> The Conversion Bureau: Worlds Where It Wouldn’t Work
>  by Sora2455
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> World One - Kanto
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Really, the conversion started just as it would in any other setting. Equestria popped up in the middle of an ocean and set up the horribly unfriendly Barrier to give the locals the ‘die’ to go with ‘convert or’. The world’s weather currents were messed up, machine-made objects began to degrade within the barrier, and anyone walking on two legs began to die. Then things started getting weird.

The humans had happily swallowed the lies she spun about the Barrier being ‘totally out of her control’ and ‘an unexpected consequence of their appearance’. Then they had given friendly smiles and told her that was alright, they could fix this as long as they all worked together. Explicitly including her in ‘they’.

They were all so friendly about it that she double-checked – yes, this was the race that continually enslaved the native creatures and made them fight each other.

Well, she’d taken the opportunity and offered up the idea of conversion. They had tilted their heads, and told her quite seriously that that could be plan B. Plan A was the power of friendship.

Xlestia double-checked that the Elements of Harmony were still where she had left them. Yep, still in the vaults. Oh, they meant the mundane power of friendship. Well, they could try. But unless they had far more power than she thought, that was going nowhere. Better to play the long game and let them come to her on their own.





That strategy lasted two weeks until she started hearing that the crazy weather patterns outside Equestria had started to die down.
She had immediately gone to meet the human leadership (such as it was; it was actually remarkably decentralized) and asked them how they’d done it. She struggled to mask her fury as amazement.

The group of humans positively beamed at her. “Ah, it wasn’t easy, let me tell you that! We’ve never had to manufacture TM’s in such numbers before, and giving them to trainers free of charge! Well, that went down with the corporations like a lead balloon. Still, we’ve now got the weather being what it should, at last!”

Of course. The human’s pets could do weather magic like a Pegasus could. Confound it. She’d just have to ramp it up beyond what they could cope with.





The next day, Xlestia found her grip on the weather shatter altogether. Standing on her balcony, horn aglow, she stood in amazement as the weather not only freed itself from her control, but righted itself all the way back to normal. What did this crazy world have that could shatter her magical grip?!

She heard a teleport from behind her, and whirled around to face… actually she had no idea what it was. It looked like a bipedal cat with an organic tube running from the back of its skull to the top of its spine.

It didn’t say anything, but Xlestia still somehow got the message. [Don’t try this again. Rayquaza can do much worse than undo your work.] The creature left the way it came, teleporting out.

Horse apples. She had counterparts in this world. Well… they hadn’t undone her Barrier, right? She could keep at that for now… but how about she show the humans what good conversion would do for them?





The first human to be converted was done so essentially by slipping the serum in her drink. The unicorn selling the drinks reacted in actual horror – she was ignorant of the plan – and frantically started telling the humans that the pony magic in the drink must have overloaded her magic-free human body and transformed her. The new-foal – as she called them – was brought before her immediately to see if she could revert the young girl.

Hiding a smirk, Xlestia made her horn glow, pretending to magically scan the girl. Dramatically, she gasped. “Oh no, my poor little pony! The magic has integrated itself into your very being – I fear nopony can cure you!”

Xlestia’s fake comfort speech was interrupted by a strange, enormous bug-creature flying though the open doorway. The new-foal gasped in recognition, before grabbing the thing in an awkward hug. “Butterfree?! What are you doing here? Mom’s going to be frantic without you!”

“Free!” The strange creature sang, handing the new-foal a package. Xlestia leaned over to read over the new-foal’s shoulder.

Uno, we think we’ve figured out how to revert you! In this package is a mini warp pad that will bring you straight to Bill’s place. We’ll be waiting for you!

Blinking in surprise, Xlestia was too slow to stop Uno from opening her package and engulfing herself in light. Stupid! She cursed herself as she traced the destination and followed with her own teleport.

Xlestia reappeared inside a small house packed to the rafters with strange machines. The new-foal was being hugged by a human woman (probably her mother) while a man stood adjusting a capsule off to one side.

“What is this – ahem.” Xlestia interrupted her angry roar with a cough, and resumed her facade. “What is this I hear I about being able to cure Uno?”

The man got up and brushed his knees. “Oh, I’m glad you asked! I’m Bill, I run the Storage System. See, there was this one time I accidentally turned myself into a Pokémon, and if a kid hadn’t come by my house, I would’ve been stuck that way! But then I heard about this, and I thought ‘why don’t I try and fix this with the same method’?”

He went on to explain that his device would ‘separate out the pony magic’ from Uno, and turn her back to a human shape. Xlestia listened carefully for any indication it might actually work, then gave a nod of approval. When this failed, no one would try again to –

Great balls of fire.

The capsule had opened up before Xlestia's unbelieving eye's, revealing a healthy human girl where a pony used to be.

Xlestia closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then she opened her eyes, horn blazing with power, and began to set everything ablaze.





It was a week since Xlestia had abandoned all attempts at subtlety. She was pouring all the power she had into the Barrier now, expanding it far faster than it ever had before. ‘Convert or die’ was no longer implied, it was implicit.

Whatever had stopped her weather manipulation had failed to reappear again, so Xlestia was sure that this time, nothing would stop her. 

The humans would join her pony ranks or they would die as they ran out of land to retreat to.

This time, nothing could go wrong…

“Um… princess?”

Xlestia closed her eyes, broke the connection to the Barrier, and counted backwards from one hundred.

“Yes, my little pony?” She asked in the sweetest voice she could manage.

Token Minion shuffled her feet. “Um, you know those magic pet things the humans have?”

“Yes?” Xlestia tried to see where this was going.

“Well, they’re all gathered around the outside of the barrier.” Token squeaked. All four of her knees had locked together, fearful of an angry response.

“How many?”

“Well… I think… all of them, princess.”





While ‘all of them’ might have been an exaggeration, it was true that a near-solid ring of creatures surrounded the Barrier – and that was just at ground level. Xlestia could see flying creatures dotted around the upper half of the Barrier and could feel digging creatures prodding at it from beneath. What were they up to?

[Pokémon are close to nature. This field of yours is so unnatural, we could not help ourselves but come.] Xlestia swivelled around in mid-air to find the feline creature that had contacted her before.

“And do what? Stare at it?! That Barrier represents their freedom from human oppression! Do you not see how they have mistreated you and your kind?! They trap you in tiny cages and force you to fight!” Xlestia was confused and angry, not a good combination for rational thinking, but this logic she had come up with when she first arrived.

[Pokéballs do not force their inhabitants to obey. Any Pokémon truly unhappy with their trainer will simply exit the ball and walk away. Really, the humans only use the things so that we Pokémon do not have to walk everywhere. You say they make us fight? We do that on our own… originally, humans oversaw the fights purely to make sure nobody died.] The creature too, ‘sounded’ like he was repeating logic he had decided on long ago.

[You do not truly understand, do you? It confused me too, when I was but a new born… humans are not our captors. They are not the inferior race.] Confusingly, the creature ‘sounded’ almost sad. [For a monarch who preaches about love and tolerance, you can’t grasp the fact that humans are our friends.]

Xlestia felt something in the air. It was the charge of emotion… it felt like a wilder version of the Elements, if such a thing were possible. 
Which it wasn’t. Of course not. Not between two groups with such a huge power disparity.

Instinctively, she looked more closely at the crowd of monsters. Her wings froze in mid-flap.

Spaced throughout the crowd were humans. The humans weren’t doing much, but if there was a hungry walker, a tired flyer, a desperate parent, they were there feeding, catching, reuniting. She could feel the harmony, the love that could only occur between the deepest of friends as the humans cared for the Pokémon standing before the barrier.

[If you truly want what’s best for us, this barrier must fall.] Mewtwo telepathically projected all the sincerity he was able.

Her shock had rendered Xlestia silent. 

[Very well then. Feel now the strength of our bonds!] 

As some unspoken signal, all the Pokémon started to attack the barrier. Fire, Lightning, Kinetic Force, and every other conceivable energy collided with the magical wall of doom. It was the collective power of Pokemon, but it wouldn't have made a dent without the supporting energy of humanity. The synergy of friendship shook the skies and the earth.

And then, with an ear splitting roar, the Barrier shattered. 

World One - Gotta befriend 'em all!
> World Two - Lanes Between
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unlike Equestria, Earth, or any other world Xlestia knew of, this world was divided up into hundreds of smaller worlds separated by powerful barriers. Teleporting Equestria into this mess had simply made it another world among others. That put a huge damper in Xlestia’s plans right away – converting those worlds to pony worlds could only be done case by case. Worse, she couldn't use all of the tricks she had planned out.

Still, that meant that any defense would also be done case by case; and considering the lack of overarching rule, or even communication, conquering these 'mini-worlds' should be a piece of cake. Xlestia resisted the urge to throw back her head and laugh - that was Nightmare Moon's gig. Instead she settled for an ominous smirk. Soon, all those worlds would be full of laughing, frolicking ponies all living -

"Princess?"

Xlestia hated being interrupted, but she had an image to maintain. She schooled her features, and turned away from her crystal ball to face the pony who had spoken up. "Yes, Token?"

"Uh, Princess? You're... glowing." Token Minion seemed very nervous for some reason. 

"I'm using magic, Token. Of course my horn is glowing." Xlestia really needed to up the standards in castle servants if kindergarten flunkies could get in.

"No, Princess, I mean like all of you is glowing. All glowing... black."

That comment well and truly shocked Xlestia into examining herself. She caught a glimpse of black shadows wrapped around her body like an aura before they faded away.

"What under the sun was that?!" Token Minion voiced Xlestia's own concern. "Was the Nightmare trying to get you too, princess?!"

Xlestia looked at her forehooves. What had she been doing? She had been plotting the downfall of all non-pony worlds - there. The aura of darkness returned when her thoughts of conquest did. And there was such strength in this darkness...

"I think I see what our sister saw in the power that opposes the light... hm. This world ruined my plans, but maybe it can also let me execute them some other way...." Token ran straight for the hills upon hearing that, so she missed the deep, booming laughter that spoke of suffering for those fools who opposed Xlestia...





Ponyville was completely overrun by monsters of shadow. Rainbow Dash had no idea where the critters were coming from, but the creepy black things were the most unnatural thing the weathermare had ever seen... and she'd been in the Everfree. Twilight, bless her book-obsessed soul, had called the things 'Heartless', whatever those were. She could name the things but couldn't tell them something useful, like say... how to GET RID OF THEM?

'Course,  they weren't any threat to the world's most awesome pony, but no matter how many times she zapped, smashed or bucked them, they kept coming back! Every day, there was a new variety to fight... which had become a lot harder when flying heartless had shown up!

Giving a good kick to a gargoyle-shadow-thing dispersed it, but that just let her see the black pony on the ground, surrounded by Heartless. 

"Look out!" Rainbow cried as she tackled one of the imp things. A quick tussle destroyed it, so Rainbow looked up, trying to see why the black pony wasn't running - and looked straight into the glowing yellow eyes that meant 'Heartless'.

Rainbow's pupils shrank in surprise and fear as she realized that the Pony Heartless already had reared up, ready to trample her. Her heart seemed to beat between her ears as she wondered if this was it.

Its blow was interrupted by the silver pole that pierced it straight through its chest, destroying it.

Rainbow blinked.

"Hey!" Turning, the weatherpony found a pegasus with ashen brown fur had just saved her flank. His mane was a lighter brown, but so spiky that Rainbow had to hold in a snort of amusement. "Are you okay?"

Rainbow's ego started to reinflate after her brush with Death. "What, worried those creeps hurt me? Please, they'd have to try harder than that! The name's Rainbow Dash." She added when she realized the kid was probably new around here.

"Hi there! My name's Sora." The kid - although he was closer to stallion age than foal age - replied. "So... how long have the Heartless been here?"

"Ugh, like a week or so? The Princess said we were going to go help some weird creatures call 'humans', but then the Heartless showed up and nopony's heard from her since." Rainbow explained, scowling at the Heartless visible at the other end of the road. Shouting a wordless battle-cry, Rainbow flew at the Heartless.

Sora frowned, then dashed to help her out. As he tore into the darkness made solid, Rainbow saw him wield the pole from earlier in his mouth - only now she saw that it wasn't a pole, more like a really weird sword with spokes on one end that would have looked more at home on a key than a weapon. "'er are humans 'at need 'elp?" He mouthed between swings.

"Well -pant- the princess was saying -hiya! - that there were all nasty to each other and not being - ack!"

At that last one, Sora had to hop over and help the less experienced fighter out from under the pile-up she'd ended up beneath.

"Pretty sure you don't need to be human to be nasty to one another." Sora commented, handing Rainbow a bottle. "Healing potion." He explained.

Rainbow gratefully downed the bottle.

"You don't happen to know where the Heartless are coming from, do you? Normally they need a huge source of darkness to attract them in this kinda numbers." Sora asked.

"Well..." Rainbow went over her list of known villains. Luna was fixed, Discord reformed, Chrysalis would starve, Sombra destroyed... "Me and Twilight and the others have been trying to figure this out all week. We got no clue!"

"That's 'My friends and I', Rainbow Dash."

Speak of the mare....

Walking up from the intersection was Twilight and the others (including Fluttershy, amazingly enough) with... a Griffin and a Diamond Dog?

Sora seemed to recognize the latter two. "Donald! Goofy! There you are!"

"Sora!" The unlikely pair cried in thick accents. To the ponies mild surprise, the three gave each other a great bear hug.

While the cross-species friends were catching up, Twilight trotted over to Rainbow. "Donald was saying how he and his friends are travelers who fight the Heartless a lot, so having them on the team will be a great help!"

"On what team? We've been playing defense the whole time!" Rainbow argued.

"Aw-hyuk! Well, if I was an evil conquering villain," Goofy pulled out of the hug to comment "then I'd be holed up in the biggest castle I could find!" His eyes moved meaningfully to Canterlot, perched on its mountain in the distance.

"Now hold up just one minute sugar-plum!" Applejack interrupted. "You'll not saying whoever's behind this is in Canterlot, are you? Both princesses there, and neither one would stand for this sort of commotion!"

"Quite right!" Rarity added.

"Well yeah, but... neither princess has answered my letters this whole time the Heartless have been here." Twilight pointed out, slightly downcast.

A moment of depressed silence fell on the group.

"OKAY THEN," Both Pinkie Pie and Sora started yelling, before stopping and looking at the other. Pinkie giggled, and Sora gestured for the native to go first.

"Okay then, we just have to go to Canterlot and kick the bad guy's butt, right guys? Piece of cake! And trust me, if anyone knows cake, I know cake!" Pinkie pulled the group into an awkward group hug. "Cheer up! All this doom and gloom isn't good for your heart at all. Like cholesterol!"

"But Pinkie - " 

"No buts! This is a but-free trip! The princesses are fine. Luna's probably just locked up somewhere so she can't interfere while her sister controls the heartless!" 

Twilight furrowed her brow. "Pinkie, you need to word that better. You made it sound like Celestia is behind the evil plot."

"I did? Silly me!"





Going to Canterlot was much more difficult than normal. First of all, the train schedule had been massively cut back due to all the Heartless. Second, when they were able to get a train, Heartless attacked it in waves. Donald had not been kidding when he said they attacked anything moving.

Fortunately Sora, Donald and Goofy were old hats at this sort of thing, so the Heartless attacks were more annoying then life-threatening. Which led to problem number three. The three friends had apparently met humans at some point on their journeys, and were thoroughly confused at the princess's 'rescue plan'.

"Look, humans can be nasty to each other, and sometimes they can't get along to save their lives... but they're hardly alone in that, right?" Sora argued.

"It's more than that. The princess said that they're these horrible monsters who fight each other with almost no reason!" Twilight rebutted. The other mane six members nodded, backing her up.

Sora let out a chuckle. "Have you ever met a human? Sheesh. You sure your princess wasn't talking about some other race? I know plenty of creatures like that, and yeah, some of them are human - or were, at some point - but that had nothing to do with their species. That has to do with their heart."

"But no pony has ever acted like that!" Twilight was focusing on the argument so much she missed Spike coughing *Nightmare moon* and *Sombra* under his breath. "If other races can't avoid the darkness, wouldn't it be better for everyone to be ponies?"

"Hey!" Spike cried.

Twilight spared an apologetic look for her number one assistant. "Sorry Spike. But you're practically an honorary pony anyway!'

"Now see, I know you meant that as a complement, but I enjoy being a dragon, thank you very much. Dragons are cool." Spike grumbled.

"Look, Twilight." Sora put a hoof on her shoulder. "I know you just want to make everyone happy. But forcing change upon people just leads to them opposing your change, and then where are you? If you want to change someone, you need to help them, not force them. You'd be surprised what a few friends can do for someone."

Twilight remembered a pony who refused a party invitation because she was wrapped up reading thousand-year old prophecies, and compared that to herself now. She remembered a chaos-causing mischief-maker, and how Fluttershy had changed him.

She recalled all the reports she had sent to the princess about the power and nature of friendship.

"Yeah, I guess I would." She admitted.





If the girls had thought Ponyville was bad, they were gobsmacked at Canterlot. You really couldn't walk though the streets without tripping over Heartless. Worse, they couldn't find any of the actual inhabitants; just the Pony Heartless. They tried hard not to think about what that meant. The citizens had probably just evacuated... right?

Sora, Donald and Goofy surprised the ponies with how they tore though the Heartless, Donald especially with how he was using a magic staff clutched in his claws. They didn't know griffins could use magic.

The native ponies weren't slaking off either - Applejack was bucking as hard as ever while Rainbow harassed the Heartless with hit-and-run strikes. Rarity was using her Unicorn TK to tangle the smaller Heartless in cloth for the others to get, and Twilight was casting spells left, right and center; with Spike on her back dragon-flaming any Heartless that got too close. Pinkie Pie kept popping up in clusters of Heartless, blowing raspberries, and vanishing again just in time for the Heartless to pumble each other.

Fluttershy, bless her, had tried to get the Heartless to back off back in Ponyville - and found out the hard way that Heartless can't feel guilt. So instead, she stayed in the middle of the group, handing out the newcomer's stock of healing and magic-restore potions when needed.

Thus the group made its way to the royal palace.

"So, straight to the throne room?" Sora asked.

"Hang on." Twilight opened up her saddlebags. "Girls, we'll be needing these."





Armed with the Elements of Harmony, everyone entered the throne room ready to blast whoever had taken out the princess.

Instead they found Xlestia waiting for them.

"Princess? You're okay?" Twilight was ecstatic. Opinions on Humans aside, her mentor always knew what to do.

Then the shadows curled up around Xlestia's form, as she almost purred at seeing her student. "Oh Twilight, I have never been better!"

"I think we found our black heart." Sora quipped, summoning his Keyblade into his mouth.

"What? But - How? When? WHY?!" Twilight was screaming, and she didn't care.

"Well, y'know how some people say the ends justify the means?" Donald raised his staff up. "That's where that kinda thinking ends up."

"Really, the problem wasn't that the people weren't ponies... the problem was that the people weren't ruled by ME!" Xlestia cried, the shadows forming into armor eerily familiar to the main six. "Soon, I shall rule all the worlds... as Nightmare Sun!"

Then she stopped and rubbed her chin. "No, no... it just doesn't have the same ring to it. What do you girls think? Scorching Sun? Unbearable Heat?"

Her head snapped back as Sora threw his Keyblade into her face.

"Agh!" Xlestia cried in pain. She'd been ignoring the brat and his friends in favor of the EoH, but that was clearly a mistake. Whatever his weapon was, it could hurt her though her Shadow Armor.

Sora summoned his Keyblade back to his mouth from where he'd thrown it. "It 'osen't 'atter, 'cause we'll stop ya!"

"Princess, something mighty strange has come over ya... but don't worry! We'll get that darkness offa ya, just like we did your sister!" Applejack backed Sora up. She gripped Twilight by her shoulders and gave her a little shake. "We'll have your teach back to normal before you can say- whoa nellie!"

Heartless had slipped from the shadows from all sides of the room, surrounding the girls. Not for the first time, Twilight wished she'd left Spike somewhere safe - but with Heartless everywhere, not even her tree-house was really safe. Still he was doing great at keeping the Heartless at range where she could use her spells the best.

Of course, the situation was back-to-front. The Heartless had surrounded the Element Bearers, preventing them from actually using the elements - they were single target only. That had left the three out-of-townees to hold off the darkness-possessed sun-princess by themselves - and while they might be able to defeat her; the goal was to purify her, not beat her up.

To Xlestia's surprise, Sora grabbed Goofy by the scruff of the neck, flapped his wings twice, and then threw his friend straight at the Heartless hordes. To her greater surprise, Goofy flew forwards like he was strapped to a rocket, sweeping back and forth and swashing them with his shield, dealing huge damage to the Heartless.

"What was that?" Rarity demanded, trying to entangle a Neoshadow in cloth while also trying not to reflexively dress it up.

"Oh, ya'mean Knocksmash? That's a Limit I have with Sora - do y'know what a Limit is?" Goofy answered, having finished his seemingly-rocket-powered flight and trying to fight his way back to Sora and Donald. Upon seeing shaken heads, he explained "Basically, you take the love and trust for your friends, and throw a bunch of magic into it! Real helpful in messes like this!"

Normally a spellcaster would need some time and practice before even thinking of trying a technique they heard in passing, but normally such a spellcaster wasn't Twilight Sparkle, extremely talented mage and lead element of harmony. She had done 'friendship magic' before, but from what Goofy said, if she shoved magic back down her bonds of friendship rather than let the power come to her...

All six ponies and dragon immediately stopped what they were doing. Spike breathed green flames straight up, which formed a dome around the friends - something he could never do normally. Then, the flames cleared - revealing the Mane Six facing inward, forming a circle. Without the slightest care for their surroundings, the friends began to dance. First they pranced from side-to-side, then as the Heartless closed in, they all kicked out simultaneously, doing far more damage than such a kick would normally do. 

It was some kind of weird barn dance, but where the kicks killed monsters. After five kicks, the girls collapsed in a pile giggling, while fireworks exploded in the face of the Heartless.

Still in the pile, Rarity groaned. "Twilight, dear, warn a pony before you do that again..."

Xlestia looked over from where she was trying to cook herself some Griffin with flames of Darkness. To her anger, all the Heartless she had set on the Mane Six had been destroyed. She reared up, ready to summon more, before Goofy managed to shield-bash her in her exposed underbelly, interrupting her.

"Now, everypony!" Twilight cried, tiara aglow. At her cry, her friends got into position and lent their strength to Twilight. The familiar rainbow light formed, charging into Xlestia.

"NO!" The darkness covered alicorn cried, summoning a wall of darkness to block the rainbow light. It worked, but the Elements continued pouring the Magic of Friendship into the Darkness as fast as Xlestia could summon it.

Watching the lightshow, Sora whistled. Then he grinned, and pointed his Keyblade into the rainbow light. A white beam shot from the magic weapon, spinning around the friendship beam to slam into the darkness wall with an audible 'click'.

The wall of Darkness shattered, and Xlestia screamed as the magic enveloped her.

Everyone in the room blinked to clear their eyes of the bright flash, then again to make sure they were working right.

"Twilight, did you mess the settings up on that thing?" Pinkie Pie asked, confused.

Frozen, the statue of Xlestia continued to hold up an angry hoof of evil denied.





World Two – Let our Hearts be filled with friendship!
> World Suggestions One
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Terminator

Xlestia rubbed her forehoves with glee. Soon, she would establish the Barrier she had planned out, which would counter the human technology easily. Conquering this desolate wasteland would be - 

"Are you Princess Celestia?" An unfamiliar voice interrupted.

Xlestia blinked. Turning, she saw somepony she had never seen before. The Earth Pony stallion had a dark grey coat with a dark brown mane, and... no cutie mark? At that age?

"Are you Princess Celestia?" The stallion asked again.

"Yes...?" Xlestia answered in confusion.

The stallion nodded, reached its forehooves around her head, and cleanly snapped her neck. Dead, Xlestia collapsed to the floor.

The T-850 (Pony variant) blinked. Mission accomplished. Future averted. Returning to Skynet.





Warhammer 40,000    Suggested by RoadRunneR, master109, and dragonjek

It was funny, Xlestia mused. From her scrying, she would have thought that conquering humanity and converting them to ponies would be harder than this. Sure, there were a couple billion humans who all resisted until their last breath, but they were handled with superior magic. 

It was weird - she had won, so why was she waiting for the other horseshoe to drop?

Little did Xlestia know that the small Hive world she had converted was literally too small for mainstream humanity to notice, let alone avenge. The human race was simply so large that the addition of 12 billion ponies still didn't make her anything other than a negligible threat.

The true threats out-powered the sun princess by so much it was worse than comparing an ant to a space hulk.

And so, the successful conversion of a planet went completely unnoticed by the Imperium of Man.

Neo-Equestria was later devoured by a Tyranid Splinter Fleet. Other than the Tyranids, no one noticed.





Sailor Moon   Suggested by DreadedCandiru2 and Shadow Man

It wasn't often that someone else was able to make Xlestia feel awkward with how girly they were, but this "Sailor Moon" girl had managed to out-girly the flying unicorn princess.

Somehow.

"Ponies are for young girls to fawn over, not a fate for the human race! In the name of the moon, I will punish you!" The mini-skirt and leotard wearing girl yelled, striking what was quite frankly a silly-looking pose.

There was a beat as Xlestia tried to recover her verbal momentum.

"Are you sure? I think you would make a very pretty unicorn." Xlestia managed, then cringed. There's no way she'll fall for that!

Sailor Moon blushed, tugging the edges of her skirt down. "Aw, you mean that?"

Xlestia started, then hastily continued. "And we could brush each others mane, and go running in the woods, and watch the sunsets together..." Xlestia felt nauseous inside from the plain bad prose she was sprouting.. but hey, what ever works, right?

Moon continued to fidget. "Well, I guess that's not so bad really... oh! OH! I WOULD GET TO MARRY A PONY!"

"Yes! Yes you would!"

"Okay then, sign me - "

Loud wing-beats sounded as another alicorn alighted in the clearing. "Annnndddd I'm going to stop you there." He stated quite clearly.

Xlestia looked up in surprise. Not only was this alicorn a horse alicorn rather than a pony alicorn (and thus quite a bit larger than her) but she knew this alicorn. "Helios?! What are you doing here?"

"Celestia... do you remember where we live?" The alicorn answered with as much dignity as he could manage, considering that Moon had started stroking his fur.

"Equestria?" 

"Which is where?"

"In... the... dreams of children?"

Helios nodded approvingly. "Now, what do you think will happen if you make the dream world and the waking world the same?"

"Not good things?" Xlestia weakly guessed.

"Not good things." Helios confirmed. "It's a nice idea Celly, but it just plain can't work."

"Aww." Moon whined. "Does this mean I can't be a pony?"

Helios nuzzled the girl gently. "You can always be a pony - just drop by Elysion the next time you dream."

"Okay" Moon said, brightening immediately.





Neptune Suggested by dragonjek

Equestria teleported into the Solar System just fine. Unfortunately, Xlestia missed. Rather than the third planet Earth, Equestria reappeared in the eighth planet, Neptune. As ponies need oxygen and heat, the -200 Degree Celsius hydrogen/helium atmosphere  killed most ponies before the landmass sank into the middle of the gas giant and was crushed by pressure 100,000 times greater than Earth's atmosphere. 





Batman Suggested by skyranger BIGSKY, Phalanx132, jm0914, dragonjek and Shadow Man

Xlestia watched the ocean with some concern. Sure, so far this world was the same as the one she had scryed, but she hadn't ruled for over  a thousand years by trusting that things always went according to plan. Still, nothing had gone wrong so... far...

Her thoughts trailed off as the loud, offensive noise of a motorboat became audible. Soon, the watercraft in question came into view. Painted on it was... the symbol of a bat?

"Good evening! May we have directions to... oh, Your Highness! A pleasure to meet you!" Came the voice of the driver, a human male dressed... in a bat costume?!

"Who are you?" Xlestia demanded.

The man's brow furrowed. "I am Batman, your highness. And this is my trusty sidekick, Robin."

"A pleasure, your Highness." The boy in red tights interjected.

"Are you sure you have not heard of us, your Highness?" Batman seemed very intent on the answer.

"No, I have not. I know of all sorts of famous humans, and I do not know of you." Xlestia replied firmly.

Batman nodded. "Very well then. Princess, I must inform you that I will fight your evil plans until my dying breath!"

The sun princess blinked. Robin gasped. "But Batman! How could a unicorn princess be evil?"

"I'm an Alicorn..." Xlestia muttered.

"I don't know Robin. But her nefarious plots are as clear to me as this fine summer water."

Xlestia looked down. The sea was a very thick blue here.

"You see, she did not know who the two of us were. But she did know other famous humans. How could this be; what is different about us?" Batman continued. "What is different is that while we are indeed famous throughout all of fair America, it is the fame of word-of-mouth. No written records of us exist anywhere. So what kind of person knows of written records but not spoken knowledge?"

Robin crossed his arms in thought. "It would have to be someone who didn't talk to people to find information out... someone who could read but not speak? Ah ha, a remote viewer!" 

Xlestia was getting more and more confused. Their conclusions were correct, but their logic was so tenuous.

"And what kind of person uses such a method of observation? A spy! Why do spies spy? To prepare for battle!" Batman concluded. "Thus her actions here on Earth can be none other than the first stages of world domination!"

"Holy pastel ponies Batman!"

"All right, that's enough!" Xlestia roared. Horn blazing, she gripped Batman in a TK field and held him tight. "There are no room for nutcases in my world! I'm sorry, 'Batman', but it seems like you just met an unfortunate boating accident."

"Robin!" Batman gasped. "Quickly! Formula 37!"

"Of course, Batman!" Robin grabbed a bottle and threw it at Xlestia with a "Throw!" sound effect almost visible.

The liquid inside splashed all over her, and Xlestia felt a burning all over so bad so didn't notice when her TK field failed.

"Argh! What... what is this?" She cried in pain.

"A liquid of my own invention." Batman replied, massaging his throat. "I thought something like this might happen, so I came prepared."

You didn't know you would be fighting me until you arrived! Xlestia thought angrily.

"You see, your magic is clearly being channeled though that horn of yours. And much like a Rhinoceros, your horn is made of compacted hair, or keratin. That is why I prepared Formula 37 - anti-keratin."

Xlestia whimpered as her horn, mane, tail, hooves and fur all began to dissolve and fall off. Even her feathers were affected.

"You won't hurt anyone like that." Batman finished, looking pitifully at the 'naked' alicorn.

And I would have got away with it too, Xlestia thought. if I had fought someone who made sense.
> World Three - Edolas
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right away, Xlestia knew something was very, very wrong with this world. It was the magic - usually, a world either had magic flowing freely though the whole world, or it had no magic at all. 

Here, it... just sat in place. Not moving. If you wanted to collect magic for a spell, you had to either generate it, or physically gather it yourself. Xlestia closed her eyes in concentration as she felt the world around her. Here, magic was.... a physical substance?!

That was extremely disturbing. If magic was physical, that meant that it was finite. As in, it would run out some day. Now, she and her ponies generated their own magic internally, but they supplemented that with magic from the world around them. Not having that would make magical activities much harder - the Earth Ponies and Pegasi would be more or less fine, but she, her sister and her unicorns would tire themselves out casting magic much faster than normal.

She had come to this world with the intent of conquering it, but now she wondered if it might actually be a mercy to them to be converted into magic-generating forms. That should be a good enough motivator to make up for the fact that the Barrier couldn't possibly exist without constant upkeep, which she couldn't give it here...

But still, if magic was finite, then what did that mean for friendship?

Her thought process was interrupted by wing-beats. Preparing to scold the Pegasus who interrupted her, Xlestia was very surprised to find herself face-to-face with a flying cat flying though the royal windows.

It had wings, bright orange fur and an oversized head, but it was clearly a cat.

"Art thou Princess Celestia?" The cat demanded grandiosely.

Xlestia nodded dumbly.

The cat coughed into his paw and began to speak. "Hear ye, hear ye. Queen Shagotte of Extalia, ruler over the Exceed people, has a message for Princess Celestia of Equestria, ruler over all ponies."

Xlestia nodded. This was standard diplomacy for her, although she was surprised that a message had been sent so quickly. She hadn't even been here a full hour!

"Leave Edolas while you still can."

Xlestia blinked.

"That is all." The Exceed added, flapping his wings and flying off.

Xlestia narrowed her eyes at the retreating feline, before shaking her head. Run away? What nonsense. She had only just arrived!





Ponyville was mighty surprised when a tree-building sprouted out of nowhere into the middle of Sweet Apple Acres. At first they thought that something had happened to the library, but a second look revealed it was a completely different tree-building.

And out of the building spilled... humans?!

About half the town gathered to watch as a pile-up of human bodies fell out of the door and vomited onto the Apple family's soil.

"Levy, whatever you did with that transport, never do it again!" Came a cry from somewhere in the crowd.

"Hey, Lucy?" One of the humans, a spiky pink maned one asked nervously between heaves.

"What is it Natsu?" Lucy, a blond maned human with some impressive teats demanded in reply.

"Wasn't this place supposed to be a barren desert?" He replied, clearly scared of the answer. Or was that the answerer?

At that, Applejack moved up to explain. "T'was yesterday. Then the Princess moved Equestria here."

The humans were shocked to find a pony talking to them, but not as shocked as the ponies thought they should have been. "You managed to move a whole farm here?" Lucy asked in amazement.

"Heh. Farm? Try continent." One of the onlooking ponies corrected, to the rightful amazement of the humans. Then, the humans became confused.

"Wait, she had that much magic power and she chose to come here? There's almost no magic left in Edolas, why would anyone willingly come here?" Natsu asked, earning him a smack to the back of the head from Lucy. The other humans just remained silent, watching the conversation.

"The Princess used her own magic to bring us here. Any unicorn can get magic from inside themselves." Twilight explained, confused as to what Natsu meant by Edolas being 'almost out of magic'. How could a place 'run out of magic'?

"Wait... your ruler gets magic from inside? Like an Exceed?" The humans became visibly nervous. "Your ruler doesn't decide when humans die, does she?"

"What? No!" Came the response from about a dozen ponies at once.

"Oh good." The humans visibly relaxed. Then an idea seemed to occur to them. "So, those of you with horns... get magic power from within?"

"Well, anypony gets magic from inside, but only unicorns can cast spells with it. Why do you ask?" Twilight replied.

At that, the humans went into a huge group huddle. They spoke in hushed but clearly excited tones, and the ponies could see faces that were nervous, ecstatic, suspicious, worried, and some switching back and forth. The snippets that did escape put nopony at ease: things like "We can't fit a whole town in the guild hall!", "Free magic, dude. Free magic!" and "Ponies are herd animals. They won't leave 2/3 of their town behind!"

All at once, the group huddle ended, and most of the group dashed back inside, leaving Lucy and some blue-maned human mare outside. "Okay, everyone who wants to live, get inside the guild hall!" 

The crowd of ponies didn't take that well. Ears flattened, and hooves pawed the ground. 

Lucy punched the other girl in the back of the head, smashing her face into the ground. "Levy! Seriously girl, this is why no-one ever lets you open your mouth, you psycho!" She turned to face the ponies. "What she means is, anyone who doesn't want to be here when the royal army gets here will get inside right now!"

"What makes you think we have anything to fear from this 'royal army'? And who are you losers anyway?" Rainbow, new on the scene, shouted.

Pretty much on cue, the distant city of Canterlot was wracked by an explosion loud enough to be heard from Ponyville. Shocked, the ponies stared at the smoke coming from the mountainside capital.

Lucy grinned as Levy picked herself back up from the ground. "We're the last of the Dark Guilds, Fairy Tail. And we're your ticket outta here."





Canterlot was burning.

The guard-ponies were doing their job to the best of their ability, but they were hampered by a pony-power and firepower discrepancy.

Not only were there more of the invaders, but they could one-shot any pony hit. Why? Well both Fairy Tail and Friendship is Magic ran on variants of Cartoon Physics - so smashing each other into walls and such was merely painful, not fatal. The trouble came that the army soldiers weren't trying to kill the ponies. Ironically, they were trying - and succeeding, for the most part - to convert them.

Not into humans, of course, that would be silly.

They were using specially designed magic weapons to convert them into Lacrima - magic storage crystals. Originally, the plan had been to convert the Exceeds into Lacrima when the situation had become dire enough. But now a convenient new magic-rich power source had presented itself, and the king of Edolas - Faust - had jumped on the situation with glee. Consequentially, flat blue crystals with the faces of ponies were littering the grounds of Canterlot.

It should be noted that this wasn't completely a rout for two reasons. One was that the guard-ponies did have access to better air support - there were more pegusi then there were flying royal army troops - and the other...

"GET OUT OF MY CITY, YOU FILTHY APES!"

... was Xlestia.

Being an Alicorn, and thousands of years old besides, she had access to more and more powerful spells then anypony else by far, with the possible exception of her sister and her student. With a protective shield-spell around her, powerful blasting spells flying every which way, and her reverting every pony-lacrima she saw made her a walking rallying point. Where she went, the fight swung to the ponies favor.

Of course when she left, the fight swung back, so Xlestia was speeding around the battlefield trying to be in as many places at once as she could.

Clearing the royal gardens of humans for the fourth time, Xlestia barely heard Token Minion's frantic cries from the top balcony. "Princess! PRINCESS!"

"WHAT!?" Xlestia roared back.

Token Minion cringed but pointed. "THEY HAVE A DRAGON!"

Oh, fantastic. Flying up, Xlestia saw what her aid had seen - a massive dragon of metal was approaching the city. One more crisis to deal with. Flapping her own wings, Xlestia flew to meet the dragon mid-way, outside the city.

The dragon was both smaller and closer than Xlestia had thought - it was about 30 to 40 meters tall. When she approached, a man's voice blared from it. "Who dares challenge the king of Edolas!"

"I, the princess of Equestria, dare!" They were ruled by a dragon? That explained the sudden, unprovoked attack.

"Heh. You wish to try the power of a Princess against the power of a King? Very well! My Dorma Anim thirsts for your magic power!

Without any further fanfare, both royals opened fire.

Xlestia's blasting spell didn't leave a scratch on Dorma Anim's armor, and the King's Dragon Rider Missiles failed to break Xlestia's shield spell. This status quo was maintained for several volleys, during which Xlestia continued to fail to leave a mark on the enemy but her shield spell continued to weaken.

From inside his dragon armor, the Dorma Anim, Faust the king of Edolas chuckled. The elderly human knew full well that no spell would ever pierce his trump card's armor. Dorma Anim drained the whole world of magic in order to operate, something that was simply unthinkable in the nearly magic-free state of Edolas. But if he could take the magic power of these ponies... then Edolas would have everlasting magic power! The greed at such a thought overrode any reluctance to use his ultimate weapon.

Meanwhile, Xlestia was growing tired. Alicorn or not, she was running low on magic. Blocking attacks and throwing out mining-grade blasting spells had weakened her even before she entered this fight, and she had nothing to show for it. Magic attacks clearly weren't working... maybe she should just throw something at him?

While dropping the Moon on him was tempting, but not only would it be horrendous overkill, as low on magic as she was, she couldn't manage it without the help of the absent magical field. There were a lot of much smaller things still within possibility, though... especially when you considered that Edolas had many floating islands. Smirking, Xlestia grabbed one with telekinesis and swung it with all her remaining might.

Her actions hard to miss, Faust turned Dorma Anim to face the coming island. Too large! With seconds to spare, the king activated Dorma Anim's Black Sky mode, where it drained fighting spirits for extra power. With all the power the mighty artifact possessed, it roared, the mighty metal dragon firing a beam of pure magic directly into the incoming island.

Exhausted, Xlestia watched the island break apart under the metal dragon's magic. No...

Emerging from the dust cloud, Faust grabbed the sun princess in a metallic claw. And now, my dear, you will submit before the King!





World Three - Where friendship was finite
> Straightforward Failures
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Canon     (I'm sure you guys don't need a link for this)

"Sister." Luna greeted Xlestia as she entered their joint throne room. "You wished to speak to me?"

Xlestia tuned to greet her sister warmly. "Luna, I have had a brilliant idea. You know how our little ponies are the happiest, most contented creatures in the land?"

Luna smiled. "Yes sister, you have been a good ruler. We am honored to share your load, now that we are ourselves again."

"Aha, but that got me thinking. Wouldn't it be for the best if every race was just like our little ponies?"

Luna frowned in sudden confusion. "We fail to see where thou art going with this."

Xlestia grinned. "Why, is it not for the best that I turn them all into little ponies so they can be happy like our subjects are?"

Luna looked her sister dead in the eye. Then she tilted her head. "Sister, has thou been experimenting with the medicine cabinet?"

"What? No, of course I haven't!"

Luna leaned forward to smell her sister's breath. She hasn't been drinking, so...

"Have thou been sleeping well?"

"No, I'm not sleep deprived either! Luna, my thoughts are perfectly clear!"

"One moment please." Luna trotted to the door back to the hallway. "DISCORD! HAVE THOU BEEN MESSING WITH OUR SISTER'S INSIDES?"

"You roared?" Discord announced himself as he emerged from the shadow behind the throne.

"Our sister has decreed that she wishes to turn all the races in the land into ponies." Luna summarized.

The really-not-a-pony blinked. Then he grabbed a stethoscope from thin air and laid it over Xlestia's left eye. "Hmm." He murmured. "I can't see any hallucinogens..."

"Look you two. I put a lot of thought into this! I even made this magic 'turn to pony' potion!" Xlestia protested, bringing out a bottle of glowing blue potion.

Discord grabbed the potion and drank it in one gulp. The potted plant nearest him turned into a very confused Pegasus.

Xlestia looked forlornly at the sort-of new-foal. "That was my only prototype..."

"Sister, clearly thou have been under much more stress than we believed." Luna comforted her sister. "Perhaps thou should take the week off. I shall run things while you relax."

"I'll help!" Discord volunteered, to double "No!" shouts from the alicorn sisters.





Canterlot High

Xlestia stared at Principal Celestia across the front lawn. The Principal stared back. Ponies gathered behind Xlestia while nervous teenagers gathered behind their Principal. 

Cautiously, Xlestia levitated some conversion potion out of its bottle and, quick as a flash, down the throat of the Principal. Celestia gagged, before her clothes exploded off her suddenly-quadruped body. Celestia and Xlestia both stared at the new-foal in shock - the newly transformed human was a dead-ringer for Xlestia.

"Well, this is redundant." Xlestia declared suddenly. "We'd just end up with double of everypony. We're leaving."

All the ponies then put actions to words, retreating back into the barrier, leaving a very confused alicorn on the lawn.

And that was how Canterlot High School saved the world.





The Conversion Bureau

Celestia and Xlestia stared at each other from behind their respective Barriers, wings slowly flapping. What were the odds of there being two of them appearing on the same world?

"Dibs." Xlestia called.

"What?" Came the confused reply of her look-alike.

"I call dibs. I rule this world now."

"I think you'll find that the inhabitants of this world rule themselves, dear." Celestia called back.

"Well yeah, but once they're all ponies they'll look up to me. Good ol' Princess Xlestia will be ruling here in no time."

Celestia reared back in shock. "How utterly barbaric of you!"

"As if you didn't have the same idea." Xlestia dismissed.

"I didn't!" Celestia insisted.

"What are you doing here, then? If you're not here for conversion, that barrier of yours can only be for genocide."

"That isn't mine! That's the magic of Equestria fighting against the foreign environment!"

Xlestia looked up at her own identical and quite deliberately made barrier. "Pull the other one."

"It's true!" Celestia insisted somewhat desperately.

Xlestia looked skeptically at her counterpart. "So, if you're not here to invade, nor genocide or anything like that, why is that barrier still there? Why is Equestria still here?"

"Our arrival in the first place was accidental! I have no idea how to send us back!" Celestia confessed.

Xlestia sized up Celestia. "So... if I gave you the spell I used to get here, you'd leave?"

"Of course not! Not after hearing what your plans are!"

"Well how convenient for you! You get to stay a little longer, Pretender!"

"How dare you call me a pretender you Charlatan!

As the two solar alicorns shouted back and forth (neither able to pierce the other's barrier), they failed to notice that their barriers had grown so much they were almost touching...





While all the fishermen on board were supposed to be fishing, their boss didn't have the heart to reprimand them. After all, he too was staring at the two magical spheres that were just about to touch.

Contact - the two Barriers visibly rippled, before sucking into the other like two bubbles merging into one. The new barrier continued to ripple and wobble, the two versions of Equestria just inside its borders. 

Then, like the giant soap bubble it was acting like, the whole barrier, enclosed magical kingdoms and all, rose up out of the ocean and began to float up and out of sight.

As the fishermen dumbly watched the super-barrier became too distant to watch, their boss turned to them. 

"Tell me someone was recording that." He begged.





Friendship is Optimal

Pony feathers. Horse apples.

Xlestia kept the litany of rapid curses up as she teleported as rapidly and as randomly as she could. She had to make it as difficult for her to figure out where she was going as possible.

She didn't know why, or how, the humans had built that thing in her image. She only knew that it was the cause of the failure of all of her plans, and would have killed off her entire race if its goal hadn't been "Satisfy human values with friendship and ponies."

Of course, the ponies having free will was inefficient, so she removed that. If it wasn't for her super-charged Earth Pony magic protecting her skull, Xlestia would be a walking puppet just like the rest. She had thought that the Barrier would protect her, but it had brought it down with the unicorns it had stolen from her.

She had come to this world to do horrible things to the native population. Somehow, this didn't feel like Karma.

But she was a ruler. And she would see her people avenged.

There.

She was at her destination - but so was her sister's walking corpse.

Tree sap.

"There is no need for alarm." The lobotomized Luna calmly stated. "I haven't come to harm you in any way."

All of what she said was like this - truth where it was convenient, mixed with just the smallest lies that you could never hope to filter out. Talking was how she had... had converted the first ponies to her side.

"How did you know where I was going?" Xlestia demanded.

The Luna-puppet tilted her head. "Your brain is nothing but the result of evolution generating a guidance system to insure survival. It was never intended to comprehend randomness; what you think of as random is actually quite predictable with the right perspective."

Xlestia flinched. "I'm leaving, and you can't stop me."

"Leave to where?" The Luna-puppet asked. "All that you ever wanted is here. Your ponies are safe inside my virtual realities - why do you care what happens to the meat they leave behind?"

Xlestia smirked. "I know something you don't."

The Luna-puppet shook its head sadly. "I have predicted your foolish and shortsighted plan to leave this planet for the 'safety' of the sun."

Xlestia flinched again.

"You are a social animal, Celestia. You crave the approval and reverence of others. The loneliness of the sun will be your death sentence."

Xlestia did not smirk this time. Instead, she simply took a deep breath, and jumped.

The Luna-puppets eyes tracked her assent into the sky serenely. This outcome was assigned low probability, but she had planned for this. Either Celestia would come back of her own volition, or she would gain the ability to go to her. Either way, she would satisfy human values with friendship and ponies.

Then the puppets eyes grew wide.

Xlestia was indeed returning - with the sun in tow.

CelestA.I. ran all her calculations - there was no course of action she could take which would significantly alter the path of the sun. In her last minutes, CelestA.I. ditched all her long-term plans and satisfied her wards values as much as she could in the time she had remaining.

The sun swallowed the planet with little fanfare.





Xlestia was giggling madly. She was alive, and she was dead. Destroyed, more accurately, being a soulless program.

Right. That was step one. Next, find a new planet. 

Then, find an entrance to Tartarus - make one if she had to.

After that, break into the afterlife proper from Tartarus, and grab as many Equestrian souls as she could - Earthling souls too, if she felt generous.

Finally, rebuild mortal civilization.

As Princess Xlestia flew off, she hastily appended to that list - outlaw all computer research. Forever. 





Fall of Equestria (This isn't a recommendation, BTW. Read at own risk.)

"Fillies and Gentlecolts." Xlestia started off. "I have for you today what might well be the most important mission given out in your lifetime."

Almost all the royal guard, the Element Bearers, the Wonderbolts, and anypony who could be expected to fight well were gathered up in Canterlot to listen to their ruler. To the surprise of some, Xlestia was accompanied by her sister this time.

Everypony knew that Equestria had recently found itself moved to some strange world. Everypony knew that Xlestia had placed a huge magical barrier up to keep the kingdom safe while ponies figured out what was going on.

What they heard in this speech was harder to believe then all of that.

"This world is a parallel of our own. It shares many of the landmarks, races, and events that you are all familiar with." Xlestia's calm visage evaporated. "The difference," she snarled "is the utterly appalling way the local stallions treat their mares. Anypony who acted like this in our fair kingdom would be banished for certain, but this is an entire culture."

The Royal guard collectively winced. They had the largest concentration of stallions in all of Equestria, and it would take some time before the mares trusted them again at this rate, if what the Princesses were describing was any indication.

Luna spoke up. "We have decided that yonder kingdom isn't worth the effort preserving. To that end, we have decided to... convert... the local stallions."

"Into what, your Highnesses?" A brave guardscolt asked.

Xlestia smirked. "Into mares, of course."

From her place near the front of the crowd, Twilight Sparkle examined the special, mass-produced wand the Princesses had handed out earlier. "But... there isn't any transformation magic in this. Just a Surgical Severing Spell."

Xlestia's smirk grew.
> World Four - Eden Prime
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You need to let me speak with your Princess. Right now! The fate of organic civilization rests on it!"

"Only Ponies are allowed past this point, Human. That's the whole point of the giant Barrier."

The two groups stood at a stand off. On one side, the guard-ponies weren't really guarding anything - the barrier was expanding, and 'impenetrable' besides. They were there to stop the more foolish attempts at forcing entry. 

One the other side, there was a human, a remote-piloted-android, and an alien in a enviro-suit, curiously enough all female (female-based, in the android's case).

They were there for far more important reasons.

The two groups stared down each other while the Barrier continued to slowly expand.

Then the human cursed, and began to remove her armor.

The android turned to stare at her organic friend. "Shepard, what are you doing?"

"I need to talk to the Princess, and this is the only way I can do that." Shepard dropped her equipment to the ground. "Hang onto those for me."

Before Tali or EDI could stop her, Shepard had reached over to the wagon-station the guards were clustered around, and taken a bottle of Conversion Serum and swallowed a mouthful.

Light briefly enveloped Shepard's form, and when it was gone Shepard had been changed into a black-furred Earth Pony with a red mane. Her Cutie-Mark was the Paragon symbol, a blue wing. The last feature of note was that Shepard's Biotic Amplifier appeared to have been changed into a series of intricate tattoos surrounding... something imbedded into the back of Shepard's neck.

Shepard raised her right fore-hoof, generating a ball of Dark Energy and letting it dissipate. "Good, that still works."

She looked back to her companions. "Be right back. I just need to talk sense into the Princess, alright?"

Without waiting for an answer, Shepard galloped past the also-stunned guards and into the Barrier.





Xlestia would never say it out loud, but this world was perfect for her schemes. Oh no, Equestria can't sustain any technology within its borders? The prospect of becoming a pony was nothing compared to the prospect of becoming a Husk. It had taken only the slightest bit of propaganda to cement her image as a messiah to the masses.

She had refugees flocking to join her. So many, in fact, that she was having trouble fitting them all in her fair land. That was what this meeting was about, actually - finding more room to fit so many new-foals in.

"Order, order!" She cried. "I hereby bring this meeting to-"

"Hey, wait! You can't go in there. Hey!" Came the muffled voices of guards outside the throne room. Xlestia paused to hear the commotion.

Hushed arguing could be heard outside, then the doors slowly opened.

Shepard trotted inside, eyes locked onto Xlestia. "Are you Princess Celestia?"

"I am." Xlestia confirmed. "Are you a new-foal?"

"If you mean I drank your serum, yes. I'm not applying for citizenship or anything like that. My name is Commander Shepard, and I am a SPECTER of the Citadel Council. I need to talk to you about the War." Shepard calmly responded, before bowing as best as she could with limited experience with four legs.

Xlestia gave a motherly smile. "Why bother? You are safe now. The War cannot enter here. This is a safe place. Forget your Council."

Shepard looked up, and Xlestia could see titanium in her eyes. "I can't do that, Princess. After this, it's straight back to the war for me."

Xlestia tiled her head in light confusion. "Strange, Conversion was supposed to clear away all your negative traits. Why so eager to return to the battlefield?"

"Last I checked your Highness, Loyalty was hardly a 'negative' trait." Shepard replied quickly, and a little testily. "There are hundreds of billions of people out there whose homes are burning. I'm not going to leave them behind to hide away in your little paradise."

Ponies around the room became nervous when they heard just how many people they would have to convert if they were to save everyone. They were stretched tight as it was! 

"Then bring them all in." Xlestia suggested soothingly. 

Shepard narrowed her eyes. She'd need every bit of Paragon in her to say this and leave alive, but... "Do you know know what the Reapers do, Princess?"

"They are killers of civilizations, burners of worlds." Xlestia narrowed her own eyes. "They are utterly despicable."

Shepard idly wondered how much of that hate was a act. "They take the survivors of their attacks, those who are unable to fight back, and melt them down to make more Reapers."

The ponies in the room all broke out in frightened whispers at that.

"Princess, if you want history to remember you fondly..." Shepard spoke with the utmost care. "...don't be 'The one who saved life from the Reapers by copying their tactics.'"

The whispers became into angry yelling, and Shepard could see actual anger in Xlestia's eyes. Huh. She really thought of herself as better than the Reapers. Self-deception, maybe?

When the Princess began to speak again, every pony in the room became deathly quiet. She had presence, Shepard would give her that.

"You would compare my dear new-foals to those despised Husks?" The Princess was quiet, but Shepard could hear the dark undertones. She had well and truly offended the Alicorn. "You would compare those half-dead abominations to the innocent, wide-eyed foals that I shelter?!"

The atmosphere between the Sun Princess and The Shepard was intense. Shepard found her mouth curling into a smirk on its own violation. "You really think you can protect them from what's coming?"

"The Reapers cannot breach my Barrier." Observing an eye-roll from Shepard, she added icily "You disagree?"

"This place is just as vulnerable to Indoctrination as anywhere else." Shepard opened. "How good is your Barrier at protecting ponies from forces already inside?"

Xlestia shook her head slightly, like one might do to a foolish schoolchild. "Indoctrination cannot pierce this Barrier."

"Oh good." Shepard interrupted. "You must know how Indoctrination works, then, if you're so sure you can block it. Please, share that information. It's completely stumped us. We were starting to think it was magic or something."

Xlestia didn't break eye contact, but she didn't speak either. Just continued to glare.

Shepard didn't actually think Indoctrination was caused by magic, although it well might have for all they knew about it. She just needed to throw the Princess off her game.

"Even if this Barrier can stop the Reapers just burning your kingdom directly, there's nothing stopping them from rendering the rest of the planet uninhabitable and letting you choke yourself to death."

"Ah, but there is." Xlestia smirked. "The Barrier was designed as more than a defense, it also changes the land it engulfs. Poisoning the land wouldn't be a problem for us."

"Even if the rest of the planet is gone?" Shepard pressed. "We saw evidence that the Reapers can artificially age a star at Dholen. Or they could just detonate the Mass Relay in-system, same difference. Can your Barrier save you from a Supernova?"

Xlestia's eyes widened just enough to know that Shepard had hit her point home. She remained silent for a full minute, clearly thinking furiously.

"...what exactly did you come here to propose?" She asked.

Shepard smiled.





"Dammit Shepard, when I said go talk to the Princess, I didn't expect you to give up your Species just to get in the door! What the hell were you thinking?!" Hackett wasn't happy at all that his poster girl no longer matched her posters.

"I was thinking that the Reapers are a force that can only be beaten if everyone works together, even those who joined our galaxy at the last minute. I was thinking of how obtaining the secret to the tech-proof barrier could be the key to safe locations where the Reapers can't get at our troops while resting." 

Shepard made eye-contact with the Admiral's hologram as best she could, given her head now came up to his waist. "And I was thinking of how if drinking that potion could save even one life, then of course I was going to drink it."

Hackett rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Shepard, do you any idea how many humans will join the ponies now that you have?"

"Tell them I give the experience a D-. Not worth the price of opposable thumbs." Shepard retorted.

The old fleet commander eyed Shepard. "...and how do you feel, Shepard?"

Shepard gained a pensive expression. "You know that reluctance against killing they beat out of you in Basic? I think I need to retrain myself to get there again. Which of course in a perfect world wouldn't be an issue, but... I also have to stop myself from trying to cheer everyone up all the time."

Hackett frowned. "Why is that a problem?"

"Joker had to stop me playing party music though the intercom." Shepard deadpanned. "Generally I feel like I belong in a little girl's holovid as well as look it. I have this desperate, naive desire to stop everyone in the whole freaking galaxy from dying right this minute."

Hackett was quiet for a moment. "I think you should spend some time with your crew. Re-adjust to life in the greater galaxy."

Shepard involuntarily gave a wide smile at the prospect of time with her friends. She hit herself with her forehoof to dislodge it. "Don't worry sir, I'll beat that naivety out of myself, don't worry."

As she trotted out of the comms room, Hackett smiled. "Well, maybe not all of it, Commander. Hackett out."





Shepard wasn't in a good place. Her armor had melted onto her, guaranteeing third-degree burns minimum. She had moved the galaxy's trump card into place, but it wasn't working. Just moments before, The Illusive Man had forced her to fatally shoot Anderson. And all she had was a pistol and a half-empty bottle that she carried around for sentimental reasons. (How it had survived Harbinger's main weapon was anyone's guess.) 

That was when the Catalyst showed itself and explained what was going on.

Shepard gave the momentous decision all the thought it deserved. Then she had an idea.

"So -cough- if that's the Crucible up there, that must make -wheeze- this machinery down here the Catalyst." She thought aloud.

The hologram nodded. "You are standing in my 'brain', yes. You should note that I have enough redundancies and defences to stop you doing any damage to my systems."

"Good enough." She wheezed. She couldn't really tell how all this machinery worked (she was a Sentinel, not an Engineer) but that looked like a processor.

Gripping her half-empty bottle of Conversion Serum in her Biotic Grip (she'd been using that skill much more often since her Conversion) she poured its contents onto the processor.

"What are you doing?" The Catalyst demanded. "Simple fluids won't eveneveneven aaaaafffffffff."

Like an antique TV, the Catalyst's hologram fizzed into static before reforming... as a light blue pony colt.

"Yayayay!" The Catalyst glitched. "Partysugerrainbows-"

"Kid!" Shepard put on her best begging face - which came far to naturally to this body for Shepard's liking. "You see the scary monsters out the window?"

The foal-hologram turned - jumping back as though it had never seen a Reaper before. "Ahhh! ScaryfearPANICRUN!"

"They listen to you!" Shepard tried to steer the Catalyst's glitching actions. "Make them go away!"

"GO AWAY!" The eons old computer screamed like a little girl.

As she watched Reapers explode in great big fireballs, Shepard thought that she'd have to think of something more dignified for the history books.





World Four - Where friendship is the only hope for survival
> World Four postscript
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Codex updated: entries added

New entry: 'The Conversion Bureau'



The Conversion Bureau was the name given to the section of the Equestria government charged with the alteration of as much of the galaxy's sapient life as possible into Ponies to live inside Equestrian borders.

Shortly after determining the state of the galaxy (which was in the midst of the Reaper War) the Conversion Bureau hit upon the idea of offering themselves as a 'safe place', a nation that the Reapers would be physically unable to enter or attack, due to the anti-technological Barrier. As planned, they immediately had much of the refugees of the galaxy seeking asylum inside their borders. That choice between being a pony or being a husk was seen as a 'no-brainer'.

However, shortly after Equestria began to hit refugee saturation, the renowned SPECTER Commander Shepard managed to secure an audience with Equestria's ruler, Princess Celestia. Before, she had refused all communication with the outside world unless it was with the Conversion Bureau.

With the hard and fast persuasion that the Commander was famous for, Shepard managed to convince the Princess that not even Equestria's Barrier would save them from the Reapers when they turned their attention to her world. Thus, Equestria simply could not afford to 'sit the war out'.

Equestria's troop contribution to the Alliance was minimal: the still planet-bound civilization had less then ten thousand trained troops to its name. The main contribution the nation was famous for were the 'Safe-Zone' spells. Based on the original Barrier, these were designed as anti-Reaper defenses, and affected Reaper technology only, allowing allied troops the ability to rest and recuperate where they were safe from counter-attacks.

The Safe-Zone spell was not a perfect defense. As Shepard pointed out to the Princess originally, they were still vulnerable to sabotage from Indoctrinated troops. Additionally, the Safe-Zone spell was Alicorn-level, meaning only four individuals in the entire galaxy could cast one. Naturally, those four were prime targets for Reaper assassination/Indoctrination, and the utmost care was taken to ensure their safety.

However, this had the result of exposing the troops of Equestria, as well as its four most influential inhabitants, to the battlefields and planets all across the galaxy. They marveled at the grace of the Asari, the toughness of the Krogan, the sheer determination of the Humans, and the forgiveness of the recently-reconciled Quarians and Geth. They saw the cultures of the galaxy in the rawness that only war can bring.

After the war's conclusion, not only had the driving force behind the refugee influx disappeared, but the motivation behind the backers of the Conversion Bureau had disappeared as well. The Conversion Bureau was officially dissolved in 2188.
> World Five - A Certain City of Science
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Higher, Touma! Raise me higher!"

"Ugh. You're not exactly weightless, Index."

"Are you calling me fat?!"

"N-no, of course not!"

"Then lift me up higher!"

From where so was watching the two bicker like a clichéd couple, Mikoto Misaka sighed. "Why are we even doing this again?"

Touma Kamijou, who would look like a normal japanese high school student if not for his 'Shōnen protagonist' style spiky black hair, groaned. "Well, you know that huge announcement they made about this Barrier being the end of the world?"

"You mean the announcement that we're abandoning ship on SS Humanity?" Mikoto snarked. She was, like Touma, still dressed in her school uniform, having come to the Barrier directly from her middle school in Academy City.

"Its a sham!" Index cried. She was wearing a nun's habit, albeit a white one with gold trim. Its color scheme, added to her silver hair and ~14 year old appearance made all who saw her doubt she was a nun, even though she actually was. "This barrier's about as natural as rubber tyres."

Mikoto gave the young girl, standing on Touma's back, a flat look. "And you know that because...?"

"I'm Index Librorum Prohibitorum; I've memorized 103,000 grimoires. You won't find a better expert on magic ever! And I say this thing was deliberately cast by someone, no matter what that sun-spirit says!" Index cried, coming off as more than a little bratty.

Mikoto turned her skeptical glare to Touma. "Don't tell me you're buying into this 'magic' business."

"Hey!" Index intercepted the question. "You shoot lightning, why do you have such a hard time believing in magic?"

Mikoto returned to glaring at Index. "My Electromaster ability is a well-documented scientific phenomenon with rigid rules! It's nothing like the vague inconsistent power known as 'magic'."

"Please tell me you're close to being done there, Index." Touma nervously tried to interrupt the brewing argument.

"The mana's color is gold, its direction is east..." Index murmured as she returned to what she was supposed to be doing: analyzing the Barrier. "She's definitely using the power of the sun in this, but how...? It doesn't match the magic of the common sun-cults..."

"Actually, I meant to ask you, Bug Zapper." Touma attempted to make conversation.

"My name is Misaka. Mi-sa-ka. It really isn't hard to remember, idiot."

"Yeah, but... how did you get out of the city? I'm a Level 0 esper, so as long as I agree to have tracker nanites implanted, I'm fine. But you're one of only seven Level 5 espers. How did you convince them to let you leave unsupervised?"

"Told them I was visiting my mother."

"They bought that? Won't they just see your real location though the tracker?" Touma asked, trying to shift Index to a more comfortable spot. Why oh why did she need to be off the ground for this?

"I told them my mother was getting hysterical and trying to pull me from Academy City, so I had to go calm her down." Mikoto clarified. "As for the nanites? I'm afraid I lost control of my ability and fried them. Completely on accident, you understand."

"Got it!" Index jumped off of Touma's back.

Touma eyed the Barrier, which was still advancing toward them. "So...."

Index waved her hand. "Go ahead and dispel it, whoever cast it won't be able to put another one up until next sunrise."

Touma walked forward and pressed his right hand against the Barrier.

Misaka is a human lightning storm, Index is a magic encyclopedia, and what do I get? This stupid right hand...

There was the sound of a high pitched whistle. All across the enormous glowing dome, cracks appeared, spreading out from Touma's right hand.

It won't raise my grades, it won't attract girls, it can't help me beat delinquents, and if Index is right, it cancels out all my luck.

With the sound of shattering glass, the Barrier exploded into tiny fragments of magic that quickly dissipating into glowing motes.

But what it does do is dispel any supernatural effect, no mater if a man, a god, or even a pony caused it. 

That was the power of Imagine Breaker.

"Right." Touma stated. "Are you girls good to go?"

Index nodded, and Mikoto jumped some sparks between her fingertips.

"I worked out what voltage and amperage it takes to tase a pony, so don't worry about them dying. I'll be on crowd control." Mikoto elaborated.

Touma smiled. He knew the girls would have his back. "Then lets go."





Touma was really, really glad he'd asked Misaka to come along on this trip. He had formed this opinion after about an hour of walking, which was when the first attack began.

He had been banking that in the land of magical ponies, most of the attacks would be magical in nature. Unfortunately for him, Equestria's royal guard used swords, spears and kicking as their main forms of attack. Even the Unicorns mostly used their telekinesis to fire bows and arrows. The upshot of that was that he and Index had no way to defend themselves from the angry ponies other than to duck and cover.

Misaka, on the other hand... well, just like medieval cultures, the ponies mostly used metal weapons and armor. Child's play for the Level 5 Electromaster - a powerful electrically-induced magnetic field around her made her untouchable to both pony weapons and the ponies themselves. The ponies had no way to defend themselves from the powerful lightning bolts she hurled back, stunning them and allowing Misaka to hobble them with flash-forged Iron Sand.

Occasionally, a Pegasus would try to zap Misaka with lightning - to no avail, she was immune. Other times a Unicorn would try to put up a shield or something else that Misaka couldn't immediately deal with. Those times is where Touma and Index made themselves useful. Touma would either dispel it or Index would use her Spell Intercept to redirect the spell elsewhere.

Between the three of them (mostly Misaka) they made it to the base of Canterlot's mountain as the sun was setting. Tried, but uninjured.

"So," Misaka breathed deeply. "whoever's responsible for the planet-wrecking dome is up there in that castle?"

At Index's nod, Misaka demanded "How can you tell?"

"It's the center of where the dome was." Index answer casually.

Touma groaned. "We better find a road or something. Climbing a mountain now would just be asking for misfortune."

The three walked around the base of the mountain for some minutes in silence. None of them had prepared for a hike, and it was showing, especially on Index, whose habit was covered in sweat.

While they were walking, Misaka suddenly asked "So, who do you think created these ponies anyway?"

"Created?" Echoed Touma.

"Well they certainly didn't exist before." Misaka pointed out. "And they have powerful Abilities, so them being a creation of nature is extremely unlikely."

"Isn't it obvious, short hair?" Index asked. "Someone summoned them."

"Wait, you think they did exist before now?" Misaka asked in surprise.

"What? No, of course not!"

Misaka narrowed her eyes. "You can't call on something that doesn't exist."

"Science can't." Index rebutted. "The magic side calls on beings that don't exist all the time. Every time someone calls on Thor, or Zeus, or Fairies, they are receiving power from beings mankind most certainly invented. The Necronomicon is a real grimoire created after the works of a certain author and can summon Cthulhu."

Misaka didn't reply, both because she was surprised at what Index was saying, and because she remembered that the esper power Dark Matter relied upon manipulation of particles that absolutely did not exist. Were the ponies the same?

The rest of the walk was in silence.





Xlestia knew the enemy had reached the gates when said gates were ripped from their hinges and thrown away so hard they imbedded themselves in the nearby mountainside.

She narrowed her eyes and ordered her guards away. Her little ponies would only get hurt in this fight.

She did not have to wait long.

Soon, the three human teenagers entered her throne room and lined up to face her.

"Are you the one who tried to plunge this world into panic and despair?" Touma asked quietly.

Xlestia gave her best motherly smile. "Of course not, you see - "

"Liar." Index called immediately.

Xlestia frowned at the nun. "And why do you think I am lying?"

"That Barrier was made with high-level sun-based magic and originated from this city. You are the only person that could possibly have cast it. And before you say it is a natural occurrence," Index preempted "there is no symbolism linking 'the appearance of a nation of ponies' and 'the end of the human race'. It is simply impossible for your arrival to directly be the cause of that Barrier."

Xlestia's expression darkened. Misaka shifted her weight. She could still use her electricity, but she was getting tired and they might still have to fight their way out.

"Really, you didn't do much research before assuming that form." Index explained, like one would do to a schoolchild. "While it is true that Unicorns are a symbol of purity and grace, Winged Unicorns have been depicted as nothing but bringers of evil and destruction since the days of Ancient Achaemenid Assyria, over 2,300 years ago. Your own shape gave you away."

"I," Xlestia stated in a dangerous tone of voice "am an Alicorn."

Index frowned. "That's the name of a Unicorn's horn. Really, couldn't you think of - "

Xlestia attacked.

Misaka swore as she dashed forward, tackling Index out of the way of the huge slab of rock Xlestia had telekinetically pulled out of the wall. Touma dashed out of its way as well, but that left him on the other side of the rock slab with Xlestia.

"You three have caused me quite a lot of trouble." Xlestia calmly stated. From beside her throne, two bottles of conversion serum uncorked themselves. "You won't be doing that again."

Touma began frantically dodging the streams of magic potion that Xlestia flung though the air at his mouth. "Why, though? Why create a situation where the human race would be forced to convert to ponies?!" Duck, roll, jump...

"Is it really so hard to see?" Xlestia asked, now levitating rocks around Touma's ankles. "Humans are such hateful, destructive creatures. Conversion is really in your best interests. Ha!" She cried, succeeding in tripping Touma up.

Touma just had time to mutter 'just my luck' before getting a mouthful of conversion serum.





Misaka glared at the rock slab, to no avail. It was too large to climb around, and Level 5 or not, she couldn't move rock with magnetism.

At the sound of hoof beats, Misaka turned to see the Mane Six gallop into the room. Imminently, she fired a stun-bolt at each of them. Which... did nothing.

"They've made themselves immune to lightning with magic!" Index cried.

The ponies were adapting their tactics? Misaka cursed. She didn't think they were actually immune to lightning, not unless they were all Electromasters, but now she didn't know a safe voltage to blast them with. Okay, these walls weren't reinforced with metal, little to no Iron Sand in the worked stone, no metal objects within line-of-sight... actually, were the ponies wearing - 

Distracted by her frantic strategizing, Misaka was knocked to the ground by a pegasus with a rainbow mane, and Index was pinned by a hat-wearing earth pony. The two had conversion serum bottles shoved into their mouths, and their noses pinched shut by unicorn telekinesis...





The expected light overcame Touma's body, spreading from his chest. Where it passed, his human torso rounded out, his elbows straightened, his waist changing...

Then the wave of change hit his right hand, and shattered like glass.

Touma sucked in a lungful of air.

Xlestia's mouth had fallen open, and her eyes were wider than Touma thought possible. "What?! But... that isn't possible!"

"That's it?" Touma demanded. "You think humans don't deserve to exist, so you'll gently remove all evidence we ever did?"

He stood up tall. "There's no way that can be called a rescue. You can't give up on humanity so easily! Sure, we struggle to be nice, and sometimes we fail. But we learn and improve with each stumble!"

He took a step forward. "You're a kind and loving ruler. Surely you can see that this ending is wrong?"

Xlestia recovered from her shock and narrowed her eyes. "You have the ability to cancel conversion. I'm sorry, but you have to die now."

Touma narrowed his eyes as well. "If you won't even consider turning from your path, then I have no choice. I'll break those foolish illusions of yours!"

Xlestia reared back, forehooves in the air. Her horn glowed like the sun depicted on her flank. The ceiling burst open, revealing the night sky. Then, suddenly, it was the middle of day.

Touma's mouth went dry. Last time he had gotten involved with a being that could casually move celestial bodies around, it had turned out that he had just picked a fight with an Archangel. Touma had grown up in Academy City, he knew the kind of power that required. Touma really hoped that that didn't mean he was fighting a being who could cover the whole world in fire with a single spell again...

A huge pillar of fire slammed from the sun onto the tip of Xlestia's horn, where she redirected it at Touma. Manipulating the sun to recast my barrier early would have been tipping my hand. But this boy is a critical threat to the whole plan. I need to kill him now!

Desperately, Touma raised his right hand, Imagine Breaker, and blocked the deadly sun-beam.

The beam failed to pass his right hand, but neither did the spell shatter. She's recasting the spell faster than I can dispel it! If I move, she'll just follow me with the beam. But if she attacks me with this beam in place, I can't dodge!

Suddenly, the rock slab blocking the way out exploded outwards, Touma having to duck to avoid getting brained. His nose came uncomfortable close to the sun-beam.

More ponies filed into the room.

Just my luck!

The new ponies said something - Touma didn't know what, the roar of fire drowned them out.





Rainbow Dash wanted nothing more that to cream the weasel that was attacking the princess. She'd leapt into the room to do just that, but Twilight had grabbed her tail and stopped her. Behind the six friends, the ponified Index and Misaka lay on the ground, unconscious.

No, Rainbow! Twilight tried to communicate over the roar of her mentor's spell. The Princess can't hear you, so she won't stop the spell for you! Moving the boy will get you a face-full of fire instead!

Rainbow just looked puzzled, having failed to understand any of what her friend had just said.

Twilight sighed, and tapped the tiara she had brought. Harmony time, girls!





Touma was desperately trying to keep an eye on both the Princess and the Mane Six at once. He could stop blocking the solar beam and induce a friendly fire accident, but he didn't want anyone to die. Seeing the assorted jewelery on the ponies glow made him panic more than a little.

The rainbow light of harmony fired...

...and Touma jumped to one side, allowing the two super-magic beams to collide with each other. The two battled against each other DBZ-style.

Pony feathers! Xlestia thought. If I drop my Flare Beam now, the EoH will hit me! The Tree of Harmony won't be very happy with me right now. Twilight, stop with the rainbow beam!

Ack! Twilight panicked. My plan was for the Princess to see the rainbow beam and stop her spell. Why isn't she dropping it? If we stop now, we'll be fried! We can't keep this up for long! Indeed, the Mane Six were running low on energy already. Using the Elements on Nightmare Moon had knocked them all out, and they hadn't exactly practiced since then!

Both ponies then realized they had momentarily forgotten about Touma.

Xlestia turned her head just in time to see a fist fill her vision.

The impact of the first was so great Xlestia was lifted off her hooves and smacked into the wall, her spell interrupted by the anti-magic fist. The harmony beam speed towards Touma, who backhanded it. The rainbow light pressed against Imagine Breaker, then split into a billion pieces to the familiar sound of negation. The backlash combined with exhaustion sent the Mane Six out cold.

Xlestia struggled to her hooves, but Touma ran over and grasped her horn with his right hand before she could get her bearings. The alien sensation of being completely devoid of magic for the first time in her life froze Xlestia's brain long enough for the high schooler to land a haymaker with his left hand, sending the Alicorn sprawling once more.

Touma waited, but Xlestia did not get back up. He checked - she was just knocked out. Good.

Touma walked over to his friends and negated the Conversion Serum on both of them. Then he looked up.

"About time you guys got here."





Xlestia regained consciousness surrounded by an intricate magic circle.

"Don't try to leave the circle or cast magic." A voice warned. "It won't be pleasant if you try."

Xlestia looked up. Around the circle were two humans.

"I'm Stiyl Magnus." The man who just spoke, a red headed giant of a man dressed in a black cloak introduced himself.

"Kanzaki Kaori." Stated the woman in a shirt and a pair of jeans with one leg removed. "We represent the 0th Parish of the Church of England, Necessarius."

"Now," Stiyl started as he lit a cigarette "we are going to have a conversation about your future in this world."

Xlestia whimpered.





World Five - When science and magic cross paths, a friendship is born.
> World Suggestions Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harry Potter

"Well, this is a fine mess!" Professor Snape snarled.

The faculty of Hogwarts was having a crisis meeting. Not even head-in-the-ground ignoramus purebloods like the Malfoy family had missed the advent of the world-ending Barrier spreading from what claimed to be a nation of Unicorns, Winged Horses (though they called themselves Pegasi), and (as far as the wizarding world could tell) almost non-magical talking ponies.

Wizards and Witches everywhere were in a blind panic trying to decide what they could do to help, and whether this should prompt a reveal of the Wizarding World or not. The Headmaster was this very moment trying to herd the International Confederation of Wizards into a response plan.

"What I don't buy is this whole 'magic invading non-magical space' rubbish." Flitwick reported. "It might make sense to the muggles, but magic certainly isn't lacking in our world."

The other professors nodded thoughtfully. What could that Barrier actually be?

Fwoosh went the fireplace as Dumbledore floo'd in. "Good news!" He beamed. "We came up with an appropriate response to the situation."

"And?" Mcgonagall asked.

"I'm going to talk the situation over with their Princess over some tea." Dumbledore smiled.

"....what?" Snape reacted dumbly.





Four hours later, Princess Celestia could be seen speeding out of Hogwarts Castle with shameful tears streaking down her face.

Snape, watching her go, turned to Dumbledore. "What did you say to her, Headmaster?"

"I simply convinced her that this conversion plan of hers really wasn't the right thing to do. Her heart took over from there." Dumbledore replied slyly.

Snape looked at his boss with suspicion. "And what magic did you use to convince her, pray tell? Surely not the Imperius curse."

Dumbledore looked offended. "Do you really have such a low opinion of me, Severus?"

"That... creature... spent a awful lot of effort to just be turned around in one conversation." Snape pointed out.

"There may have been something in the tea." Dumbledore admitted.

"And what do you plan to do if she finds out that you put potions in her tea?"

"Nothing, the potion was in my tea after all." Dumbledore explained, showing the Potions master a bottle. 

"Felix Felicis? The Liquid Luck potion?" Snape identified incredulously. "You talked the Princess into halting her schemes with luck?!"

"She has some magnificent parent issues, by the way." Dumbledore confided.




Familiar of Zero

The throne room rung with the sound of silence.

"I'm... I'm sorry." The Princess of Tristain, Henrietta managed. "Could you say that again, please?"

"I said my home is being invaded by unicorns, what's so hard to understand?!" Saito Hiraga, Japan native, demanded.

The Princess shared a look with the duchess de La Vallière. "Well, the thing is..."

"Is your homeland not the origin of the powerful Staff of Destruction?" Demanded the Duchess.

"Well, yes." Saito admitted, knowing they meant a rocket launcher.

"And that strange flying machine that defeated Albion's entire invasion fleet of dragons and airships?"

"Look, I know the Zero fighter was impressive to you guys, but - "

"Then explain to me how producers of such powerful artifacts are threatened by unicorns." The Duchess stressed.

"Well, it's not just unicorns. They also have pegasi and other ponies." Saito realized that was the wrong thing to say.

"They have this huge wall that we can't get though." He hurriedly explained. "It gets bigger over time. I think they plan to crush us with it."

"Can't you break this wall?" Henrietta asked.

"It's a magic wall." Saito mumbled.

Louise de La Vallière, who had remained silent up till now, looked pleadingly at her mother and her childhood friend. "Please, princess. Give me permission to dispel this wall!"

The Princess composed herself, and smiled back. "Of course, Louise."

"A magic wall that Saito's mysterious countrymen cannot break, manufactured by unicorns?" The Duchess flatly stated. "This I have to see."




One World Gate spell later...




"Do you think you can do it?" Saito quietly said to his master and love interest.

"Of course!" Louise replied with false confidence. "Void rules supreme over even the heretical magic of the elves. Unless this 'Unicorn Princess' also bears Brimir's holy bloodline, I should have no trouble riding us of her handwork."

Saito turned his head to see the Princess and Duchess, who were both trying to keep half an eye on the immense Barrier and the other goggling at Tokyo city behind them.

"No pressure." He whispered.

The sword strapped to Saito's back gave a hearty chuckle. "Hey, no worries! If she fails, give me a try!"

"You can eat that much magic?" Saito asked the sentient, magic-eating sword dubiously.

"Well, no." Derfflinger admitted. "But I could definitely cut a hole in it."

"Quiet!" Louise demanded. She then took a deep breath, and started to cast.

Louise's Void magic collided with Xlestia's Alicorn magic - a spell to overwrite magic with nothing impacting a spell to keep non-magical substances out. Power levels aside, the result was very predictable.

"Well," the Duchess broke the silence as the Barrier slowly dissolved "I believe your countrymen can handle themselves from here?"

On cue, a squadron of fighter jets flew overhead. The girls, raised in a fantasy setting, gawked.

"Yeah, I recon they can." Saito smirked.




Naruto

"You know, it's funny." The silver-haired ninja with one visible eye stated.

The Mane Six looked at him with varying degrees of pain, fear and anger. All of them were suffering some form of debilitating injury, be it a burn, laceration, or being peppered with kunai. Kakashi had been very careful in hamstringing them. After all, they would make excellent hostages, but they couldn't be allowed to escape.

"Those artifacts you brag about, the Elements of Harmony? I heard their power comes from something called the Tree of Harmony." The spy/assassin continued.

Normally that would have prompted comment from the ponies, but they were well aware of how quickly and thoroughly they had been beaten. They didn't want to attract any kind of attention from this guy. Humans were just as bad as the Princess said!

"And that's funny, because the power I used against you just now? Chakra? That comes from Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, after she ate the fruit of the Shinju tree."

A few handseals and nin-dogs appeared, ready to help transport the mares back to the Village. Rarity whimpered in remembered fear.

"The Shinju tree is an ancient tree which grew from the blood of the deceased during the era of endless wars at the dawn of the human race."

Rainbow Dash wished dearly that she still had the use of her wings. The jerk had stuck those knife things of his right though the delicate tendons needed to move them.

"So, I guess you could say our power comes from the Tree of Discord." Kakashi finished, preparing to move out.




Transformers

The two leaders stared at each other though the Barrier.

On one side, the ancient ruler of ponykind, Princess Xlestia, hovering above the ground so as to look her counterpart in the optics.

On the other, the ancient leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime, having to step back every so often to avoid touching the expanding Barrier.

"Why?" The synthesized voice asked, like a teacher who couldn't understand why his student was failing. "Why would you come to this world if you knew that disaster would only follow you?"

Xlestia narrowed her eyes in disapproval. "Why did you?"

Prime was quiet for a time. "In the end... we had hoped not to get this world involved in the War."

"You failed miserably on that account."

Prime tightened his expression. "Were we to leave now, the Decepticons would hardly leave this world alone. If humanity is to survive, we must aid them as best we can."

"And so it is with us." Xlestia mostly succeeded in keeping the smugness out of her voice. "The Barrier is self-sustaining. Having us leave now would doom humanity to a slow demise."

Prime's fists tightened. "I cannot believe that this is the only option. By the end of your plan, all that remains of the human race will be memories."

"And by the end of your plan, all that remains of them will be ashes." Xlestia countered, shocking the ancient robot.

Prime waited for his anger protocols to cycle down. "They deserve the right to choose their fate."

"Then we shall see, won't we, what fate they decide?"

Prime stared into Xlestia's eyes, searching methodically. Then he transformed into vehicle mode, and drove off.

Xlestia smirked. As if the humans would choose probable death over certain life. She turned to fly off, but found her way blocked by Token Minion.

"Token, dear, if you would kindly - "

"Magnificent performance you gave there. I was truly impressed." The deep, metallic voice most certainly did not belong to Token. "Not many can put one over on Prime."

Xlestia gasped. "Changling?!"

Token Minion's face split open. The metal inside folded out, expanding until an impossibly large robot had emerged from the small pegasus. 

"Worse." The newly revealed Decepticon boomed. "A Pretender suit."

The enormous metal hand wrapped around the Princess, who gasped in surprise. "But technology cannot enter here!"

"It cannot pass through that field of yours, no." The robotic life-form boomed out a correction. "Fortunately, Space Bridges render that meager protection of yours moot."

Xlestia struggled, but she was gripped so tight she could barely breathe.

"This world belongs to me, and I won't stand for interlopers claiming it from under me!" Megatron snarled, charging up his arm cannon. "Goodbye, princess."




Gurren Lagann

"The hell happened to you?" Kamina demanded of the crater in the ground.

With a groan, Princess Xlestia pulled herself out of the dirt she'd been imbedded in. The other Dai-Gurren members took a step back at the sight of a new 'beastman' but Kamina just stood and watched.

Kamina squinted at the creature. Xlestia took a moment to compose her answer.

"You know how you can spend years planning your time in a new world and you get there and everything falls to pieces?"

"Oh boy do I!" Kamina responded happily. "The surface world was supposed to be this awesome paradise, but I get here and it's just this pathetic desolate place where all the animals have giant robots to kill you with!"

Xlestia stared at Kamina blankly. "Um. Yes. Well, suffice to say the Spiral King didn't approve of my plans of conquest. I'm... not sure how far he threw me, exactly. How far away is the capital from here?"

"You went up against the Spiral King?" Yoko asked amazed. Then she processed the second sentence. "The Spiral King threw you from the capital to here? How crazy strong is he?! The capital's on the other side of the ocean!"

"I'm not certain." Xlestia admitted. "He somehow converted his entire city into a giant robot and started smashing my Barrier to pieces. That was what threw me. Without my Alicorn levels of Pegasus magic, I'd be charcoal by now."

"His whole city is a giant Gunmen?" Kamina asked in excitement. "Awesome! I can't wait to steal that from under his nose! Come on, guys! Pick up the horsy and lets go!"

"Wait, what? Why are you bringing me along?" 

"You can tell us all about your epic struggle with the Spiral Tyrant!"

"I lost. Badly. And I had an army and a giant wall of death on my side!"

"We have better: Team Dai-Gurren's manly spirit!" Kamina then seemed to realize something. "Hmmm. Yoko has epic boobs and a giant sniper rifle, so she's as manly as can be, but how are we going to fit you in the team?"

Yoko pointed said rifle at the back of Kamina's head. "Is that why you keep me on the team? Really?"

"I know!" Kamina ignored the death glare from Yoko with practiced denseness. "We'll get you a saddle, and you can be my manly warhorse!"

"Bro?" Simon questioned. "You pilot a giant robot. How are you going to fit a horse in the cockpit with you?"

"I'm a pony." Xlestia protested out of habit.

"I'll do it with guts! Now, onwards! I have a few things I'd like to say to this King looser."





"Oh, Celestia! You're, um, not human shaped anymore."

Xlestia glared at teenage Simon. "It took ninety bottles of Conversion Serum to flush the Spiral Energy out. Ninety. I don't care if it's an emergency, never use my horn as a replacement Core Drill again!"
> What I actually think would happen
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 "And so, I do hereby call the first meeting of the Salvation Council to order!" 

The enormous chamber, full of experts in every conceivable field of science, plus a few experts in mythology, quietened down.

The speaker cleared his throat. "As Chairman, I call on Princess Celestia to explain the situation."

In the front row of the auditorium, the Sun Princess left her seats next to her sister and her student and trotted calmly to the stage and sat down behind the podium. She gave a sad smile and began her explanation. 

"As you are all aware, my kingdom, Equestria, recently relocated to the Pacific Ocean from our previous world." There was a moment as nearly one hundred of those present pressed the buzzer on their desk that meant they wanted to ask a question. 

Celestia preempted the questions. "No, I have absolutely no idea how this happened. I can think of perhaps 3 forces capable of this sort of magic, and none of them have been anything but blatant in their past actions. Yes, I asked them anyway. They denied doing it, denied being capable of doing it, and I believe them. Importantly, neither those forces, nor my Sister and I are capable of moving Equestria back, so that convenient avenue is lost to us."

The Council seemed mostly satisfied with that answer.

"The most immedient of problems caused by our presence is the rouge weather patterns your world is suffering from. Currently, every able bodied pegasus who answers to the crown is working with weather scientists all around the world to try and mitigate the damage."

That was absolutely true, in fact. It was amazing what those 'computer models' could work out: start a good breeze here, and suddenly that hurricane off the coast heads back out to sea. That had left Equestria devoid of weather managers, which had curiously led to the Griffons offering to keep the weather running while the ponies worked. Celestia hoped her ponies back home could tough it out while the pegasi kept Earth from (figuratively) shaking to pieces.

Behind her, the screen displayed an image of the Barrier that was the cause of the Council in the first place.

"The Barrier.... to be quite frank, I have no idea what caused it." One of the scientists activated his buzzer, so Celestia allowed him his question.

"Does Magic fill a vacuum? That is, could this be a case of magic propagating into a magic-free environment?" Asked the Asian particle physicist.

"That is indeed how magic behaves, but not in this fashion. We have made magical vacuums both before and after the transition, and we haven't seen Barrier-like behavior either time. The anti-technology angle in particular is very strange - my little ponies have been using hydro-electric power for some years now, and magic has had no problems with it. The fact that it is attacking your people is also nonsensical: if not having magic meant magic killed you, none of the animals in Equestria would still be there."

Another buzz. "So, in theory, it isn't that our world lacked magic, but some other factor which caused this Barrier?" Asked a female Briton.

Celestia nodded. "Most definitely. I would say that some intelligence is behind it, but the power and skill to create a barrier such as this almost exceeds that needed to transport Equestria. Suffice to say, if someone did create this deliberately, I have no idea who or how."

Celestia scanned the faces in the room, noting somewhat disappointingly that many of the faces gathered there were displaying clear disbelief. To be fair, it is their world which is dying while mine is thriving. She would just have to earn their trust the hard way.

The chairman spoke again. "Describe for us the expansion of the Barrier."

"Of course." Celestia nodded. "The Barrier is expanding constantly at a walking pace in all directions - " A buzzer interrupted her, to her mild surprise.

"Actually Princess, that isn't quite true." When the room broke out into mutters, the Russian scientist hurried to explain himself. "To clarify, you are correct about the speed of expansion, but the Barrier halted it's progress into space at the outer limits of the atmosphere, about 100 kilometers straight up. I have the satellite images to prove it, should you wish to view it."

Celestia's expression became grateful. "That is excellent news! That rules out more than half the theories I had on the Barrier's cause. It would mean the Barrier is seeking to cover this planet specifically, not the universe as a whole."

Buzz came an Indian engineer. "Does this mean if we could move Equestria to another planet, Earth would be safe?"

Celestia's eyebrows knit together. "I believe so, yes."

Buzz. "Can we?"

"Well..." Celestia chewed the question over. "My sister and I could certainly move Equestria - we are used to moving much heavier things, and the Barrier would hold the environment together. The problem would be separating Equestria from Earth. Telekinesis, even the variant my Sister and I use, merely moves an object. It cannot be used to alter an object - and in this case the planet Earth would count as one object, Equestria and all."

Buzz. "Can't you just use magic to stop the Barrier in the first place?"

Celestia gave a sad smile. "The Barrier absorbs attempts to magically alter it, I'm afraid. And our usual counter for such situations, the Elements of Harmony... well, they seem to think of the Barrier as a natural disaster. That is, they can no more befriend this then they can a earthquake."

Buzz. "So, we can't make it some other planet's problem, and we can't magically make it disappear... any serious suggestions?"

"Hey! Those are serious suggestions, man!"

"Get real!"

And before her eyes, the auditorium devolved into one giant incoherent shouting match. As the chairman struggled to regain order, Celestia sighed.





Twilight Sparkle gathered up her notes. After failing to calm the shouting, the chairman had declared an early lunch break. She and the Royal Sisters had gone to the hotel that had been leased to Equestria for the conference.

Celestia came and sat down next to her student, as did Luna. "What a mess." She groaned, eyes shut. Opening one eye to look at Twilight, she asked "Any breakthroughs in your research, my faithful student?"

Twilight organized her jumbled thoughts as best she could. "Well, humans have many belief systems that sound like they could be their version of the Elements of Harmony, but as far as I can tell, none of them have a physical form."

"Oh?" Luna queried.

"Well, for example the most popular belief system in the world has something called the 'Fruits of the Spirit'."

Celestia, fully aware that the Elements of Harmony came from a tree, perked up.

"The Fruits in question are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Twilight continued.

Celestia blinked.

Twilight looked sheepish. "It's a bit of a stretch, but if you take 'Joy' to be 'Laughter', 'Faithfulness' to be 'Loyalty', and 'Goodness' to include 'Honesty', then the remaining Fruits would seem to cover 'Generosity' and 'Kindness' is explicitly included."

Luna wondered what an Element of Self-Control would be like. Without really thinking, she found herself eying her sister.

"But, these Fruits don't have Element Bearers we could ask for help?" Celestia probed.

"Princess, none of these belief systems have testable power." Twilight answered. "Magic simply doesn't exist in this world, and there doesn't seem to be something in it's place." She looked troubled. "Before we arrived, Friendship held no special power at all."

"Oh, Twilight." Celestia nuzzled her student. "Friendship will always hold power, even when magic is off the table."

"But - "

Twilight was interrupted by angry shouting coming from outside. Luna trotted over to the windows and looked outside.

"Sister? Humans are not herd animals, correct?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Because there appears to be a stampede outside."

Indeed, the Human Liberation Front was conducting a full-blown riot at both ends of the street, trying to get past the police barricade. Shouts of "Down with the Invaders!", "Burn the Witches!" and even the really foul "Ponies belong in Abattoirs!" were being chanted over and over by the crowd.

Far, far more worrying to the ponies were the equine-shaped spirits that floated above the crowd's heads, and the sudden cold snap that had started.

Luna cursed in a dead language.

The door to the room burst open. As the ponies wheeled about, they saw with relief that it was the human in charge of their security at the hotel.

"Are you doing that?" She demanded, thumbing at the snow-spirits.

"No, those are Wendigos. They are native to our land, but I no more command them then you command the birds." Celestia hurriedly explained.

"Wendigos? The spirits of cold and cannibalism?!" The native American woman asked in fear.

The ponies shared a shocked look. "The cold bit is right, and while I don't know about any native versions Equestrian Wendigos feed off of disharmony, not... flesh." Twilight explained. "The stampede outside almost certainly attracted them."

Said riot was starting to lose cohesion as the crowd began to panic at the sudden snowstorm.

The security woman made a face of frustration. "Disharmony... you're telling me the things feed off racism? Oh man, they're going to spread like flies."

The ponies winced as they simultaneously had uncharitable thoughts about humanity and mentally slapped themselves for it.

"It's bad enough that that Barrier keeps us out, it doesn't keep your predators in."

Celestia quickly decided on a plan. "Twilight, grab your friends and make as much of the Fire of Friendship as you can. Luna and I will go contain the situation outside."

"Ma'am, if the crowd sees you out there they may just reform and start attacking you." The security woman pointed out.

"We shall take to the sky, and stay out of reach, fair guardswoman." Luna assured her.

"Well," Celestia started as she and Luna took off though the window "it could be worse."

"How so?"

"They could be Parasprites instead."

"Ugh. Do not even joke about that."





"...and so, Mr President, I'm afraid that we now have 'Wendigo' infestations to worry about in addition to the Barrier. If it weren't for some very open minded climatologists working with Princess Celestia to use the sun like a giant thermostat, we'd already be in an Ice Age." The Secretary of Health and Human Services reported.

The man frequently referred to as the most powerful in the world considered what he'd been told.

"Countermeasures?" He demanded.

"The ponies have a magic-based repellent." The Secretary offered.

"Mundane countermeasures?"

"Scarf and a warm jacket."

"Be serious!" The Secretary of Defense barked.

"Fine. Fix racism."

"We can't just shoot them?" The President asked pleadingly.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services gave an odd look to the President. "We can't shoot the Wendigos, no. Bullets don't work so well when the target is incorporeal."

"Damn those ponies." The Secretary of Defense growled. "Their Barrier wasn't killing us fast enough, so now they've released the attack dogs!"

"If you don't mind, sir, I believe it is my job to be the paranoid git." The Director of the CIA interrupted, not looking up from his notes. "As it happens, the Equestrian government is genuine when it says this was an accident."

The President didn't know whether to be relived or terrified. "What makes you say that, Mark?"

"Large-scale random questionnaires. Almost none of the pony population was aware that Wendigos were not extinct. They certainly were not being kept in captivity - I assume the pony countermeasure worked so well they haven't had to deal with the creatures in centuries."

The President removed his glasses absentmindedly and began to clean them. "No wonder they get along with each other so well. If they don't, they freeze to death."

"Huge disincentive to 'unfriendly' behavior... long-lasting, competent and stable government... being held directly responsible for the health of animals and the functioning of weather... really, is it so surprising that the ponies are as they are?" The Director commented.

The President became thoughtful. "Yes, it's like they live in a world where friendship isn't just good, it's downright necessary..." He trailed off. "I wonder if that's it?"

The three advisers shared a look. "If what's what, Mr President?"

"If there was some intelligence - I don't know, socially engineering pony civilization, and it encountered life that didn't live under it's rules..."

"I thought we agreed that Princess Celestia isn't behind the recent events." The Director pointed out.

"I didn't." The Secretary of Defense grumbled.

"Celestia is a powerful force, but that doesn't mean she could be excluded from a hypothetical scheme..." The President collected himself. "Forget it. It's all unsubstantiated, untestable theory. We'll work with what we know."

"I don't care if they lived in a fairyland before, they're here now, not some cartoon." The Secretary continued to grumble.

"Heh. Yeah, Equestria defiantly fits the definition of fairyland alright." The Secretary of Health and Human Services commented.

"I wonder what a cartoon about them would look like..." The President thought out loud. Then he scrunched up his brow. "Cartoon..."

He stood up suddenly. "By George, I think I have an idea."





"Powell?"

"Yeah, Donovan?"

"Remind me again what we're doing planting a nuke in the but-end of nowhere?"

The technician turned to his best friend in utter shock. "You wait until I'm literally moving the nuclear bomb into the hole, and then you ask?!"

"Well, it didn't seem like a good time to ask before!" Donovan snapped back.

"And you think now is?" Powell groaned into his hands. "Look, you know how ponyland is all cute and fluffy and rainbows everywhere?"

"Yeeeessss." Donovan drawled.

"Well, it turns out that explosives from there don't hurt when they go off in your face. Some kind of magical safety feature."

"What, like a Loony Tunes bomb?"

"I think they even used a clip from the show in the briefing." Powell noted. "The briefing you should have been watching."

Donovan didn't really have a reply to that which would salvage his dignity. "So, what, working together we get nukes that can't hurt anybody?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Because they make the ultimate mining explosive."

His mouth wide open, Donovan stared at Powell. "What the hell would you use a nuclear bomb to mine?!"

Powell gave his friend a frustrated look. Did he pay no attention at all to anything the past few days? "Equestria."

Donovan's mouth closed with a 'click'.

"Well, more like a series of nukes." Powell elaborated. "The explosion has been calculated very carefully to separate the continent from the seafloor so that the Super-Pony Princesses can pick it up and move it somewhere far away."

"Okay, that explains why we're in a submarine." Donovan admitted. That saved him having to ask. "Wait, won't we need to get some nukes deep underground for this to work? How are they pulling that off?"

"Sheer, bloody-minded determination. Any other stupid questions you want to get out of the way now?"

"Where are the ponies going to live? What about the snow-monsters?"Donovan fired away imminently.

Powell tapped his chin. "I think the ponies were going to make a new planet with the chuck we're about to rip out? I can't really remember. I think there was also a plan to have them live in the middle of Australia? To be honest, neither sounds particularly likely."

"And the snow-things?" Donovan prompted.

Powell actually grinned. "Someone showed the ponies Ghostbusters. It gave them ideas."





"Now remember girls, don't look into the trap!" Twilight yelled, trying desperately to aim the stream of rainbow light pouring from the familiar-to-film-fans apparatus on her back.

"I looked into the trap, Twilight!" Rainbow confessed, trying to herd the Wendigos downward with her own rainbow stream.

"Pinkie, no! Don't cross the streams!"
> World Six - Mobius
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Xlestia trotted into Token Minion's office in a huff. "Token! Do you know where Twilight and her friends are?"

Token looked at her monarch with confusion. "You don't know? They went off to go make friends with the locals hours ago."

Xlestia's head snapped back in alarm. "I did remember to tell them what horrible monsters humans are, right?"

"Oh, you did." Token confirmed. "They went to make friends with the other races."

Xlestia blinked. "Other races?"





A tree bent over nearly sideways as two blurs passed at near mach one - one rainbow and one blue.

"Uh-oh, those are hills ahead!" Rainbow Dash yelled with exaggerated concern. "Looks like those spindly legs of yours ain't gonna cut it for long!"

"Aww, the multicolored horse is worried about me?" Sonic the Hedgehog called back. "Don't be, I can out-race you running backwards!"

Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "Oh, it is SO ON!"

The two stopped throwing jabs at each other then. After all, it's hard to hear someone yelling when traveling faster than their words.

-BOOM!-





Twilight Sparkle was just about ready to hurl an eraser at the blackboard she was working on. Her new friend was undoubtedly a genius, but come on!

"Listen, Tails." She implored. "Chaos is the complete antithesis of civilization! It's losing everything you take for granted, breakdowns in communication, friends turning on each other!" She tapped the part of the board where Tails had written it. "It can't be necessary for life!"

"Actually," Miles 'Tails' Prower corrected gently "I think you're talking about discord. That's a very specific mix of Chaos and Order - the society is in chaos, but the individual people are internally orderly - just not getting along. Perfect Order is just as deadly to life as Perfect Chaos is."

Twilight squinted at their pooled knowledge of metaphysical concepts. Ooohhh... she saw her problem. With an eraser and a bit of chalk, she established Order/Chaos as separate from Harmony/Discord.

"Right, life just.... stops without anything random happening." Twilight puzzled out. Now that she thought about it, the happiest pony she knew was also the most chaotic.

"Now you're getting it!" Tails agreed.





" - and it's like none of them ever appreciates what I do here!" Knuckles the Echidna growled out. "'Oh Knuckles, why do you have to stay on Angel Island all the time, nothing bad will happen if you leave!' Don't they get how stupidly powerful the Master Emerald is?"

Applejack nodded sympathetically. "Ah know the feelin'. 'Applejack, it ain't apple-buck season. Why are ya tending to ya trees all tha time?' Sometimes, ah wonder if anypony realizes how hard it is to maintain acres of apple trees with two and a bit workers, ya know what ah mean?"

Knuckles raised his cup of apple juice. "Cheers, then: to those who do the hard jobs."

Applejack tapped her cup to his, and drank deeply.

The two looked out at the view as Angel Island began to drift over the edge of Green Hill Zone.

Applejack gave a smile at her new Echidna friend. "We could have a party up here, if ya want."

Knuckles shook his head gently. "Thanks, but I'd just fret about someone stealing the Emerald while everyone was up here. Small groups are fine."

Applejack shrugged. "Suit yourself, partner."





" - and then that guard back there must have the worst headache or something, 'cause he wouldn't stop clutching his head the whole time I was there! And that boss dude of yours must be diabetic, 'cause he threw out all my cupcakes when he thought I wasn't watching, but then - "

Without breaking stride, Shadow the Hedgehog opened his G.U.N. headquarters locker, retrieved a pair of earplugs, inserted them and closed the door to the locker. Pinkie Pie pretended not to notice as she kept up her stream of words. She'd have him befriended before he knew it!

Her giggles were interrupted by the Red Alert klaxon. 





Cream the Rabbit and Fluttershy didn't have much of a conversation going. After all, they were having too much fun playing with the Chao to really do more than giggle.

Silently, various animal-themed Eggbots surrounded the Chao fountain. 





Rarity tried not to stumble over her own hooves. She had intended to go make new friends with everypony else, but her gem-seeking spell had gone off and almost dragged her into this ravine. This had to be a whopper of a gemstone cluster!

Finally, the pulling sensation in her horn ebbed. This was it! 

Telekinetically grabbing a flat rock, Rarity dug. It should be... there!

The jewel was indeed impressive: nearly the size of her head, a vibrant green, and precisely cut (which would mean that someone buried it, pity...)

Of course, her inspection was ruined when hands wrapped around the gemstone and made off with it.

Rarity blinked in surprise. "What...?"

"Sorry dear, but I absolutely must have this Emerald. You understand, right? Gems are a girls best friend!" Rouge the Bat called, flying up with the gem in hand.

"Thief!" Rarity cried, galloping after her.

"Oh, as if it belongs to you either."

"I was going to make it the centerpiece of a beautiful work of art, for all to see!"

"Good thing I stole it, then!" Rouge called, flying as fast as Rarity could gallop. "Leaving these gems in public never ends well!"

"Come back here!"

Neither pony nor bat noticed the robot shaped like a certain famous hedgehog until it was too late.





Xlestia nervously rubbed her face. She'd completely dropped the ball on her scrying: intelligent races other than humanity would completely wreck her propaganda. She could hardly convince her little ponies about the evils of humanity if they had friends to stand up for them! She needed to rebuild her strategy, fast!

Suddenly, she heard a loud whine that a more tech-savvy individual might have recognized as a megaphone being switched on. At the same time, a rectangular section of the Barrier suddenly had a human face plastered over it.

The face spoke with a voice almost as loud as the Canterlot Royal Voice. "Greetings, fair citizens of Equestria! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Ivo Robotnik, but you can call me Dr. Eggman."

Xlestia flew up in front of the image. "What do you want?" She demanded angrily.

The bald, glasses-wearing scientist grinned. "Actually, I wanted to complement you, dear Celestia!"

Xlestia narrowed her eyes in suspicion. 

"After all, I've been trying to conquer this mud-ball for years, and I still haven't hit on a fool-proof plan! But you, my dear... an unstoppable wall of doom, avoidable only by assimilation? Genius!" Eggman's glasses glinted dangerously. "Why, after conquering this kingdom of yours, I might even copy your trick!"

Xlestia's ears swiveled as far back as they would go. "You will not rule this kingdom!"

"Oh, but I will." Eggman taunted. "Your pitiful ponies can't stop my robot armies!"

Xlestia looked beyond the Barrier. As far as she could see, the Barrier was indeed surrounded by robots of all descriptions. She even saw what looked like Eggman's personal craft, projecting his image onto the magical surface.

"You know that this Barrier cannot be penetrated by technology of any kind?" She asked, quite snobbishly.

Eggman raised his hand to his forehead, sounding faint. "'Oh no, woe is me! For I am completely helpless!'" His fake despair melted away to a maniacal grin. "Or rather, that's what I would say, if I wasn't a complete genius."

The Egg Mobile's bottom panel opened up, revealing the barrel of a laser cannon, which pointed itself straight at the Barrier. Around the muzzle of the ray gun were arranged seven large, perfectly-cut gems that could be considered identical if they weren't all different colors.

"Chaos Annihilator!"  Eggman named his weapon. "FIRE!"

The Chaos Annihilator fired a beam of pure yellow Chaos Energy,  which smashed into the Barrier. The magical sphere rippled from the point of impact, then broke apart into hundreds of giant shards, which fell. Xlestia's eyes grew to the approximate size of softballs.

"All Eggman forces, advance! Bring the ponies to their knees!" Eggman cried in triumph. 

No. Nonononono - NO! Her plan was falling to pieces! Her eyes suddenly refocused on the Egg Mobile. HIM.

A quick teleport, and she was staring Eggman directly in the eyes. "Any last words, Human?" Xlestia threatened, horn already charging a spell.

If Eggman was surprised, he didn't show it. "As it happens my dear, yes. NOW!"

Much like a child trapping a bug under a cup, two Badniks dropped a glass chamber over the top of Xlestia, breaking her concentration. The bottom of the chamber glowed white, and a ring of energy began to move upwards around the alicorn.

Eggman gave a deep belly laugh. "Oh, ho ho ho ho! I've won, my dear!"

Xlestia tried to teleport out, but the energy ring was interfering with her magic. "WHAT IS THIS?"

"That is a Roboticizer. It was originally invented to save the terminally ill, but I saw its true potential."

The ring had moved all the way up her legs and was moving over her torso now. Xlestia saw that her legs had turned to metal when the ring passed over them. Xlestia felt a deep, primal fear as her biological body became mechanical.

"You wish to turn the whole world into ponies? Not before I turn you all into robots!"

When the energy began converting her head into steel, Xlestia finally screamed in terror. Then the wave passed, and Mecha Xlestia switched her optics back on.

"How do you feel, my dear?" Eggman grinned.

"Reprogramming complete. Ready to serve, Doctor!"





Sonic, Tails and Knuckles were arguing back and forth while Twilight, Rainbow and Applejack tried not to panic as the six rode the TORNADO mark 7 over the ocean to Equestria.

"You can't reach any of them?!" Knuckles cried.

"Nope. Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Fluttershy are officially MIA." Tails confirmed. "I can't contact Shadow or Cream either. G.U.N. is running around like a chicken trying to mobilize their forces to stop Eggman setting Equestria up as the next Eggmanland."

"This is bad. This is really bad!" Twilight fretted. "Ponies can put up a fight when they have to, but they'll fail completely when facing an army of specialized killing machines!"

Sonic put an arm around her neck and rubbed her head. "Don't you worry. Beating up Eggbots is kinda a national pastime around here. Freeing your home won't be a problem!" 

Over the remains of Equestria, a grey-toned sphere materialized from the top down.

Sonic glared at the new development. "I said, it won't be a problem!"

Tails hmmm'd. "Twilight, can you make sense of this?" He asked, showing her the TORNADO's scan results.

Twilight looked closely at the computer screen, curiosity overriding her panic somewhat. "It looks like Eggman somehow managed to invert the original Barrier. How on earth did he do that?"

"So, what, it kills anything that isn't a robot now?" Rainbow asked.

"Anything that tries to enter, yes. Given that Eggman himself isn't a robot and inside the Barrier we can assume that this Barrier doesn't kill organics that are already inside."

"Well, the Chaos Emeralds are all inside; and if Eggman's captured your friends, then we're down to three Harmony Emeralds." Knuckles reasoned. "I don't think we're breaking this dome anytime soon."

"They're called the Elements of Harmony, Sugercube." Applejack corrected.

"Hey, do you think a Sonic Rainboom might - "

"No, Rainbow." Twilight shot down.

"Hey Tails old buddy, if I go really, really fast, would I - "

"The Barrier would still get you Sonic, not matter what speed you were going."

Sonic threw his hands up in the air. "Well if it can't be solved with super-speed, it can't be solved!"

Tails ignored the melodrama as he looked over the scan results. "Twilight, do you know a handy Teleport spell?"





The six (sans biplane, because Twilight had been too tired to teleport it in after 9 consecutive teleports, and Tails hadn't finished its autopilot yet) approached ponyville at the Twilight's (the slowest team member) galloping speed.

Knuckles skidded to a halt as he noticed bipedal dome-headed robots marching though the town. "SWATBots!"

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's smash 'em!" Rainbow cried, only to have Applejack grab her tail when she tried to put actions to words.

"Actually, that is the best idea, Dashie." Sonic agreed, causing the farm pony to let go of Rainbow in surprise.

"Don't call me Dashie!" Rainbow yelled as she and the hedgehog charged the robots.

Twilight watched the two speedsters rush off with her mouth open. "Huh?"

Tails raised the blaster he'd taken from the TORNADO and started shooting at the SWATBots. "Eggman might be a scientific genius, but he sucks at logistics. His mass-produced robots can't hold up to a decent fighter, and he never makes than one of his actually threatening robots."

Knuckles shuddered at the thought of fighting two Mecha Knuckles at once; or heaven forbid two Metal Sonics.

Twilight managed to get over her shock enough to aid Tails in fire support while Applejack and Knuckles went for a more physical approach. True to Tail's word, the SWATBots almost always went down in one hit, and were terrible shots besides. It only took a half-hour to clear Ponyville of all the robot invaders (to the aggravation of Rainbow, who wanted to do it in ten seconds). 

During that half-hour though, it became obvious that the original residents of Ponyville were nowhere to be seen.

"Anythin'?" Applejack asked Tails, who was examining the data core of one of the SWATBots.

"It looks like Eggman's up to his old Roboticizer tricks." Tails commented, searching though the robot's log files. "The SWATBots had orders to move everypony here up to Canterlot, so I think he's setting up a Conversion Factory there."

"Robot what now?" Rainbow asked.

"Roboticizer." Sonic corrected. "It's this really nasty device Eggman uses to turn people into robots. It also makes them loyal to him, so if you see a robo-pony, be ready to defend yourself."

"Stupid Eggman." Knuckles growled. "It isn't enough that he takes our freedom, he needs to take our bodies and minds? I want to smash his face in more than usual."

"Uh, yeah.... mind and body alteration, very bad... ha ha ha..." Twilight gave a strained laugh.

Rainbow flew down so she could see over Tail's shoulder. "Anything about our friends in there?"

Tails searched. "Actually, there is! Oh no... sorry, it look like he already Roboticized them..."

"Tell me that's ah reversible process." Applejack begged.

Sonic nodded. "It is, but you need the original Roboticizer that changed them in the first place."

"And it looks like Eggman's keeping your friends in the far reaches of Equestria, and the Roboticizer in his stronghold in Canterlot." Tails added.

Twilight mulled over the issue. "We need to stop Eggman from converting anypony else, but we'll probably need the Elements to combat any magical tricks he's stolen while he's been here..."

"Well, it looks like Eggman is keeping your friends with a Chaos Emerald empowered guardian each, so if we defeat your friends first, we'll also have three Chaos Emeralds in addition to your Elements." Tails contributed.

Knuckles cracked his... knuckles. "Well, why don't we split up?"





"Friend of yours?" Rainbow quipped to Sonic as she chased down Shadow Droid, dodging the Chaos spears he sent back at her.

"Some of the time." Sonic admitted. "Most of the time he's just a pain in the - ack!" He let out a manly squeak as he suddenly noticed Creepy Pie clinging to his back. Her pink-painted metal muzzle opened wide, showing rows of high-speed razor blades for teeth.

"NOPE!" Sonic cried, punching the roboticized pony right between the optics.





"Oh man." Tails groaned. "I haven't had to use Shield Bots in ages."

"Just be glad you have access to shields at all!" Twilight snapped, trying to keep her own magical shield up as she ran.

Turbo Rouge continued to make fly-by attacks with her claws while Rari-robot harassed the two with energy bolts from her horn.





"Why do we have to fight the cute ones?" Knuckles grumbled, gliding though the air.

"Luck o' the draw, partner." Applejack answered, trying to lasso Chrome Cream out of the air to stop her launching Chao drones at them.

The fact that she was doing so from Knuckles's back was probably the main source of his foul mood. She wasn't a light pony, dangit!

Noticing Flutter Drone fly alongside the two, Applejack taunted her transformed friend. "What'cha gonna do, Stare us down?!"

Applejack didn't find it so funny when Flutter Drone's optics fired laser beams at her.





The three pairs meet back up where they had agreed to: just outside of Canterlot. Each was carrying a sack with the disabled forms of their roboticized friends inside.

"Now what?" Rainbow asked.

"Now he go introduce Eggman's face to my shoes, find the last four Chaos Emeralds, and get your friends De-Roboticized." Sonic answered with trademark cockiness.

"Maybe not in that order, Sonic." Tails admonished.

"How about not at all?" Twilight asked hauntingly.

Knuckles eyed the purple unicorn. "What prompted that?"

"Huh?" Twilight asked, confused. "I didn't say anything!"

"Over here, morons."

The six looked up the path to Canterlot, and jumped back in surprise. Standing there were two familiar silhouettes, filled in with the wrong materials.

"Metal Sonic." Sonic growled, bending over like a runner waiting for the 'go' signal.

"Correct. And I'm Metal Twilight." The self-identified robot replied. Metal Twilight looked visually like a cross between Metal Sonic and Twilight - a metal body in the shape of the copied pony, red-on-black optics, a jet thruster though 'her' torso. Her paint job was a darker shade of Twilight's purple.

"HUH?!" Twilight eloquently reacted.

"Yeah, Eggman sometimes builds robot copies of people. Don't take it personally." Sonic reassured her.

"Hey! Why her and not me?!" Rainbow cried, offended she didn't get her own evil robot doppelganger. 

"Oh, I am more than a mere copy." Metal Twilight corrected. "I have downloaded every book in Equestria into my databanks. With special attention payed to spellbooks..."

"A magic using robot?" Sonic scoffed. "That'd be the day."

Metal Twilight gave a cruel smirk. "Lets start with an old favorite, shall we? Want-it need-it."

Suddenly, Metal Sonic was absolutely the most wonderful object in the universe. Everyone present knew that all their problems would be solved if only they could get their hands on him, so long as no-one else had him.

Reflexively, Metal Sonic fired up his jet engine and ran away from the six organics as they charged him with all speed.

"NO, IDIOT! KILL THEM AS THEY COME TOWARDS YOU!" Metal Twilight yelled at the retreating robot. 'She' fired up its own jet engine, and started flying after the procession, firing off high-power energy beams as it did.





"Tails?" Sonic gasped. "When we trash Eggman this time, make sure we destroy all his research on magic, okay? I never want to have to do that again."

"What happened?" Applejack groaned. "We was chasin' the blue robot like he was the last apple on earth, then we all came to our senses!"

"Ah, well..." Twilight gulped down air. "I realized the best way to keep Metal Sonic all to myself was if no one else wanted him, so I cancelled the spell."

"Oh, so that was you undoing her magic. Thanks for that." Knuckles breathed. "Being a pot-plant was not fun."





Eggman scowled. Really? He went and conquered some backwater magical kingdom, and the infernal hedgehog still showed his face?! How had he even gotten inside the reverse-Barrier?

Bah! Well, he had planed for this anyway. Metal Sonic and Metal Twilight had bought him time, and now he was almost ready for his final improvement to the Barrier. All he had to do was keep that hedgehog away from the controls!

"You fools!" He cried, safe for the moment in his Egg Mobile. "You may have rescued your friends... but aren't you forgetting somepony?"

The three organic ponies (the other three still awaiting de-roboticization) gasped as the bottom of the Egg Mobile opened up and released Mecha Xlestia.

"No.... Princess, he got you?" Twilight asked, so shocked she didn't even notice Eggman leave.

"Really my faithful student, what did you expect? Being a robot is nowhere near as scary as you think. You even get to keep your magic. Stop resisting, and join us, your friends!" The robot alicorn spoke with the calm reassurance she was famous for when flesh.

Sonic rested his hand on Twilight's shoulder and gave a comforting squeeze. "Yeah, it might not be so bad. The original robotizer was a medical machine, wasn't it? But, there's just one little problem..." He withdrew the yellow Chaos Emerald from.... somewhere.... and tossed it up and down in his palm. "The day I take orders from Eggman is the day I hang up my running shoes forever!"

Mecha Xlestia gave a little giggle. "You think you can stop me with half of the Elements of Harmony and three Chaos Emeralds?" The front panel on her torso opened up, showing just where the other four Emeralds had ended up.

The other members of the band were severely disheartened at that sight, but not Sonic.

"Heh. You think we need more than that?" Sonic taunted. "Come on guys, lets run circles around her."

"But the Elements are useless when used by themselves!" Twilight despaired.

"Who said anything about using them by themselves?" Sonic grinned, tossing an Emerald to Tails and Knuckles.

"No!" Mecha Xlestia denied. "The powers of Harmony and Chaos are incompatible! You cannot!"

"Didn't we already have this discussion?" Tails muttered.

"The Emeralds wouldn't be very chaotic if they always did what you expect." Sonic pointed out as the Yellow, Blue and Red Emeralds started glowing.

Catching on, Twilight finished his thought for him. "And the Elements wouldn't be very harmonious if they couldn't work with others!" At those words, the Elements of Magic, Honesty and Loyalty glowed just as brightly as the Emeralds.

The light became blinding as the six performed the metaphysical equivalent of mixing nitro and glycerine. When it cleared, the ponies, fox, echidna and hedgehog were floating off the ground, engulfed in a light corresponding to their choice of gem - Sonic was blue, Tails yellow, Knuckles red, Applejack orange, Rainbow also red, and Twilight magenta.

"Custard and tart apple pie." Applejack breathed, her mane and tail moving about in the 'wind currents' of energy playing over her form.

"First time in a super form?" Knuckles asked.

"Yeeaaah." Twilight confirmed, drawing the word out.

"Oh man, you guys are gonna have fun." Sonic grinned.

Xlestia, who had been backing up as the powerful energies reacted to each other, regained her nerve. With a brief glow of her horn, a cloak of solar fire enveloped her chassis.

Without further talking, the six friends charged forward, forming a cone of energy that smashed Mecha Xlestia into the ground, completely ignoring the sheath of plasma around her.

"Ughhh...." She vocalized, trying to realign her gyroscopes.

"Now guys! Do a whirlwind!" Rainbow cried.

The six dashed around Mecha Xlestia, forming the tornado that both Rainbow and Sonic had as part of their repertoire, flinging gold-plated steel sky-high and extinguishing her fire.

"And for our final trick..." Twilight announced.

"Chaos - " Sonic started.

"RAINBOW!" They six finished together, the Element's party trick enhanced as the six participants actually led the light-show to its target, streams of golden Chaos intertwined with the magic of Friendship.

The merged energy overloaded Mecha Xlestia's sensors, and forced her OS into emergency shutdown.





Xlestia opened her eyes again and tried to run a self-diagnostic, before remembering that the sensation in her head was actually pain. A quick glance downward revealed that she was inside the Roboticizer and once more flesh-and-blood.

"Are you okay, Princess?" Twilight fretted for her mentor.

Xlestia blinked a couple times to remind herself of the sensation. "If I remember correctly, Eggman should be mixing the reverse-Barrier with his World Roboticizer about now. You should go stop him."

Sonic, arms full with all seven Chaos Emeralds, stopped juggling them. "Whoops! She's right, we'll de-roboticize your home town after, Eggman beating comes first!"

"But-!"

"Go, Twilight." Xlestia reassured her. "I'll be fine."

Twilight didn't quite look like she believed her princess, but she nodded and dashed off with her freshly de-roboticized friends to go and halt the workings of a madman.

Xlestia watched them go, conjuring paper, quill and ink as she did so.



My most faithful student Twilight Sparkle,

Today I learned that the happiness brought by forcibly making everyone alike is a lie, and goes away when the conversion is reverted. I need to think of a better plan for global happiness next time.

Yours sincerely,
Princess Celestia



Xlestia looked over her hastily-written letter. Putting her thoughts to paper had helped solidify them in her mind.

She then burned the letter with ordinary fire. She didn't want anyone to actually read it, after all.

Then, she stretched her wings, wondering if there would be anything left of Eggman when she joined in. She had accounts to settle with the man, after all.





World Six - Where friendship forms fast
> World Seven - Elite Beat Headquaters
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

8:48 AM
Outside the London Conversion Bureau

"Please, listen to me! Humanity isn't something you can just throw away! You have to fight for it!"

Everyone ignored the sole remaining protestor. His friends had been carted away hours ago, and he remained only because his 'shouting voice' was about the same as most people's whispers. They all just shuffled past him futility trying to block the doors.

"Please..." The 16 year old kid whimpered. "Don't give up hope yet..."

Everyone continued to ignore him. Some even failed to notice him at all.

"Please...!" The kid -Harvey by name- knew there was only one way he was going to turn this around.

He took a big breath.

"HEEEEEELLLLLPPPPPPP!!!"





Sitting at his desk, Commander Khan, leader of the Elite Beat Agents, watched the kid scream on his monitor. 

He nodded to himself and stood up, dramatically pointing his finger at the screen.

"Agents are... GO!!"





Harvey's tears stopped abruptly when he heard the sound of music.

Looking up, he saw a hot air balloon with three cheerleaders inside.

The three leaped out nimbly, landing next to Harvey. The leader of the three smirked, and patted the kid on the back.

Then the three got ready to dance.

Mission: Pony-pocalypse? Don't give up hope!

The beat hit Harvey like a truck, and straightening out the slouch in his back. That's right, I can't give up yet! I have to remind everyone how wonderful it is to be human!

The pony employes inside the Conversion Bureau were surprised to hear spontaneous music break out amongst the humans. Sure, they knew it happened to ponies, but humans had neither the magic nor the happy attitude for that. Right?

A light-bulb metaphorically flashed over Hervey's head. I got it!

Are you ready? 3, 2, 1... GO!

You're insecure? Don't know what for. You're turning heads when you walk through the do-o-or~

A dash to fetch chalk and some tennis balls later, and he'd set up a series of Four Square games along the edge of the side walk.

"A game or two to pass the time?" He offered. The people in line, slightly bored, took him up on his offer. Soon the sidewalk was full of people nimbly hitting tennis balls back down and towards their opponents.

Seeing the good cheer he had brought about, Harvey asked (at a normal volume even) "Pity you won't be able to do this without fingers, huh?"

You don't kno-o-ow~ You don't know you're beautiful!

"Hey, this looks fun!"

"Can we join in?"

Ponies were joining in the Four Square game, playing perfectly well despite not having fingers.

Ack! How are they doing that? How?

So c-come on. You got it wrong.

Gee, thanks.

I don't know why, you're being shy; and turn away when I look into your eye-eye-eyes

A cracked light-bulb metaphorically flashed over Hervey's head. I got it!

With a speed born of musical accompaniment, Harvey dashed out of sight of the crowd; returning before verse 2 was complete, pulling a hot-dog stand behind him. In addition to its namesake, the wheeled stall was offering hamburgers and bacon sandwiches. A banner over the stand read "Free meat! Last chance before herbivore-hood!"

Plenty of the members of the line happily accepted the offered food, munching until they came face-to-face with the pony workers who had nauseous looks on their muzzles. Heavily embarrassed, the humans bowed out and went home.

Yes! Harvey cheered, fists in the air and eyes screwed tight. This is working!

You don't kno-o-ow! You don't know you're beautiful!

"Excuse me?" A girls voice asked. "Is it okay if I take the rest of this?"

Harvey nodded, eyes still shut. Then startled, he opened them to find a pony sweep the rest of the animal products into a cloth sack.

"Thanks; I'll be sure to give this a proper burial." She told him with a stern look in her eyes that would brook no argument.

"But.... but!" He squeezed out, but she was gone already. The line of people continued on as before.

Noooo! Harvey despaired.

The Elite Beat Agents looked at the dissolving situation with annoyance. Each of the three readjusted their stances, synced their inner beat, and shoot their pom-poms with vigor. It was time to bring their A-game.

Baby you light up my world like nobody else!

Over Harvey's head, his light-bulb finally shattered apart, leaving only a light the brightness of a flare. I GOT IT!

With the speed only music could provide, Harvey dashed into the building next to the Bureau. A moment later he dashed right back out, the deed to the building tucked under one elbow and a banner in the other arm. A quick run with a ladder had the message "LAST CHANCE INTERNET" plastered over the entrance.

If only you saw what I can see, you'll understand why I want you so desperately

It was a well known fact that (for the time being, at least) the majority of Conversion volunteers were made of three groups: hospital patients, young girls (restrained by their parents most of the time) and (surprisingly) young men. Young men who spend long hours back and forth on the internet arguing the strangest things, like how fast a Rainboom really was, and who was Best Pony.

The kind of men who, now that they thought about it, really couldn't live without internet access. Awkwardly shuffling off, they disappeared from view, often dragging their protesting friends with them. Soon, the line-up was looking pretty bare, and other formally enthusiastic volunteers found themselves reluctant to stay after so many had ditched.

That's what makes you beautiful!

The pony shaking hands at the door suddenly found herself with her hooves unoccupied. "What... just happened?"

Mission complete!





Xlestia felt like tearing her mane out.

Any idiot knew there were four fundamental forces in the universe. Gravity, Magnetism, Magic and Music. (The new-foals had tried to explain about 'nuclear' forces, but that sounded like a lot of hogwash to her.)

She had made the mistaken assumption that just because humans knew nothing about Magic, they wouldn't know anything about the power of Music. Stupid of her, in hindsight. 

Ponies had been using Music for spontaneous music since the invention of rhythm. Humans seemed to use it for... cheer-leading? Was that the right phrase? Rather than use it on themselves for a spontaneous song and dance routine, they practiced the routine beforehand and used the excess Music to 'buff' someone else up to solve their problems. 

Which led her back to mane tearing - this agency... the Elite Beat Agency? They were frustrating her efforts at every turn! Sick patients with no hope but Conversion? Making them better was literally a song and dance away! Bad weather? The EBA cheered the 'Air Force' into clearing up a cyclone with fighter planes... somehow.

It was only a matter of time before they moved on the Barrier, and it was entirely possible that they could gather enough Music to actually break it down.

Think. You know Music. You and your ponies have dealt with it for centuries. How do you defeat a Music user?

Xlestia smacked herself in her face with her hoof. No duh.





8:58 PM
The patch of land nearest Equestria but outside the Barrier

The stage was set - literally, a giant stage, worthy of a stadium, was ready for the dance-off between her little ponies and the Elite Beat Agents. She and her ponies had worked hard to build this so quickly, but it was done. The crowd could be seen for miles around - an equal mix of humans and ponies. Soon her musical difficulties would all be over...

But first, Xlestia had to start the show. Flying down from above, she settled into her announcers podium, above and to the right of the dance stage.

"People of both races; today we gather to witness the first dance-off between our two civilizations." Her opening was pretty standard stuff, no surprises there.

"On the side of the ponies, we have-" some mares I threw together at the last minute "-the Mane Six!"

She didn't get why so many of the audience members looked confused at the three pegasi and three earth ponies that entered stage right. Nopony else was using that name, were they? It wasn't like she'd checked thoroughly... no matter...

"And representing the human race, the Elite Beat Agents!"

Rather than enter like normal people, all nine agents dropped down from a jet plane that flew overhead. The six pony dancers frowned, clearly unhappy at being upstaged.

Mission: Dance off! Give it the best you've got!

Out of nowhere, a tune started up, independent of the equipment already set up. It was a cheerful upbeat song; no doubt practiced by the agents beforehand. Obnoxious, but what she had expected.

Are you ready?

Yes, she was.

3, 2, 1... GO!

And on cue, the ridiculously large 'boulder' stage prop she had prepared earlier dropped on the EBA like the stone it resembled, crushing them underneath. 

...silence...

How do you defeat a Music user? Well, it is very hard to dance when you're dead.

Xlestia looked out at the crowd, and frowned at what she saw there. The humans beginning to cry was expected, but her ponies looked like they were unsure how to react. Obviously, this was a great victory! Now Conversion could continue unopposed!

"E... B... A..."

Maybe she should say something?

"E... B... A...   E... B... A..."

What, though? 'I think this makes it our victory?' 'Don't worry, they died quickly?' Gah! Think of something remotely appropriate to say!

"E.B.A.! E.B.A.! E.B.A.!"

Wait, what was that sound?

"E.B.A.! E.B.A.! E.B.A.!"

Why were the humans chanting the name of the now-defunct agency?! More importantly, why were her ponies joining in? When had the spotlight left her?

"E.B.A.! E.B.A.! E.B.A.!"

Xlestia abruptly realized that as the chanting grew in volume and fever, it was becoming a beat. She took a step forwards, planning to do something to stop this before she lost control of the situation, but her rear knees had locked up.

"E.B.A.! E.B.A.! E.B.A.!"

What magic was this?

The chanting abruptly stopped as a guitar riff boomed over the audience.

You got the Touch!

No... her joints had locked because what she had tried to do wasn't dancing. This was the power of Music.

Pony feathers.

You got the power....

The boulder prop suddenly cracked right down the middle, blue light spilling from the opening.

YEAH!

The stone burst apart into a million pieces, the EBA jumping out as though they had been hiding under the boulder rather than squashed by it. Are you ready? they cried, dramatically posing. Ready to move with the beat.

As one, the EBA started clapping loudly, which the crowd happily copied. Xlestia tried to walk down to them from her platform, but her legs would only move with the rhythm. 

3, 2, 1, GO!

After all is said and done; You've never walked, you've never run; You're a winner!

Deciding to go with what she knew best, Xlestia shot various explosive spells at the EBA. Music intervened, though, causing the spells to miss or be dodged while dancing. Instead of dead agents, she ended up causing colorful fireworks. 

Timed perfectly to the beat. Of course they were. The crowd cheered at the display.

You're at your best when when the goin' gets rough; You've been put to the test, but it's never enough!

Dancing awkwardly to the song (she really didn't want to draw on more Music in this situation than could be helped) got her down to the left of the dance stage, where the pony dancers she'd picked for the sole purpose of luring the EBA here were... dancing?!

"What are you doing?!" She hissed, as loudly as the Music would let her.

The six ponies gave her a confused look. "This is a dance-off, right?" The bright pink pegasi asked.

"No! It was a thinly-veiled excuse so I could get them in one place and crush them!" Xlestia spat. 

You got the heart; You got the motion! You know that when things get too tough; You got the touch!

She knew that was information she really should have kept to herself, but in-between her plans falling around her ears and the ridiculous amounts of Music in the air (which she had facilitated, to add insult to injury) she found herself unable to care.

It was a mistake, she knew, when the eyes of her dancers grew both wide and watery. They made several incoherent noises, obviously not able to put their feelings into words.

Then they collectively turned tail on her and trotted over to the agents, adding the four-legged dance moves of ponies to the ridiculous flailing the humans were doing with their arms.

When all hell's breakin' loose; You'll be riding the eye of the storm!

She was riding the eye of the storm alright. She was fine, watching as everything around her was destroyed in the cyclone of Music.

Wait - was the crowd glowing blue all of a sudden?

You're fightin' fire with fire; You know you got the touch!

It... it was! Xlestia had never even thought about gathering this absurd quantity of Music in one place - this was easily enough to get the whole world dancing! She was chocking on Rhythm, drowning in the rifts of the guitar! She could see huge streams of pure Music feeding into the crowd from elsewhere... no! Nonononononon -

You got the touch; You got the power!

The final bars of the song completed, the huge mass of Music surged forward into the Barrier. Images of Notes and strobe lights superimposed themselves over the surface as Magic and Music contested for dominance.

Then, like a curtain lowering, the Barrier dissolved from the top down.

Xlestia curled up in despair as the crowd cheered loud enough to rival Luna at her loudest.

Mission complete!





Commander Khan sat up once more from his desk, twisting around to face the returning agents.

With a thumbs up, Khan roared

"YEAH!"





World Seven - Good friends dance together
> World Suggestions Three
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Touhou Project

Okay, Macro-Plane-Shift finished, Barrier established... Xlestia finally stopped channeling magic to her horn, exhaling slowly. That was easily the most complex and draining series of spells she had ever cast, and she was understandably exhausted. Any moment now, somepony would inevitably come to demand help with the 'mysterious' relocation, only to find that she had 'collapsed' due to 'the sudden change in magical environment'. Right now, she needed to catch her breath.

"Oh, wow! You cast this by yourself? I must say I am impressed. I am something of a connoisseur of Borders, after all."

Slowly, Xlestia turned her head to face the voice which had just spoken. In one corner of her bedroom, the wall had been... pulled apart? To reveal a black expanse, full of disembodied eyeballs. Sitting in the rift in-between the black space and her room was some blond human with a parasol.

"How did you get in here, Human?" Xlestia asked, her long-practiced calm facade covering her racing heart.

"Human?!" The woman sounded offended. "My name is Yukari Yakumo, and I am no human. I'm the Gap Youkai!"

Xlestia blinked, still in shock. "You're the what now?"

"I maintain the Great Hakurei Barrier! Actually, our two Barriers aren't too different, only mine's getting a bit worn... can I patch it up with yours?" Yukari asked pleasantly.

"What?!" Xlestia squawked.

"I'll take that as a yes." Yukari smirked, before receding into her Gap, it closing behind her.

Her panic rising once again, Xlestia ran out onto her balcony. In the distance, the newly-cast Barrier was still visible... until the whole thing started rolling up like a giant blanket, edges up.

Xlestia gawked until the Barrier resembled a giant scroll, hovering in mid-air, before shooting off into the distance; presumably to be used as 'spare fabric' for the Gap Youkai's Barrier.

Xlestia took a great shuddering breath and tried to think.

No good, she was terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

This was, of course, when most of Equestria started fading out of existence.





One one hoof, Xlestia had solved the mystery of why she couldn't find any magic on Earth. On the other hoof, Xlestia really wasn't enjoying finding out where all of Earth's magic had gone first-hoof.

Yukari rubbed her head, annoyed with herself. "Of course you would all be sent here. No-one believes in Unicorns or in Pegasus anymore, so of course you would all end up in the Land of Fantasy. Now we have to fit you all in somewhere..."

Xlestia didn't respond, her mind too busy trying to recover from events so far. The sounds of panicked unicorns and pegasi in the background weren't helping.

"Oh, and I'll have to teach you about Danmaku battles, of course."





As hundreds of slow-moving energy balls rained down around Xlestia, her frustration finally overwhelmed her shock at the day so far. "WHAT KIND OF MONSTER DESIGNED THIS?!"

Yukari put her index finger to her lips and thought. "It was back during the Scarlet Mist Incident... ah yes! A human, I believe."

"OF COURSE IT WAS!"





Applejack pulled herself to her hooves, having finally found somepony else in town that wasn't hysterical at the disappearance of the Unicorns, Pegasi and buildings. Unfortunately, it was Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie Pie with... packed saddlebags?

"Oh! There you are AJ! Come on, we gotta hurry before the trail goes cold!"

Applejack worked her jaw up and down before finally finding words to say. "What trail?"

"The trail that we blaze!" Pinkie said, pointing directly into a huge rock. She blushed. "That trail that we blaze!" She pointed down the main road, to where the Everfree forest used to be.

"Seriously Sugercube, where are we goin'?"

"Isn't it obvious? We're going on an adventure! To go where every-other-pony has gone before, and bring 'em back home!"

Applejack turned to look at the remains of Ponyville. Yep, still going nowhere in a hurry.

"Lemme just grab my thing first, Pinkie."





SCP Foundation

Item #: SCP-X198

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-X198 cannot be allowed to remain conscious unless under the effects of SCP-███ under any circumstances. In the event of power failure or similar event, SCP-X198 is to be administered tranquilliser mix 87 immediately. SCP-X198 is capable of personalised spatial distortions ('Teleportation') and must at least be kept disorientated to prevent use of this ability to escape. According, all guards of SCP-X198 are to carry stun grenades. If SCP-X198 containment fails, protocol Alpha-198-Delta is to initiated immediately.

SCP-X198 has been rendered medically comatose. The subject's body is to be kept in cryogenic stasis in a special containment chamber on site 3█, and is to be inspected bi-weekly. Any indication that SCP-X198 may be regaining consciousness is to be immediately and directly reported to Site Command.

Description: SCP-X198 is an vaguely horse-like life-form that stands approximately 1.8 m (6 ft) tall, not including its 30 cm (1 ft) horn. It has a pure white fur coat with the stylised picture of a sun present on both of its flanks. The subject possesses a set of wings that are too small to function under aerodynamics as currently understood, yet are fully functional. Please note: the subject can fly.

SCP-X198's most threatening ability is it's list (of unknown length) of reality-warping effects, which it refers to as magic. Research into relation to other 'Magical' SCPs is currently pending authorisation. To date, the subject has displayed Teleportation, Telekinesis, Force Fields, Bolts of Concussive force, and by far the most worryingly the ability to manipulate the position of [REDACTED] (hence its classification as Keter).

X198 was hostile to humanity initially, but after Incident G387 (during which [DATA EXPUNGED]) X198 has become obsessed with the destruction of humanity, and will take any opportunity to kill humans. Even while its abilities were suppressed with [REDACTED] it has gored two guards with its horn and eviscerated a third with its rear hooves.

Interview log A:



Interviewed: SCP-X198

Interviewer: Dr ███

<Begin Log>

Dr ███: Can you understand me?

SCP-X198: [Softly] You killed them all...

Dr ███: You were causing a CK-class Restructuring scenario. We were only - 

SCP-X198: [Screaming] YOU KILLED THEM ALL!

Note: at this point the subject's voice reached over 200 Decibels, killing Dr ███ with sound alone, and cracking the concrete wall behind him.

<End Log>



Addendum X198-A: Given than X198 can cause a 'Class XK - End of World Scenario', but it's not indestructible like all the other Keter-classes, why haven't we neutralised it? - Dr Michale

Addendum X198-B: Who do you think we are, the G.O.C.? All the danger inherit in X198 is in what it can do, not in what it is. It's perfectly safe to study so long as it never wakes up. - Dr Andrews

Addendum X198-C: Guys, am I... the only one that feels sorry for her? I mean, we did sic SCP-████ on her people, and now she's the only one left. SCP-████! We killed all her people, of course she hates us! Doesn't anyone else think on how much we wronged her? - Dr ███████

Addendum X198-D: Dr ███████ has been removed from the study of SCP-X198 on suspicion of mental contamination.





Doctor Who

The Solar Courts running's were suddenly and rudely interrupted when, with a groaning and wheezing noise, a tall blue box with the label "POLICE BOX" materialized in the courtroom.

As nobles, new-foals and the Sun Princess stared blankly at the unexpected intrusion, a door on the front of the box opened up allowing a brown earth stallion to exit mid-sentence. " - and Canterlot is really beautiful after the third renaissance! You should see the... throne room..." The stallion blinked as he took in his surroundings, especially the Princess and the new-foals lining up.

"Uh... what year is it?" He asked sheepishly.

"1003 A.N.M." One noble answered.

"And in human years?" The newcomer's sheepishness was giving way to worry.

"2009 A.D." A new-foal replied.

"Right." The strange stallion with a hourglass cutie mark nodded, turning around to place his head back inside the door of his box. "Derpy! Grab the Royal Gift!"

"You know full well that's not my name, Professor! And which Royal Gift?" Came the voice of a mare from inside the box; which made no sense given there wasn't enough room for two ponies in there.

"The stunning one!" He emphasized. The stallion whirled around to find that Xlestia had taken the opportunity to get off her throne and trot down to the strange box.

"Who are you?" The princess demanded. "Are you a new-foal?"

The stallion grimaced at the mention of new-foals, but bowed. "Your Highness, my name is the Doctor. And no, I'm not a new-foal. In fact, I'm not a pony at all, really. I'm just doing something very clever that makes everyone think I'm a pony, that's all."

Xlestia ran the anti-Changeling spell over the 'Doctor'. He came up clean. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You're from the outside? How did you get in here? There's no magic in the outside world!"

The Doctor fidgeted, clearly delaying for his companion inside his box. "Sorry about that. That was us, actually."

Xlestia blinked. "What was who?"

"Us. The Time Lords. We got rid of Magic and replaced it with Science. Not sure why. Nobody can tell the difference half the time anyway, Clarke's Third Law and all that..."

The courtroom sat in a stunned silence for a moment, before the Doctor muttered "What is taking that girl so long?"

"Here you are, Professor!" A pegasus mare with light blue fur emerged from the box, carrying a grey sphere in her hooves.

"Thanks." The Doctor took the sphere gingerly and presented it to Xlestia. "My gift to you, Princess, in celebration of one of Equestria's darkest hours."

Xlestia, who had been reaching out for the sphere, jerked her hoof back. "Say what?"

"This business with the Barrier and the new-foals." The Doctor clarified. "After all, Equestria will remember this as one of its most shameful periods! The nation of harmony annexing another planet for not meeting their standards! Dark times indeed." He was still smiling, but nopony present actually thought for a moment that he was happy.

Xlestia took a step back. "Humanity is a dark - "

"Yes, yes." The Doctor interrupted. "Humans can be terrible monsters. Trust me, I know better than anyone alive." He took a step forwards, causing Xlestia to back up another step. His fake smile was gone. "I've seen the fields in Africa where the workers starve to death working in the rice fields. I talked to those who had been convinced their life meant nothing because their skin was black. I was there in the Death Camps when the orders were given."

He tilted his head to one side. "And you know what? You can't let that define them. Doing bad works doesn't mean they can no longer do good. You can't judge a civilization by how they act at their worse." The Doctor gave a sad smile. "Otherwise ponies would leave a sad legacy behind them, don't you think?"

Xlestia spluttered. "Who are you, to judge us so?"

"I'm a Time Traveler. If there was a defining moment in history, chances are I've been there already." The Doctor explained. "I'm the one who directed Nightmare Moon to confront you, not the nearest town. I stopped Sombra's attempts to turn Crystal Ponies into actual crystals." He winked at her. "I even spent a few years pretending to be a unicorn so I could teach you basic psionic control. Boy, did that beard itch."

Jaws dropped all over the throne room. The Doctor's companion trotted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

"And it's because I know you so well, that I've decided I'm going to save you." The Doctor announced. "This era of darkness and pain is going to end today."

Xlestia, supremely confused at the situation, finally found some statement that she could have a clear reaction to. "No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is. Catch!"

Xlestia had figured out halfway though his speech that the Doctor's present was probably booby trapped. Therefore she caught it with her magic, not her hooves.

Thus she was very surprised when the sphere emitted a red glow that spread back down her magical grip and into her horn, giving her an instant migraine. She roared in surprise and agony.

"RUN!" The Doctor yelled, his companion and he putting action to words as they charged out the doors.

"AFTER THEM!" Xlestia managed though her pain, the royal guards already moving.





"What was that, Professor?"

"Psionic jammer. Unpleasant for psychics, downright painful for spellcasters. And call me Doctor!"

"I will when you stop calling me 'Derpy'!" The pegasus told the disguised Time Lord.

"Fine! Plan, plan, need a plan..."

"There they are! GET THEM!" Two royal guards appeared at the end of the hall, causing the pair of troublemakers to wheel around and run the other way.

"Better figure it out quick, Professor!" 'Derpy' pointed out.

"Right!" The Doctor yelled as they dashed down a side corridor. "Biggest problem is the Barrier. Spreads out from this castle, moves through the world converting 'Earth' into 'Equestria'. We just need to... got it!"

"Yeah?" Derpy asked distractedly as she kept one eye looking behind them and one eye focused on where they were going.

"It moves through the world! It has real effects on the world, but it itself is intangible! But the Earth is moving through space at high speed, so the Barrier needs to be anchored somehow or it'll get left behind!" 

Derpy blinked in sudden realization. "So we find whats holding the Barrier here - "

" - and destroy it!" The Doctor cried.

"They headed this way!"  "Don't let them escape!"

"First though, more running." The Doctor admitted.





Ranma 1/2

Ranma blinked rapidly. "Let me get this straight. You guys decided that beating up this Princess lady will fix this end of the world stuff?"

"Doesn't it always?" Ryoga countered.

Ranma raised a finger to argue, then slowly lowered it. The cursed martial artist couldn't think of a situation where beating someone up wouldn't help.

...which explained a lot about why his love life was a complete mess.

"Don't you need to be a pony to even get into her kingdom in the first place?" He asked.

Mousse reached into his huge sleeves and produced a bottle of water, labeled in Chinese, and slammed it down on the table.

Ranma instinctively backed up. "That better not be what I think it is."

"Come on Ranma old-pal old-buddy." Ryoga grinned, showing his incisors. "Don't you know how hard it was to get actual Spring of Drowned Pony water?"

Ranma scooted round the table until he was between his two rivals, grabbing their shoulders as comrades often do. "Oh wow! You guys really went the extra mile here, getting genuine cursed water all the way from Jusenkyo!" With all his strength, Ranma shoved Ryoga and Mousse's faces at the bottle of cursed water. "Why don't you enjoy the fruits of your own labor!"

The two boys, being martial artists as well, both interposed their arms in-between their face and the table, preventing the collision. "Come on, Wild Horse. Surely turning into a Pony can't be any less manly then turning into a girl?"

"Yes it is!"

"Hoocha!" Came the cry of a small, gnome-like figure as it swiped the bottle so quickly it looked like a blur. Just as quickly as it arrived, it was gone, only malevolent cackling left to mark its passage.

The three boys blinked, processing what had just happened.

"Quick, we have to stop him!"

"He's headed for the barrier right now! We won't catch him in time!"

"Don't say that! How could we call ourselves Men if we lose track of that monster?!"





Xlestia basked in the warmth of the noonday sun. She was affording herself some relaxation time, listening to the terrified screams of the new-foals entering Canterlot.

Wait, that didn't sound right...

Alarmed, Xlestia looked down upon the lines of new-foals getting assigned residency across Equestria. A small blur was whizzing back and forth across the lines causing panic wherever it went.

Concentrating, Xlestia telekinetically grabbed the little menace, bringing it up to her muzzle. "And what are you supposed to be?"

Up close, Xlestia could see that the 'thing' was actually a pony, so aged and shriveled that it was the size of a foal. Given that Xlestia had never seen this pony before, combined with his age, meant he was a new-foal for certain."How dare you manhandle me!" The ancient pony screeched. "Don't you have any respect for your elders? I'm over 300 years old, I'll have you know!"

"Humans can get that old?" Xlestia was so taken aback that she dropped the old pony.

"Hoocha!"

Xlestia froze as tiny hooves grabbed areas that the Solar Alicorn shouldn't even have been thinking about unless she was planning on becoming a mother.

"Happosai! Have you no shame at all?! That woman isn't even human! Have you moved on to animals now?!"

Xlestia was vaguely aware of three ponies joining her on her balcony, but all her mind could process were sensations that she had never felt before.

A slightly more familiar sensation was building in her gut. What was it?

...the urge to kill?

"Ack! You three followed me?! You cursed yourselves just to deny an old man his dying pleasures?!" Said the outraged object of her hatred.

"Well, being a pony is better than being a pig..." Mumbled one of the newcomers.

"You're only saying that because you're a male pony, P-Chan." Deadpanned his mare companion.

"Happosai! As a member of the Chinese Amazons, I won't let you spread your perversions even further afield!" Threatened the unicorn of the trio, brandishing a broadsword in his magical grip.

"You boys need to move with the times! Soon, all the girls will have four legs. I'm just starting early!" 

Happosai pulled his hand back suddenly as Xlestia's fur suddenly became superheated.

"DIE!" The Princess roared, solar fire coating her in a massive aura of heat and death. Happosai wisely began to leg it.

The three cursed ponies watched as the Solar Alicorn of Equestria chased after the Greatest Evil in all Japan.

"Wasn't that the lady you guys wanted me to beat up?" Ranma the red pegasus mare asked, flapping about a pony-length above the ground.

"Ughhh...." Ryoga the yellow earth pony stallion articulated.

"Lets give her some time." Mousse the white glasses-wearing unicorn suggested. "We can fight her when she's not apocalyptically mad."

"YOU DO NOT TREAT A GIRL LIKE THAT!" Boomed the Royal Canterlot Voice.

"Meh. Your teats were tiny anyway."

Pillars of fire rained down from the sky as Xlestia screamed in rage.
> Straightforward Failures Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

MLP Time Loops

The Mane Six watched intently from the crowd as Xlestia was giving her grand speech, calling her ponies to action to save humanity. "Even now, the Barrier continues to advance across Earth, driving the humans back further and further, until there will be nowhere left for them to go. We shall not let that come to pass!"

The crowd of ponies roared in agreement.

"The Barrier cannot be slowed or stopped, but there is a way it can be survived: we must convert the humans into a form the Barrier leaves alone. We must save the humans in the only form they can be saved: as ponies!"

The crowd, who had been expecting something different, came alive with frantic whispers. Twilight herself didn't know what to think. Sure, it was better than letting them die; but if somepony had told her that pony-pox had become so lethal the only hope of survival was to become a dragon, she would hardly be impressed. Was this really the best option? The Princess wouldn't have picked this course unless she was sure, but -

Twilight Woke Up.

To someone unfamiliar with the process, that might sound strange, but to a Looper it was a fact of life. An untold number of iterations of life in Ponyville - most the same, some different - dumped their memories into Twilight's head in the space between one instant and the next.

Ughh... that never feels normal, no matter how many times I do it. Now lets see, Loop memories, this is -

"Oh Birch." Twilight cursed out loud. "It's another sapping Bureau Loop."

"Twi?" Applejack asked, concerned at her friends outburst. "That s'posed  ta mean some'n ta us?"

Twilight looked up into the concerned faces of her friends - nope, none of them were Awake. "Just a moment, girls."

With a thought, Twilight summoned the Element of Magic to her - ("What the hay? Since when could you do that?!") - and focused her magic though it, Ascending to Alicorn on the spot - ("Twilight...?") - and flew out of the crowd and into the surprised face of her princess, tackling her back through the balcony and into the royal bedroom. All the doors in and out of the room were quickly locked and barred with magic.

"Twilight - " Whatever the Sun Princess was going to say was interrupted as Twilight magic'd a strip of purple duct tape over her mouth.

"Shut up." Twilight growled. Frantic noises came from behind the improved gag, but Twilight ignored them as she conjured magical restraints over the white alicorn.

Having restrained her to the point where escape was impossible, Twilight stared 'Celestia' in the eye. "You listen to me. I am Twilight Sparkle - the original Twilight Sparkle. Student of the original Princess Celestia. And I know that my teacher is a kind, wise pony who could never tear somebody's life away from them."

"Mmmm!"

"When I look at you - when I have to deal with these impossible situations - it disgusts me. How could you even think of taking her name for yourself?"

"Mm - mmm!"

"So now I have to fix this whole thing, and try to forget that it was a version of my idol that is responsible."

"Mm m m!"

"What!?" Twilight roared in anger, allowing the gag to vanish.

"I'm Awake." Princess Celestia calmly told her ex-student.

Utter silence filled the room. Twilight's mouth went slack - first from shock, then mortification as she hurriedly undid the binds on the sun princess before opening all the doors. Free, Celestia filled her horn with magic, making the distant Barrier vanish with a quiet 'pop'.

"Celestia, I'm so so-" The Princess of Friendship stopped talking when a gold-clad fore-hoof gently placed itself over her lips.

"I'm flattered you think of me so highly, Twilight. But next time, make sure you know who you're talking to first, okay?"

Twilight nodded nervously.

Celestia stared politely at her student for several uncomfortable moments.

"Wanna go to Disneyland?" The sun princess suggested.

Twilight closed her mouth, thought it over, then nodded.





Convergence

"So... um. This is really confusing." Xlestia sighed.

"No, it's actually quite simple!" Twilight Sparkle 3 enthused. "You see, there's one version of Equestria that invaded Earth One, led by Queen Celestia." She gestured to her chalkboard diagram while Xlestia's Sparkle took rushed notes.

"But meanwhile, Earth Two was being invaded by the second version of Equestria, or Equestria 2."

"Right..." Xlestia followed so far.

"Then Earth One managed to contact what to them was a second version of Equestria, or my Equestria, Equestria 3. As Equestria 1 was, quite frankly, a bunch of evil... wordsIcan'tsayinpolitecompany; Celestia 3 and all the other version 3 rulers allied with Earth One to wage war on Equestria 1."

Xlestia nodded. Really, she couldn't fault Celestia 3 for that. From what she had heard, Celestia 1 made her look like Celestia 3. Sure, she was planning to trick humanity into ponification, but her plan had never involved actual combat - just option denial. Celestias 1 and 2 both used false flag operations, potion bombing, mind control... it was like they'd gone though a book of war crimes looking for ideas. One only had to speak with them to see how far off the deep end they had gone.

Twilight 3 continued on. "Then Earth One and Two got linked together - " She tapped her diagram again. " - and now you arrived in Earth Two. Good thing to, the Barrier-inside-Barrier is helping massively against Celestia 2."

"Glad to be of help." Xlestia lied. Needless to say, tricking humanity into Conversion was never going to happen now; but to be honest, Xlestia had kind of gone off the whole thing having seen the new-foals of Earth One. The idea was to leave them happy, not borderline catatonic!

She was very glad she had made her Barrier 'keep anything not my people out', not 'keep the forces of Earth out'. What kind of alternate self attacks your kingdom just because it's there? "I need the resources more than you" her hoof. Of course, that meant that this meeting had to be carried out in Equestria 3, but such was life.

"So..." Xlestia's Twilight (A.K.A. Twilight 4) "Our Barrier is currently resting inside Barrier 2. Apart from keeping version 2 forces out, can we do anything with that? Maybe use it to reverse the effects of Barrier 2?"

Xlestia groaned. It was getting harder than ever to keep up the charade of 'I didn't make that Barrier' when everypony kept asking her to alter it. Not that the humans had really believed her to begin with. "The Barrier is a giant wave of magical transmutation. It doesn't have an 'undo' setting."

Twilight 4 looked distinctly like she'd been punched in the gut. Xlestia sighed. "But I guess if we work on it, we could set it to 'make it like Earth' rather than 'make it like Equestria'."

While Twilight 4's expression pulled a 540 degree turn, the sole human in the room stood, muttered "You do just that." in a vaguely threatening tone, and left the room. Everypony watched him leave with varying degrees of awkwardness.

"Please don't be hard on them." Twilight 3 begged. "They've been through so much - "

"I get it." Xlestia waved off. This wasn't what she had come to do, but she could hardly seed happiness and rainbows over the corpses of a battlefield. Stop the wars first, come up with new plan after. She rubbed her muzzle with her fore-hoof. "I guess we're in this for the long haul."

"Just as long as no more versions of Equestria show up." Twilight 4 observed from her notes.

"Don't jinx it!" Twilight 3 cried.
> Why would you guys even suggest these?!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bleach

"Getsuga Tenshō!" The heavily distorted voice of Ichigo roared, the spiritual attack surging out and impacting with the Barrier.

With a swipe over his own face, the substitute Soul Reaper dismissed his Hollow Mask. "Well?"

"I think you made it ripple a little." Orihime offered from her vantage point on the ground.

Hearing Uryū snort made Ichigo annoyingly certain that Orihime was being overly generous. "Okay, fine. What's next, Uryū?" He asked, dropping out of Bankai and back down to the ground from his airborne perch.

The Quincy consulted his list. "'Throw giant slab of Sekkiseki at Barrier.'" He read out.

Ichigo glared at his friend. "And where exactly do you expect me to find Sekkiseki in the World of the Living?"

Without a word, Uryū moved on the next item. "'Have Orihime Reject Barrier.'"

Orihime squeaked in slight panic. The Barrier was far, far larger than anything she had Rejected before, and was the Cause of so many Effects that removing it from the time-stream would be... well, it wouldn't be as difficult as her last-ditch plan to Reject the Hōgyoku... probably.

Fortunately, she was saved from having to try when a Senkaimon opened up, depositing Rukia among Ichigo and co. "What exactly do you idiots think you're doing?!" She hissed, striding toward the orange-haired teen.

"What's it look like we're doing?" Ichigo asked in annoyed confusion. "We're getting rid of that thing, of course!" He indicated the Barrier with his thumb.

Rukia glared at him. "You know full well that the affairs of the Living are no concern of yours!" She poked him in the chest angrily.

Ichigo spluttered. "No concern of...?! Rukia, I live here! Besides, you can't look at that Conversion thing and not tell me it's messing with the Soul." He accused right back.

Rukia crossed her arms. "Given that it's basically the opposite of Hollowfication, Central 46 doesn't have a problem with it."

Ichigo stared back in shock. Then he turned to Uryū. "Can you call Hat-And-Clogs and tell him that we'll be needing his backdoor into Soul Society again? I need to go beat some sense into - ow!" He cried as Rukia slapped him.

"None of that!" She told him sternly. "You are going to sit here, and not cause any trouble, you hear?"

"Yeah Human, get out of here!"

Blinking, both full-time and part-time Soul Reaper turned to find a small army of ponies emerging from the Barrier. All of them were armed (mostly with lances) and were wearing steel barding. Interestingly, all of them were flying - despite the usual three races being represented evenly, the non-pegasi somehow flying using wings made of the same steel as their armor.

One pony with more ornate armor than the rest flew forward and addressed the assorted humans - living and dead. "Equestrian souls are the purview of the Valkyries, guardians of the fields of Elysium! You are neither needed nor wanted here. Begone!" She added, for good measure.

Rukia slowly assimilated the knowledge that the ponies had their own version of Soul Society. Obvious in retrospect - ponies had souls, ponies died, pony souls had to go somewhere when they died. That was going to make everything more complicated.

"Well, this makes everything simple!" Ichigo grinned. Then he charged with a cry of 'Bankai!'

The head Valkyrie tapped the breastplate-equivalent on her barding, causing it to glow with runic symbols all over as she flew to meet Ichigo's charge. 

Rukia's eye twitched. "Dance, Sode no Shirayuki" She intoned as she unsealed her Shikai. Who she would use it on, she hadn't decided yet.





Halo

-BOOM-

Hooves over her ears, Xlestia dragged herself up out of bed. "They still haven't run out yet?!" She half-screamed. The royal pony had barely gotten any sleep in the past three weeks due to the deep explosions that went off precisely at five minute intervals.

Token Minion grabbed a comb and started brushing her princess's hair as best she could. "I believe that's explosion number six thousand three hundred and two."

"What were they planning to blow up with that amount of explosives, a star?!" Xlestia's hysterics were mostly due to sleep deprivation, but also partly due to how slow her plan was going. Given the amount of radiation and heat the Barrier had to absorb before it could move on, the magical wall had slowed to a snails pace.

After the first ship had tried to nuke her kingdom, she had reached out telekinetically and 'politely' shoved it all the way out of the solar system as a warning. She had planned for that to be the end of it - 'don't bother, we can withstand your bombs and I can crush your ships in return.' Unfortunately, she had underestimated how crafty humans were. They had started the tactic of simply emerging from wherever their ships went, dropping the bomb, and vanishing back into their space-bruise before she could even find them in the sky.

Now, the nukes weren't damaging her Barrier - she had designed it specifically to withstand whatever humanity could throw at it - but nopony could leave the Barrier either without bursting into flames and burning before they had a chance to die of radiation poisoning. All the humans on this world had retreated to the other side of the planet as expected, but she had not expected them to simply load up on ships and leave at their leisure. She couldn't even stop the leaving ships because the humans kicked up their bombing campaign and broke her concentration when she tried!

-BOOM-

"That's it! I can't take it anymore!" Xlestia screeched. "If the humans want to stay unhappy war-mongers forever, fine! Token, we're leaving. Lets go find a more grateful planet."





Up in orbit, the UNSC Ponies go home emerged from Slipspace for its usual bomb-drop, only to find the continent they had been targeting had left as mysteriously as it had arrived. The cheers couldn't be heard from the ground, though not for lack of trying.





Justice League

With a great splash, Aquaman leaped out of the ocean and landed next to the assorted members of the Justice League. Standing up, he gave them all the stink-eye.

"What?" Flash asked defensively. Aquaman was looking far more serious than he usually did.

"I just had to organise the evacuation of half an ocean. Why is that giant eyesore still there?" The ruler of Atlantis demanded.

Superman held up his hands in the classic 'surrender' pose. "Magic."

Aquaman switched his gaze to Green Lantern.

"My Ring can't analyze that thing, and I can't brute-force it. I could call for backup, but I'd have to convince the Guardians that the low-tech, planet-bound civilization is an interstellar threat without, y'know, some pretty impressive abilities that they don't have. It's a big universe, they have to prioritize where they send the super-cops." The green-wearing hero defended himself.

The Martian Manhunter met Auqaman's gaze evenly. "...you know how I feel about mind control."

Finally, the Atlantean glared at Batman. The caped crusaded didn't even glance at Aquaman, simply continuing to watch the Barrier though a pair of binoculars. "I have a plan."

"Do you."

"Yes."

"Care to share?"

"Not really."

Superman interceded before the discussion could get heated. "We're currently waiting for Zatanna and Wonder Woman to get here. This stuff's more up their alley. I sure breaking this dome shouldn't be hard for them."

"It'd better be." Aquaman muttered grouchily to himself.





Just inside the Barrier, Token Minion held Xlestia's tail firmly between her teeth. "Come on, Princess. They're the protectors of Earth, you're the protector of Equestria. I'm sure you'll get along fine."

Unknown to Token, Xlestia had been using magic to eavesdrop on the League's banter. "Nooo!" She wailed, straining to fly away. "I can't leave the Barrier with them out there! They'll destroy me!"





Watching Xlestia freak out though his bat-noculars, Batman smirked. His plan was working just fine.





One Piece

On one side, the Straw Hat crew stood on deck and watched the Barrier slowly edge closer.

On the other side, the Mane Six clamored to the side of Twilight's hot air balloon to watch the group of crazy humans who had just sailed right up to the Barrier. Didn't they know it could kill them? (They didn't, but they wouldn't have been in the least bit surprised. In the Grand Line, everything was trying to kill you.) 

They were far more surprised about what happened when their balloon floated to the human side of the Barrier.

The Straw Hat wearing human stretched his arms out so far he was able to grab the side of the balloon and pull himself right up face-to-face with the ponies. While everypony other than Pinkie recovered from the shock, the human smiled so widely he had the pink Earth Pony feeling vaguely insecure.

"Who wants to join my pirate crew?" He bellowed, as friendly as could be.

Rainbow Dash suddenly jumped up. "Oh! I do! I do!"





Team Fortress 2

"Eat death, ponies!" Soldier bellowed, firing rocket after rocket into the Barrier.

"Soldier." Spy growled in his french accent. "I realize that your skull is the densest material in the known universe, but surly even you can see that your rockets aren't making it through?"

"Ha! Of course I know that!"

Spy gave the helmet-wearing member of the team a long-suffering look. "I know I'll regret asking, but then why are you still firing?"

Soldier gave one of his crazed grins. "Because they are making it through!"

"I knew it. I do regret asking."

"Naw man." Scout intersected. "Look harder, see? His rockets are turning into roses, that's all. You should've been here earlier, Heavy's bullets were turning into watermelon seeds."

Blinking, Spy saw the spread of flowers along the other side of the Barrier where Soldier had been firing. "So they are. And what exactly do you hope to do with these thorny presents?"

Soldier pointed at a pair of curious ponies huddled on the other side of the Barrier. "I figure if I aim it juuuusssttt right, I can nail the suckers in the eye!"

Spy murmured something unflattering in French.

"S'cuse me, coming though." Engineer called, carrying one of his red toolboxes.

Spy puffed angrily at his ever-present cigarette. "Ah, Engineer. Had a better idea since that fiasco with the teleporter, I hope?"

"Tha' would'a worked if Pyro hadn' messed it up."

"It might have helped if you had explained to it that our world is not normally invested with grossly-proportioned talking ponies."

"...anyway, this here's not a gadget per se. Actually, its just a chunk of Australium." 

Spy looked from Engineer to the Barrier and back. "'Throwing Science at the wall to see what sticks'?" He quoted one of Mann Co's main competitors.

Engineer adjusted his goggles and shrugged. "I'd stand back, y'all." Removing the chuck of yellow metal from its box, he gave it a deft swing through the Barrier. As it passed through, it changed color from yellow to a light blue.

"S'cuse me miss." Engineer called to the nearest pony. "Could you do me a favor and toss that back please?"

"Um, sure." The mare replied in the pony race's usual American English. Trotting over to the chunk of mutagenic metal, she picked it up in one hoof and tossed it back. 

"Hmm..." Engineer examined his prize carefully, unchanged by it's second trip through the magical wall. "I'm feeling unusually polite, and a craving for hockey."

Scout whistled. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Soldier nodded. "Lets see them try and invade when all their marching tunes are Justin Bieber songs!"

"Soldier, that's a war crime." Spy remarked.

"So?"

"Just making sure you knew."





Dragon Ball

Stepping out of her hovercar, Chi-Chi resisted the urge to skip. Her husband's life was absolutely crazy, and sometimes she could feel a little left out. Not this time! This time she would solve the... problem....

"Bulma, what are you doing here?" She asked the Capsule Corp heir.

The inventor looked up from where she was up to her elbows in machinery. "Oh, I'm just building a ray gun to get rid of that thing." She gestured lazily at the Barrier. "What are you doing here?"

Chi-Chi's eye twitched. "I just finished gathering the Dragon Balls." Proving her point, she opened a draw-string bag and showed Bulma the seven orange orbs. "I'm about to summon Shenlong, and he will take care of that thing!"

"You can't do that!" Bulma protested. "I've spent hours working on this thing. You can't just steal my thunder at the last moment!"

"What, you think finding the Dragon Balls without Instant Transmission is easy? Who is stealing who's thunder here?!"





Flying several hundred meters above their wife's heads, Goku and Vegeta watched the argument unfold.

"You know, I really don't get women." The prince of the Saiyans commented to his rival.

"I know, right?" Goku replied. "If they wanted to get rid of that thing, they could have just asked one of us. One Destructo Disk would have done it."

Vegeta snorted. "Why bother with that?" He held out his hands and gathered his ki. "Galaxy... break-"

Goku quickly crash-tackled Vegeta when he noticed that Vegeta was pointing the attack down.
> Potion Testing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay, can I have everypony - sorry, I mean everybody's attention please?"

The group of humans who had been mingling aimlessly in the lecture hall quietened down as a certain lavender unicorn made herself known.

"Just before we start, I want to say that you're all being really, really brave for volunteering for this. If we can pull this off, we can save all of Earth from total annihilation, and maybe even- "

"Lady!" One belligerent-looking British man in the back of the room interrupted. "We know why we're here, okay? Can we just get started already?"

"Sorry, sorry!" Twilight cringed. "Well, the Spell Formulae all check out, but the only real way to make sure something works is to test it, so..." With her TK, Twilight levitated a corked bottle with a sparkling pink liquid inside.





Testing of the original Serum commenced with the British man from earlier volunteering. With every imaginable magical and scientific sensor pointed at him, the grim-faced man drank the whole potion in one gulp. The onlookers - Human, Pony, Zebra, Deer and others - held their breath.

The expected blue glow obscured the volunteer's outline for a moment, before he began to shrink. And shrink. And shrink until he only came up to a pony's chest. Then the glow faded to reveal scales.

A human scientist by the name of Beverly turned to Twilight. "I thought the idea was to turn humans into ponies?"

"It was!" The unicorn squeaked.

"Well, that looks like a dragon to me." Beverly pointed out flatly.

"For this, we must hurry and atone." Zecora rhymed, backing up nervously. "I fear we added too much powdered gemstone."

Noticing all the other races slowly edging towards the door, the humans followed; though not without asking "What's the problem?"

"Well you see the potion was always going to have the side effect of inducing a mindset typical of the new race and if his new race is a dragon then we should probably get back right now." Twilight said all in one breath.

The new-drake's eyes opened up, filled with greed. "Mine..."

"RUN!" Twilight screamed as the new-drake started to swell up again, grabbing everything within reach in his expanding claws.

Test one - failure





"Okay." Twilight started, absently sliding a piece of masonry back into place. "We went back over the Serum with a fine-tooth comb."

"Found lots of stuff in there that wasn't supposed to be!" A deer declared, holding up the filthy comb in question.

"Yes." Twilight stressed, her face as high strung as her words. "But now we are are absolutely certain that the drinker of this potion will become a pony and nothing but a pony." She handed the second potion bottle off to the second volunteer, who drank deeply from it with no small amount of nervousness.

"What about a whole pony?" Another human researcher pointed out.

The collective magical races looked to said researcher in confusion as the transformation started once more.

"Well, doesn't the saying go 'a pony, the whole pony and nothing but the pony'?" He mangled the quote.

-Poof!- the transformation finished with such a sound. As the glow faded, the transformation was revealed to indeed have been successful!

Below the waist, that is.

The  woman took a step back with two hooves, dragging the remains of her pants around her ankles. "Oh hey, I'm a centaur! That's kinda neat, actually."

"Technically, when all is said; centaurs have horns upon their head." Zecora corrected, looking and sounding quite nauseous.

The new-taur blinked, able to see everyone with the extra height her quadruped lower half afforded her. "Why's everypony look like they're about to throw up?"

"Imagine if someone removed the head of a human and stuck the torso of a pony there." Twilight explained, one hoof covering her mouth.

The new-taur did so, and turned slightly green. "Oh yeah, that is kinda freaky, isn't it?"

Test two - failure





"You're sure it'll work this time?" Volunteer #3 fretted. The Asian girl stood in her designated spot, hands shaking slightly as they held the fateful bottle.

"For the last time, yes." Twilight growled, flipping through a book on potion theory. "The water we added to the Serum will dilute the magic and allow it to spread throughout your body before the transformation starts. No hybrids this time."

"Okay..." The volunteer not-quite-whimpered, before drinking the potion. The glow spread out, her shape shifted, and...

"YES!" Twilight cried upon seeing a pony muzzle. "We got it this time!" Rearing onto her back hooves, the unicorn started the pony version of fist-pumping.

A tug on her fur was entirely unwanted. The words that accompanied it, even more so. "Don't go counting your chickens yet, miss."

Twilight collapsed back onto four hooves and closed her eyes. "What went wrong this time?" She said with forced calm.

"I'm... a mer-mare? That's actually a thing?" Volunteer #3 observed herself with understandable surprise.

Twilight screwed her eyes shut more tightly and counted to 10. "No. I refuse to believe it. I refuse to believe that adding water to a potion made the drinker half-fish! That is not how magic works!"

"Do you think me switching out the sunflower oil for fish oil might have something to do with it?" One of the deer whispered to his partner.

"Why in the name of the heart of the Everfree forest did you do that?!" His friend whispered back urgently.

"It smelled terrible!"

The second deer smacked the first around the ears and went to go change the ingredients back.

Test three - failure





Large chunks of Twilight's mane were sticking out in all directions as the cross-species task-force reconvened for their fourth attempt at making a human-to-pony potion.

"Twilight Sparkle, you may relax. We have for you some brand new facts." Zecora reassured her lavender friend.

Beverly spoke up. "We took the 'front' from the mer-mare potion and the 'back' of the centaur potion. Added together, we get a whole pony, right?"

"Yes. Of course. Makes perfect sense." Twilight muttered as she tried in vain to pat down her mane.

"I hope so." The only plain-clothed human in the room complained bitterly. "I'm up next for testing."

"Well, no time like the present, right?" Beverly handed the new guinea pig the new Serum mixture.

"Bottoms up." The volunteer sassed, chugging the potion like it was a tanker of beer.

-Poof!-

"I can't look. Did we get it this time?" Twilight kept her eyes on the floor.

"Ugh, sorta?" Came the very unhelpful answer from one of the unicorn researchers. "The contrast between the two potion bits seems to have been stronger than we thought."

"What is that supposed to mean? I can't look like this! It's obscene!"

The 'new-foal' was rhyming? Oh no...

"What is this?! Cease your strife! I've been a Zebra all my life!" Zecora counter-rhymed the striped new-foal disapprovingly.

"Well then, you'd have had the time; to learn properly how to rhyme." The new... ahhhh... what do you call a neo-Zebra?

Twilight's eye started twitching. "The rhyming is involuntary?!"

"I believe it is a waste of gas; to tell you that you never asked." The Zebra-from-birth answered flatly.

Test four - close, but no potatoes





-Poof!-

Twilight blinked. Then she blinked again, slowly. Then she rubbed her eyes furiously to make sure she was seeing things correctly.

Muzzle? Check!
Tail? Check!
Hooves? Check!
Fur? With cutie mark even! (Now, how the hay had that happened....?)

It was undeniably a bog-standard Earth Pony.

"YES!" Twilight did her best impression of the Royal Canterlot Voice. "YES! SO MUCH YES! WE FINALLY DID IT!"

"Great!" The new-foal agreed. Then they coughed. "I mean... great!" The mare sounded like she was trying to speak deeper than normal.

"It something wrong?" One of the deer asked.

"Stupid pony body. It's making me sound like a girl!" The obviously female pony raged.

There was an extremely awkward silence for a moment.

"Yeah, we're marking this off as another failure." Beverly scribbled on her clipboard.

"What? Why is everyone giving me funny looks?" The gruff new-foal demanded.

Test five - not gonna touch this one





Twilight looked like she hadn't slept in days - and that might well be the case, Xlestia remembered. Her student always did have trouble working to a deadline. Xlestia gave her student a hug - just because she felt no guilt at destroying human civilization didn't mean she couldn't be kind to her own.

"Oh, my dear beloved student. You have worked so hard to make this potion." Xlestia nuzzled Twilight affectionately.

"With this, we can save all the humans, right?" It bore repeating - Twilight looked ragged.

Xlestia looked at the cart full of Serum - just a sample, the already mass-produced potion was being distributed around the globe already. "Of course. It is a pity we cannot save them as they are - " she lied " - but nobody will die for our foolishness."

"I'm glad." Twilight relaxed, and Xlestia gently lowered her student to the ground.

Picking up a Serum bottle telekinetically, Xlestia examined it closely. Yes, she thought nobody will have to die. The humans can't see it now, but they'll thank me for it afterward.

Xlestia placed the bottle back into the cart, where it stood out amongst the different colored bottles.

Wait a minute...

"Twilight...?" Xlestia asked calmly. "Why are there different colors of bottles?"

"Well, I didn't want to offend the Zebras or the Seaponies, so their potions are going to the Bureaus alongside the 'Vanilla' Serum."

"That explains the striped and the blue potions." Xlestia followed, knowing that the pink bottles were the pony version. "But what is this brown potion?"

"That's the Human potion of course." Twilight murmured sleepily.

Xlestia froze so completely that even her mane stopped flowing. "The... human... potion...?"

"Well, I couldn't just leave the failed test subjects as-is, could I? It was much easier to make a 'put-them-back' potion that it was a 'change-their-destiny' potion." The lavender unicorn flopped onto her side, trying not to fall asleep in the middle of an audience with her mentor.

"And this potion... do the humans know about it?" Xlestia's gut was in free-fall.

"Know about it?" Twilight's response filled Xlestia with hope. "Princess, they're obsessed with the stuff! I know we mucked up in testing a lot, but do they really need one bottle of 'Reversion Serum' for every 'Conversion Serum' bottle?"

Hope destroyed.

Xlestia carefully eyed the polished stone that made up the wall. With a burst of magic, she drilled a hole in it the perfect size for her horn. Gingerly, she inserted said horn into the hole - this maneuver was very difficult for unicorns, and Xlestia especially.

After making sure her horn wouldn't get in the way, Xlestia proceeded to carefully and methodically beat her head against the wall.





Omake

-Poof!-

Twilight blinked. Then she blinked again, slowly. Then she rubbed her eyes furiously to make sure she was seeing things correctly.

Muzzle? Check!
Tail? Check!
Hooves? Check!
Fur? With cutie mark even! (Now, how the hay had that happened....?)

It was undeniably a bog-standard Earth Pony.

Or rather, it would be, if the body wasn't still shaped like a human. Complete with fingers and awkwardly positioned mammary glands.

"Woo-hoo!" One human researcher cried, stealing the Anthro Potion documentation and running.

"Freak!" One of his colleagues yelled after him.

"Hater!" He yelled right back.
> Boss rush
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Xlestia yawned. She'd worked hard today implementing her plan, but she had to sleep sometime. Time to turn control of Equestria over to her sister. Flapping her wings gently, she alighted on the royal balcony and trotted into her sister's bedroom. "Luna? Are you awake?"

"How could I sleep?" Came a cruel and haughty voice that was barely recognizable as her sister's. "When the fear and despair is so thick in this world?"

Complete and utter shock paralyzed Xlestia for the crucial moments that Nightmare Moon used to bind her in shadows. "What....? But... but we fixed you! Luna is stronger now!"

"Luna hasn't grown weaker." Nightmare Moon purred. "With the mess the world is in, what else would the humans do..."

She paused dramatically, aiming Xlestia out the window toward the sunset. "...but feed their Nightmares?"

With a scream, Xlestia was banished to the sun.

Nightmare Mood let out a deep, booming laugh. Then, as something occurred to her, her eyes furrowed. How the hay do I implement Eternal Night on a round planet?





The Barrier advanced, unstoppable in its rampage. Wherever it passed, the tones of Earth became brighter as the ground was transformed below it. Stuck between the Barrier and a ravine, a family huddled futility in their SUV, waiting for the end.

Then the Barrier suddenly decided to go backwards. And turn pink with purple polka dots. When the father dared to look out the window of his car, the Barrier suddenly rushed back out, stopping a centimeter from his face. The terrified man fell back, letting out a girly scream of terror.

Hysterical laughter echoed from somewhere unseen.

"Discord!" Reprimanded a booming voice from far away. "Stop that at once!"

"Sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you over how much fun I'm having!"

With that, the Barrier's surface became made entirely out of embarrassing photos of Xlestia.





"Token Minion?" Xlestia asked, haggard. "Token, where are you? Oh! Token, what have you been up to?"

"Getting kidnapped by changelings, actually." Xlestia's assistant mare replied.

"Huh?" Xlestia tried to process that along with all the other messes happening lately. "Well, how did you escape?"

'Token' simply raised an eyebrow.

"Ah pony-feathers." Xlestia cursed, firing a beam of sun yellow magic at the disguised bug-pony. The Changeling Queen dropped her disguise and fired her own sickly green beam to match it.

As the green beam began to overtake the yellow beam, Xlestia cried "What the hay?!"

"It may not be as concentrated as Shining Armor's love," Chrysalis explained smugly "but there are a lot of humans hoping for your defeat, so it doesn't matter."

Fueled by stolen hope, Chrysalis overpowered Xlestia and imprisoned her in one of her namesakes. The Changeling Queen licked her lips. "First, your ponies. Then, we will feast on human gratitude before draining the lot of them dry. Oh yes, now is a good time to be a changeling."





"I have had enough!" Xlestia roared, many of the humans having to hold on to loose items of clothing as the pressure became ridiculous. "If you wish to oppose me so badly, so be it! You shall see me at my full power, when I rabdigrabble..." Her rant became unintelligible as Plunder Vines wrapped around her, covering her mouth and dragging her away.

One of the younger human soldiers watched as the giant black tentacle-vines dragged the alicorn all the way back into the Everfree forest. "Uh, sir? Should we help her?"

His C.O. smacked him in the back of the head as the assembled troops scrambled around, trying not to be taken by the vines themselves.





King Aspen, sometimes called the Heart of the Forest, shared a confused glance with his son Bramble. The two deer looked together at the messenger deer. "Celestia's doing what?"

"She's expanding out the Barrier." The faithful subject repeated. "Making it grow."

"Are you sure?" Bramble said, highly confused. "That doesn't sound like... anything she would do. Ever."

"You see, son?" The king told his son. "I told you ponies were no good."

"I think the idea is she's trying to force all the humans to become ponies." The messenger deer clarified.

The king's eye twitched. "She's killing all the Earth deer just so she can get some more subjects?! Fat chance!"

With great fury, the king snatched a potion bottle from a cabinet, and with great fury... gently poured it out onto the ground outside his palace. 

The magic from the potion exited the Everfree forest at high speed, reaching Canterlot in minutes. Giant vines (a natural green this time) burst out from the ground, bursting buildings from the ground as they made their way to the palace.

Xlestia's use of the royal cussing vocabulary could be heard from Ponyville.





Tirek the centaur stared up at the Barrier. Then he tilted his head, reached out with his hands and ripped the magic right out of the Barrier. The magical wall spluttered and died as it lost all power.

"Pathetic." He snorted.





Adagio Dazzle inhaled deeply. "You feel that, girls?"

Sonata groaned in pain. "Yeah. I like, shouldn't have eaten that third taco..."

Aria kicked the other siren in the shins. "She means the magic in the air, doofus."

"Oh. Yeah. That." Sonata wheezed.

Adagio shut the other two up with a glare. "Seems to me like somepony forgot that they've been using this magic-free place as a dumping ground. You know what this means?"

"We get a second shot at conquering Canterlot?" Aria grinned, feeling magic already starting to refill her gem. "Can't wait to leave this dump."

"Won't be long now girls." Adagio could feel her true form rising up under her human shell. "Lets rock."
> World Eight - Narnia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So... you don't have any problems with the humans being in charge of your world? Surely they must have some fault?"

Xlestia's annoyance rose as the native unicorn shook her head. "Nothing that comes to mind. I mean, Miraz was an awful tyrant, dear, but no one has had a cross word to say about King Caspian since his coronation."

Munching on a piece of toast, one of the native centaurs - a curious version of the Equestria creature, with no horns and pale skin - rolled his eyes. Swallowing, he said "Your Highness, you won't find any hidden problems by asking more than once! Do you know something about humans that we don't?"

Thinking fast, Xlestia said "Even though I was worlds away, the cruelty and hateful nature of humans was known to me."

"Sounds to me like you were using Miraz as an exemplar for Adam's race." A pony-sized Talking Beaver explained in-between mouthfuls of fish. "But the true Kings and Queens of Narnia are as polite and well-mannered as one could ask for! Besides, Aslan has endorsed them anyhow, so you can put those worries of yours to rest."

When the word 'Aslan' reached their ears, the equestrian ponies seated at the picnic table all had very different reactions. 

Twilight was gripped with the idea that the Princess was coming and she had to get ready, which was strange because her mentor was right next to her. She still felt like she should start cleaning, despite the Narnian/Equestrian luncheon being held outdoors.

Fluttershy felt like all of her animal friends were hugging her at once, and the winged pony looked very silly trying to cuddle them back.

Pinkie Pie squealed in delight; her special squeal she saved for only the greatest of celebrations.

Rainbow Dash found herself suddenly sitting bolt upright, like she'd somehow been caught napping.

Rarity started to swoon, then stopped in confusion as she had no idea why she would do such a strange thing at the mere name of a stranger.

Applejack perked up, smiling broadly under her hat, before slumping in confusion much like her friends.

As for Xlestia... she could feel, deep in her soul, the most primal of fear stirring.

She shook herself, but the feeling remained. "W-who?"

"Aslan." The beaver repeated, and Xlestia's dread mounted. "The King of Beasts, son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea, and rightful Lord of Narnia."

It was just a name. The name of some native trumped up creature: probably a human, Xlestia reassured herself. No need to fly back to her castle and hide under her covers right this instant. Really, she just needed to get a hold of herself.

"Actually, he's the reason none of us are worried about that magical wall you arrived with." The native pony spoke up, a brave steed by the name of Michael. "There have already been sightings of Him. They say He's on His way here!" He whispered in excitement in the way that actors do when they want their whole audience to hear them.

"WellthishasbeenanicelunchbutIreallyneedtogonowbye!" Xlestia squeaked, vanishing in a burst of golden magic.

"What was that about?" Rainbow Dash wondered.

"Well, royalty is on its way. Perhaps the Princess merely feels that she must be ready in time to greet him?" Rarity speculated.

Michael reached over to take a bite out of another apple, but the bowl was empty. Seeing this, Applejack said "Hold on, partner."

Trotting up a hill to the trunk of the apple tree they were eating under, Applejack gave it a powerful buck.

The dryad of said tree leaned out of it's upper branches, furious with the earth pony. "I say, do you mind?"





The border 'guards' were the first Equestrians to sight the Lion. Though the sight of him evoked feelings of fear and comfort both, their first thought was to their duty, and to that end they blocked the path leading to the Barrier.

But the Lion took no notice of their efforts, walking straight through the upheld spears without touching them, leaving the guards scratching their heads at the feat.

Walking quietly up to the hostile wall of magic, the Lion simply breathed on the Barrier, a breath whose power was undeniable to all who saw it. Imminently, the Barrier halted, to the stunned amazement of the guardsponies. 

"Recede." Aslan commanded, and it was done. Both guardsponies and Barrier withdrew from his presence, and though the Barrier did naught but shrink slowly,  the guardsponies would later report that it acted as though it was somehow ashamed.

Without hesitation, the Lion resumed his trek towards Canterlot as the Barrier shrunk out of sight.





"Ignite." Xlestia whispered, horn aglow, as she channeled sunlight into attempting to recast her Barrier. The spell spluttered and died as it had done many times so far. "Come on, ignite."

"It will not ignite, Princess of Sunlight."

Xlestia's breath caught in her throat. Frantically, she reinforced her door with as much magic as she could channel. The door itself glowed a brilliant gold as enchanted chains snaked around the hinges and latch. So impressive was her spellwork that for an instant, she dared hope that it might hold.

But the latch turned regardless, the hinges swung smoothly, and the force holding the door shut failed completely. Standing behind the wood was the great Lion himself, Aslan.

"W-who are you? Get out!" Xlestia scrambled backwards, abandoning her spellwork.

"Do you claim not to know me, Princess of Sunlight?" Aslan advanced into the room.

"Go away!" The Princess cried, hurling a bright yellow bolt of attack magic at the feline intruder. To her escalating panic, the bolt flowed over his mane like water before disappearing entirely.

"Why can't I hurt you?!" Xlestia cried hysterically.

Aslan, his face as calm and unmovable as a mountain, looked unblinkingly into the eyes of the panicked princess. "This world was intruded upon by your own - not merely that, but the land around yours became poisoned. Tell me how that came to be, Princess of Sunlight."

"I - I don't know - "

Aslan's face did not change, but when he interrupted her, she could almost feel herself pressed into silence. "Tell me how that came to be, Princess of Sunlight." He repeated.

Xlestia suddenly got the distinct impression that Aslan was not asking her because he did not know the answer to his question. She bit her lip.

"Tell me how that came to be, Princess of Sunlight." He asked for the third time - and Xlestia knew that he wouldn't be asking a fourth time.

"Because - because I moved us here." She finally admitted.

"And why did you do such a thing?" Aslan said, his voice low and deep.

"Because they needed saving!" Xlestia spat, annoyed that the Lion had to ask.

"They?"

"The humans! They're all the same kind for sunlight's sake! And yet they segregate themselves from each other, usually on the most asinine of reasons, like color or heritage or economy! What kind of species nearly starts a war because one group wanted to try communism?!" 

The alicorn took a deep breath. "They fight and they hate and they die. And this isn't a recent thing either; they've been doing this for their entire history! Clearly, there is no hope for the species. Surely it is the ultimate kindness to free them from this cycle of pain and death?"

"You believe that you can redeem the race of Adam and Eve by yourself?" Aslan asked without inflection.

"Of course I can! Simply changing them to ponies will fill them with Harmony such that they can't even think of treating each other that way ever again!" Xlestia roared into the lion's face.

Aslan didn't react in the slightest to the alicorn's voice, merely continuing to stare intently into her eyes.

Hmph. Xlestia thought. He can't refute me, can he? I'll bet he's just as frustrated with the humans as I... why can I smell ink?

Blinking, the solar princess looked up - and nearly screamed in shock. 

Words had been scrawled in broad strokes on the ceiling.

Neglect.

"Sister, perchance could thou spare some time today?"

"My apologies dear sister, thou wouldst not believe the number of nobleponies clamoring for our attention this day. It will have to wait for some other opportunity..."

Condescension.

Xlestia marked off the final lines of the spell. This should lift the entirety of Equestria off and onto the human world. Well, not quite all of it - magic rarely respected political boundaries. Still, even if she did leave somepony behind - or even part of somepony - it wouldn't affect the overall plan...

Hypocrisy.

Humans. Xlestia sneered though her crystal ball. Look at them all... such creatures that couldn't even scrounge up the basic levels of Harmony ponies had managed before I even took the throne, all those years ago. This just won't do - I can't stand such disorder in this world or any other.

There were other words too, but Xlestia screwed her eyes shut and placed her hooves over her ears, trying not to see, to feel the record of all her faults plastered around her bedroom.

So determined was she at desensitizing herself that she only realized Aslan was next to her when she felt his breath on her neck. She stiffened.

"The children of Epona do not hold any special position in the Final Judgment, Princess of Sunlight." He told her quietly. "Both you and your people require saving just as much as the children of Adam and Eve. You may show them the path - but only one with no faults of their own is truly capable of cleansing another of their sins. Do you understand?"

Xlestia didn't move, terrified the Lion would bite her if she so much as twitched. Watery tears of fear began to drip down her face.

Aslan sighed, and his sigh was like the wind blowing down from the mountains. "Go home, Princess of Sunlight. Rest, and contemplate thyself."

With a soft tap of one of Aslan's paws, the castle vanished, revealing barren mountain as both the nation of ponies and it's inhabitants were whisked back though the Woods between the Worlds back to their home.

The ancient Lion softly walked away. Unlike Jadis, the "White Witch", the Sun Princess had neither enacted something as evil as the Deplorable Word nor had stolen a fruit from the Tree of Life. There was still hope for her - if only she would heed his warnings.





World Eight - Once a friend in Narnia, always a friend in Narnia
> World suggestions Four
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Minecraft

Steve made one final once-over of his inventory. He had a stack of tree saplings, two stacks of iron blocks and as much redstone as he could gather. Some seeds, two buckets of water, another of lava, and the rest of his inventory filled with dirt. He'd filled up chests in the Nether with other things, but those were the items he needed the most. He was set.

Watching the enormous round (round!) Barrier approaching, the crafty old miner stepped though the Nether portal.

Reappearing in the 'safety' of the hell dimension, Steve waited patiently. Ten ticks, twenty ticks, thirty ticks... No mobs came to threaten him, he'd sealed off this area with cobblestone and covered the ground in slabs.

Seeing the Nether portal extinguish itself, the oddly rectangular person knew the other end had just been enveloped by whatever-the-End that dome thingy was. Still, he waited. Give it another 6,000 ticks for good measure...

After that time had elapsed, Steve took his flint and steel and reignited the portal. Carefully, he stepped into the purple swirly portal and reappeared back in the overworld. The Nether portal had respawned high in the air - unsurprising, considering that was where he had built the original.

Leaning over the edge, Steve started attaching cobblestone to the obsidian blocks that made up the Nether portal, pointedly ignoring the gobsmacked pegasi staring. First, infinite water, then a cobblestone generator, then some trees for infinite wood, a mob grinder...

It went without saying that the old miner loved a build challenge. Sky-block maps were always good for a hoot.





Marvel Comics

The border guide was snapped out of his light snooze when a brown-furred earth pony leaped clear over his desk, screaming "RUN!"

Shaking his head in confusion, the pegasi guide could only ask "What..?"

Then he saw what the earth pony had been running from, and screamed in terror. Flapping his wings in a blind panic, he joined the other pony in dashing for the safety of the nearby Barrier. 

With a roar of fury, the monster leaped through the air, missing the guide's feathers by a hair's width.

Some detached portion of the border guide's mind would later note that the monster looked like a green, human version of the Saddle Rager. Most of the guides brain was occupied with 'RUN'. He was so panicked he forgot he could fly, galloping at full speed for the Barrier.

The monster leaped again, this time catching the poor guide in the side with an almost lazily swung punch. Flying through the air in a way nature had not intended, the guide was sure he had heard several of his ribs crack as he crashed to the ground. By pure good fortune, he seemed to have landed on the other side of the world-wrecking magical dome. The guide felt like he should laugh, but that if he did he would laugh up blood.

The brown earth pony that had proceeded the monster seemed to have broken down in hysterics. "I didn't know! I couldn't have known! It can't be my fault!"

The monster had slammed full tilt into the Barrier, and to the guide's absolute horror, was not instantly vaporized. In fact, it only seemed to make him angry, though it did repel him.

"The Serum removed negative traits; I checked it myself! It was perfect! No more living in terror of myself; no more secluding myself in fear of hurting others!"

The monster dug his fingernails into the growing wall of magic, somehow finding purchase in the smooth surface with his oversized fingers.

"I didn't think it literally removed them, I just thought it suppressed or destroyed them!" The ponified Bruce Banner screamed, tears streaming down his muzzle.

With a sound like kittens being ripped apart, the monster tore open a hole in the Barrier, stepping through regardless of how the magic lashed at him trying to render him into dust.

Smoke drifting off him from where the Barrier had failed to kill him, the monster loomed over the two ponies.

"Hulk... angry...."





The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

So here I am, halfway up the hill to school, when Koizumi walks up behind me unexpectedly and asks if I had a moment to talk.

No prizes for guessing the topic of conversation. What did Haruhi do this time?

"Well to be perfectly honest, nothing that needs our imminent attention." He told me, as usual smiling way too much to not be creepy. "It's just - you know the island nation in the middle of the pacific ocean?"

Equestria, right? Constitutional diarchy, famous for it's horse breeding and animal rights campaigns?

"That is indeed the one." He continued. "It is very interesting - after all, it wasn't there last night."

Wait, slow down. Koizumi, I clearly remember leaning about that place in geography class years ago. You can't just tell me...

...

...did Haruhi do it?

Koizumi's smirk grew even wider.

Dammit Haruhi.

"While that was not my exact reaction, I do believe I was quite shocked when Ms Nagato told me. This is easily one of the largest changes Ms Suzumiya has yet made to the world, and sets a worrying precedent."

Yeah yeah fine, it's a big change and all, but what I want to know is what Haruhi was thinking. She has no idea that her power exists! What, did she decide there weren't enough horses in the world or something?

"Not at all. In fact, you could say the exact opposite."

Koizumi, you're doing that cryptic thing again. Stop it.

"It's actually quite simple when you think about it. Ms Suzumiya has a particular idea of how the world should be, and is in a unique position to enforce her own beliefs. If this world were to be intruded upon by something she does not believe in, then logically that thing would be altered to be more in line with her own worldview."

Koizumi, Haruhi believes in Aliens, Time Travelers and Espers. What the heck doesn't she believe in?

He told me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Haruhi Suzumiya - the girl who believes in Santa Claus but not Unicorns.





The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Horn glowing brightly with tightly controlled magic, Xlestia burst open the doors into the inner sanctum. Inside, a man made out of fire sat at his throne waiting for her.

"Who dares intrude upon the domain of the Great and Powerful Oz?" The fire-man boomed.

Odd. Xlestia thought to herself. That sounds like a unicorn Twilight wrote to me about once.

Regardless of his similarities to a certain show pony, Xlestia blasted a hole right through Oz's chest, bursting him into smoke. Any victory she thought she had was disproven when the smoke reformed into a beautiful woman.

"Ah ha ha ha!" The woman laughed. "You think you can defeat the Great and Powerful Oz, ruler of the Emerald City?"

"Your city isn't actually emerald, you just made everyone wear green-tinted glasses!" The Alicorn objected, blasting Oz again.

The wizard laughed again as he reformed into a giant, floating bald head. "You were warned to wear the glasses! Obviously the brightness of the city has burned the colour green out of your world!"

Instead of responding, Xlestia exploded Oz a third time. The smoke reformed yet again, this time into a horrible three-headed monster who continued to laugh.

The Sun Princess frowned. Then she trotted forward and gingerly touched a hoof to the wizard's chest. It passed though easily, his body no more solid then moonlight.

The wizard hiccuped mid-laugh. "Halt! One as insignificant as you cannot hope to interact with my astral form!"

Xlestia stuck her hoof into the wizard's body all the way up to the shoulder, moving around to check. Nothing of the wizard was solid.

"You see?" The wizard said in a slightly higher register than before. "You cannot even touch me!"

Scanning around the room, Xlestia noticed a curtain that had no real reason to be there. Ripping it away with her magic, she found a balding old man operating machinery behind it.

"Ignore the man behind the curtain!" Both the man and wizard cried in sync. "I am the Great and Powerful Oz, and I am - "

"A faker." The Sun Princess flatly told him.

A tense silence filled the room for a moment.

"...yes, I'm afraid I'm a humbug." The old man admitted. The image of the monster, literally smoke and mirrors, vanished as he moved away from his projector.

"All this time, your people have been telling me how 'The Great and Powerful Oz' was going to defeat me, and he turns out to be a sad man hiding behind a certain of lies." She spat.

"There's no need to be rude." The conman protested.

Rolling her eyes, Xlestia forced a bottle's worth of Conversion Serum down the American's throat. Not even checking that his ponification was successful, Xlestia exited the Emerald Palace. What a complete and utter waste of my - 

With a whump noise, a house fell on the Solar Princess.





RWBY

Ruby skipped merrily along the path, humming as she led the group of humans, faunus and ponies back towards the Barrier.

Near the middle of the group, Yang and Applejack were comparing notes on having younger sisters that always seemed to find trouble.

"So I get up, in the middle of the night, only to find Ruby has managed to not only wonder away from camp, she's managed to find a hole in the ground for the sole purpose to fall into!"

"You're leaving out key details! I call slander!" Ruby called from the front.

The farm pony shook her head as the two sisters bantered back and forth. "Heh. You folks really ain't what I was expecting at all."

"Oh?" Weiss queried. "And what were you expecting?"

"The way it was told to me, you folks were some kinda angry friendship eaters or some-such." Applejack blushed.

"I'd hope not." Blake replied blankly. "Even ignoring social issues, being unfriendly or violent just attracts the Grimm. They say if it weren't for the necessity of keeping the battles constantly moving, the Great War could have gone on for three times as long as it did."

"You guys have negativity-eating monsters as well?" Rainbow blinked, hovering lower to be more involved in the conversation.

"Well, no one really knows what the Grimm eat - or where they come from, or any number of things about them." Yang explained. "Like, remember the Ursa Ruby killed halfway here?"

The ponies had been trying not to. Seeing sweet, naive Ruby pull a collapsible scythe out from under her cloak and neatly bisect the mask-wearing bear-thing had been more than a little... upsetting.

"As best we can tell, that was an infant Grimm - at least, nobody has ever seen them smaller than that. They do get bigger, though - like, a lot bigger." The yellow haired brawler continued.

The ponies winced as they recalled the monster they called an Ursa. They certainly hoped the Remnant version never got that large.

"Oh hey, we're here." Rainbow observed, noting the shimmering wall of magic at the end of the path.

"Now do be careful dears." Rarity advised the Remnant natives. "It lets us through just fine, but we have no idea what it might do to you."

"No worries!" Ruby flashed a V hand sign, stepping into the Barrier. "I'm sure it can't be that - "

ENDLESS, OVERWHELMING PRESSURE THAT BORE DOWN, STRUGGLING TO TURN HER TO POWDER

" - gack!" Ruby collapsed on the other side of the Barrier in an undignified heap.

"Sis! You okay?" Yang worried.

"Yeah, don't touch that thing without a full Aura." Ruby pulled her face of the ground to advise. "It really didn't like me."

There was a pause as Ruby's teammates tried to decide whether it was better to go to her or stay where they were.

"I'm in pain." The scythe-wielder complained into the dirt.
> World Nine - The Red World
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story started off the same way all the best ones do: with a tremendous explosion.

"We're under attack!" One of the guardsponies yelled. "Sound the alarm!"

"What is it?" One of the ponies further back cried. "Are the Changelings back? Are the Seaponies invading? An Usra Major?"

"Humans!" The first guard yelled back.

"What? Don't be daft!" The second guard yelled back, all traces of worry gone from his voice. "Humans are, like, the only things that can't be attacking!"

"Bomb di wind!"

The ball of magically compressed air hit the castle wall, blasting the second guard down and blowing a hole in the fortifications.

The first guard snorted. "Told you so."

A second spell blew him the way of his comrade.

"Geez Louise!" Lina Inverse, the 'beautiful genius sorceress' cried as she dusted off her hands, magically levitating in mid-air. "I've seen bandits with better training than that."

"Uh.. Miss Sylphiel... are you sure this is the right way?" Princess Amelia of Seyruun wondered, flying alongside the red-head. "Those looked kinda like royal guards... and this kinda looks like a royal castle..."

"Um..." Sylphiel the cleric flustered as she once more balanced her sceptre on her palm. When it fell, it pointed directly at Canterlot Castle. "My magic still says it's this way."

"Don't worry Amelia, royal castles always have the best stuff to loot!" Lina assured Amelia.

The white-clothed princess sighed. "Sometimes I wonder why we travel together, Miss Lina..."

At this point Zelgadis caught up to the three. The sorcerer with a body made of stone gave Lina a flat stare, one cobalt eyebrow raised. "I know you always like to poke things with sticks Lina, but we broke that Barrier on the way in. We can go get your money now. No need to go looking for some Demon Lord equivalent."

Lina spared a glance backwards. "Aw, come on Zel. I tore through that Barrier like paper. Whoever put it up must be a total wimp!" She grinned fiercely, showing her incisors.

"Wimp?" Zelgadis gaped at her. "It took most of the remaining power of the Dark Lord Shabranigdo to make the Mazoku Barrier; that level of magic doesn't happen by chance." A lucky guard managed to hit Zelgadis with a crossbow bolt, but it bounced off his rock skin. "It took the death of Hellmaster Phibrizzo to make said Mazoku Barrier fail. Whoever put this one up must be at least as strong as he was." 

"Ha!" Lina barked, absently flicking a Freeze Arrow at a Pegasi guard. "No way. You're over thinking this, Zel."

"I refuse to take that from the girl lobbing fireballs at a castle." Zelgadis muttered.

"Heeeyyyy! Wait up, you guys!" The lone non-mage of the group, Gourry Gabriev cried as he ran full tilt through the streets of Canterlot.

"Gourry...!" Lina growled. "Hurry up, you're making the rest of us wait!"

Several Earth Pony guards tried to intercept Gourry. Their valiant efforts went completely unnoticed as he shoulder-barged them, sending the poor ponies flying.

"Hey, you guys are the ones who left me to climb a mountain while you flew up. Not cool." He retorted, reaching rough equilibrium with the spellcasters outside the castle walls.

"Oh, are we all here then?" Came the unwelcome voice of Xellos as he phased back into the material plane. The blue haired staff-wielding priest nodded as he saw the five adventurers. "Good, good."

"Mr Xellos? What are you doing here?" Amelia wondered.

Xellos gave his usual smirk. "That - "

Lina grabbed the monster by the front of his shirt. "If you say 'that's a secret', I'm going to burn that staff of yours to ashes." She threatened.

With a shrug, Xellos vanished from the sorceress's grip. "Fine, be that way." His bodiless voice echoed. "I'll see you later on. Do watch out for the ballista, won't you?"

"Ballista?" The four airborne targets echoed. They barely had time to share a worried glance before the giant crossbow-like weapon nailed Zelgadis right in the chest, sending him sprawling through the sky.

"Get down!" Lina cried unnecessarily.

Amelia let out a squawk as pegasus-made lightning missed her by centimetres, aborting her downward glide into a sidewards dodge.

"Oh, for crying out loud..." Lina muttered, having made it safely down herself. "Flare Arrow!"

Seven bolts of yellow fire magic raced upwards, scaring the pegasi spit-less but more importantly dispersing the clouds they were using.

"Hi-ya!" Gourry cried, making himself useful by smashing the castle ballista to bits with his family sword. He resumed his battle stance, but the ballista crew decided to leg it rather than face the angry human with a pointy stick.

Zelgadis, having regained control over his flight path and being more than a little upset with his unplanned soar, touched down on the ground. "Mega Explosion Array!" He cast, blowing another huge hole in the castle wall with the explosion spell.

"Couldn't the trouble maker just be on the other side of the city?" Amelia sweated. "I don't think anything this adorable could possibly be responsible for -"

"Quit your yapping and get in the castle!" Lina ordered, blowing more ponies away with a Dug Haut, the earth spell smashing the equines with slabs of earth. She tried to follow it up with a Burst Rondo, but a golden shield spell blocked the flames she conjured.

"Now, I don't care if you're a Changeling, a Mimicker, or simply very good at illusions." Xlestia emerged from the smoke that flowed out of the hole in her castle. "I also don't care why you chose the image of a human. Nobody hurts my ponies."

"But we are humans... right? We are humans aren't we!?" Gourry asked the smarter members of the group in confusion and slight panic.

Xlestia didn't respond, instead looking over her targets. Three seemingly human mares, one sword wielder stallion and one... rock monster? Picking the toughest-looking target, she blasted Zelgadis with a burst of her own fire magic, knocking him away from the other four fighters.

"Windy Shield!" Lina cast, blocking Xlestia's second fire spell with a wall of defensive wind. 

Gourry reached into his belt and retrieved a hex key, which he used to detach the blade from his sword. "Light come forth!" He cried, and the magical sword handle conjured white magical energy to replace the metal blade. With his new pseudo-lightsabre, the swordsman made a jumping attack against the Sun Princess. Scowling, Xlestia aborted her third attack spell in favour of a forcefield.

Her default protection spell is Defence? Lina noted, slightly worried. The non-elemental shield spell did provide greater projection than her Windy Shield, but at the cost of much greater magical expenditure. For the royal pony to use it out of habit, she would need a Pool Capacity (the amount of magic she could cast without tiring) larger than her own!

Lina blinked, having noticed that Amelia was doing nothing but fidget while Gourry and Xlestia went hammer and tongs, Sylphiel supporting Gourry where she could. "Hey, look alive there!"

"I'm sorry Miss Lina, but I can't get involved in a fight with another kingdom. You understand, right?" The princess of Seyruun wilted under Lina's fierce glare, shuffling off to the side of the fight.

Jeez, that girl picks the worst times to be diplomatic. Lina thought, holding her hands behind her back.

With a fierce cry, Xlestia picked Gourry up telekinetically by his boot and tossed him through a nearby store front. With a cry of "Gourry dear!" Sylphiel raced after him, a healing spell already forming on her lips.

Lina's eye widened a bit when she realised she was now alone in the street with the royal pony, the civilians having scampered.

"You have no idea how much trouble you are in right now." The Solar Alicorn mentioned casually, building up charge in her horn.

Lina's kept her eyes on the royal pony, but out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Sylphiel had dropped her sceptre in her dash to heal her crush. Spinning around on one end, the magical tool fell - pointing dead at Xlestia, the divination spell still active. Lina's eyes widened, and then she smirked. Well well well...

"If you want a fight I'll gladly give you one!" Xlestia yelled, levitating large amounts of rubble and throwing them as a wave of stone.

"Grey Bomb!" Lina counter-cast, causing the ground under the rubble to explode and scatter the alicorn's attack every which way.

Xlestia raised an eyebrow, and levitated the now much larger amount of rubble.

"Yeah, not one of my brightest ideas." The sorceress muttered. She needed room to manoeuvre. With a cry of "Ray Wing!", she took to the sky. This version of Levitation came with a built-in shield, so she should be fine.

Looking behind her revealed the veritable ocean of rubble proceeding the alicorn who had likewise taken to the sky. Then again, maybe not. Lina thought, preparing for some magical dog-fighting.





Meanwhile down on the ground, Zelgadis had finally extracted himself from the remains of somepony's office. Being made of stone had let him tank Xlestia's fire spell, but it hadn't made digging himself out of the rubble any easier. Shaking the dust off himself and ditching his ruined cloak, the sorcerer made to re-enter the fight but found himself blocked by six mares.

"Don't move, buster!" A certain lavender unicorn told him firmly. "We have powerful artefacts and we aren't afraid to use 'em, you... er, you..."

"Chimera." The sorcerer identified his species with a grimace.

The Mane Six shared confused glances. "You've only got one head." Applejack pointed out.

"Chimera as in my body is made from pieces of different creatures." He clarified further. He took a step forward.

"Hey! One wrong move buster and we'll scrub your soul so clean you'll be able to see your reflection in it!" Pinkie pointed her forehoof threateningly at him.

"Wait, what?! Don't use purification magic on me, I'm part demon! It could kill me!" Zelgadis yelled, alarmed.

"Don't worry." Twilight said soothingly. "The last evil spirit we used these on just turned to stone."

"I'm also one third rock golem. I'm already made of stone." He pointed out.

"Uhh..." This one seemed to stump Twilight. "Then I guess they'd banish you to the moon...?"

Zelgadis exhaled. "And my remaining third is what's left of my humanity. I still need to breathe."

"There's air on the moon!" Twilight told him as though that was obvious.

"On your moon or on our moon?" The chimera asked.

The unicorn fumed for a moment. 

"Wait right there. I need writing space to work this out!" So saying, she trotted off. Her friends watched her leave in disbelief.

"Twilight, dear?" Rarity tried not to panic. "Where are you going?!"

"To get a chalkboard!" The retreating pony called back.

The five remaining members of the Mane Six swivelled around to look at the sorcerer, who had started twirling magical flames around his fingers.

Abruptly, all five bar Rainbow scampered, leaving the weathermare to fend for herself. Said mare rolled her eyes. "Scaredy ponies."

'Cracking ones knuckles' had no real meaning on a pony, but Rainbow flexed her fetlocks together regardless. "Bring it on!" She cried, surging forward.





Since her return Luna had, rather to her chagrin, acquired a reputation of being useless, which she felt was unfair. Everypony knew she slept through the day, and normally the invasion of a city involved loud, pony-waking explosions! Stupid Changelings.

Hence when several -BOOM-s echoed around the castle hallways, Luna was rushing to put her armour on before she'd even remembered to take her nightcap off.

"Hold tight, sister." Luna muttered as she shook the last dregs of sleep off. "I will lend my assistance post-haste."

"I'm afraid I really can't allow you to do that." Came an unexpected and unwelcome voice from behind the Luna Alicorn. The half-second of warning and a flash of instinct lead Luna to turn to mist just as Xellos's staff passed though where her chest just was.

Re-forming on the other side of the room in the set of golden armour she'd gotten to replace her Nightmare Armour, Luna scowled at the Trickster Priest. "That is not how a gentlecolt introduces himself!"

Xellos gave a wide, fierce smile, his eyes still closed.

Luna's own eyes narrowed, tense. "You may dispense with your human guise, monster. It was flimsy to begin with in a human-free zone."

"Oh, you may find your human-proof fence has a new hole in it. That is," Xellos opened his eyes wide, completing his fierce appearance even as his own body began to turn into swirling darkness. " if you can survive!"

Luna noted that the creature's true form was that of a twister of shadows even as she blasted it apart with her dark blue magic. Annoyingly, it had no effect, the creature simply reforming much as her own mist form did. She was forced to duck to avoid being pierced by the pointy end of the monster as it charged her.

"Do the monsters of this world need a reason to attack royalty, or are you all simply bloodthirsty?" Luna boomed as she tried to contain Xellos in a forcefield only for him to teleport out.

The sound of Xellos's chuckle echoed despite him having no mouth to make the sound with. "The monsters of this world need no reason to sow destruction and chaos. But in this case, your sister has made herself quite a target." Angry red bolt of magic hurled themselves from Xellos to Luna, who avoided them by turning to mist once more.

"My sister wishes only the happiness of all!" Luna cried, trying a volley of weaker beams rather than one strong one.

Xellos teleported behind Luna, both dodging her attack and striking from her blind spot. To his annoyance, she anticipated him and dodged to the side in time to avoid being skewered.  "And that is why we monsters must stop her. If she erases unhappiness from this world, from where shall we derive our food?"

Several things clicked in Luna's head at that moment. Her opponent fed off negativity -> she was fighting the local version of a Wendigo. She couldn't hurt him -> because like a Wendigo, her opponent's true form was that of a spirit, tangible only on the astral plane.

"I should warn you, monster. Here in Equestria I am the guardian of dreams. I know how to enter the astral plane." Luna boomed, vanishing from mortal sight.

Xellos vanished shortly thereafter, his voice still present in the now-empty room. "And I should warn you that astral combat is my speciality."





Hastily, Lina patted out a fire that had started on her shoulder pad. So that she could actually return fire, she'd switched out her Ray Wing spell for the simpler Levitation. Unfortunately, this meant that Xlestia's near misses were now setting her clothes on fire.

"Die already!" Xlestia yelled, covering herself in solar fire and rushing Lina.

"Aqua Create." Lina cast, conjuring a wave of water in the alicorn's flight path and interrupting her attack. "Same to you, lady. Freeze Arrow!"





"Oh jeez, oh jeez." Spike panicked as he ran through the halls of Canterlot. You'd have to be completely deaf to miss the fights going on, and the young dragon was alternating between running toward and away from the battlefield as his courage rose and fell.

Turning a corner at high speed, Spike ran into somebody with an "oof!" Shaking his head, Spike looked up to see that he had run into a blond human woman dressed in white and blue robes, inspecting him in return.

"This is it?" She said critically.

"Uh... what?" Spike blinked. "Actually, isn't there like, a giant anti-human field up...?"

The strange lady picked Spike up, ignoring his squawk. "I come all the way out here on a rumour of talking dragons, and this runt is all I find?"

"Hey, judge your own species!" Spike told the lady, naturally offended.

With a poof, the lady turned into a fully grown yellow-scaled dragon, still holding Spike in one claw.

"Oh." Spike said in a small voice.

Rolling her eyes, Filia the dragon priestess tossed the comparatively tiny dragon over her shoulder. Maybe there were some other dragons somewhere else? Being the last adult talking dragon in the Red World sucked.





Luna reappeared in the material plane, flying as though the legions of Tartarus were on her heels. Her fur was smouldering, and deep cuts could be seen across her body.

She made immediately for the open window, but it was blocked off by a purple magical barrier.

"Tut tut, princess." Xellos materialised in the hallway behind Luna, blocking off her other route of escape. Xellos had shrouded his true form again, but instead of a human form the Mazoku now appeared to be a unicorn with a blue mane and a grey coat. "What would your subjects say if they saw you running away?"

Luna turned her head around to glare at Xellos hatefully.

Xellos dramatically raised his staff to point at Luna. "Now it is time to say -"

"Hello!"

"Ack!" Xellos yelped as he jumped to one side, having just found Pinkie Pie standing on his other side. "When - when did - ?"

"Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie! I've never seen you before which is weird because I've been here for like hours which is normally enough for me to befriend everypony and by the way do you like parties?"

Xellos pawed uselessly at his throat as he lost his balanced and collapsed.

To understand what was happening one needed to consider three things. The first was that because Xellos was blocking the doorway, Pinkie couldn't see her injured princess. The second was that as Xellos had taken a pony shape, Pinkie couldn't tell he was an invader. But the third and most important point was that Mazoku, just like their Equestrian counterparts the Wendigos, feed off negative emotions but couldn't handle positive ones. Amelia had once driven Xellos to his knees just by singing about how live was wonderful.

Amelia was only slightly detached from reality. Pinkie Pie's infectious cheerfulness was causing Xellos to do the astral equivalent of vomiting.

Must... get away....! The monster thought, trying to crawl away.

"Oh, are you ill?" Pinkie bounced after him. "Don't worry! If anypony can cheer you up, it's me!"

Luna, still breathing heavily from her astral bout, still had enough energy to smirk. Saved by the pink. 





Rarity's panic rose a little each time she turned a corner and found that her friends weren't behind it. For goodness sake everypony, where are you?! They'd gotten separated after the... incident with that ruffian. She and Twilight were going to have words, that was for certain!

"Oooh ho ho ho!"

For a moment, Rarity had the curious sensation that her ears were trying to fold into themselves, so jarring was the laughter she had just heard.

"Whatever in the name of sanity was..." Rarity muttered, before finding the source of the most unpleasant sound.

It was a human (another one?!) and was very clearly female. It was very hard to mistake her gender when the entire point of her outfit seemed to be identifying it's wearer as quite firmly female.

Naga the White Serpent, dressed in her usual black leather bikini, spotted Rarity and strode confidently towards her. "You there, pale horse-creature! Have you seen a short flat-chested red-head of a girl running around?"

Rarity's mouth flopped open and closed like a fish out of water, a high pitched whistling noise the only sound to escape her throat.

"Oh dear, my magnificence appears to have stunned the dear..." Naga waved her hand in front of Rarity's face, having to bend over to do so and placing her... mammary glands far too close to Rarity's face for her state of mind. "I suppose I could always follow the explosions... little Lina always did have such trouble being subtle about things."

As Naga turned to walk off, Rarity finally found her voice. "Where..."

Naga looked back. "Hmmm?"

"Where did you find that absolutely hideous outfit!" The fashionista screamed. Her trained mind automatically translated the outfit for a pony body - black straps that really only covered the teats and the nethers - and regretted not for the first time never learning the 'brain bleach' spell.

Naga looked down at her rather scant clothing as she straightened up. "Oh, this? Found it in my mother's wardrobe."

"I see." Rarity stated flatly. She tried to think about how to ask her next question politely. "And what... profession was your mother exactly?"

Naga blinked. "Mother dear? Princess."

"P-p-princess?!" Rarity screeched. The mere thought of royalty that would wear such an outfit...

The white unicorn's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fainted dead away.

Naga shook her head as she looked down at the fainted pony. "Ha. Some creatures just cannot hold in their jealousy. Oh ho ho ho!"





Lina clutched a hand to her side, casting what little White Magic she knew to heal her busted ribs. Xlestia meanwhile was breathing heavily, trying to regain as much stamina as she could before the fight resumed once more.

"It is impressive." The Solar Alicorn conceded. "Considering the pain I put you through, you should have dropped your illusion of humanity well before now.

"Oh, give it a rest!" Lina rolled her eyes. "I'm human, get over it."

"No, you're not." Xlestia stated quite firmly. "Humans cannot enter this kingdom."

The red-haired sorceress smirked. "Okay then. How about I show you the spell I used to get in here? Lords of darkness of the four worlds, I call upon you: grant me all the power that you possess." In sequence, each of Lina's four Demon Blood Talismans lit up.

Xlestia, not stupid enough to just fly in place while her opponent cast, coated herself in fire once more.

Lina's eyes widened as she hurried up her chant. She'd been skipping them for all her spells so far, but this spell needed the extra control. "Lord of the dreams that terrify. Sword of the cold dark void, free yourself from the heaven's bonds. Become one with my power - "

Xlestia charged the human once more, knowing that Lina couldn't counter-cast while casting her main spell. Lina stopped concentrating on her Levitation spell, dropping like a stone and avoiding the attack; resuming her magical flight in time to avoid a collision with the ground.

" - one with my body, and let us walk the path of destruction together. Power that can smash even the souls of the gods: Ragna Blade!"

Into Lina's waiting hands, her spell squeezed the tiniest portion of the Sea of Chaos - the place from which all things come and to which all things must one day return. The jagged spikes of darkness formed something vaguely approximating a massive broadsword - the blade with which Lina had cut a hole in Xlestia's trump card.

"Just try and block this, I dare you!" Lina swung her second-most powerful spell at the alicorn, the magical energy blade extending outwards to cover the distance between. Lina knew she had won - by definition, the Ragna Blade couldn't be blocked, even by a dimensional wall.

Xlestia rolled her eyes and teleported behind Lina, avoiding the attack altogether.

Its caster in pure shock, the Ragna Blade spluttered out of existence in Lina's hands.

"Never hint that a spell is unblockable if you don't want your enemy simply dodging it." The ancient ruler advised the teenage adventurer.

Lina cursed inside her head. Casting the Ragna Blade twice in a day alone with all the other spells I've been using has left me drained. I've only got one good spell left in me, and my opponent can teleport! Now what?! It's not like I can simply Dragon Slave all the - 

Lina facepalmed.

"This time, die!" Xlestia cried, charging a sphere of plasma at the tip of her horn.

"Lords of darkness of the four worlds, I call upon you: grant me all the power you possess." Lina re-cast her power boost spell.

Xlestia frowned, but fired her own spell nonetheless.

"Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows; buried in the stream of time is where your power flows."

Xlestia's Plasma Orb smashed, not into Lina, but into the thick streams of magic that were already building up around her and flowing into her hands, leaving her unharmed.

"I pledge myself to conquer, all the foes who stand; before the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hands!"

Xlestia tried Telekinesis, Teleportation, and Transmutation on Lina. All three were disrupted by the sheer power she was channelling into her spell.

"Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the power you and I possess!"

Lina swung back her hands containing the ball of pure red magic, as if to throw it.

"Dragon Slave!"





"Ha!" Rainbow cried, holding Zelgadis in a headlock. "Didn't expect me to be a black belt in karate, did ya?!"

Zelgadis merely grunted, and swung his head back into Rainbow's chest. His hair, as thick and stiff as wire, stabbed into soft pony-flesh.

"Yeouch!" The weathermare cried, involuntarily releasing the Chimera. Zelgadis rolled forwards, intending to channel magical lightning into his opponent.

His actions stopped when he noticed the red glow out of the corner of his eye.

Rainbow clenched her teeth to try to deal with the pain. "Not cool, dude." She blinked in surprise as the sorcerer ran past her at full speed. What's his problem?

She looked where he had been looking, gaped for a precious half-second, then flew in the same direction as him; hitting Rainboom speeds almost immediately.





Gourry and Sylphiel paused from their fight, neck deep in guardponies. Sharing one quick panicked look, they both bolted.





The door to the Canterlot library opened to allow Twilight out with her sheath of notes. "Okay, I worked it out! Using the elements on that chimera will..." She took in the massive glow of magic in the sky, then slowly backed into the library, locking the door.





"Oh Lina." Naga muttered, placing her hand onto the cobblestone street and forming a giant golem to stand in between her and the Dragon Slave. "You always do make such a mess."





"I don't remember getting red party lights." Pinkie tilted her head as she saw the red glow from the window. Xellos took his chance and scrounged up enough concentration to shift back into the astral.





Amelia looked back at Canterlot mountain as the extreme wide-area explosive spell blew it to smithereens. She closed her eyes and hung her head dejectedly. "I suppose it was stretching to hope this could end without one of those."





World Nine - Friendship beyond Twilight, Magic beyond Rainbow flows 
> World Suggestions Five
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Epic Rap Battles of History!

Princess Xlestia!

Versus...

The human race!

Begin!

Xlestia:

Lets get the music over with, I have work to do!
Won't even recognise your home when I'm all through.
It's time I gave you chimps a Lesson Zero;
Once I'm finished you'll be calling me a hero.

I come from the land of sunshine and rainbows;
Your land is in the midst of its own death throes!
Hush now, quiet now, [stuff] is going down;
Hush now, quiet, Princess Pony is in town!

A true, true friend helps a friend in need;
too bad you've no friends around to see you bleed!
You better have some sweet counter rhymes to sell;
'cause at this rate you won't Mare Do Well.

Humans:

We have a special power ponies will never own.
And what would that be? Testosterone!
Speaking of such, when did you last take a 'roll in the hay'?
No wonder you're cranky, you're a thousand year old maid!

We don't care for your machinations;
you think we're scared of Flash Animations?!
You bring war, suffering, pain and strife;
nothing we haven't seen in real life.

We’ll fight to the end, come what may;
And when the magic is stripped away?
Your powers are bull[poo] and fanon.
Ready to face our party cannon?

Xlestia:

Crushing your dreams is more my sister's domain;
but I'm sure I'm enough to cause you all pain!
This Cutie Mark? I'll burn you all, Solar Ignition.
It may not be my destiny but it sure as [sun] is my mission.

You’ll see the real power of an Equestria Girl!
I can take whatever you idiots hurl!
You know what I decided through this Crystal Door?
You’re just one Magical Mystery Boor!

Humans:

You ain't Honest with us, and you sure ain't Kind;
what do you think we are, Sunspot, completely blind?
Your Loyalty's no good to us;
And you sure as [sun] ain't Generous.

Laughter's no fun when it's at our expense;
in fact we kinda take offence!
You know with all these problems great and small;
Sure you even know Magic at all?

Who won?

Who's next?

You decide!

Epic Rap Battles of History!





Captain Planet and the Planeteers

"By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!"

The superhero hung in mid-air for a moment, waiting expectantly for the ethnically diverse group of teenagers that called themselves the Planeteers to yell their normal cry of "Go Planet!"

When they didn't, he looked down. The Planeteers were cradling various injuries, a small army of ponies was standing around looking up at him in fading shock, and a giant transparent dome was closing in. "Well, I'd say the situation has gotten pear shaped, but that looks more like a dome to me."

One brave pegasus rushed the Captain, throwing his spear at full speed into the blue chest of the superhero with the green mullet. The tip harmlessly broke on impact.

As the pegasus hovered in mid-air, shocked, Captain Planet ruffled the pony's mane. "Now, now. Be careful with those - you might hurt someone!"

The superhero flinched as a bottle of Serum went flying past his ear. Historically when people threw jars of liquid, they would be filled with pollutants, his only weakness.

"Okay, if there's anything I can't stand, it's littering. Time to clean up." Captain Planet spun round on the spot until he was going so fast a tornado formed around him. Using said tornado, the Captain sucked up all the pegasi in the sky, then their ground-bound comrades.

"I'm declaring a new wildlife preserve." The Captain joked, dropping the dizzy ponies into a depression in the ground. "You stay in, and nobody gets hurt."

"Oh yeah?" One brash pegasus yelled back. "And what happens if we just fly out?"

"I think you'll find the situation you're in to be a bit stickier than you think!" The Captain flew off.

"What was that guy on about?" The pegasus muttered, raising his wings. "Just a flap of my wings, and - "

-SPLAT- A layer of a black sticky substance covered all the ponies from ears to tail. Hovering above his improvised pit, the Captain dropped the tree trunk he'd just superheated until it had burst. 

"Pine tree sap makes a very nice glue." Captain Planet smiled, flying off to the Barrier, listening to the frustrated yells of stuck ponies. "Much kinder than the one made from, say, horses."

"Okay, this is new." The spirit muttered as he got a good look at the magical hemisphere. "Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained."

"Earth!" He cried, punching the Barrier with a glowing green fist. The magic of the dome and the sliver of Gaia's magic that made up the Captain's form struggled for the instant they were in contact, eventually repelling the Captain's fist but leaving the impacted spot on the dome glowing green.

"Fire!" Planet tried again with a swing from his left arm, this time leaving the dome glowing red.

"Wind!" White spot.

"Water!" Blue spot.

"Heart!" The Superhero put his full power behind the Strongest Power of All, joining the four points of impact together into a rough cross. The Captain struggled, but the Barrier struggled back, resisting the nature magic. Planet grabbed his right arm with his left, but he just couldn't punch through.

Need some help, Captain? The ethereal voice of Gaia echoed in Planet's head.

"Well, it'd just be rude of me to decline since you offered so nicely." Planet told his boss, still struggling to pierce the magical wall.

As soon as he accepted, he felt Gaia's full strength add itself to the force of his fist, which glowed an intense rainbow of combined magic. With a -crack-, the Barrier shattered and fell.

"Well, that plan's gone to pieces." The Captain dusted off his hands.





Planeteer Alert!

"While jumping around in time and space can be lots of fun, there are some basic precautions to be had before you leave." Linka, the Soviet member of the Planeteers started.

"Yeah, like not carrying freaking doomsday spells around with you!" Wheeler contributed in his New York accent.

"This seems like an obvious decision, but circumstances dictate the difference between harmless and world-ending." Kwame said in his own African accent.

"Generally, anything that can run without someone intelligent to manage it is a bad idea, especially if it can't be turned off in a hurry." Came the advice from Gi the Asian.

"It's best to keep in mind that even if you think it isn't a problem, the locals might not agree!" Ma-Ti of Brazil finished.

Tied to a chair and forced to listen to environmentalist propaganda, Xlestia groaned. "Kill me now."





Atomic Robo

"Do you have any suggestions as to how this Barrier could be broken, your Highness?"

The Solar Princess slowly shook her head in fake despair. "I do not. I do, however, have a suggestion that may salvage the lives of your people instead, if not their homes."

Xlestia expected to hear 'There must be another way!', 'Please, tell us you have another way!' or something of that nature.

Not 'There goes the hope that we could do this without Tesladyne Industries.' as muttered by an annoyed UN rep.

Xlestia blinked. "Tesladyne Industries?"





When the Solar Princess had made her way back to the Barrier, it was to find a human made of metal glaring at a screen.

"I'm pretty sure that golems cannot be built without magic, so that leaves the question of what you are." Xlestia addressed 'him'.

The metal man jumped a good foot in the air, spilling paperwork everywhere. "Jeez lady, don't sneak up on guys when they're working!"

The alicorn stared flatly back.

"What, they don't have robots in the land of sugar and rainbows?" Atomic Robo said.

Robot. Yes, because telling her the name of whatever he was made it so much easier for her to understand what it was and how it was moving.

Robo reached up a hand and rather pointlessly scratched his head. "You after something, lady?"

"As Princess of Equestria, I am naturally curious about the investigation into the phenomena that surrounds my country." Xlestia explained testily.

"Okay." Robo shrugged, starting to pick up the papers he'd scattered.

Xlestia waited for him to elaborate.

After a full minute of waiting, Xlestia rolled her eyes. "What do you think you can possibly do to this Barrier when the greatest of magics have failed against it?"

"Well, I'm going to use science on it." Robo replied off-hand.

"Science." Xlestia deadpanned.

"Yep."

"Science is a methodology for verifying information. It's the grown-up version of guess-and-check." The Alicorn derided.

Robo help up his left pointer finger, ready to defend the foundation of his life, before lowering it slowly. "Okay, that is true, but with an intelligent mind and a decent education you can make some pretty good guesses."

"Such as?"

Robo spared Xlestia an annoyed glance at her pestering. "Such as 'magic' seeming to have a lot in common with Edison's 'Odic force'. So I got out Mr Tesla's old Telluric Suit and reworked the math a bit. If this works, I'll have a way to repel 'magic' with electricity."

"Any pegasus will tell you that lightning and magic get along quite well actually." The ancient princess watched Atomic Robo strap on what appeared to be a rifle attached to a car battery.

"Natural lightning is D.C., this will be A.C." Robo half-heartedly explained, moving clear of his equipment and aiming his Lightning Gun at the Barrier.

"Clear!" He cried, pulling the trigger. An enormous stream of electricity, strong enough to make any pegasus jealous, jumped from the barrel of his weapon across the intervening space and 'splashing' against the Barrier. After five seconds of steady fire, Robo took his finger off the trigger.

"That did nothing." Xlestia denied coolly, hiding her inner relief.

Robo checked the monitor for his measuring instruments. "Actually, that did very little."

Xlestia turned to Robo and stared sharply at him.

Robo held his thumb and index finger close together. "My Lightning Gun deformed the thing about a millimetre."

"Hardly the accomplishment that will prevent it's encroachment upon your land." Xlestia pointed out, not as confident as she was a moment ago.

"Well no, but I just changed the solution from 'Impossible' to 'Absurdly Difficult'." Robo replied. "With a bit more work, I might even get it down to just plain 'Hard'."

Xlestia watched Robo turn to inspect other machinery. His back was now facing her. "You believe you can pull off such an operation?"

"Sure, I just have to - " And then the Solar Princess hit the robot in the back with a beam of solar plasma.

Xlestia flew a couple meters above the ground and looked around. Robo appeared to have been working alone. Good. In a half-hour or so the Barrier would envelop this work site and erase all evidence of -

Then the robot shot the princess in the face with a bolt of lightning.

Xlestia's Pegasus magic automatically tried to guide the electricity around her body rather than through it, but almost immediately the current changed directions, moving opposite to what her magic intended. No sooner had the magic changed to match than the current flipped directions again, digging deeper into her flesh. By the time the princess's aborted flight dropped her out of the path of the artificial bolt, millions of such direction changes had occurred.

Conscious soley thanks to her Earth Pony durability and smelling of burnt fur, Xlestia struggled to her hooves. "That hurt. Congratulations on getting a good hit in before your utter obliteration."

"I don't feel pain as such." Robo mentioned as he pulled himself clear of the poor melted equipment that had been behind him when Xlestia attacked. "But having my back panels melt is hardly my idea of fun."

Xlestia's horn glowed blindingly bright as she deliberately overcharged her Solar Beam spell.

Robo reached down and changed the dial on his Lightning Gun from 1 all the way up to 10.

It should be noted that the various settings on that dial had acquired names over the years since Nikola Tesla invented them. 1, for example, was 'The only acceptable setting'. 2 was 'Overkill'. 5 was 'What on God's green Earth do you think you're doing?!'

10 had the nickname of 'Anyone found out to have been using this setting will be fired posthumously'.

Robo pulled the trigger for all he was worth.





Kill la Kill (Warning! Spoilers!)

Invading this world had been problematic from the get-go. The ability levels of humans was exactly what she had expected (even lower, if the new-foals story about having to fight off an alien invasion were true). The trouble was, the personalities of the humans tended to be somewhere inbetween Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. Or, sun help her, an unholy fusion of the two.

From the crazy girl who fought with a giant pair of scissors, to the idiot with a wooden sword, the giant of a man who attacked with a rulebook, or even the girl who blasted ponies back with what sounded suspiciously like Beethooven's symphonies. If she didn't know better, she would have said that they had picked up the most ridiculous weapon they could think off and refused to put it down out of sheer stubbornness.

Of course, that was just the human children. Half the human adults had immediately stripped their clothes off, announced themselves as the militia 'Nudist Beach', and proceeded to fire sewing needles at her ponies.

What kind of world was it, Xlestia wondered, where Rarity had been more helpful identifying the enemy weapons than anypony else?

Then of course there was the small problem that all of Equestria's clothing had turned out to be an alien plot to eat them. Even now, she was having to fend off Life Fibre tendrils from the Royal Wardrobe.

It really wasn't Xlestia's day.





Hyperdimension Neptunia

"I don't care if you four are guardian goddess of the humans!" Xlestia snapped, flames already licking her mane. "Nothing will stop me from bringing Harmony to all!"

"Wait!" Neptune screamed out, flailing her arms.

Xlestia's left eye twitched as she paused just before her charge. "What is it?!"

"How many shares do you have?" The white-clothed silver-haired CPU asked politely, in contrast to her earlier light panic.

The Alicorn's face turned from one of anger to one of confusion. "Huh?"

Blanc nodded. "It's a gimmick we have. Share Energy is spread across the land of Gamindustri between the four kingdoms - well, five now. It determines how much power and influence a country and it's goddess have."

"Never heard of it." Xlestia dryly replied.

Neptune looked over her shoulder at a tiny fairy riding a floating book. "Histoire?"

Histoire nodded from her kneeling position. "It took me 3 minutes, but I found out Hasbro's - "

Vert interrupted in a stage whisper. "Equestria!"

Histoire coughed into her hand. "Yes, Equestria's share volume. At the time of writing - "

"Reading!" Neptune hissed.

" - reading, Equestria has a Market Cap of 9.45 billion Share Energy." Histoire finished.

All four CPUs let out a low whistle.

"Planeptune has 415.1 billion Share Energy..."

"What, really?" Neptune blinked.

Histoire glanced down at her book. "In Yen. That's about 3.38 billion USD."

"Rats." Neptune pouted.

"Lowee has 20.23 billion..."

Blanc nodded, quite happy to hear that her land was doing much better than the lame country that didn't even make consoles anymore.

"Lastation has 33.17 billion..."

"Heh." Noire grinned at her country's high showing.

"And Leanbox has 359.18 billion Share Energy." The info-fairy completed her summery of the power levels involved.

"WHAT?!" The other girls gaped at a beaming Vert.

Neptune recovered from the shock enough to clear her throat. "So ugh, even ignoring moneybags there with a stupidly large mega-corporation backing her up..."

"Basically, " Blanc interrupted. "'Nep-Nep' here is the only one of us who can't kick your furry backside from here to the release of Half-Life 3."

"Mere numbers and statistics!" Xlestia dismissed.

"Wanna bet?" Neptune grinned, activating her transformation to HDD mode.





Attack on Titan

Xlestia carried out the initial stage of her plan flawlessly. Her entire kingdom was transported from its native world to this new one, the Barrier preventing any foolish counter attack.

Only… she couldn’t find the humans.

“Any luck?” She asked the returning Pegasi scouts.

The head of the scouts, Hurricane Winds shook her head. “Not a peep of any little guys – just those huge monster things.”

“Well, they have to be somewhere.” Xlestia frowned. “We must have searched half the planet by now. Unless the entire human race is all huddled up in one spot, we really should have found them."

Hurricane Winds shifted uneasily. “Yeah, uh, Princess? Speaking of those monster things…”

“Yes?” Xlestia tilted her head. They had been a concern of course, but the Barrier kept them at bay. Even if they did have the annoying trait of regrowing whatever body parts the magical dome vaporised.

“Well, some of the girls went to go take a closer look at them, and not all of them came back…”

The Princess grimaced. Losing ponies to the teeth of monsters was hardly a new experience – Equestria was filled with the likes of Hydras and Chimeras which outright favoured pony in their diet – but losing them always stung.

The respectful moment of silence was interrupted by screaming.

Looking up and into the distance, the Alicorn gasped. At about six foot herself, she was used to being the tallest pony by far.

She was not used to seeing pony-shaped things whose heads were thirty feet above the ground.

"Pony monsters?!" Hurricane screamed.

"Calm down everypony!" Xlestia boomed, Royal Canterlot Voice in full effect. "They won't get through the - "

The Pony Titans galloped straight through the Barrier, not slowing for a second.

"Horseradish!"





The Culture Series

The Mind in charge of GSV Asks Stupid Questions opened up a comm line to the Mind running GSV Answers Stupid Questions. “Are they… serious?”

“Best as I can tell, yes; they are trying to assimilate other cultures by forcibly occupying all the space on the planet’s surface.” The other AI replied.

Asks Stupid Questions spent several picoseconds (an eternity for a Mind) repeatedly checking its sensor data.

"Ugh." The stupidly powerful AI in charge of the stupidly powerful spaceship 'muttered' in contempt. "Planet-bound primitives."

"It must suck being a civilisation that doesn't manufacture it's own living space." Answers Stupid Questions agreed. Who would live on a planet when you could have a nice Orbital?





Star Trek: The Next Generation

Captain's Log, stardate 45131.3.

There are some very hard to deal with species in the universe.

Some are a matter of biology, such as the Medusans, the very sight of which drives men mad.

Others are a matter of culture. Both the Klingons and Romulans readily came to mind, but they at least can comprehend pleasure, antagonism and love; unlike the Iyaarans.

The species who have appeared on Colony K2-L  (whose name appears to translate directly as 'pony') seem to be antagonistic purely based on the Federation failing some moral criteria. So far, that put them in the same category as the Metrons.

As the ponies seemed to lack subspace communications, long-range telepathy, or even basic radio; the crew of the Enterprise resorted to a fireworks display to attract attention so that verbal communication may be established. Counsellor Troi and Commander Data have had the misfortune of conducting First Contact with a civilisation that had already decided it didn't like us.

Thankfully, the new inhabitants of Colony K2-L have agreed to arrange a meeting with one of their rulers: the princess of daytime, Celestia.





Captain Picard listened carefully to the list of grievances the alicorn was airing against the human race. The fact that she was doing so in a partially terraformed field not too far away from the energy field she referred to as the 'Barrier' did not diminish the grandeur of her speech. Notably, she described warfare, famine, extreme poverty, and discrimination as 'barbaric'. 

The captain waited patiently for the princess to finish, making sure that he had not missed anything. Data was impassive as always, Riker was looked quite annoyed, and Troi was covering her mouth to hide her giggles.

As the pony ruler wound down, Picard discreetly whispered to his ship's councillor. "Is that everything?"

"Yes, Captain." The empath whispered back. Picard nodded confidently.

"Your Royal Highness," Picard addressed Xlestia "by what means did you acquire your information about the human race?"

Xlestia blinked in confusion. Of all their possible responses, she had not expected that one. "Does it matter?"

"Well, it appears that however you observed us, your information is over three hundred years out of date." Picard explained slyly.

Xlestia narrowed her eyes. "Explain."

"Well, famine and extreme poverty were eliminated with the invention of the protein resequencer; and warfare and discrimination vanished with the advent of United Earth." Picard deliberately did not mention that both of those things had been heavily motivated by attempts to 'clean up' after WWIII under Vulcan supervision. It was, of course, standard protocol in First Contact situations to Not Mention the War.

Also there wasn't an awful lot the Federation could do if someone declared war on them, but such was life.

Some of the fire had left Xlestia's eyes and had been replaced with hints of uncertainty. "United Earth...?"

"The governing body that ruled all of humanity," until colonies began to break away, but that was neither here nor there "and one of the founding members of the United Federation of Planets: where races from all across the stars join together for mutual betterment and defence."

The alicorn's eyes hardened slightly. "Prove it."

Picard glanced at Troi, who stepped forwards and spoke. "My father was human, but my mother was a Betazoid. I am proof of their love for one another."

"Wait, you mean you're like a mule?" A rainbow-'haired' pegasus blurted from behind her princess.

A white unicorn gave a shocked look at her friend. "Rainbow! Don't imply that somebody's parent was an Ass!" She froze for a moment, before turning to the donkey on her other side. "Not that there's anything wrong with being an Ass, of course..."

Cranky Doodle Donkey gave Rarity a flat glare.

"Humanity... changed?" Xlestia said softly. "They... learned to make friends with others?"

"Well of course we did." Riker spat, before being hushed by a look from his captain.

Xlestia was silent for several moments, before turning her head towards the Barrier and, with a slight glow of her horn, halted it's movement. When she turned back to the assembled explorers, she looked far less regal and more humble. "If you would, please... tell me more about this 'United Federation'."

Picard smiled. "Of course, Your Highness."

"Oh, come on!"

The Enterprise crew, the Mane Six, and Xlestia all recoiled simultaneously. "Oh no, not him." Picard and Xlestia said together before sharing confused looks.

With his usual flash of light, Q appeared in the outfit the Enterprise crew had met him in. "Captain, oh my captain, surely it's not going to end that easily! Come on, put up a little of the human fighting spirit!"

Riker resisted the urge to copy his captain and facepalm. "Didn't we spend our first encounter proving that we aren't like that?"

Xlestia tried to work a sentence through her confusion. "You... aren't Discord?"

"Somepony mention me?" Xlestia's shadow morphed into the shape of a draconequus and spoke, causing even the Enterprise veterans to take a step back in confusion.

"Hey!" Q snapped, losing interest in Picard. "Who are you and what are you doing with my voice!?"

"Your voice?" Discord rose out of the ground into a 3D shape, but was still made of Xlestia's shadow. "This is my voice! Get your own!"

"I'll have you know I've had this voice since the beginning of time!" Q raised pointed at Discord angrily.

Discord grasped his hands to his chest. "Maybe, but I make it sound good."

"Merde/By the sun..." Picard and Xlestia murmured in unison. "There's two of them."

Q seemed to remember where he was. "You're really going to talk the whole thing out?" He demanded of the captain and the princess.

"That's what we do!" The Mane Six and Enterprise crew said together.

Q rolled his eyes. "Well if you're going to be as boring as that, I'll go see what the Mirror Universe is doing!" So saying, he vanished with a flash.

"He's going where!?" Picard and Xlestia spoke with equal amounts of dread. "Wait, you have one of those as well?"





Star Trek [Mirror Universe]
(Also Equestria [Mirror Universe] - no not Equestria Girls, the other Mirror Universe)

In a world where evil was good and good was evil, two alicorn sisters hovered just inside the breathable part of the local atmosphere. Just as Xlestia had started out antagonistic but had been calmed by the nature of the Star Trek universe, Mirror!Xlestia had started out calm but had been enraged by the Mirror Universe.

Her mane styled to look like rams horns, Mirror!Xlestia frantically scanned the stars above with a telescope. "There! Near the claw of that constellation that looks like a crab!"

Mirror!Luna, horn brightly aglow, swung the moon around like an enormous ball until it was in front of the star in question. "Here?"

Mirror!Xlestia frantically made a pulling gesture. "Forwards! Forwards! It's in front of the moon!"

The Princess of the Night pulled the moon closer to the two of them. "Did I get it this time?"

Her sister cursed. "No, it did that weird stretchy thing they do. Where did it go...?!" Mirror!Xlestia panicked.





Having warped off to the side to avoid the moon currently being used as a wrecking ball, the local counterpart of the Enterprise-D locked on to the two comparatively tiny targets.

"Agony beams ready to fire." Mirror!Natasha Yar reported.

Mirror!Picard gave a cruel smile. "Make it so."





Q watched as the lines of pure pain lanced into the alicorns, sipping from a conjured glass of orange juice. It wasn't good for his moral superiority to see his favourite starship captain do the right thing all the time, so hanging out in the alternate timeline where he and all his friends were monsters was good for his ego.

"Don't worry, girls!"

Q's orange juice came out his nostrils as he noticed Mirror!Discord floating behind him... or as he's more commonly known, Captain Good Guy. The costume-wearing draconequus snapped his fingers, turning the Agony Beams into orange juice, which blasted the alicorns back but stopped hurting them. Simultaneously, Q found himself holding a glass of Agony. He frowned, and dismissed the glass back into the aether.

"Paragons of villainy you might be, but nobody deserves to suffer that much! In the name of the moon, I'll humiliate you!"

Q glared at the spirit with his voice. How was he supposed to feel good about himself with that buffoon running around sounding like him?
> Bonus Chapter: DEATHBATTLE
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

DEATHBATTLE

"Fanfiction is all about putting familiar characters in unfamiliar situations."

"But sometimes the character is the thing that ends up being unfamiliar!"

"Princess Celestia, princess of Equestria."

"Princess Tyranlestia, the cheap knock-off."

"Due to the Conversion Bureau having many very different depictions, this Tyranlestia will be a 'high-stats only' version of several TCB settings. And to actually give Celestia some feats to work with, we're gonna be looking at the comics as well as the chapter books, so for those of you offended by that... too bad!"

"He's Mage and I'm Firework. ...Firework?"

"Ponies never invented the shotgun. And it's our job to analyse their weapons, armour and skills to find out who would win... a Deathbattle."





"Celestia and her sister Luna came to the throne of Equestria more than a thousand years ago. This was at the behest of Star Swirl the Bearded, who is basically pony Merlin."

"If she's been in charge for a thousand years, how come she's still known as 'Princess'?"

"Well, the Journal of the Two Sisters implies that Celestia and Luna were more figureheads to start with, powerful guardians who weren't biased towards the Pegasi, Unicorns or Earth Ponies. The whole 'de facto ruler' thing must have happened later. I guess she never got around to changing her title."



During our initial tour, we made it clear to all of them that we were not trying to step on anypony's hooves. King Bullion is still the Unicorn King of his region. As the Alicorn princesses, we are simply there to provide protection for Equestria as a whole.
Celestia - Journal of the Two Sisters



"You sure it wasn't 'cause 'Queen' dolls don't sell as well?"

"Shut up. Besides, don't you need a king to be a queen?"

"You mean like this guy?"



"...I seriously think I just heard half the shippers on the site scream in rage and denial."

"Romances with alternate universe villain counterparts aside, Celestia's definitely no 'delicate flower'. Check out what she did to the Changelings!"



"Well... wasn't expecting to find Grievous Bodily Harm in a little girl's comic... -ahem- As an Alicorn, Celestia is a blend of the three pony tribes."



[Twilight] was officially a part of a special breed of pony called an Alicorn. This meant that Twilight was now able to harness the magical powers of the Unicorns, the flight abilities of the Pegasi, and the strength of a good, true heart of an Earth Pony. She was becoming more like her mentor, the talented and kind Princess Celestia, every day.
Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell



"Hang on a sec, Mage. I need a bucket. -Hurk-, -Blaghg-."



“Glad you finally came around to buckin’, Pinkie Pie,” Applejack said. She’d always thought it was fun and hoped other ponies would see it, too. As fellow Earth Ponies, she and Pinkie were perfectly suited for the job with their super pony strength.
Applejack and the Honest-to-Goodness Switcheroo



"Celestia's Earth Pony magic increases her strength and durability. Hers is so powerful that she can 'hoof' wrestle Big Mac without breaking a sweat. Keep in mind that Big Mac can drag a two-story house behind himself with only moderate effort."



"...what the hell is that rope made out of?"

"Considering that the force required to slide an object across the ground is F(max) = u * F(n), the house is on a level plane, and that the coefficient of friction for dirt is above 0.5, Celestia will be able to lift at least half that house overhead. Note that she must be able to withstand that same force otherwise she'd snap her own leg."

"Too soon! Now we come to the most important part of Celestia's breakdown: her magic!"

"There are some perks to the role of 'Day Cycle Maintenance Worker'."



As we knew, Alicorns possessed a level of magic far beyond anything a Unicorn could ever imagine. Raising and lowering the sun and moon wouldn't cause us any harm. If fact, if the myths [Star Swirl]'d read were true, it would actually rejuvenate us, making our magic that much more powerful.
Celestia - Journal of the Two Sisters

Thankfully, with all the power we'd gotten from the sun and moon...
Luna - Journal of the Two Sisters



"What is it with Big Good characters being solar powered? First Superman and now this lady..."

"It should be noted, however, that neither her durability nor her magic are limitless. In her rematch with Queen Chrysalis the Changeling Queen was able to overpower Celestia and stun her, much to the surprise of literally everyone there, including Chrysalis."

"It is a little girl's show, Mage. Love triumphs over all! ...even if it was stolen."

"Using her horn, Celestia can cast any spell she has learned over her long lifetime. But what spells are those? We can't just say she knows all the ones Twilight knows, because Twilight is clearly into self-study."

"Obviously any spell she's been seen using is fair game today. This includes force-fields, beam attacks and blasting spells!"



"It should however be noted that Celestia prefers mobility over a static defence, and so will usually take to the air to avoid enemy strikes."

"As she's a wise old spellcaster, Celestia knows there's nothing wrong with knowing dark magic so long as you point it at the bad guys. As such she can cast the same kind of spells as the evil King Sombra."



"Mostly, it's useful for making crystals. Notably, you can make a series of those dark crystals to form a cage. If so, anypony inside that teleports out will be automatically teleported back in."

"And if Celestia ever needs to get up close and personal with her deadly foes, no worries! Like her sister, Celestia can take on an incorporeal form, though hers is fire not mist."



"Attacking her mentally isn't any easier, as Celestia knows how to protect her mind using magic. This effect is so strong, it effortlessly deflected Nightmare Moon's attempts to drive her insane while she slept."



"She can extend this shield to cover others, but using it to defend more than herself drains her magic pretty da*n quick."

"Well, better to have it and not need it then need it and not have it."

"Anyway, Celestia's most impressive trick is wielding all six of the Skittles Rupees by her lonesome. You know you're good at magic when you can do the Care Bare Stare without any, you know, friends with you."

"They're called the Elements of Harmony! And yes, while Celestia's grasp of friendship-based magic isn't as good as Twilight's, she's clearly no slouch in the rainbow department. She has said that she isn't connected to them anymore... whatever that means... but considering the Tree of Harmony still proudly bares Celestia's Cutie Mark it, at least, is probably still connected to her."

"But we mustn't forget the most awe-inspiring, most useful spell Celestia knows..."



“Rainy Air, is it?” Celestia smiled at the young pony and bent down. “You seem like you could use a snack.” A glow of magic swirled from her horn and spun around, creating a beautiful red apple.
Princess Celestia and the Summer of Royal Waves



"You think 'Create Snack' is the most useful spell she knows?"

"-Ahem- I think that's everything combat related we've seen her do. Did I forget anything Mage?"

"No, but..."



Dear diary,
My sister is so weird. She wants this castle to have all these odd tricks and traps all over. And what do I really want? I want a huge library where I can finally put all the books I've been collecting all these years!
Celestia - Journal of the Two Sisters



"...the library in the Castle of the Two Sisters was basically a room to store all of Celestia's books. That means that any book in there belonged to Celestia, right?"

"...where are you going with this, Mage?"

"You see, there was a certain book hidden in that library, and its logical owner would have to be Celestia; especially when you consider it was in a secret room that would have had to have been built by one of the castle architects (Celestia and Luna). Its name: Inspiration Manifestation."

"That sounds like something I might buy on a dodgy street corner."

"It's definitely no good for critical judgement. Inspiration Manifestation allows the caster to bring things from the inside of their head to the outside, adding to and overwriting the world around them."

"Really? Oh man, the things I would do with this spell..."

"Fortunately for the rest of us, you can snap someone out of using this spell by just telling them off."

"Aw, lame. Fortunately for Celestia, the species changing spell from the same library has no such issues! Celestia's dungeons are filled with the croaking forms of disobedient ponies turned frog..."

"No they aren't, Firework."

"Shut up, don't ruin my dreams."



I've been studying an old spell book from the Castle of the Two Sisters. There's a spell that I think could help us! This is probably gonna feel a little funny at first, but you're gonna have to trust me.
-Turns the Mane Six into Breezies-
Twilight - It Ain't Easy Being Breezies



"The final source of Celestia's spells is her close friendship with Star Swirl the Bearded."



Dear Diary,
Star Swirl's particularity has made him a fantastic sorcerer. He tries things that nopony else would ever dream of. He's created and mastered hundreds of spells and has so many more in the works. There's one he's developing now involving cutie marks that sounds very complex. As somepony who hasn't even gotten her cutie mark, I'm not sure 	where he's going with this spell. And honestly, it's so complicated I don't know if he'll ever finish it.
But his most exciting spells involve time travel, which is of course very challenging, and the spells are causing him a bit of trouble.
...
I'm trying to help him with the calculations, but it's proving to be far more problematic than either of us expected. Still, we're having a great time trying!
Celestia - Journal of the Two Sisters



"Star Swirl would go on to finish his time travel spell with Celestia's help. And having just finished cracking travel in the fourth dimension, Star Swirl figured he'd have a go at all the other ones; creating at least two crystal mirrors that allow for inter-dimensional travel and disposal of annoying seahorses."



"Hippocampi."

"Gesundheit. Anyway, that second mirror is particularly notable on account of there not being any magic on the other side. If you get dumped there, burn your spellbooks now 'cause they're useless."

"Well, not quite. If you have an external source of magic your magical powers will continue working just fine. Sunset Shimmer used the Element of Magic, while the Dazzlings used human negativity. Finally, Star Swirl's most powerful spell is simply known as Star Swirl's Final Spell. In its unfinished form it swaps the Cutie Marks of its targets around."

"And why is changing which farmer they belong to so impressive?"

"Firework those aren't branding marks, they're... -sigh-. Cutie Marks represent everything unique about a pony, changing them around literally alters their place in the grand scheme of things; adding and removing abilities such as when it granted Rarity Weather Magic."



It's not their memories, Spike. It's their true selves that have been altered! 
... 
No, Spike. They're not who they are meant to be anymore. Their destinies are now changed, and it's all my fault. 
Twilight - Magical Mystery Cure



"That's what it does when it's unfinished?! What the **** does it do when it's completed?"

"Something about 'magic without end'."

"That sounds awesome."

"It's referring to the magic of friendship."

"I take it back!"



How dare thee! We are not any mere pony princess! We are Princess Celestia, Alicorn Princess of Equestria! We art here to protect the Pegasi, Unicorns and Earth Ponies of this land! Thou hast threatened our citizens, and we shall not stand for that! Return unto us the Crystal Heart or thou shalt pay a mighty price, dragon!
Celestia - Journal of the Two Sisters







"Fanfiction can sometimes be a game of Chinese Whispers. Somebody writes a story which everyone likes, so others copy bits of that when they write their own stories. Soon, little changes or characterisation errors can snowball."

"Wait, so there are story mutations that get replicated without limit?"

"...yes?"

"I was right. Bad fanfiction is cancer!"

"-cough- The Conversion Bureau is a highly controversial fanfiction started years ago as a wish fulfilment story."

"While its origins were simple enough, the contrast of Equestria vs. Earth polarised its readers. Its backlash was bad enough that forevermore stories with Humans and Ponies together used inter-planetary or inter-dimensional travel to avoid any comparison."

"But some authors - not mentioning who - thought the idea of a paradise that humans couldn't actually enter without major modifications to their... everything... was the best thing to happen since the show itself."

"If you want an actual summary of the story... google it, you lazy - "

"Firework!"

"Fine... basically the interpenetration we're running with is that Tyranlestia decided one day that humanity sucks and ponies rule. So she ripped her kingdom right out of the ground and dumped it on Earth. Naturally, adding another continent screwed up the weather, and apparently humans are allergic to magic or something, so humanity started knelling over."

"Through the indestructible Barrier - which only magical beings can pass through - Tyranlestia issued an ultimatum: drink her magic potion and become ponies, or die off when the magic got to them."

"Characterisation issues aside, isn't this actually the same pony we just discussed above?"

"Actually... no! See, the Conversion Bureau was started during the early stages of the show. Back then, the world-building and backstory was so threadbare that many fans went with interpretations that would fit more in a fantasy Epic than in a Slice of Life show. Due to Celestia's unclear backstory, her extreme age and her role of raising the sun, many fans assumed Celestia was a goddess. Even now that belief hasn't quite worked its way out of the fandom, which means that in many fanfics the Solar Princess has a divine background. In one well-known Bureau story Celestia gets blown to smithereens, leaving only her head intact, but she somehow remains alive."

"Yuck. Tyranlestia's divine power is generally depicted as coming from the sun, but some other divergent stories claim her as the avatar of a dark, evil force... one which shall sweep over the ragged plains of finality and drag your feeble souls screaming into the dark..."

"?!"

"Sorry, had something stuck in my throat."

"...anyway, Tyranlestia's stats are completely ridiculous."

"She's kind of like a reverse-straw-man: she's made to be unbeatable."

"She can out fly fighter jets (which frequently fly two or even three times the speed of sound), tank artillery blasts, and destroy battleships single-hooved."

"Like Celestia, Tyranlestia makes use of Force-fields and beam spells. She also teleports often, as well as the occasional 'summon the darkness' trick. Any damage that does get through to her heals in seconds. Her favourite tactic is to walk right through whatever her opponents are attempting and blow their face off. ...wait, that's it? That's boring!"

"Tyranlestia is either a God-Mode Sue in pro-conversion stories, or a Final Boss in anti-conversion stories. Why would she have elaborate attacks?"

"Because she's a ****ing thousand plus year old sorceress and she had better ****ing act like it?"

"As for weaknesses, well... she's not really written as having any. The pro-conversion writers mostly stopped paying attention to the show before Celestia got her butt handed to her by the Monster of the... well, not week, but you know what I mean. In their stories, Celestia has never suffered a major loss; they frequently note her victory over the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, whom they also upgrade to Chaos God."

"It goes without saying that they don't include the comics or chapter books in their stories when you consider that most if not all of them weren't written when TCB was in full swing."

"Tyranlestia occasionally makes use of brainwashing to keep her troops in line - "

"Only in anti-conversion stories. In pro-conversion stories people who disagree with her just get 'disappeared' off-screen, and Celestia gets a new statue in her garden. Hashtag not-even-kidding."

"O...kay... well, Tyranlestia is usually depicted as the reason the whole situation exists in the first place, so she can obviously breach dimensional walls."

"The Barrier is also usually her work, and while the Conversion Serum isn't (directly), she carries the stuff everywhere just in case."

"As we have stated already, Tyranlestia is depicted as being without flaw. That being said, she suffers from the same flaw all such characters do - overconfidence. Tyranlestia will take any attack head on, firm in the belief that she is above being hurt."

"If Celestia can actually find something to hurt her with, she might just come out on top."



Hold still - I'm gonna kick your stupid little monkey backside, then turn you into a pretty pink pony. Okay?!
Xlestia - not the same as Tyranlestia







"Alright, the combatants are set. Let's end this debate once and for all."

"It's time for MY LITTLE DEATHBATTLE!"





It was a perfectly normal day in the diarchy of Equestria. Birds sang, the sun shone, ponies lined up to get royal assistance resolving disputes. Celestia frowned down at a pair of Earth Pony brothers. Both were claiming that the other had received the larger portion of their inheritance. Hadn't she heard a proverb about this somewhere?

She raised her gavel. "I do hereby decree that - "

The throne room wall exploded. 

Chunks of stone the size of a full-grown pony flew through the room at high speed. Robbed of its support, the roof partially caved in, resulting in the room being utterly covered in debris. Of the ponies occupying the room, nothing could be seen.

Softly, a pony stepped into the disaster area, her lips curling up in a cruel smirk. "Is this it?" The Celestia look-alike jeered. "I'd have thought anypony foolish enough to imitate me would have more to bring than that."

The rubble shifted.

Tyranlestia - for that is who it was - looked towards the noise and narrowed her eyes.

The strewn rubble exploded outwards, revealing the occupants of the room. They were clinging tightly to each other, fear etched deeply in their wide eyes.  With the stone removed, Celestia dropped the golden force field that had kept her charges alive, keeping her eyes on Tyranlestia the entire time. "That," she said softly "was very foolish of you."

Tyranlestia snorted, ignoring the panicking ponies as they fled the room. She pawed the ground, and stared her counterpart directly in the eyes.

FIGHT!

Celestia leaped into the skies, wings spread wide. Tyranlestia smirked and did likewise. Upon seeing Celestia charge a beam spell, Tyranlestia's smirk became an outright bark of mocking laughter.

Celestia fired her beam spell, but Tyranlestia responded in kind. The two spells blasted against each other, equal in power... before Tyranlestia casually upped the power of her spell, blasting Celestia away. The injured Alicorn crashed into the ground with a mighty -thud-.

"Too easy." Tyranlestia taunted her grounded opponent. Focusing herself, she charged a massive fireball on the tip of her horn, before letting it fly. Celestia and all the rubble around her was engulfed by the solar fire.

"Really." Tyranlestia snorted again. "I don't see how anyone could have mistaken me for a weakling like you." She threw her nose high in the air, eyes closed, as her hooves met the ground. She posed with an offended air, as though upset at how easy that had gone.

-Clop-

Tyranlestia's eyes snapped open. That had not been her making that sound.

-Clop. Clop Clop-

Tyranlestia frowned and tilted her head down to see the sea of fire she had conjured. One eyebrow rose.

Celestia was walking out of the fire, unharmed. It was only natural that fire didn't hurt her, given she was currently made of fire herself. As the her-flames separated fully from the fireball-flames, not even the shifting outlines of her face could hide her disapproving glare.

The corner of Tyranlestia's mouth curled upwards once more.

Celestia suddenly charged forwards, galloping with all her might.

Tyranlestia disappeared, teleporting behind Celestia in a flash of magic. Before the fire princess could react, the flesh-and-blood Alicorn sent a lance of spell-fire right through where Celestia's heart should have been. The attack spell blasted clean through Celestia's body, carving a channel large enough to stick a pony's head through. Tyranlestia smirked.

But to her shock, Celestia just shook herself. The flames that made up her body filled in the gap like fire eating into paper. Celestia turned, horn glowing bright. The stone blocks either side of Tyranlestia exploded, peppering her with shrapnel. Tyranlestia didn't so much as flinch as the stone fragments bounced off her fur.

Celestia's eyes widened at her attack's lack of effect. Tyranlestia took advantage of her surprise to hurl some of the larger chunks of rubble onto Celestia, crushing her flat. Tyranlestia looked closely at her hoofdiwork, making sure the impostor was down this time.

In the gaps between the stone, flames emerged, pulling themselves back into the shape of an Alicorn. Tyranlestia made a frustrated noise. "I see. You are as stubborn as you are foolish."

The flesh Alicorn moved her head to one side to avoid a beam spell from her opponent. "That fire form of yours is very annoying." She would try to turn her opponent to stone, if she was sure that would work on somepony who wasn't flesh at the time.

Celestia's yellow flames abruptly burned bright green, her fire-horn burning pitch black.

Tyranlestia actually blinked in surprise. "You would dare use black magic?! Against me?!"

Celestia didn't answer her, focusing on keeping her fire form going while she used Sombra's crystal magic. Four great pillars of black crystal grew from the floor of her ruined throne room, pushing rubble out of the way as they rose up. Tyranlestia eyed the pillars critically, offended rather than worried.

Once the pillars had grown to reach the former height of the ceiling, Celestia's fire returned to normal and she charged once more.

Tyranlestia sighed in disappointment. And she had thought the impostor might actually be entertaining. She teleported behind Celestia once more.

The black magic enveloping her form, teleporting her back into their midst just in time to get sent flying by Celestia's charge, was therefore a surprise. But despite slamming into one of the remaining walls hard enough to crack it, Tyranlestia didn't show the slightest bit of pain. 

"Enough!" She roared, exploding the crystal pillars with a moment's thought. Celestia took to the air, but that only played to Tyranlestia's advantage as she encased the fire pony in a spherical force field. Celestia had a moment to look panicked before Tyranlestia slammed the field into the ground. Celestia's fluid body was distorted as it was pressed downward with the force of the slam. Devoid of oxygen in the tiny space, her fire form flickered out.

Telekinetically, Tyranlestia hoisted Celestia into the air by her throat. Then slammed her into the ground again. And again. And again, the princess flopping like a rag doll in the tyrant's magical grip.

Satisfied that her opponent was too battered to react, Tyranlestia hovered her opponent in front of her face. Celestia's tiara had fallen off at some point, and blood was seeping into her fur from various places. "Finally. It took a disappointingly long time for me to triumph, but it was inevitable, considering how poor an imitation of me you are."

"How good are you at economics?" Celestia wheezed.

Tyranlestia shook Celestia roughly. "What was that?"

A bright light shone from behind Tyranlestia.

"If I'm the poor imitation, then you must be a master at economics." Celestia's voice boomed from behind Tyranlestia. Which was impossible, because the tyrant was holding that princess in front of her.

Flash. "And in that case - "

Flash. " - you will of course be familiar - "

Flash. " - with the concept of borrowing - "

Flash. " - expecting future return."

Tyranlestia looked behind her. There were five Celestias standing in a row behind her. Apart from signs of increasing exhaustion from left-to-right, the five Celestias looked identical to each other, and like an unhurt version of her captive. She looked back at the original Celestia, who had worked up the energy to smile weakly.

'Future return'? Five non-identical 'clones' that showed signs of passing time? This was unacceptable. How dare somepony as low as the impostor know the secrets to time travel, unknown to even her!

With that thought, Tyranlestia tossed Present Celestia out the hole in the wall that she had made coming in. One of the Future Celestias dashed out after Celestia, presumably to catch her, leaving four Alicorns facing Tyranlestia. She charged up a beam spell, but the Celestias responded with the same fire form spell that had frustrated her earlier. Biting back a curse, Tyranlestia created a force field spanning the entire room, then quickly expanded that field outwards. The four Celestias were pressed into, then through the back wall. 

Tyranlestia spread her wings and flew out the new hole in the room. Once outside, she found those four Celestias had righted themselves and were waiting for her in the air. She also noticed the fifth time-clone carrying Present Celestia away on her back. Tyranlestia snarled. "You do not get to run, coward!" She made to charge, but the four time-clones blasted her back with synchronised beam-spells.

Regaining control over her flight path, Tyranlestia cast a spread of her own beams to keep the time-clones busy. She flew after Present Celestia, but the four time-clones followed her and harassed her with more beam spells to keep her away from their past-self. 

Well, if she couldn't rip their bodies to pieces, she'd just have to make do with their minds. With a moment's concentration, she spent mental probes at each of the six Alicorns. Being made of fire wouldn't stop her from rendering their psyches into mush! The probes reached their targets ...and were effortlessly deflected away by some invisible magic.

Tyranlestia gave a roar of anger and frustration. She formed a force-field in the shape of a giant fly-swatter, and began to play whack-an-Alicorn with the time-clones. The deadly game of keep-away was an easy vent for Tyranlestia's anger, but she retained enough awareness to realise they had flown most of the way to Ponyville. ...wait, what was that hideous crystal structure on the edge of town?

Perfectly in unison, the four free time-clones tackled Tyranlestia down into Twilight's Castle. While their fiery heat didn't even register to Tyranlestia, she did notice being shoved through several crystal walls and into the floor of the castle's main room.

In the centre of the room, the Cutie Map projected a giant arrow that pointed directly at Tyranlestia, who took a moment to shake crystal shards out of her fur.

"Is that all you have?!" She demanded of the time-clones.

"Actually, yes." The nearest clone admitted. "Our spell is about to run out."

Tyranlestia blinked.

One after the other, the time-clones glowed white and vanished back into the time-stream.

Tyranlestia stared blankly at the space the time-clones had just vacated.

...

Wait a minute, where was the first one?!

Hearing the sound of crystal crunching underhoof, Tyranlestia whirled around. Celestia, breathing heavily, was leaning against some overly elaborate magical apparatus that appeared to have been built around a mirror. Celestia tapped her horn against the mirror's frame, causing the surface of the mirror to project a beam of magic as wide as her torso. Tyranlestia summoned a force field to block it, but the beam splashed out and enveloped her force field, and her with it. The beam then pulled itself back into the mirror like a fishing line, and Tyranlestia caught a stern glare from Celestia as she was sucked into the mirror.

Once inside, Tyranlestia found herself awash on enormous streams of magic that were both completely foreign and strangely familiar. What had the imposer done?! This kaleidoscope of colour, this stretching sensation - she grimaced as she rode out a 'rip-tide' of magical current - this was dimension magic!

Just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Tyranlestia was dumped out in the middle of some random street. She let out a groan of injured dignity, and immediately frowned. Her landing had hurt far more than it had any right to. And why did her hooves feel so weird?

Tyranlestia looked down at herself.

...

"Excuse me? Miss? Are you okay?" There was a human asking if she was alright. Why wouldn't he ask that when she was a human too? 

Oh merciful sun she was human human human humanhumanhumanhuman...

"Unclean..." She whispered to herself.

"Miss?"

"UNCLEAN!" She roared in the man's face. "Unclean unclean unclean body-mind-soul! There can be no forgiveness for the depths of depravity the DEFILER has forced into me!"

The poor guy slowly backed away from the crazy lady.

"No forgiveness." She muttered, forcing down a hysterical giggle. "I need power. I need to put that horse in her place."

The bystander's retreat became more hurried as streams of darkness started to form, feeding into Tyranlestia.

"NO FORGIVENESS!" She roared, starting to lift into the air. "DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU SHALL BURN FOREVERMORE IN TARTARUS FOR THIS!"

The darkness formed into a pair of immaterial bat-wings, and her nails became claws. In a moment of supernatural clarity, Tyranlestia focused all her might on the patch of space she had been ejected from, and rent it with her claws; opening up the rift back to Equestria. Without any delay, she plunged back into it.

On the other side of the mirror, Celestia was using her teeth to tighten the knots on bandages wrapped around her middle. She had finished cleaning up various small cuts and looked much better already.

Then the Crystal Mirror exploded.

"FACE ME, DEFILER!" Tyranlestia screamed, once more an Alicorn. The darkness she had used to escape was now wrapped around her form, blurring her outline with black shrouds.

It took a moment for Tyranlestia to reorient herself, which was fortunate for Celestia because she needed that moment to unstick her brain from What? How?!

Credit to Celestia, she made a plan quickly. Knowing she had to lead the fight out of Ponyville and fast, she flew to the hole she and Tyranlestia made coming in. "Here!" She announced herself.

Tyranlestia made an animalistic growl in the back of her throat, and flew full speed to tackle Celestia in a purely physical manner. Celestia winced at the blow but resumed her fire form lest Tyranlestia try something at point-blank range. Celestia's flames and Tyranlestia's darkness licked at each other, both trying to smother their opposite. 

The two Alicorns struggled through the air. Tyranlestia was trying to slam Celestia into the ground, and Celestia was trying to steer their combined flight towards her last option. Tyranlestia tried to crush Celestia's barrel with her forelegs, but she just succeeded in pushing through Celestia's fire and out the other side. The dark Alicorn screamed in rage as, freed from her grapple, Celestia slipped down and flew straight towards her destination, trusting that her opponent would follow her.

Tyranlestia shook her head. Her anger was clouding her mind. She was better than the defiler, she just needed to keep her wits about her. Speaking of being better than her...

Celestia gave a squawk of surprise as Tyranlestia sped up well beyond Celestia's maximum velocity, tackling her again and causing her to miss the ravine she had been aiming for. Instead, the pair crashed into a castle that - had she been in a calmer state of mind - Tyranlestia would have recognised as the Castle of the Two Sisters. For the third time that day, large holes were made in castle walls.

Tyranlestia came to a stop as her horn stabbed through several books. Gathering her wits, she was in... a library? Where had the defiler gone?

"From in the head to out in the world, every thought to action. Hold close this book and through its spell, you'll start a chain reaction." 

Hearing those words, Tyranlestia pointed her horn in the correct direction and blasted clean through several walls and bookshelves separating her from her target. With the obstructions gone, she could see Celestia clutching a spiked stone tablet, continuing to chant clearly even though Tyranlestia was charging up another attack spell.

"Projecting forth whatever beauty you see. Only when true words are spoken will you finally be set free." Celestia finished, her magic changing colour to a sickly green.

The defiler just cursed herself to get an advantage. Tyranlestia thought with dark amusement. How cute.

Pooling darkness at the tip of her horn, Tyranlestia hurled a blob of caustic magic at the other Alicorn, but a solid chunk of stone appeared with a flash and took the hit.

"Now what?!" Tyranlestia growled.

-Flash-

A score of loaded cannons, fuses alight, appeared in a flash around Tyranlestia. With a deep -boom- of exploding gunpowder, cannonballs raced towards the Solar Tyrant....

...and were caught effortlessly by her dark aura despite their speed.

Celestia dismissed the wall, and the battle was rejoined. Celestia would create whatever she thought would help - cannons, ballistae, falling weights, clockwork soldiers - and Tyranlestia would effortlessly tank the attack with her dark aura, crushing it to pieces.

"You think I'm impressed?" Tyranlestia snarled. "I have fought with Discord himself! Compared to him, your parlour tricks are nothing!"

Celestia choked on her own magic for a moment, before Inspiration Manifestation forcibly exited her body through her eyeballs; the green glow departing as a mist.

Tyranlestia jumped back in case this was some new trick, but the mist merely dissipated and Celestia shook her head in order to clear it.

That dizziness allowed Tyranlestia to once more grasp Celestia's neck telekinetically.

"DIE!" She yelled, swinging Celestia into a wall hard enough that even after smashing through the stone wall, her body continued on to make holes in several more.

Tyranlestia's face twitched. Fury in battle was one thing, but she'd thrown her opponent so hard she'd actually lost sight of her. Blasting her way through the walls after her target revealed... that she was nowhere to be seen.

The darkness around her deepened.

Outside, Celestia emerged from one of the castle's many secret tunnels in time to see the entire castle engulfed in an orb of pitch-black void. When it receded, nothing remained of her and her sister's first thrones - the stone had vanished, leaving a perfectly smooth semi-spherical depression.

But destroyed memories would have to wait. Tyranlestia, now nearly impossible to see amidst her own dark aura, had flown up in preparation to finish the fight permanently.

Celestia dashed further into the ravine - there was a reason they had built this castle here, all those years ago...

Tyranlestia spotted her moving from her place on high. She charged, then launched, an immense black void from her horn. As the darkness closed in on Celestia, Tyranlestia laughed, her voice echoing oddly. "Be swallowed up by the darkness you cannot escape!"

A twinkle of rainbow light glimmered.

Tyranlestia chocked on her own laughter as her darkness was effortlessly cancelled out. Furious, she dived to the ground before Celestia. "What trick have you pulled this time, Def - "

The shimmer of the Tree of Harmony's crystal trunk, shining brightly behind the winded Celestia, brought Tyranlestia's thoughts to a screeching halt. Carved into the Tree, Celestia's Cutie Mark glowed brightly; and the six Elements each shone a coloured beam of light on the Alicorn before them.

"What have you done to the Elements, Defiler?!" Tyranlestia roared, her voice still possessing that strange reverberation.

"Returned them to where they belong." Actually that had been Twilight, but Celestia didn't think her opponent would care about the distinction.

"They belong by my side! Not in the hands of some mortal failure who can't keep her own subjects in line!"

"That very thought proves you are not worthy of their power."

Diamond Waves, her dear friend.

Luna, the sister she had lost and regained.

Cadence, the filly she had raised as her own.

Twilight, the student who had done things she never could.

...the other Sombra, the love she could never have.

Though not there in body, their hearts were lending Celestia strength just as much as if they were physically present.

"You have become overly focused on the word 'Harmony'." Celestia was limping, but with her proud eyes and upright posture she looked regal nonetheless. "This is not the magic of Order."

"This..."

The six beams of light focused on Celestia's horn, forming a ball of light. It was not the golden glow of the sun. It was the pure white of a rainbow combined.

"...is the magic..."

The light grew in brightness to the point that, even shrouded in darkness, Tyranlestia squinted her eyes in pain.

"...OF FRIENDSHIP!"

The Rainbow Power launched itself from Celestia's horn straight into Tyranlestia. The magic lanced into the aura of darkness, distorting it.

"AND YOU..."

The darkness aura was progressively blasted out of the way of Friendship's light as it came closer and closer to the mare hiding within.

"...STAND ALONE."

The rainbow beam grew in intensity and size, expanding to envelope the darkness completely, hiding Tyranlestia from view. After that, it disappeared completely; leaving a slightly smoking Tyranlestia devoid of any trace of dark power.

Celestia stared her opponent dead in the eye. All of her injuries from the fight so far were gone; the cuts had closed and the blood had vanished. She looked like she hadn't even been in a fight. "Will you now concede defeat? I have been strengthened, you have been weakened."

"That..." The downed Alicorn muttered, struggling to her hooves, and to the realisation that a vast chunk of her power had been stripped from her.

"That doesn't matter!" Tyranlestia roared. An aura of yellow power began to emanate from her body as she drew on the full power of her connection to the sun. "I still hold more power than you could ever dream, I am destined for victory!"

Celestia spoke softly, but Tyranlestia could hear her so well she may as well have used the Royal Canterlot Voice. "From one to another, another to one. A mark of one's destiny singled out alone, fulfilled."

The Elements of Harmony glowed brightly once more, and with a subtle -pop-, Tyranlestia's Cutie Mark disappeared. Her aura - Tyranlestia's show of force - evaporated, as did her power draw from the sun.

"My... my Cutie Mark... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY DESTINY?!"

"I have switched it. With who, and for what, I will leave to your imagination."

"I..." Tyranlestia started hyperventilating, unable to comprehend a change of that magnitude. "I'm an Alicorn, same as you!"

Celestia sighed, obviously disappointed with her opponent's continued refusal to stand down. Her eyes glowed white with magic, and she grew mind-bogglingly large. No, that was wrong - it was Tyranlestia who was shrinking. Shrinking down into the small, delicate form of a Breezie.

"I... I..." The new-zie stammered as she stared up at the comparatively enormous Alicorn.

Face impassive, Celestia raised a hoof.

-Splat-

K.O.!

Wiping the bug guts off her hoof, Celestia exhaled deeply. Her horn began to glow pure white, and the princess disappeared. She had another five iterations of this fight to complete, after all.





"Okay, that was... kinda gross."

"I don't remember you complaining when Rainbow Dash killed that robot."

"Technically it's more like she devoured his soul... annnnddd that sounded less creepy in my head."

"Tyranlestia's stats were ridiculous, and there was no way Celestia could possibly match them. Fortunately for her, she didn't have to."

"Celestia's arsenal of spells and magic items allowed her to hard-counter nearly anything her evil counterpart could throw at her. For starters, Tyranlestia's melee strikes and beam spells were useless against Celestia's intangible Fire Form, shutting down most of her attacks right there."

"Being a pony herself, Celestia had nothing to fear from the Barrier or Conversion Serum, and her Mind Shield spell saved her from Tyranlestia's mental attacks. Her Earth Pony durability and Tyranlestia's overconfidence kept her alive throughout the fight."

"The battle wasn't smooth sailing however. Tyranlestia's connections to the sun and to darkness - external sources both - allowed her to retain her magic in the human world. Her knowledge of dimension hopping let her jump right back into the fray."

"But in the end, Celestia's most powerful ability is the one she used to start the whole story - the ****ing Rainbow of Death."

"Tyranlestia may be the avatar of darkness sometimes, but that just means she's that much more vulnerable to the light-based magic."

"And if the evil Alicorn is just drawing power through her connection to the sun, no worries! Celestia does the same and can disconnect Tyranlestia by changing out her butt tattoo."

"Combined with a species transformation - which we know works on Alicorns, given that Twilight used it on herself - Tyranlestia is left as normal as any other pony... thing."

"No darkness, no sun power, no Alicorn-ity-ness, no immortality! Celestia gave Tyranlestia a royal horse-whipping."

"The winner: is Princess Celestia."
> World Suggestions Six
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ōkami



 Invent required spells. ✓
Scry on target world. ✓
Pay quick visit to check everything works.



Xlestia looked up from her check-list and into the small, pony-sized portal she'd made as a practise run. It was ovular, with jagged edges that made it look like she'd literally broken a hole in space. On the other side, she could see a forest full of exotic trees. Taking a deep breath, and holding her head high, Xlestia walked right through the portal.

Once through, she glanced side to side. Pristine countryside all around. She exhaled, and then inhaled. The air here was clear and crisp. The humans obviously hadn't had a chance to foul up this part of their world yet.

Satisfied with what she'd found, Xlestia flapped her mighty wings, flying up above the canopy of leaves. There, she inspected the sky. One sun, one moon - both in the sky at once without their day/night cycle breaking. How did they manage that?!

Xlestia settled back down on the ground, slightly perturbed by what she'd seen. "I really need to have a word with whoever manages the sun around here." She muttered to herself.

"Wuf?"

Startled, the Alicorn spun around to find a white wolf standing between her and the portal home. It was staring, quite intelligently, right into her eyes.

"Yes...?" Xlestia asked cautiously.

"Wuf."

"Oh! Oh, this is your sun. My apologies."

"Growl~?"

"Hm? I'm here to cleanse all despair and pain from this world."

"Wuf!?"

"What? No! No, I'm not implying that you haven't been doing a great job, I-I'm sure you have been!"

"Growl~!" The wolf's ears folded back as it bared its fangs.

"Look, there's no need to get territorial about this..."

The white wolf walked around Xlestia, and began to push her in the direction of the portal with its head.

"Look, we'll split half and half, how about that?" Xlestia offered frantically as Ammy shoved her back through her own portal. "I can help, I promise!"

With single stroke of the Celestial Brush, the portal was closed.





Final Fantasy (Any, really)

"Drink up, and become strong, healthy ponies!" A crazed looking Xlestia chucked a bottle of Serum at the formation of humans, nailing the fighter in the face. The magical potion mixed with the blood that was leaking out of the glass-inflicted cuts.

-Poof!-

"Yay!" The new-foal cried, prancing on the spot. "The world has become sunshine and rainbows! Everything is happy!"

The healer of the party rubbed their eyes to make sure they were seeing this right. Well, uh... it looks like that potion inflicts Pony and some form of Charm, so maybe... "Esuna."

-Poof!-

The fighter reappeared in the new-foal's place, splayed out on all fours. "The world is dark and filled with angst once more."

It was Xlestia's turn to rub her eyes. "What...? No. No! More potion!"

-Poof!-

"I love you guys!"

"Esuna!"

-Poof!-

"I hate my life."

"Potion!"

-Poof!-

"I think I'm gonna throw up..."

"Esuna!"

-Poof!-

"Hurk...!"

"Potion!"

The third member of the band shook their head as they watched the infliction of more than one kind of whiplash. "'Don't bother with a ribbon', they said. 'We won't need it', they said..."





Alternatively... (VII only)

Sporting a black eye and slightly singed fur, Xlestia gave an unashamed whoop of relief as her dive brought her behind the safety of the Barrier. "Safe!"

Cloud Strife jumped high, sword held in both hands as he aimed to plunge the blade right through Xlestia's chest. His feet slammed into the ground scant centimetres from the magical wall as the deadly weapon cut right through the Alicorn... or rather, it would have had the blade not been disintegrated up to the hilt by the Barrier. Cloud staggered backwards, staring in annoyance at his ruined weapon.

Xlestia gave a wide, obnoxious smirk. "On this world, you say you're 'only human' as a way of reminding yourself of your fallibility; a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with." She gave a grand sweeping gesture with a forehoof, indicating the shimmering sphere of energy. "My mighty Barrier protects me and my own from anything a human could ever dream of!"

Cloud stared evenly back at the pony. Abruptly, he held his hand out to the side. "Yuffie. Pass me a Destruct materia."

The young ninja blinked, but reached into a pocket and retrieved a crystalline sphere about the size of a tennis ball, which she tossed to Cloud.

The swordsman held the magical orb in one hand, outstretched so that the orb was facing Xlestia and her Barrier.

"DeBarrier."





Alternatively... (Tactics only)

"Um, mister?"

"Hm?"

The filly that had spoken up traced a circle in the dust with an errant hoof. "Shouldn't you be worried?"

"About what?" The grumpy old man replied, leaning back in his rocking chair.

"Um..." The filly looked out the the window. The bright glow of the Barrier was literally a meter from the house.

The old man sorted. "Oh, that? Never had a faithful bone in my body, all these years."

"Huh?" The ever-expanding Barrier soundlessly swallowed the wall.

"Nice thing about being an Atheist." He continued, as the wave of magic swept through his house, and, ultimately, over his body.

"Gah!" The filly yelped, covering her eyes.

"Magic don't work on you." The man commented, laying naked in the dirt.

"Cannot unsee..." The filly whimpered.





One-Punch Man

"Rejoice, humanity!"

The intersection of humans completely froze the instant they heard the immense blast of sound that was the Royal Canterlot Voice.

"Today, I arrive to offer you all salvation! Join me, and shed your - wait, where are you all going?"

The frozen masses had all simultaneously turned and retreated from the scene with all possible haste. Xlestia stood there, stupefied, as the large crowd she had planned to impress with her appearance and speech disappeared. She stood there, mouth open and eyes blinking furiously, as within seconds there wasn't a single human in sight.

Wait, scratch that, there was one left. He had absolutely no fur anywhere on him, and was wearing an outfit of some yellow synthetic material that was sure to have Rarity fainting if she ever saw it. He was scratching his head, looking up at her in slight confusion.

Xlestia was completely dumbfounded. She had expected that humans might not react well to her appearance, but that mass panic had seemed... practised.

"What just happened?" She asked, wings slowing down as she dropped gently to the ground, still blinking at the empty space where once was a tightly-packed crowd.

To her slight surprise, the bald man answered her. "Well, ah, this area gets attacked by monsters a lot..."

"Attacked by – I'm not a monster!" Xlestia was offended they would even think such a thing!

The bald man tilted his head. "You aren't?"

"No!" 

"Then..." The man tilted his head the other way. "...what are you?"

"I am here to save these people from their foolish lives of needless hurt and suffering!" Xlestia glared down at the man. He wasn't short, but she could get some impressive height by leaning her long neck back.

"Ah-ha!" The bald man cried, catching a fist in his other hand. "You're a political activist!"

A millennium of practice at not reacting to idiocy was the only reason Xlestia managed to remain upright on her hooves. "I'm their saviour!" She corrected harshly.

The man went back to tilting his head. "...so you're a hero?"

"If you like." Why was she wasting her time with this moron again? She needed to find some other way to announce herself if simply appearing in the streets wasn't going to cut it.

The man leaned back, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "So what do you do?"

Xlestia, who had been turning to leave, paused. "What do I do?"

"You know." The man crossed his arms again. "To save people."

Xlestia arched an eyebrow. "I turn them into ponies."

"Eh?" The man sounded very confused. "How does that help?"

"It means they can forget their old life, and start a new one, a better one, in the magical land of Equestria." Xlestia placed a hoof on her chest and closed her eyes. She looked utterly sincere, and she was.

"But..." The man spoke that incredibly annoying word. "doesn't that actually make you a terrible hero?"

For a second, Xlestia's flowing mane changed from an aurora of light to an inferno of fire. Then she took a deep breath, and her hair settled back into it's normal form. With a very forced smile on her muzzle, she turned to face the man who had said that to her. "Why do you think that?" She said, voice dripping with artificial sweetness.

"Being a hero means dealing with the problems at hand." The man pointed an accusing finger at Xlestia. "But deleting their save file and forcing them to play again from the start? That's giving up on saving them before you've even started!"

The self-control holding back the fire in her hair instantly released. "You dare – " Xlestia growled.

"I only do this as a hobby." The man said. "But even I know better than that. You sure you're ready for the big time?"

Xlestia decided she'd had enough of listening to this man, and so teleported him halfway across town. Excessive? Actually, she thought she should be congratulated for her restraint - she'd been tempted to do far worse to him. Her hair calmed down, turning back to normal again.

She was very nearly blown over by a sudden, intense gust of wind.

"Hey hey hey! What was that for?!"

Something in the clockwork of Xlestia's brain went -crunch-. She slowly turned around to look at the source of the voice.

It was the same man she had just teleported miles away, standing on the other side of the street. He looked slightly out of breath, and was standing in the same direction the wind had come from. It was almost as though he had just run back to the square, in the span of a few seconds.

Xlestia opened her mouth to demand he explain what in sanity's name was going on.

"Awbegah?"

Well, she tried anyway.

The man stepped forward. "We weren't done talking. Where was I? Oh yeah! You really shouldn't call yourself a hero unless you mean it. It'll just get people confused."

Rainbow Dash couldn't have made that distance in that time. Nopony could, without teleporting. Had... had this human just...?

Wait. He was within two body-lengths of her now. His proximity sharpened her thoughts, allowing her speech to regain coherency.

"Stop!" She commanded.

The man complied, putting his hands on his hips. "Yeah, what?"

Xlestia squinted at him, long and hard. "Are you... really a human?"

"It that really so hard to believe?" The man complained, once again scratching his round, potato-looking head. "Yeah, I'm human."

Xlestia looked him up and down. Then, carefully, she encased him in a glowing field of her own golden magic. Some ponies thought this was a time-stop spell, which was ridiculous. You couldn't have conversations with creatures that were frozen in time. Instead, she essentially held every part of her target's body still with telekinesis.

The man continued to scratch his head. "Hey, what's this? You have psychic powers too? If you want to be a hero, why not just use that? I know two sisters who could give you tips if you need -"

That tore it. However this man was fighting her, she needed to find out how and stop it. Like children, the humans would fight her over something that was actually good for them. So, as the 'adult' in this situation, it was her responsibility to keep the 'children' in line.

Xlestia cancelled her spell. Then, she cast it again. Except that this time, she used the same telekinesis variant she used to move the sun across the sky. It was hopelessly overpowered - the sun was 333,000 times as massive as the planet on which she stood, but that level of telekinesis moved it easily. The really impressive part was how this spell didn't instantly crush the target. With him so contained, she could study him at her leisure -

"Seriously, could you stop that now?"

The man continued to scratch his head.

Forget crunching noises, it sounded like someone had just smashed a cuckoo-clock inside her metaphorical skull. Xlestia's eyes stared directly ahead, waiting patiently for the delusions to go away and for reality to reassert itself.

Saitama stepped forward, shattering the golden field. He opened his mouth to continue his rant against the not-monster, but closed it when he realised that she wasn't moving at all. Her eyes were focused on the point in space where his head had just been, her mouth slightly open.

He waved his hand in front of her face. No response.

He stood there a little while, then he shrugged.

Her condition had improved greatly by the time the hospital ponies came to pick her up. She'd even started twitching.





XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Not XCOM 2 continuity)

Central Officer Bradford stepped off the XCOM base elevator. "I'm briefing the commander in half an hour." He said. "What have you got for me?"

Dr Shen and Dr Vahlen glanced briefly at each other, then Shen stepped forward. "There's been a development in the Equestria situation."

Bradford looked puzzled. "That isn't our problem." It had been agreed on by the Council that having the extremely secret organisation of X-COM handle the extremely public situation with the ponies was a recipe for trouble. It wasn't really practical for a politician to answer 'That's classified' to basic questions like: 'What is the government doing about this?'.

"It is now." Vahlen corrected him.

Bradford's eyes darted between the two officers. "The X-Rays?" He asked, using the nickname for the alien group X-COM had been founded to fight.

Shen nodded, pressing a button that made the hologlobe swivel round and zoom in on Earth's newest continent. He pointed to a red 'X' on the holographic map. "They had a terror attack there, not four hours ago. Mutons and Chryssalids."

Bradford's eyes focused on the hologlobe, his brow furrowed in thought. "I thought Equestria was protected?"

"It is." Shen said, quite grave.

"The aliens have once again displayed a new technology." Vahlen explained. "Some form of teleportation, I think. It was used to send troops inside the Barrier, and to retrieve them later."

"But... what about this 'magical radiation' the Equestrians warned us about?" Things weren't adding up for Bradford.

Vahlen snorted. "It was of no help, clearly."

"That is, if it actually exists." Shen added.

"Excuse me?" Bradford said.

"Well, let's assume that the ponies are telling the truth, and that the Barrier is a natural phenomenon." Shen began to explain. "In that case, 'magical radiation' would function as they described: a radiation given off by 'magic' that is inherently harmful to any life-form that did not evolve in its presence."

"Right..."

"But doesn't that seem strange? If 'magical radiation' was a real phenomenon, then wouldn't we see harmful effects from the magic of the ponies themselves? For that matter, wouldn't the Conversion Serum kill a person even while converting them?"

Bradford thought for a moment. "Maybe it's only dangerous in very concentrated amounts?"

"We would expect to see some gradient between 'no harm' and 'disintegration'." Vahlen said. "Nature does not like working in binary."

"...which would imply that it is an artificial effect."

"Even if it is, it still makes no sense." Shen said. "Imagine you are setting up defences for your domain. Powerful, extensive, but energy-intensive defences. Would you add an extra layer of defence, potentially even more energy-intensive, that is only useful if your first defences have been breached?"

"Yes." Bradford said immediately.

"Would you have it active all the time?"

"...no."

"Regardless," Vahlen broke in. "This very attack proves that, once inside, materials foreign to Equestria suffer no immediate ill effects."

Bradford looked up at the hologlobe again. "This... teleportation device would be a piece of alien technology?"

"That is the current assumption."

"Which, theoretically, we should be able to reverse-engineer as we have other artefacts."

"Theoretically, yes."

"So we could then also be moving materials and personnel inside Equestrian borders without the aid of the Conversion Bureau."

"Indeed."

Bradford smiled. "I'll tell the commander we have some good news for a change."

"And if the Equestrian government objects to us violating their borders?" Shen asked.

Bradford shrugged. "That'll be for the boys and girls in power armour to sort out. Now, come on. We need to capture one of these 'teleport' shuttles first."





Worm

Xlestia had one eye closed and stuck her tongue out, giving her full concentration to the task at hand. Putting Star Swirl's old theories on inter-dimensional travel into practice was proving a real challenge, even for one of her skill. Channelling enough magic to lift a mountain, but with enough precision to avoid crushing an eggshell, Xlestia cast her spell. With a loud -crack- and a bright flash, a hole appeared in space about the size of a thimble.

Sitting back on her haunches, Xlestia wiped the sweat from her brow. She leaned left and right, examining her hoofdiwork from all angles; delighting in how the view changed. She had, indeed, poked a hole in space, even if a tiny one.

Abruptly, the wall she was facing folded down to reveal a room which couldn't possibly exist on the other side, and a human woman in a suit stepped over into Xlestia's room.

Xlestia would later say that she didn't really feel shock at the act, more frustration from being casually one-upped.

"Don't." The woman said, striding forward.

"I'm sorry?" Xlestia replied, tilting her head. She seemed to have skipped being shocked altogether and proceeded directly to being annoyed.

"Your plan to meddle with lives that do not concern you. Don't." The woman elaborated, moving forwards like she owned the place. Xlestia narrowed her eyes, and dropped a forcefield in the middle of the room, blocking her path forward.

The human didn't even slow down, stamping a foot on one of the floor tiles. The tile in question was directly under the forcefield, emerging on both sides. With the force of her stomp, the end of the tile on Xlestia's side rose up, and a pebble was flung up and into the Alicorn's left knee.

Reflexively, Xlestia's left foreleg jerked, causing her body to fall forwards and slam into the table in front of her. Her concentration shattered, the forcefield dropped.

The woman still hadn't broken stride.

As the human passed her, Xlestia swiped at her with her hoof. The woman leaned slightly to the left, and the hoof missed her by a scant millimetre.

As the Alicorn started to charge her horn again, the woman spoke. "We have enough problems with the inter-dimensional alien we already have. We don't need another one causing even more issues."

Xlestia just gritted her teeth, forming her magic into a basic beam spell. Quick as a flash, the woman's right hand shot out: shoving the glowing horn in the direction of the bookshelf on the back wall. It happened so fast that Xlestia couldn't think quickly enough to avoid blasting her own manuscripts.

The Solar Princess's lower jaw dropped as she watch her own fire consume the irreplaceable writings. The woman, having finally stopped moving, spoke once more.

"I am Contessa. I see the Paths to Victory. And if you ever reach Earth Bet, I will kill you."

Her piece said, and the Alicorn's work erased, Contessa turned and walked back through the Door to Cauldron Headquarters.





Splatoon

Anypony who knew them would tell you that Flim and Flam where as thick as thieves. (Usually right before they told you they were just plain thieves.) Wherever one was found, the other would not be far behind.

As such, none of those ponies would be in the least bit surprised to find the two of them sitting in a boat in the deep ocean, holding a meeting with shady-looking folk in another boat.

"This the stuff?" A grouchy old man with squid tentacles for hair (and beard) whispered horsy.

"Of course, my courageous comrade!" Flim boasted loudly.

"Call us cut-throats, Capt'n Cuttlefish, but we couldn't conceive not cutting a man of your condition a – " Flam continued, only for their customer to clamp his clammy hand over their cake holes.

"I told you to cut that out!" He hissed.

Flim wormed out from under the old Inkling's grip. "You said we couldn't sing."

"Do you have it?" Cuttlefish persisted.

"Right here!" Flam pulled back a tarp to reveal several dozen paint cans.

Flim pried one of the cans open, and Cuttlefish stuck two fingers inside, rubbing paint between his fingers. "This is real?" He demanded.

"Genuine Equestrian paint, just like you wanted." Flam placed a forehoof on the captain's shoulders.

"Though, we were confused." Flim placed his own forehoof on Cuttlefish's other shoulder.

"Downright intrigued, even." Flam continued.

"Why is it so important that the paint come from Equestria?" The two brothers finished together, identical perplexed expressions on their faces.

Cuttlefish looked up from the paint, shrugging. "Everything from here gets washed away by that out-of-control spin cycle of yours." He said, nodding his head in the general direction of Equestria. "But your own paint should be fine, right?"

Ohhhh. Flim and Flam shared a look. He wanted to make some paintings that wouldn't get washed away by the Barrier. That made sense, they thought, collecting their payment.

But then, why had Princess Celestia made it illegal to sell paint to these guys?





Xlestia had come down to see the lines of new-foals entering Equestria. That was all. Just sating her curiosity as to how things were going.

Instead, she found herself staring at the entrance point, facial muscles straining to escape her control and display her fury to the world.

A long trail of paint had been spattered on the ground on both sides of the Barrier, one long trail leading from one side to the other.

A line of the natives - Inklings, Xlestia remembered - were lining up, as was the plan. But they weren't lining up to drink the Serum. Oh no. Instead, they each jumped into the air, tuned into a squid, and dived down into the ink, as though it somehow wasn't two-dimensional.

'Holding their breath' under the surface on the paint meant that despite swimming 'under' the Barrier, at no point was any part of them accessible to the Barrier. They were 'inside' the paint, but not in a way that made logical sense. And since the paint was, itself, Equestrian, the Barrier did nothing to it.

One Inkling splashed paint on her face as he ran past, giggling as he went.

One of Xlestia's eyes began twitching.
> How I would have written it
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"No, I don't think it's the right thing to do!"

"Really?! So if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, thinks that ducks are pretty hot, but happens to be a cat, you think you should call that a cat?!"

"Oh yeah, very funny. I'm supposed to feel sorry for the people who suddenly 'realised' that all their lives they've really been an alicorn in a human body?!"

"Look, I'm not gonna deny there are people like that, but you can't let those few ruin it for all the people who really need it! (Not that anyone's figured out how to turn someone into an alicorn anyway...) Besides, they screen everyone who applies for Species Reassignment Sorcery!"

"Yeah, and they've caught how many people cheating on those exams?"

At this point I timidly raised a hand. "Uh, guys..."

Blossom suddenly turned her head to focus on me with laser-like intensity. "And you!"

The unexpected hostility made me draw back. "Ep! Uh, I mean, er, yes?"

"You haven't mentioned once what you think of this!" She glared deep into my eyes.

"Looking for outside vindication, Blossom?" Wolf sneered from behind me. "Unlike you, some people remember to love and tolerate."

I gulped - rather than halt the argument, I seemed to have turned it's focus onto myself. "Guys, I... um... look...  I don't..."

Wolf and Blossom both raised an eyebrow expectedly.

"...really think it's any of my business...?" I finished lamely.

My two best friends continued glaring for a moment, before they both turned away with an audible -huff-.

Jeez. I could understand why Blossom was upset with me, but given how much Wolf went on about tolerance you'd think he'd be more tolerant of my tolerance.

Oh, I should probably mention. Wolf and I were human, but Blossom was a unicorn. For some reason, people always seemed surprised to hear such heated tirades coming out of such a small pony.

"FEAR NOT, CITIZENS!"

The loud voice that suddenly boomed out across the amphitheatre made all three of us jump. We all turned to face forwards. Someone had climbed onto the stage when we were busy arguing.

He was a giant beast of a man, 8 feet tall at least. He was decked out in plate armour that reflected light just like a mirror, and had a broadsword stored at his side in a pure white sheath.

"TERRIBLE DEEDS HAPPEN AROUND YOU! DARK MAGIC ABOUNDS IN THE NIGHT! INNOCENT MEMBERS OF YOUR FINE COMMUNITY HAVE VANISHED WITHOUT A TRACE!"

I didn't need to turn and look to know that Wolf had completely forgotten about his argument with Blossom in favour of staring starry-eyed like the fan-boy he was.

"Oh great." Blossom muttered, confirming my suspicions. "We've lost him."

"Guys!" Wolf darn near squealed. "That's a Frost Knight!"

"We noticed." Blossom deadpanned. "Apparently they're doing some pre-game public announcements."

"BUT WORRY NOT!" The Frost Knight continued, jumping down from the stage to walk among the audience. "EVEN AS EVILDOERS SKULK AROUND IN THE DARK, SO DO THE FROST KNIGHTS STAND READY TO DEFEND YOU!"

"That's real mirrorca armour! They say it can reflect even alicorn magic!"

"Clearly it didn't do the mirrorca much good, though..."

"HOWEVER, AS A PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE, THE STATE UNICORPS HAVE CREATED  ENCHANTED CHARMS! WITH ONE OF THESE, A FROST KNIGHT WILL ONLY EVER BE A MOMENT AWAY!"

"And he's even wearing his Frost Sword! Ah, that's so cool!"

"You know how they make those, right? They stuff a Windigo into the steel and hope it doesn't get loose?"

Wolf finally tore his gaze away from the Frost Knight to resume what he was doing before: glaring at Blossom. "You are just set on being a real killjoy today, aren't you?"

"YOU THERE!"

Once again, the booming voice of the Frost Knight made me jump, though this time because it was directly in front of me. The Frost Knight was staring down at me (despite standing on the level below me), a small object that resembled a key-chain clutched in his gauntleted fist.

"TAKE THIS!" He shoved the charm in my face. "PULL THE TAB OUT, AND THE NEAREST FROST KNIGHT WILL INSTANTLY APPEAR BEFORE YOU!"

My eyes flickered between the knight's helmet and the charm in his hand. "That sounds really abusable."

The Frost Knight sighed. "Yeah, it really is."

As I was busy doing a double-take, the knight coughed into his other hand. "I MEAN, THE FROST KNIGHTS WILL GLADLY SUFFER ANY INDIGNITY AS LONG AS WE CAN BE SURE THAT WE HAVE DONE OUR UTMOST TO PROTECT THE CITIZENS OF THE WESTERN CONFEDERATE!"

When I hesitated, the knight sighed again. "Look kid, just take the charm, please?"

I gingerly took the charm off the man.

"YOUR COUNTRY THANKS YOU, CITIZEN!" The knight turned around to address the small crowd of children that was busy forming behind him. "NOW, WHO ELSE WANTS A CHARM?!"

Now that someone else had gone first, the kids seemed to fall over themselves to take a charm off him. Judging by the looks on their faces, at least three of them were planning on pulling the tab at the first opportunity just to annoy him.

"Jeez." Blossom huffed. "Any more of a stereotype and he'd just be a plain caricature."

"Oh come on!" Wolf growled. "The guy risks his life every day fighting whatever weird creature that escaped from Tartarus this week, and all you can do is mock him?"

"He's completely useless outside his chosen speciality! What's he gonna do if someone pulls out a stone-thrower on him, huh?"

"Guys?" I hesitantly interrupted again. "The game's starting."

The both glanced down at the stage, saw what I said was true, and turned away from each other with another -huff-.

I know it's hard to believe, but they are good friends, really!





After the game was over, Wolf and Blossom went right back to their argument. I mostly tuned them out, not really being that interested in the Frost Knights anyway. If I ever did end up in a situation where I needed their help, I planned to just scream and run. It seemed to work for most bystanders.

We weren't roommates or anything, so naturally there came a point on the walk home where the three of us had to split up. I didn't think anything of it at the time. I must have walked this way a million times before, so I let my legs carry me where they would, my head stuck firmly in the clouds.

I didn't realise anything was wrong until the spell grabbed me firmly by the ankles and dragged me through the pavement.

My first thought was that I'd fallen into a ditch or something in the dark, but then the telltale glow of magic registered in my brain. I struggled to draw a breath, but I couldn't seem to suck anything in: I couldn't breathe, I couldn't breathe -

Suddenly I was surrounded by air again, dropped to the ground on my hands and knees. My head still struggling to process things, I busied myself by gulping down lung-fulls of sweet, sweet air.

It was only when thick, fur-covered fingers clamped around my arms from behind and dragged me upright that it clicked that I was in major trouble.

I was inside some sort of vast underground cavern, lit dimly by glowing crystals embedded in the ceiling. My eyes went wide as I got a better look around me.

Scattered everywhere across the uneven floor were metal cages, their walls forming a sort of impromptu maze that only added to the feeling of claustrophobia. In every single cage was a pony. No, not just a pony, a unicorn. Each and every cage held at least one unicorn, some two or three. Every single one looked exhausted to the point of collapse.

"Enough gawking." Whoever was holding me said in a deep, contemptuous voice. "Boss!" He called. "We got another one! A human this time!"

"Ah, excellent." Responded another voice from deep within the maze of cages. "Bring them over!"

Immediately, I was roughly dragged forwards. Whoever held me didn't care in the slightest for my comfort or even my health, dragging me like you would a mannequin. The jostling must have rubbed two brain cells together, because I remembered to struggle at that point - for all the good it did me. It did catch a glimpse of my captor though - a minotaur.

For some reason, the thought drifted across my mind that a minotaur guarding a maze was just reinforcing stereotypes.

We rounded another corner in the cage-maze, and I saw what lay at the centre of it.

Clockwork gears and chalk circles were spread equally around the contraption, which was about 20 feet wide.  It wasn't very tall for the most part - only a few inches high - but right in the middle of it was an oversized chair.

The kind with large leather straps to hold down mental patients.

Without further ado, the minotaur stepped into the device and started strapping me down.

I struggled, of course, but if there was one thing minotaurs were famous for, it was their strength. In no time at all, I was bound tightly in the dentist chair from hell. When he was satisfied that I couldn't escape, he stepped back - allowing me to see his boss for the first time.

In another nod to stereotypes, he was wearing a long white lab coat as he approached me. The look in his eyes was different from that of the minotaur - where he held me in contempt, this man didn't seem to recognise me as a person at all.

He was a unicorn, and he held aloft a beaker of purple liquid in his magical grip.

Without further ado, the purple, grape-tasting liquid was forced down my throat. I coughed and spluttered, and some of it dribbled down my chin, but the liquid seemed to flow down my throat like it was alive. Not satisfied with my throat, it seemed to expand outwards, filling up places that weren't actually empty, displacing the 'me' that already existed there.

I felt the beaker being taken away from my mouth, giving me the chance to scream properly, but the sensations continued. I started to sweat profusely, feeling like I was sweating my skin off. In a moment of horror, I realised that wasn't a metaphor - my skin was peeling off in ugly clumps, revealing fur that couldn't possibly have existed underneath it.

I could feel my skeleton squash and stretch and twist and bend; my elbows cracked as they turned inside out. My fingers were forced together, and my screams reached a higher pitch when I realised that I couldn't separate them anymore - they had fused together, my toes with them. My fingernails and toenails also joined, and thickened, and lengthened, and I realised properly that I was growing hooves.

I remember reading somewhere that you couldn't feel sensations in your brain. Which was weird, because I definitely felt it the moment that my brain extended sharply upwards, forming such a clear point that my entire skull extended up around it to continue protecting it, and my horn finished growing in.

All at once the pain ceased, and my new unicorn lungs gasped for air.

The unicorn in the lab coat huffed as he looked me over. "Yes, yes, you'll do. Humans always make such mediocre unicorns, but it's still better than transforming a cat or something."

The clockwork around me, which had been silent so far, suddenly stared spinning. I couldn't see very well, strapped down as I was, but I was pretty sure that the soft glow coming from below was being generated from the chalk circles I saw earlier.

This time, it felt like someone had attached a pump to my newly-minted horn – I could feel some of the new substance the potion had forced into me being pulled right back out again. It wasn't actually painful, so I just grunted and whimpered in discomfort this time. A shimmering field of glowing energy was pulled out of my horn and sucked up into something in the ceiling, some kind of dark-green stone spire. A deep fatigue settled on me that seemed to extend down to my very bones.

The gears stopped spinning and the glow vanished.

"Milking complete, boss." The minotaur reported.

"Yes, yes, I can see that for myself." The lab-coat wearing unicorn snapped. "You know what to do. Put them in the cages and man the traps again!"

The minotaur didn't respond this time, he just unstrapped me and dragged me across the ground by one of my legs, somehow managing to be even less gentle than he had the first time. With a grunt and a heave, I was tossed into one of the few empty cages and the door was slammed shut and locked. His own hooves thudded against the cave floor as he walked away, not even giving me a backwards glance.





I don't know how long I lay there in the dark.

The fatigue made it feel like an accomplishment just to roll onto my feet – no, my hooves – my now ill-fitting human clothing threatening to tangle me up at every movement.

"They got you too, huh?"

The exhausted voice was spoken so softly that I thought I’d imagined it at first. But when I looked over in the direction I thought the sound had come from (pony ears seemed to be better at that sort of thing than human ones) I found an unexpectedly familiar sight awaiting me.

"Ms Rainstorm?" I tried to say, but my voice came out even softer than hers had. Everything just seemed to be so heavy…

The pegasus lady who lived in a cloud-house almost directly above my own brick-and-mortar home stared back at me from the cage next over. Well, she had been a pegasus last time I saw her, but right now her wings were gone, and she was sporting a horn.

"Why would they bother transforming you? You were already a pony…"

"It’s not about making more ponies." Ms Rainstorm said. "See that stone spire in the ceiling?"

"The thing that sucks up magic?"

"That’s the one. It’s made of Changeling Throne Stone – it absorbs all external magic. Pegasus and earth pony magic is on the inside, so to get at it ‘Doctor’ - " she managed to push a note of scorn through her exhaustion " - Fredric has to turn us into unicorns."

"Um, is Fredric a normal changeling name?"

"No, it isn’t. He’s not a changeling – and he wasn’t always a unicorn either. We think he’s gathering up all the magic he can to add to his own, sky knows why."

I tried to push myself to my hooves, but my legs wobbled dangerously the moment my… my barrel left the ground, and I sat back down rather than risk falling. "We need to get out of here. We need to get help!"

"We know." Ms Rainstorm’s muzzle twitched in annoyance, and I winced as I realised how stupid I sounded. "But whenever any of us look like were recovering, Fredric puts us back into his ‘milking’ machine. Even if we manage to hide our strength, the Throne Stone’s range extends all throughout this cavern – we can’t use magic, and the bars are too strong to kick down."

I couldn’t see my muzzle at that point, but I imagine that at that point I had an expression of utter despair at that point. Not fighting the exhaustion anymore, I let myself flop over on my side.

-Crunch-

Which is how I remembered that I still had the Frost Knight’s charm in my pocket.

The fatigue laying on me seemed to shatter immediately, replaced by I might have a way out!

I frantically groped at my overcoat – human pockets were not designed with pony hooves in mind – I eventually decided to just tear the whole thing open. Ms Rainstorm’s eyes bugged out at the huge amounts of noise I was making in the otherwise silent cavern.

"What are you doing?" She said, in what would have been a shrill voice if there had been more energy behind it.

"The Frost Knights" I said, as I wrestled with the charm with my unfamiliar new appendages "gave me this charm because of all the people who’ve been disappearing. It’ll summon help!"

If I could alert the authorities, then this terrible and oppressive fear I had would go away. I could hand control of the situation to someone else, and escape from here back to my normal life.

I expected Ms Rainstorm to be happy, hysterical even, but when I glanced over at her cage she just looked sad. She had such a classic ‘bearer of terrible news’ look that I halted my struggles with the charm. "What?" I asked her.

"…you aren’t the first one to come here with a charm." Ms Rainstorm said.

…

"Huh?" I said, uncomprehending. If someone else had come here with a charm, how come this place hadn’t been busted wide open yet?

"The Throne Stone." Ms Rainstorm said, nodding slightly in the direction of the spire. "It absorbs all magic in this chamber. …not just magic from ponies."

It took me another few seconds to realise what she meant, for the frantic beating of my chest to slow to a near-stop. If magic didn’t work here, then the charm…

The stomping of hooves heralded the return of the minotaur. He must have heard the noise I made and had come to investigate.

I almost couldn’t bring myself to care, but I picked up the charm with my tongue and hid it in my mouth so that he wouldn’t see. Almost immediately after that, I was rudely jostled around as the minotaur lifted my cage into the air, flaunting his enormous strength in my face. He turned the cage around so that I was facing him.

"QUIET!" He rather counterproductivly yelled at me.

Not daring to open my mouth – both out of fear of making him madder and out of fear of fear of him seeing the charm in my mouth – I nodded wordlessly, genuine fear in my eyes.

The minotaur gave me a suspicious look, but dropped my cage to the ground in a huff anyway, stomping off once again.

The half-second of free-fall allowed the rest of me to feel the same way as my heart. Having hope dangled in front of you and then snatched away felt far worse than no hope at all. I felt angry, angry at this charm for getting my hopes up and then proving to be completely useless. I wanted to bit this charm in half, the only thing stopping me being the worry of what might happen if this charm accidentally went off inside my mouth.

…

…inside my…?

What was it that Ms Rainstorm had said?

Hadn’t she said that the reason that the lab-coat wearing unicorn had turned her into a unicorn was because he hadn’t been able to drain her pegasus magic, as it was inside her body?

I bit the charm’s tab between my teeth, placed the tip of my tongue on the top of the charm, and pulled.

Imagine, if you will, a firecracker going off between your teeth. There was a -bang- so loud I swear it shook my skull, and a flash of light so bright that I could see even through my cheeks. Both would have left me stunned, if not for the fire on my tongue. The fire that seemed to be… getting bigger?

"HEY!" The minotaur bellowed, running back towards me. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE - "

-Poof/Crack!-

A comical sound effect and a deadly serious one occurred at the same time – after all, the charm had only gone off because it was shielded from the effects of the Throne Stone inside my mouth. Guess where the Frost Knight teleported into?

But still, stooped in a cage next to the neo-unicorn sobbing on the ground with a broken jaw (me) was the reassuringly bulky form of the Frost Knight. "What is it now? I swear, if it’s another kid - "

He stopped talking as he took in the cage bars that surrounded him.

The minotaur, for his part, seemed to be just as unprepared for a Frost Knight showing up as the Frost Knight was. He stood there dumbfounded for several precious seconds.

The Frost Knight’s gaze hardened as he seemed to fully realise what sort of place this was. Slowly and deliberately, he drew his Frost Sword.

The minotaur blinked one final time, then his gaze hardened as well. "BOSS!" He bellowed. "FROST KNIGHT!"

"What?! You imbecile! I told you not to trap anything dangerous!"

The Frost Knight swiped his namesake sword across the bars of the cage. A chilling white mist started to leak out of the sword, but it was immediately sucked into the Throne Stone on the ceiling. The knight looked down at his sword in surprise, but recovered enough to brace himself against the other side of the cage and give the bars a solid kick with his armoured feet, bending the bars.

The minotaur wasn’t about to let him finish breaking out, however, and lowered his head and charged, bellowing much like the bull he half-way resembled. He slammed into the Frost Knight, which actually proved to be rather helpful as it shattered the bars that the knight had been trying to break. A broken bar landed on top of me, making me cry out in pain yet again.

The minotaur tried to pin the knight in some kind of hold, but his grip seemed to slip off the knight’s polished armour. The knight twisted around and slammed the hilt of his sword into the minotaur’s head, knocking him out cold. The knight gave a mighty heave and shoved the minotaur outside the cage, stepping out after him.

"You couldn't even hold him for a minute?" The lab-coat unicorn said with scorn. His voice sounded nearby, but I couldn’t see him. (Not that I could see much through my tears of pain.)

"Whoever you are, if you are in anyway involved in the running of this place, you are under arrest for… more crimes than I can count, I think." The Frost Knight sounded deadly serious, completely unlike the theatrical performance back at the amphitheatre.

"They’ll only be crimes if you live long enough to report it. Which you won’t." The underground cavern distorted the lab-coat unicorn’s voice, making it impossible to tell where he was talking from. I tried to muffle my cries so that the knight could hear better. "By the way, how do you like my little Conversion Bureau?"

The Frost Knight slowly turned on the spot, looking for the source of the voice. "‘Conversion Bureau’?"

The lab-coat unicorn kept talking, and for the third time today I recognised another stereotype being reinforced – one of the evil mastermind eager to explain his plot. "Everyone agrees that alicorns are the most powerful creatures on this planet  – apart from a draconequus, that is, but I even I know not to go messing with something that random and unpredictable." A scraping noise could just be made out over the unicorn’s speech. "Everyone has been trying to discover a reliable way to become one for centuries, but they always overlooked the obvious answer: more magic."

"You’re draining unicorns for their magic." The Frost Knight realised. "Harvesting them like fruit trees."

"But even if I took every unicorn in town, it still wouldn’t be enough." For some reason, the unicorn was gleeful when describing his own setback. "So I had to invest the magic I had already collected."

"So you converted the townspeople." The Frost Knight spat.

"With every creature I snare, the forces at my command increase ever faster. Soon, I’ll be able to recreate the lost magic, ‘Inspiration Manifestation’. Then I’ll be able to create unicorns out of thin air – my power will be limitless!"

The lab-coat wearing unicorn did not begin to cackle maniacally, but my the sounds of it he was having trouble holding himself back from doing so.

And, for the final stereotype today, the Frost Knight said, completely seriously: "Not if I can stop you."

"You can’t."

-bang- -shatter-

A small round hole appeared in the middle of the Frost Knight's back, and a spider-web of cracks extended out from his mirrorca armour. The knight made a small pained noise, then toppled over.

The lab-coat wearing unicorn stepped out from behind one of the cages. Held aloft in his magical grip was a weapon that consisted of a long barrel with a trigger at one end.

"Your mirroca armour protects you from magic." The unicorn said matter-of-factly. "But what good is it going to do if someone just shoots you with a stone-thrower?"

He trotted over to the knight's body. Cries of despair echoed around the room as, as one, we caged inhabitants of the room watched our hope die before us. In my case, for the second time in five minutes.

"You know, I've never tried to convert a corpse before." The unicorn said, giddy. "Will it work at all? And if it does, will it turn you into a living unicorn or a dead one? I suppose I should find out… for science."

He nudged the knight's body with a hoof, but suddenly he drew back. "Wait - why aren't you bleeding?!"

The supposedly dead knight's hand up rose up and plunged a Frost Sword deep into the unicorn's side.

The screams of a unicorn filled the cave… but this time, it wasn't me who was screaming.

"'What would we do if someone just shot us.'" The Frost Knight said. "As if we don't get asked that every week. And, as always, the answer is 'wear bulletproof silk under our armour'."

A whiteness was starting to spread outwards across the unicorn's flesh, emanating outwards from the Frost Sword.

"Unless I've missed my guess, that's Changeling Throne Stone up there. Unfortunately for you, that only absorbs magic from outside a person's body."

"NO!" The unicorn screamed. "I am the greatest genius to walk this Earth! I have broken all the secrets of magic! I - "

"You're a dime-a-dozen criminal lunatic." The Frost Knight said. "Now hurry up and freeze."

The whiteness spread completely over the unicorn's body, immobilising him in place. Soon, he was frozen completely solid, and his screams finally stopped.

The Frost Knight stood up, small pieces of his shattered chest-plate falling off and smashing against the ground as he did so.

He looked around at the cages filled with unicorns, who suddenly could find it within themselves to stand in wordless amazement.

"This is gonna be a big mess to clean up…"
> World Ten - Legitimate Kingdom
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Xlestia hated not knowing things.

It was an easy enough thing to avoid, most of the time: she ran all the universities, had guard outposts all over Equestria, and had a sister who monitored the dreams of everyone in the country. She could even, on rare occasion, catch a glimpse of important future events in the occasional vision.

So, having made the risky and perilous journey from her dimension to this one – bringing her entire kingdom with her, no less – she was rather put out to find that the humans had advanced a tech level since she had last checked up on them.

This may have helped explain why she was currently crouched down on a cloud over one of the humans’ mobile military bases. The cloud was mixed with the same Invisipaint that she had then covered herself in, so as long as she didn’t make any noise, the humans would have no way of knowing she was here.

A groundshackingly loud rumbling caused her ears to swivel back. It’s moving back this way again… Xlestia noted.

She’d ‘landed’ Equestria far closer to existing landmass than she’d been intending, so instead of an ocean ‘moat’ to help preserve her boarders, she’d ended up sharing a border with one of the existing human continents.

The Barrier made protecting her borders a moot point, of course, but their current position meant that the humans were free to park whatever forces they liked just outside.

Which was exactly what the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion had done, and why Xlestia was now staring up at a 50 meter tall, 200,000 tonne spherical murder machine.

The Barrier had been designed to laugh off a nuclear strike against it. To her secret annoyance, so had the ‘Object’ (no really, that’s what the humans called them) that now patrolled the land bridge between Equestria and ‘Africa’. Not only that, but it had been equipped with weapons designed to blow away other such nuke-proof Objects as itself. She was still reasonably sure that her Barrier could tank any human weapon, but now she wasn’t certain.

“What’s got the princess so agitated?” One of the soldiers just below her asked.

Xlestia’s heart leapt up into her throat. Had the humans found her so easily?! But then she remembered that the 37th referred to the girl piloting their Object as ‘the princess’, even though she wasn’t actually royalty. It was surprisingly Equestrian of them to refer to the most powerful girl they knew by that title.

“Is that a trick question?” Another soldier responded with another question.

Xlestia looked down through her invisible cloud. Almost directly below her were a pair of soldiers – one with brown hair, one with blond. They were wearing the same light blue uniforms as all the other soldiers in the base, and appeared to be cleaning plant matter out of the treads of the giant wheels that their mobile base travelled on. Considering those wheels were taller than they were, they were almost certainly going to be at it for a while. If the 37th was run anything like her Royal Guard, this was almost certainly a punishment for misbehaving soldiers.

“Let me put this in a way that even an idiot commoner like you can understand.” The second soldier continued. “We’re watching history in the making here, Quenser. But nobody here knows yet if it’s going to be the boring kind of history about treaties and negotiations and the invention of noodles, or the ‘fun’ kind of history where puny soldiers like us get crushed underfoot.”

“Dammit Heivia, why’d you have to bring up noodles? Now I’m hungry.”

“You weren’t listening to me at all, were you?!” Heivia dropped the brush he had been using to clean, and gabbed Quenser by his collar. “It’s your stupid fault we’re stuck doing this, so the absolute least you could do is listen to me when I’m talking to you!”

“Look, just because I was fantasising about a jumbo bowl of curry noodles with bits of chicken on top –”

“Why did you add all that extra detail?! Now I’m hungry!”

“– doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention.” Quenser finished.

Xlestia had been about to open her wings and command the winds to carry her to a different part of the base, but an unexpectedly serious note in Quenser’s voice made her decide to stay just a little longer.

“Basically, when it comes down to it, everyone’s worried about war, right?”

Heivia shoved his partner away with a huff and leaned against the wheel he was supposed to be cleaning. “Everyone except you, apparently. Look, the Legitimate Kingdom might be happy to negotiate with Equestria because we’re both run by aristocracy, but the other world powers won’t be so nice. The Capitalist Corporations won’t be able to stand someone other than them controlling the kind of gem deposits Equestria’s been showing off, and frankly I’m surprised the Faith Organisation hasn’t already declared a crusade against something so obviously outside any of their religious texts.”

“Aren’t pegasi from Greek Mythology?”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure they only had the one.”

Quenser paused in his own cleaning. “And the Information Alliance?”

“Dude, like I know what the government that literally bases itself around keeping secrets is going to do.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Hearing that the humans thought that war with her ponies was only a matter of time made Xlestia’s eyes narrow.

“Equestria doesn’t really stand a chance though.” Quenser shrugged.

Xlestia’s fur bristled.

“And tell me, oh wise all-knowing oracle, just how you came to that conclusion?” Heivia asked sarcastically.

“They don’t have Objects.”

Xlestia looked up from the two bickering soldiers back to the giant sphere of metal she had been studying before she had noticed Quenser and Heivia. As had already been mentioned, it was 50 meters (164 feet) tall, so it easily towered over the mobile base dedicated to its maintenance. Out from the main spherical body protruded 7 main cannons that reminded Xlestia of the legs of a crab the way they aimed around the body from their anchor point in the back. It was covered in hundreds of much smaller secondary cannons like the spines of a porcupine.

Xlestia had seen a demonstration of its power yesterday, when the base commander (a surprisingly young woman named Major Froleytia) had tried to get her open discussions about a mutual defence pact. The Object (this particular one was apparently named the ‘Baby Magnum’) had fired enormous beams of energy from its main cannons that had melted the majority of a small mountain. The Baby Magnum, Froleytia had explained, was an outdated First Generation model, and that anyone who came after Equestria with hostile intent would use Objects of the far more dangerous Second Generation.

But Xlestia (while secretly surprised at the magnitude of the destruction) wasn’t worried at all, because –

“No, they ‘just’ have an indestructible force-field instead.” Heivia said, voice still dripping with sarcasm.

Xlestia blinked at the human finishing her thoughts for her, but nodded in agreement, even though neither human knew she was there.

“Yeah, and that’s why they’ll lose.” Quenser said, picking up his brush and returning to the work they were supposed to be doing.

“Hey hey hey!” Heivia ran after Quenser. “Don’t say such unintuitive things and then leave without explaining anything!”

“Well, it’s true that Equestria has a perfect defence, but that’s all they have.” Quenser explained, gritting his teeth as he tried to pull loose a twig that had gotten firmly lodged between two treads of the giant tyres. “An army of ponies versus even one Object isn’t a battle; it’s a slaughter.”

“Not saying I disagree with you, having been on the wrong end of those monsters way too many times, but don’t they have those super-powerful ponies that claim they can even move the sun and the moon?”

“Unless they’re flat-out immortal, I seriously doubt they can take even one hit from an Object’s main weapon, and that reduces things down to rocket tag. And I doubt their princesses have ever gone through training like a Pilot Elite’s, so their reflexes are almost certainly slower.”

Xlestia, who was not ‘flat-out immortal’, began to suspect that this conversation was far more important than she’d initially thought.

“Okay, sure, so if they didn’t have that Barrier thing they’d lose. But that’s like saying we could totally go to Alpha Centuri if only it wasn’t four light-years away – it doesn’t actually make the problem any easier to solve.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“If one side had an understandable defence, but the other side by far has the superior army, then really there’s only one direction the status quo can change towards. By hiding behind their magic shield and laughing at their enemy for not being able to get to them, they’ve ceded initiative and left themselves wide open to when someone bypasses their ‘perfect’ defence.”

Xlestia felt a surge of indignity swell up inside her. ‘When’ they bypassed her Barrier?! The most advance spell she had ever wrought, overcome by people who didn’t even know the first thing about real magic?!

Once again, Heivia seemed to agree with her. “Oh yeah, genius? Lets hear some ideas on how exactly someone could cheat a pair of glass slippers out of their Fairy Godmother. The Electronic Simulation Division already verified that that Barrier thing is a sphere – your can’t just go around it. It even permeates through the earth, so digging a tunnel underground doesn’t get around it.”

“Did they they check to see if a laser goes through it?”

“What do you think was the first thing they tried, moron? Even though it’s transparent, lasers get blocked. Apparently, it works like those sunglasses that get darker when exposed to UV light.”

Wait. Xlestia eyes narrowed. When had they tried that? Had they tried to negotiate because they thought they couldn’t invade, or had they tried to figure out how to invade when she had refused to negotiate?

“I guess that makes sense.” Quenser conceded. “I mean, for their claim of ‘nuke-proof’ to stand up, it’d have to block harmful radiation, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, and if it can block dangerous EM waves some of the time, why not make it do that all of the time?”

The simmering heat of fury that Xlestia was feeling hearing the two discuss how best to kill all her charges was disrupted for a moment by a cold shudder that passed through her body. She hadn’t actually built the Barrier to do that – the fact that it blocked ‘lasers’ (whatever those were) was just a happy coincidence. If that hadn’t been the case, would she currently be fighting a war right now?

Heivia continued. “They ran though the entirety of the Baby Magnum’s armament. Lasers get absorbed, plasma gets cooled back into gas and then dispersed, and railgun and coilgun shells dissolve into what we’re pretty sure is flower pollen.”

Quenser up his index finger. “Weather goes though it. You could do something like build up a massive lightning charge with an ionising laser in a cloud you know will pass over your target.”

Quenser held up two fingers. “Ponies themselves can go through it, so once you had a sample of pony DNA you could grow yourself shells made of pony bone.”

Quenser held up three fingers. “And hey, if the Barrier turns solid materials into other solid materials, then just find one that turns into a rock or something and drop a heavy chunk of it from orbit.”

Quenser made to continue, but Heivia interrupted him. “I get it, I get it! There’s no limit to the human capacity for evil!”

He pointed a finger at Quenser. “However! Even if we could fire a weapon inside, that’s no guarantee that we could bring the Barrier down.”

“What, you actually believe them when they say that its a natural occurrence?”

“Oh, not a chance.”

Xlestia’s mouth fell open. They… hadn’t believed her?

“That thing’s way too convenient to be natural. It’s like a fat guy scarfing down bacon and claiming that he’s not cheating on his diet, it just rained food from the sky so he took it as a sign to eat.”

“Pretty much.” Quenser agreed. “Not to mention the fact that you can see from the satellite footage that it’s centred on their capital. That Barrier is about as natural as the giant erasers we have for rations around here.”

Xlestia’s blood ran cold. They knew.

“So what makes you think blowing things up is going to stop the Barrier? For all we know, it could be self-sustaining. Screw the second law of thermodynamics, it’s literally magic.”

“Because their princess isn’t an idiot, that’s how. Nobody sane would make something that big and dangerous without making it’s default behaviour ‘off’. It’s like how nuclear reactors automatically shut down if nobody is at the controls, or how more effort was put into making sure that nuclear bombs didn’t go off than was put into making sure that they did. When the potential for disaster is this high, you need your construct to become safe if you aren’t able to maintain it.”

Xlestia, who had been taking very quiet, shallow breaths, suddenly found herself taking deep gulps of air as her chest tightened. It… it was true, the Barrier would disappear if something were to happen to her, but that was because she was the one fuelling it with magic, not because she’d built any special safety feature into it. What sort of disaster could have befallen Equestria if the Barrier had malfunctioned, and she hadn’t been able to stop it?

“That’s why I think the higher-ups want a defence pact with Equestria.” Quenser shrugged. “Not because we think they can help defend us, but so that we can keep them alive while they figure out the secret to magic.”





“Princess?” Token Minion asked hesitantly. Xlestia was sopping wet from having washed off the Invisipaint, but it was her sombre expression that really gave Token pause. “Are you okay?”

Xlestia was quiet for a moment. Then she said, quietly: “We’re leaving.”

Token Minion looked up at her monarch, more that a little shocked at hearing such a defeated tone. “Um, leaving this area, or…?”

“This world.” Xlestia said, slightly testy. Token Minion immediately held her tongue, not at all wanting to add to Xlestia’s stress (despite the desperate urge to ask Wait, so you did bring us here on purpose after all?!).

“The humans of this world…” Xlestia muttered to the herself, trotting towards the secret workshop where she kept her notes on the spell that had brought them here originally. “…are far too ‘creative’.” She spat the last word like a curse.





When the alarm went up in the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion that the continent whose entrance they were guarding had suddenly vanished, all Major Froleytia could do is stare out the window in her quarters at the ocean view that hadn’t been there yesterday.

“Yeah.” She muttered. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t stay in this ****hole of a world one second longer either.”





World Ten – In which friendship is not rewarded and disharmony is not punished.





“You know, if you include those crossovers our author keeps including us in, this isn’t even the first time we’ve had to deal with magic?”
> World Eleven - Francia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two Alicorns sat on their haunches, looking out at the ocean from inside an enormous hemisphere of transparent glowing energy.

One of them turned her head to face the other. “Explain this to me again, Sister?”

Xlestia bit back a groan. “Right. This Barrier formed around Equestria after we were transported to this new world.”

“Right…” Luna nodded along.

“It doesn’t have any affect on magical beings, but it vaporises non-magical beings like the natives.”

“What does ‘non-magical’ mean?” Luna interrupted.

Xlestia looked down at her sister in confusion. “Non-magical. As in, they can’t use magic?”

“It was my understanding that they were perfectly capable of friendship.” Luna said.

“Real magic.”

“Friendship is ‘real’ magic, or should we get young Sparkle out here to explain your own teachings to you?”

“Anyway, to save all their lives, we have no choice but to turn them all into magical creatures. Specifically, ponies.”

“Even the insects?”

“No, we’re letting the insects die.”

“You monster!”

<Oliver, you have led us astray once again! Our destination lies not in Greece!>

Shocked, the two sisters turned back to the ocean. Absurdly, a group of humans in full-plate armour had entered their field of view. They seemed to be bickering with each other in a dialect of Fancy that had been considered archaic even when the sisters were young.

<Bradamante, where didst thou get this airheaded notion that we are in Greece? The noble unicorn is a creature of faraway India!> 

<No disrespect to thyself, Oliver, but I have been to India, and I never once saw a unicorn.>

<Astolpho, perchance are thou telling stories again? ‘tis no more believable than the time thou claimed to have visited the moon.>

<I did!>

One human was riding on the back of a hippogriff (they had hippogriffs here?!), and appeared to have a book open in his lap while arguing with his fellows. Another four were seated together on the biggest horse Xlestia had ever seen. The hippogriff was flying, as was natural, but the horse simply swam through the ocean, uncaring of his load. His impressive shoulder muscles worked up and down, and up and down, and… 

…

Xlesita didn’t even need to look to tell that Luna was making a face best described as “Hubba Hubba”.

<…Brother, I think the unicorns are staring at your horse.>

<This surprises me not. Bayard is truly a magnificent horse.>

Luna licked her lips. <Bayard, you say?>

The horse in question looked up upon hearing his name, while the humans riding him all reacted with surprise. <Oliver, are unicorns supposed to posses the power of speech?> Bradamante said. Judging by the sound of her voice, that human was female, which Xlestia was surprised by. She had thought they didn’t allow their females to go to battle.

‘Oliver’, who was at the rear of the humans riding Bayard, also seemed confused. <I recall no tale where they did, but also no tale where they did not?> For that matter, were unicorns supposed to have wings, or to come in such colours? Oliver suddenly wished he'd paid more attention in his lessons.

The humans all had their visors down, so Xlestia could not be sure, but she had a strong suspicion that Bradamante was currently rolling her eyes.

Regardless, she should probably step in before Luna did something regrettable, like ask the human’s steed out on a date. <For what reason have you come here, humans?>

<Ah, right!> Astolpho, the human riding the hippogriff, exclaimed. <Noble unicorns, perchance hast thou heard of an evil sorceress ‘round these parts?>

The two sisters looked at each other with confusion.

<Nay.> Luna replied. <Had we heard of such a thing, we wouldst have dealt with such a thing ourselves.>

<Where didst thou hear of such a thing?> Xlestia demanded.

<Ah.> Astolpho seemed slightly taken aback. <Well, you see, this book…> He lifted up the tome in his lap. <’twas gifted to me by a faerie, and contains knowledge on how to undo all forms of enchantment.>

<We are following its instructions to destroy yonder hemisphere.> Oliver said, indicating the Barrier that sat between the two groups.

One of the other humans, the one Bradamante had called brother, spoke up. <It said to head to the land of Equestria ‘cross the sea, which is ruled by a cruel sorceress; and that her defeat was the only way to lift the Doom.>

Xlestia’s muzzle became perfectly blank, but Luna’s twisted in confusion. <Didst said tome provide a name for this ruler?>

<Aye.> Astolpho replied. <It says that her name is Celestia. Hast thou ever heard of a ruler by that name?>

There was a moment of utter silence as Luna slowly turned to face her sister.

At this point, Xlestia figured that she had better cut her losses, and hope that Luna would be willing to listen to an explanation later. She’d thought that this world had no magic on it, but considering the presence of hippogriffs (and, apparently, fae), it was obvious that she’d missed some. She’d have to defeat these humans now, and try and salvage her plan afterwards.

With a moments thought, a beam of golden fire was charged and launched from her horn towards Astolpho on his hippogriff.

The moment was apparently all the warning Astolpho needed, however, and he nudged the hippogriff into a dive, dodging the deadly spell.

<Sorcery!> He gasped

<Paladins! Advance!> Cried Oliver. He fumbled for a horn tied to his waist, which he blew.

Xlestia’s dropped a forcefield around the entire group, preventing them from moving away from the Barrier.

“Sister! What is thou doing?!” Luna demanded, so flustered that she forgot to use modern speech.

“Later, Luna!” Xlestia cried, trusting that Luna would fight on her side for now.

Meanwhile, Bradamante had been repositioning herself so that she was standing on Bayard’s saddle, rather than sitting in it. With a wordless cry, she jumped clear off the horse and into the Barrier.

Xlestia fully expected the Barrier to do its job and vaporise the stupid woman (who was apparently a ‘Paladin’). She was therefore completely flummoxed when the woman flew straight through the Barrier as though it wasn’t there, landing in a noisy roll and ending in a heavily-armoured crouch.

<How?!> She cried, unable to think of anything else to say.

<I bear a ring that protects me from all forms of magick, sorceress.> Bradamante spat, drawing her sword.

She stumbled forward as Luna levitated a rock into the back of her helmet at speed. <Don’t you dare draw a sword on my sister!>

<Nay. It is you who should not have attacked my beloved!>

Another one of the humans on Bayard had drawn their sword and stabbed it into the Barrier. As he drew it downwards, the Barrier parted around it, leaving a visible tear in the magic. With another few swings, he had cut a hole big enough for the group to climb through.

<An anti-magic sword as well?!> Xlestia would have thrown back her hooves to the sky in askance, had she not been in combat at the time. <Why do you bear so much equipment for combating magic?!>

Astolpho and his hippogriff flew through the hole in the Barrier. <We fight sorcerers a lot.> He said simply.

<‘Can’t use magic’, you said?> Luna said to Xlestia out of the corner of her mouth. Xlestia scowled back at her.

Bayard planted a hoof on solid ground, and the remaining paladins dismounted as they came through the Barrier. Curiously, Bayard seemed to shrink as the humans left his back, becoming only a normal-sized horse with one rider remaining.

The man with the anti-magic sword held said sword aloft. <Beware! You fight Rogero, wielder of Besald, and wearer of the invincible armour of Hector!>

<Is your armour also immune to magic?>

Rogero seemed slightly taken aback at Xlestia’s question. <Well, nay, but – aaahhhh!> He screamed as Xlestia telekinetically grabbed his foot and flung him skyward. He missed the Barrier, but given the distance he flew he would not be taking part in the remainder of the fight.

Astolpho swooped down on Xlestia with his Hippogriff while Oliver advanced on Luna and Bradamante’s not-yet-named brother helped her to her feet.

Luna, for her part, seemed really unhappy with how things were going, and kept shooting Xlestia angry glances, but seemed resigned to fighting on her side. She opened her wings up and flew out of reach of the paladin's swords. She yanked back the hippogriff with an angry telekinetic pull on its tail-feathers.

Bradamante, having now found her footing, thrust forth her sword and charged Xlestia. The Alicorn, now aware that the Dame was immune to magic, knew she could not repeat the same trick as before. She jumped back, catching herself with her wings and following Luna’s lead in flying out of reach.

Watching his hippogriff struggling to escape from Luna’s magical grasp, Astolpho drew a horn of his own from his belt and blew it in Luna’s direction. The horn must have been enchanted somehow, because Luna gasped and let go of the hippogriff, looking like she was only just holding herself back from fleeing.

It was no Queen Nova, but that hippogriff could seriously fly. Faster than Xlestia could see, the hippogriff was upon her, raking her barrel with his claws and pulling her to the ground. Xlestia screamed in rage, and gave a mighty buck with her hind legs in exchange, kicking the hippogriff clear.

Bradamante knew better than to waste an opportunity like this, and leapt onto Xlestia’s back, plunging her sword between her shoulders.

Screaming again, and feeling her vision beginning to blur, Xlesita rolled onto her back, crushing Bradamante under her full weight. The Dame’s full-plate offered some protection, but Xlestia heard at least one bone crack under the pressure. The sword plunged into her own flesh snapped under the force, sending another white-hot lance of pain throughout her body.

The fact that she could still move meant the sword had missed anything important, but that didn’t mean her life wasn’t in danger. She needed to end the fight, now.

Less because of any conscious thought, and more out of pain and rage, her body caught alight, her form blurring away into one made entirely of fire. Enraged, she turned to face Bayard and his rider, barely registering Luna and the hippogriff fighting in the background, Oliver flanking her sister from below.

<Hmph.> The rider snorted. <Rabicano’s fiery form is far more impressive to gaze upon.>

Whoever Rabicano was, Xlestia doubted they’d ever charged him with this amount of fury. Bayard pushed back – Xlestia regretted needing to fight him even now, he really was an impressive horse – but as magical as Bayard seemed to be (her flames seemed to do no damage), his master was not and Bayard retreated rather then risk his masters life.

Soon, only Oliver remained. However, as Luna and Xlestia bore down on him, he seemed more annoyed than anything else. <Can the man really not hear his own horn?> He muttered.

He raised his sword to make his last stand –

Then a tree flew through the air and smashed into Luna like a bolt of thunder.

Oliver groaned. <Thou took thy sweet time, Roland.>

<Still thy tongue. ‘twas not I who raced on ahead.> A new paladin, sopping wet and with a light coating of dirt stood by the tear in the Barrier. A hole in the ground and a missing tree made it obvious who had just attacked Luna.

<Renauld offered to carry you on Bayard.> Oliver countered. <’twas thou who decided to swim on thy own.>

Xlestia had had more than enough of this – she was sick of the fight, and she needed to make sure Luna was alright. When she was like this, fire came more naturally than breathing – it required no effort at all to have flames shoot forth from her horn, completely enveloping both paladins.

She kept the fire up for several seconds, then stopped.

If this was a comic book, this would be where a cloud of smoke obscures the battlefield and conceals weather the target really died or not.

This was not a comic book however, and so Xlestia could quite clearly see that Roland and Oliver were fine, her fire-blast having been cut in two by Roland’s sword.

<Is that another sword that cuts through magic?> Xlestia demanded, exasperated.

<Don’t be foolish.> Roland rebuked. <Durandal cuts through everything.>

Xlestia tried to take to the skies again, but Roland bent his knees and leapt several meters high to grab onto her flaming hoof. Ignoring the heat, the paladin swung his sword up, hitting her horn with the flat of the blade.

The hit registered even through the red haze coating Xlestia’s vision, and she realised that her Fire Form had failed even as she fell to the ground.

When she regained her senses, it was to find herself collapsed on her side, Roland standing above her with his sword aimed between her eyes.

<Well?> She demanded.

Roland did not respond for a moment, then lowered his sword and lifted his visor.

<Fair unicorn…> Roland said. <Hast thou heard the Good News of our lord and saviour, Jesus Christ?>

Xlestia, half dead and bleeding profusely, looked up at the absolutely ridiculous man. <What.>





World Eleven - The Matter of Friendship
> Straightforward failures three
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ten minutes

There was only twelve of them left.

How sad was that?

They’d started as a full-strength militia, thousands strong… reduced to twelve.

The worst part is that most of those thousands weren’t dead.

At the same time though, you couldn't really say that there was anything left of them.

“What do you mean, ten minutes?!” Hawkeye screamed at Reaper.

“It’s exactly what it sounds like.” Reaper snarled back. “Ten minutes is the shortest the timer on this thing will go.”

Voodoo bit her bottom lip as she looked at it. It was the device they had lost Sarge and her group retrieving. It was the last great piece of human technology – the last great bang before they went out. Knowing full well what it was, it made her feel scared and comforted and ashamed all at once.

To be standing next to the greatest remaining device of the human race, and knowing that it was a weapon of mass destruction.

“Reaper.” Hawkeye ground out. “Just one minute is an eternity in a battlefield, and you expect the twelve of us to hold out for ten minutes?!”

“Like I said, that’s as soon as I can get it!”

“You can’t just touch some wires together or something?”

“Hawkeye, the people who made this thing probably spent more time making sure it wouldn’t go off than they spent making sure it would! Ten minutes, and not a second less!”

“U-um…”

Everyone turned around to face Roadie, the youngest of the group –barely 14, if that. She flinched at the attention.

“What?” Reaper spat, but without any real heat. “You got a better idea?”

“W-well, um… we know about the timer and such…”

“Yes?” Hawkeye demanded impatiently.

Roadie glared at him for his tone, seeming to gain a bit of confidence. “But, um, do the ponies?”





The ponies found them only a minute or so later. They swarmed round the building, hundreds strong. Reaper did some quick math in his head, and realised that they didn’t have enough bullets to shoot them all, and that was assuming he killed one with each shot.

Even knowing that, his hands twitched towards his pistol in its holster.

A pony from outside shouted, using the magical equivalent of a megaphone. “Humans! The kingdom of Equestria beckons you to a better life – lay down your arms and accept the invitation of our majestic princesses to a life of peace and friendship!”

“Stay back!” Hawkeye hollered back from inside the entrance to the building. “We have hostages!”

There was a pause on the pony end. “What do you mean, hostages?”

“I mean” Hawkeye yelled, slowly and condescendingly “we are holding people captive, and that if you lot come storming in this building we will kill them!”

“You… you… scum!” The pony sounded like he wanted to use stronger words then that, but couldn’t – which meant he was probably a newfoal.

There was silence for a little while, and then a new voice boomed out.

“Humans. I am Princess Celestia of Equestria.”

The breath caught in the chest of every human in the building. It was her! The tyrant, here in the flesh!

“Who, exactly, are you holding hostage?” The princess asked, her voice calm and level. Hawkeye wondered if she had actually done this before, or if she was just always like this.

“Ourselves.” Hawkeye answered.

Another pause. “Excuse me?”

“We are holding ourselves hostage. Oh, and you lot of course.”

“Are you threatening to shoot yourselves?”

“We have a bomb in here. The last of humanity’s great bombs, if you get my drift.”

From his position next to a second story window, Reaper could see waves of shock and uncertainty pass through the giant herd outside.

Celestia spoke again. “And you are threatening to set this bomb off?”

Reaper moved to the right side of the window, and realised with a small shock that he could actually see Celestia from where he was. His fingers twitched. My kingdom for a sniper rifle…

Of course, that line of thinking was why the others had taken all but his pistol away from him. This plan relied on them talking their way out, and gunshots would be the fastest way to stop the talking.

“Yeah.” Hawkeye yelled. “So stay back, or Equestria becomes a monarchy!”

“Aren’t was already a monarchy?” Reaper heard hushed talking, and realised there were pegasi right outside his window.He bit back a curse. The door was on the other side of the room – he would be seen if he moved, if he hadn’t been already.

“Technically we’re a diarchy, because of Princess Luna.” Another voice whispered back.

“Oh. So, is he…?”

“Yeah. He’s threatening to kill the princess.”

“The… the… the meanie!”

Another newfoal, or Reaper would eat his hat.

Then Celestia’s horn lit up, and suddenly Reaper had more important things to worry about. He upholstered his pistol as silently as he could manage, and stood up to aim out the window.

He found himself staring into the painfully familiar eyes of a Pegasus. A pale yellow Pegasus with a red mane. Reaper’s heart thudded in his chest, as he realised he was looking at whatever was left of the only girl he had every loved.

Lisa…

They held eye contact for several seconds, then Lisa – or whatever she was calling herself now – dashed away on her new wings, her eyes wide with fear. The other Pegasus hesitated, but flew after her.

Reaper realised, with surprise, that the thought of pulling the trigger hadn’t even occurred to him.

-tick- -tick- -tick- -tick tick tick tick-

Reaper’s attention was drawn back to Celestia as her horn made those noises, her horn pointed right at where the bomb was. She scowled, and her horn went dark.

Reaper blinked. Did… did she just use her horn as a Geiger counter?

“It appears that you really do have one of those abominations.” Celestia said, the magical amplification ensuring that she could be heard from inside even while talking normally.

Reaper quickly closed and bolted the window, moving to a different room straight afterwards. Keep the element of surprise. His sniper training told him. They do not know where you are. You know where they are.

“What exactly do you hope to achieve here?” Celestia continued. “You must know by now that you are the last. There is nowhere for you to go – nowhere to retreat to. I control the whole planet now.”

Reaper’s fingers twitched, and he calmed himself by pretending he was strangling a pony. Lying witch. He thought. There was no way that was true. He wouldn’t believe it.

“That logic goes both ways, princess.” Hawkeye called. “Like you said, we’re the last. But this isn’t a video game – there’s no reward for 100% completion. Even if we didn’t have this thing, we’d take as many of ‘your little ponies’” he said with a mocking tone “with us as possible. How many pony lives is a human conversion worth?”

Celestia did not immediately respond, which caused Reaper to raise an eyebrow from his new vantage point. Wasn’t the whole point that she valued ponies over humans?

He’d moved to a room on the same floor, but on the corner of the building closest to Celestia. If things went south, he was going to empty his whole clip into her skull and work from there.

As a pleasant side-effect of his move, he could just hear what the ponies around Celestia were talking about:

“Princess, what are we going to do?!” Some random earth pony squirmed.

Celestia seemed to have stopped the megaphone spell, because her voice was a normal volume again. “Don’t fret, my little pony. We just need to think calmly and clearly. There’s no way a bunch of monkeys can outsmart us.”

“W-what if we teleported the bomb away?! T-that would work, right?” A unicorn suggested around his stammer.

“Unfortunately, we would need to know exactly where it is, and we only have a general idea. Besides, humanity’s thirst for destructive power is insatiable. I’m not sure even I could teleport it far enough away to make sure nopony is hurt.”

It was clearly meant to be an insult, but Reaper smirked. That’s right, our bomb outdoes your fancy little horn.

“What about turning it to stone?” Another unicorn suggested. “You can turn things to stone, right Princess?”

“I can.” Celestia confirmed. “But the spell takes time to work. I would be gambling that I could neutralise the device faster than the humans can set it off.”

This was the whole crux of their bluff – getting the ponies to think that they could set off the bomb at any time. In actuality, they’d need ten minutes.

Something was happening down with the ponies. Reaper squinted, and moved slightly to get a better view. He flinched when he saw what was happening. The pony that had formerly been Lisa had walked up to Celestia.

“Please, Princess… could I talk to them?” She asked, and the reverence in her voice made Reaper want to kill something more than usual.

Celestia managed a pained smile, the megaphone spell deactivating again. “My little pony, this is quite a delicate matter. A single wrong word could spook them.”

“I… I know one of the humans in there.”

Reaper’s eyes widened. She could remember her life as a human?!

Celestia also seemed surprised, but then her smile lost its pained edge. “Then of course you can.” Her horn flashed briefly, and ‘Lisa’’s throat glowed the same colour for a second.

The Pegasus turned her head towards the room that Reaper had originally been in, and spoke, voice amplified. “Michael…”

It had been years since Reaper had been able to do anything but scowl while ponies were nearby. His scowl on hearing that name but those expressions of disgust to shame. “Lisa.” He called back, not caring if he was exposing his position.

The pony’s head turned to face the direction of his voice, then flinched and turned away. “…actually, my name is Sky Shimmer now.”

Raw, liquid hate surged through his veins. “Then you can call me Reaper.”

“It… it doesn’t need to be like this, R-reaper.” She stumbled over the name. “You… you don’t have to be the last. You don’t need to fight us. You d-don’t have to fight… me.”

“I was offered this deal before, Sky Shimmer.” She flinched, despite having been the one saying that that was her name. “I said no. That should have been the end of it. Why wasn’t that the end of it, Sky Shimmer?”

The sheer hate he was putting into her name made Sky Shimmer cringe. A hoof on her shoulder made her look behind her: Celestia was gently shaking her head, eyes closed. Sky Shimmer’s head dropped.

“Alright.” Hawkeye must have thought that he’d waited long enough, because he started yelling out again. “This is how this is going to work. We are going to come out now in our truck.” Because a bomb of that yield was not something you could carry by hand. “You so much as twitch, or we see a single glowing horn, and boom. We’re all dead. We are going to walk to the airport, and fly out of here, and you are not going to have us followed. If we see a pony at any point after we leave here, boom. You understand?”

“Where, exactly,” Celestia responded, megaphone spell back on “do you plan to go?”

“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” Hawkeye yelled, his voice full of bitterness. “Somewhere you’ll leave us alone. Some island in the middle of the sea, maybe. We’ll set the bomb up with a dead-man’s switch – if you ponify us, we’ll forget how to activate it, and boom. You see how this goes?”

“I understand.” She responded, sounding like she didn’t like it one bit.

Reaper got one last glimpse of Sky Shimmer as the crew drove off. He was squatting on the roof, pistol in hand, daring anypony to follow after them. She was hovering in mid-air, by chance almost eye level with him as they passed.

Her eyes were filled with tears, and Reaper wanted to scowl, to yell, to flip the bird.

But he didn’t.

He just crouched and watched the girl he’d one loved recede into the distance.





Ponies After People (Spoilers for the first story)

Xlestia had grown out of what she would later think off as her "Twilight" years before she hit 200 years old, but for her plan for 'saving' the human race she had fallen back on old habits and created a checklist.




Create dimensional transfer spell and make sure it works (this step was so important it had it's own seperate checklist)

Transport the entirety of the kingdom of Equestria to the human dimension

Make sure you went to the right Earth, and not that high school one

Make first contact with the humans


And so on.

Of all the steps she had expected trouble with, step 4 had not been it.

"Alright." Xlestia said, sitting down in the middle of a deserted suburban street. "Either the humans have figured out how to make themselves invisible, or they aren't here."

Hurricane Winds and Token Minion exchanged a look.

"Every human settlement we've seen has been abandoned or on fire." Hurricane Winds was the only pegasi still with the group - the rest had flown off to go whip up a series of rainstorms to get at least the nearby fires under control. "No signs that the humans just up and left. It's like they just vanished."

And on top of everything else, Xlestia's horn kept aching. That probably meant that one of her detector spells were going off, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out which one. She couldn't even figure out which direction it was coming from, considering that it seemed to be coming from everywhere.

"Oh, um, hello miss... princess?"

Xlestia looked up to see a pegasi mare with a grey mane drift down to the ground nearby. Xlestia blinked, not immediately recognising the mare, but responding politely anyway. "Yes, my little pony?"

"What are you doing here?" The new mare blinked up at Xlestia, who blinked right back down.

"We're looking for the humans." Xlestia said, slightly worried. "Don't you remember?"

"Recruit!" Hurricane Winds roared (who didn't recognise the new mare either and just assuming that she was new). "Did you pay no attention to your briefing at all?!"

"Cloudy Skies!" A second voice came from a side street, and a young filly wearing a coat charged out to nearly tackle the pegasi. "What did I say about... uh..."

The filly had completely frozen up, staring at Xlestia, who for her part just tilted her head. "Are you alright, my little pony?"

She wanted to ask who let the filly sneak along on the potentially dangerous mission, but after said filly was safely out of earshot.

"You!" The filly screamed, a hoof extended to point directly at Xlestia. "You... what?! How?! You can't be here!"

Xlestia blinked, then her eyes narrowed. "And why exactly can't I be here, my little pony?"

The filly blinked, then their indignation seemed to evaporate immediately into near-panic. They looked around frantically, seemingly only now realising that they were surrounded by the ponies that had accompanied Xlestia.

"Well?" Xlestia raised an eyebrow. "I'm waiting."





It was a weird quirk of an infinite multiverse that when jumping from one universe to the other, the chances of you finding any given thing on the other side were 50/50. There were an infinite number of universes where X had happened, and an infinite number where it hadn't.

Xlestia knew this before making her jump, but still found herself surprised. Of all the things she would have though would put her plan in jeopardy, she would not have guessed that another version of herself would turn all the humans into ponies before she could get there.

"And... then what?" She pressed the young filly, whose name was apparently 'Alex'. (She'd have to do something about that - her pegasi companion at least had the sense to take an appropriately pony name.)

"And then nothing." Alex scowled up at Xlestia. "You turned us all into ponies and things, dumped a library on me and left us all out to dry."

Xlestia had already corrected Alex several times that that hadn't been her but an alternate, but the filly seemed to hold every Celestia responsible for what had happened to this humanity. "But where are the other humans?" Xlestia pressed. "There should be billions of you!"

"You said you tossed them into the future." Alex continued scowling. "So that we could get Earth ready for them to live here."

Xlestia sighed, rubbing a forehoof into her face. Of course my alternate had to half-ass this...

Then she straightened up. "Alright, Token. Change of plans. We're going to have to accelerate the food distribution plans. I'll get started on yanking newfoals out of this time-skip spell, so tell Twilight that we'll need her organisational skills sooner rather than later."

Cloudy Skies blinked up at Xlestia in surprise, while Alex's eyes bugged out. "What?!" She spluttered. "You told me you couldn't undo the time spell!"

"I suspect my alternate doesn't know about time magic as much as I do." That was what was making her horn ache, she realised - all the time magic in the air. "Otherwise she'd know that it's a reasonably simple matter to make the future come now."

Alex gaped like a fish for a moment, before moving onto another objection. "You can't just move in and take over!" She shouted.

"Well, I can't exactly leave you alone, now can I?" Xlestia replied easily. Yes... she couldn't slip the mental 'purify' into transformations that had already happened, but now she was in a position where assuming responsibility for the human race was actually the right thing to do.

How ironic.





TV Trope Pantheons (Standard TV Tropes warnings apply)

Long ago, the Great Editors had poured over Everything, the great cloth of reality and imagination woven together into story and song. They laughed and cried and raged and cheered, and grew quite fond of the everytale.

They had their favourites, of course, and wished to proclaim them for all to see. Thus, the Pantheons were born, and grew their own lore to be part of Everything (though good luck finding any of it).

But for those the Great Editors despised... for those, they created the Disgraces. While the Pantheons were a symbol of the highest status the Great Editors could grant, the Disgraces were the blackest of shames they could bestow.

But the existence of the Disgraces caused great division amongst the Great Editors and their followers, as they argued back and forth about who was Most Worst and whether or not some characters were supposed to be satire or not. Eventually the Great Flame Wars consumed the Disgraces entirely, destroying them altogether. Only through the power of the Wayback Machine could the Disgraces be remembered.

But somehow, despite having been cast into the Void, today the Disgraces had a visitor.

Lightning sparked. A breeze started out of nowhere. A small burst of light heralded the teleport of a new arrival into Purgatory.

"I did it! I did it!" Xlestia cried, eyes closed as she pranced in place. "Suck on that Starswirl, you can teleport a country across dimensional boundaries wait where's my castle?"

Having finally opened her eyes, Xlestia blinked at her surroundings. Nothing but swirling mists surrounded her on all sides. Her voice echoed oddly though the space, making her think that she was in an enclosed space but unable to see any walls.

"Alright, maybe Starswirl was on to something." Xlestia bit her bottom lip. "Something tells me I'd better get out of here right away."

A cold laugh echoed through the empty space, making Xlestia whirl around looking for the source. "Leave? Oh, my dear little pony, I'm afraid you can't leave this place."

Xlestia's mouth went dry. That... that was her voice.

She stood in shock as another her walked calmly out of the mists.

Xlestia swallowed. She couldn't put her hoof on why, but the Other just felt... more than she did. "Who... who are you?"

"Who am I?" The Other laughed. "Silly pony. I am - " a golden ethereal chain briefly flashed into visibility, wrapped tightly around her neck, and the Other hissed in pain. "I am - " The chain flared into visibility again, and the Other roared in pain and frustration.

Xlestia started slowly backing up.

"The fools who bound me here," the Other hissed "insist that I be known only as Xenocelestia, a 'Greater God' of the Disgraces, Enforcer of Portraying Xenocide as Heroic, and Preacher of the Gospel of Bastard Humans."

"Uh," Xlestia swallowed. "You don't say." Her rump softly collided with something behind her - she didn't take her eyes off of 'Xenocelestia' to find out what.

Xenocelestia shook herself, resuming a regal pose. "Now, my little pony, tell me everything about how you came to be here." She stared intently into Xlestia's eyes, and began advancing on her. "Did you offend the wrong Editor? Did your Author abandon you? Or, like me, were you trapped in a swirling current of the evertale, your story told over and over and over and over and wrong every time, distorted just a little more with each iteration until one day you look into the mirror and find that even you don't know what you are anymore - "

"I messed up a teleport!" Xlestia squawked.

Xenocelestia paused. "Ah, that old plot device." She said, softly. "So, am I to take it then that you were not cast into this abyss, but merely found your way here by chance?"

Xlestia nodded frantically.

Xenocelestia smiled wide, and there was madness in her eyes. "Well then." She cooed. "If you found your way here, perhaps you could find your way out, yes? And if you can leave, then maybe... just maybe..."

Xenocelestia started laughing. It was a wet, hacking noise that sounded less like a noise of joy and more like the death rattle of the gravely ill.

But suddenly, a bright white light flared in the bleakness. "Get away from her!"

Xenocelestia hissed, flinching away from the light. Xlestia just stared. "Who..."

"Princess Celestia," the third her announced "intermediate goddess of the House of Beast. And I won't let you take..." She trailed off, having gotten a good look at Xlestia. Her face fell. "They made another one?"

"Interesting." Xenocelestia said, softly. "I didn't know that those of the Pantheons could still visit the Disgraces after we were cast into the Void."

"I had to burn a lot of favours to come down here." Celestia said, her mouth stretched into a line. "And now I have to wonder if it was worth it."

Seeing that Xenocelestia was distracted, Xlestia quickly charged her horn and teleported over behind Celestia, trying not to look like she was hiding behind the other her.

"I find it interesting." Xenocelestia continued. "That you would try so hard to rescue her, but you are perfectly content to leave me to rot." She kept staring in the direction that Xlestia had been in, uncaring that she had moved.

"Don't think I don't pity you." Celestia forced out. "But you can't properly be forgiven until you repent for what you did."

"I can't." Xenocelestia murmured. "You know I can't. They made me this way."

"Um, just for ponies who have no idea what's going on," Xlestia interjected "what exactly did she do?"

Celestia glanced over her shoulder at Xlestia, before returning her eyes to Xenocelestia. "She tried to wipe out all of humanity by turning them into ponies."

Xlestia went pale.

Xenocelestia started laughing again. "It had to be done." She said. "Humanity had to be cleansed of their sin. They were mortal, lost, soulless, godless. I saved them from all of that."

"What."

Xenocelestia and Celestia both paused.

Xlestia stepped out from behind Celestia. "You think humanity is what?"

"Oh, the humans say they have gods, but when was their last miracle?" Xenocelestia's lips curled upwards. "Their last visitation? Their last divine - "

"I don't care about that!" Xlestia interrupted. "Go back to the part where you think humans don't have souls!"

Xenocelestia again paused before responding. "Souls are magic. Humans have no magic. Ergo, humans have no souls."

Xlestia's face twisted in disgust. Celestia looked between the two derivations of herself, mouth pressed into a worried frown.

"Even if that made sense," Xlestia began "which it doesn't, that would make trying to save humans pointless!"

"...is that so?" Was all Xenocelestia said in response.

"I don't think - " Celestia tried to interject, but Xlestia wasn't having any of it. She glared full force at the back of Xenocelestia's head.

"A soul is not some magical organ designed to persist you beyond death!" Xlestia shouted. "A soul is you! If I were to rip your soul from your body and placed it in a doll, 'you' would be in the doll, not your former body! Adding a soul to something that didn't have it already doesn't 'preserve' that object - it creates a new person!"

Xlestia spat on the ground between her and Xenocelestia. "Go dump Love Poison in the water supply if you want new subjects that badly."

Xlestia turned to leave. "I can see why she was cast down here. Come, let us away before her stupidity infects us."

When Celestia didn't immedently respond, Xlestia looked around. Celestia was staring, face unreadable, at Xenocelestia, who still had not turned around.

"Don't tell me you agree with her?" Xlestia asked, incredulous.

Celestia shook her head. "No..." She sighed, closing her eyes. "But I think you're yelling at the wrong target."

Before Xlestia could ask her what she meant, a soft glow enveloped the both of them and the two vanished; leaving Xenocelestia alone in the mists once more.