than either Luna or Celestia, her technique of fighting was very bad bad bad for Elizabeth. She was sucking the life right out of her, and then giving it to whoever was run down. It was a form of regenerating, the very same thing that enabled her Wayward Child to defeat her so long ago ago ago.

Celestia had frightening knowledge, and she had faced off with Elizabeth before. Of course, circumstances were different, but she still had an idea as to how to disarm Greene's abilities. To say nothing of the enormous blasts of hotter-than-lightning.

Luna... had her head tilted back, horn aglow. One of her Strong Children was constantly engulfed in a purple beam of light with a pool of black water beneath her, arms reaching up and grabbing at her Strong Child mercilessly. Elizabeth groaned and sent a stream of boulders at Princess Luna, interrupting the spell and freeing her child, the alicorn slumping down under the force. She redirected her orbs there and kept Luna pinned with another barrage, so that by the time the Moon Goddess got back up she was bombarded by electric blasts that sent her back down.

I'LL KILL YOU! she raged, even as Chrysalis surrounded herself in fire and zipped over to Luna, healing her.

She wasn't going to to to just let Chrysalis undo all her work. She turned around so her right leg was near her, and struck the ground so hard the shockwave knocked them both far away.

"Luna!" Celestia shouted, disengaging from her fireball-throwing to go help them. Elizabeth pulled more rocks up her throat and spat the boulders at them, groaning menacingly as she did. She ignored the tiny little spells hitting her right leg, and summoned five electric orbs to deal with the slightly noticeable spells that Twilight Sparkle was attacking her with.

It made her so angry that it had come to this! She'd thought they were her friends! She'd trusted them with her life, gave them her blood, her protection, her Blessing, and how did they repay her? With demands to stop, threats, death, and attempts to imprison her! Elizabeth had thought that the equines were better than the Similars, but they were just as bad if not worse! They'd called her their friend, but it was all for nothing! Hollow hollow hollow words. Lies of friendship and love! All she had given them, all she would have given them... and it meant nothing to them!

For another five minutes she kept the alicorns and the queen on the defensive, before a painful crack in her remaining leg made her retract it by instinct so that she could mend it... and then she fell limply to the ground with a scream of indignity.

Despite the attacks that came, she coordinated her children, mostly to keep them off of her. She tried to pull herself back up, but Elizabeth found that her strength had left her, and it was taking too too too long to get it back. The fact that Pinkie Pie was spraying water at her with some stupid contraption was making it even harder to pull her head back up, letting changelings slam into her, equines shoot her, unicorns and alicorns blast her. A trio of lasers carved a triangle around her face; one green, one blue, one yellow. Elizabeth gagged, a spurt of blood coming out of her giant mouth, but held the rest in.

The yellow laser cut out and Celestia landed, facing right at her with an uncharacteristic snarl on her pretty little face.

"Why?!" she demanded, and then Elizabeth was blinded.

A hole was torn through her body and shattered part of her spine, the thunderclap of power forcing her back. That little push, despite the immense pain, was all Elizabeth needed. Sluggishly, she drew her head up, bone and flesh healing, and descended.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight Sparkle was tired.

Scratch that, she was exhausted. All four of her legs trembled and she took deep, gasping breaths through her mouth. Her head swam, her horn ached, and her eyes stung with sweat. But she was, remarkably, still alive.

Elizabeth's bulbous form sank back beneath Canterlot, prompting Princess Luna, still flying, to pump a hoof in the air. "See that?! We hurt her!"

Princess Celestia played Discord's advocate to that. "Eyes open, everyone! It's not over yet!" As she said that, the ground around Elizabeth's crater shook and two Lead Breakers, each with a half dozen Leapers on their backs, emerged. The Leapers dispersed, none of them headed her way but each one after somepony.

Rainbow swooped through the air, leaving a rainbow path that was soon overtaken by a fiery trail, and the Lead Breakers moved to attack. Luckily, they had two goddesses on their side, and the Lead Breakers were quite easy to distract. Twilight was tired, so very tired, but she swallowed, steeled herself, and did her best to lift the giant, heavy infected into the air. Under fire from Chrysalis and the princesses, not even the incredibly tough hides of the Lead Breakers could last very long, and within two minutes both were...

... not a threat.

Then the surface quaked, and Twilight immediately knew what was coming. Elizabeth returned with a deafening roar, but this time no Shriekers came with her. Something was, however, different; each of the Evolved's neck tendrils had a thick band of yellow across their middles, which momentarily made Twilight think she was preparing another crimson shockwave.

Right away Greene was on the attack, wasting no time. Twilight shrieked and teleported away from a rock stream directed her way, making her groan in dizziness when she reappeared. Very quickly, she fell into what could only be called autopilot.

The fight passed in a blur. The Princesses and the Queen flew circles around Greene's enormous form, pelting her with world-shaking magic. All around Twilight infected closed in, some larger than others, all trying to kill her, while above the sky rippled with changelings and pegasi.

At one point she was next to Applejack, who was bucking a Leaper in the chest. Then she was next to her BBBFF, helping him sustain a shield around a platoon of armored changelings, the so-called Imperial Guard. Suddenly she was helping changelings and earth ponies defeat a Breaker, and failing to protect half of them. Next she found herself next to Pinkie and Rarity, who had long ago ran out of magic and was, her horn sparking, punching infected in the snouts to ward them off. She was dizzy and exhausted, the only thing keeping her going was a mantra of Can't stop, you'll be infected. Can't stop, you'll be infected. Despite the crystal amulet around her neck, it was much more motivating than even death.

Elizabeth's right tendril, still ringed with yellow, went down. As for the others two, another band of light began moving up them. Elizabeth writhed angrily with tentacles that sucked the color out of the world and replaced it with hatred and fear. Twilight gulped, and soon found herself and her friends wrapped in Chrysalis's slimy magic and hoisted into the air. She looked down as the yellow light reached Greene's head, and gasped.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna foalishly had their backs to Elizabeth, fighting off four Breakers at once while regular infected clung to their legs. Twilight tried to teleport them away, but her horn sparked angrily at her instead. She opened her mouth to shout at them to fly, but her voice was lost to Greene's roar. Both alicorns turned around in shock and, when they saw the shockwave approaching them, tried to fly away, but the Breakers slammed them back to the ground. She watched in horror as the wave of red energy washed over them, obliterating the Breakers and sending both Princesses flying far away, to the very end of the arena. Their fur and manes were gone, their armor and crowns shredded, and their skin, oh alicorns their skin...

She would've thrown up, but she wisely had kept her stomach empty. So she dry heaved in midair.

It took until Chrysalis put them down for her to find her voice. She screamed, but could do nothing except watch as Chrysalis flew over to them, touching down on the empty streets and lightning up her horn. Twin rays of energy flowed outwards from the changeling and into the two alicorns, regrowing their skin...

Elizabeth groaned and spat boulders, all of which missed Chrysalis. Twilight whipped back around and snarled at the Evolved that had hurt her Princesses, her mentor, her friends! She could feel her second wind coming, and lit up her horn. This time her magic obeyed her, and she shoved Greene's next rock stream to the side. Meanwhile, those fighting in the air came down periodically to blast Elizabeth's left neck tendril.

She growled at the Evolved, summoning a layer of frost on Greene. It immediately melted, the water flowing down her body and making her flicker erratically, making the next volley of orbs she sent out to immediately explode along her impervious core. The next five didn't explode, nor did the next five, or the next, each one heading for the alicorn sisters. Twilight's jaw dropped; she tried to shred them magnetically but there were just too many. She tried throwing pebbles to detonate them but they swerved out of the way. Then Twilight ducked below a Leaper's blade and blasted it back.

Suddenly, a dozen pink shields formed around each one and collapsed, exploding them harmlessly. Shining Armor was right before Elizabeth, fearlessly looking up at her. "Hey! You! Focus on me!" He roared and fired a beam of blinding light at Elizabeth's smaller body, making her shriek and turn towards him.

Twilight gasped as he formed a thick, hemispherical shield right before him. Applejack bucked an infected unicorn away from her, and she counterspelled another's attempt at casting a fireball. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Elizabeth bent down, a shower of blood coming from her 'mouth' as she spat a line of boulders right at Shining Armor. Not one of them missed, each one hitting his shield and bouncing off, making it fade to slightly less than half its intensity.

She watched in numb horror as he partially restrengthened his shield, just in time for the next volley of rocks to completely destroy it. He fell to his fetlocks from the magical backlash, but looked up and summoned a faint shield. Twilight tried to do something, to blast Elizabeth's body, or her legs, to make her relent on Shiny, but she released a third volley of rocks. Shining's barrier imploded quickly, and he was slammed backwards by five high-speed boulders, and didn't stir.

She found her voice as her heart skipped a beat. "No!" She also found her magic, and teleported him into one of the buildings in the ring around Elizabeth. She teleported herself forward, away from the throngs of infected, until she was just outside of Elizabeth's tendril range. She had to keep her attention, at least until the Princesses were back in the fight.

She couldn't let Elizabeth win. For her parents' sake, she couldn't let her win.

She narrowed her eyes and lowered her horn, unleashing a kinetic beam at Elizabeth's ridiculously tough left tendril. She unleashed a wall of telekinetic force forward, detonating the eight orbs Greene had spat from her 'mouth'. That didn't deter the Evolved; with a deep, resonating groan, she summoned another five from her and sent them skyward, and slammed her left neck tentacle into the ground.

Twilight was far enough away to avoid being flattened, but the shockwave still sent her flying through the air. At the height of her arc Greene stuck her 'head' forward and unleashed a volley of rocks. She gasped, but managed to teleport herself down just in time to avoid the lethal projectiles; they did stick in the streets, after all. Twilight really didn't want to picture what they could do to her.

Once again on the ground, surrounded by infected, she galloped forward under Greene, to the Evolved's right. Elizabeth tried to spin around so she could slam Twilight with her left tendril, but physics was on the unicorn's side. She reached Greene's enormous spine, ignoring the stench of infected flesh, and climbed onto it. She pointed her horn at the left tendril, which due to its angle, couldn't attack her. She had no such problems, and promptly slashed away at it, opening ruptures on its yellow-ringed, veiny surface. Around her the armies continued to fight, ponies and changelings working feverishly against the infected army. Breakers towered over everypony else, but were few and far between. If she squinted, she could see Chrysalis healing both princesses, their manes filling back in. Also in the background she thought she saw a fiery pegasus falling to the ground.

Crushing fear and hatred battered her, and color vanished. The air around Twilight thickened immensely, and her eyes widened in horror at what was about to happen. She lit up her horn and, despite the flash of pain that it brought, teleported up.

She arrived on top of Elizabeth's head, tendrils angrily flashing around her. She slipped and landed on one of the three large protrusions from her side, and wrapped her hooves around it as tight as she could, ears flattened to her skull. A moment later, the yellow light flashed around Greene's head, and she was nearly blown off by the pulse of air and the sheer volume of the shockwave. Twilight watched it wash outwards, vaporizing infected and those the infected had pinned to the ground. A few Breakers leaped over it. To her relief, she saw her friends levitating... in a yellow aura.

A similar yellow aura surrounded her, and she was teleported off of Greene moments before she could summon electric orbs on top of Twilight. She was next to Princess Celestia, looking at Elizabeth furiously.

"Thank you for distracting her, Twilight," she said. "Stay safe." Celestia spread her broad wings and shot forward like a cannonball, and let loose another blast of white lightning. That one spell was all that it took to send Greene's left tendril beneath the ground, leaving only her middle one.

Twilight's forelegs buckled and she collapsed, panting heavily. When she next looked up, her friends were around her, busily fighting off the infected. "Come on, Twi!" Applejack shouted. "We're not outta the woods yet!" She nodded and got up. She tried to swallow, but no saliva came, making her throat clench painfully around air. She lit up her horn and created a purple shield around herself and the girls, then pulsed it outwards, sending the infected right around them flying away.

Chrysalis was once again dashing in tight circles around Greene's base, draining the life from her last neck tendril. Both of the alicorns flew around her, bombarding Elizabeth with explosive stars and solar plasma. Two changeling V-wings swooped down and blasted both the infected and Greene with their emerald magic. Meanwhile Elizabeth continued with her onslaught of stones and orbs, groaning and warbling powerfully, animalistically. Twilight noticed that she didn't go for her or her friends at all; with them so tired they could barely able to hold off the regular infected and the occasional odd Leaper, it was obvious that Greene no longer considered them a threat.

Minutes passed and, eventually, Greene's last tendril sank beneath Canterlot. With yet another screech her spine bent and she fell over.

Changelings began dive-bombing her, others kept the infected away, and Twilight grunted. She teleported herself and her friends right next to Greene. Rarity and Applejack both went hooves-on, while Pinkie again pulled out her water gun. She flashed yellow each time Twilight or somepony else struck her, either with a hoof, magic, or an arrow that stuck in her flesh. Twilight was slightly skeptical; were they even hurting her? After all, each time Elizabeth returned she showed no signs of weakening, just the opposite in fact.

Princess Celestia faced off against her, her burning horn flashing even brighter.

"Monster!" she shouted, releasing another bolt of lightning.

The hole bled furiously, but closed up soon. Twilight's second wind was ending. She pushed on, firing magical blasts despite her horn burning against her head. After maybe fifteen seconds of a continued assault on Greene's vulnerable core, she suddenly reared up.

Elizabeth warbled and groaned loudly, thrashing her head around as she bled copiously. In the process, she smacked several changelings out of the air. Twilight's heart sank. She was going to sink back below and then come back up. Not again, she thought tiredly. I can't do it again.

Rainbow landed next to them, panting heavily, as Elizabeth's gigantic spine tipped over and landed with an earth-shaking thud. Her head was angled perpendicular to the neck, so that her 'mouth' was right before Celestia, Luna, and Chrysalis, both alicorns without any regalia or armor. Twilight panted heavily, as did her friends. She didn't take her eyes off of Greene's monstrous form, even as a river of biomass spilled from her 'mouth'. If she looked away the Evolved would get back up and keep fighting.

Finally, the stream of blood ended and out fell, with a pained shriek, Elizabeth Greene. She landed on that biomass-covered ground with a squelch. Her left knee was up and her left hand rested on it, but her right leg and right arm were limp and her head was bowed. She looked up and to her left at Celestia, and her pale green eyes widened in horror.

Then the solar princess spoke, and Twilight's racing heart skipped a beat. It was not Princess Celestia, benevolent diarch, speaking. It was not Celestia, beloved sister, friend, and mentor. It was Celestia Helio Invictus, the vengeful Goddess of the Sun, with a single word on her lips.

"You."

Powerless

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Celestia

"You."

Celestia didn't take her eyes off of Greene. She knew how much power was in that lithe frame, the power to lift a castle and obliterate armies by voice alone. The power to remake the world in her image and shackle millions, perhaps even billions, to her will. Now though... she didn't look anything like a quick, agile, dangerous opponent. Now, with the Evolved on her knees before her, surrounded by a pool of her own blood, Elizabeth Greene just looked frail, feeble. As if Celestia could break her like a twig, despite being so drained that she could actually feel her aurora-like mane flickering into pink fibers here and there.

Elizabeth's eyes locked with Princess Celestia's, and she raised her left hand ever so slightly. To her left, Princess Luna was prepared to take action, as was Queen Chrysalis to her right. Every now and then a strand of teal hair shone through Luna's ethereal mane.

"No," Elizabeth whispered. Her echoes were so quiet as to be almost unnoticeable, and the psychic pressure that had lately accompanied them was gone. She turned around and scrambled back on her hands. "N-No! No, no no no nononono," she stammered, struggling to get away from them. Celestia stepped forward, the other two mimicking her actions. She pushed down a grimace when she stepped in the biomass puddle. "No, no," Elizabeth breathed. She turned around, facing away from them. Still on her hands and knees, she leaped away... and fell back to the ground with a pained yelp not half a body length from where she'd jumped.

"You've lost," Chrysalis said smugly as Elizabeth turned around so she was once again on her back, facing the three of them. "Even with that construct, you couldn't hope to defeat my kind. How does that feel?" the changeling taunted, giving her wings a quick buzz.

Greene's eyes were wide, flicking left and right in panic. "No, no no no, can't. C-Can't. Have to, have to. Get away." She scrambled further back, her legs scraping against the smooth street, but her left arm gave out and she fell flat on her back. "Have to, have to get... away. No... stay back!" she screamed, holding out her right hand and making as if to toss a ball.

All three of them flinched and prepared to defend themselves when a pony-sized orb of crackling viridian energy flew out... and fell to the ground before it even got halfway, sparking out harmlessly.

Celestia looked at the spot where the orb had gone out, and allowed herself a self-satisfied smirk. Greene, meanwhile, eyed it with terror and another whispered, "No, no no, have to, can't stop, not like this..." Even as she spoke, Celestia saw the infected retreating out of the corner of her eyes. Greene continued to deny it, but it was clear even she knew she was beat.

"Surrender, fiend," Luna said emotionlessly. "Thou hast been defeated."

It was almost surreal for Celestia to hear that. Defeated. They'd beaten Greene and broken her power. After a lengthy, hour long battle that had their barrels heaving in attempts to get enough air, they had finally, finally prevailed. It made her somewhat thankful that it was Elizabeth who'd come to their world and become their enemy, instead of Alex Mercer; he had overcome her monstrous form all on his own.

Elizabeth looked down and to the side, breathing as heavily as everypony else was. "No, have to... get up..." She pushed herself up with her hands and shakily got to her intimidating bipedal stance, making Celestia prepare another offensive spell. She didn't need it. No sooner had Elizabeth, shaking horribly, gotten to her full height than she swayed and collapsed down, rolling over onto her left side. She reached out, as if trying to grasp something that would save her. "Keep... keep fighting... gah, not again," she whispered.

Greene began coughing, her entire body flickering weakly with wire-thin tendrils. She coughed and sobbed and vomited blood onto the ground, wracked with tremors and adding to the puddle of biomass.

Celestia elected to speak over her. "Elizabeth Greene, you are under arrest. You will spend a brief stay in a prison cell until such times as a court can be arranged to try you. You have the right to have such a court arranged in a rapid manner. You will be tried for your crimes to the fullest extent of Equestrian law. You have to the right to speak your case and to be heard in a fair and just manner. Your opposition has the same right to speak. Attempting to resist arrest can and will result in further charges brought up against you. Come peacefully," she finished, just as Elizabeth stopped her gasping for air and vomiting and crying.

"No, can't give up, h-have to... won't... n-no no no, no!" Elizabeth scrambled back slightly further, and the three of them closed the distance. "Y-You're wrong, wrong wrong." She gagged again, and spat a glob of biomass off to her side. "Get away from me. S-Stay back... get away," she demanded, despite being in no position to demand anything. Her entire body trembled like a leaf in a storm, but Celestia had no sympathy for Greene's fear.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and suddenly flickered intensely. She closed her eyes. "Get..." She opened them, and her irises were a piercing yellow, intense as her own sun. "... AWAY!" she roared. The air before her collapsed and distended outwards, the crimson shockwave washing over Celestia and her companions before she could ready a defense... and it did nothing more than briefly make their manes blow back.

"Stop this," Chrysalis said as the monster's eyes turned back to their dusty emerald color. "This is just pathetic. Have some dignity."

Elizabeth made another attempt to stand, but didn't so much get to both feet before collapsing back again with a wild flicker of tendrils. "No! No no, can't stop! C-Can't, c-can't. Have to... have to do this. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're all wrong. Have to bless, have to, get away, let me - "

"ELIZABETH!" Luna bellowed. The alien snapped her head over to Luna fearfully and paused, still on her back. Luna looked down at the Evolved sadly. "Stop. Please, just stop." She nodded slightly. "It's over."

Greene slowly relented, and looked down sadly. Princess Celestia looked at Chrysalis. "Would you do the honors?"

The changeling snarled and flared her horn. "With pleasure." A bolt of green energy shot out from her crooked horn and wrapped itself around Elizabeth Greene, forming a cocoon that sealed the Evolved inside. "There. That'll keep her weak."

Celestia nodded. "You're certain?"

Chrysalis scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm certain! I've been preparing my cocoons to be able to keep her down since I started helping you." The changeling looked at Greene, who was floating motionlessly, and poked the cocoon with a forehoof.

"If you say so." She looked at her sister. "Luna?"

The Nightbringer nodded. "Of course, Tia." Luna's horn lit up, and the skies lightened. The moon drifted away from the afternoon sun, going backwards to where it had risen, and sank beneath the horizon, revealing a blue sky tainted with red. The eclipse was over.

Celestia allowed herself a gentle smile. Finally, at long last, the infection was defeated. They could begin to rebuild, assess the damage, and move on into the future. She had no idea how horrific the losses had actually been, but she knew in her heart that ponykind would rebuild.

Then behind her, her most faithful student roared in anger.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight all but collapsed in exhaustion as the Princesses faced down Greene, who scrambled away from them fearfully.

Applejack sat down beside her, panting heavily. "We... we did it," she breathed.

"Yeah," Pinkie said. "We did it!" All around them, the infected were disengaging, heading back to the holes they had crawled out of. The soldiers were moving to those who had been injured; the casualties from the battle with Elizabeth were no doubt tremendous, hidden only by her occasional, scouring shockwaves. So many ponies and so many changelings had died, but it was all worth it. They'd won.

Twilight's heart skipped a beat when Elizabeth tossed an electric orb, but then she smiled when it fell down and fizzled harmlessly.

She looked left at Rarity and her smile turned concerned. "Rarity, are you okay? she asked the unicorn, who was swaying back and forth on her hooves.

Rarity raised a hoof to her horn and wobbled. "Oh, dear. Yes Twilight, I'm fi - whoa!" she said, falling over to the side.

Before she could hit the ground Applejack was there, holding her up. "Whoa there, Rares. Ya go around pretendin' ta faint enough, no need to actually do it."

Rarity shook her head as if to clear something from it. "Thank you, darling. I feel quite faint..."

"You're just exhausted," Rainbow said. "Take it from me, some rest and water will do you fine. Some dragonade couldn't hurt either."

"Rest," Twilight whispered, falling onto her flanks. Her mouth was dry and nasty, and she had no saliva to swallow. "Sounds... sounds good."

Meanwhile, the air forces were beginning to fall back, the changelings guided away by an invisible hoof while the few pegasi descended to ground level. The Princesses continued to accost Elizabeth, who tried once to stand and then collapsed back to the streets. Twilight's head buzzed, but the buzzing was going down and her thoughts began to flow clearly.

"It's over, isn't it?" she asked. "The infection?"

Pinkie nodded, a surprisingly gentle smile on her face given the magnitude of their triumph. "Yep! Meanie Greenie's not gonna hurt anypony else. And aaall the soldiers can go home for a good long rest." She tilted her head. "Hey Twilight, speaking of soldiers, where did you send your brother?" she asked cheerily.

Twilight gasped, a little more of the fog of exhaustion fading from her mind. "Shiny! I'm such a terrible sister, I forgot about him so quickly, even after he threw himself into the line of fire to protect the Princesses and - "

Rainbow flew before her and grasped her by the shoulders before she could keep spiraling. "Easy, Twilight. What's this about your bro? I was busy trying to get Spitfire off my tail." Her eyes turned downcast. "Spitfire... even her."

"He got hit by one of her rocks," she said. "I teleported him away right after, into a building so he'd be safer." She nodded. "I think I can get him back - "

She was cut off by a roar. Twilight snapped her head to where Greene was, catching sight of a conical, crimson blast flickering, the Princesses and the Queen standing unscathed. She breathed a sigh of relief. Of course they had it under control. They'd won; how could they not have it under control?

She continued. "I think I can get him back," she breathed, and lit up her horn. The signature for where she'd sent Shiny was still easy to spot; there was little point in hiding it, after all. There was a flash of light and a pop of displaced air next to her, and Shining Armor was returned.

He collapsed limply, and Twilight moved to quickly grab his head before he could knock it against the ground. She bit her lip as she set him down gently; he was heavy and her forelegs didn't have the strength to do much more than lift her own weight.

"Yikes," Applejack said, stepping closer to him. "He ain't lookin' too hot, Twi."

She was right. Shiny had taken a hit from Elizabeth Greene's rock stream. Luckily the dizzily fast rocks hadn't hit him directly, but their jagged edges had left very long gashes along his flanks, dyeing his fur pink. Twilight gagged again upon that realization, but forced herself to examine the full depth of his injuries.

A deep and long cut along each of his flanks. Shattered ribs. Broken legs, all four. And he was light, so light, and he... he...

Twilight's prior dizziness returned. He wasn't breathing. His barrel was not rising and falling. He was... he was...

"Get back," she whispered. "Get away! Give him space!" she screamed desperately. Applejack leaped back.

Desperately, Twilight lit up her horn and rolled Shining onto his back, then clambered over to his head. She redirected her magic to where his heart was, and started contracting and expanding the atriums and ventricles. She also reached to his diaphragm and moved it up and down. Then she blocked his nostrils with a forehoof, tilted his head back, took a deep breath, and gave him mouth to mouth. When her lungs were empty of all air she came up, took another deep breath, and went down again.

After five breaths, she briefly let go of her magic to see if he'd come back. She scooted down and laid her ear on his chest. Terror-inducing silence.

"No, no no!" she shouted, lighting up her horn again and giving him another dozen breaths. Once those were done, she pulled away to check his heartbeat. Her friends didn't move; what could they have done to help?

Suddenly she knew what they could, and looked up at Rainbow. "Lightning! NOW!" she ordered. Without pausing to salute or acknowledge her, Rainbow vanished into the air. With her gone, Twilight stepped off of Shining and lit up her horn. "Wake up!" she screamed, shocking her brother in just the right places with the proper amount of electricity. Nothing.

Zap. "Wake up!" Magic, breaths. "Wake up!" Rainbow flew back with a tiny storm cloud the size of her head. Twilight ripped it from the pegasus and positioned it above Shining Armor's heart. "WAKE UP!" She reared back on her hind legs and lit her horn, ordering the cloud to deliver a lightning bolt straight down. It dissipated when her magic did, and she leaned back down to check his pulse. Still nothing. How long had it been? How long did he have?!

She began manually operating his heart and lungs for the umpteenth time, covered his nostrils, leaned over, pressed her mouth to his, and blew in. Then again. Then again, and still nothing. "Why... why won't you wake up?" she asked, pulling away. Her eyes were so hot, hotter than her horn.

"Oh, Twilight," Rarity said weakly. "Oh Twilight, I'm so..."

She didn't hear the rest of what she said. She looked down. Her brother was... dead. The boulders had sliced him and he'd bled out after she teleported him away. He was... dead. Elizabeth had killed him.

Elizabeth.

Had.

Killed.

Him!

She sat down numbly, staring at her hooves. She was vaguely aware of somepony's hooves on her withers, but did they matter? No! Nopony else mattered. Her BBBFF was dead!

Something dripped.

He was... he was d-dead, and he was never coming back! She was never going to joke with him again, she was never going to be teased by him again, never!

She tried to stifle a sob, but failed.

It was all Greene's fault! She did this! Why had she killed him? Why had she betrayed them? Why had she destroyed her parents, her brother, her family? Why had she come to Equestria? Why hadn't she just stayed dead?!

She glanced up. Through blurry eyes she saw that Elizabeth was in a changeling cocoon, the alicorns and changeling stepping back from her ever so slightly.

She looked back down and shook her head, a tear escaping. Then Twilight gritted her teeth, looked up, and screamed. Energy she didn't know she had came flooding into her veins, through her mane and tail, filling her with strength, magic, and above all else, heat.

There was a flash and a bang of orange light, and then she was right before Elizabeth Greene, who looked up at her fearfully through the cocoon. The entire world shimmered, as if engulfed in intense heat. "She killed him!" she roared, her horn lighting up and sending a blast of white energy at her. A tiny blue square of a shield formed and absorbed her shot, breaking in the process. "She killed him!" Blast. Blue square. Blast, yellow square. "She killed him, she killed him, SHE KILLED HIM!" Twilight shrieked, only matched in volume by the crackling flames of her mane and tail.

"Why?! Why did you kill him?!" she demanded, ending her blasts of magic. She fell to her hooves and ran up to Elizabeth, but felt something wrap around her hind legs. She looked back and saw the green glow around her hooves, keeping them in place, then screamed like a caged animal and bucked against it.

Chrysalis grunted and stumbled back, and Twilight lunged at Elizabeth. She raised a white forehoof into the air and brought it down, only to be met with another shield, and then another. "WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! Why?! Why, why, why...?" she shouted, slowly trailing off.

Suddenly there were large forelegs around her, pulling her away from Greene and pressing her snout into Princess Celestia's chest, white fur turning back to purple. Instinctively, she wrapped her forehooves around the Princess, sobbing. "She killed him, she killed him," she whimpered, pressing her eyes tight. Her throat was sore and her prior exhaustion had returned. Princess Celestia said nothing to her; nopony said anything to her. She was aware of Princess Luna giving orders to others, far in the background, but that didn't matter. It didn't come close to mattering. Her brother was dead, how could something like Princess Luna talking matter?

Princess Celestia stroked her back soothingly, saying nothing and letting Twilight cry into her fur, repeating that she killed him why she killed him over and over. Finally, she stopped talking, and was... not content, but okay with staying there motionlessly.

"Oh Twilight," the solar alicorn whispered at last. "Oh my dear Twilight, I am so, so sorry." Another strangled sob found its way out of Twilight's throat.

"What..." she said at last, then stopped because her throat hurt so much; it was like somepony had rubbed sandpaper all over it. When she felt she could talk again, she did. "What are we going to do? She killed him, she killed him..."

"I don't know, Twilight." A hardened note crept into the Princess's voice. "But rest assured Elizabeth Greene will be held fully responsible for every last iota of suffering she has wrought." Celestia's voice softened again to impossible limits, squeezing Twilight as tightly as ever. "Come, Twilight. Let's get you back to the Crystal Empire." Then there was a crackle of magic, and a flash of golden light.

They left Canterlot.

The World Set Free

View Online

Celestia

In a room in the Crystal Palace, Celestia and Luna sat alone. But the guest chamber was currently being used for something much different than sleep. Instead, both princesses sat opposite one another at a breakfast table, no breakfast before them.

Luna said, "Those of ponykind free of Elizabeth's plague art either within the Crystal Empire or in a crystal barrier along the outskirts of Equestria. There hath not been reports of any new infected attack, and our lunar senses hath picked up all of the infected clustering withers to withers in Canterlot. Truly, it appears almost as if they art waiting for something, or that they hath given up."

"Mmhmm," Celestia said, looking through a random spot on the table.

There were so many things weighing down on her head, even heavier than the crown behind her horn. First and foremost was the impromptu alliance with the changelings, and the betrayal of their formal allies, who had turned their backs on Equestria in their moment of need. What would happen to the treaties? They would certainly have to be remade; currently Equestria could be called upon to aid their allies should conflict arise, but after the Outbreak had decimated their population, destroyed the Royal Guard, undone the Wonderbolts, and nearly annihilated the military, Equestria was in no position to help any country. And what about the changelings? Would their alliance remain, or would Chrysalis return to the Badlands and call off the ceasefire? Equestria was hardly in a position to fight back, after all...

To say nothing of the bitterness and smoldering desire for revenge Celestia found blossoming in her heart. She'd trusted the zebras, dragons, minotaurs, the griffons, and they had -

"Greene hast been contained in the dungeons beneath the palace, and the changelings art interfering with her telepathy so her infected won't come to rescue her. She is ready to be tried at our convenience, sister."

"Mmhmm," she grunted.

The amount of damage was... unreal. Celestia had yet to get a full report of the devastation that had been wrought, but just by looking at Equestria she could make guesses. Cities devoid of enough workers to maintain their infrastructure. Entire towns empty of ponies, to be retaken by time. The economy in ruins. Inventors and creators lost by the bucketful. Even with careful allocation of the royal treasury, it was clear Equestria was heading for very rough times. All because of one person. One single person.

"There is the matter of what to do with the monster, of course. Thy student and her friends, with the return of Fluttershy, hath been testing the Elements of Harmony on individual infected, and the results are not promising. The Elements immediately kill any infected they touch by purging the virus from their bodies. As the infected are dependent on Greene's virus, this results in instantaneous organ failure."

"Mmhmm."

And Twilight. Oh her dear Twilight Sparkle, left with no parents and no brother, no blood family to call her own. Celestia couldn't imagine how horrible it must've been for her most faithful student. She wanted to sweep the unicorn into her forehooves and wrap her in her wings and tell her everything was going to be alright, that she would fix things, but how could she fix things? How could she possibly lie like that and say things were alright? Things would never again be the same. Never. And Celestia knew that it was all her fault.

"We art not entirely sure why the Elements would kill the infected instead of simply restoring them, but thy student's theory is that the alien nature of the virus is making them misfire. So whilst the Elements shalt not restore Equestria, they can still be used to cleanse the virus entirely from our world, as they cleansed Discord's mayhem."

"Mmhmm," Celestia responded.

Her nation, her people, her little ponies, ravaged without mercy by Elizabeth Greene. And simply killing Greene wasn't an option either, since the infected were still her subjects, ones now utterly dependent on the Evolved. How monstrous would it be of Celestia to cast her mentally ill subjects out into the world with no way of helping themselves?

Not as monstrous as making them that way in the first place, she seethed internally. Did she even owe the infected anything? Or should she just cut her losses? She didn't know.

"Furthermore war was never officially declared. Elizabeth is, in accordance with the papers she herself agreed to, technically a citizen of Equestria. Do we hold her to the murders of every soldier and civilian her infected slew, or just the ones she herself had a hoof - pardon us, hand - in slaying?"

Celestia wanted to hurt her. She wanted to make Elizabeth hurt. It was so unlike her but the alien had abused her trust so vilely that it made the Daybringer absolutely sick to her stomach to even think about it. She wanted to trot into the cell holding Greene and engulf her with solar plasma until the weakened alien was reduced to so much vapor! She wanted to end her permanently, to keep her from ever again hurting Celestia...

"There is one piece of good news, of course; now that things have somewhat calmed down, residents in Manehattan hath found Tirek in their streets; it seems the demon recently escaped his imprisonment. He was reported to hath large claw marks upon his flanks and torso, as if he was mauled to death by a Breaker."

"Mmhmm."

... hurting her country...

"Sister? Tia?"

... hurting her little ponies...

"Art thou even listening to us?"

... hurting Twilight...

"... we art wedded to King Sombra and our foal is thy student, her immortality locked away to protect her from thy lust for power."

Celestia looked up at Luna with a start. "What? I'm sorry Luna, I was... elsewhere."

Luna's eyes softened. "Sister, we know that guilt tears at thee, but we must focus. We try Elizabeth in court tomorrow, in this very palace."

That was right, they were trying her in the Crystal Empire, weren't they? Normally an Equestrian criminal would be tried in Equestria, but for Greene they could make an exception. Just getting her to the Crystal Empire had been practically inviting the infected to invade, at least before her hive mind was muddled.

"I know Luna, I know. But any time I think about her, I just think about what she did, how much she hurt our little ponies, the dreadful things she did to them..." Her hooves began pressing at the table, microscopic cracks spider-webbing through it. "And it makes me so angry because it was all my fault! I should've known better; what sort of judge of character am I?"

Luna's frowned. "Tia..."

Celestia closed her eyes and trembled. "We should've killed her," she whispered. "The instant she appeared in Canterlot we should've killed her. She was still weak when she came back to life, the two of us could have easily killed that wretch! But we didn't and now there's hardly a tenth of our subjects left, and - "

"Tia!" Luna shouted. Celestia opened her eyes and noticed that Luna had gotten out of her seat and was now next to her, looking up at Celestia worriedly. Luna rested a hoof on her lap. "Please, this is not like thee. Do not let Greene turn thee into a monster."

"I know, I know," she breathed. "But if we hadn't given her the benefit of the doubt, if we had read deeper into her story and found that the humans had every right to lock her away, and that Alex Mercer had every right to kill her, then we could've done the same to her and we wouldn't be here right - "

"TIA!" Luna barked, looking at her with wide eyes. "Please, sister. Don't go down that road," she pleaded.

Celestia blinked hard. "I... you're right. I'm sorry, Lulu. You're right. What are we going to do with Elizabeth?"

"We say that we should not execute her, however much our blood boils. Our subjects who labor under her will are dependent on her, and art wholly innocent in the matter."

"But can we truly care about them? They represent a continued threat to our way of life, to our freedom and will. I feel they're simply too big of an existential risk to allow to survive. Too dangerous to even contain."

Luna nodded. "We understand thy concerns, sister. We suppose that the question of Elizabeth Greene's sentence can be reduced to naught but a simple question."

"And what is that, Lulu?" she asked.

"Do we punish her for her transgressions," Princess Luna asked. "Or do we make her perform reparations for them?"

Celestia sighed, and took off her crown with her magic, turning it over in her gaze. "Indeed, that is the question. I suppose there's really only one answer for it."

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Chrysalis

It was a shame she was going to have to conquer Equestria now.

The past week and a half of helping the ponies had undermined a lot of Queen Chrysalis's preconceptions of their species. She wasn't entirely sure how to feel about them now, but she definitely wasn't going to keep thinking about them the way she had before all this. Still, her course was all too obvious.

Taking over the ponies now would just be mean. Obviously Chrysalis was going to wait until Elizabeth was dealt with more permanently, but even then it'd be like taking love from a nymph. The ponies were defenseless, well and truly defenseless. Their military was in ruins, and Chrysalis could ambush and cocoon the princesses in their sleep. It would be so simple. She could even have her subjects nymphnap the Elements. Those few simple acts, and both Equestria and the Crystal Empire were hers. Already, she had changelings in place to strike key areas of Equestria - what key areas were left, anyway - to make it as quick as possible. She just had to give the word.

There would be no gloating this time. No shared prisons. Just focused victory.

And it wasn't like it would be all bad for the ponies; the changelings would keep them alive. Certainly better than they could themselves; with their numbers obliterated it'd be so simple for another race to come in and take them over, one that had even less interest in the ponies' well-being than her. Conquering them was in everyling's best interest, even if the ponies didn't know it.

It was a shame it was the only way.

Queen Chrysalis cantered up the stairs of the Crystal Palace, seeking out Cadance. On her back, her cargo rested securely, engulfed in the illusion of flickering emerald fire and adhered to her turquoise shell via her slime. She could conquer the ponies later, right now she had to play another role, a very easy one.

That of the bearer of bad news. Besides, everyling else was busy.

She found the door to Cadance's chambers - there were no guards, strangely enough - and rapped a perforated forehoof against it. From inside rang a, "Who is it?"

Before Chrysalis could answer, the door opened inward, revealing Cadance on her bed with a large globe between her hooves. The pink alicorn, her horn still gently glowing, seemed to be looking at some islands in the middle of the Great Sea on the other side of the world. The princess's lavish - not that lavish, surprisingly - bedroom was a stark contrast to the reddened, decayed streets of Canterlot, and for a moment the contrast stunned the changeling queen.

Cadance smiled at her. At Chrysalis! "Oh, Chrysalis, you're back!" She turned thoughtful and tapped her chin with a hoof. "You're here. That means that..."

Chrysalis nodded and stepped in, closing the door behind her. She allowed herself a weary smile. "We got her. I don't know how, but we got her. Wrapped her up good, she's weak as a newly hatched 'ling now."

"And... the infected?" she asked, the globe in her hooves forgotten.

She shrugged. "They're... well, I wouldn't say they're not a threat, but they're abandoning their goal. They've just... left all the other cities and towns and clustered up in Canterlot. I don't know what they're doing, it's almost like the infected are giving up."

Cadance breathed a sigh of relief. "I won't complain, if that means everypony can get under a crystal field safely." She looked back at the globe. "It looks like we won't need to summon Zeus after all. Thank goodness too, I've only just figured out how to summon a human from their world, let alone Alex Mercer specifically or to a certain place."

Chrysalis shivered at the mention of his name. The light streaming through the window seemed to darken for just a moment. "... right. Regardless, I wanted to check in on you and let you know how things went during the fight."

Cadance frowned. "How bad was it?"

In response to that, Chrysalis closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Her muscles ached beneath her exoskeleton, reminding her of how hard she'd pushed herself to dance around Elizabeth's orbs, rocks, and thrashing tentacles. "It was... terrible. Greene had transformed herself into this giant... monster. She couldn't move and she was an easy target, which certainly went our way, but her power...! If Zeus defeated her alone, then I don't want to imagine what he is capable of."

She didn't want to imagine, but Chrysalis's treasonous brain did it anyway.

"She focused a lot on me, of course. She kept me on my hooves like nothing before; one mistake and she'd flatten me, Cadance. Flatten, she was that big."

The alicorn paled, and raised one of her disgustingly fat forelegs up a little. "Oh my. But you're okay now."

Chrysalis nodded. "Oh yes, I am. There was a remarkable amount of life to drain inside of her, and to give to everyling around me when I had a spare moment." She'd only had 'spare moments' when Elizabeth decided to smack down someling besides her. "Eventually we came out on top, but... so many changelings died. So many ponies, too." Here it was coming. The bad news. Chrysalis was partly intrigued as to how Cadance would react, and part of her dreaded it. In the previous weeks she'd come to see the alicorn in a better light than she had before.

She had been way off thinking Cadance was anything at all like Blueblood.

Cadance looked down and nodded. "I was afraid of such, but it really wasn't avoidable in any way. There was nothing else that could be done to make Elizabeth stop the madness." She looked back at Chrysalis and tilted her head. "Where is she now, anyway?"

"In the dungeons. I cocooned her myself, and my Imperial Guard keeps her hive mind weakened so that she will be blind and deaf." She smirked and chuckled sinisterly. "She's not going anywhere. No amount of creative use of her powers or can-do attitude is going to save her." She tossed her mane with a motion of her head. "If it were up to me I'd finish the job right now, but your aunts are insisting that she be given a fair trial. Personally, I think it's just a kangaroo court." Though having never encountered the kangaroos Chrysalis had no idea how accurate that saying was.

"It will be a fair court, Chrysalis," the princess said comfortingly, before developing a wicked smile of her own. "It's just that what's 'fair' is stacked against Elizabeth to the extreme."

Queen Chrysalis tilted her head sideways momentarily. "I suppose." I'm stalling, she told herself. "There's something else, too."

Cadance's eyes widened. "Really? What is it?"

Chrysalis bit her lip, her fangs drawing blood. "Elizabeth was large and immobile, but she had so much power. At one point she blasted Celestia and Luna with her shockwave, and I had to go heal them." She sighed. "A pony distracted her from attacking us while we were occupied."

"Oh, that was really brave of them," Cadance said. "Who was it?"

"You're not going to like it," Chrysalis said.

Princess Cadance clambered off her bed. "Who was it, Chrysalis?" she asked urgently.

She shuffled her forehooves nervously. "You're really not going to like it."

"What's going on? Who was it? Tell me!"

"I could hypnotize you," she offered. "That way it won't bother you as much."

"No!" Cadance shrieked, taking a few steps back. "Can you just show me?"

This was going to be interesting. Chrysalis lit up her horn and moved the weight off of her back, still engulfed by the illusion of fire, and set it down between herself and the short alicorn. Cadance frowned. "What is this?"

"An illusion. There's really no easy way to break this; Cadance, for what it's worth, I'm..." The word tasted bitter in her mouth. "... sorry for your loss." Then, with a flicker of magic, she dispelled the illusion around the body of Shining Armor.

She jumped when her late husband's corpse - cleaned up since leaving Canterlot but still utterly unmoving - was revealed. She worked her mouth up and down, and settled on not saying anything. She trotted forward and lowered her snout to his and nuzzled him. His head barely moved, caught in rigor mortis. "Shiny?" She nudged him again, and then stepped back. "He's so... cold." Her eyes widened in horrible realization, a wave of terror and fear washing over Chrysalis's emotional sensors. Her left ear twitched twice.

"No, no no no no no!" she shouted, dashing at Shining Armor and lowering herself to her hocks. "Shiny, Shiny please, please no, please..."

It didn't take long at all for the alicorn to break down, pressing her face to Shining's and crying. Not great, world-shaking sobs, or silently, but just normal crying. For a moment it made her happy to see the one who had blasted her - quite painfully - out of Canterlot in sorrow, but then her joy turned to reluctant sympathy when she remembered that, without Cadance and her crystal magic, there was a very real chance that Chrysalis would be worshiping Elizabeth as her mother.

Chyrsalis frowned and watched her fall to pieces for a while. "He saved my life. He distracted Greene long enough for me to heal up the alicorns; without him she'd have killed me."

The alicorn didn't respond, but Chrysalis didn't expect her to. She was giving off positively enormous amounts of love, easily overshadowing the ambiance of the Crystal Heart, but Queen Chrysalis felt oddly ill at the thought of eating any of it. Really, it was only because she was already so full.

Honestly, that was the reason. Really.

Slowly, Cadance's sobs began to slow down as she came one step closer to acceptance. Personally, Chrysalis wondered if the pink alicorn would go through the 'anger' stage of grief at all.

What should she do now? She clearly wasn't a good shoulder to cry on. She didn't want to admit it, but she felt like she had to do something to help Cadance. After all, she'd protected her from the virus, and her husband had saved her life on several occasions.

It really was a shame she was going to have to conquer Equestria.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Fluttershy

How could she look any of them in the eyes? After what she'd let happen, how could she look any of these ponies in the eyes? Like she deserved to be among them? Like she deserved to have a room in the Crystal Palace itself, of all things?

Fluttershy laid on her bed, curled up on her side and staring blankly at a wall, the covers drawn over her and transforming her into a pony-shaped blanket. She'd placed the Element of Kindness on the floor... somewhere behind her. She didn't know. She really didn't care. Fluttershy didn't deserve to hold Kindness around her neck, not after what she'd let happen, what she'd done.

She sniffled and hid deeper under her blankets when she heard the door behind her click, open, and close with another click. Somepony's hooves clip-clopped across the floor over to her, and Fluttershy felt the bed shift when somepony sat down on it behind her.

"Hey Flutters," Rainbow said. "So, um, we've finally got a moment to just... talk. No crazy aliens running around, no following a piece of paper to the Elements, no blasting Breakers with rainbows. Uh... aw geez I was never good with this kinda stuff. She didn't hurt you, did she?"

For a little while Fluttershy didn't say anything, but eventually she summoned the courage to say, "Mmfmlfmfl."

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

She took a deep breath. "She didn't. She was... really nice about everything. She even let me, um, take care of your pets back home." She hadn't been able to find Philomena in the castle, but Fluttershy knew in her heart of hearts that the phoenix could protect herself.

A note of sharp steel entered Rainbow's voice. "She better have." Fluttershy felt a hoof rest on top of her through her blankets, comfortingly rubbing her side. "Flutters, have you had breakfast yet?"

"... no." She didn't want to admit it to anypony, but she was hungry. But she really didn't want to be a bother. Though it seemed that was all she was good for...

There was a clatter of metal, and she could hear Rainbow moving the nightstand next to her bed and resting something on it. Unable to help her curiosity, Fluttershy turned over and saw that it was a platter with some food on it. Buttered crystal rolls, a glass of milk, crystal berries, and a hayburger. They looked really good, and her mouth began to water in spite of herself.

On one hoof, Fluttershy wanted to just stay in bed forever. On the other hoof, it would be really rude to refuse the food after Rainbow had brought it all the way to her. She sat up and grabbed the hayburger in her hooves' adhesive magic, taking a tentative bite and trying to ignore the way Rainbow was staring at her. Fluttershy itched under her fur from the attention, but slowly but surely she finished her hayburger, then took a sip of milk. Then she ate the crystal berries, and the rolls, and then ended by finishing the milk.

"How was it?" Rainbow asked, still staring at Fluttershy intensely.

"Um, it was... good. Thank you, Rainbow," she whispered.

"Any time, 'shy." There was an awkward silence. "You know, if you ever feel like talking 'bout what happened while you were with her, I'm here for you."

"Twilight needs you more," Fluttershy muttered, moving back under her blankets.

Another awkward silence. It seemed those were all Fluttershy was good for. "Yeah, I guess she does. Um, happy dreams, Flutters."

"T-Thanks," she whispered. There was another click as the door closed, leaving Fluttershy alone again.

Why did they still care about her? She was a... she was a traitor. When she'd been given the chance to choose between staying with Elizabeth, and grabbing the Elements and flying, she chose Elizabeth. She comforted Greene while she was poisoned and reassured her when the alien was unsure of her own strength, unsure that she could win. She was a terrible pony, because she'd even started to agree with Elizabeth. After all, nopony who believed in their goal that strongly could be wrong, could they?

That made her think about Elizabeth, trapped and all alone, afraid and unknowing of what was to come, and that thought made Fluttershy's heart throb. What kind of friend was she? Friends didn't let friends cause the zombie apocalypse.

It didn't matter what little she'd done. It didn't matter that Fluttershy had told her Evolved friend where to put tunnels that wouldn't collapse the streets. It didn't matter that she had, with a simple suggestion, halted the infection in its tracks for an entire week. None of it did.

She could already see it now. Her friends circled around her, pointing their hooves at her, faces angry and accusing. Calling her an alien-lover, a betrayer of harmony, a follower of Discord, a traitor to the crown, a bad friend. Each imagined - and no doubt, in the future, real - insult made Fluttershy's insides clench up.

Slowly, she started to cry.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

She was cold.

There were many things she was, trapped in this cocoon, but she was certainly cold. To say nothing of the stinging numbing can't-move of the slime around her, made largely of water, the throbbing rings of pain that were pulled to her fingertips and out into the slime, and the agonizing ache through her entire being. She was weak, so very, very weak, and the changeling cocoon kept her weak. Helpless.

She could see through it. Not well, but she could could could. She was in a dark cube of a room, the only light being the harsh blue light from the eyes of four changelings, and the simmering of their horns as they cast a spell around her. Its effects were easy easy easy for her to realize.

She couldn't see through her children's eyes. She couldn't hear through their ears. She could still whisper to them and hear them whisper to her and make them happy happy happy as she could, but she was cut off from their senses. After nearly a month of being so much more than herself, of seeing through millions of eyes and listening through hundreds of thousands of ears, being reduced to herself was jarring, almost horrible even. She was all alone with her own thoughts.

Her thoughts.

Oh she had thoughts.

They had beaten her. She had lost to them. She'd brought every scrap of power she could hold to bear and it hadn't been enough. They had outmaneuvered her, stripped her defenses, and caught her. She'd... she'd lost. Once again, she had lost. To the changelings and the equines.

HOW?! How had they beat her? It shouldn't have been possible! Her family out classed them in every way! They were stronger, tougher, faster, more numerous, more motivated, happier, and more coordinated! There was absolutely no way that she should've lost so why had she lost?!

The problem had to have been within herself. It always was; she was the guiding hand behind her family so it would inevitably return to her fault. What could she have possibly done different? Where had she gone wrong?

Of course, it wasn't so simple as a matter of of of her side having certain advantages and them having others. Fights weren't simple scales where where where you stack up what each side has and see which goes lower lower lower. It was far more complicated. So much more. Somewhere, she had made a terrible mistake, and now...

This was her end. She had no delusions about that; they were going to kill her. It wasn't like Hope, her first Home, where she was locked in the Cold Dark Place, which she had circumvented with a simple Time for Waiting. It wasn't like her second Home, where her Wayward Child had Cursed her and devoured her, thrusting her into a prison of no time and no space, of no life and death, of choking silence and deafening noise. This time, she was actually going to die.

A cold cold cold orb settled in the pit of her stomach. She was going to die. The total ceasing of all her functions. Her heart would stop. Her loving warmth would cool. Her Blessing would fall still.

What would it be like to die? To actually die die? To forget everything she had ever known and experience nothing ever again. To fall into dreamless sleep and never wake up. How would the alicorn sisters do it? She didn't didn't didn't know. She wished she did know; it would make it more bearable.

The waiting was terrible. She had no no no real way of telling time beyond counting in her mind, and her restless jumping skittering thoughts made that impossible. Each minute hour minute hour minute hour ticked by in agonizing unsureness. There was no clock. Now and then the changelings swapped out with others so they could keep projecting their scrambling magic onto her family's link. If she were free of the wretched cocoon she could easily slam them into each other, tear them in half with a single blow, but she wasn't.

Her eyes focused on her fingers, drifting motionless in the slime, and she concentrated. She tried to push a web of her warmth out, to poke it into the shell and pry it apart, but nothing happened. She didn't have enough flesh to extend and even if she did she couldn't move it through water.

She might've been able to figure out a variant of her Blessing that could neutralize the slime around her, but then what? She didn't have the strength to create the modified Blessing, let alone use it.

That just left her children. She'd gathered them in Canterlot and stopped spreading her Blessing, because when she was gone they'd all all all be lost and scared and alone and she had to minimize that. Could they free her? She wasn't sure where she was, but she was very certain she was... somewhere in the Crystal Empire.

But without being able to tell exactly where they were and where she was? It was suicide. One of her Throwing Children would be just as likely to open a tunnel to let her escape as erupt from the ground and accidentally impale her. As weak as she was, that would be instantly fatal. She could not help herself. Her children could not help her. What did that leave? It left her at the mercy of the alicorns.

HOW?! How was she at the mercy of them? She was so much stronger than them! She had taken her most powerful form, effortlessly shrugging off their most powerful of attacks, ravaging their streets and armies. Why? Why hadn't she won? Was it her fate to always lose when she tried to make a perfect world? Whether it was from tiny Similars while she didn't know her own strength, or the cooperation between three deities, or the betentacled wrath of a Cursed son. It seemed it was her lot lot lot in life to forever be a failure.

She couldn't help but endlessly look back at her fight and spot a hundred thousand things she could have done better. She endlessly lamented how she went after Shining Armor, or how aggressively she had fought. She'd been so determined to hurt them and kill them she only submerged when she absolutely had to.

That'd been a mistake.

And at the time it had seemed like a good idea to flatten Shining Armor; he'd been so open and the princesses were down, so she'd deemed it a good idea to eliminate their strongest defender. She should've gone for the alicorns when she had the chance.

That'd been a mistake.

So many mistakes. But of of of course, she could only see them in hindsight. She had gambled and lost, laid low once again. And one of her enemies had been the changeling queen, yet another regenerative shapeshifter.

She should never have spread her Blessing. She never should have tried to raise her family. She should've been content living with Fluttershy and defending her from everything, ready to turn her not-so-unconquerable strength on anything that might've tried to hurt them, like that red Similar-equine thing. At least that one was dead.

But she had spread her Blessing, and now she and her family would pay. And there was nothing Elizabeth Greene could do but sit in her cocoon and wait.

She was cold.

And so very afraid.

Sorrow and Friendship, Crime and Punishment

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Fluttershy

Celestia's sun shone radiantly upon the Crystal Empire, the skies a pristine blue. There wasn't a cloud in the sky or a haze in the breeze, not even outside the Empire's magical field. The air was perfectly warm, the birds were chirping, it was a beautiful day.

There was no reason for it to be such a nice day.

The funeral for Twilight's brother was held in the cemetery behind the Opal park within the Crystal Empire, early in the morning.

It wasn't a very big funeral, but it was still notable in size. A lot more ponies attended than she had expected, but if she thought about it, it really wasn't that big of a surprise. Shining Armor had been their prince, after all, so maybe it wasn't such a big surprise that there was such a crowd. It didn't make Fluttershy any more comfortable though; all those ponies, judging her, deeming her a traitor.

The coffin was ready to be buried. There had been no wake, and the procession from the Palace to the graveyard was behind them. The sun beat down harshly despite how early it was, as if Princess Celestia had accidentally placed it on too high a setting. Twilight sat on the grass with her head low, visibly fighting back tears, Princess Cadance mimicking her to the unicorn's left while Spike sat to Twilight's right. Fluttershy sat with the girls in the row behind them, sitting at the far right of their little ensemble, Rainbow was next to her with a wing over her withers. After that came Applejack, then Rarity and then, lastly, Pinkie. A little ways to Pinkie's left, looking wholly uncomfortable among all the ponies, was the changeling queen.

Fluttershy didn't know much about what had happened after Elizabeth had sent the infected to attack. She caught glimpses here and there, and Elizabeth had told her about some of the things going on each night before Fluttershy went to bed. She knew that the changelings had come to help Equestria - is it really helping if they're stopping Elizabeth? wondered a traitorous voice in her head - and apparently they were... friendly?

She wasn't entirely sure, but either way Princess Cadance had asked for Queen Chrysalis to come, so she'd certainly missed something. It didn't make her any less afraid of the towering changeling queen, but what could she do without making a scene?

She looked down and shuffled her forelegs, which just prompted Rainbow to briefly squeeze her wing tighter. Behind them, several other crystal ponies sat in rows. Apparently the ones in the row right behind them were former friends of Shining, either members of the military or the castle staff.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stood by the coffin, the Daybringer giving a speech while Princess Luna looked over those assembled. While Celestia spoke of Shining's bravery and sacrifice, speaking only briefly about how he'd saved their own lives from Elizabeth's 'wrath', Fluttershy couldn't help but feel like Princess Luna was staring straight at her. Princess Cadance had asked them to officiate the funeral, or whatever the position was. Fluttershy didn't know; she didn't attend many pony funerals.

Time passed painfully slowly, Fluttershy trying to balance her fear of the changeling, her sorrow at Shining Armor being d-dead, and her unease at being around the him. Eventually, Princess Cadance got up and trotted next to the other alicorns, and lowered the casket into the hole that had been dug. Fluttershy bit her lip and wiped her eyes with a hoof. What was she doing here? It was her fault he was dead.

A tremor passed through her body, but she otherwise ignored it and continued to look as morose as she felt.

Once the casket was underground, Princess Cadance stepped back and a trio of crystal ponies, each bearing a spade, began to shovel in dirt from a nearby mound. Fluttershy felt herself tearing up watching it, so she looked away. She didn't want to draw any attention to herself. Not now.

Not ever.

Eventually everypony broke off into groups, talking to each other about their memories of Shining Armor. Twilight spoke with Princess Celestia, Princess Cadance with the changeling. For her part, Fluttershy just went as far away from everypony else as she could, as if maybe that way they wouldn't notice her. Of course, even when she found a relatively secluded place, Rainbow still followed after her like a bodyguard.

Knowing Rainbow, that was probably what she was doing. Loyal even to a traitor. It made her want to cry.

She sat down on a slight hill, watching everypony talk with each other. She tried not to fixate on anything, but Chrysalis's giant dark form stood out very sharply in the hyper-reflective Crystal Empire.

After all, it such was a bright and sunny day.

Rainbow Dash sat down next to her. "Hey, how're you holding up?" she asked gently.

"Okay," she whispered, trying to hide behind her mane. "I'm okay. How's, um, Twilight?"

"She's taking it hard, but she's a champ," Rainbow said. "Ya know, I don't think I ever thanked you for, well, using your Element back there."

"Hmm?" she asked, turning towards Rainbow. "When did I use my Element?"

"You didn't see it? Flutters, you totally saved our flanks! We were pinned down by the infected, we were tired, we were cut off, and then woosh! All of them drop at once, and we're all fresh as a daisy. Just in time for Greene to come. I don't wanna imagine how badly we'd have lost to that... that monster without you."

"Please don't talk about her like that," she whispered.

"What was that?"

She shook her head. "Nothing, nothing."

"Right. So anyway, yeah, you and your Element totally saved our lives." Rainbow's face fell. "Most of our lives, anyway."

"I guess," she whispered with a cringe, looking over at where Princess Cadance was openly crying, hugging the changeling queen who, in turn, stood ramrod stiff with horror on her face, eyes darting this way and that for an escape. Twilight and Princess Celestia were having a heated discussion. Or rather, Twilight was having a heated discussion while Princess Celestia maintained her calm against her student's anger and blame. She was actually almost shouting at Princess Celestia. That made another shock of fear go through Fluttershy; she's angry because her brother's dead, and it's all my fault.

Fluttershy almost caught herself leaning into Rainbow's wing, but stopped. She didn't want to act so... needy. Especially not after the events of the Outbreak. Her friends had been pushed to their limits, enduring horrors that hadn't existed... ever. And meanwhile she had been with the enemy, helping her, safe and secure in the castle.

And what about Elizabeth? Did nopony else care about her anymore? Did all of them just see her as a monster, Tartarus-bent on enslaving the world to her will? Was she the only one who remembered Elizabeth as a well-meaning mother who only wanted to end all the bad things in the world for the rest of time? Was it only Fluttershy who remembered all the fun they'd had before she started the Outbreak?

Elizabeth warily clinging to her when they'd met in Canterlot Castle, helping her convince the termites under her house to use the Everfree's trees instead. Elizabeth foalsitting the Cutie Mark Crusaders... successfully. Helping her on Nightmare Night so that for the first time in years she wasn't the holiday's laughingstock. Did all of that mean nothing to everypony else? Had they all just... forgotten it in their sorrow?

The fact that is was her fault she'd lost, her fault Elizabeth was alone and afraid in the dungeons, made it all the worse. The blame of Elizabeth's failure squarely on her withers, the fact that everypony forgot that Greene was their friend, the sheer unfairness of it all, oh it made her want to scream! But she didn't, because doing that at a funeral wouldn't be nice.

She must've started to cry again, because Rainbow held her tighter, like when they were foals and she was bullied so often. It was a bright, sunny day.

And it had only just begun.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Chrysalis

She frowned. Was this the best they could come up with on short notice? Granted, the small room, bereft of windows or any other way to see outside of it, dimly lit by a hoofful of crystals, reminded her of home, but the seats! It scraped against her chitin something awful. In the back of her mind, Chrysalis wondered if it wasn't some form of petty payback for the invasion.

The funeral had finished not that long ago; long enough for everyling to cool down, but not so long that it wasn't lunch. She opened her mouth and took in a bit of the Crystal Empire's ambient love, feeling it warm her insides as well-being surged through her limbs.

The table was snowflake obsidian, the glass-like rock reinforced with bands of iron. On the table rested several sheets of paper - a premade alliance that Celestia had teleported in from her castle, go figure - an inkwell, and a long feather quill that looked like it might've been plucked from Luna's wings. The table was a triangle, each side equal in length. Chrysalis had taken one side, Cadance another, and the alicorn sisters squeezed together uncomfortably on the third side. There was only one topic on the ponies' minds, and that was the alliance.

Chrysalis couldn't help but wonder. After all, she was ready to push Equestria beneath her hoof at a moment's notice.

"Are we all prepared to carry through with this?" Celestia asked. "There will certainly be much uprest among the remaining civilians as a result of this."

Luna scoffed. "Let them. The world has changed, and they must change along with it."

That was right, the world had changed. The ponies wanted to craft a formal alliance with her people, and turn to neutrality with the other races. The ponies wanted to form an alliance with her people. The very idea was madness, it was insanity, it...

... intrigued Chrysalis.

She would be lying if the general idea didn't at least interest her. What would an alliance with the ponies even look like? What would be the advantage of that compared to just outright conquering them?

She looked at the alicorn sisters. "I must confess, I did not truly think you were serious about this."

Luna nodded. "We art indeed serious." She sighed. "Equestria is a broken nation. We shalt pull through, surely, but the economy will fall to ruins, our ability to defend ourselves hath been limited to the Elements, which art largely all-or-nothing." Luna nodded towards Chrysalis respectfully. "Thou personally demonstrated how to counter the use of the Elements." Chrysalis smirked proudly at that. She had, hadn't she?

Luna continued. "Equestria, as it stands now, is defenseless, and there are other nations out there that would seek to do us harm, such as the Diamond Dog Beta Pack, or the cheetahs. Our current allies evidently do not care enough about our well being to be trusted, and the paperwork is already being drawn up to sever our official ties with them."

Celestia continued. "In one fell swoop, Elizabeth Greene has destroyed Equestria's status as a world power. Chrysalis, I know how odd this must sound but we..." She pursued her lips. "We need your help."

They were trusting her. They were trusting her. Not a disguise she summoned forth, the veil of hypnosis she could weave on their minds. The ponies were actually putting their faith in Chrysalis. It was just so easy. Too easy. It made her strangely ill at ease.

She glanced at Cadance, then back at the other alicorns. It wasn't even a question that they could rely on the Crystal Empire; while surely the little pink alicorn would try, her nation was just too small to be able to do much in the way of international policy. "You really want to do this," she whispered, more to herself than anyling else. "You ponies actually want to form an alliance with my people." She looked at Cadance, the pony sitting in her chair and staring at Chrysalis expectantly. "Even you?"

With a blink and a nod, she said, "I'm willing to put the past behind us if you are." Something in her chest tightened. Then there was a slight pressure inside her skull, right next to her ears.

'Your Majesty,' said Swarm Commander Mandible, successor to Polin after he'd fallen in battle to Greene herself. 'We are in position.'

She held up a holed forehoof. "Hold on a moment, I need to answer this." She allowed herself to gaze at nothingness while she focused on Mandible's message. She focused her telepathy in his 'direction'. 'Really now?'

'Yes, my Queen. We are ready to begin takeover at your command.'

She smiled. She just had to bluff her way through this meeting, pretend to want to ally with them, and once Greene was dealt with - one way or another - she could pull the rug out from under their hooves. And then she could ensure none of the other races would take her food away from her, and her people would never need to ration ever again.

As opposed to forming an alliance, where she could ensure none of the other races would take her food away from her, and her people would never need to ration ever again.

'That is... great news,' she thought to him with less enthusiasm than she would've a month ago. 'I'll think about it.'

'Pardon me for asking, Your Majesty, but what do you mean you'll think about it?'

'Exactly that! Now silence, I have other things to do at the moment than idly chat with you.'

'Idly - '

'Silence!' she shouted into his mind, brows furrowing. She returned her attention to the perplexed looking alicorns and forced herself to relax. "I am willing to give it a chance," she said truthfully. "What are your terms for this... allegiance? One at a time, if that's not too hard for you." If they said their terms first, she could argue back and have a better chance of her own terms...

... Queen Chrysalis racked her mind for what she'd want out of a hypothetical alliance with the pretty little ponies.

"We have more land than we can do anything with, now," Celestia said. "A great many of our cities simply do not have enough ponies to keep them operational; we can fit nearly all of our remaining little ponies into Canterlot."

Wasn't that true. For the first time in... ever, changelings outnumbered ponies.

Princess Celestia continued. "To say nothing of the high number of ghost towns that have simply been eradicated. I understand that the Badlands are very desolate, and Luna and I have both agreed that there would be little problem in annexing a great deal of land to your kingdom. It will all simply go to waste otherwise."

She considered that for a few moments, a hoof tapping her chin, and then shook her head. "You can keep your land, we have nothing we can use it for. The Badlands may be 'desolate' to your kind, but they're home to us." She tilted her head sideways. "My apologies, but it seems that you're just going to have to cut your losses; it'll take decades for your numbers to rebuild, decades that your cities and towns simply don't have." She narrowed her eyes. "That'll likely bring other races asking why you need all your land if you aren't using it. They'll probably try and acquire it for themselves."

Celestia and Luna shared an uneasy look. "Truth be told," the Daybringer said. "I had not thought of that." She frowned. "They'll likely be upset at us severing ties..."

"I won't let them," she said without thinking. "Your well being is somewhat important to me. If they want Equestria, they'll have to fight us for it." She smirked. "You know, for a while after we invaded the other nations thought our only real strength is in stealth, but now? Let them test their might against the only military that could slow down the infected." Sure, she'd lost a fifth of her soldiers, but that still left a respectable four hundred thousand. "If we ally, then I promise you, you will have the protection of the Unified Changeling Swarm as you rebuild your country, however long that may take." She frowned. "Wounds like these take a very long time to heal."

Even longer if they were enslaved, which meant more time where they couldn't help themselves.

Luna nodded. "We shalt be grateful for thy assistance. Needless to say, as part of this treatise thy subjects shalt be allowed to... feed, obviously considering informed consent between the two parties. However, we know not the ratio of pony-to-changeling needed to feed thy subjects."

Chrysalis searched her memory for a moment. "It depends on how much love is available, but generally we've gotten by with one harvester per fifty changelings. That's twenty thousand harvesters, with roughly fifteen ponies per harvester; easily supportable, even with your... new population."

Celestia nodded. "Seems reasonable. Also, I feel that your subjects should wear some sort of identification - "

"Absolutely not," she snapped. "My subjects will remain independent. You do not ask the zebras or the minotaurs to do such, do you?"

"Zebras and minotaurs cannot shapeshift like your species can," Celestia retaliated.

"Our power is an integral part of who we are," she near-snapped. "You may as well ask the griffons to wear tags proclaiming them carnivores."

"How about," Cadance said. "A compromise? No identification, but not impersonating anypony either."

Queen Chrysalis frowned, shocked that she was actually considering it. "We still rely on that skill to feed ourselves," she mentioned.

Cadance looked at her warmly and tiredly. "I'm willing to let however many changelings inside my Empire as you need to make up for the deficit."

Luna raised an eyebrow. "Mi Amore Cadenza, thou would let them feed directly from the Crystal Heart?"

"Oh no, not directly from the heart." The young alicorn frowned. "No telling what that would do. But Chrysalis, I've seen you feeding from its aura and it hasn't been doing anything to the Heart itself. I don't see why you couldn't have some, um, harvesters up here feeding from the crystal field."

Chrysalis smiled. "Very generous of you. That would certainly be acceptable, Princess Cadance."

They spent a good couple of hours ironing out the details. Chrysalis offered to trade them iron, much to their surprise; they didn't know the Badlands were rich in iron, since all of it was far underground. There was also the question of how criminals between their species would be punished, and the mutual agreement that anything like foreign exchange students could wait. There were some arguments, of course, such as the alicorn sisters insisting on making immigration to their side easier than hers. It didn't matter that changelings could survive both Equestria and the Badlands with ease and the ponies only one, she was not opening up that door.

... she really was considering it. She, Queen Chrysalis the Green, was actually considering allying herself and her people with their food source.

Eventually, their discussions came to a close, and Celestia finished penning up the edits to the treaty. She levitated it before herself in her golden magic. "I believe that settles everything. Just need the signatures now." There was a flourish with the quill before she gave it to Luna, who performed the same, followed by Cadance. Then the pink princess gave it to her. Chrysalis didn't sign it. She just held both the treaty and the quill in the air, staring at them, transfixed.

If she signed this, then that would make conquering them so much easier. They'd be trusting her more than if she spat the offer back in their faces, especially after two hours of debating terms. But... what precisely would she gain by going through with the invasion?

The knowledge that she'd gotten her revenge. The satisfaction that she had put the ponies beneath her hoof. Knowing that she, like all the green queens before her, would go down in changeling history. The work needed to keep the ponies safe, without the alicorns or the Elements to protect them. A way to move the sun and the moon without Celestia and Luna.

And... if she didn't? She'd forever have lost to them. Her changelings would live alongside them, with much less fear of being harmed. She would go down as the queen who brought peace. Her people would still need to protect them, but the ponies could also do something to keep themselves safe. The alicorns would continue to move the cosmic orbs. And she wouldn't feel so terribly sick about having done the other path.

The world has changed, she thought. We have to change with it. And if there's one thing we're good at...

She took a deep breath, narrowed her eyes, and focused back on Mandible. 'Swarm Commander,' she said, ignoring the increasingly worried looks the ponies were giving her. 'Call our troops back.'

'Right away, my - wait, what? My queen, did I hear that correctly?'

'You did,' she thought to him sharply. 'Keep our other soldiers in place, but anyling preparing to strike at Equestria is to stand down immediately.'

'But, then how are we conquering them?'

'We aren't.'

There was a pause. Luna asked, "Chrysalis, art thou... feeling well?"

'... my queen, let me be blunt. What is wrong with you? This has been your goal since you took the throne, and now it's being tossed right into our hooves and you're just going to... let it go?'

'Watch your tongue, subject,' she warned.

'I'm sorry Queen Chrysalis, but you and I both know that yes-lings help noling.' She bit down on her lip so hard her fangs nearly drew blood. 'What could possibly lead you to decide on this? Taking over the little ponies will give us everything we ever wanted!'

'There's nothing that performing a takeover can give us that an alliance cannot, not anymore,' she explained. 'The ponies... they're willing to grant us trade. Feeding directly from the Heart. Dual protection acts. We'd be nymphs to turn down this offer.'

There was a pause. '... are you certain, my queen? What if they betray us?'

She mentally scoffed. 'That's not the pony way, they won't do it. Call your soldiers back now, Swarm Commander. We'll have both Equestria and the Crystal Empire as feeding grounds, but not that way.'

There was an even longer pause. 'By your will, Your Majesty. I'll begin coordinating the stand-down immediately.'

'Good,' she sent to him, before returning her focus to the ponies. She took in a deep breath through her nostrils, then let out a long sigh to try and defuse the butterflies in her crop. Looking around, she saw that Cadance looked horrified, Celestia grim, and the Nightbringer's horn was shimmering with power.

"Chrysalis?" Cadance whispered shakily.

They still fear me, she thought with almost satisfaction. She shook her head. "I am fine, simply communicating with someling. Here." She signed her name with a flourish and set all the articles in the middle of the table. "There. Done," she said with finality.

The others relaxed, and Luna's horn went out. Princess Celestia gave her a tentative smile. "Thank you. For a moment I was starting to be worried."

Chrysalis murmured something under her breath. Luna rotated one of her ears in response. "Pardon?" she asked.

"You had every right to be." She sighed and looked at the assembled alicorns, a worried frown tugging at her lips no matter how hard she tried to dislodge it. "You ponies value honesty as one of your values, yes? Element of harmony and all that nonsense." They nodded. "Well then, allow me, in the spirit of our new alliance, to be honest with you. Up until recently I've been planning to, once that monster is in the ground, conquer you. I'd ambush the three of you in your sleep, or when your backs were turned, and separate the Elements." She gave in fully to the frown. "At least, until recently."

"W-What changed?" Cadance asked fearfully.

She sighed sadly. "There's just... no point in it. This alliance... it's everything we could want. We finally have it all. There is nothing we could get from a hostile takeover that you... haven't already given us." She shook her head. "I'm willing to give this a try."

Celestia nodded, her face utterly even. Despite that, Chrysalis could sense her unease and relief, the two emotions clashing against each other. "Queen Chrysalis, while it greatly unsettles me that you were planning to do us harm even after all we have been through, it is good to hear you have chosen to be honest with us over such an uncomfortable task. Though you must understand it raises the question of, what is to stop you from changing your mind a second time?"

"Pragmatism," she said. "With this alliance we get all the food we could ever need, stable and secure, and a trading partner, and an ally, and so much more. Conquering you would take much more effort than getting our kind to get along. And as much as I hate to say it, those Elements hold a lot of firepower." The two immortal alicorns crinkled their snouts and revulsion filled her emotional senses, probably at having the Elements of Harmony referred to as having firepower. "Shame to say, I couldn't fare well against Discord's type. It's good to have them around as... insurance." She licked her lips and nodded. "There's simply no reason to do it."

Celestia and Luna's wariness both faded, while Cadance's, being ever so trusting, vanished completely. "I see," Celestia said. "I suppose that we'll just have to accept that." Chrysalis could hear the undertone that Celestia would keep an eye on her. Let her; Chrysalis was still at full power and expected, with their alliance, to stay that way for a while. "Now that this discussion is done, we can carry out Greene's trial. Luna and I already have a plan as to her sentence." Oh it was so cute that Celestia had come to a decision before the trial even began. Then again, Greene's guilt was beyond all doubt.

Cadance frowned. "I don't like it, auntie. Just... leaving her there like that? What if she tunnels underground?"

"She'll encounter the same countermeasures as above ground," the Daybringer said.

"And what," Chrysalis asked harshly. "is this plan?"

Celestia got up from her seat and cantered next to Chrysalis, and began whispering in her ear. Eventually, she frowned. "Really? That's it? But what about - " More whispers. " - okay I can see your point, and how that would contain them, but what if it fails - " Even more whispers. " - oh. Ooh! How devious, I'm rubbing off on you. I still think you should kill her." Even more whispers, which prompted Chrysalis to sigh. Certainly not pout. Queens do not pout. "Fine, I can understand your perspective." She pulled away from the alicorn and left her seat.

"Well then, I won't keep you. I disagree with your choice, but it neutralizes her all the same. I shall be taking my leave."

"So soon?" Cadance asked, tilting her head ever so slightly.

"I know that Equestria and the terraformed land under your Crystal Heart seem like a paradise," she explained. "But to my kind it's just so... verdant and overgrown. I want to be underground in a sea of dark stone, the only light that which shines from my eyes. I want to go home." She smirked. "I'll keep in touch through my changelings, of course, but I haven't slept in my own bed for too long." A queen deserved to sleep in her own bed.

She stepped over a safe distance from the others and raised a forehoof, preparing to stomp it for dramatic effect. She couldn't teleport all the way to the Badlands, certainly not from the Crystal Empire, but she could at least leave the palace. "Have fun taking care of Greene."

"Alright," the pink alicorn said. "Feel free to stop by any time, Chrysalis."

She paused at the genuine offer, and her mouth upturned in a smile. "I'll keep it in mind, Cadance."

Her hoof came down with a hard stomp. There was a rush of emerald flame in a perfect circle around her, and she was gone.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

The Court of the Royal Pony Sisters was in session.

Twilight wasn't actually there to see it, but she could witness it all the same. She and her friends, with the Elements, crowded around a viewing crystal that projected the scene into the air, providing a baleful light in the poorly lit chamber; Rainbow just had to play with the illumination shards didn't she? Of course she had to.

After the funeral, and some business with the changelings that Twilight really wasn't interested in right then, Princess Celestia had found Twilight and her friends moping around lunch, and led them to a portal relay, which in turn lead to the sealed-off chamber they were currently in. In the corner of the room a crystal generator kept their coats shining and virus-free. The room was brown and the walls seemed to have been painted with airy strokes, the style of griffons. There were no windows and a faint pressure on her ears indicated they were underground. Twilight had long ago detected the presence of a carbon dioxide conversion spell on the chamber, which gave further credence to the 'secret underground room' theory.

Princess Celestia's instructions had been clear and no-nonsense; stay in the chamber until she came to collect them. Accommodations would be provided, in spite of how small the room was. Twilight would've preferred to know what the room was and why she didn't know of it, but she supposed that over her long life Princess Celestia had accumulated a lot of secrets, places she remembered that nopony else did.

The Court of the Royal Pony Sisters was not held in its usual court room, for obvious reasons. The Crystal Court was used instead, the late afternoon light streaming in through the windows and diffracting into a hundred thousand scintillating colors that danced along the walls. The Court of the Royal Pony Sisters was the absolute highest court in the land, even above the Equestrian Court. It was only ever held in the direst of cases, when the alicorn sisters decided that they themselves directly had to preside directly over a hearing. It had only been held a hoofful of times throughout history. The procedure was different from that of other courts, mainly in that the Princesses served also as the prosecutors.

It was always short. Always direct. Always swift. Always reserved for those whose guilt was beyond any doubt, who also weren't so powerful that a regular court couldn't contain them. Such circumstances were rare.

Today was time number four.

The seats were not all filled, but there were plenty of journalists, law experts, and other witnesses. A great many of them were soldiers, and a great many of the soldiers changelings. At the head of the room, both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna - wearing none of their regalia after it had been destroyed by Greene's shockwave - sat side by side. Both were grim, both crackled with arcane might even through the viewing crystal, beams of light and blotches of shadow thickening near them. More changelings clung to the walls, at the ready, and Twilight could just barely see the shimmering of protective wards around the alicorns.

Princess Luna spoke. "Let this fourth hearing of the Court of the Royal Pony Sisters commence. The accused may enter."

There was the sound of doors opening, and Elizabeth Greene entered. Just looking at the alien made every muscle in her body ache, reminding her how hard she had been pushed in the final battle against the Plague Goddess. Physically the alien looked exactly the same as before, with her skin-tight plastic suit that she'd long ago assimilated into part of her own body, her ragged orange mane, and paler-than-snow skin. Some things, however, some things different.

For one, her hands were bound in front of her, encased from the wrists down in moondust-speckled changeling slime that glowed with solar energy. Second, there was a shadowy blindfold of magic across her eyes, but that faded away even as Twilight noticed it. Elizabeth walked with slow, methodical steps, nothing like the unshakable strength and indomitable balance she'd had in the past. Back when they'd thought she was their friend.

To her left and right stood two unicorns, their horns flaring with blue and orange light respectively as they siphoned something out of the slime bands. Behind them were two changeling Imperial Guards, the only ones wearing any armor - as if it would do any good if Greene got loose - with their horns lit up, projecting twin beams into the back of the monster's head. And everypony shimmered with the protection of the Crystal Heart.

Elizabeth was lead at spear point by two pegasi, hovering above the changelings, until she stopped a fair distance from the two sisters.

Princess Celestia began. "Elizabeth Anne Greene, you are here today because you have been accused of crimes against Equestria and her people so grievous, we have had to create a new class for them." The solar alicorn paused for a moment to let that sink in. Some ponies were busy writing on boards. "To begin, I am aware of your attitude towards us. Know that the Elements of Harmony have been brought to a secure location and view this court even now through magic. Attempt to cause us harm, escape, or otherwise disrupt justice, and the Elements of Harmony will be released upon you."

So that was why the Princess had brought them there. Twilight really couldn't argue with her logic.

Celestia cleared her throat. "Elizabeth Greene, you have been charged with Beyond High Treason, conspiring not to take the thrones of Equestria, but to destroy Equestria as a body altogether. You have also been charged with High Treason, specifically three counts of attempted regicide towards myself, and two towards Princess Luna."

Princess Luna continued. "Thou hast also been accused of three hundred and four counts of bioterrorism, over five and a half million counts of violation of free will, an equal number of counts of mental enslavement and defilement of form. Thou hast viciously attacked the militaries of not only Equestria but also that of her allies, the Unified Changeling Swarm and the Crystal Empire. Thou and the victims of thy mental enslavement hath killed one hundred forty five thousand soldiers."

The Sun Goddess picked up the ball while Luna stopped to take a breath. "Three hundred and two counts of destruction of private property. Eighty five counts of destruction of public property. Four hundred and twelve counts of defacement of private property and two hundred counts of defacement of public property."

Princess Celestia's glare hardened ever so slightly, her magenta irises shrinking a tiny amount. "Furthermore, you are charged with fourteen counts of civilian murder, varying between first and second degree, of Button Bell, Trixie Lulamoon, Swift Wing, Hopper Bell, Flim, Flam, Iron Will, Orange Juice, Orange Cake, Cavern Depths, Comedic Tragedy, Angel Cake, Maud Pie - " Pinkie gasped, and Rarity shot her a worried look. " - and Photo Finish. The attempted civilian murders of Applejack, Pinkamena Diane Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity Belle, and Twilight Sparkle." She heard Fluttershy squeak behind her.

"At minimum, one hundred fifty counts of resisting arrest, including four counts of resisting arrest from royalty."

"Two counts of attempted regicide against Equestria's ally, Queen Chrysalis the Green of the Unified Changeling Swarm. One count of successful regicide against Equestria's ally, Prince Shining Armor." A tear dripped from Twilight's eyes. "Countrywide inducement of terror."

"The breaking of trust with the Royal Pathogen and Vaccine Research branch. Conspiracy to enslave and defile the forms of not only the remaining near-seven hundred thousand members of Equestria, but conspiracy to enslave and defile every member of every race on the planet."

When Luna finished that, Princess Celestia - it's her fault Shiny's dead, whispered an errant thought - shook her head ever so slightly. Elizabeth's gaze remained firmly on the ground as the Daybringer began to speak. "Elizabeth Greene, do you plead guilty or not guilty to the charges listed prior?"

There was a tense pause. Then, Greene spoke up, her rasping echoes chilling Twilight's blood even from across the magical crystal. "Done nothing wrong."

"That was not an answer to the question I asked," she said with coldness Twilight had rarely heard. She really didn't like to hear Princess Celestia using that tone of voice.

Elizabeth Greene looked up at the alicorns, her head tilted sideways. "Did them," she intoned, her voice hissing and rippling.

The only pony that had ever not confessed their guilt to Celestia and Luna had been Icy Winds, a pegasus mare whose crimes made Twilight sick to even think about. There was a mutual agreement that Elizabeth Greene had done those terrible things - she killed my brother! - and if she knew Princess Celestia, she would already have the sentence decided.

Privately, Twilight hoped that the former human burned in Tartarus for what she'd done to her family and friends. Not that she'd ever admit that.

"There is, then, an accord," Princess Luna said. "No question remains as to thy guilt. Elizabeth Greene, for the crimes thou hath committed there is but one sentence; exposure to the Elements of Harmony."

Elizabeth's head snapped up, and murmuring erupted among the assembled ponies. From where the viewing crystal was positioned Twilight couldn't see Greene, but she knew that her eyes had widened in horror. She could, after all, feel when the Elements were used on an infected. She knew what they did to infected. She knew what they'd do to her; death. If she reacted anything like the lesser infected did, then Elizabeth Greene would simply slump over dead without the virus coursing through her veins.

Princess Celestia said, "There are, however, extenuating circumstances. Namely, those you have infected and enslaved are wholly innocent, and their relation to you indicates that your exposure to the Elements would cause them great harm. As a result of your five and a half million dependents, your sentence will be lightened to as follows." Celestia took a moment to crack her neck, though Twilight couldn't hear anything from her distance. "You and all your infected will be exiled to the Island of the Abyss in the Great Sea, and sealed within by the Elements of Harmony for the rest of time. Whenever we so choose, we will come and take a sample of your blood for medicinal purposes, and you will comply. Failure to meet any of these terms will result in you being exposed to the light of Harmony."

What?! They're just letting her get away with a slap on the fetlocks?! No! No no no! She needs to be punished, she needs to be -

Twilight took a deep breath and calmed herself when she felt Pinkie put a hoof over her withers. "It's okay, Twilight. You can trust the Princesses, right?"

"Right." As much as Twilight wanted Greene to die for her crimes, that wouldn't solve anything. Nothing would actually be set right. And as horribly powerful Elizabeth Greene was, nothing was more powerful than the Elements of Harmony.

"You and your infected will never leave the island, and you will provide us with what we ask. One day, perhaps the lives saved from the medicine we get from your samples will equal the lives you have destroyed. You will have one week to move your infected to the Island of the Abyss. After that, any of your kind outside the island will be put down." Princess Celestia motioned to the guards. "Court is dismissed."

Twilight grimaced as the soldiers led Elizabeth away. Celestia rubbed her head with a hoof and Luna clapped her on the back with a wing, both of them clearly beyond caring of any witnesses to their moment of weakness. She turned to her friends, and then to Spike. "Well, I guess - "

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

" - it's time," she breathed. A week later, it was time.

The Great Sea was an enormous ocean that comprised half of the planet. The only land on it was a smattering of islands, and the Island of the Abyss was one of the closer ones. The island was tropical, and while it was closest to the Badlands it wasn't that close to anything at all. It was one of the larger islands, but still very small; only a little larger than Canterlot, in fact.

Twilight Sparkle and her fellow Bearers stood on a large cloud drifting maybe a mile away from the island. She'd provided cloudwalking to anypony who'd needed it. Idly, she touched her crystal amulet.

The six of them weren't alone; behind them stood two of Equestria's five remaining battlemages, keeping a portal to the Crystal Empire open for when they were done, reinforced with the alicorn sisters' power on the other end. Once they were done here, they could go back and begin rebuilding their lives.

Finally, she thought.

The island had been transformed over the past week. Its surface positively crawled with infected, a red miasma surrounding it. The trees that had once inhabited the island were gone, crushed. Its single mountain was mostly bare, but Twilight swore that she saw a tiny figure at the very top of it, looking at her, daring Twilight to do her worst.

Her body tingled. It was happening. In a few short minutes, the infection would officially end. Princess Celestia had helped her practice with the spell in a miniature scale, using only her own magic and not that of the Elements; a shield that also cut through to the space between spaces, preventing teleportation, and which would release a pulse of its energy once formed. But using her horn and using the Elements were totally different things, and she buzzed in nervous anticipation.

Fluttershy shuffled her hooves nervously. Rarity and Rainbow looked at each other and gave devious smirks, while Applejack and Pinkie stared forward at the island, as if waiting for a swarm of infected pegasi to attack them.

None came. Elizabeth knew she was beat.

"You know, in a way?" Twilight said, turning her head to look at her friends. "I almost feel sorry for her."

"Huh? Whaddaya mean, Twi?" Rainbow asked. "She's the bad guy!"

"Yeah, I know. She's a really bad guy, but she didn't have a choice in that. She used to be a regular human. She never asked to be infected. I don't think she ever had a choice. She's just as much a slave of the virus as the rest of them." She sighed. "Let's do this, girls."

Twilight tried to psych herself up for the Elements of Harmony as the girls got into position around her. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the influx of energy...

She was utterly unprepared. She likened it to being in a still pool and somepony started dropping giant boulders in a location, the waves crashing over her. And then there were five places where waves came from washing over her, clinging to her fur, entering her Element and surging through her body and... and...

Each and every one of her nerve endings fired. Fire and ice and pain and delight commingled and canceled out, leaving her body electrified but feeling nothing. She felt the cloud leave her hooves, but there wasn't wind lifting her. It was as if her hooves were fountains of energy, pushing her up into the air. The five surging waves of power rushed around her like a whirlwind, drawn in as if by gravity, so much magic she felt she would burst - !

Twilight could hear griffons in their empire arguing about why their government was being disloyal to Equestria. She could see Chrysalis in her underground chambers, reviewing an honest proposal to start up a joint pony-changeling border town. Twilight could feel the generous exchange of goods from ponies at the outskirts of Equestria to those who had lost everything to the infection. She saw the small acts of kindness between two zebras, one a rich prince and the other a pauper, half a world away. She heard the laughter of fawns attending a play. Twilight felt the vast eddies of magic, leylines that stretched around Equus, forming nodes around those who were friends, pooling in around her.

The Element of Magic opened its eyes, viewing the world through a ghostly white halo. Nothing was black and white, nothing was gray, but it could see a hundred million trillion gradations and knew what could be done to brighten each of them. It could feel rusty splotches of dark gray Wrong clinging to Equestria, the island, drifting through the winds around the entire world. The Element of Magic could reach out and just touch them, and the Wrong would be made Right. It knew it could, because its entire purpose was to set Right that which was Wrong.

No. The Element of Magic had to keep focused. It had a task to do and it would do that task Right. It gathered more power from its fellow Elements of Harmony and took precisely all that was needed for the task, but did not leave any deficit, because their Bearers had friendship between them and from there came all the power it ever needed to make things Right.

A shimmering, chromatic beam of Right flew out surged at the speed of light towards the island, circling it at visible speeds. The Element of Magic cocooned it in a sphere of its power, as its Bearer desired. The sphere cut through the physical realm to the space between spaces that was used to teleport. It went through stone like air, forming an identical barrier beneath the soil. Its fellow Elements knotted the cocoon of Right tighter than they had for the Demon, so that it would never unravel so long as their aspects existed.

The rainbow sphere was finished, and the Element of Magic turned its attention to the rest of the world, covered in aching splotches of Wrong, and sent its and its fellow Elements' power and Right at them, removing the areas of Wrong. The light of harmony spread further out, through the ocean, the mountains, the plains, and back to them, coasting over the quarantine sphere. Feeling its task was accomplished, the Element of Magic withdrew the beam of Right and closed its eyes -

Twilight Sparkle shook her head and groaned, getting to all fours. She felt a good, job-well-done burn under her skin, not the terrible ache there had been prior. Around her, the girls were also recovering, and the unicorn guards merely blinked hard before reinforcing the portal.

The island was encased in a hemisphere of magical power, glistening with ever-flowing rainbow colors like the sheen of a bubble. Taking a deep breath, Twilight reached a forehoof to her neck and took off the crystal amulet, her coat returning to normal.

"Twilight, are you crazy?!" Rarity asked.

"It's okay girl. There's no more of the Greene virus outside of the island." She looked at it. The small figure she thought she saw looked back. "Nor will there ever be." Turning to the portal, she started trotting. "Come on girls. Lets go home."

Behind her Fluttershy paused and raised a forehoof, looking back at the island that would forever serve as Elizabeth Greene's prison. Then she followed after them.

The Altered World

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Mercer

He crouched close to the ground, watching his targets. They were grazing, completely unaware of the second deadliest predator in the world stalking them.

Second deadliest. Ugh.

He stalked a little closer, silent as the grave. His goal was typical; he wanted to comfort them and he had no real idea why, and he wanted to know why. There was a way he could find out, he hoped. He didn't often consume animals, it was just so much more... difficult than consuming humans. His strain simply couldn't work on them as easily. Even Pariah, who made it a point to only eat animals, had trouble.

He walked out of the grass... and the herd of wild horses immediately took note of him and galloped away.

Alex Mercer brought his palm up to his forehead. "Fucking animals," he groaned. Somehow, they could always sense him, always tell he was much, much worse than a mere human. He prepared himself to give chase, it wasn't like there was anything in the animal kingdom that could outrun him, but suddenly his legs felt heavier and a sensation of weight in his guts tugged backwards.

He turned around to see Pariah looking at him cheekily, arms crossed with one brow raised, his four back tendrils limp. "Zeus."

"Pariah."

"Are you stalking... horses?"

"... so what if I am?"

"The mighty Zeus, king of the gods, the infamous Monster of Manhattan and terror of the fearless Blackwatch... is stalking wild animals."

"Is there a point to this, Pariah?" he snarled. Truth be told, Pariah's presence always unsettled him. It was just something that he did, like how Greene's presence had leaked emotions into him, or how animals could always spot him. Pariah's unfathomable power seemed to create an artificial gravity field around him which he could feel in the depths of his biomass despite the fact that it never attracted anything.

"Zeus, you know that you're completely wasting your time. What are you even doing out here?"

"I got the feeling I needed to comfort horses. I don't know why, so I'm going to consume a few."

"And how's that working out for you?" Pariah's back tendrils raised themselves, a pair on either side of him and waving slowly through the air, as if caught underwater.

"It'd be better if you hadn't shown up!" he snapped. "How did you even find me? We're in fucking Tibet!"

Pariah wiggled his fingers, and Alex felt something burn on his left shoulder. He looked over to see a black sludge rise off his leather jacket, form an open hand, and then seep back down to where he couldn't see it. "Tracking."

He bristled, red and black tendril warping throughout his body and providing the briefest glimpse at the demon that lay beneath his disguise. "Pariah... get it the hell out." It was especially unnerving that he hadn't known it was there. How had Pariah kept it hidden within Alex's own body?

"No," Pariah pouted. "I don't want to."

"Fine, then I will." Mercer formed his claws on his right hand and focused on the area the slime had dissolved in. Normally his body was immensely resilient; bullets went unnoticed, anything short of an RPG he could simply shrug off, and even tank shells hardly stung. With a focused effort, he weakened his biomass in the region, and sliced his claws through. He tossed the red biomass away and restrengthened himself.

From the red biomass a small black slime slithered out towards Pariah, who extended his lower left tendril to the ground. The slime rolled up to his tendril and seamlessly melted into it. Pariah, so much shorter than him, shook his head. "You're so confrontational. Truly though, Zeus, why does this 'feeling' bother you so much?" he asked, his top two tendrils making air quotes.

"It's my only lead on Greene," he said. "I've got nothing else!" And that was true. Elizabeth's voice was no longer among the whispers in his head, but her memories remained. Fat lot of help they were; they were impossible to interpret. Filled with a hiss that overwhelmed all noise and grainy, as if they were a video that had been poorly recorded. And there was no sign of a Redlight outbreak anywhere. There was a minor resurgence of the Black Plague in southeast Asia, but the Black Plague was a cough compared to Redlight.

It'd been two months since Elizabeth Greene's presence in him had vanished. She'd come back to life, he knew it! It was only a matter of time before she made another attempt at the zombie apocalypse, and who knew how much damage she'd do before he managed to kill her?

He didn't doubt he could kill her. Not at all. He'd done it before and he'd only grown stronger in the five years since. Then there was Pariah. While Mercer wasn't entirely sure Pariah would actually fight Greene one on one, if he did it would be absolutely one sided.

As opposed to Alex fighting nearly to his own death to take down Mother...

"You've got nothing else," Pariah said, his voice seeming to come from everywhere at once like it always did. "Because there is nothing else. I know you want to hang on to some doubt, I do. It's the safe thing to do, right? But it'd also be safe for Dana to sleep standing up so she has a smaller chance of getting hit by meteors. Zeus, there's being cautious and being paranoid." The virus, half Mercer's size, crossed his arms. "Just stop."

He snarled. The biomass along the sleeves of his jacket prickled into a spiked black mass. His left hand reformed into the pronged clamp of the whipfist while his right arm shifted below the elbow into his trademark six foot blade. "What if I don't?"

Pariah sighed excessively, his glowing purple eyes flickering. Childishly, Pariah tossed his head back. "Really, brother? That's your solution to everything? Hit it until it stops being a problem?"

"Hasn't failed," he said. It was simple. Pariah was obviously going to try and bring him back before he was done here. Solution: beat the little fucker into the ground until he couldn't. Alex Mercer dashed at Pariah, blade ready to slice into him.

As his blade came down, Pariah sank into the loose soil, melting like slop. Mercer's blade hit nothing, and Pariah was nowhere to be found. Immediately, he knelt and tensed his legs, before leaping several stories into the air.

Not a moment too soon; the ground he stood on a moment ago erupted with groundspikes, black spires fifteen feet tall with razor sharp points. Pariah's unique twist on groundspikes also gave them spiked grooves running down the side that promised anyone who avoided the impalement a laceration at minimum. Mercer evaded them all and, at the apex of his jump, spread his arms and legs out. Then he pulled them in and dove straight down like a bullet, ready to slam all his strength and mass onto the region below.

Before he could, the groundspikes flowed back together and reformed into Pariah. Pariah's left tendrils lashed outwards, lengthening, and grabbed him mid-dive. He was tossed to the side with horrific force, and before he could attack the tendrils they let go and retracted to their normal length. He found his balance instinctively and got back up, ready to go at Pariah a second time.

Pariah wasn't willing to let him. He held up his left hand and clenched a fist. Black tendrils warped around the fist, a dark smoke-like substance pouring off. As Pariah did that, something in Alex's body stiffened, wires spread throughout his body locking in place and not letting him move. He did notice, however, that it didn't have as much of a grasp on the twisted coils of his whipfist, so he instantly shot it out.

Pariah's eyed widened when the sharp claws of the whipfist approached him. Mercer's whip encountered great resistance when it hit Pariah's body, but his strength was still enough to puncture through his body and latch inside of him. He pulled his whip back...

... but Pariah wasn't the one who moved.

The smaller virus dug in his feet and it was instead Alex who flew towards him. His eyes widened as he closed in on Pariah, who formed silver daggers on the tips of his tendrils and morphed his hands into claws. Alex hastily encased himself in armor, but Pariah's claws tore through his torso regardless. The wound healed, but he had lost a terrible amount of biomass. His whipfist was suddenly free and he found himself face down on the ground, again immobilized. In his peripheral vision, Pariah streaked around to in front of him.

He clucked his tongue and dismissed his weapons. "Zeus, stop it. This is absurd. You know, Dana's worried about you." That got his attention. Dana was worried?

"Dana's worried?" he said, voicing his thoughts.

"Of course she is!" The pressure holding Alex down abated, and he leaped up. "You just up and vanished after your little 'episode', and we don't hear from you for a month! And when I finally do track you down, you're in Tibet, of all places, hunting animals instead of humans." Pariah stomped, and the ground around Alex ruptured. Before he could react, thick black tendrils reached up and coiled around his arms, waist, neck, and legs. He snarled like a caged animal and thrashed against them, but even his demonic strength couldn't overpower Pariah's constructs.

He hated to admit it, but Pariah outclassed him in every field. He had more strength in one arm than Alex did in his entire body. He took RPGs like Mercer took bullets, and could run a lap around Manhattan in the time it took Mercer to cross Central Park. And his powers! Every day, it seemed like Pariah pulled a new trick out of his ass. A crossbow. Eerily familiar balls of purple lightning. Burrowing underground. The ability to take a disguise without first consuming them. It tore at him, the very concept that he was not the toughest predator on the world was anathema, but he had no idea how to change that.

And so, Pariah held him easily. "I know you're worried about it, Zeus, but just face it!" Pariah's entire form flickered with black tendrils. His glowing purple eyes flashed into a sun-bright green. "She. Is. GONE!" He said with a roar. A conical blast erupted from the little 'kid's' mouth, a black shockwave that tore apart the tendrils holding him and piercing his armor without a care. Biomass was ripped from his body, weakening him dramatically. Alex Mercer was sent flying, head over heels, and even his prodigious balance wasn't enough to stabilize himself before he hit the ground with a thud. With a groan, his weapons and armor dissipated back into the form of their creator.

"Please, brother. Just come back with us." Mercer looked up to see Pariah looking genuinely sad. His tendrils hung limply along his back, and his violet eyes didn't glow as intensely.

Alex stood back up and spat a glob of red biomass, the virus inside deactivated. "Fine. Let's just fucking go back. I can worry about this damn urge some other time." He missed Dana. He wanted to go home to Manhattan, his hunting grounds. Back to humans, who were so much easier to consume. Back to his sister.

And besides, the feeling was gone now.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

She rolled over in her bed and got out with remarkable swiftness, yawning and stretching. She didn't really want to get out of bed, given how last night had been the first time she had slept in her own bed in a month, but there was so much to do. She had to help Spike dust the library, and then she and the girls were going to go help out Applejack on her farm, which would take up the better part of the day, and after that it was helping out anypony in town who needed it. Twilight suspected a lot of ponies would need it.

She trotted into the kitchen, where Spike had already made breakfast, and sat at the table. Her list for the day was next to her plate.

"Thanks Spike," she said, beginning to pick at the waffles. It was lucky she'd thought up a food preserving spell before leaving Ponyville to fight the infection. She really didn't want to imagine how much food had spoiled around the country.

"No problem, Twilight." He also started digging in. Meanwhile, Twilight levitated her list for the day to her, making sure to memorize the times on it. Eight to ten thirty, cleaning the library. Ten thirty to eleven, gathering up the girls. Eleven to six, helping Applejack. Six to sleep, research on medicine and disease. Of course, that was all rounding, given time for interruptions, and traveling.

Breakfast passed in silence, as did the library's cleaning. Books were still in their place, since obviously nopony had been by to check out any. Still, the entire building had acquired a fine layer of dust, and since she and Spike had only arrived home late last night, only after a good night's sleep did they have the time to clean. It went smoothly and uninterrupted; nopony came to the library even though they were open. For once, Twilight understood why. Everypony was busy.

Before too long, the library was clean. It wasn't exactly spic-and-span, but all things considered it was good, and just in time to meet up with the girls, too!

"Alright Spike," she said to him as she slipped on her saddlebags, stuffing her list into the left one. "I'm headed out, I'll be back at six. Think you can hold down the fort until then?"

He saluted. "Sure thing, Twilight. Have fun."

She grimaced and trotted to the door. "Yeah. Fun." Then she slipped outside.

The weather had been scheduled to be partly cloudy, however there was a distinct emphasis on 'partly'. Twilight could see Rainbow zipping back and forth, moving clouds into place and forming water vapor with her hooves. As she passed by her, Twilight waved at her with a forehoof, and Dash returned the gesture before zipping off, having a lot of slack to pick up with the weather team's reduced membership. Twilight headed off towards Sugarcube Corner.

As she walked, she couldn't help but let her gaze wander around, taking in all that had changed in Ponyville now that the Outbreak was past. Now that it was over, the true damage was evident. Empty, dark homes for sale at a fraction of their regular price, with no buyers coming. The Ponyville Post Office, with a help wanted sign. The Market only had a small fraction of the normal number of stands out. No carrots. No sweets shop, only pastries. Each sign, innocuous on its own, resonated deeply with Twilight. She'd known those ponies. Okay, perhaps not known them, but she'd talked with each of them on at least one occasion.

Twilight's head snapped around in surprise at seeing a spot of black. It was Mayor Mare walking and talking with a changeling. The latter held a stack of papers in their magic as the two discussed... something. She was too far away to hear, though she imagined it was regarding housing some changelings who were moving into Ponyville for food purposes.

Before too long she entered Sugarcube Corner, where the Cakes were already at work, baking fervently to make up for all the sweets that had spoiled over the duration of the Outbreak. The bell rang as she opened the door, and again when it closed behind her. The shop was empty except for Flitter sitting alone at a table, enjoying a brownie.

Mr. Cake was at the counter, and gave her a warm smile. "Good morning, Twilight."

"Good morning, I'm here to see Pinkie. Is she available?"

He nodded, his smile growing just a touch weaker. "She just got off her shift, she should be in her room right now."

"Thanks." She passed by him to the stairs and climbed them, knocking on Pinkie's door. There was a pause, and then Pinkie opened the door to her overwhelmingly pink room.

Her face brightened up into a light smile. "Oh, hi Twilight!"

She smiled softly in return. "Hi, Pinkie." Both of them drew together into a hug. It was terrible. Not the hug, that was fine. But what was terrible was that, while herself and the girls had all survived the Outbreak, all of them had lost family. Anypony who had parents beforehoof had lost them. While the Cakes, who were as good as family to Pinkie, had escaped unscathed she had lost both her parents and two of her sisters to the virus. The only exception had been her sister Maud, who'd actively fought the infection before being struck down by the Plague Goddess herself. Both Twilight and Pinkie had lost their entire families in a matter of weeks, and it was... good to have somepony who could relate to her.

Was that selfish? She was already going to get inheritance money, she... she had enough, right? Right?! Right.

They pulled away. "So Twilight, what did you need? Ooh, ooh, don't tell me. You need me to go help Applejack with her farm because she asked you last night very kindly?"

Hit the nail on the head. "That's right, Pinkie. You're free right now, right?" She nodded vigorously. "Alright, then let's head out. Rainbow should be getting everypony else."

"Okay." Just okay. No 'dokie lokie'. "Let's get going. Ooh, I almost forgot!" Pinkie zipped back into her room and zipped back out with her saddlebags on. "Can't forget to bring snacks!"

"I thought Rarity was bringing lunch?" Twilight asked with a tilt of her head.

She went crosseyed when the pink mare bopped her snout. "Snacks. Big difference, Twilight."

Twilight backed away, suddenly intimidated. "Yep, big difference!" she squeaked. "Alright, lets head out."

Pinkie nodded and bounced after Twilight. She tossed a quick farewell to the Cakes, and they were off to Sweet Apple Acres, walking through the eerily empty streets of Ponyville. Fairly soon they arrived at Applejack's home, where the orange mare was already waiting for them, along with Rarity. Applebloom was probably off at school.

Twilight briefly reflected how miraculous it was that the CMC had chosen to go on a trek to the Crystal Empire from Appleoosa when they had; if they hadn't, they would've been there when Elizabeth had snatched up the town with her virus. A lot of Ponyville's refugees had been in Appleoosa, including Big Mac and Granny Smith.

Which was a large part of why they were coming to help Applejack; she definitely couldn't look after the farm and Applebloom on her own, she'd demonstrated that much a while ago.

Now that Twilight thought about it, the farming industry as a whole had been hit particularly hard. Maybe it wouldn't hurt for her to start up a backyard garden or something...

"Howdy," Applejack said as they arrived on the porch, circling around her. "Girls, thank ya'll so much for coming ta help."

Rarity waved it off with a forehoof. "Think nothing of it, darling. We're friends, and friends help friends."

"No Rares, really. I don't know... I don't know how I can make it up to ya'll. Without... without Mac and Granny, a-and with 'bloom still in school - "

Rarity interrupted her with a hug. "Easy, Applejack, easy. You know that we're here for you; Rainbow Dash doesn't have the monopoly in loyalty, you know. I'll help you with your harvest, even if I do have to spend an extra hour scrubbing the dirt out of my coat."

"Yep! Just point us where you need us!" Pinkie piped in.

"Alright. Twi, I never was the one really lookin' at the finance books 'n all that. I know the Princesses have been comin' out with new tax laws with all the... stuff that's happened."

She nodded. Twilight could've also helped out with the field, measuring soil acidity and all that, but with the first snowfall scheduled in a week there was no point. "I'll take a look. Where are they?"

"They should be in Mac's ro - Mac's old room," she corrected morosely.

"I'll see if there's anything I can do," she said, slipping inside the house. She saw that it, too, had been dusted since Applejack had returned. Twilight had been there before; not too many times, but enough times to find Big Mac's room, empty of everything but a bed, a nightstand, and a fine layer of dust that Applejack had yet to clean off. Twilight levitated a heavy ledger to her from the nightstand and flipped it open, revealing scrawling mouthwriting of various finances and incomes that Applejack's family had done in its operation. She flipped to the current date and summoned a pot of ink and quill from her saddlebags. Then she trotted out of the room towards the dinner table, set the book down, and got to work.

Numbers and calculations came easy to her, and while there had been notable changes to the tax codes, they were few and major instead of numerous and inconsequential, so she'd already memorized them. There was a long line of undone numbers, and Twilight got set to going through it, calculating expenses and revenue that Big Macintosh and Granny Smith hadn't been able to before the evacuation of Ponyville.

Twilight let her mind wander. She tried so hard to fully wrap her mind around the sheer magnitude of the Outbreak, but she just couldn't. She knew intellectually that Equestria's population had been just over six million, but that never really made an impression on her. Even growing up in Canterlot, with its population of five hundred thousand, it seemed like more ponies than could fit in the world. Equally baffling was that almost ninety percent of those ponies were gone.

All of Canterlot was gone, which was absolutely... absolutely terrible. Ignoring the obviously very... personal effect it had on her, the brain drain Greene's enslavement of Canterlot had caused was immense. Some of ponykind's best and brightest were gone. The entrepreneurs, such as Fancy Pants, or savants such as Octavia. A vast amount of the wealth of Equestria - not bits, wealth - was simply gone, their knowledge evaporated. All their hard work had been for nothing!

She was worried about Fluttershy, too. She was taking it hard, and had all but sealed herself in her cottage the moment they returned to Ponyville. It was obvious that the pegasus felt she was largely responsible for the Outbreak - the mere idea of which made Twilight twinge in anger - but couldn't she see that wasn't the case? After she had told all of them what happened, in the week while Elizabeth moved all her infected to the island, it was obvious that they'd only won thanks to Fluttershy. First there was the massive burst of harmony magic before the final confrontation with Greene. And second was her initial delay.

Fluttershy had stopped the infection dead in its tracks for an entire week, when all they could do with Princess Celestia's blood was slow it for four days. Without Fluttershy the infected would have consumed Equestria and overrun the Crystal Empire before they even had the idea to use alicorn blood. And without the Crystal Heart, Queen Chrysalis would've been vulnerable to the infection. Elizabeth would have defeated the Princesses and turned her gaze on the rest of the world with no Alex Mercer coming to stop her.

Twilight shuddered at the mental image. Elizabeth Greene, infecting and conquering, unchecked and unrestrained. And once she'd enslaved the world... well, then it was easy to assume that nothing would happen. Forever.

And Fluttershy thought that she was to blame. And maybe she was, for some things such as not leaving Elizabeth, but what could she really do? Greene had still, after all, control over where she went by suppressing the virus.

Still, Fluttershy was tearing herself up with guilt. Maybe after helping on the farm they could go see her, instead of Twilight retiring to the library to learn about nosokinesis.

Oh, and that book of spells by none other than Starswirl the Bearded himself, courtesy of Princess Celestia. She couldn't wait to read into that one!

She continued working, knowing that outside her friends were dealing with the more physical aspects of farm work. She felt uneasy about that, as if she were getting off easy, but she knew that she was by far the most mathematically inclined out of all of them. This was where she could do the most good. Where she could best help Equestria recover.

The road before them was long and arduous, but they would endure as they always had. Not even Discord himself could keep Equestria down long. This was just another in a long line of challenges. Surely the most damaging one, but one all the same. They would recover.

They always did. It'd take decades, maybe even centuries for them to rebuild their numbers, but for now?

They'd just take it one week at a time.

Epilogue: First and Last Things

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Twilight Sparkle

Weeks turned into months, which turned into years, which turned into two decades. The specter of the Outbreak, while omnipresent, slowly faded with the turning of the seasons.

She trotted down the streets of Canterlot with Cadance by her side, both of them chatting excitedly as they headed to the train station. Their guards hung around in the shadows - out of sight, out of mind - and the few civilians around mostly dropped into bows. Despite Twilight having said multiple times they didn't need to. And that Cadance wasn't their princess.

Periodically, Twilight ruffled her wings in a half-suppressed urge to take to the skies. She'd never gotten used to Canterlot being so empty, even if a lot of ponies had moved into the empty homes and had foals that were now grown up. She'd grown up in Canterlot, and so had a very fixed image in her mind as to how it should've looked, and currently the capitol city did not match up to her mental image.

"I spy with my little eye..." Cadance said. "Something... pink."

She gave Cadance an unamused look. "Your coat?"

The pink alicorn beside her shook her head. "Nope."

"Hmm. The color in my mane?"

"No," she said with a giggle. "Guess again, silly filly!"

She looked around. "Is it... that strawberry stand?"

Cadance nodded vigorously, her mane undulating in a strange way as she did. "Yes! Your turn."

"Alright. I spy with my little eye, something that moves on tracks." Her mane flew backwards and hit her in the withers, making her blink in surprise. She shook her head and it returned to normal.

"Is it the Friendship Express?" Cadance asked.

Twilight nodded vigorously. "Yes!" Sure enough, the train station was coming up soon. The train for Ponyville was leaving soon, with the Crystal Empire's train departing for its homeland not long after. The two alicorns trotted up to the Friendship Express's royal coach. Once there, Cadance turned to Twilight.

"Sure you don't want to come with me? Chryssy's coming over today for dinner," she pleaded with a fake pout on her face. With the sun casting a shadow on Cadance's face, her ethereal mane looked really weird. Flowing hot pink with occasional slivers of blue and red flickering inside of it. It was a wild, streaming mass that rushed away from Cadance's body like a waterfall, far faster than Celestia or Luna's.

"Sorry Cadance, I already have a sleepover scheduled with the girls tonight," she said regretfully. "Maybe next time?" she said with a smile and tilt of her head, her mane wrapping itself around her neck momentarily, and then releasing it.

The other alicorn winked at her. "It's a date, Twilight. I'll send you a letter when I've got the time down." The train's whistle blew, signaling the last call. "Oh, better go catch your train, Twilight!"

"Right."

The two of them looked at each other. And then...

"Sunshine sunshine, ladybugs awake!" they chanted. "Clap your hooves and do a little shake!" They giggled, and then Twilight broke into a light gallop to catch her train. "See you later, Cadance!" The guards by the royal coach let her in without any issue. There were snacks on board, but Twilight wasn't hungry; she'd already had lunch with Celestia.

She found her seat and once she'd sat down she curled her tail around her hooves. At a loss for what to do, Princess Twilight leaned her head against the window and watched as the train began rolling down its tracks, the Equestrian countryside rolling by. And in the window itself, Twilight could see a faint reflection of herself. The image that stared back at her wasn't the one she was used to seeing. She'd long ago gotten used to the wings, but her newest features were still just a week old.

Her mane and tail had taken on the same ethereal quality all immortal alicorns shared. Celestia's flowed with all the colors of an aurora, Luna's shimmered with the night sky, and Cadance's rippled and surged with the urgency of love. Twilight's own tail and mane glistened with the shades of harmony, one color at a time. Her mane and tail would, from roots to end, fade to loyalty red, then to honesty orange, or to laughter blue, on and on. It flowed about as fast as Luna or Celestia's, maybe a touch slower. The only features that remained from her solid hair was the single streak of pink that went through it, undulating as the entire body did, and the fact that her mane still formed the familiar bangs over her elongated horn.

Immortality. The word was still unusual to her ears. She was immortal now, a member of the small group of beings who did not age: ascended alicorns, certain dragons, empowered changeling queens, and windigos. She'd regained her youthful look from two decades ago and grown to match Cadance in height, but still... she didn't feel immortal. Not at all, really. Though Twilight supposed that was to be expected.

She had a lot to look forward to, of course. An eternity of studying and researching. Centuries of making friends. The only problem was that time continued to progress at a normal pace. Or maybe not so much of a problem.

She flared her horn and shrugged off her saddlebags, pulling a book from it. Getting comfortable, she opened up Professor Hawkwings's book A Quick Synopsis of Eternity, just for some light reading. She cracked it open at the beginning and started working on the prologue.

The train chugged past steadily and rhythmically, almost lulling her to sleep as she took comfort in the familiar physics book. She tried not to think of all the things she had to do once she got back to her castle in Ponyville, but she really had no way of not thinking about it. There was the Summer Sun Celebration coming up, and while Ponyville wouldn't be hosting it this year that certainly didn't mean they weren't celebrating. She had a meeting to go to with Mayor Pumpernickel pretty much right as she got off the train, then some prisoner business. After that she had some free time before she had to hold Dusk Court, followed by going over to Rarity's house for the sleepover.

The ride went by smoothly and without event. She finished rereading her book just as the train pulled into its station. She put her book away, stretched, and then trotted out of the royal coach. She mingled in with the rest of the departing ponies as best she could, but even without her crown, torque, and horseshoes she was an alicorn with a fluttering mane that stood a head taller than most other ponies. She turned heads and made ponies bow just by being there and she hated it.

Twilight understood Celestia's pain now.

She made her way through Ponyville, which was somewhat more populated now that the generations were passing and growing up. Twilight made her way through the familiar streets towards the town square and entered -

Her mane's back end raised itself up and smacked back down right between her wings, prompting her to yelp in pain.

- and entered the town hall.

She approached the mare at the front desk, a cream-colored earth pony with heavyset glasses that looked like they were going to fall off any minute. Twilight actually found her snout twitching in an attempt to keep phantom glasses on her bridge. "Ah, Princess! The Mayor's already in his office, you're all set." She motioned towards a hallway on Twilight's left. "Down that way, first right, then fourth door on the left."

"Got it, thank you." Twilight walked along the designated path until she found the Mayor's office, and let herself in. "Mayor Pumpernickel?" she inquired.

"Ah, Princess!" the pegasus stallion said, stepping out from behind his desk. He walked up to her and raised a brown hoof. She shook it and then placed her hoof down. "Please, have a seat!"

"Don't mind if I do," she said, sitting in front of is desk while the Mayor went to his seat behind it. And then, Twilight's world became forms.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Hours later, they were done. Twilight and the Mayor stood from their respective seats and shook hooves. "Thank you for your time, Twilight," he said. "Enjoy the rest of your day."

"You too, Pumpernickel." Twilight summoned her powerful magic and, with a flash and a bang, teleported out onto the streets of Ponyville.

For a moment she cringed, expecting the typical reactions of ponies when a tall Princess appeared next to them in a violent teleport, but nothing happened. Looking around, she noticed the reason for that was because the street she appeared in was, like many, empty. Which was just as well; time for some free time. First stop was Sugarcube Corner to pick up some snacks; Spike was hitting adolescence and his appetite was soaring. Not to mention that her food consumption rate had also gone up since she'd... grown.

She entered Sugarcube Corner during its rush hour, to find Pound Cake working the counter. He looked her way when she entered. "Afternoon, Twilight!"

"You too, Pound. How's your sister?"

The smile on his face vanished. "She's got a stallion. I don't like him."

She rolled her eyes and cantered towards the displays. "Just be careful not to rough him up too - "

Twilight Sparkle didn't like being immortal. It came with a very, very big downside. Not the whole 'outlive your friends' thing. While she wasn't looking forward to that either, a few simple logical arguments could stem much of the grimness of that. No, what Twilight really hated about being an immortal alicorn...

Her ethereal tail took that moment to wrap around her hind legs, tripping her and sending Twilight muzzle first onto the ground. " - much," she squeaked.

... was the stupid mane and tail that came with it. She felt like, despite losing out on their bet, Starswirl got the last laugh.

“Um, are you okay Twilight?” Pound asked.

She got to her hooves. “Never better,” she grumbled as her tail returned to normal. “Just this stupid ethereal nonsense. Two lemon cupcakes, by the way.”

As Pound moved to get the treats he asked, “Why don't you just turn it off if it bothers you so much?”

She groaned. “I don't know how! When I asked the others how to turn it off they just looked at me as if I'd grown a second head, like 'Twilight, why would you ever want to turn it off?',” she ranted.

"Yikes, I feel so sorry for you," he said genuinely.

"Eh, I'll live." She pulled the bits out of her saddlebags and floated them over towards Pound. They traded the items, and she slipped her cupcakes into her bags. "Is Pinkie available?"

Pound nodded. "Auntie's back in the kitchen, though she's... well, I wouldn't say working, but I also wouldn't say she's slacking off. It's just..."

"If it's too much trouble I can come back later," Twilight offered.

"Oh no, Princess, it's fine. It's just... you'll see."

She nodded. "Alright." She walked behind the counter and pushed through the door that lead to Sugarcube Corner's kitchen.

Twilight Sparkle was quite proud of her achievements in life. She had stood her ground against the maddened jealousy of Nightmare Moon, navigated the unchecked havoc of Discord, and uncovered the deception of their once-enemy Queen Chrysalis. She'd faced down the crushing hatred and despair of King Sombra, sent the demon Grogar back to whence he'd came, and outsmarted the restless spirit of Starswirl the Bearded. She had ascended to alicornhood, immortality, and bitterly battled against the hordes of the Plague Goddess Elizabeth Greene.

What was inside went above and beyond all of those.

On one side of the kitchen, Pinkie was tossing various fruits together into a bowl with lightning speed, pausing every now and then to cover it in whipped cream. Meanwhile on the opposite end, Pinkie was mixing cake batter at a furious speed.

Twilight looked left. There was Pinkie.

Twilight looked right. There was Pinkie.

She went briefly cross-eyed, trying to reconcile the two images with each other. She didn't even notice her mane's brief attempt to strangle her. "Gwah?" she stammered.

"Oh hi Twilight!" shouted the Pinkie on the right. "I didn't hear you come in and I thought you'd be out longer talking with the other princesses about the whole not aging thing - looks good on you by the way - so I didn't expect you to be back welcome back by the way we've just been preparing - "

" - special chocofruitlate cake," continued the Pinkie on the left. "It's gonna be amazing! I can hardly wait to taste it but first you have to get the ingredients and put them together and bake them and wait for it to cool down - "

" - but it'll all be worth it in the end 'cause I'm throwing you a big 'Welcome back to Ponyville' party at the slumber party, and - " The Pinkie on the right gasped. "TWILIGHT! You totally haven't met my new friend Clickalack!"

The Pinkie on the left also gasped. "Oh my gosh you're right!" A whirlwind of green fire engulfed the left Pinkie, leaving behind a changeling, tall and broad as was typical of their females. Clickalack rushed forward and grabbed Twilight's left foreleg in her carapaced legs, shaking it vigorously. "It's so great to finally meet you Sparkle Twilight Princess! Pinkie's told me a-a-all about you and I can't wait to be friends with you! I'm friends with everyling back home, and I was - "

As she was introduced via vigorous hoofshake, Twilight was having horrible flashbacks to the Mirror Pool incident. When Clickalack pulled away - Twilight's hoof continued to shake empty air - and faced Pinkie, the two of them rambling about party supplies, the immortal Princess of Friendship came to a conclusion.

"Merciful sisters, there's two of them," she whispered.

Pinkie and Clickalack looked her way and together asked, "Is everything okay, Twilight?"

"Nope!"

She turned around and walked out. "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope!" She left the kitchen and passed Pound Cake.

"Twilight, what happened?"

"Nope nope nope nope!" Before anypony else could ask, she had left Sugarcube Corner and made her way over to her castle, entering it with great haste in order to get away from the horror in Sugarcube Corner. One Pinkie Pie was more than enough. She did not need a second, especially not one that could fly and do magic.

Twilight's castle, which she'd acquired shortly after banishing Grogar, wasn't nearly as large as the Crystal Palace or Canterlot Castle. It still had staff - much to her chagrin - but not so many that she couldn't befriend them. When she trotted in, a shadow immediately appeared next to her.

She didn't like calling her a 'spy' but that was essentially what she was. Officially, the shadow next to her was Twilight's Royal Dissatisfaction Searcher, tasked with finding regions where the ponies of Equestria were riled up and reporting them to her so that she could go help them. They'd known each other for twenty years now, and had a very healthy working relationship.

It didn't stop Twilight from jumping when the shadows resolved themselves into a gray-green pegasus. Her special talent was keeping things - such as herself - hidden, and Covert Confidence was as good as a changeling even with the permanent limp in her right hind leg from where she'd been struck by Elizabeth Greene.

"Afternoon, Princess."

"Afternoon, Covert. And how many times do I have to tell you to drop the title?"

"Until it stops bothering you," she said with a smile that managed to be warm and mischievous at once. "Anyways, there's been no trouble this week. Going for your usual visits to the prisoner?"

"Yes. Just thought I'd let somepony know before I took off. I'll be back before Court; if anypony asks I'm going to the island."

Covert made a big show of bowing. "Your wish is my command, Princess."

Twilight's eyeroll was hidden by her mane transforming into a blindfold. She reached up with a hoof and forced it back into position. "Great to hear, my indentured servant. Take care of yourself, okay?"

"What, do I look like a young mare to you?" she asked, showing off the gray streak in her steel-green mane.

Twilight frowned, but didn't offer any rebuttal. Instead she vanished with a flash of teleportation magic. She'd set up a sequence of teleportation markers tuned to her magical signature, a spell she'd come up with herself to make long distance travel easier. She appeared at her first marker just outside Ponyville. The next one was in the middle of Equestrian countryside. The next one was at the border with the Badlands. The next one was along the coast of the Badlands.

The next three teleportation markers left Twilight flying in the middle of the ocean, no land in sight.

The final teleportation marker brought her a mile from the coast of the Isle of the Abyss, Elizabeth Greene's jail. Twilight was taking no chances; she had learned from Nightmare Moon, Discord, Sombra, and Grogar. Every month she made it a point to visit Elizabeth Greene's prison. Twilight flew closer and landed on a little piece of land just outside the bubble. She investigated the bubble of harmonic energy for any weaknesses and found none. She cast a viral identification spell on the heavy red miasma inside the bubble and found no variations in the strain.

Elizabeth Greene's arrival on Equus wasn't all bad news. She'd nipped a potential thaumavore in the bud, inadvertantly ended hostilities between two equine nations and, perhaps most importantly, she had advanced medical magic and technology more in twenty years than they had in the previous twenty centuries. The Evolved's blood was a treasure trove of information, and since the harmonic magic only stopped her dangerous strains, all they had to do was order Elizabeth to the little outcropping, magic over a needle, and magic it back over the barrier. They always got the cure for some new disease, sometimes two, from that.

Twilight poked and prodded the barrier again with non-disruptive magical scans. It couldn't hurt to double check. Or triple check. And quadruple checking never hurt anypony, not when the monster behind the transparent rainbow shell had the power to call forth the apocalypse.

She stepped back with a shriek when a figure slammed down before her, on the other side of the barrier. The dust cleared, and resolved into the bipedal, lanky, and unimaginably powerful form of the most terrible foe she had ever faced.

She wasn't as tall as Twilight remembered.

"What?" she rasped. That haunting, echoing voice, which pulsed with the power of five and a half million minds, echoing with a thousand voices long after Greene's lips stopped moving. It was every bit as eerie as Twilight remembered.

"I'm just here for the routine checkup, you know that." She was wary, and layered many protective enchantments over herself. Elizabeth would be struck dead by the harmonic energy if she tried to cross the bubble, but it did nothing to her electricity, or shockwaves, nor did it prevent her from tossing boulders across. Twilight was not willing to test how much stronger she'd gotten since ascending, not against the one nopony could ever hope to stand against on their own.

Greene snarled at her, baring her short canines. She held up a fist and made it flicker with red and white tendrils, then zipped away out of sight. Twilight blinked as the Evolved vanished; she'd never gotten used to her impossible speed, not even after so many years around Rainbow.

But that didn't matter. The barrier was still intact, and the virus - at least the virus in the air - was unchanged. Nopony was willing to go inside, since nopony trusted Greene as far as they could throw the unnaturally heavy alien.

She knew Greene would one day escape; it was why she studied her biology through the veil even now. It was inevitable; few things were permanent and imprisonment was not one of them. The Elements of Harmony had done their best to ensure the bubble was indestructible, but everything had its weak point. It was only a matter of time before Elizabeth Greene found it and got out.

But when she did, Twilight Sparkle would be ready.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Greene

On the very tip tip tip of a mountain, in an island sealed from the rest of the world, Elizabeth watched the sunrise.

The chilling moon of Luna sank beneath beneath beneath the horizon, replaced by Celestia's personal inferno. The darkness of night was replaced, ever so slowly, by the blue of day. The sun continued on its path, blinding in its brilliance, painful to look at. The bubble of harmony magic surrounding the island continued to writhe above her head, subtly tainting the light.

Elizabeth turned around and stepped towards a ledge. She reached it and looked down, down at the island. None of her children were visible, since her Throwing Children had recently finished carving carving carving out a maze of tunnels beneath the surface for them to reside, safe from the weather above. Somewhere inside, Rarity's dress lay in a forgotten pile. Her Blessing's red mist still hung in the air, drifting lazily on the winds and streaming from the holes that lead to her underground Home. Where it touched the bubble, it vanished like it had never existed.

Elizabeth stood up and walked off the ledge, letting herself plummet. Wind whistled in her ears, and the ground closed in rapidly. She brought her hands up up up and placed her fists next to each other. Just before impact she thrust her hands down, slamming her fists onto the ground.

The shockwave burst outwards, shattering stone and filling the air with dust. She knelt as the sound of her landing bounced off the mountains, echoed throughout the island, and was absorbed by the perpetual crashing of waves waves waves. Elizabeth slowly stood, turning as she did to face the closest shore, and sprinted towards it.

In mere seconds she made the journey, shattering the ground beneath her powerful powerful powerful feet. The cocoon of harmonic energy did not completely consume the island, leaving a tiny bit of it just outside. Elizabeth walked up to it, ignoring the way the ocean made the air humid, or how the crashing waves kicked up spray that her body and suit rebelled against against against.

She held out a hand to the rainbow bubble's impossibly thin barrier. She focused, and sent a bolt of lightning from her palm to strike a random pebble outside the barrier. The green electricity went unimpeded, scorching the beach.

Elizabeth nodded. Now that her children were situated, it was time to begin looking for a way out. All prisons had had had a weakness. You just had to wait for the right opportunity.

She pulled her hand back, made a fist, and extended her index finger. Slowly and carefully, she reached out to the sealing bubble, hoping against hope that it had somehow weakened...

She pushed her finger up to the nail out, and instantly recoiled in agony. Red and white tendrils flowed over her finger, mending it and restoring her Blessing to it. The moment when her Blessing had been ripped away from it was terrifying, horrible. She'd just lost an integral part of herself, even if from such a small part, and it burned burned burned!

No, it hadn't gotten weaker. But that didn't matter. Eventually something would happen. The barrier would fade, or she'd escape, or she'd be freed, and then she'd...

... and then she'd...

... and then she'd what?

Slay the alicorns and waste no time spreading her Blessing, ripping those who opposed her apart? Hide in the background and slowly subsume them? She was so sure that this time she could do it, that this time she could truly free the world from choice. But she'd thought that the first time she tried. And the second. And the third. Really, she was so so so lucky to have survived being defeated by the equines. Would she really try her luck a fourth time? A fifth? A sixth? Seventh? How many times would she have to try until she finally succeeded?

How long would it be? Would any of the equines currently alive still be so when she escaped? She'd been on the island for twenty twenty twenty years, but looking at other imprisonments... just Nightmare Moon was one thousand years. Disregarding the eternal moment of failure and fear when her Wayward Child had Cursed her, that was over fifteen times her entire life. She was going to be on the island for a long long long time while the rest of the world moved on. It'd be like escaping the Cold Dark Place to find mountains of steel and glass around her, but so much worse. Would she... ever see Fluttershy again?

I want to see Fluttershy again, Elizabeth thought, bowing her head sadly. I - I miss her.

Her cheeks tingled and writhed with tiny red-white tentacles, trying to remove the bits of water under her eyes. It it it was just ocean spray. Really.

She missed Fluttershy. She missed her friend. She... she missed having the alicorns for friends, before they showed their true colors. She wanted that back. She wanted it back so much it hurt. Maybe she could? Maybe, when she escaped, she could just... not spread her Blessing? As much as it twisted her heart and made her rage to think of not spreading it, doing so was clearly more trouble than it was worth. She'd managed to save five and a half million equines, that had to count for something, didn't it?

Thinking of that sent another euphoric surge of love from her family washing over her. Her knees nearly buckled under the indescribable torrent of caring, but she held strong.

What if, when she escaped, she just didn't spread her Blessing? Found some other way to make the equines happy? Not to say that if someone came to her and asked for it she'd be so cruel cruel cruel as to deny them, but maybe it was time to... move on. Try something else. Adapt, evolve, and overcome. She wanted to at least try and be... be friends with them again. For once she wanted one of her plans to work out.

Amends? Make them? she pondered. We were both angry. Both said things we didn't mean.

But most likely, escape would not be coming to her. Nobody was coming to save her, she would need to save herself. What did she know?

The Harmony Elements had had had contained her in a bubble. It did nothing to most things, but immediately destroyed her Blessing, rendering it lethal to both her and her children. Simply crossing it was not an option. Maybe she could... destroy it? Her children could already feed off her love, in addition to the magic of her unicorn and changeling children.

She knew nothing about magic, but she had time to learn. A lot of time. Yes, that that that worked. She'd already transferred a fair bit of Celestia's magical knowledge to herself before the final battle in Canterlot. Originally she was going to use it to move the sun and moon once she'd killed the alicorn sisters - look how that turned turned turned out - but she could use it to study.

She smiled and laughed lightly. Elizabeth turned away from the beach and sprinted over to the middle of the island. With a thought, she called some of her unicorn children up from the depths. She was there, alone, with magic access and the Harmony Elements' unique type of magic surrounding her at all times. Elizabeth had so so so much time to study it, to learn how to unravel the bubble holding her in. Eventually, she would escape. Maybe in a year, maybe in three thousand years, but she would. Then she could find the alicorn sisters and, maybe, try 'friendship' a second time. After all, she'd tried spreading her Blessing three times before giving it up.

But if she ever wanted to escape, she had to start escaping. Once her unicorn children came up from the tunnels, she could really start. Maybe, as she had made her Warm Children, Elizabeth could could could find a way to give her children the ability to store magic, then build up magic powerful enough to break free. It was worth a shot. But first...

Elizabeth Anne Greene sat down and pulled her knees to her chest. She bowed her head, hiding her bloodstained face, and linked her hands beneath her knees.

The Time for Waiting had begun.

Author's Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed. Please do leave a comment. Even if it's just to say what you liked and not to point out an error, everything helps; knowing what works is as important as knowing what doesn't.

Thanks to devas for editing this chapter.

I do not own MLP or Prototype, Hasbro and Activision do so respectively.

And so ends my debut fimfiction story. There's certainly a lot of potential to continue, such as what happens when Greene eventually escapes, what happens with the rest of the world in the meantime, and more and more and more. But doing that risks this becoming a Neverending Story, where the conclusion happens with the Heat Death of the Universe. The story that I meant to write is done. Though I certainly wouldn't object to someone continuing it themselves, as long as they give credit. Haha, yeah fat chance of that.

Thanks to everyone who liked, favorited, commented, gave criticism to better myself, and found errors that slipped through. Thanks to GGKKDAJF for editing before devas.

As much as I and others would like to see this story continue, all things end eventually. There are other stories I want to write, one of which will be coming quite soon. I wouldn't object to anyone volunteering to edit it for me.

Thank you, one and all, for your attention these past 285k+ words. It warms my heart to see my first attempt at fimfiction so well received. See you among the interwebs!