> Friendship is Not Dead
>  by Pterry
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: The End of Days
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Twilight! Go to your friends! Only the powerful magic of your friendship can stop them!”
Twilight nodded and dashed out of the throne room, dodging toxic bolts and shadowy tendrils, leaving the other princesses to the mercy of the enemy. It was a risk, but a calculated one. If Twilight had stayed she would have been unable to put a stop to it. The rainbow magic that had defeated Tirek mere months before was now the best hope Twilight had to save Equestria, and hopefully the other princesses with it. For that, she needed her friends. Together they could stop anything; she was sure of that.
Everything had happened so quickly; Canterlot hadn't stood a chance. Loads of an unknown... something had, without warning, flooded the city. It  couldn't have happened at a worse time; Twilight was miles away from her friends in Ponyville on an important government meeting. Twilight interrupted her train of thought to leap over a tendril in her path, and resumed running and thinking.
The main vestibule was coming up; soon Twilight would be able to take wing and fly to Ponyville. Twilight reached the vestibule and realized that her plan was flawed. The door leading outside was completely shrouded in darkness. A sinister laughter filled the air, simultaneously a soft whisper and a thunderous boom so that Twilight could hear her enemy's words but not make out the voice.
“Looking for thessssse?”
Twilight's friends appeared before her, but something was terribly, terribly wrong with all of them. They were all frozen solid in stone. They looked as if caught completely unawares. Pinkie Pie was in the middle of a laugh, as if she had told a joke and found it to be much funnier than she had expected. Rainbow Dash's body was contorted in a fantastic flip. Fluttershy was looking down, smiling softly at a stone squirrel that had been unfortunate enough to be caught in whatever this petrifying magic was. Applejack and Rarity were imprisoned together; Rarity's hoof on Applejack's hat. The scowl on Applejack's face suggested that Rarity had said something none-too-flattering about the stony stetson. Even little Spike was frozen in a comfortable afternoon nap.
Twilight was beyond speechless. Through tear-blured eyes and clenched teeth she roared at the mass of black evil, rearing up on her hind legs and charging a massive blast of alicorn magic intended to punch through her foe's face. Upon landing, however, Twilight saw that her horn and wings were gone. This paired with the stony condition of her companions, the furious princess figured she knew who was behind all of this.
“Discord...” she hissed.
“Not quite,” the voice giggled.
With a loud crash, a larger statue dropped to the floor. Discord stood motionless, his face etched in a defiant snarl. He alone had been aware of the assailant.
“Then who-” Twilight began to exclaim.
The shadow took form and the voice laughed undisguised. Twilight was shocked into silence again.
“But you're in- but you don't- but you aren't-!”
“Did you really think you could just wish me away with your silly 'friendship'? That I would simply vanish away into nothingness? That you could just live your life and never see me again? I am here to avenge myself upon you! I am more powerful than ever I was when you faced me! I WILL CLAIM MY RIGHTFUL PLACE ON THE THRONE OF EQUESTRIA!”
There was a flash, then there was pain, and then there was darkness.
Twilight opened her eyes and shook her head. She was much too mobile to be made of stone. Her body ached far too much for this to be Heaven. Twilight got up, looked around, and decided that she may as well have been in Hell. Twilight was on the summit of a tall mountain overlooking Ponyville. 
No magic. 
No flight
No strength.
No friends,
No hope.
> Patriotic Duty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Friendship is dead," declared the telescreen in the Birthing Center, "Friendship is a weapon from the enemy, Sparkle, designed to overthrow our great Queen Trixie. In days past ponies spewed their disgusting friendship all over the land; this was permitted and even encouraged by the weak, old Queen Celestia. This weakness is what allowed our glorious Queen Trixie to sieze her rightful spot on the throne of Equestria. Now the enemy Twilight Sparkle wanders the land, attempting to poison the minds of our citizens with her friendship so that she can restore her mistress Celestia to power. Do not listen to her lies, good ponies! Queen Celestia is dead by her own ponies! Friendship is a tool of subversives who do not love Queen Trixie! Love Queen Trixie above all else, and the enemy Sparkle's 'friendship' is unnecessary! Have other ponies for pleasure often; you do not need more from your peers than this!"
A roll of thunder obscured the speech of the telescreen from Sweetie Belle's hearing for a moment. When the sound died down she heard that the weather was expected to remain calm for the rest of the night. She sighed to herself. This big, bulging belly felt more uncomfortable than ever before.
Eleven months previously, Sweetie Belle had gone to the Breeding Facility, as did all young mares when they came of age. The idea of motherhood was considered to be somewhat pornographic in Queen Trixie's Equestria, but this rite of passage was nothing less than every mare's patriotic duty to Queen Trixie. So in the line of patriotic duty, Sweetie Belle had been blindfolded and lost her virginity to a total stranger in a dark, dirty room. In the line of patriotic duty, she had carried the result of that event for the past eleven months. In the line of patriotic duty, she would give birth to a brand new Equestrian patriot. In the interest of never having to perform the unclean duty of motherhood ever again, Sweetie Belle would opt to be sterilized immediately after. That way she could have as many stallions has she wanted without worry, just like all good traditionalist mares did in Queen Trixie's Equestria.
"Sweetie Belle," called a machine embedded in the ceiling.
Finally, thought the white mare as she got up. She trudged over to a door, pushed it open with her head, and waddled into the birthing room. She was quite ready to drop the little burden in her belly. After that, it would be raised by the state, as all foals were.





Birthing had been less humiliating than Sweetie Belle had feared. She briefly considered changing her mind about the sterilization, but her culture demanded it. How could Sweetie Belle be a good orthodox mare if she was a freemartin? The secret police constantly monitored the population for heterodoxies. Ponies who became too different from the norm were deported from Equestria to trixie-knows-where. Besides, having the freedom to have stallions at will sounded like fun, maybe. But maybe-
Sweetie Belle's thoughts were interrupted by a cry from the doctor behind her.
"Oh sweet Trixie! This one's got all three!"
Sweetie's heart dropped into her hooves. All ponies were born with one birth defect. Some had a bony protrusion on their heads. Others had flaps of skin on their sides. Others had extra muscular tissue all over their bodies. Everypony had these birth defects removed for two reasons: Queen Trixie said that none of these extra features served any purpose, and Queen Trixie's stated mission as ruler was to make everypony equal so that nopony was better than another. Sweetie's had been removed when she was a filly. She was pretty sure it was the bony protrusion. Or was it the flaps? Wait, how does removing the defects promote equality if they don't do any-
And then she saw what she had given birth to. Just as the doctor had said, the newborn lavender foal had a bony protrusion, flaps of skin, and extra bulk from its extra muscle. Had Sweetie Belle failed in her patriotic duty? Would she be made to do it all over again? The doctors rushed the foal out of the room, leaving Sweetie Belle alone.
"Wait! What about my ster-"
"We're sorry. The Birthing Center is now closed. Please come back tomorrow to give birth to your foal. We apologize for the inconvenience," droned the machine in the ceiling. A collective groan arose from the waiting room, and Sweetie Belle's head dropped in disappointment. As she exited the building, she was certain that all the pregnant mares were glaring her, but she didn't bother to look and confirm her suspicion. It was time to go to bed.
Sweetie Belle stepped into the Canterlot night and found that it was still raining. It seemed as if the Canterlot sky was constantly raining, constantly weeping. She was used to it though. The way it made her coat matt to her hide, the way it made every step a splashy impact into liquid dirt, the way it made the night even darker.
"Are you just gonna let them take your foal?"
Sweetie Belle looked down. It was happening again. Two fillies, one a yellow muscular pony and the other an orange pony with flaps. The orange one had posed the question and was awaiting her response.
"And do what? Raise it myself? That's not my job. Besides, you know my doctor tells me not to talk to you. You're not even real."
The yellow one piped up, "If I wasn't real, could I do this?" She bumped into Sweetie Belle's leg, causing her to stumble.
"Yes," came the curt reply.
The yellow filly pouted, "Oh c'mon! You were raised by your mother! And father! And yer big  sister! How can you just walk out on yer family like that?!"
Sweetie gave her well-conditioned reply, "The family, like friendship, is a subversive tool of enemies of the state. Besides, I was raised by the state, and I never knew my mother, father, or big 'sister', whatever a 'sister' is."
The discourse was interrupted by a very real and solid filly approaching Sweetie Belle with a sad, puppy-dog look in her eye. Sweetie Belle smiled gently at her, dug around for a few bits on her person, and handed them over to the begging child. The filly beamed at the show of generosity and skittered off into the dirty Canterlot night. Sweetie Belle was forced to turn her attention back to the imaginary discussion she was having with imaginary children.
"Aw c'mon, Sweets," whined the little orange phantom filly, "Even if you don't believe us, aren't you even a little bit curious to know what happened with your baby? Even a little?"
As it happened, Sweetie Belle was curious to know just what had happened back there. Who was the father of that foal? Sweetie Belle reasoned that the Breeding Facility was on the way to her apartment, and that she might as well make a stop and ask. She reached the Facility and got the attention of the mare at the front desk.
"Uh, hello. My name is Sweetie Belle. Eleven months ago I came here, and well, as you can see, I've completed my patriotic duty. I was wondering if you had the name of the stallion I had."
The attendance mare smirked, "Lookin' ta have him again? Ya know a lot of mares do that, get with the father of their foal right after they've finished. Ya know there's nothin' wrong with that as long as ya have other stallions too. Ya know they're out there for ya, just like, uh, like..."
"Like so much meat," Sweetie Belle suggested.
The mare was caught off-guard by Sweetie's cynical comment, "Right, well, um," she pulled a paper out of a drawer in her desk and looked at it. "Oh dear."
Sweetie Belle's heart sank to her hooves again. "What? What's wrong?"
"The ink is all smudgy; I just can't tell. Sorry, sweetheart. I can't do anything for ya."





Sweetie Belle had successfully made the rest of the trip home without further acknowledging her subversive hallucinations. Her throat was thick with nerves, her coat was soaked with rain, her hooves saturated with rain, but at least the day was behind her and her warm bed was before her. Or at least, that was the plan until Sweetie was accosted by a mare in a dark cloak.
"Sweetie Belle! It is so good to see you again!" The stranger nuzzled Sweetie's neck, "It looks like you just delivered a very special foal."
Sweetie Belle roughly tossed off the stranger's embrace and shouted, "You know me? About this?! Who's the father, tell me!"
The stranger pulled back her hood, revealing a light purple face topped off by a dark purple mane with two highlights.
"Well, Sweetie Belle, I'm the father."
> She's the Father of my Child
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	In the stunned silence, a telescreen playing in one of the nearby apartments could be heard, "-with preparations for the Lula Moon Festival coming up, morale in the kingdom is high. The Lula Moon Festival is the annual celebration of the fall of Canterlot six years ago, when disorder fell to order in the form of our glorious Queen Trixie. We celebrate Queen Trixie's servitude to her ponies, symbolized by the retaining of her birth defect. Above all we celebrate the new state, and how, after a mere six years, Queen Trixie's reign is cemented politically as well as in our hearts-"
But Sweetie Belle wasn't listening to that. She couldn't even hear it over the sound of her own thoughts, which were whirling around her head at approximately a million miles per second. How was such a thing even possible? Mares couldn't father. Twilight Sparkle especially could not father Sweetie Belle's foal! Even if such a thing were possible, why Sweetie instead of some other young mare?
"You WHAT?!?!?!?" choked out Sweetie Belle.
The purple public enemy burst into a quiet fit of giggles and snorts. "Don't worry, Sweetie," she managed to wheeze out between laughs, "It's totally not gay if she's a stallion!" Twilight Sparkle fell to the floor at this, laughing so hard that tears trickled out of her eyes.
Sweetie Belle realized that her neighbors could probably hear this. She grabbed the laughing wreck by the neck and dragged her into the apartment, slamming the door behind her. Sweetie examined her disheveled visitor. Odd, the giggling heap before her seemed less like the highly intelligent subversive of Sweetie's memories- er, imagination- and more like a mentally unstable homeless mare. But eventually the laughter died down, and Twilight Sparkle tiredly got up and tossed off her cloak.
Sweetie Belle glared, "Well?"
"I'll get to that. Sweetie Belle, do you know who I am?"
"You're Twilight Sparkle, the most dangerous enemy in Equestria. You're in my apartment, so give me one good reason why I shouldn't alert the guard!"
Twilight giggled again, "Oh, Sweetie, do you have any idea how many times I've been caught? They rough me up a bit and toss me back into the street! The state needs an enemy to survive, you know." Sweetie Belle stared, not entirely convinced. "Come on, Sweetie! Don't you know who I am? Remember me? Remember how close I was with your sister? Remember Twilight Time? Remember how I taught you to use magic?"
"I never knew you," Sweetie said, suddenly even more hostile, "And I certainly never tried to learn magic! Magic is highly illegal. Now explain yourself or I'll scream."
Twilight looked crestfallen. She sighed and said, "All right. You will remember me soon, I hope, but I guess I ought to explain. Every year or so I'm able to access magic. I guess when you're as powerful as I was, not even horn removal can fix you up entirely."
Sweetie cocked an eyebrow, "'Horn' removal?"
Twilight gestured to her forehead, "A little spiraled bone that sticks out of your head and does magic for you. You used to have one, you know."
You used to have one, you know. Those words echoed around Sweetie Belle's mind, whirling around faster and faster until the world was obscured from her senses and replaced with another. A wooden world full of books, a library. A tingling on her head and a floating broomstick. A chillingly familiar voice praising her ability. This world was obscured by a sharp pain and blackness. Sweetie Belle opened her eyes and she was on the floor of her apartment, Twilight Sparkle looking concerned.
"Uh, Sweetie Belle? Are you okay? You fell down there."
Sweetie Belle quickly got up and scowled, "I'm fine. Now continue."
"Right then. As I was saying, I get a powerful burst of magic every year. The first year I used it to teleport down from my mountain prison. That caused quite the ruckus in Ponyville. The second year I wasted it on a lot of spells that conjured up chocolate. I know Pinkie Pie would've-"
Twilight caught Sweetie Belle's glare and grinned sheepishly, "Right, well two years ago I used it on a scrying spell. I only had enough magic to scour the globe for one pony, and I settled on you."
"But why me?"
"Because I knew you once had something that most ponies in this world never had. True, true friendship. Do you remember them, Sweetie? Apple Bloom and Scootaloo?"
Sweetie Belle froze like ice. Those were the names her two little hallucinations went by. She had never told anyone that, not even her doctor. There was only one way Twilight Sparkle could have known about them. What she was saying, it had to be, maybe it was, just by some small chance, the truth.
"Uh, Sweetie? I take it you recognize those names?"
"No! Continue."
"Right. Well, I knew I had to help you find them somehow."
"So you grew a dick and fucked me?!"
"Well, more or less. Last year I got a very, very powerful burst of magic. I was able to pull off a very difficult spell. A gender-bender. I know it wasn't exactly a good thing to do, but I believe I did it for a good reason. Sweetie, do you know what you've been carrying for the past eleven months? A little alicorn foal. Right there in your belly. Quite frankly, I didn't know of any other way I could a large quantity of magic inside you. Unicorn foals get strange surges of magic, and I assume alicorn foals do even moreso. You have those magical surges inside of you now. In your blood."
Sweetie Belle shook her head, "Hold on a second. Unicorn? Alicorn? What?"
Twilight smiled, "A unicorn is what you used to be. An alicorn is what your baby is."
Sweetie still didn't quite get it, but chose not to press the issue, "And just what is the purpose of putting large quantities of magic inside of me?"
Twilight's smile became conspiratory, a signal that she felt she was about to reveal a great secret, "A few months before the fall of Canterlot, I learned something. Something very valuable indeed. Magic. Is. Friendship. That lesson helped me and my friends  to save Equestria from a terrible foe called Tirek. Unfortunately, your current ruler has done almost exactly what Tirek would have done, but my lesson may still save Equestria yet."
Sweetie Belle fought down what felt like a potential panic attack, "Y-you filled me with magic and friendship so you could attack the government?! Do you have any idea what they'll do to me?! WHAT IF I DON'T WANT TO HELP YOU?!"
Twilight smirked. She put on her cloak, pulled a piece of paper from its pocket, and set the paper down.
"Ultimately, Sweetie Bell, you won't have any choice in the matter. The magic, the friendship coursing through your veins will lead you to them. Friendship is pure magic. It's the most powerful force in Equestria. You will find them."
Twilight turned to go, but a thought occurred to her. She craned her neck back and asked, "By the way, is our baby a boy or a girl?"
"I, uh, don't know."
Twilight opened the door and walked out. Sweetie Belle ran out to the doorway and shouted after her, "Hey, come back! I'll call the guard on you!"
Twilight kept on walking. If Sweetie had been closer she would have heard Twilight mutter something quietly in response: "Good. Trixie will be so glad to hear I'm in town."
> The Queen, pt 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"I am so glad to hear that Twilight Sparkle is in town," announced Trixie. "Every year, like clockwork, she comes and upsets my kingdom. But this, the sixth year, will be the last year." Trixie had been reviewing footage of Twilight Sparkle visiting a young, white mare and discussing something that was no doubt a highly subversive plot. Unfortunately, the hidden camera had been unable to pick up any sound. None of Trixie's technical experts were quite able to understand why that was, but the only sound the footage played was static. "Yes, this will be the last year."
"My queen," interjected an advisor, "What would you have us do about Sparkle and the mare she visited? We can mobilize the guard to bring the white mare in for questioning if you like."
"No," said Trixie, "Keep an eye on her, but let her be. We'll watch and see what happens."
Trixie's advisors looked uncomfortable at this command, but they didn't question the word of their queen. Trixie saw this and smirked, "The final defeat of our enemy will be spectacular. Trust me; I know a thing or two about pleasing crowds."
This reassured the advisors somewhat. Not that they stayed reassured when two captains of the guard ran into the room. "My queen," announced one of the guards, "I bring news from the border of our nation. A dark army amasses at our gates; we must reinforce the border patrol!"
Let them in, suggested a voice in Trixie's mind. Trixie stood for a minute, her face hard. Then she said, "No. Remove the border patrol entirely." A gasp filled the room. "Whatever this enemy is, we can fend it off." All the ponies in the room stared wide-eyed at her. "Trust me," soothed Trixie, "I know a thing or two about pleasing crowds. Now guards," Trixie gestured to the telescreen which still played the footage of the enemy Sparkle, "An enemy no less dangerous than Twilight Sparkle has come to Canterlot. Tell the city guard to search for her and bring her to me. In fact, redirect the border patrol to finding Sparkle too. I'm putting an end to friendship this year."





Twilight Sparkle moved through Canterlot unnoticed. Could Sweetie Belle really bring the magic of friendship back to Equestria? Almost more importantly to Twilight, if the magic of friendship was restored, would Twilight see her own friends again? Did Twilight's action actually give Sweetie Belle the magic she needed? Thinking back on it, it really was such a strange thing to do. Maybe Twilight had simply gone out of her mind and life would continue on as normal for everypony. Stupid. What a stupid, silly, perverted idea that had been. Twilight couldn't even bring herself to think the words of what she had done to poor Sweetie.  Only that it was terrible and almost certainly hadn't done anything good.
If only Twilight's friends could have been there. They would have told her that sometimes ponies make mistakes, but that shouldn't stop them from trying to do the right thing. Such a statement wasn't nearly as comforting to think about as it would have been to hear. Princess Celestia would have known how to fix Equestria; if only she had been the one left behind.
Twilight heard the rough voice of a city guard saying, "She's wearing a dark cloak. If you see this mare, report her immediately."
Twilight didn't have to be a highly intelligent subversive to figure out who the guard was talking about. Sweetie Belle must have made good on her threat to report Twilight to the guard. She quickly crawled under a bench and stayed there until the guard had passed. Seeing no further point in wearing the scratchy cloak, she tossed it aside and galloped toward the place she currently called home. Her home was an abandoned building that had, up until six years ago, been a magnificent, towering library. It was almost as high as Canterlot Castle from which the new Equestrian State was operated like so much machinery. More importantly to Twilight, the library had been her home ten years ago. Back then it had just been her, Spike, a lot of books, and the frequent visit from Princess Celestia. Now there was no Spike, no books, and certainly no Princess Celestia. It was, however, the same building, and Twilight knew of every last nook, cranny, hidden passage, crawlspace, and secret exit that the building contained. It was the perfect place for a dangerous subversive to stay while in Canterlot, and Twilight was fairly certain that neither Trixie nor anyone else pulling the strings knew that the dingy old building had once been her home.
Twilight curled up and lay down on the discolored floor, put her worries aside for the waking world, and went to sleep.





Sweetie Belle had chosen not to make good on her threat to alert the guard. It simply seemed... silly? Pointless? Wrong? Wrong. It seemed wrong. What Sweetie Belle did do was head to the bathroom and start a hot bath. She was positively filthy from trudging through the rainy Canterlot streets. But it was just as she gingerly set a hoof in the hot water that a buzzing could be heard. If Sweetie Belle had been looking out her window, she would have seen the dim moonlight reflecting off the rainclouds be totally concealed by a writhing swarm of black.
> The Queen, pt 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The queen of Equestria was sitting in a large bathtub. The water was hot and scented, a band servants stood at the side playing a delightful tune, and the sound of buzzing was growing louder and louder. To be quite honest, Trixie was starting to have a hard time hearing her servants' music.
The buzzing noise was accompanied by thunderous, running hoofsteps until the door of the royal bathroom was flung wide open by a wide-eyed guard who shouted, "My queen! The army from the border! It's already here!"
"Very astute of you, Captain," Trixie stated coolly, "Now, what are you planning to do about it?"
"I-I... Th-the border patrol isn't here yet!"
Trixie's smile was like ice, "That's fine. We don't need them. Now, I suggest you get a team of your biggest, strongest stallions out on the streets to protect our good city's property."
The guard's face made it clear that he felt that this would be an inadequate response to an army of porous, insectoid monsters. All the same, he knew better than to voice his concerns, so he walked out of the room with his queen's orders ready to be relayed to the city guard.
This, believed the guard, would be a long night.





The queen of the changeling swarm was soaring across the Canterlot sky, accompanied by a million of her children. The air was cold, the rain slid off of her smooth exoskeleton, and the ponies below her were looking out their windows and panicking. To be fair, the queen reasoned, the ponies were right to panic.
A little under eight years ago the changeling swarm had assaulted Canterlot, subdued the princesses, stopped the wielders of what had essentially been Equestria's super weapon, and gorged themselves on the love that positively flowed through the land. This had all been thwarted, however, when a young princess and her groom repelled the changelings with - of all the things - a great blast of love.
This time things would go differently. Word had reached the swarm that Equestria had undergone a regime change. There were no more princesses, no more Elements of Harmony, and no more royal weddings. The new ruler was an ordinary unicorn; there was no hope of resistance for the helpless ponies of the land. The queen and her children would feast forever.
The queen dived toward the ground, and her children followed. A sound like a great screech permeated the air and carried for miles as air was forced through billions of holes in millions of changelings. The ground shook as the swarm landed all at once. Ponies ran to and fro, dashed into their easily-broken homes, and curled up into quivering wrecks. The queen's good children subdued screaming ponies with green resin, and the queen herself stormed Canterlot Castle with her fiercest soldiers.
After the ruler of the ponies was defeated, the castle would make an excellent hive.





Twilight Sparkle awoke to the sound of chaos. Screams, crashes, roars, and a terrible buzzing noise raged outside of the former library. Twilight peeked through a boarded window and saw something horrible. Changelings. Thousands of them were rampaging through the city and terrorizing the pony folk. Twilight couldn't stand by and do nothing; it simply wasn't in her nature. So she did something.
Twilight snuck out of the old library through a secret passage that opened up in the sewers beneath the streets. She found a ladder and went up to the surface. Surveying the town, Twilight saw a small filly being gooped up by a large changeling. She decided to start there.
Twilight ran to the changeling and headbutted it. She reared up and brought her forehooves down hard on its body again and again and again. It simply wouldn't stay down; its hard exoskeleton protected it against any pain that the assault would have inflicted on a pony. Twilight felt a hard hoof strike the back of her head and went down.
Twilight's attacker sauntered over to her and opened its mouth, drawing from her a dark pink smoke into its gullet. The changeling licked its chops and shrieked, "THISSSSS ONE!"
Immediately Twilight Sparkle was set upon by a dozen changelings, all frantically feeding on her love like suckling piglets on their mother. Twilight's vision went dark. Surely this was the end. Wait, a voice. Rainbow Dash? No, this voice was rougher.
"You leave her alone!" cried a young, orange mare. A changeling was knocked off of Twilight and all the others turned to face this new challenger.
As they set upon the orange mare, Twilight realized that her savior was herself in need of saving. She got up and headbutted a changeling. The attackers looked between the mares and decided that whatever love they carried was simply not worth the trouble. If there's one thing that a predator hates, it's a fair fight.
The orange mare hugged the purple mare and squealed, "Twilight!"
Twilight shook her head and got a better look at her savior. Orange coat. Purple mane. Scars where wings had once been.
"Scootaloo! You remember me?!"
Scootaloo broke the embrace and looked puzzled, "Yeah, why wouldn't I?"
Twilight's face lit up like a Hearth's Warming fire, "Oh my gosh! You have to come with me right now!"
"But what about the," Scootaloo began. She looked around and saw dozens of unconscious changelings strewn about the streets, "...changelings?"
The air was quiet, as if every changeling in the city was unconscious on the ground. Strange.





The changeling queen charged through the great halls of Canterlot castle, beaming away all guards who came too near her and her entourage. The queen of the changelings felt as if she had scoured every inch of the castle, but the queen of the ponies was nowhere to be seen. The changeling queen was becoming somewhat displeased, to put it lightly.
"WHERE. IS. YOUR. QUEEN?!' bellowed the massive changeling.
She was answered by the appearance of a small, light blue unicorn with a silvery mane and a smirk.
"No need to shout, your highness; I'm right here."
The changeling queen leaned her head down at Trixie's face and snarled, but the smirking blue unicorn did not so much as blink.
"Give me your love," hissed the larger queen.
"All yours," cooed the smaller.
The queen of the changelings opened her fanged mouth and drew a smoke from Trixie. But when it hit her tongue, she gagged and opened her eyes. The smoke was not dark pink like love. Rather, it was sickly green hatred. Something a siren might enjoy, but poison to changelings.
"Wh-what? What is this?! Some sort of trick?!"
Trixie's smirk grew into a sneer, "I'm afraid not, your highness. You see, I've abolished love in all its forms. There is no more family, no more courtship, and especially no more friendship. Your highness, I let you in my kingdom knowing full well what you are," Trixie's speech was starting to sound awful lot like boasting at this point, "Did you think the border patrol simply fell back because they felt like it, your highness? It was a trick, and you fell for it! Your children are strewn across my city having choked on its fear! And you, your highness, find yourself at my mercy."
The changeling queen rushed to a nearby window and looked outside. There, in the light of the newly rising Sun, were the fruits of the queen's assault. Changelings were lying unconscious all across the city and fearful ponies poked around the streets.
"B-b-but why?!"
Trixie's horn glowed indigo along with the changeling queen's body, "Why, to make my ponies love me of course!"





Sweetie Belle heard a knocking at her door. Fearing that it might be one of those black monsters, Sweetie stayed hidden under her bed.
"Sweetie Belle, we need to talk."
It was that Twilight Sparkle again! Sweetie Belle was angry, very angry. She was going to look that mare in the eye and tell her what. She scrambled out from under her bed and stomped over to the door. Sweetie flung open the door, angry rant ready to go, but the words were halted at the throat.
Twilight Sparkle had a companion. An orange mare with a purple mane about the same age as Sweetie Belle. Sweetie recognized this pony as a young filly in her hallucinations. But surely...
"Scootaloo? Y-you're real?!"
"Well, uh, last time I checked I was."
Sweetie Belle was compelled to step forward. She was compelled to lift a foreleg and wrap it around Scootaloo's neck. She was compelled to rest her head on Scootaloo's shoulder. Scootaloo tossed a puzzled look at Twilight, but returned the hug.
Twilight Sparkle was positively beaming, "Well, it looks like you girls have some catching up to do." Twilight stepped away unnoticed by the two young mares who were completely immersed in old memories.
"D-do you wanna come in?" asked Sweetie Belle after a while.
"I thought you'd never ask," chuckled Scootaloo.
The two old friends stepped inside Sweetie Belle's apartment. They talked. And they talked. And they talked.
> The Merry Band of Friends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"So are you starting to remember now?"
In truth, Sweetie Belle still couldn't quite remember. She had been able to build pseudo-memories from Scootaloo's stories, in a similar manner to how one can "remember" a story from his or her early childhood based on the tales of parents and other relatives. Sweetie Belle could almost remember the bright green grass, the warmth of a summer day, the laughter of friends, but not quite. All the same, she believed the orange mare. Sweetie Belle's sense of logic had deduced that the only way for Scootaloo to have such a presence in Sweetie's mind is if the two of them had once been close. Short of that, the only thing she remembered was the short flash of memory of using magic in that wooden library.
"No."
"Aw, don't worry, Sweets, it'll come back to ya."
The conversation was cut short by a pounding on the door.
"Sweetie Belle! Sweetie Belle!" bellowed the stallion on the other side.
"Oh no," whispered Sweetie Belle, "you need to hide!"
Scootaloo dashed into the bedroom and closed the door very gently. Sweetie Belle trotted to the front door and opened it. There stood her supervisor from work, whose face went from angry to shocked to sheepish.
"Oh my gosh, Mr. Mond, I'm so sorry I haven't shown up for work yet, it's just-"
"Eh, don't worry about it kid. You look terrible. Get some rest, Belle, and just show up when you're not sick."
The stallion walked away quickly, no doubt fearful at the notion of leaving his post in the hands of some lackey for more than an hour.
Sweetie Belle closed the door. "What? I'm not sick."
Scootaloo poked her out of the bedroom and looked carefully at Sweetie's body for a moment. She giggled and said, "Yeah, but he's right about one thing. You do look terrible."
Sweetie Belle looked down at herself. She had to agree; she did look terrible. Sweetie's hooves were caked with mud, her belly was still swollen, her coat was crusty, and her tail was tangled. Sweetie's eyes were bloodshot and under those were more bags than in a grocery market. It was no wonder; Sweetie Belle had been awake for twenty-four hours, and in those twenty-four hours she had worked, trudged through a muddy Canterlot rainstorm multiple times, given birth, stayed up all night, survived a changeling attack, and had some very stressful visits from a certain public enemy number one. Sweetie Belle, at this point, realized that she was positively exhausted. She yawned loudly.
"I need to go to bed."
"Now hold on there, Sweets. I need to take you somewhere."
"Oh, come on!"
"Yeah, I know, I know, you need your beauty rest, but this is important."
"What's important?"
Scootaaloo cleared her throat and asked, "Are interested to know what I've been doing all this time?" Scootaloo beamed at her friend.
It occurred to Sweetie that she had never asked about that. Was that something friends were supposed to do? Was Sweetie Belle a bad friend?
"Um, sure."
Scootaloo stood on her back hooves and assumed a boxing stance. She gave an enthusiastic, devilish smile and threw a few air punches. With much gusto, she announced, "I've been fighting against Queen Trixie! I've been working with an underground resistance called the Merry Band of Friends! I want you to come see!" Scootaloo wobbled, her bipedal stance quite unsteady. She completely lost her balance, fell flat on her face, and sprang up into a more natural quadrupedal stance, her smile practically wide enough to fill two faces.
"The Merry Band of Friends?"
Scootaloo answered her friend by widening her already obnoxiously large grin.
"I've never heard of it."
Scootaloo's smile became an expression of scorn, "Well, that's because Trixie can't let the word get out, can't let our message resonate with the ponies!" Sweetie Belle answered her friend with a blank stare, and Scootaloo's expression became sheepish. "Well, uh, also we haven't done anything yet." Scootaloo pointed a hoof at Sweetie Belle and proclaimed, "But now you're here! Twilight said she was bringing us together to overthrow the Mare! All we gotta do is find Apple Bloom and we'll blast Trixie with some sort of awesome", Scootaloo's hoof whooshed through the air at this point, "magic like Twilight and her friends used to do!"
Sweetie Belle's blank stare continued, "The Mare?"
Scootaloo groaned and said, "You know! The establishment! The queen! She's keeping us down, sister!" Sweetie Belle's stare, amazingly, became even blanker. Scootaloo groaned once again, "Ugh. Just come on! We gotta get over to HQ!" The pair of mares had taken a few steps when a thought occurred to Scootaloo. "You know, actually, you take a bath first. We'll go later."





Trixie oversaw the project. A team of stallions pulled a very large, wooden crate with ropes. It would have been much easier to use a pallet and forklift, but everypony knew that Trixie didn't trust wheels. Trixie was sure this wasn't right.
"No, no, no, forepony, this is not what I told you to get. What I told you to get is small. This is huge."
A large stallion dropped his rope and stepped over to Trixie to explain, "Er, well, you see, your highness, we, uh, we couldn't get those gems you asked for out of the tree." A drop of nervous sweat dripped into the stallion's eye, causing him to pause and wince. He shook his head and continued, "So we just dug up the whole tree and brought it here."
Apple Bloom, rope still in her mouth, rolled her eyes at her shuddering leader. She reckoned she would have made a much better forepony. Heck, she was the only one on the team who even knew what to look for; she'd seen the gems herself before. Of course, she didn't dare mention that. Personally, Apple Bloom didn't care to be working for the mare who was probably responsible for the disappearance of her sister, but honestly, she had stopped being angry a long time ago. She simply did her job and kept her mouth shut. It was all she could do.
Trixie shook her head in annoyance and said, "Fine then. Just take it to the courtyard and plant it. Right in the center. After that, get out of my sight. I'll need to find some more competent ponies to get the Elements out for me."
The stallion made an unsure salute-like gesture and went back to his rope. Ugh, thought more than one pony, what an idiot.
An aide rushed into the hall where Trixie stood, apparently with alarming news, and cried, "My queen, I have alarming news!"
Trixie casually looked in the aide's direction, "Alarming news? Do tell Queen Trixie: just how alarming is this alarming news?"
The aide glanced around quickly, alarmed at the question regarding the alarming news, exclaimed "I-I-I-It's very alarming news!"
The queen coolly raised a hoof, inspected it, and said, "Oh my. Do tell me the alarming news."
The aide calmed herself down and stated, "Come with me and you'll share my alarm at this highly alarming news!"
The aide scampered off toward the conference room, her queen in calm, slow pursuit. The pair arrived at the door, the aide held it open for Trixie, and the queen stepped inside. "I hear there's some alarming news to be heard here, gentleponies," cooed Queen Trixie.
"Yes, my queen," a buck-toothed stallion agreed frantically, "We have alarming news, and it is truly most alarming news. Watch this." The stallion pressed a button on the telescreen, revealing the sort of news that even the outwardly calm Trixie inwardly found somewhat alarming. The screen revealed Twilight Sparkle and a young, orange mare at the door of the apartment of that same young, white mare Trixie had seen earlier. The two young mares embraced and went inside the apartment, the older mare slipping off to do evils not even Trixie could know of. The stallion pressed a button, and the screen went blank as it switched from the hallway's camera to the apartment's recorder. The stallion pressed some buttons to skip around the hours-long footage to the more important points. Trixie heard of friendship, magic, a fourth confederate in this scheme named "Apple Bloom", and a group of dissenters called the "Merry Band of Friends." 
"Hmm," started the queen, "I thought she looked familiar." The group of advisors and officials looked eagerly at Trixie for elaboration. "That mare was a Ponyvillian, a sister to one Rarity, who was a friend to none other than Twilight Sparkle." The assembled advisors and officials gasped quite dramatically, which always amused Trixie. "I believe she was always around that little orange filly and another yellow one, probably the 'Apple Bloom' we heard mentioned." The room looked to its queen for orders. "I want the 'Merry Band of Friends' located and wiped out before 'Sweetie Belle' is finished with her bath. Don't worry about the fourth conspirator; they'll meet together soon enough, and we'll have them all in one fell swoop just in time for the Lula Moon Festival." Trixie smiled. "What a memorable festival it will truly be."





"I-I don't understand," sputtered Scootaloo, tears building in her eyes, "How could this have happened? We'd never been found out before!"
Before Sweetie Belle and her distraught friend was what had once been the headquarters of the Merry Band of Friends. The building itself was a charred ruin. The ponies who inside were blackened and hopelessly confused. They wandered about aimlessly, eyes spinning and tongues babbling incoherent statements that no pony could ever hope to understand. One by one, they fell unconscious and were dragged away by the Canterlot Guard.
"Sweetie Belle," cried Scootaloo, "we have to do someth-"
"HALT." shouted a guard, "WHAT'S YOUR BUSINESS HERE?!"
Sweetie Belle's pupils shrank to pinpricks. "Run!," she screamed.
And so the two friends ran, the guard in hot pursuit.