> Coco's Bizarre Adventure: Nothing's Kingdom
>  by Ditherer the Fussbudget
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although news traveled slowly in the aftermath and it was hard for any individual to form an accurate timeline, in truth all of the disasters occurred on the same Spring midnight. For most, it started with their dream, whatever dream it had been, being interrupted by the voice of a Princess.

“ATTENTION, ALL SUBJECTS. AN UNKNOWN FORCE IS TARGETING THE EQUESTRIAN DREAMSCAPE. WE ASK THAT YOU DO NOT PANIC. CELESTIA AND THE ELEMENTS ARE PRESENT TO RESTORE ORDER. IF ANY AMONG YOU SEE MALEVOLENT ACTIVITY, EVEN IN THE FORM OF NIGHT TERRORS, PLEASE CALL FOR US.” The call rang through thousands of imagined landscapes.

Five minutes later, everypony forcefully woke up, most after experiencing the most terrifying nightmares of their lives.

It was a testament to her industry that Coco Pommel regularly slept from 3 to 7 in the morning, so she’d instead been passing the time with bookkeeping. At the time of the incident, she had walked out on her apartment’s balcony for a short break and a view of the horizon. Like the other nocturnal ponies that night, she simply felt a part of her awareness being torn out by an overeager surgeon. The pain split deep in her head, in her being, and like all the others her ability to dream was ripped away and replaced by a series of images.

Ponies, crystal ponies she’d rarely seen as tourists in Manehattan, gathered around a massive circle covered in crystal, blue then white then yellow, all draining of color and clouded with imperfections--

Evil, pure and palpable evil, assembling itself into a pair of eyes that glowed green fire, that stared into her soul and seemed to assess her entire life in an instant, from her first schoolfilly crush to her most recent lies, and found her lacking in a way she knew she’d never make up for--

What she recognized on sight as gemstone versions of the cutie marks of Princess Celestia and Luna, and then the six belonging to the Elements of Harmony, entering the flames and surrendering to it, feeding it with form and essence and turning the eyes into a unicorn that stood fifteen hooves tall--

The Princess Mi Amore Cadenza unleashing her final magic and slumping to the floor of her regal chamber as a cage of black crystal manifested itself from the air around her, a look of total fatigue on her face--

All of Equestria being enveloped in darkness, frothing its way from the north. From a dizzying height, a view of everything being covered in black crystal, of new roads being paved and massive palaces formed, and of the fires and black clouds that represented whole towns--

And, finally, the part that took four minutes and thirty seconds, which was specialized for her by the curse that had just reviewed her life - specialized to give the maximum strike to her psyche:

Rarity, the mare who had rescued her from a life in the background, who had forgiven her and then gone as far as to employ her, whose generosity was matched only by her beauty, sweating and tossing in her bed, surrounded by the sickly green aura. Then, what Coco instinctively knew was the dream Rarity was having at that second, being trapped in a jagged black prism that squeezed and shrunk until the edges punctured her eggshell skin with wicked gentleness.

Rarity was separated from all of her friends, having lost them somewhere further back. The dreams had devolved into their natural chaos without Princess Luna’s control, and all of the others were in exactly the same position, playthings of the new god of dreams. On an island from anything she had ever known, and completely unable to wake up, she stood against the sheer physical force coming down on her from all sides, straining and then--

Coco snapped out of it to find herself crying silently, looking at the stars above. It was in that single, unclouded instant that she realized the magnitude of the vision, of the white unicorn’s defiance against pain and adversity. The exact face she made as she was trapped, without thought of her own pain, continuing to struggle against something as massive and ancient as that evil...

"I love Rarity," she whispered to herself like a revelation, and she knew in that moment that there was no wallpapering over that fact any longer.

Then she realized that the stars in the center of her vision were edged by the slow-moving sides of buildings, and she finally regained the presence to feel the air flowing against her back and notice the stars shrink, and she realized that while she’d been away her body had moved on its own. (This happened to most of those affected, though they were rarely in conditions where it had mattered or been noticed afterward.)

Coco Pommel was falling, from her eighth-story apartment, onto the street below.


ココの奇妙な冒険 - 何も王国が所有します
Coco’s Bizarre Adventure
ざわNothing’s Kingdomざわ



Later, three days later, Scootaloo rode alongside the train tracks at breakneck speed, Jewel Joy close behind. The chase wasn’t supposed to go on this long, and Canterlot had fallen into the background a few minutes ago, but Joy plowed ahead in perverse glee.

It helped that Joy was the one standing on a train.

“｢Go Zone｣!” Scootaloo cried, and the dirt propelled her onward, ever-faster.

The train was barely keeping up, but it was still chugging along beside her, grinding into the rails where black crystals had grown in. Those crystals would've derailed a regular train, which was why they were there, but for Joy they weren't even bumpy enough to disrupt her sunglasses. Scootaloo could hear her laughter over the wind, and a glance over her shoulder showed Joy cackling to the sky itself, shining so brightly it almost hurt to watch.

That glance is what cost her, because she didn't notice the pony coming up along the tracks, wearing saddlebags and stopping to stare at the chase in progress. At least, not until it was too late. 

"｢Go Zone｣!" she shouted, trying to stop herself, and then she flew over her handlebars and face-planted, skidding and tumbling away from the mare before sprawling on the dirt.

Coco, who'd spent the last days walking alone, only had a moment to register all of this before Joy's train barreled past her. It was painted with flame decals and glowing eyes that seemed to move everywhere as it rushed by, like flipbook images. And then, suddenly, it wasn't there. 

When Joy leapt from it, it popped soundlessly out of existence, and then in a flash of light an immaculate crystal staircase materialized to break her fall. Only once she’d trotted to ground level did the crystal pony turn to Coco.

"Be with you in a moment, dearie," she said. And then something rose from her body, something that didn't look fully real. The creature looked like a pony from a distance, but up close it didn't have a face. It was just a mass of glittering white panels arranged over albino skin, and it hovered three hooves off the ground, bearing down on the injured filly.

"Urgh..." Scootaloo grunted as she pushed herself up, concentrating on looking hurt. That's right, come closer, buddy. Just a little closer, and we'll make it about strength instead of tricks. I'll beat that thing into the dirt and all your little spy friends, too, and anypony who thinks they can mess with my town and get away with it!

Joy grinned like a fool.

Coco threw herself between the pegasus and the monster, having thrown off the saddlebags. Head bent to the ground, she leered through cyan bangs at the assailant.

"You can see it?" Joy asked, and then relented her attack, pulling back the creature while she sized up the newcomer, "You must have a Stand of your own, then!"

"Stand..." Coco croaked, her voice unused days.

Joy grinned. "No need to play dumb, dearie, not when it's such fun to show them off! Doesn't it feel so fulfilling to be the chosen ones? I certainly wouldn't feel like such a gem without my ｢The Holograms｣."

"I don't know what you're talking about. But if it involves hurting this filly, I can't let you do it."

"Well, maybe you don't know and maybe you do. Either way, if you won't show me I'll have to drag it out of you. Stands fascinate me, you know, and I simply can't go without seeing what one does," she trailed off as she glanced at Scootaloo, and her voice lost its humor, "...Even if troublesome foals want to keep me away from all the fun in Ponyville."

"You'll never get inside," Scootaloo spat. Come on, just a couple of meters closer, if this lady'll get out of the way…

"Oh, hush," Joy said, and then there was a flash of light behind Coco. By the time she turned around, Scootaloo was already trapped inside of a glass coffin, pounding on it to no avail. She rushed over and tried to crack it from the outside, but her hooves fell straight through and hit the dirt on the other side. And by the time she registered that, the coffin lifted into the air and floated beside the crystal pony, and Coco's heart froze at how much the sight reminded her of Rarity's pain. There was that same look in the filly's eyes, that same ｢defiance of circumstance｣...!

Coco's blood boiled, in a way she hadn't thought possible. To see the same face twice after a lifetime without it, something fell away within her, and the years of coasting in the fashion industry seemed so... empty. She had to protect the face that could give this look to the world, for the same reason she would protect Rarity.

"Do you like it?" Joy asked, "It's my special ability. ｢The Holograms｣’ illusions are selectively permeable, so ponies get kept out and held in when I say so. If you don't want to show me your Stand, I can try making some inside of her. Or dropping this coffin into a lake."

“That’s… that’s outrageous!” Coco said, rearing back in disgust.

Joy giggled behind her hoof. “Oh, you think that’s bad? I’ll have to educate you, then. Let me show you something truly outrageous!"

Then there was a flash of light, and Coco flinched and covered her eyes. For a moment, she couldn't tell if they were open or closed, but then the light went as suddenly as it came, and when she opened them everything was doorless marble and high-vaulted ceilings. It was a palace, a shimmering unbroken dream of a throne room which could only otherwise have been painted or stained into glass. Joy stood at the far end of the room, with Scootaloo floating above her.

"I'll make you show your ability, and then I'll crush it under my hooves!" Joy shouted, and cackled to the sky.

Then, in another flash, the image of a red dragon burst into existence, rearing up against the ceiling and staring at Coco with absolute malice.

The dressmaker gritted her teeth.

｢TO BE CONTINUED｣

Stand Name: Go Zone
User: Scootaloo
Stats
Power: B
Speed: C
Range: D
Durability: E
Precision: A
Potential: C
Abilities: Reduces or increases friction on any surface within five meters of the user.

Stand Name: The Holograms
User: Jewel Joy
Stats
Power: C
Speed: B
Range: B
Durability: D
Precision: A
Potential: D
Abilities: Creates up to three images in bright flashes of light. Each image is three-dimensional, seamless (cannot consist of multiple unattached parts), takes whatever form the user decides, and is solid and unbreakable to one pony of her choosing.
> Something for Nothing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coco gritted her teeth and stared up at the dragon. 

No, the dragon’s image. There was nothing of the real beast there, just its sparkling majesty, bottled. It was, in fact, completely silent, and its massive claws had fazed through the marble-tile floor - after all, both were only solid to her.

“Why do you call these abilities ‘Stand’?” she shouted.

“Because they ‘Stand’ beside us, of course,” Joy said, and ｢The Holograms｣ appeared beside her, almost sliding out of her aura. It stood in front of the glass coffin, defending it.

Scootaloo, seeing her opportunity, snarled. “｢Go Zone｣!”

THUD!

Part of her Stand had emerged, a single orange hoof decorated in bands of black rubber, but it stopped on contact with the glass, squeezing the filly tightly against one side.

“Here’s a perfect example of Stand,” Joy declared, and the dragon froze while she trotted closer to the glass. “They’re connected, you know. When the user’s trapped, the Stand’s trapped. When the user’s hurt-” ｢The Holograms｣ threw a sudden punch to Scootaloo’s barrel, and as she gasped in pain ｢Go Zone｣’s hoof retreated, “-so’s the Stand. See how simple it is?” She smiled.

“You didn’t have to do that!” Coco said. “I just wanted to know what the name meant!” 

And during that explanation, for all the sympathetic pain Joy’s attack had brought her, she’d realized that there was something in her waiting to be summoned up. It was like a song in a dress store that you only noticed if somepony else mentioned it, but now it was needling the inside of her being and waiting to be released.

So. That’s what saved me.

And then, as all the pieces clicked together, she knew its name.

“I know I didn’t have to, I just wanted to. Just like I’ve decided I’m going to put you in a coffin when I’ve beaten you. Then you can keep each other company in the river! Oh, I almost forgot.”

And then the dragon started moving again.


***


From the moment she realized she’d fallen off of her balcony, Coco had a total of twelve seconds before she hit the ground. Flailing, she righted herself by pure accident, straining to get close to a ledge or discover some kind of parachute.

Below her, the empty sidewalk threw off its pretense of being a stone pathway, and revealed that it was death in disguise, the object that had been waiting to take her out of life since the moment she was born, since before either of them had even been conceived. It was in that moment that she had time to consider everything she’d done up to this point - and all the many, many things she hadn’t.

It’s been said on many deathbeds that the most important things in life are friends, loved ones and family. Coco Pommel realized these things in the course of a few seconds, and at the same time realized that she’d had so few of any of them. She’d never known her parents, and she’d always kept to herself in school. It wasn’t because she’d decided to, but her grades had been average and she hadn’t spent her free time on anything that mattered. It was just the way things had turned out.

By all accounts her life had been unremarkable, and she’d been nothing more distinctive than a timid, hardworking mare. In her mind, there weren’t any great reasons she shouldn’t fall onto the sidewalk, really.

But...

I haven’t used my time well. I’ve stumbled in life, and I’ve been too weak to stand up for myself, and that’s my own fault. I accept that.

But I can’t die today! If I die, I can’t help Rarity! I can’t tell her I love her, and find a family, and give my life meaning! I can’t die knowing everything I should’ve done!

I have to help Rarity!

I have to LIVE!

She was too far away from the building now to grab onto something, but there were still objects between her and the ground. Lampposts, cars. Nothing soft, but she angled her head away and tried to remember how to land. Backs of the frogs, maybe a bend to the knees, and keeping the impact on a small radius. Just kick off of one, and the momentum will die down a little. Maybe. 

I’ll break a few bones... at least. But there’s no other option. I can’t die here!

I won’t let the generosity she showed me be for nothing!

As she exerted her whole being to this task, the end of her flight approached. She steeled herself, shut her eyes, and shoved all thoughts of pain out of her mind. In that second, her entire being was aligned to one purpose!

Just when the rush in her ears became unbearable, she bounced.

Her hoof lashed out like it was springloaded, but nothing connected. 

She snapped her eyes open. Under her was a white sheet, wrapped taut between two lampposts like a hammock. No, she recognized it, it was like the nets fireponies used! She fell onto it again, and bounced a little less, and by the fourth time her limbs answered her and she could relax. When her fall was finally broken, she untied one end and slid down to ground level.

As soon as her hooves touched the sidewalk, she fell over on her side and let out an exhale that turned into heavy breathing. She was suddenly aware of her heartbeat, and she let her head rest on the stone. Now the fall was over, the spectre of death had abandoned it, flying off into the future to take some other form. Maybe not too far in the future, either. It didn’t matter to her. She was alive now.

Once she had her breath, and her heartbeat, she stood and inspected the sheet. Who put it there? What material was it?

When she touched it with a clearer head, she could feel something in it resonating with her, like reaching out with a phantom limb. She focused on that feeling, pushed against it with a feeling like holding a serious face for a few minutes, and it glowed cyan underneath of her with-

W-with… magic.

This is mine. The realization startled her. And then, in her hooves, the sheet evaporated.

She grabbed at it, tried to halt the process, but faster and faster it gave way to air, and then there was no evidence that her fall was broken at all.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and tried to replicate the willpower she’d experienced during the fall, desperate to repeat whatever miracle it was. To her surprise, it took the slightest mental push for the sheet to reappear, draped on the ground. And then, after a minute, it disintegrated back into the air again.

That night she packed and left, but the trains were already gone. She spent her emergency funds on some camping supplies and nonperishables, and spent the walk experimenting, trying to understand this strange new ability.

It didn’t have to be white, or a sheet. In fact, it could be any color or shape, even complicated or silly things like polka-dot reverse bows or a camo polonaise (not counting the underpanels, though; she couldn’t conjure metal bigger than zippers or buttons). Even big things were easy up to a certain point; her attempt at a carnival tent started evaporating before she could finish creating it.

Past that, everything she made was keyed to her like she was a unicorn. She could lift them effortlessly, manipulate them, make dizzying fabrics figure-eights in front of her own eyes. She could also break and mend the fabric using her ability, and she could stop anything from evaporating by pushing some more energy into it, although even the smallest items didn’t last more than three hours that way.

She hadn’t known what to call it until the dragon-image bore down on her.


***


The claw was easily quadruple her size, and it sliced through the air silently. This dragon couldn’t breathe fire, but it could still crush her, or bite her head off, or throw her into a wall.

“｢Something for Nothing｣!” she yelled, and like an old friend, it was beside her. A unicorn in an opera mask, coat haphazardly striped blue and cream, wearing an elegant white dress tasseled with sewing needles and bits of thread. It turned and kicked her out of the way, and she flew out of the dragon’s shadow, colliding with a hastily-constructed cushion.

｢Something for Nothing｣ leapt out a moment later, and Coco was amazed by its speed, and how quickly it wove, as it barrelled up the arm and around the neck. She didn’t know if she could still use the power herself while her Stand was away from her, but this was no situation to find out in.

Joy, for her part, was applauding. “This is more like it! It’s so much fun to watch somepony try to slay a dragon, even if it’s completely pointless!” she said, and then turned to Scootaloo. “Don’t you think?”

Scootaloo was silent.

“Suit yourself,” Joy said, shrugging, and then while ｢The Holograms｣ punched the filly she called out across the chamber, “I’m going to attack you again now, dearie!”

Coco didn’t have time to worry about that, because ｢Something for Nothing｣ had just finished. As the dragon lumbered and turned in the chamber to reach her, a long ribbon of fabric swung down to eye-level, and she gripped it in her teeth as her Stand swung it. She lifted off of her feet, and like a pendulum she swung away from the dragon and then towards it.

The fabric passed through the arm, but she didn’t. She had no choice but to abandon it to the barrier, and hugged the faux-scale while the other claw swatted for her retreating Stand.

Joy watched as the attempt to swing upwards failed, and her entertainment’s Stand bolted away down her dragon. It was so much fun to watch somepony else’s plans fall apart. Just like seeing all the hard work put into keeping ponies in neat little civilizations being broken down in under a week. And just a little tragic, she supposed. This mare could’ve made a decent Stand user, if she’d only had a little training.

Suddenly, ｢Something for Nothing｣ disappeared and reappeared next to Coco, lashing out a hoof as she let go of the dragon. She’d thrown herself - clearly a last ditch effort - but it was still impressive to see her sailing through the air, scowling with concentration as her Stand disappeared again. As she soared nearer and nearer, Joy almost wanted to let her land the hit.

But not enough.

The chamber blinked out of existence, and then there was a bright flash of light. When it cleared, Coco was trapped in an adult-sized glass coffin.

“Well, that was fun!” Joy smiled. “Shame you didn’t slay the dragon. I think I’ll just let it step on you anyway. I mentioned that my illusions can pass through each other, didn’t I?” she giggled.

“Let her go,” Coco said as her coffin was laid down and the dragon’s foot raised. Her horn sputtered on in anger.

Joy trotted over to look at her, pretending to be pensive. “Hm… No.”

“You’re going to pay for hurting her.” ｢Something for Nothing｣’s hooves appeared on either side of the trapped dressmaker, pushing against the glass uselessly.

Joy laughed to the sky. “Oh, how noble! How virtuous! You’re so much fun, dearie! I’ll make it slow to get as many of these reactions out of you as I can!”

But Coco wasn’t fazed. “I know the weakness of your Stand. I saw it from a distance, when you were standing lower than the rest of the room. Your hooves had passed through the floor. When you make your illusions ‘selectively permeable’, you can’t choose yourself and other ponies at the same time. That was the first half of your defeat.”

Joy frowned. “You’re not as interesting while you’re stalling. All of my illusions are one-pony-only, and I’m not one for the receiving end of a mind-game, so I suppose I’ll leave you to it.” She turned her back to the coffin and trotted back toward Scootaloo -

Until she was pulled back by the white fabric tied around her back leg!

She looked over her shoulder and gaped at it. “When did you...?! That’s not possible!”

Coco smiled. “My Stand’s fabrics aren’t part of it or me. They can pass through your barriers with no problem.”

“But I saw you this whole time! How did this get on my…” Joy trailed off as she realized.

Coco’s newfound magic let go of the rest of the fabric in the air, and it fell out of the dragon-image. “That’s right. I wanted to tie a knot around one of your legs, but I knew I’d never be able to sneak up on you with it from inside something like a coffin, so I hid it inside of your dragon!”

Joy saw the other end fall into the coffin, gripped between ｢Something for Nothing｣’s hooves, and she panicked. Just before she could get the dragon to stomp down, she was pulled off of her hooves and spun around. Coco’s Stand mended the fabric before it could tear, and extended it into wider and wider circles, pushing her through the dragon like it was nothing.

Joy was close to puking, and her sunglasses were torn away by her windspeed. She tried to command the dragon, imagine it stomping its foot down, but with the world spinning around her it was impossible to picture anything. She couldn’t think straight about anything, and back on the ground ｢The Holograms｣ was spinning in place and holding its faceless head like a widow in mourning.

“The second half of your defeat was something I discovered on my own. Stands have limits of distance, ranges of how far they can move from their users. That’s why you had to chase this filly, instead of letting ｢The Holograms｣ do the work for you. Which means that if I throw you far enough, all of your illusions will break!”

“-No!-” Joy screamed as ｢Something for Nothing｣ let go of the fabric, and then she couldn’t tell which direction was up. The illusions and the fabric disappeared at the same time, and Coco stood watching the crystal pony sail upwards.

“That looks like a hard landing,” Coco said, smiling.

“Not hard enough. Let me finish this.”

Coco turned, and Scootaloo was kneeling in the dirt, reaching for Joy’s blocky, reflective sunglasses and putting them on. Then she stood, breathing hard, and waiting for an answer. One look at the expression on the filly’s face, and Coco nodded.

Up above, Jewel Joy tried to create something, -anything- that would help her fall, but all she could think of was the drop remaining. She hit her head on abstract paint-splotch shapes, and she realized that in a thousand years of trying she’d never be able to use her Stand to make something soft.

Then she saw the dot of orange that had been sent up to meet her, slingshot upwards wtihout a speck of air resistance, and fluttering its tiny wings without a hint of vertigo. She could only look at the rising pegasus with empty eyes and think:

Hey, those are my sun--

“｢Go Zone｣!” Scootaloo shouted over the roar of the air, and her Stand finally appeared. An orange pony, the color of a safety cone, wrapped in lines of black rubber that turned into directional arrows, staring down at her through goggled eyes.

It hit her straight in the stomach, and she flew further, out and out past Coco’s horizon, until she was too small for Scootaloo to make out.

When Joy landed, she wasn’t in Equestria any longer.

When the pegasus landed, it was on a big, soft trampoline.

“That was some good work,” she said as she slid off.

“Yeah,” Coco said. Scootaloo smiled up at her, and she returned the quiet feeling of victory.

Then Scootaloo was out cold.


***


“One more at the gate!” Sweetie called to the rest of the room as she sat in the corner.

“What do they look like?” asked Pip, standing at attention.

“Purple, a lot like Ms. Punch. She’s alone as far as I can tell. What’s word from Bloom’s camp?”

“Still clear,” said Aquamarine.

She nodded. “Good. We might be able to do the move today, if Spike’s still prepared.”

Featherweight burst into the boutique. “Message from Diamond Tiara! She’s challenging you for rights as Ponyville’s chief defense specialist!”

Sweetie sighed. “She can’t be doing this right now. Ignore her, we’ve got to defend the perimeter.”

“We can’t! She’s got Button’s support, he won’t defend if she’s not in charge,” the foal said.

“Boys,” Sweetie muttered. “Alright, I’ll go out to talk to the newcomer. Pip, Aqua, look after the base. Feather, go stall here however you can. Make sure she knows what’s really important here.”

On the outskirts, Berryshine waited patiently, as stony as a mountain, the power of the gods bubbling away over her shoulder.

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing] 

Stand Name: Something for Nothing
User: Coco Pommel
Stats
Power: B
Speed: B
Range: C
Durability: D
Precision: A
Potential: C
Abilities: Weaves temporary fabrics out of air.
> The Kids Aren't Alright
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sweetie woke up on the edge of town in a pain she’d never felt before, like she’d just suffered a concussion. She could tell by the exploding brightness of the sun that she’d been out for a couple hours, and realized, disturbingly, that she didn’t remember anything after she left the boutique. And it was late afternoon, maybe an hour before sunset.

If she was in this position, she’d encountered a Stand user. Somepony who could erase memories, maybe, or inflict blunt force trauma. Not just that, but they’d clearly turned hostile and forced their way inside, which meant they were the enemy’s.

She spat a word she had no right to know yet, and summoned her Stand.

...Rarity was still safe. That was good. And the center of town looked okay. She hadn’t had time to go to Sweet Apple Acres yet, but the outside of Twilight’s castle looked unharmed. There were laying low, maybe. Or operating elsewhere…

“Sweetie Belle!” Featherweight slipped through the barricade. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Diamond’s claimed power while you were gone, she’s vetoed the castle unless you can beat her in a fight!”

“And everypony just went along with that?” she asked, still lingering on the castle, suddenly feeling a great distance away from it.

“Uh, well... they don’t really care who’s in charge that much, so,” he said.

She dismissed her Stand to rub her forehead. “Fine, I’ll do it. Just tell her that there’s an enemy agent in Ponyville who probably looks a lot like Berry Punch. And to put Button back on duty.”

“Oh, he’s already in position.”

She looked to the top of the massive wall of junk constructed along the perimeter, and saw Button lying prone, sizing up distances and squinting through his scope.

“You could’ve woken me up, you know!” she yelled.

“Huh? Oh.” he turned to her. “Yeah, guess so, but it’s not my job. Diamond wants you at Sweet Apple Acres once you’re awake. When she wins, you’ll probably get reassigned like Bloom did.”

“Bloom was reassigned? And you’re alright with that?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not like you’re the only ones with missing family members. ‘Sides, if anypony really wanted to grab all the Elements, they’d only be able to get five of ‘em.”

Sweetie scoffed and walked back to the barricade, ready to close it again behind her once Featherweight got through. She’d helped oversee the construction, so that if the trash and furniture and random magical materials weren’t held up in all the right places they’d fall in on themselves. Ponyville was, as ever, great at coordination and construction.

“Hey!” somepony shouted in the distance, coming up the tracks.

Sweet Celestia, what now?

It was a mare with dust in her mane, levitating some kind of sleeping bag and a little metal thing with wheels. A little closer and Sweetie could see it was a scooter.

Button had already turned back to aiming ｢Electric Funeral｣, looking through the scope and squeezing out a shot. The mare stumbled and fell as it connected with her forehoof, and then looked at her limb curiously as she tried to pick herself back up. On the second shot, she collapsed again, and then couldn’t get back up.

As Button took his time for the headshot, the mare levitated the sleeping bag and opened it. Inside was a weathered Scootaloo, and above her head she lifted a white flag and shook it vigorously.

“Wait! She has Scootaloo!” Sweetie shouted up to him, but Button gave no indication he’d heard. With one more squeeze, the newcomer’s magic stopped, and her body slumped to the ground.


***


As she walked through the mostly empty, quiet streets, Berryshine kept an eye out for the right apartment. It had a four-digit address, but none of the buildings made sense here. Maybe it was just the local system, or something like that. She detested the idea of addresses anyway, they were filthy aids to the postal service no matter where she went.

Honestly, she’d laughed when she was told her counterpart was named “Berry Punch”, because it sounded like such a cheap knockoff, but now she was deathly serious. She had a problem to mull over, and despite her ambitions she was in no mood for lightheartedness. Not to mention that there hadn’t been a surprise attack yet, and she had no idea why not. It couldn’t really be this easy, could it?

Berryshine was in it for her love of Nature. Her goal was never to kill, but to save ponies, and she only sought to tear down their buildings and institutions. Her Stand was powerful enough to destroy the town, and she believed in her heart that she could take on Celestia and Luna if it came to that, but she refused to let a life be lost. This left her with a conundrum.

Sweetie Drops would be close behind, and explaining all this to her would be pointless. Berry Punch couldn’t be allowed to walk around in the open, because then it would blow cover, but was she an acceptable exception? Was it more like suicide than murder?

“Hey, Miss Punch! Surprised to see you out this early,” said a little grey pegasus as he trotted past, “There’s gonna be a fight at Sweet Apple Acres tonight, you should show up if you’re going to stay out! Oh, and somepony who looks like you might be trying to get into Ponyville, so be careful!”

She put on a smile and waved at him while he went.


***


They’d been able to talk some during the trip, while she moved in and out of awareness, and Coco had asked her all sorts of questions. Her answers had been sloppy rambles, and she had to correct the details when lucidity drifted over her.

“How’d you get your Stand?” Coco had asked, when Canterlot was to their backs.

Unlike most of the foals who’d developed Stands, Scootaloo hadn’t done it because of the curse. She’d seen Rainbow in her nightmare, just like Sweetie had seen Rarity and Apple Bloom had seen Applejack, but it had only been enough to send one of them over the edge. Maybe because it was hard to be -really- afraid for Applejack and Rainbow, even if they were in danger. They always saw their way through somehow.

No, it took Cheerilee to do that.

The disappearances started the same night as the visions. It was mostly adults, a dozen here and there with no mark or explanation. Scootaloo had been the first to see it actually happening, on the night after Sombra’s return. She lived with Cheerilee, partly because she didn’t have anywhere else to stay, and the schoolteacher’s home was smaller than her classroom. That night, she’d been woken up by the creaking of boards, and saw the figure.

Completely hooded, shrouded in magical darkness to make sure that nopony could identify them. She could see the Stand, though, something chrome and robotic that shone bars of red light through its hooves, and at the time she thought it was some kind of spirit.

That’s why she went for the pony and not the Stand, even though it had been leaning closer to Cheerilee. Whatever its ability had been, she hadn’t had time to find out; as soon as she focused on protecting the sleeping adult, ｢Go Zone｣ appeared and closed the distance to smash the cloaked pony’s jaw. They went flying through the wall, and then Cheerilee had woken up, and they’d moved to Lemon Hearts’ house for the rest of the night.

The next day, Flitter and Cloudchaser came by and told her Cloudsdale had found a means of evacuation that Dash left behind, and they offered to take Scootaloo. She’d refused, and insisted that Cheerilee go instead, and after some prodding about how the teacher was important to everypony and mattered more than a single filly (which Cheerilee did not like hearing from someone so young), they finally gave up and took her.

Everything had fallen into place after that. Her new ability to change friction tripled her riding speed, and even made it possible to fly for short distances, so she became the town messenger. It wasn’t a pretty job, though. Almost every house that lost a parent had become an outpost, and all of the grown-ups were paralyzed, almost all of them Standless and blind in a suddenly dangerous world.

There were attacks from the outside, just once a day until now. Jewel Joy had been the first one to seriously threaten Ponyville with a Stand of her own, except for the hooded one, and nopony else had seen them.

She didn’t know what the evacuation had involved, but Cloudsdale was nearly empty as far as the remaining pegasi could make out. There were only a few skeleton crews to keep the weather moving, holding off on the rain for morale until absolutely necessary. Acting like it would pass, and everything would turn alright again, as soon as all of the Elements woke up and saved the day.

Fewer ponies shared that optimism as the days went on.


***


Piña always enjoyed cooking, especially quickbreads. It was something she’d learned to make from a young age, especially given her older sister’s proclivities. Bread took away hunger, it sapped silly behavior and it made bad feelings easier to manage, so she made it whenever she could. Right now, Ponyville badly needed some.

She was a couple rooms away from the front door, so she couldn’t see who came in, but she didn’t really need to. “Hey, Berry! I’ve got bread on, so don’t hit the claret yet. Also, your watch shift starts in three hours.”

She didn’t respond, but Piña heard her walk into the living room and turn around a few times, like she was lost. The filly sighed.

“I told you to leave the good times for after your shift, sis. You know how I worry about you. Now get in here and eat something.”

“Wuh…?” Berry’s voice drifted down from upstairs. She sounded like she’d just woken up.

Piña started, and ran into the living room. The pony standing there wasn’t her sister. She might’ve fooled an acquaintance, she had the same color coat and the same hairstyle, but she held herself like a self-conscious actress and everything about her was tense. Even the eyes were absolutely fake.

“Changeling!” she screamed, and bolted.

“｢Simply Red｣,” her not-sister said behind her, even the voice was wrong and too deep, and she ran faster.

“It has a Stand!”

Her real sister had come down the stairs by this point, and was wide awake. Piña managed to run to her before swerving and hitting a wall. She felt incredibly dizzy, and wobbled on her hooves as her sight swam. She wondered what it was, and landed on the first thing she could relate it to:

I’m piss drunk.

Then she fell over, and slept.


***


Button stood near the unconscious mare - Coco Pommel, apparently - until she recovered. They were just inside the town limits, because nopony had felt like lugging her any further, but no harm had been done to her. By now his shift was over unless an emergency alert came on, and he was supposed to be sleeping, but he didn’t feel like it. For the last couple days, home felt like a shirt that was too big.

He took the time to polish ｢Electric Funeral｣, even if it was just plastic. It was something designed for him, that let him be a part of the action in the way so many ponies could never be. Just being able to see Stands was a big deal, not even all the night watchponies could do that, but being able to do the fighting himself instead of getting a magical avatar to do it for him just felt right. Most of his victories were on the wrong side of the screen, and he was happy to make up for that.

Coco stirred and jolted awake, a lot faster than he would’ve given her credit for, but he’d only been in war for a couple days now, and he wasn’t stupid enough to think he understood it all. So he refrained from eye contact and waited for her to notice him before he talked.

“Scoots woke up, vouched for you. You’re lucky for that. She’ll be back soon, had to do some rounds.”

She wiped the sleep from her eyes and nodded. “Thank you.” she said, and then, “Aren’t you the foal who shot me?” Her voice was incredibly soft, for somepony who made it this far.

“Yeah. Can’t trust anypony these days, even when they’re surrendering. ‘Sides, the shots aren’t lethal. Just knock you out for an hour.”

“They do? I don’t think I dreamed anything.”

She took being shot pretty well, he noted. “That’s part of having a Stand. Locks you out of Sombra’s control. Rest of Equestria’s gotta deal with the nightmares.”

“Oh,” Coco said, “I had no idea. I haven’t talked to anypony in a couple days.”

“Yeah, I heard you came straight from Manehattan. Long walk. Scoots never did say what you were here for.” Scootaloo had, in fact, and very enthusiastically, but it was important to see if she gave different stories to different ponies.

“For Rarity. I need to find her and see if I can help her.” There was no hesitation in that answer.

He nodded, once. “You might have a problem, then. Her sister’s about to get shown up by Diamond Tiara, and then sent to do odd jobs. Rarity’s still in her boutique, but she’ll probably get moved or taken unless we get a miracle.” He tried to not feel guilty about supporting that change. It really was better for everypony with somepony less personally-involved calling the shots. Somepony who would fight back and try to find their parents instead of just trying to keep things together.

“Which way is her house?” Coco asked. He gave her directions, and she galloped off.


***


Berryshine saw the confusion flicker out of her counterpart’s face as her little sister collapsed. No big harm would come to her, although she might vomit in her sleep. ｢Simply Red｣ could modulate these things, a little roughly.

Berry Punch couldn’t see it, judging by the movement of her eyes. Berryshine concentrated on the native’s bloodstream and stomach and let her power move freely. In four seconds any adult would be passed out on the floor, and then she could tie them both up and get down to business. There wouldn’t even be enough time to close the distance at a run.

Punch walked across the room, swaying a little, and slammed her with a firm right hook.

Berryshine dropped, gasping, and spat out a tooth.

“You’re not a changeling, are you?” Punch asked, “You’re something else.”

“｢Simply Red｣!” she sputtered, and ratcheted up the alcohol in the pony’s body. It wasn’t enough. In fact, it only made her opponent stronger!

A crack on the nose left it bleeding, a hoof to her eye would make it black in a half hour. She realized what was going on too late - Punch was marking her as a fake, creating bruises she’d have to explain. Making her noticeable.

Finally she gave up and had ｢Simply Red｣ strike her attacker directly a few times. That made the mare stagger, fall back, and finally crumple like her sister, and it was about time.

Berryshine locked the front door and inspected herself. This had all been far too messy, and now her face was a testament to it. She sterilized the wounds from the inside, deep enough under the skin to prevent pain, and distantly enjoyed the buzz while she considered her next move.


***


Diamond Tiara had waited for word to spread, because that was the right and sensible thing to do when you were holding a dominance contest. Their Stands weren’t remotely matched, and Sweetie knew it, but ultimately it was down to how many ponies they could convince that they were the best leader. And at first glance, literally, Sweetie had the advantage there: whatever her weirdo gadget power was, at least everypony could see it.

But that was no matter. Sweetie was useful, and there’d be plenty of opportunities to use a power like hers. Today just wasn’t one of them, and that was the way it should be.

Mother and Father had fled for Canterlot, but she’d stayed behind. This was home for her, and she wasn’t going to leave and never come back over something as stupid as an evil king from forever ago. She was the pony who’d rule over this place in twenty years, not him.

So she’d picked something suitably dramatic, and made sure to get everypony to take it seriously. Sweet Apple Acres, the fenced-in edge of the forest at dusk, with word of mouth drawing in all of the ponies who’d come. On one end, the princess to replace the Princesses. On the other, a dusty blank-flank trudging in barely on-time.

“Let’s bring out our Stands, shall we?” Diamond said, smirking.

Sweetie nodded, and held out a hoof. “｢Private Eyes｣.” Then those… binocular things appeared. The crowd watched with baited breath, and slowly swiveled to Diamond.

“How dramatic and serious of you. There’s no way somepony this drab and easily fatigued could ever take out my Stand!” she twirled on the spot, put a hoof across her forehead and looked to the sky as her Stand flowed out of her, a slender, almost-angular pink mare decorated in thorny flowers.

Sweetie didn’t react. “Are we here to dance?”

Diamond laughed. “Joke all you want, Sweetie Belle. You’ll never be able to ‘Stand’ up to my…” she threw her hooves out grandiosely as Celestia’s sun pierced the horizon, “｢Misery Business｣!”

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: Simply Red
User: Berryshine
Stats
Power: C
Speed: B
Range: D
Durability: C
Precision: C
Potential: D
Abilities: Turns water into wine.

Stand Name: Private Eyes
User: Sweetie Belle
Stats
Power: N/A
Speed: N/A
Range: ∞
Durability: D
Precision: C
Potential: B
Abilities: Takes the form of a curious white stereoscope, complete with a small disc of empty film good for seven pictures. When the user sees something, they can create a static image of it in an image slot. Each time a slot is flipped to, the image will match the view in real-time as if the user had just observed it from the same position. Slots can be ‘emptied’ at will.

Stand Name: Misery Business
User: Diamond Tiara
Stats
Power: A
Speed: C
Range: D
Durability: B
Precision: E
Potential: C
Abilities: ???

Stand Name: Electric Funeral
User: Button Mash
Stats
Power: D
Speed: N/A
Range: A
Durability: E
Precision: B
Potential: C
Abilities: Takes the form of a laser-tag rifle with a three-second cool-down. Whatever its light hits is put into a ‘disabled state’, but things which are already ‘disabled’ will be ‘reactivated’.
> Shine On You Crazy Diamond
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aquamarine didn’t know if it was the best idea to let this mare inside the Boutique, but she hadn’t gotten much choice. Once she caught sight of Rarity laid out on the couch, she burst in without a word and stood over her, looking pained.

If this were really dangerous, she’d be in trouble; there wasn’t anypony else around right now, with most of the town either getting ready for bed or our hiding. Nopony liked sleeping so late, but they were all like farmponies now, waking up with the sun to get all of the lifting done without tripping on stuff. It amazed her how fast things could change.

“Oh, Rarity,” the mare said, looking down at her like they were alone in the room. Rarity hadn’t moved, or done anything interesting besides breathing, so to Aqua she was more like a part of the room by now. If she’d ever really known the dressmaker, maybe she’d have felt worse, but all of her family was still together and the thought of feeling guilty about that made her wince.

“Did you know her?” Aqua asked, after the silence became uncomfortable enough that she felt prompted.

“A little.” Then, like a magician’s trick, a quilt with a pattern of blue diamonds knitted itself into existence, falling into position over the couch. “Does she ever come out of it?”

Aqua shook her head. “We don’t have to feed her or anything.”

Then something crashed into the wall.


***


This was the first time Sweetie had seen Tiara’s Stand, and it was very tall. Hanging in the air limply, it looked more like a pink mantis than a pony, like it was folded into existence out of bubblegum.

“That’s an interesting Stand,” she said, “Maybe you should tell us what it does.”

Diamond snorted. “You think I’m going to tell you what my Stand does right before I beat you with it, because you asked?”

“Well, you do know what my ｢Private Eyes｣ does, don’t you? It seems only fair.”

Foals who’d shushed each other so they could listen to the battle were now murmuring mild agreements among themselves.

“Life isn’t about fair!” Diamond said. “It’s about who’s best for the job. If you tell anypony who asks about your Stand powers and you can’t stop mine with them, then that just means you weren’t fit to be the leader.”

“But shouldn’t a leader be fair exactly when the rest of the world isn’t? Aren’t we trying to get even with the ponies who’ve done all of this-” she waved a hoof back at the rest of town, “to us?”

“That’s nothing to do with fairness. I’m going to lead us to victory by crushing our enemies and making anypony who wants to hurt our town wish they’d never been born! You just want an advantage because your little picture-viewer’s useless in a fight. If you cared about leading, you’d just have given the job to me and made yourself an advisor.”

The tone of the crowd was shifting to Diamond Tiara, mostly in righteous anger. Sweetie didn’t pay attention to them.

“And when somepony comes along who’s stronger and better at leading than you, are you going to hand Ponyville over to them?”

Diamond leered. “Never happen.”

“How can we know that?” Sweetie turned to their audience, briefly. “What if the reason you’ve been keeping it a secret is because it can only work against somepony like me? If it was so great, you would be out at the wall defending the town.”

During all of this ｢Misery Business｣ had been trembling in the air and fidgeting with its hooves, and although most in the crowd couldn’t see it, the rest were turning restless themselves.

“I’m going to make you regret speaking to me that way.” Diamond snarled.

“Fine, but don’t you think the ponies here deserve to know how you’ll do it? I wouldn’t trust any leader who has to hide what her powers are.”

“Just tell her and get to the fight!” a foal shouted from inside the crowd, and the rest agreed in various amounts of heartedness.

Diamond groaned loudly. “It can read secrets. Like yours. Want me to share some of your more embarrassing moments with everypony, or do you want to pony up and fight?” On the inside, she was flustered. Sweetie made me choose between revealing my Stand and losing support. She knows this is about more than fighting one-on-one, which means I have to beat her into the ground as fast as possible.

“Sure, just one second. Catch!” Sweetie grabbed her Stand and tossed it into the crowd, which scrambled for it until it wound up in the hooves of one Rumble. While everypony looked at each other and back to Sweetie, she pointed her hoof to the sky and said, “I don’t need a Stand to beat you, Diamond Tiara!”

The crowd cheered. Diamond seethed.


***


Coco rushed outside and found Scootaloo, laying on the ground next to her scooter, helmet still on. She looked like she’d fallen over in a slapstick routine, groaning as she sprawled out.

“What happened?” Coco asked.

“Stand user. The one Sweetie told me to look out for. I tripped her and got away, but I couldn’t hurt her. Took my aim. She’s, burning.” Scootaloo gestured woozily with a hoof. There was smoke a couple blocks away, obscured until now by the houses in between.

Coco looked back at the Carousel again, thinking, and then to Scootaloo. “Are you going to be okay here alone?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Go kick her flank. She’sss purple.” Scootaloo said, and then puked in the grass.

Coco grimaced but said, “I will,” and ran in the direction of the smoke.


***


Under the sneering exterior, there was a conflict going on inside Diamond Tiara.

If I use my Stand, it’ll seem like I need it to win. But if I don’t use it, then I’m playing into her hooves! She’s trying to make herself seem like the bigger pony, even though she thinks it’s going to get her beaten up. She thinks she can win some kind of sympathy vote because she threw away her only good resource!

Wait.

Is she hiding something?

Sweetie stood there, motionless and waiting for the first move, looking Diamond in the eyes. With that eye contact, her hidden thoughts were as bare as possible.

The information appeared as a line of text in Diamond’s field of vision, something that, if she ever spent time watching films in the hobbyist cinema scene, she would call a subtitle. It read, I CAN USE SCOOTALOO’S ITCHING POWDER AS SOON AS SHE GETS CLOSE.

A-ha!

“You think you can use itching powder on me as soon as I get close to you?” Diamond asked. “What kind of a dumb idea is that?”

Sweetie looked stunned, and then she asked, “What itching powder?”

THE ITCHING POWDER IN A PACKET TUCKED INTO MY MANE.

“The itching powder you got from the pegasus who couldn’t fly! It’s tucked into your mane!”

“Scootaloo? I didn’t get anything from Scootaloo. And what good would itching powder do me in a fight?”

I’M STALLING TO THINK OF A NEW PLAN.

“You’re stalling to think of a new plan!”

“No I’m not.”

YES I AM.

“Yes you are! I can read every thought you don’t want me to, there’s no fooling me!”

Sweetie looked a little perplexed. “I’m just waiting for you to start fighting. Are you sure that’s what your Stand does, or were you lying to hide its real power?”

I’M TURNING EVERYPONY AGAINST YOU.

“You-you’re turning everypony against me!”

Sweetie looked at the crowd and shrugged. “I guess?” In response it started complaining, in various voices, about how the fight wasn’t happening.

Nopony believes me!

“Look, I’ll make this fair. If your power's bothering you so much, then I’ll just think of something else secret that will help you concentrate.” Sweetie turned to the crowd again, “Any ideas?”

“Pick a number between one and ten!” one of them shouted.

“Pick seven! Like, seven numbers, not the number seven!”

And then Rumble, who everypony was looking to because he was holding her Stand, said, “Uh… You could try not thinking of something. Maybe... a purple griffon.” Everypony around him nodded.

“Thanks, Rumble.” Sweetie said. Then Misery Business transcribed, PURPLE GRIFFON PURPLE GRIFFON PURPLE GRIFFON.

She’s egging me on.

“That’s not going to work, Belle! I can read anything you want to hide from me as soon as you think not to think it, and I’m not going to be manipulated like this!”

“I’ve done everything I can for you, Diamond. Besides, I’m not sure you can really read my mind anyway. Can you tell me what number I’m thinking of?”

PURPLE GRIFFON I DIDN’T PICK A NUMBER PURPLE GRIFFON.

“You didn’t pick a number.” Diamond said, and as soon as the words came out she knew they were a mistake.

Sweetie shook her head and smiled, “It was eight. You could’ve tried, you know. Of course, if you just want to surrender and let me get back to work, I’m sure I can find something for you to manage.”

The sun was mostly down and everypony was getting tired of standing still, and their grumbling was aimed at Tiara. If I can’t keep their support, I’ll just have to prove that I’m the strongest. Then everypony will have to do what I tell them to!

Diamond charged.


***


Berryshine’s day had been getting better, until she slipped and sprained something. She might have just put it down to bad luck if it weren’t because of a Stand she’d had to dodge. It was amazing how many of them were around here, considering they were all kids. All the Stand users she’d seen in Sombra’s castle were teenagers like her, and close-by.

She supposed he was just sending them out to test their strength and ability. If they lost, then they weren’t worthy to serve him. He didn’t really speak to the recruits - she had the feeling that he couldn’t speak at all yet - but almost everything about this place had to do with weird intuitions.

But this orange filly had zoomed past her like she wasn’t there, then doubled around to take in the housefires. Berryshine had taken the opportunity to knock her out with ｢Simply Red｣, and as soon as the effects started the filly attacked like a trapped animal for about a minute and fled.

She imagined how easy it would’ve been to turn all of the filly’s blood into wine, or all of the water in the air so she couldn’t breathe, or her eyeballs so it stung, or all of the other things that she knew her Stand could do and tried not to use it for. It would’ve been a piece of cake to do it to Punch or her sister, or to the pony who met her at the gate.

She shook her head and concentrated on fueling the fires and searching for ponies still at home to knock out. Drops should be here in a couple hours, and then I can brag to her about how I took down their whole housing district before she could show up.

The blaze was healthy, but mostly contained. It was amazing what a wine-soaked rag and a fireplace could pull off. She stood back and felt the heat washing off in waves. Even if it didn’t smell great, it felt cleansing. She felt in her heart that they’d be back to grazing in the forest by the end of the week, and Sombra wouldn’t have much reason to bother them. She let out a happy sigh at the thought.

Then the hood fell over her eyes and tightened around her neck, and she was yanked backwards.


***


Ultimately, ｢Misery Business｣ was a clumsy, short-range Stand that relied mostly on its immense strength. Diamond knew enough about it to understand this weakness, and to exploit its ability in order to compensate, which is how she managed to convene so many ponies together. They cheered as she galloped and discarded the politicking, ready to make it a test of strength.

Stands can’t be hurt by anything but other Stands. She couldn’t beat me if she tried!

PURPLE GRIFFON PURPLE GRIFFON PURPLE GRIFFON

Diamond lunged, and in that moment, hanging in midair, she lost.

Sweetie’s horn glowed, and the dirt and dust exploded upwards. It got in her coat and tarnished her tiara, stung her eyes with grit and threw earth on her tongue. She had to squeeze her eyelids shut, and her Stand lashed out wildly. Sweetie sidestepped it easily, and as Diamond crashed into the dirt, she laid a white hoof on her tiara'd head and held up the other to the sky.

The crowd cheered.

"This is over. If you try to use your Stand, I'll cover you in itching powder and keep away until you give up." Sweetie said quietly, so nopony else would hear.

"Why couldn't I read your thoughts?" Diamond asked, rubbing away the dirt.

"You could. All the ones you repeated were exactly what I thought. But after a little while, I realized that it didn't matter whether you could tell what I was thinking or not."

"I could still use your secrets, Belle. I'm sure you've got lots of embarrassing ones."

"If anypony listens and believes you. You could always help out, I'll take your input if you like. It's pretty boring being a leader, to be honest, but I can't let anypony stop us protecting the Elements."

ESPECIALLY MY SISTER.

Diamond sighed and dismissed ｢Misery Business｣. "Get off my head, you've made your point."

Sweetie helped her up, and then turned to Rumble, caught ｢Private Eyes｣ and thanked him. 

Then somepony in the crowd pointed to town and said, "Is that smoke?" Everypony turned, and Sweetie clicked through ｢Private Eyes｣.

"It is," she said, and just as ponies were turning to her she raised her voice, "There's no way we're stopping it, but we can protect the ponies of Ponyville if we work together. Wake everyone up, avoid any Stand users you come across and tell everypony with an ability what's going on. Diamond, please help organize and protect them. I'm going to wake up Spike.

"We're moving everypony to Twilight's castle -tonight-."



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing] 

Stand Name: Misery Business
User: Diamond Tiara
Stats
Power: A
Speed: C
Range: D
Durability: B
Precision: E
Potential: C
Abilities: Mind-reading; only perceives thoughts the target doesn’t want read.
> Evacuate the Dancefloor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Twilight Sparkle was laying in her favorite bed on the night Sombra attacked. 

The castle came with a decadent assortment of bedchambers, and her alicorn physiology had only worsened her natural jitteriness, so that she routinely wandered the halls at night taking bleary turns with them. For Spike, this was a hidden blessing; he quickly learned he only needed to remake certain beds at strategic times, and even when her weekly circuit veered and she drifted into some forgotten unblanketed wreck, she wasn’t usually aware. 

By now, he’d remade all of them, dusted, finished some of her leftover booksorting, cleaned the bathrooms, washed the stained glass windows and tried, twice, to activate the Map. At no point did he move her from her stockstill, curled position, or even approach within a few hooves to examine her closely, for fear that the half-imagined motions of her breathing might collapse like cobwebs under a puff of foreign air. 

It was the least of the beds, a meager zero-poster without any tricky corners to tuck into the mattress. Just a headboard and an end, wooden and curve-flourishing, afforded begrudgingly to prevent it from being a mattress on the floor. In another age, maybe one to come, it would’ve suited a staff cook. And in the dim light, from outside the door, Spike could almost see the wooden walls that weren’t there, and the balcony that looked out onto the town, and the spiral stairs he’d pattered down every morning in the name of breakfast...

Besides her room, he avoided the libraries more and more now. Filled with ponies, concerns and lives, they faded into the background, but standing in their doorways alone, he felt completely separated from the earth below the stone and the stars above the ceiling. He felt like he might step in just slightly too far, and exit to find himself in the Human World again, the world where everything was so disturbingly close to truth but mangled, where nothing had the right amount of limbs and the world was defined by pushing and grabbing and taking. 

He never came within eyesight of them once the sun went down.

He couldn’t risk leaving the castle halls, or giving some opening for normal messages, but he’d instructed a few townsponies on a simple message-spell. If they needed something urgent, he would belch up their request. The outside world had contacted him earlier that evening, and this was how he learned that his town was on fire.

So, as the first wave of the battered and bewildered neared the doors, he waved his claws around the inner mechanisms and loosened their protections. There was little food in the castle, and few comforts, but they couldn’t want for space or protection. 

When the doors swung and let in the night air, Spike could see the smoke clouding in the distance, and ushered the Standless foals and their parents inside. 

Instinctively, from years of experience, he knew that it was going to be a long night. 


***


“Why are you setting fire to everything?! Are you working for Sombra?!”

The voice was shrill, the kind that wasn’t supposed to be loud. Berryshine’s ears were muffled, but it rang clearly even through the hood. She was aware that her hooves were tied only because they wouldn’t budge from each other. 

She was beginning to consider Stands more trouble than they were worth. 

Her assailant did something. The fabric around her mouth disappeared, and night air blew over her face. It was a moment of peace, and enough to concoct a plan. When it passed, she immediately started crying and struggling. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! I was just caught in the middle of these fires! Why are you trying to abduct me!?”

Her enemy spoke back, “I know you’re the one responsible for all of this. Don’t pretend that you’re innocent! Now tell me why you’ve been sent here!”

“I really don’t know what you’re saying! I’ve lived in Ponyville my whole life! My house is burning! Please just let me go!”

“Stop playing games!” The voice moved closer, and become sterner. Berryshine smirked. 

“Fine. ｢Simply Red｣!” 

Her Stand appeared, and lashed out at the source of the noise. A punch landed, and then the enemy jumped back. The fabric held, but with a little effort her Stand tore it apart like packing tape. 

She stood and tore off her blindfold. On the other side of the road, or path, or whatever it was, there stood a cream-colored pony, plain and without the trimmings just like her, no magic and no wings to fly away with. 

“I didn’t want to be violent about this!” Berryshine yelled. The fires were burning healthily all around, slowly converging into a single inferno, and she knew the town was over except for the crying. 

“What’s Sombra offering you?” 

“Nothing but the chance to sculpt a new paradise with my own hands!”

The enemy looked confused at that. 

Berryshine charged. 


***


Scootaloo was unmired from a dreamless sleep by a hoof ruffling her mane. Woken up any other way, she would’ve summoned ｢Go Zone｣ and struck the attacker, subconsciously terrified that it might be the foalnapper who wanted Cheerilee. But the motion was so familiar, so much like what Dash had done in those few fleeting moments of big-sisterly affection, it soothed those instincts. 

Finally, Sweetie got tired of trying to noogie her friend awake and started pressing agianst her skull like a jambed door. Scootaloo groaned with foreign pain, rolled over and opened her eyes. 

Sweetie was a silhouette against the stars and the now-encroaching firelight. Her face was unreadable in the dark, but Scootaloo knew it was a compromise between sympathy and seriousness. It was the only expression she’d been able to make, lately. Scootaloo’s head started pounding, and she turned weakly to cover most of the light with her friend’s face, wondering idly if she’d slept all the way until the next night in a tiny coma. 

“You too, huh?” Sweetie asked. 

Scootaloo tried to answer, but her mouth was too dry. After a moment of coughing, which made her brain rattle even more, she replied, “How’d the fight with Diamond go?”

“Good. I’ll tell you about it later, but Diamond’s with us for right now. Everypony’s evacuating to Twilight’s castle.”

Even behind the grimace of the hangover, Scootaloo felt like she’d slept through a final exam. The castle had been their first and last failsafe, and she hadn’t done enough to keep them out of it. 

Sweetie was scanning the area now, trying to keep the pegasus in her shadow. “Where’s the mare who brought you inside?”

“Coco...” Scootaloo’s eyes opened and she shot up to her hooves. “She went to fight the pony who’s burning everything!” Her eyes darted around for her scooter and found it, bent from the crash and discarded on the grass. 

Before she could dive for it, Sweetie put a hoof on her shoulder. 

“If she’s not at the castle yet, somepony will find her, so there’s no point worrying. For now, we need to make sure that the Elements get inside safely, and I need you for that.” Her voice was soft and reasonable, and Scootaloo hung her head.

“Yeah, you’re right. Are the others already there?”

“Twilight is, and we took Applejack with us. I just left the team securing Pinkie, and Diamond and Button are going to get Fluttershy right now. We’ll make a second trip to look for stragglers after we’ve moved Rarity.”

Scootaloo nodded. 

There was nopony left inside the Carousel Boutique besides Rarity, now, still where they’d left her. When Sweetie turned the lights on, she gasped and ran over. Over the Element of Generosity, there was a blanket now, stitched together seamlessly and tiled with images of Rarity’s cutie mark. 

Scootaloo looked at it through the headache of the lights, and her face became a mask of worry.

“Coco...”


***


Berryshine tripped before she could lunge into range, pulled back by the same tattered fabric she’d just ripped apart with her Stand. The strips clung to her back leg, glowing with wavy cyan fairylight.

When she stood, ｢Simply Red｣ tore up the pieces again. Then, once they were on the ground, it grabbed a random, burning piece of wood and torched them. They didn’t even burn, so much as evaporate.

When that was over, she turned back to the enemy.

“If you step over here, I’ll forget that any of this happened and probably so will you. You’ll wake up tomorrow with the rest of the ponies, and live a new life with them. And if you don’t step over, I’m not responsible for what happens to you.”

The mare’s eyes hardened. Was that alcohol, or determination...?

“Nopony’s responsible for what happens to me.” 

A shadow appeared over Berryshine, and she looked up to see a dull blanket blocking out the sky.  ｢Simply Red｣ struck it with its makeshift torch, and it disintegrated before it reached the ground. 

The enemy continued, “It looks like my Stand has a longer range than yours. I don’t need to get close to stop you.”

Berryshine snarled back at her, “Neither do I!” 

Then, her Stand flung the burning wood directly at her opponent. 


***


Even with the town in trouble, and on an important mission, and with a bunch of ponies to worry about, there was still something exhilarating about moving quickly. It was like trying to be poignant while riding a rollercoaster, the wind resistance on Scootaloo’s cheeks kept her too occupied. It even sobered her up a little. 

Sweetie was holding on and standing over Rarity on the couch, keeping a watchful eye in dark corners and holding her big sister in place. There was no need, but it made her feel better. Scootaloo was perched on top, looking straight ahead to the castle, and keeping the ground below the couch frictionless in the right directions. It was like sledding, but with brakes, and a ghost gave her the push. 

When they reached the castle, the front was open, but nopony was waiting to get inside. Scootaloo increased speed straight up to that gaping door, and she realized she’d never been inside without the sun shining. Right now, it was just… eerie.

｢Go Zone｣ pushed the couch the rest of the way inside, and the two followed in after it, scanning the horizon for an ambush or nearby townsponies. It was only once they were inside that they realized they couldn’t see anypony in the castle either. 

“M-maybe they’re not here yet?” Scootaloo asked.

Sweetie looked extra serious, held out a hoof and summoned her Stand. After a moment, she’d clicked through the reel. When she lowered it, she looked even more concerned.

“I don’t see anypony anywhere.” 

Then, the doors slammed shut.


***


Coco sidestepped the wood, irritated, and it clattered to the grass beside her. She hadn’t even needed her Stand to dodge. She felt a little warm and woozy besides the time spend around the fires, and she wondered...

“Your Stand lets you make alcohol.”

The arsonist barked a harsh laugh. “It’s something more than that! I turn a universal liquid into something completely different, just by thought! Alchemists have dreamed of my power for ages before I was ever born! I’m Nature’s herald! And I’m going to bring all of you back to zero, and show you a new path to peace and prosperity, through me!”

Coco stared. Alchemists have been doing a lot better than that for centuries. But before she could respond, she noticed the fire spreading between her hooves. 

She startled, and almost jumped back before she felt the fire spring up there too. Her saddlebags started to scorch, and she was forced to drop and roll away. Behind her, the green kept igniting, and in the dizzy spinning of her vision she could make out a trail leading back to the burning plank.

“When I was over there, my power even affected the dew on the grass! I’m invincible!” The earth pony cackled to herself.

Coco only put out the fire when she made it onto the road and away from the blaze. Her coat felt sticky, and not with sweat; that had been converted. 

“If you try to move back now, you’ll go up in flames, and if you stay where you are, you won’t be able to dodge my attacks! ｢Simply Red｣!”

The Stand appeared and flew straight for her, already punching. Unlike hers, it had fists. Hands. ｢Something for Nothing｣ struck back with its hooves, but the corners of her vision swam just the same. She retched, and held it in for a moment, taking a step backwards and stumbling. With a sudden push, her Stand shoved her out of the way, and she went flying. 


***


Scootaloo spun, and stared into the darkness the doors had been covering up. 

“Look out!” the voice was exhausted, strained.

“Spike?” Sweetie asked, spinning and her voice bounced the length of the entryway. 

“She took everyone! Everyone except Twilight! She’s still looking for Twilight!” 

Then the darkness shifted, and broke into a run. A Stand appeared next to it, one Scootaloo recognized. The cloak, the bubbling magical darkness now stripped away to reveal a white coat and violet eyes, not even bothering to make eye contact as the metal pony raced silently beside her. 

This was the one who tried to take Cheerilee. 

Sweetie turned in time to see the mare bearing down on her, on the couch, on her sister. Shocked, she moved to block the path to Rarity, but - 

She vanished. 


***


As the enemy went flying towards more burning rubble, Berryshine laughed uncontrollably. No Stand could hold up against her, not as long as it was being piloted by something that ran on blood! No thing could resist the ultimate Nature that presided over life! It was the ultimate equalizer, the universal change that gave her the power of the gods!

Through these heady thoughts, and in the flickering, ever-present light, she made out the fabric tied around the flying pony’s middle. (Stomach? Barrel?) Her eyes tried to follow it, but this one was colored, green and grey to camouflage against the grass and the road. But why?

Then it went taut, and Berryshine felt herself being ripped from the ground. It was around her front hoof this time! 

“When I was looking up at the blanket, that’s when you wrapped it around me! You only just attached the rest of it to yourself! A backup plan!” she yelled at the pony whose momentum was launching her toward her own fire, and then summoned her Stand, shouting, “Well, it won’t work!”

｢Simply Red｣ smashed a hole into the fabric, and it immediately started to fade, but it was too late. Still catapulted, Berryshine fell into the fire. 

In that moment, she wished desperately for water.

Coco hit a poorly-made, lumpy cushion in the roadway, and moved no further. Beneath her, the fabric, the long grass-colored ribbon and even her Stand dissipated into so many particles. And then it was just the sound of the fire, and the light was dim but enough to block out the stars, and oh, Rarity, I did my best to keep it safe for you.

And then she passed out. 


***


Sweetie had just disappeared! And in her place was a… CD?

The pony she formerly knew as Vinyl stepped over it, and her Stand came in contact with it. It sank immediately into the metal surface, and didn’t emerge. Then, the pair turned to Rarity.

“Don’t let her touch you with her hooves!” Spike’s voice called from higher up in the castle, “Get away from her!”

Then came the moment.

This was an important moment for Scootaloo. In this moment, she truly felt ｢aligned｣ with another’s purpose! She felt as if the protective spirit of Sweetie Belle lingered in the room, even while she was gone! As if Coco, her most recent friend, was standing beside her! Like the blood of every Ponyvillian ran in her veins! They had given this to her, this spirit to continue in the face of adversity, and now she was duty-bound to carry it on.

“｢GO ZONE｣!”

She flew straight at Vinyl, who looked over her shoulder too late. If it had been a slow flight, if there had been some hesitation in her action, then Scootaloo surely would’ve suffered the same fate as the other two Crusaders. 

Instead, she unleashed a punch straight into the enemy Stand’s barrel, stunning it for a moment. With those extra seconds, she sailed the rest of the way onto Vinyl’s head, and kicked off of it, flipping through the air for another dizzy moment until she finally landed, sitting on the couch.

With a slight effort, ｢Go Zone｣ shoved the couch, and the floor below it became as slippery as possible. As she rolled deeper into the darkness of the castle, Scootaloo stared boldly at the sudden rage on Vinyl’s retreating face. 

Beneath her, Rarity laid under the blanket. If anypony had been paying close attention, they might have said that she looked quietly, strangely peaceful. 

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: Antennas to Heaven
User: DJ PON3
Stats
Power: B
Speed: C
Range: E
Durability: B
Precision: B
Potential: C
Abilities: ???
> Godspeed You Black Emperor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

To say that Sweetie Drops had made a long and arduous journey to get to Ponyville would be an understatement. It was true that she hadn't been forced to walk the whole way from the Crystal Empire, the Stands on hand at the castle had made that unnecessary, but she'd still been dropped off miles away from anywhere useful. Berryshine was probably well ahead of her, but she took comfort in the fact that they were both keeping to schedule. 

The forest was a black and unwieldy thing, like the Empire writ in plant-matter. Something important was buried deep in the dayless clearings. It wasn't what the other agents were combing the country for, because it was too much of a double-edged sword, but it was exactly what they needed to raze the King's enemies' hometown from the map. 

As she prodded at the rocks nearby, Drops wondered if she'd be remembered in some obscure book for her scorched-earth campaigns. 

Even with her Stand’s help, the goal seemed to avoid her. It took an hour's searching to find it, blocked off and marked like she'd been told. The boulder would've taken Herculean effort to force away. 

She reached into her saddlebag and grabbed a book in her teeth, then threw it onto the ground. The inside was hollowed-out, bearing a complex digital readout and tangles of wires. She activated it, slid it towards the rock, and ran for cover in the brush. 

The explosion was earth-shattering, literally. Hot debris smashed into the dirt like hail. Drops waited until she was sure she wouldn't catch a shard in the back, and then returned to the site. Where the book had been, there was only a sooty outline. Where the boulder had been, there was darkness. Drops' mouth twitched upwards for a moment at the hint of soft cerulean light inside. 

Beyond the mouth, in the stillness and damp air, lay the Mirror Pool.


* * *


The Everfree seemed much bigger at night, without a townful of sleep keeping at bay. The only thing contesting the shadows was frantic firelight in the middle distance, and it was better off not existing. Button felt pins and needles in his hooves. 

Stiff upper lip. He'd always been the stallion of the house, but now he was the only member. Best not to dwell on that. And, although he wasn't quite old enough to permit the thought openly, Diamond was watching him. Diamond with her long eyelashes, who could read secrets just by looking at you through them...

If Button had spent some time thinking clearly about it, he might have realized that she was already aware of his cloak-and-dagger affections. But he was the sort of colt who thought in terms of winning and losing, and since nopony had blown a whistle and held her fetlock up in victory, he had to assume the game was still afoot. 

All this to say that he was very quiet. Not shy, because shyness implied that there was no reason to be so silent. And she was quiet too, watching the trees and mulling over the prospects of testing ｢Misery Business｣'s speed against the jaws of a roving manticore.

It would have made her very happy to not encounter any animals in the night. And, considering where they were heading, she was right to be in a funk. Not to mention that the unrepeating jag-pattern of branches became more and more distracting the further she went. Could something out there know she was here by smell...?

Button stopped and held her back with a hoof. With a whisper, ｢Electric Funeral｣ appeared, and he fiddled with the sight, squinting. Diamond briefly entertained a silly thought that she should probably duck for cover, and then he pulled the trigger. The sound was a thick plastic ker-chuk, but there was no projectile. 

On the outskirts of the forest, the cottage filled up with light. The warmth blurred the darkness around it, removing detail, creating only their goal. Button found this as reassuring as Diamond found it concerning. 

Even with light close-by, she moved closer to him than before. He didn't react, through willpower. 

Closer, peering through an uncurtained window, they couldn't see her. The whole cottage seemed deserted, and the door wouldn't budge. He'd been about to shoot the lock when her Stand appeared and opened it from the inside. 

"She's probably in the bedroom," Button murmured, half to himself.

"Is there one?" Diamond asked louder, trotting inside. Fluttershy's home smelled like seven kinds of fur, but all of the cages were empty and the entryway was lifeless. 

Button stepped in second and scanned for other doors. He found the right one by the little white shape in front of it. At first he thought it might have been a statue from a garden, and then it moved.  

"There's a bunny," he said out of the corner of his mouth, nudging her from inspecting the cages. 

She turned and said, "Awww." That wasn't so bad, she guessed. 

It looked peeved at her expression, and scampered closer. She lowered her head a little to make better eye contact, and spoke rather condescendingly. 

"Do you know where Fluttershy is?" She put extra emphasis on "Fluttershy" in case the rest wasn't getting through. 

The bunny put back his ears and shook his head. 

Button hmmmed. "We need to find her. Did something happen?" He felt silly talking to a rabbit, and sillier when there wasn't a response. 

Then the rabbit startled and jumped back, away from the window. Button turned to see what had frightened him, and then threw himself at Diamond, throwing them both into the floor just before the glass shattered. 

Outside were three miniature planes, fighter jets smaller than his head, hovering in the air. In unison, they let out a barrage of gunfire, battering the window, the wood floor and the furniture beyond. 


* * *


The dark halls stretched onward, endlessly curving in the same direction. Scootaloo realized, belatedly, that the outer section of the first floor was just a ring, and that if she didn't get some altitude, she'd run away directly into her opponent. 

She went up the first staircase she could find, a long alabaster thing. ｢Go Zone｣ struck with its hooves in an exhausting combo, forcing the couch upwards and onto safe ground, and then getting them moving again. Scootaloo panted as the world lurched back into motion around her. 

When she'd gathered her breath, she called upwards, "Spike?"

There was no answer. She debated shouting louder, wondered if she'd be giving her position away and if that was acceptable. As far as she knew, both sides were in the dark for now.

Then there was an answer, from all sides: "Y-yeah?"

She passed through a corridor in the ring with a low ceiling, and then back out into an open passage. Toward the ceiling she shouted, "I'm heading your way! Where are you?"

For a moment, silence. Decision. "Th-third floor!"

Scootaloo nodded, then realized Spike couldn't see her. "Stay there, I'm coming!" The next corridor loomed, and as it swallowed her she looked for another staircase. 

"Anypony... I don't... I don't see anypony..."

Scootaloo jerked her head at the sound, ears perked. It was Sweetie's voice, coming from down the hallway. 

"Get behind us, girls!"

"What did you do to them?!" 

"Heeeeelp!"

Voices, young and old. The same that supplied the background chatter of life in Ponyville. She raced the couch towards them, around the bend. 

There was nopony there. Only the Stand, hovering the air, its non-mouth hanging open to spit out the noise. She stopped the couch in its tracks immediately, straining to defy momentum, as the user and Stand bolted for her. 

She shouted, "｢Go Zone｣!" But it didn't appear in time.

With a violent leap, the unicorn and her Stand bridged the distance, and struck the body of Element of Generosity. And instantly, beside Scootaloo, there was a CD being absorbed into the hoof of the Stand. 

She roared as ｢Go Zone｣ appeared, and suddenly the disc stopped moving. The friction between it and the hoof had become too great! And then, before there could be any counterattack, her Stand let out a single left hook on the outstretched metallic fetlock.

The hit dented the metal, and the enemy grunted and stumbled sideways. Then she fell flat on the floor, all friction gone from it, and ｢Go Zone｣ shoved her away. 

The enemy and her Stand went sprawling back a few meters, outside of range, and then stood up again. When they did, they saw the couch rushing backwards away from them, and an orange pegasus filly holding the CD of Rarity. 

Snarling, the unicorn regained her balance and searched for a staircase. 


* * *


By the time Diamond was sensible enough to look at the source of the bullets, the jets had already passed through the corpse of the window, gliding into the cottage. They zoomed overhead and began to turn in midair. 

Outside, everything was too dark to even make out shapes. An enemy Stand user could be leering at her from just outside of the ring of light, and she would never know. If this Stand had some range to it, they could be anywhere in the dark. Privately, the part of her that wasn’t still sore wondered how Sweetie Belle would deal with circumstances like this. 

But the truth was that Sweetie Belle had dealt with it by sending two of the more offensive Stand users she had and hoping that it would work out in the end. In this position, she’d probably be just as helpless as...

Remembering the bunny, Diamond suddenly jerked her head up. In the darkness, behind the staircase, he was hiding. She breathed a sigh of relief and summoned up her Stand. Button, for his part, was already ahead of her. 

｢Misery Business｣ lashed out at one of the model planes as it doubled back, but it dove to one side and away from the hit. ｢Electric Funeral｣ bullseyed one of the remaining two, and it clattered to the floor on its side like a discarded toy while its brother let out a stream of vengeful gunfire. Button jumped back and scurried for cover, knocking over a table and a stand before diving behind the couch. 

While that jet was distracted, Diamond picked up the fallen one with her Stand and threw it. When the two collided, it spun in the air and dipped, and she was able to smash it. Button popped up from behind cover and took a careful shot, which she only noticed afterwards by the ineffectual thump of the jet hitting the ground beside her. It had been aiming, she realized, for the back of her head. 

When no more bullets were fired, she rushed to the window and stared out with her Stand activated. Where were they hiding?

There was only nerve-wracking silence, no matter which direction she tried searching in. She even tried the sky and the ground beneath her. Nopony. The user was long gone, or else they were never in the area to begin with. 

Or...

The bunny scampered back into view, inspecting the damage and fallen Stand-bits. Nearby, Button caught his breath, kicked one of the disabled vehicles across the room like a can, and asked, “Know who’s doing this?”

“I have an idea. Before we do anything, we need to make sure Fluttershy’s here. Otherwise we’ll have a lot more work after this.” 

Button nodded, and they approached one of the only closed doors on the first floor. He held his rifle at the ready, and she tensed as she shoved the door inward. The rifle-barrel filled the doorway as soon as there was space free, and it took a few seconds for Button to unclench his hooves at the empty bathroom behind. 

He stopped pressing his face to the black plastic and looked up at her. She looked back at him, and then he shrugged and nodded imperceptibly. The next door was a little to the left, and they scooted over to it, assuming the same position. The bunny stood behind Diamond, glancing around the rest of the cottage in fear. 

She twisted the knob and threw the door in, stepping out of the doorway again. Button followed the same steps as before, stared into the sight, and then yelped. He sprung back as fast as he could, and then a wall of bullets tore away the floor where he’d been standing. 

They came pouring out in a steady stream, five planes, ten, a dozen, more. Button clutched his Stand to his heart and stared at the procession, bug-eyed and unselfaware. They circled and looped and patterned themselves in the air above him, getting into position to cream him. 

With shaky hooves he looked at all of them. He could force out two shots, maybe, in the time before they fired. She watched him raise the rifle, point the laser at random, fumble, fire. It was out of the way before he even pulled the trigger, and the shot flew wild and struck one of the lights. 

Oh.

And suddenly, the cottage was dark again.


* * *


Spike was hiding in an alcove when he saw Scootaloo coming. He hadn’t been able to see what she was riding on earlier, but he recognized the sofa. It halted and she dismounted as soon as she saw him. 

“Spike! I’m really glad someone else is okay!” 

“Wh-where’s Rarity?” 

Scootaloo frowned, then hoofed over something he hadn’t noticed she was holding at first. “Here.”

Spike went cold. “Then there's only Twilight left…”

“I’ll stop her before she can do anything to Twilight. But you have to keep this safe until I’m done. Since she’s storing the CDs inside her Stand, I bet she’s got a limited range, so we just need to beat her and get them somewhere else for them to turn back into ponies!” Scootaloo was smiling as she made this explanation, and then pressed the disc into his talons. 

He stared down at it, and then nodded. “J… just keep Twilight safe.”

She made herself level with him, close enough that he had to choose which eye to look at. “I will. Don’t worry. Where is she?”

He thought for a moment, then pointed with a free claw. “Down that hallway, past the library, second door on the left.”

“Good. Hide, and don’t come out until there are ponies here again.” 

And then she was off. 

In less than twenty breaths after their conversation ended, he saw the shadow of the enemy around a corner, and ran desperately down the same hallway. Most of the doors would’ve made some noise at being opened, and the only option that didn’t need him to open anything was…

He could hear her hoofsteps coming up to where he’d just been. 

With shaky legs, he ran into the darkness of the third-floor library. 


* * *


There was a fine art to cloning. Drops didn’t know it, but she knew what she liked.

Her own face in a repeating line, moving from one wall to the next. Organized, reliable, trained. Each copy was imperfect, and they would deteriorate more the longer she relied on them, but they were steadfast and loyal. She could trust them to do the right thing, whatever she’d think it was. This was something generals must’ve daydreamt about, she was sure. 

The only flaw was the Stand. The others had the aura, the sight, the feeling that came with wielding one, but they couldn’t manifest it. At least, not all at once. She summoned it, a squat porcelain sphere hanging dumbly in the air, dangling a curtain of tiny silver tools for some deeply arcane arts-and-crafts project. Its one eye, a hematite hexagon, stared passively out on the damp dimness. 

Then she dismissed it, and motioned to her closest copy. It grunted, exerted itself for a moment, and then the Stand rose, hovering, out of its essence. 

So it was just one at a time. It would do. 

“Alright, ladies, we’ve got a big couple of hours ahead. Let’s get everything ready.”


* * *


Button was in survival mode. The sporadic gunfire was keeping his eyes from adjusting, and keeping him moving, unable to get a shot off in response. He’d only bought himself time, not a way out. 

He was only a few hooves away from the next volley, and the air filled with buzzing as the jets entered a new formation. 

Maybe, he thought to himself, long-range work was really his specialty. 

“Button! Turn the lights back on!” Diamond called over the humming chaos. The planes adjusted themselves in mid-pattern, no doubt aiming at her now. 

“Get behind cover!” he yelled, half-hoping that they’d go back to focusing on him.

“Just trust me, Button! They won’t fire if you turn on the lights!” 

She sounded certain. He squinted and thought he made out the closest lamp. The buzzing was dying down as the planes settled in, and very few seemed to be pointing at him.

“Hurry!”

They thrummed with the sound of approaching gunfire. Button pulled the trigger.

The cottage burst into existence around him again, and the jets sputtered and went quiet. Between them and Diamond, held up by ｢Misery Business｣, was the body of Fluttershy. 

“You might as well come out now,” she said to the room at large. No one did, but she stood patiently in her frozen stalemate.. 

He turned around, and checked to make sure nopony was hiding anywhere. He couldn’t see anything, except that the bunny had resurfaced, peeking out from behind a potted plant. It bounded closer toward Fluttershy, staring up at her dumbfounded. 

“You can drop the act,” Diamond said. Fluttershy lay still in the air, eyes closed, and all was silent.

It took Button a moment to understand who she was talking to. It took the rabbit a while, too, and then he stared at her, puzzled. 

“You hopped away from this Stand before either of us saw it. Before it even broke the window, or fired any shots. And only Stand users can see other Stands.” 

The bunny stared at her. And then his expression changed, becoming grimmer. Something like a smile formed on his face, and the jets started moving again. Now they were circling around each other, flying in vertical rings above where he stood. 

“I can’t read animals’ minds, but I know what you’re thinking. You think you can shoot me without hurting her. You think you’re faster than my Stand, and I probably wouldn’t risk Fluttershy’s life. And you’re right, about all of that, but you’ll still lose.”

There was no answer. The Stand slowed over the bunny, who looked tired of the game, and revved up once more. The combatants stared at each other with powerfully stoic expressions!

Button raised ｢Electric Funeral｣ up toward the swarm. The bunny only paid attention to make sure the shot wasn’t aimed directly at him, and rolled his eyes at the measured breathing and plastic click. 

One plane suddenly turned into dead weight, and hit their opponent square on the head. It bounded off onto the floor a moment later, but the damage was done. He slumped over, unconscious, and the planes disintegrated from the air and the floor. 

Diamond let out a breath, and looked at their enemy. “He did a good job protecting her.”

Button, who felt considerably less mature about the whole thing, said, “Not good enough for us.”

She smirked a little, and then didn’t. Her eyes didn’t leave the fallen animal, and then, gingerly, ｢Misery Business｣ placed him on top of his owner. 

When they left the cottage, they turned out the lights behind them. 


* * *


DJ PON-3 had been in Ponyville for a long time. She wasn’t one of the new invaders, she was a long-standing community member. Waiting, watching, silent for so many years.

It was only recently that she got the Stand, of course, and things had been happening very quickly since then, but Sombra had spoken to her in dreams. Well, not exactly “spoken”, but she understood as well as he did that words were unnecessary sometimes. They were both overlooked, underappreciated. Both of them would be better off at the top, and unlike anyone else she ever heard complain about the unfairness of the world, he was willing to change it. She loved him, in a way. They were kindred souls, even if time had placed them so far apart.

｢Antennas to Heaven｣ had been a bonus, a gift during her dream. The chosen few didn’t have to endure the nightmares and trauma to be granted their power, and she was possibly his most patient acolyte. She’d rounded up so many in Ponyville without ever risking herself or her cover, and, although it barely mattered by now, she had the Elements of Harmony almost gift-wrapped for him.

...Almost.

She’d discovered in the last few minutes that her Stand gave her a sense of where her discs were when they weren’t being stored. This was the first time one had been taken from her, and by one of the little brats from town. Where had a filly like that even worked up the nerve from?

The disc had come here, then stopped, and then quickly after it moved away again, down that hallway… It was inside that library, maybe tucked away in a corner. The DJ walked toward it softly, questing into the dusty darkness. Her Stand floated beside her, casting a thin bar of red light on the affair, and it swept with her towards her prize. 

“Ah! S-stay away!”

When she saw Spike, backed up into one corner and clutching the disc, shaking at her like he needed a paper bag to breathe into, it was no big surprise. He didn’t matter, but it was nice to have his thread tied up along with the others. 

“No closer, I m-mean it! You can’t have Rarity!” 

That one was more forceful, and he looked genuinely serious. It was almost comical to notice the look on his face as the disc tugged away from him on its own and floated in midair, gravitating towards a Stand he couldn’t see. ｢Antennas to Heaven｣ held out a hoof to absorb the CD, and the DJ couldn’t help but sneer a little at the sudden intensity in the dragon’s eyes. It was too much like what she’d seen in that filly’s face a few minutes ago, and it was nothing more than posturing in the end.

Then Spike released a burst of bright green dragonfire into the air. It sailed clear of her, and didn’t even damage her Stand, even if it was pretty, and it was gone as soon as it came. 

And so was the disc.

“She’s in Canterlot now,” he said quietly. “How’s that for range?”

He chuckled as her Stand raced forward and slammed its hoof into him. There was no pain, but it was cathartic. The Element of Generosity could be dealt with later, it’s not like she was mobile. 

After she’d taken a couple of deep breaths, she replayed Spike’s words in the dark. 

“...ow’s that for… can’t have Rarity! ...oor on the- ary, second door on the… Down that hallway, past the library, second door on the left… keep Twilight safe...”

With her bearings, she wandered back into the hall, looking for the right room. It wound up being the first one ajar, only a crack of it open. There was very little natural light inside, only what the moon spilled on the floor, and against one wall a bed with the Princess Twilight Sparkle in it. And, standing over that final target, the brat, with her Stand hovering above her in the dark.  

“About time you showed up, lady.”

“...” PON-3 shrugged past the door and entered the room.

“｢Go Zone｣ can get those CDs out of your Stand, whether it has to rip them out or hit you until you cough ‘em up. We can do either, or you can give them up right now. Your choice!” Scootaloo threw a hoof out at her opponent like she was flinging the decision at her.

The DJ rolled her eyes. She could deal with this without trading blows. 

Beside her, ｢Antennas to Heaven｣ opened its mouth, and Sweetie Belle’s voice burst forth. “I don't see anypony...” The filly bristled, and gritted her teeth as the disc was ejected, held in one hoof. 

“A trade?” 

Nod. 

“...No deal.”

Frown. 

Shrug.

DJ PON-3 threw out a hoof, and the disc went flying towards Scootaloo, who stood on her back legs to catch it and fell backwards onto the comforter. 

At that same moment, the unicorn raced across the room, seizing her opportunity! Scootaloo fumbled as the disc ripped itself from her hooves and rose up into the air, toppling dizzily. Even if she made Twilight immoveable with her power, it wouldn’t stop either of them from being converted! 

｢Antennas to Heaven｣ feinted a swipe for the filly, and she let go of the disc and jumped back, noticing too late that she was falling off of the bed! As she left range, her Stand disappeared. Then the metallic hoof connected, hitting the Princess directly and turning her into sweet, sweet FLAC. The DJ grinned and leaned onto the bed to grab her prize.

And then the couch, which had been stuck to the ceiling by friction alone, fell on her. Or, rather, on her hooves. The sudden weight bore upon her skin, and she jolted back, only to find herself unable to move. 

When Scootaloo dashed around the bed, it only took one clean motion. She pivoted and slid in a wide arc, unmoving, and then she stopped, looking up at the older mare. 

DJ PON-3 summoned her Stand, but its front hooves were locked down. She tried to kick off the couch, but it didn’t budge. There was too much friction. 

“｢Go Zone｣!” Scootaloo shouted, and the punch came before the rest of the body could manifest, smashing into ｢Antennas to Heaven｣’s flank. Another came, then another, and soon a glinting inside cavity was revealed, stacked with vinyl discs. 

With one powerful rip, the Stand tore them free. The DJ gasped once, and slumped, unconscious.

Scootaloo surveyed the scene, the stack of CDs larger than the Stand that had housed them, the darkness, the empty bed and the sudden silence of the castle. She still had to navigate back to ground level and deal with Ponyville’s assailant before the night could truly be over. 

Tired, she kicked the couch away, and it went sailing to the other side of the room and halted neatly against a bare wall. Then, she got to work. 


* * *


The fires had burned themselves out by now. Button could still smell the thick black ash, like a campfire magnified. Smoke lingered in the air, but most of the damage had already been done. He wondered if there was a Stand user somewhere who could control water, and then realized that it was something pegasi did in general. 

...Where had they all gone? 

“Button…” Diamond said, behind his right shoulder. She had kept her voice down.

“Hm?”

“There’s… I don’t know. Three o’clock.”

It took him a moment to understand what she was saying, and by the time he did he’d already turned his head where she was pointing him. 

It was Bon Bon. An advancing line of Bon Bon, maybe twenty-five of her, all identical. All of them were holding things; big sticks, rocks, suitcases. Above the whole mass floated an orb that he knew on instinct was a Stand. He rubbed his eyes for a moment, and they were still there. 

“Did Bon Bon always have a Stand?” he asked.

“Bon Bon was in the castle,” Diamond said softly, “I… I saw her on our last trip.”

Button’s eyes narrowed. Why all of the impostors up to now? Were these changelings? And if they were, why all disguise as the same person and walk together in formation? He stared at them, hard, searching for some sort of answer. 

And then some of them looked back at him, and immediately turned to each other and their items. 

The two foals didn’t wait long enough to see what would happen next. They bolted into town, Fluttershy in tow, heading castleward. 

Behind them, the army advanced. 

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: Twenty One Pilots
User: Angel Bunny
Stats
Power: B
Speed: C
Range: A
Durability: C
Precision: C
Potential: C
Abilities: Takes the form of 21 miniature fighter jets equipped with guns. Each part of the Stand follows the orders of the user exactly, and any damage must be repaired manually over time.

Stand Name: Antennas to Heaven
User: DJ PON-3
Stats
Power: B
Speed: C
Range: E
Durability: B
Precision: B
Potential: C
Abilities: Converts living things by touch into high-quality FLAC-format sound on compact discs. Discs can be stored inside the Stand itself, played like CDs, or damaged to harm anything within them. Discs are reverted back either by the user's willpower or when they leave range.

Stand Name: ???
User: Sweetie Drops
Stats
Power: E
Speed: D
Range: B
Durability: B
Precision: E
Potential: E
Abilities: ???
> Drops of Jupiter
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sweetie Drops was born in peacetime, but never really appreciated it. She had always idolized the tacticians of the past, more for their accomplishments than how they thought. Weaponry, technology, conspiracy, all of these appealed to her with its own special charm. There was so much versatility in those ideas, so much care and attention paid into finding unique and novel ways to go to war. The moment she was allowed in a military history museum was one of the best moments of her life. 

At least, before she had entered the Empire, a few days ago. Magic was a convenient thing, especially in a world absolutely thick with it. It made understanding the situation, adjusting to her power, all of the processing that would’ve taken days or weeks, completely automatic. That didn’t mean it didn’t take some getting used to, but within a few days she was jumping into enchanted cave pools with the best of them. 

Some of her other selves just noticed two children with Stands of their own, staring and then beating feet into the distance. She had a good idea they were heading for sanctuary, and with a quick nod she sent two of herself after them. A little mental push, and ｢Technologic｣ dissipated from above her and moved to them.

Then, advancing, they began to search for good targets. 


***


“She’s following us!” Button yelled, head glancing back at their two pursuers and the Stand hovering between them. One had a suitcase tucked under one fetlock, and both of them were expressionless. 

Diamond was ahead by a good margin and could hardly hear him, but she got the sentiment. Her Stand pushed further still, in case this was a game of fatal keep-away. The path they were cutting through town was going to be fast, but demoralizing, full of torched memories and things she didn’t have the time to mourn. 

Her heartbeat resounded in her ears, and ahead she saw a body, slumped over against the earth like it had fainted from all of the excitement. It was no one she recognized, and briefly she wondered if it was some other enemy that somepony else had already vanquished. 

Button saw it too, and rushed forward so she could hear him, spitting out the words. “C-Coco. Scootaloo’s, friend. Is she…?”

Diamond tried to tell if the pony was alive or dead, and couldn’t. “I might be able to carry her, but we’d have to stop.” Then she glanced over her shoulder.

The two Bon Bons were fiddling with the suitcase, but they couldn’t do it successfully and keep their pace. Their eyes were focused on the item between them, and they moved in almost perfect unison. Despite this, they had only fallen a couple yards behind. 

The foals looked back at their opponents, then at each other, and ran for the burnt ring of houses where Coco Pommel lay. 

When they reached it, Button spun and leapt on the spot, ｢Electric Funeral｣ appearing in his hooves. He skidded to a halt on his back, firing at one of the Bon Bons. She clearly hadn’t been expecting this, because she made no move to dodge, and then he front right hoof gave way under her. While the other one took in what had just happened, he counted the seconds to himself.

As he loosed another shot, Diamond knelt beside Coco and felt for a pulse. One came, but the jostling didn’t bring the mare to consciousness. ｢Misery Business｣, already occupied, tried to rearrange the Element of Kindness and the bunny already in its grip. Like so many delicate things, it stretched on endlessly against the measure of her heartbeat.

The Bon Bon he’d shot rolled to the side, and the other one fell low to the ground, suitcase still in tow. Keeping her hooves behind it, she fiddled with the mechanism singlemindedly, and it popped open. 

From inside came a great rumbling, the sound of many parts connecting themselves in sequence, and the barrel of a weapon swung out and above the lip, extending like a telescope into a long cannon. Bon Bon gripped a string in her teeth and pulled. 

Button cursed and hit the ground as a cannonball arced over his head and smashed into the crumbling woodwork of a broken-up house. Diamond held against the ensuing gust, dusty ash drifting back to earth around her wards. Still, Coco was unmoving.

A flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, and Diamond saw the second Bon Bon snapping off an exposed beam of blackened wood in her hooves. Her enemy looked at it hungrily, and strained for a moment before what was evidently a Stand coalesced above her. 

Suddenly, the lion’s share of the wood slipped loose like overripe fruit, and a clean, shiny, sharpened blade lay beneath it. The Stand fizzled out as quickly as it came, and Bon Bon fidgeted with it in her hooves before balancing the machete properly. 

As one charged and the other seemed to reload that long barrel, Button saw the whole scene unfolding in front of him. In the time frame available, he could get off one solid shot. Below, Diamond was all but dropping Fluttershy and the rabbit onto the road and getting ready for combat. Beside, another cannonball waited, the barrel swiveling slightly closer to him. 

Self-interest won out, and he turned his Stand onto the cannon. It wasn’t a difficult target to hit, and he got the shot out in a half-second. 

Nothing happened. 

Eyes widening, he tumbled onto his legs and galloped towards a safe distance. It was too late, and as he dove forward out of the trajectory the metal ball thundered into the earth behind him, and he went flying, his limbs waving frantically in search of ground. The subconscious clock implanted by his Stand and trained by its use reminded him that enough time had passed that he could fire another shot, and as he soared for a well-ravaged wall he managed to line up the sight. 

Just before the crash, he squeezed the trigger.

It hit. 

With a gasp like the dead awakening, Coco Pommel sat up. 


***


Scootaloo’s trip back down was arduous, maybe annoying, but not stressful. Her Stand could do nothing at all to make things lighter, and so it had required more work than she would have liked to carry another mare back to ground level. The moonlit castle echoed around her the whole time, while she anticipated some new Stand user or hidden trap to spring from the dimness of the far hallways. 

｢Go Zone｣ hovered over her albino foe through it all, poised to deliver another barrage of kicks at the first sign of stirring. Whether by luck or wise acting, they all made it to the doors without trouble. 

The fires had stopped in the distance, and the town seemed more peaceful, as if it were possible that everypony was really just asleep and not upstairs. She wondered how far away would be far away enough, and how she would tell. Flashes of the battle with Jewel Joy rippled on the surface of her memory, and she remembered that her most recent friend was still out there, possibly. 

Flying straight up, she searched for movement further out among the buildings. It existed, in pockets. Tiny ponies ran this way and that splitting from a large group in the distance. There was other activity closer than that, but she couldn’t guess at its meaning. Unless a band of survivors had tromped out of the Everfree, she was almost certain nopony should be in the area at all. 

She decided to kill two birds with one stone. 

With a few exerting thwacks, her Stand knocked out the hinges of one of the castle doors. She stood a few hooves back as it toppled to the earth, and then she pushed the white mare onto it. With a deep breath she hopped on herself, and then the whole chunk of glass and wood jetted forward. 


***


“Coco!” Diamond yelled as she backpedaled from the blade. The Bon wielding it swiped for her like she was clenching a broom in her teeth, frustration clear in her face.

“Wuh...?” Coco mumbled, trying to overcome the complaints of her inner clock and the pounding of her head. Whoever was talking to her knew her name, so surely it was important, but part of her insisted that she was just about to have really restful sleep if she would just collapse back to where she’d been. 

“Help!” Diamond’s voice cut again into the haze, deeper now. Bon Bon lunged with the blade as the filly turned her head to Coco, swinging it down like the edge of a guillotine. 

Before it could connect, ｢Misery Business｣ clapped the blade between its hooves. Then, with one thick twist it shattered, and the Bon Bon wielding it jumped away. Coco realized that she’d slept through something important, and finally got a good look around. 

The pink filly was charging back against her attacker, now with an upper hoof.

Button Mash, who she’d spoken to not very long ago at all, was now unconscious and bruised, surrounded by sawdust and debris in the burnt-out center of a house. 

Furthest away, an exact replica of the sword-slinging mare was working a long metal cannon. This drew her attention the most, because then it spat out a cannonball, arcing towards the house where Button had fallen. 

“｢Something for Nothing｣!” Coco’s Stand lifted itself from her aura and let out a leash of fabric, grappling it onto Button’s barrel and pulling him closer. He landed on a cushion, and the house finally fell into a mess of bad timber. 

Close enough to see it happen, Diamond advanced. “What’s your next move going to be?”

Her enemy sweated and gritted her teeth, already exhausted from working with three legs. Jumping into the window behind me and finding the first available weapon ｢Technologic｣ can provide.

Diamond kept silent. She realized now that it was childish to tell what she did and didn’t know, to announce it as an intimidation tactic. That never would’ve worked against half of what had happened tonight. So instead she smiled, quietly, as if she’d just been given a small, inconsequential gift from her father. 

The Bon Bon kicked up some dirt in the filly’s face and leapt through the square hole where a window had once sat. 

Then she paled as she bumped into ｢Misery Business｣, which was already hovering inside the ruined first floor. With one good kick she collapsed, and then… disappeared. 

Diamond processed that.

Running back into the center of the fire-damage, she saw Coco. With no time to intuit what intricacies lay within the mare’s Stand, the filly just pointed at the sheet tied around Button and said, “Throw me!”

Coco had the funny, half-awake, hungover thought that she was becoming far too used to being told that, and perhaps she’d be better off building a catapult for easy use. It only lasted until she could see the look in the filly’s eyes, that same expression that the world now seemed to cultivate so well...

Diamond Tiara soared towards the artillerypony like a skipping stone about to touch the water, and the fake Bon Bon lifted the cannon away from its original, unconscious targets to keep it level with her. With one mighty and satisfied tug, another iron ball came crashing across the sky and into her trajectory, ready to pulp her. 

｢Misery Business｣ reached out with its thin but powerful limbs and clutched the ball at its oncoming apex like a tiny planetoid. Then, simply, it bounded off, and Diamond along with it, both falling down towards their foe. 

Bon Bon strained to summon her Stand, maybe to activate something, but it didn’t come. Diamond dismissed ｢Misery Business｣ and merely kicked, landing all of the force of her fall through her back leg and into the skull of the cannoneer. 

Her enemy’s eyes widened, and in a wingbeat, she was gone.

Diamond brought her Stand back out and ignored the fatigue that came with it. Coco approached from below, full of silent questions. 

Before she could ask any, Diamond looked her in the eye and said, “We have to get back to Princess Twilight’s Castle.”

Whatever the mare saw in her face, she agreed immediately. 


***


Home was nothing like Equestria. Not nearly so idyllic, although Drops wouldn’t be able to appreciate that given when she came in. Certainly not as pacifistic. Her home knew guns, missiles, anti-tank munitions, complex political ladder-climbing. Even in Canterlot High, nothing was as easy as saying what you wanted out loud. No problem worth mentioning was solved within twenty minutes. Few liked this, but it was altogether tolerable.

These were the changes she’d been conditioned to expect. The difference that still irked her, even as she crumbled buildings with well-placed explosives, was the size of the whole thing. There had been a map shown to her of the world she was helping to conquer, and she had marveled (to herself alone, naturally) at how incredibly small it was. This world ponies called Earth was hardly an island to her, and yet the great and rightful King needed extra help to find a paltry piece of jewelry and burn down a couple towns?

Perhaps Drops only felt this way because her home had been composed almost entirely of “islands”, brought together only through human ingenuity and military might. She had been taught from birth that her city was only a small part of a much larger whole, that there were thousands of cultures she would never even learn about as technology progressed across her planet. She had never known anything else, never thought of any world itself as fundamentally comprehensible.

So, here in this world, she couldn’t help herself expecting to find the edge of this tiny landmass would just dip off into the endless roiling wind of all the others, to think that she wasn’t really gone from home at all, only on some distant part of it. But she had fallen through into this world, and she had the evidence of new physics on her senses, and she knew this wasn’t Jupiter. 

Maybe this was why she didn’t seem to react when she saw an orange filly carrying one of her associates, a native she’d never met, while sliding through the grassy landscape on a glass door. This demented toboganner only registered in her mind as an enemy, and she marshalled her selves to prepare a counteroffensive. 

They threw down bits of metal, frames, snapped-off drawers, nothing very useful. One threw her a comedically large hairbrush, and as she concentrated it snapped open down the middle, revealing a small, naked dartgun. Grimacing at its relative tininess, she pulled at the trigger with her lip, another her keeping it trained steady. 

The filly came closer, oblivious, yelling into the wind as she approached. Whoever had incapacitated the DJ had to have been powerful, and she was probably some messenger looking to negotiate terms for a peace. Sweetie Drops couldn’t allow that to happen. 

“Now,” the nearest her hissed as the filly was upon them. 

She fired.

The door suddenly stopped cold, as if it had never moved in the first place, or had just been caught animate and hoped not to be noticed. The filly stopped with it. But above her head, the DJ kept soaring. Momentum pulled her forward, and her body tumbled forward over the filly like a ragdoll into the path of the tranquilizer. 

The Dropses took a moment to process that. 

And then the door started moving again, pushed by a Stand that was only visible for a split second, and indistinct orange shape. It “ran over” three of her selves like bowling pins while she scrambled in the detritus for another weapon, and even those who dodged it collapsed to the ground like the strength had left their legs. 

After a moment, the filly had swooped back around and grabbed PON-3 in her Stand, only to head off in an utterly random direction, past them and towards the forest. Drops threw a crookful of nuts and bolts after her retreating figure, but none landed anywhere close. Fuming, she realized that this was going to be work after all. 

“There are still ponies here,” another self said.

“She came from the castle. If we don’t focus on it, we’ll get more skirmishes,” one more added.

The original nodded. “We have to do this right. Hit their base, track down stragglers later.”

They double-timed it. 


***


Spike came to in a very cramped room, chockablock with the dazed and distressed, and around him there was a great murmuring like the misty beginning of the world. Time had not seemed to pass for him, as though he were under some sort of anesthetic, but he recognized the room and the time better than most of its new occupants. Regaining his bearings, he stared dumbly at the ceiling and realized that Scootaloo must have won. For a moment he laughed, glad that her promise hadn’t been in vain. 

Then he noticed Scootaloo wasn’t present, and remembered Rarity was now in Canterlot, and his face became sober. 

Of the other ponies in the room, most of whom were slowly exiting through the door, most were familiar. The sleeping forms of Twilight, Pinkie and Applejack were left where they lay, for fear of disturbing them, but the other Elements were absent. 

Nearby, through the legs of standing adults, Spike saw Sweetie Belle gazing into her Stand, the mechanical clacking of the changing slides drowned out by a wall of whispers. She pulled it away, looking like someone who overslept an exam. It wasn’t over. 

He pushed past a few errant discussions and attempts to look out of the windows and eventually made it to her. 

“Is there still danger?” he asked. 

“I’m seeing multiple of the same pony, destroying things! Ponyville’s being ransacked!” Sweetie said this almost as if it were her fault, and not just to him but to the room at large. 

It didn’t hear.

Spike glanced around, sucked in a large breath and frowned deeply until he spat an impressive ball of dragonfire at the ceiling. Everything in the room was illuminated green for an instant, and everyone hushed and turned. 

Spike bowed and waved an arm at Sweetie, giving her the floor. 


***


Coco came to the castle, carrying Button in a large bag to one side of her and Diamond Tiara to the other with her own payload. The filly had explained everything up to now, although with the lack of clarity that came from a young and excited recounting given during a swift gallop. The bag itself wasn’t a comfortable arrangement for Button, but he wasn’t conscious to notice. Despite this Coco, who privately considered herself the unofficial princess of the rushed job, still worried at it, and was relieved to make it inside and deposit him where Diamond might find a place for him. 

Of course the completely missing door had been the first clue that something had gone wrong, but the sheer emptiness within was astounding. It was so entirely not what they’d hoped for.

“They were just here, I know they were!” Diamond said, scrambling around to find some note or hint to their disappearance. Coco didn’t know what to say to her, but studied the building, as if there might be some secret passageway revealed in the right alcove or fixture. 

Then there was the explosion, and the shaking, as a rocket collided with the side of the castle. There was no visible damage, but the structure shook with the force of an earthquake, as if pulling against some root structure deep in the mantle of the world. A second later, when it stopped, Coco ran to the entrance to take in the number of enemies they would have to face.

She didn’t get the chance. Three came in, auras strong and pulsing, the Stand stationed above the front of the triangle. She was holding a gun large enough to pull the trigger with her hoof, and the other two had matching models and suitcases on their backs. There was a dull thrumming roar, maybe the Castle’s reaction to being invaded, maybe just the fear affecting Diamond’s eardrums. 

The frontmost Bon Bon motioned the two Stand users together and backwards with the gun. They backed carefully further into the castle, into the center of it, where the high ceiling ended in a giant mass of crystal and a slab of grey stone formed a large table among chairs marked for the Elements of Harmony. The sight was breathtaking, but Coco had none to give yet. 

When the Bon Bon spoke, she sounded terse, gruff, almost like the real candymaker were in the room putting on an act. “If you and the other ponies you’re hiding here don’t surrender, we’ll chip away at this castle until there’s nothing left.” Wisely, she kept the gun pointed on Diamond, and the other two of her set the suitcases against the table, popping them open to reveal steady countdown timers. 

Another impact from outside, and more shuddering, but no sound. They weren’t breaking through.

“You’re lying,” Diamond said, near-sneering, “You’re going to break everything you can no matter what anypony does.”

That was the whole of their conversation. Not even giving a sign she’d heard the words, the stonefaced Bon Bon squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. 

Not used to being betrayed by her weapons, she looked down on reflex to insepct it, and saw a small pillowy cushion jammed between the trigger and its arc backwards. By the time she looked back up, ｢Something for Nothing｣ was already on her. 

Its hoof struck forward, landing squarely on the materializing surface of ｢Technologic｣ and halting there as it bore the force. 

“Get out, Diamond!” Coco called over her shoulder. “Take care of Button! Find out what’s happened to everypony!” By now the other two Bon Bons had drawn closer, and their fumbling guns were torn from their hooves by cyan-glowing strips of white bedsheet. 

But Diamond ignored her, pouncing on the nearest disarmed opponent with ｢Misery Business｣ at the ready, grabbing the Bon Bon with it and shouting, “How do we turn off the bombs?!”

There was an echo, a condescending smile, and then Diamond threw the opponent into a wall and jumped towards the device on the left, ripping into it and pulling wires. Coco watched in awe, until the orb of the enemy Stand drove into her chest in a metallic headbutt, pushing her away. 

Her enemy, who had finally unjammed the trigger, pulled it with relish. When nothing happened, and she saw the line of cloth clogging the guts of the barrel, she gave up and charged for Coco, carrying it like a blunt instrument.

The other Bon Bon still standing, who summoned back ｢Technologic｣, opened up the back of one of the chairs. Whatever she found there, ｢Misery Business｣ socked her in the face before she could make use of it. Like the one slumped against the wall, she popped out of existence like a military soap bubble. 

Diamond ripped at the wires with her teeth, working as quickly as she could. She had no idea what would happen if an artifact like this was destroyed, and she didn’t want to find out. At last, the timer died, blinking, displaying “00:05”. 

“Five seconds to go!” she said, and then realized that there was another bomb left.

By her actions, Coco realized this fact at the same time. She could’ve tried throwing it outside of the chamber, and risked hitting somepony. She could’ve wrapped it in some amount of fabric, although that would’ve done nothing for the explosion. 

Using ｢Something for Nothing｣ to tackle and hold back her opponent, she turned and dashed for the table, skidding to a direct halt between the bomb and Diamond. Her front hooves were outstretched, to cover as much surface area as possible, and her eyes were calm as the edge of the stone pressed against her coat.

At least I gave something back.

And then the table thrummed with sudden energy, and lit up with magical light. The sudden rush of magical aura in the room was so powerful that she took a half-step away from it, nearly shielding herself like someone anticipating bright light. It took her a little staring to realize that her Stand had withdrawn. 

Darting her head to the side, as if it would reveal this all as a magnificent pre-death hallucination, she saw the bomb had a blank readout. Behind her, her assailant stared at the magic in disbelief, maybe even wonder. 

Coco tried, and found that her Stand had appeared again. Diamond did the same. Together, they turned to the remaining Bon Bon. 

Their enemy looked between them, clutching the useless firearm to herself, and then backpedaled out of the door. 

And all at once, with that previously imperceptible roar resolving itself into knowing and angry voices, Ponyville came raging down the stairs. 


***


The Dropses manning the rockets fell back as the wave of Ponyvillians descended on them. Some scrambled to open up discarded sticks into small knives, or tug grass up to reveal a bunker, but ｢Technologic｣ didn’t assist them. With those same sticks and bare hooves, the townsponies attacked. Many had lost days worth of time, and were all the more rested for it. 

For some, it became a rout. The first one to jump past the edge of town also left the shared field of the enchantment cast by the mirror pool, and popped out of existence. Others faded instead of falling unconscious. 

Very quickly, the numbers whittled down, as Ponyville reasserted itself. After a while, a fleet of small, well-armed planes chased and herded them, and the townsfolk attacked them in mobs of pans and trampling.

The very last one, of course, was the original.


***


Drops came to and saw she was outside, and the sky was tinged with the purplish hints of a sunrise. More prominent, she saw the pink filly standing over her, grinning down at her with unrestrained smug enjoyment. A few more seconds of consciousness, and she saw the Stand, too. It was a massive thing, from the ground. 

Slowly, painfully, the truth came out. 

The assault on Ponyville didn’t have any more members at the moment. Jewel, Berryshine, PON-3 and Drops had been necessary overkill in the King’s eyes. They didn’t have any way of communicating with him, although Drops didn’t know if that stopped him from knowing they’d been beaten. She had used the Mirror Pool, and was the only pony with a solid idea of its location. Sombra knew very distinctly where ancient magical artifacts were. She didn’t know the fates of the Princesses or the Elements. Stopping the Elements was important to him only because the forces of Harmony were so formidable, as far as she knew. Drops and most of the others like her came from another world. (Here Diamond tried again, wondering if her Stand had been damaged in some way.) They had been recruited through Sombra’s influence, drawn in by the power he offered and whatever their hearts desired. 

When Diamond decided she’d finally had enough, she nodded to one side. Distantly, there was a plastic ker-chak!, and then Drops lost consciousness again. 


***


When Scootaloo came back to the castle proper, there was little of interest on her return journey. Inside, though, everything was alive and alight. Ponies stood and talked with small smiles, Spike ran to and fro with scavenged but appreciated refreshments, and everywhere foals either rested or held close to their parents. So many thought lost had been returned. 

In one corner she found Sweetie Belle, who seemed a few years older in the pre-dawn light. Clearing her throat to announce herself, she asked, “Did anypony find-” 

“Coco’s fine. She’s back there. We couldn’t keep her out.” Sweetie waved at the larger central chamber of the ground floor. 

“Thanks.” Scootaloo flashed her a grin and found the nearest hallway into the chamber. 

Coco stood over a large projection laid out across the table, leaning on the surface itself with her front hooves. She could have sat in any of the chairs, but she didn’t. She stared at it with the same intensity that had driven her designs and dresswork, trying to commit it all to memory and knowing that some of it would leak anyway. 

Scootaloo came closer to get a better look, awed at the sight. She had to prop herself up on Applejack’s armrest to get a good look. 

It took her a few seconds to convince herself that the Map wasn’t simply broken.

The surface had updated itself, showing tiny termite-lines of crystal on the railroad tracks of the land. Not all of the cities were as large as they used to be. The Crystal Empire was now prominent, as were Ponyville and Canterlot. But floating over it were large icons, cutie marks. Together they almost composed a journey, stringing their way broadly to the base of Sombra’s domain. 

Here, in Ponyville, Applejack. Hovering outside of Canterlot, vanishing and reappearing in half a dozen brief flashes at different coordinates, were Pinkie’s balloons. Further down the line, Twilight’s star, still and fixed as any real one and in no clear location. Farther along at a great circular dip in the ground was Rainbow’s cloud, giving way to something purple and indistinct - the cloud was half-sunken into the table’s projection, and the shape of Fluttershy’s butterflies sat below it. And at the edge, Rarity’s diamonds, fizzling and becoming Coco’s hat, only to jolt back and repeat the process. 

“Spike came in a little while ago.” Coco said softly to the table. “He told me that Rarity was in Canterlot now, at the Princesses’ castle. It was the only thing he could do to keep her safe.” 

Scootaloo said nothing. 

“He also told me that the Map is only supposed to respond to the Elements. Someone or something must have had a plan for all this, but I don’t have a clue of what it’s supposed to be.” She slumped a little against the stone.

“What are you going to do?” Scootaloo asked. 

Coco regarded the table at eye level, all of the mountains and forests and buildings blending together indistinctly into a choppy field of magical light. “I’ve got to go after her. After I know she’s safe… I guess I’m going as far as I can. I didn’t know until yesterday exactly how many ponies were affected by all of this, but… somepony has to try giving them back their lives.” 

Scootaloo smiled. “Don’t say it like you’ll be doing it alone.”

“But I don’t have anypony to-... Oh.” Coco said, raising her head and blushing a little. 

In the end she generated a map of her own, printed directly onto a giant circular sheet of silk as big as the table. She giggled a little as she made it, knowing it would’ve been completely useless as a map or a piece of fabric at any prior point in history. 

She made and remade it, each point labeled with its floating marks, until she felt that she had the important details truly and fully memorized. Then, finally, she allowed herself some rest. 

It was dreamless, but peaceful. 


***
 

On the outskirts of Ponyville, in the afternoon sun, two well-rested ponies stood and squinted out on the horizon. The Canterhorn Mountain stood in the distance. 

“Are you sure you want to come with me?” Coco asked. “I’m sure there are lots of ponies here who could use somepony like you to help out.”

Scootaloo grinned and said, “I am helping out! The sooner we sort out the Crystal Empire, the sooner everything can go back to the way it was.”

Coco chewed on the words, and smiled softly. “Well, we’d better get going, then. First Rarity, then the Map’s directions.”

“We can make it in a couple weeks!” Scootaloo said, stretching her wings. 

Coco nodded. “Let’s try.” 

“Wait!”

Halted by the familiar voice, they turned around.

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: ｢Technologic｣
User: Sweetie Drops
Stats
Power: E
Speed: D
Range: B
Durability: B
Precision: E
Potential: E
Abilities: Improves existing technology based on the user's current needs; a suitcase will turn out to have a secret compartment which sprays paralytic gas, a pen will have a hidden tranquilizer dart inside, a watch will wind up doubling as a communicator. This effect only works once for an item, and the extent of the improvement is limited. Affected technology can only be worked by the user.
> Don't Turn Around
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wait!”

Halted by the familiar voice, they turned around.

It was Diamond Tiara, toting saddlebags as she rushed up the desolation for them. Her namesake was still perched on her head, her mane still in order, but her eyes brimmed with nervous energy. Scootaloo regarded her with a mix of hesitation and annoyance, body half-turned away. Coco’s face, in contrast, was mellowly smiling. 

When Diamond had caught up to them, a few seconds later, she caught her breath and said, “Let me come with you.”

Scootaloo’s fears were confirmed. “Why don’t you stick around and take care of Ponyville?”

Diamond all but scoffed. “Sweetie’s definitely got that in hoof.”

“How do you know?” 

“Because she sent me!” Diamond said. “This town’s barely here any longer. There aren’t going to be lots of raids, and even if there are, it’s better for everypony if we can make it to this king’s house sooner.” 

“Then don’t slow us down.” Scootaloo leered. 

“What about your parents?” Coco asked, and the two jumped at the first words she’d spoken.

Diamond hesitated, coughed. “They... left. I don’t know where they went, just that they weren’t there to help when ponies needed them. I thought I could do that, but… ponies here already have help.”

Coco nodded to herself, then shared a look with Scootaloo, who sulked wordlessly. “I think she would be a good filly to rely on.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Scootaloo said, and started walking. 

Shortly after, all three moved together across the green sloping landscape. Diamond tried not to dwell on the exercise, while Coco pondered the horizon. Two of them had already made this journey the other way around, roughly, although they’d only passed the mountain instead of directly climbing up. 

Above, afternoon fell into evening. 


***


Button Mash sat in the Castle kitchens, inspecting his Stand on impulse. The rhythm of it soothed him, and this place was mostly empty outside of mealtimes. He didn’t have any talents in that area, but it didn’t seem like many ponies did here. Already they were plotting out the logistics of running out to the Apple Family’s storehouses and orchards, grabbing everything they could carry back and ration safely. 

It wouldn’t last them more than a month, he knew, even if they picked everything edible they could find. The town was naturally too large for one farm to feed them, and that was assuming something hadn’t already been done to the crops. 

They were like a bud cut off from the rest of the plant, full of life and hope but not in the key ways that would sustain them. Unless someone was hiding a Stand that would make things grow faster, but he doubted that. Soon they’d have to wander somewhere else and leave Ponyville behind. 

An unseen fetlock reached over his head and pulled him into a sidehug. He let out air through his nose and leaned into her. 

“I feel bad that you get so cooped up like this,” the mare said. 

“It’s fine, Mom, really.” Hours and sleep later, he still couldn’t say anything to her without almost crying. 

Diamond hadn’t cried when her parents had left, she had been in control, in power from that moment forward. He hadn’t quite believed it when she was taken, and it was only when she’d been returned from the depths of an enemy Stand that he realized what it would’ve meant to spend the rest of his life as a gun-toting orphan. 

The only thing that had kept him from seeing his own suffering was the way it was lost in the suffering of others. Now, with most of the missing parents returned, with the balance of power shifting back to the adults, he felt much weaker. As if, maybe, he’d been playing a much smaller and less important game than he’d originally believed. 

“Am I supposed to be able to see this?” she asked, in the same calm-listening way she’d asked how to jump when he’d handed her a controller, as she extended a hoof out and brushed the sleek black plastic. In that moment, he almost broke down. 

“Y-yeah. It’s not like the others, it’s just a… a thing. Solid.” He rubbed his eyes briefly, and hefted it a few inches up and down in demonstration. 

Her hoof didn’t leave that polished surface, just lazily traced over its outline. After a long, pregnant moment, she said, “You did very good.”

When the volunteer cooks came in to improvise dinner, they found her hugging him, smiling, and him, tears staining her coat, with the gun on the kitchen floor.


***


If Mayor Mare thought that the current setup was ridiculous, she was incredibly good at hiding it.

She’d woken up in mid-sentence on one of the higher levels of Princess Twilight’s Castle, amid a crowd of strange voices. Her last memory had been of rehearsing a speech on a midnight stroll, a small luxury taken to avoid the faces in her dreams. 

She’d been one of the first to go, she learned, and she understood why. Cut off the head to eat the chicken, or something ghastly like that. Privately, she believed that they already did most of the work when they incapacitated Twilight. 

And now that she sat next to a filly who she’d previously only seen in indistinct crowds, who she’d only known because of her older sister’s importance to national security, she saw that there were further depths to sink. 

Sweetie Belle was carrying a Stand, and had even let other ponies use it whenever it wasn’t necessary for her to check something. (She did that with a certain air of compulsion that worried the Mayor, the sensation of running out to the mailbox and then being vaguely disappointed a hundred times a day which she knew couldn’t be healthy.) 

With anypony able to hold a Stand for themselves, flip through its images of the outside world, toss it back and forth without fear of damage, they all felt much better about the handful of superpowered ponies playing hero on their behalf. 

“And if those three don’t make it to the end of their journey, what are we going to do?” she asked. 

“Sombra’s not finished,” Sweetie said as she thought to herself, “This isn’t his endgame, or else we wouldn’t be sitting here talking.” Her eyes were focused on the Map, which had several hours ago returned to dormancy. 

“Do you think we should try to find out what he wants?” the Mayor asked, internally listing the litany of ways in which that was a bad idea.

“No.” Sweetie said firmly. “Ponyville’s not an army. If he was attacking us in the first place, he wanted something from us. We should protect the three Elements we have, and keep whatever else he might want out of his hooves.”

“And should we think of relocation?”

“You can, if you want.” Her eyes were suddenly tired, but not angry. “I have to hope that things get sorted out before we need to. I can’t help ponies getting antsy, but I can help them getting invaded. This is really all we’ve been doing for the last few days.” ‘We’ being the children, growing up ahead of their time. The Mayor didn’t have another question to cart the conversation away from that thought.

Then, with a swift and graceful motion, she tilted her head back and let ｢Private Eyes｣ rest on her forehead, peering through it without the use of her hooves. Like magic, the lever on the side cranked without being touched, a trick only she could perform. 

Four clicks in, she stopped. 


***


In the encroaching dark, back from the new and jaggedly-defined outskirts of the town, a mare trotted. She could no longer pretend that she belonged here, which was even more annoying than the black eye or the constant resistance. Patches of her coat were ashy or missing, and beneath them were puckering scars and skin that almost matched the original color. Her mane and tail were almost completely disintegrated, and what remained had none of the bob or flow of the original.

Berryshine’s saving grace, in the end, was that she had access to a natural anesthetic. Stop, drop and roll was a difficult sequence in her current body, but it had done the trick. After a long dark sleep which she’d hazily worried about not waking up from, she’d trudged back into consciousness. 

She still had a mission, a goal, a purpose. The wreckage around her gave her a feeling of accomplishment, that really there wasn’t more to be done. It was only the lack of ponies that stood in the way of that feeling, the way they weren’t settling down into their sleep under the stars, that they didn’t frolic peacefully among the dense trees of the distant forest. It was only when she saw the castle that she understood.

She’d seen the castle before, of course, but had assumed it was a landmark of some kind, or maybe a special kind of magical tree known only to inhabitants on this side of reality. To think that they just so happened to have a massive fortress in the middle of their town was hard to wrap her head around, when there were so many smaller and easier targets. 

Berryshine knew now that she’d been lazy. It wasn’t about doing the most work, it was about doing the work that mattered! She’d let herself be grounded by small goals, and lost sight of her ideal. 

Then again, maybe there wouldn’t be anyone around by now, castle or not. They couldn’t have bested the others, could they? Drops probably wouldn’t have been a match for Berryshine, but only because she wasn’t the type to loosen up ever, and she’d been briefed that no one else would have an ability like ｢Simply Red｣. 

If that was the case, she was going to kill Drops. This was supposed to be a lively wilderness, not a ghost town. Even the wrecked buildigs needed more work before they would turn completely into ash and renourish the landscape. The road would need careful work, too, and the glass, and so many other small details that Drops would have been so useful for. 

It would certainly have been easier with a fire extinguisher on hand for some of the larger projects. Berryshine had been saving the semicircle barricade of trash encircling the town for last - a final glorious noxious blaze and then, finally, the unfettered horizon from all directions - but that ambitious finale required some method of not burning down the forest it bordered. 

There was already dew on the grass when she got there, which was more than enough. It had taken a few minutes scrounging in the wasteland to find a lantern, but it lit up with a little work. Lumber was easier to locate than at any moment before in her life, and her Stand drifted behind her with an orphaned table in its arms, the surface becoming stained a splotchy violet through the walk. 

There was only the one front door, although a pile of furniture made up for the second one. It would have been easy to attack there, but she wanted to force ponies out of it instead of entrenching them. Once she’d started some panic, she could start dropping them like flies, and then get to work on disassembling whatever this monolithic thing was made of. 

For a moment, staring, she wondered exactly how ponies in a small town had carved and built it, and then decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble asking. 

What she hadn’t seen from a distance were the windows, and one was nearby enough and far enough down to be exactly what she was looking for. With a droplet of her ability, she turned a patch of dew into wine, lit it on fire and touched the table to it. 

It caught, and then the blaze ate away some of the grass and receded into itself, its legacy hoisted by her Stand on hands she dearly missed. 

“Stop!” The word was an elongated shout that pierced through the sound of the remaining door swinging open. One of the young ones, in fact the first one Berryshine had knocked out when she first infiltrated the wall of trash.

She’d been exactly this unhelpful the first time, too. 

The filly stood in range, looked Berryshine in the eye and said, “All of your friends are gone! They’ve been driven out, because they don’t belong here, and neither do you! This is your one chance to leave before we send you out like the rest of them!” 

Berryshine stared back at her, then snerked, and then finally started a fit of raucous, pealing laughter, throwing her head back towards the sky in pure enjoyment. In that moment, her voice cracked from lack of use. 

“Even defeated, the only thing that’s harmed me is my own power! With my understanding of that defeat, I’ve taken yet another step toward invincibility! I could drown this world and none of you ponies could stop me!”

With that, her Stand hurled the burning table through the nearest window.

“No!” the filly shouted, and Berryshine only laughed as the filly collapsed to the ground. Patiently, she waited for the others to come flooding out in fear, or aid, but none did. 

Then a puff of smoke flew with purpose out of the window, and above her head, the burning wood reappeared, bearing down on her. Shocked, she tried to sidestep, but the wood caught her back legs, and she collapsed. Her Stand knelt beside her to lift it, and a stack of books appeared over her head, breaking her concentration as they drummed on her skull.

When she stopped reflexively holding her eyes closed, she saw that there was something other than a pony over her. Standing next to the unconscious form of the filly, a short lizard-looking creature, purple. Under one arm, he held a large white viewfinder, the sort of thing she’d seen in toystores all throughout her childhood. 

Still trapped, she willed ｢Simply Red｣ to fling the table off of her and at him. He put the device to his eyes and sucked in air as the projectile arced. Then, with a green flame that danced through the regular fire and meshed the two together, the table became a puff of smoke, and started traveling back towards her. 

Realizing what was going on, although only in terms of immediate survival, she feinted and ran past it, closing in on him. 

Only for the table to crash into her Stand. 

She stumbled, tripped and fell with the force of the impact, somersaulting to a stop next to him. He smiled, and waved the device in the air above her.

“With this, I can see what she sees. Even Stands.”

Whatever that meant, it didn’t matter. Berryshine let a sour look overtake her, and raised her voice to shout “｢Simply Red｣!” Her control slipping slightly, she let out a lethal dosage, enough to transform twenty percent of his blood into wine.

Then, as she glared up at her enemy, he stared down at her with smug amusement. 

“Tell Sombra dragons can’t get drunk. ｢Private Eyes｣!” he said, and then brought the viewfinder down on her head until she blacked out.


***


Although night was useful cover for traveling, and it suited Coco best, it took a lot out of the younger two and made it harder to navigate the terrain. They made it less than halfway in that first jaunt, and Scootaloo fumed to herself over it, debating whether or not to actually plot out the time it would take to walk to the Crystal Empire. 

Coco had made them all sleeping bags, but warned them that they wouldn’t last the whole night unless she was touching them. As a result they slept in a tight formation, one on each side of her. She was the last to drift off, staring from her hillside vantage point at the next chunk of their walk. 

Diamond was the first to wake up, much sooner than she’d have liked. Scootaloo jumped out of bed soon after, when the noise was swiftly approaching them. Music, playing loudly, like a party a block away. 

Coco heard it too, and sat up, rubbing her eyes to prepare for the dawn. When she’d stretched her fetlocks out slightly, she looked from one filly to another, and then followed both of their gazes downwards. 

Down the slope, in the flat green land, there was a pink and purple house, walking on a multitude of thin black legs that had no good excuse to exist, bobbing up and down in tune with its own distant music. 

Almost aimlessly, it began treading in their direction.

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]
> Bring on the Dancing Horses
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The house strolled like something in a cartoon, like a smiling bucket of popcorn walking across the screen before a movie, but with so many more legs. Standing with the mare she admired and the filly she absolutely didn’t, she tried to count them. At one moment there were thirty-two, at the next eighteen, each one only existing to strike the ground once and then withdraw into some unseen underbelly. The whole effect was unseemly the closer it came.

And there was no mistake, it was approaching them. Coco weighed their chances of hiding, but there were only hills and grass this far out from the town. Even a grass-colored blanket might pop out to this Stand. 

This was significant. Already assumptions were being made in the dressmaker’s mind, constraining possibilities. “This was a Stand, and possibly unfriendly.” “There is no way to hide.” These were the markings of her previous skirmishes, the grooves worn by experience. She expected to see another pony-who-was-not-a-pony within the building, staring out with ill intent, marching the way they came to take on Ponyville.

Because of this, she didn’t wait for it to come any closer. 

“Stand back, girls,” she said, and then started her slide downwards.

Only to stop completely a moment later, as if she’d been stapled to the hillside. 

She looked around swiftly, checking for a hint of the change’s source, before finally passing her eyes over Scootaloo, and ｢Go Zone｣ floating beside her. The filly was shaking her head back and forth minutely, a stony look on her face. 

Coco smiled back at her sheepishly.

When all three of them had descended the hill, the house had reached its base. Coco tensed, preparing to move her companions out of the way before it trampled them, when the strange building finally stopped. Before the three, it withdrew all of its legs at once, and crashed to the ground, suddenly becoming a regular house again. Inside, the noise became muted, distant, but failed to disappear completely.

Diamond called out her Stand, looking for some errant thoughts coming from the building. Her subtitles were gibberish. 

“Well, howdy there!” a voice called from the vicinity. Each pony looked in a different direction, and none saw the owner.

Then he appeared on the roof, hanging onto the chimney with his forehooves. Tan coat and frizzy brown mane, tall and lanky and wearing a good-natured smile. As soon as they noticed him, he was already sliding down the roof and landing in the grass with them. 

“What brings you mares out here?” he asked.

Coco didn’t know how to answer the stallion, and Diamond looked suspicious more than anything, but Scootaloo marveled at him. 

“Cheese Sandwich?!” She put her hooves to her cheeks and stared up at him.

He smiled wider at her acknowledgement, and swept a bow. “The one and only!”

By the time they’d all exchanged names, Coco thought of something to say. “We’re, uh, heading to Canterlot. Is...” she gestured with a foreleg at the building, “Is this your Stand?” 

He shook his head. “Ms. Lemongrass is her own pony, through and through. Do you have a Stand?”

Coco nodded, and in a gesture of goodwill, ｢Something for Nothing｣ floated in the air beside her. Cheese Sandwich looked it up and down, eyes lingering on the sharper bits. After a while it faded back into her, and he let go of his inspection.

“Well, I’m heading to Ponyville, personally. Canterlot’s been pretty exciting, but my Cheesy Sense has been telling me there’s some real cause for partying down over there. Do you fine mares know anything about that?”

“Cheesy Sense?” Diamond muttered to herself.

“It tells Cheese when there’s a party that needs planning!” Scootaloo hissed, loudly enough for all three of the others to hear.

Coco relaxed. “There was an incursion of Stand users, and all of them were agents of King Sombra. When they were all defeated, and their Stands stopped working, a lot of missing ponies were found again.”

“Well, that sounds like a match!” he said.

“There’s something you’re not telling us.” Diamond said.

He turned to her, his expression clouding, as she came to the forefront. Coco stepped back a couple of hooves, and Scootaloo crossed her forelegs. A few seconds later, she threw them up.

“What’s it matter?” she asked, ready to summon her Stand and settle the chain of command in their squad once and for all. But Diamond made no sudden movements, and held no violence in her expression; no, it was only frustration that crossed her face as she turned to the pegasus. 

“How do we know that this is the real Cheese Sandwich and not another one brought in by Sombra?”

Scootaloo blanched with alarm, and then took a step back of her own, more hesitant than Coco’s. 

“No way, no how. There’s no party pony like Cheese,” Cheese said, and shook his head emphatically, like a young foal swatting away broccoli.

Diamond’s eyes scanned over words that only she could see. “What about the house?”

“Ms. Lemongrass? We met each other a couple of days ago on the way to Canterlot.” Then, sotto voce, behind a fetlock, “Don’t worry. She’ll warm up to you when you get to know her.” 

Diamond struggled. There was something wrong with Cheese, but it was more difficult than usual to pull out. Was it the power of his Stand, or his own nature? “But you’re not heading to Ponyville to throw a party.”

“Of course I am! Why else would I go there, you silly-filly?” he asked, and mussed her mane.

Diamond looked and looked, concentrating, and then her ears fell back. “To take the foals. You want to use the house to collect all of the foals in Ponyville.” 

Cheese, a little more nervous, was about to say something when Scootaloo beat him to the punch. “You can’t throw around accusations like that! What do you mean? What would Equestria’s super duper party pony want to foalnap anypony for?” Her words directed his thoughts, and the thoughts he tried hiding, and Diamond saw through.

“He wants to protect them from Sombra, and wait for all of this to blow over.” Diamond said, shaking a little despite herself. “Once a pony goes inside of that house, they don’t come back out until he lets them. He’s stealing foals to make sure they sleep through the catastrophe.”

Diamond felt the blood rushing throughout her body with the intensity of the accusation. And then she raised her hoof, turned in a circle, and pointed at herself.

Coco and Scootaloo watched her, looking for some sign of what she was indicating. She stared down at the hoof herself, numbly, as if it were some intruder into the conversation.

And then her back leg kicked out too, and she almost fell over.

“Are you sure your friend’s alright?” Cheese asked Coco in a stage whisper. A look of concern had been plastered on his face since Diamond had started talking, and now it only increased.

“What are you doing now?” Scootaloo asked Diamond, truly uncertain.

“I… I’m not doing anything!” Diamond said, and then her body shook and she started to trot in place. As her breathing increased, it became harder and harder to talk. “He doesn’t want us, leaving with his secret, he’ll want to, to fight us. His Stand is… it’s... guh! I can’t concentrate!” She was spinning around now, aggressively.

Scootaloo assessed the situation, grit her teeth and slid between Diamond and Cheese. Without moving from the spot, the friction beneath the stallion disappeared, and he tripped over himself, toppling to the ground.

She looked at him with something like betrayal. “You can see Stands. There’s no way that you don’t have one. And if there are any foals in that house, you’re going to have to give them back.”

At the same time, Coco summoned up ｢Something for Nothing｣, wrapping a leg-warmer on each of Diamond’s limbs and holding all four steady with her magic. It was an effort to maintain all four, especially with enough room for Diamond to move, but she managed.

The filly only started to headbang.

“This is, a Stand attack! I know it!”

Scootaloo agreed. “There’s no point hiding it, Cheese. But I don’t want to hurt the stallion who threw Rainbow Dash’s birthday party. That’s going too far! So just stop your Stand, before I have to force you!”

From his low angle on the ground, Cheese smirked.

And then the front door of the house swung open, and it clambered up to its disposable legs. Lumbering, it scooped down to grab Scootaloo, and she slid herself backwards away from it. Now that the ground under him had friction again, he sprang up and shook off the grass in mid-air, landing on his hooves automatically.

And just as quickly, the house was between him and the three Stand users, stomping imposingly toward all of them.

Coco tried to hold Diamond’s head still, worried that there was some risk to her skull, and finally conjuring a headband around her. The filly’s head swam, her eyes adjusting, and her muscles ached from the sudden exertion. She felt her own lack of sleep, and the looming figure of the house hardly entered her consciousness.

As the house dipped closer, Scootaloo froze its legs to the ground and tried to force air resistance against it. Surely enough, within a five-meter bubble of the filly, the building was held in place. She wiped some sweat off of her brow as she held it there.

“Wuh…?” she heard Coco’s voice behind her, and turned. The mare was drawing her hoof over her eye, and then shaking her withers back and forth, standing on her hind legs briefly before toppling backwards. 

“It’s in you too!” Diamond said, and at that moment Scootaloo’s shock overtook her! The force of a whole building crashed against her defenses, and she was snatched up, still staring at Coco in horror. 

On reflex, she pushed against it, and lodged herself in the doorway, pressing herself to one side. Diamond, for her part, brought out ｢Misery Business｣ and flung it forward at the doorway, hoping to pry Scootaloo off. The house stepped forward for her, preparing a lunge, and she struggled to move out of the way. The bands that stopped her from dancing also held her in place! 

Coco felt Diamond trying to move, and loosened her own magic further, only to find herself backtrotting away from the fillies. Was he testing her range?

“It’s a disease!” Diamond shouted to Coco, struggling to strafe rightward. “His Stand makes ponies sick with something!” 

Those words clearing her thoughts, Coco shook her head and threw out a hoof. She cast out a line of fabric in of the air, ready to wrap around Diamond and pull her to safety. 

Only for her hoof to wave a rainbow-arc over her head, and the fabric to go flying, uselessly, to the ground. 

Diamond’s Stand leveled several close-range shots at the house, enough to hear some groaning, but not enough to slow it down. Without any further ado, it swept down and caught her, leaving her hanging in the doorway with the sharp hooves of her Stand. 

Coco could only watch as both fillies struggled in the doorway, trying to think of something to pull them out with. And then the door slammed shut, smacking both of them further inside, and they were beyond Coco’s help.

With a sense of satisfaction, the house turned away from the mare, and Cheese stepped out from behind it, looking conciliatory, but mostly pleased with himself. “I’m not going to hurt them, I promise, but I can’t have you following me. ｢Feel Good Inc｣ will wear off once you pass out, or sooner if you have some first aid. Until then...”

He concentrated, sticking his tongue out, and then, somehow, snapped his hoof. 

“That should do the trick!”

Coco felt her Stand appear next to her as she stood up on her hind legs, and they clasped forehooves. Together, they began to box-step. 

Cheese turned to leave, waving goodbye and beginning to climb the house. A glowing piece of cloth, the one Coco had missed with, trailed after him, coiling for his leg. 

“Ah ah ah!” he said, turning to look down at it, and then Coco started headbanging until her brain rattled. The fabric fell away. 

With that, he headed on his way. 


* * *


Diamond and Scootaloo picked themselves up inside of the house. It was a cozy affair, not occupied for a while but still definitively lived-in, with pictures over the mantle and everything done in finished wood. It was the sort of house a mare bought when she never expected to buy another one. 

Scootaloo’s first instinct was to pull and bang on the door, and she followed it while Diamond caught her breath. She slammed against it, standing on the wood and tugging the handle with both hooves. ｢Go Zone｣ removed the friction from underneath of the door, and she still couldn’t open it. It was not friction keeping the door closed, but willpower!

She sighed, and tried to collect her bearings, only for the house to start shaking. Crashing sounds echoed throughout it, turning into an aggressive, banging beat. Cringing, she covered her head and waited for the house to attack. 

After a few moments, she raised it again, and behaved like nothing had happened.

“What’s that noise?” she asked. 

“We’re walking.” Diamond said, monotonously, now taking heavy steps toward another doorway. She kept casting glances at the bands on her legs, knowing that unless Coco did something, they would wear off soon enough, and the Stand would work her to exhaustion. 

“No, it doesn’t match up.” Scootaloo said, and put an ear to the floor. Diamond listened herself, still making her way to the next room, and heard two patterns distinctly, the freestyle footsteps below and the continuous thumping. Then, as soon as it came, it faded away. 

“There must be somepony else trapped here!” Scootaloo said. “They’re trying to tell us to find them!”

“I don’t think so.” Diamond said, now in the doorway. 

Scootaloo came over, more casually. “Why’s th-”

And she saw. Stacked next to each other like sardines, forty foals their age, each asleep and expressionless, none squirming or adjusting, none on the verge of waking. Scootaloo rushed toward the nearest one, a yellow filly, and shook her. There was no response. Breathing harder, she tried the next one, and the next.

“It’s useless. We can’t wake anypony up inside of this house, it’s part of how it works.” Diamond said.

“Then I’d better go check out the noise and investigate,” Scootaloo said, not making eye contact. “I’ll be upstairs.” 

“Wait, don’t-” 

But Scootaloo was already gone.


* * *


Cheese rode atop Ms. Lemongrass, looking out onto the horizon. Ponyville wasn’t very distant, he knew from his own travels, but the hills made it harder to see in the short term. 

So many things conspired to cloud the mind in the short term, he knew from experience. If not for happenstance and its long consequences, he never would’ve gained his cutie mark and become the super duper party pony planner premiere of the land. He wouldn’t have survived the vision of himself, alone without a crowd of ponies to make smile, trotting without a destination, and come back with the power of a Stand in his grasp. 

No, Cheese Sandwich believed in a very simple philosophy: if willed by fate, a stupid plan could work! Strange chances and long odds existed in every life, but only those with the right drives could take them and bear the risks that they came with. To progress, one must throw caution to the wind, strike at random, behave indiscriminately! A true pony must dare to be stupid!

And so many things had nibbled at him lately, driving him towards a party planning project bigger than any other. If Sombra was defeated, or even if he wasn’t and they all had to wait a gazillion years, Ms. Lemongrass would probably keep a whole mess of kids sleeping like logs through the whole thing. 

He lost his Sense the night it happened, and only gained it back several hours earlier. This was a sign, he was certain, that he was trotting on the right path! One day the foals would reinhabit Equestria, or even be returned to their families, but for now they had to be gathered like streamers or confetti, or treasure. It was their existence that decided the outcome of this giant mess! 

And they’d continue to be later today, probably in mid-afternoon. No matter how the town had changed, he’d be ready to sift through the rubble and rescue the future. 

He settled in for the wait. 

Then something appeared around his barrel and pulled, and he slid backwards off the roof.


* * *


Scootaloo flew up the stairs, looking through the tight rooms lousy with bric-a-brac and old pony stuff. It took less than two minutes to confirm that the only ponies in the building were in the kitchen, but she searched for a little longer just to keep her distance from Diamond. There had to be some way to escape, Coco was in danger! 

Suddenly, a picture-frame flew off of its perch on a shelf and smashed against a wall. Scootaloo almost suspected an attack, except it wasn’t anywhere near her. An imprecise aim, maybe?

Then a clock she’d half-registered flung itself off of the upper wall, clanging to the floor. A couple of stone pony figurines knocked together, spun, and then hit the wall again. More noises came from the rest of the upstairs, each slowly gaining in volume. Amid this sudden movement, a rhythm started to establish itself, and she stepped back and out of the room as errant paperweights and dull coverless books cascaded to carpet.

Under the rickety, jangling beat building around her, rattling the thin bones of her pegasus wings like electric toothbrushes, she could make out an epicenter. It was back the way she’d come, below her. The kitchen?

She dashed back down, finding relative peace on the plain, plush stairs, and then reemerging into a great mass-clattering. Diamond was still in the kitchen, still covered in bands and not far from where she’d been left alone, only now her Stand was stiffly throwing silverware at a single, circular window. 

She noticed Scootaloo. “Good of you to come back. Anything upstairs?” 

“No, but you’re setting this whole house on edge!”

“So?” Diamond asked, hurling another spoon at the glass, which rebuffed the blow without cracking. She grunted, and then her Stand started striking at it, ineffectually. “Isn’t the point to make it spit us back out somehow? We have to try something, or else we’ll end up just like them!” She pointed to the multitude of sleepers without actually looking at them.

“Not something that’ll make it try to kill us instead of putting us to sleep! If ponies could just break through a window to get out, don’t you think they’d have tried it already?!” 

Around them, the crashing became more enthusiastic, more relished. Things broke in distant rooms, leaving only the winceworthy impression of damage.

“I have to try something, even if it’s something dumb! Time’s running out!” 

“What do you mean?” Scootaloo asked.

Diamond waved her fetlock in the filly’s face, slowly. It glowed a faint blue, like the magic was sewn in. “｢Something for Nothing｣ is going to wear off if Coco gets too far away! Even if she’s following us and staying in range, these are going to go away sooner than later. Then only one of us will be left!“

Scootaloo saw that there was a point to this, which is why it puzzled even her when she next shouted, above the increasing noise around them, “Yeah? Well, why are you so interested in helping Coco anyway?!”

Diamond stopped, her Stand withdrawing a little, still facing away toward the window. She turned to look at Scootaloo, surprised. “What?”

“You heard me! What are you really out to do here? Because I know you aren’t in it to save the world, or for friendship, or Coco, or any of that crap!”

Diamond blanched. “Sh-she saved my life. I don’t have anywhere else to go...”

Scootaloo acted like she hadn’t heard. “Wasn’t it enough that you tried to mess up everything that the Cutie Mark Crusaders ever did, without also trying to screw with the mission to stop the evil overlord of the Crystal Empire?!”

“Well, I can’t change what I did in the past, okay?! The world was a different place then! My parents didn’t care about me, and neither did anypony else, even Silver Spoon!” With that out, Diamond calmed a little. “Coco showed me that ponies really could care about each other, even if they’d never met! And that’s the truth!”

Scootaloo nearly spat on the kitchen floor. “I don’t believe that for a second! There’s no way that a pony like you could mean something like that! Coco’s my friend, do you get that? And you’re not going to manipulate her just because she doesn’t know what you are!”

Diamond looked at her, and after a few seconds she responded, voice quieter. “What am I?”

Scootaloo yelled as much as Diamond had hushed. “A bully, a wannabe tyrant, a downright evil filly, and a spoiled BRAT!” 

Around them, the sounds of the house pounded toward a breakbeat crescendo, like a hundred hooves stomping in sequence, like the entirety was tearing itself apart around them in one single, violent act. Scootaloo realized that she hadn’t been breathing, and took a deep inhale, readying another thesis. Ponies didn’t really change overnight! Diamond wasn’t something completely different just because she was making nice all of a sudden to an adult. That was how she acted all of the time, and she just needed to drop the act! Drop it!

Finally, Diamond said, “I’m sorry.”

Scootaloo’s eyes tightened. “That’s not gonna-”

“No, I mean it! I’m sorry! I know I treated you horribly, and I wish I hadn’t done it! I don’t want you to hate me for it, or think that I’m trying to sabotage your plans, or Coco’s, or- or anything! I just want to help her! I want to do something with my power that actually matters!”

After the shout, neither said anything. Scootaloo’s gaze stayed level, shook with a breath, and then relented. Diamond rubbed the inside of her foreleg back and forth against her eyes, swallowing words. 

“Alright. Sorry.” Scootaloo said. “Maybe I shouldn’t hold everything against you, if you’re trying to help save Equestria. But we’re not friends. I’m not forgiving you for all of the stuff you did.”

Diamond understood. “Yeah.” She blinked a few times, looking away, nodding softly. “Okay.”

Scootaloo found it hard to keep her expression static. In her mind she imagined Rainbow Dash, but she couldn’t fully make out an expression. Were her forelegs folded? Was that a line of disapproval, the motion of a head shake, a frown on her hero’s face? 

And why, then, was her own conjured-up image of Coco as passively benevolent as before? And why did that pleasant, almost placid look cut into her just as much? 

Diamond’s ears perked up. “Did you hear that?”

Scootaloo shook her head. “What?”

“The noise. It’s died down.” She was right. As Scootaloo listened, it faded away completely.

“Do you think… we did that?” she asked.

Worry entered Diamond’s face.


* * *


Cheese landed on the ground on his head, but was no worse for the wear. His hooves were under him from a lifetime of well-executed pratfalls and recoveries, and he was back up before he could inspect the white sheet tied around him like a longer version of his vest. His eyes ran up its length to the Stand holding it, and the user still attached.

Locked together, they continued to boxstep, as best as they could. But now they were in mid-air, bouncing. Beneath them was a minimalist, one-color trampoline, and several more beyond, each quickly dissolving into the air. 

“You should really learn how to cut loose and just let yourself dance already,” he said, and then took a deep preparatory breath.

“I’m not going to stop until you give back my friends, and I stop what you’re doing to Equestria!” Geez Louise, this one was as serious as a heart attack and twice as shrill. He’d met a fair share of fuddy-duddies, stuffed shirts and sticks in the mud in your travels, but never somepony who would build a series of magic trampolines just to ruin somepony else’s party.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said, as politely as he could while he was limbering up, taking a few different stretches.

“If this were really about helping the foals, why wouldn’t you take their families with them? Why take ones who don’t want to go, but leave me outside?” she asked, and then, harder, “Or is there something my Stand can do that could stop your house?”

Cheese sighed. “Ms. Lemongrass isn’t mine. I found her, but she’s a sovereign pony. And no, she just doesn’t get along well with adults. It winds up hurting them to stay very long.”

Coco looked at him, levelly. “You’re still not going to get away with this.”

“Oh? What about Ms. Lemongrass?” he smiled. And Coco saw the house, still moving, a good distance away already. The enchantments she’d cast before, on Diamond, flickered.

She grit her teeth and focused more energy onto them, sapping away the rest of the trampolines except the one bouncing her into the air. It was pointless to keep the others around anyway; there would be no retreating from this position. Especially not since she’d caught him.

“In fact, I can make it even trickier!” Having cracked his neck and stretched out, he spun in a chestnut whirlwind, and suddenly he and the white fabric were separate, the latter drifting to the ground like a handkerchief. “Dojyaaan!”

Coco stared. 

“You should’ve seen me do that for a wedding table. It was a smash!” Cheese said, and then tapped into ｢Feel Good Inc｣ again.

The mare and her Stand both kicked out back hooves the next time they landed, spinning at an angle away from their little platform of safety. 


* * *


“A house that works on emotions?” Scootaloo asked, mulling the idea over in her head.

“No. It’s not just doing that. It was causing damage when we tried to damage it, but not to us. It was just…” Diamond trailed off.

“Making a bigger version play out.”

“Yeah. Amplifying us.”

“So, what, if we do anything to hurt the house or get upset, the whole thing starts turning into dance music?” Scootaloo glanced at the ceiling.

Diamond put a hoof to her muzzle, thinking. “You’re right, it’s like it’s turning what we do into a party. It would make sense why it would get along with a pony who’s devoted to parties.”

“But how do we use that to escape?” Scootaloo asked. “I mean, if we just stay calm, we’ll just last a little longer, not get outside!”

“Well, breaking things doesn’t work, and neither does panicking. Maybe if we’re really nice, it’ll let us back out.”

“I think we’re a little late there.”

Diamond scowled to herself. “But there must be some way...”

Scootaloo felt herself starting to panic, her blood pressure increasing, her heartbeat becoming more noticeable and her wings eager to flap and fidget away from their tucked-in position. She was about ready to throw herself into a wall to get out, and she had to resist the need.

“Maybe we should try… a tea party, or something like that. Make it calm enough that it’ll just open the door for us,” she said.

｢Misery Business｣ tore open cabinets, revealing dust. “There’s no tea around here.” 

Scootaloo, who had never participated in a tea party in her life, opened some nearby cabinets of her own and produced a pair of small china cups. “We can pretend. That’s what tea parties are all about, right?”

And then her hooves flung themselves upwards, and the cups went flying. They crashed, pulverizing themselves on impact with the floor. 

“Uh, alright, I can still-” Scootaloo turned toward the cabinet again, and found herself backing away from it even as her hooves moved forward. She looked down at them in horror, then at Diamond, and then back. “But - but I didn’t touch you!”

“His Stand must be airborne!” Diamond said, only just realizing it herself. “It got to you because we were close together for so long!”

Scootaloo’s wings flapped, and she started to drift out of the room and away from her ally, but in the doorway she stopped. The not-very-reassuring but sturdy pincers of ｢Misery Business｣ held her tightly and deposited her back on the ground, keeping her in place for a while longer.

It didn’t stop her hooves from moving against the floor, kicking and trotting in revolving patterns. Behind her, the sound of hoofbeats echoed through the house, and began to coalesce into a rising melody.

Diamond struggled to keep her still, and then stared, shocked, at her own fetlock.

The white band was disintegrating right in front of her. 


* * *


Coco rolled with the punch in mid-air, generating a long rolling handle of fabric and a triangular kite atop it, curling up under her hooves, with her Stand clutching below like a spider. The hang-glider took her closer to Cheese, until he forced her to throw her front hooves into the air, and it fell away. She made a parachute, and he kept his distance.

When she landed, she threw out a hoof to point at him, still mirrored by ｢Something for Nothing｣. “Your Stand doesn’t have any defensive capabilities. If I can hit you just one, you’ll be finished for good!”

He smirked, and then jumped out of the way of the hangglider as it spun in the air and crashed where he’d been standing. She said nothing as it shredded itself back into oxygen.

She and her Stand continued the box-step, now that they were on the ground, but the parachute began to blanket over them, providing cover. Before it obscured her vision she saw Cheese pulling out a small cannon from nowhere, and then everything was cream. 

From underneath the lumpy fabric, Coco came quickly galloping into the open air and towards Cheese. Behind, he could still make out the lump of her Stand in the parachute, standing still and waiting for orders. Coco’s body was covered with yet more fabric, an opaque hazmat suit without a single flaw or opening, encasing the entire body except for some sort of combination helmet and mourning veil. 

As if a measure like that would help an infection that was already present!  He fired his party cannon, blasting her backwards in her tracks with an explosive burst of confetti, and then forced her to start doing the macarena. 

Back under the parachute, her Stand followed through the motions with her. She tried to inch closer to him between the motions, and then he forced her to do the worm, and she wriggled against the ground at his hooves. 

There. That was the final trap he would need to set, the final position he needed to shove her into so that she wouldn’t come up with some new way to throw a wrench in his plans. He’d be able to catch up to the house in due time, and then he’d move on to greener pastures and brighter hopes for the future.

Now, just to finish her…

Cheese picked up the party cannon and held it overhead, trotting to her on his hind legs and keeping an eye on her Stand. It still squirmed pointlessly under the parachute.

“Looks like this is your canon ending,” he said. 

Then, without further ado, he brought it down onto her head.


* * *


Scootaloo struggled to stop moving as Diamond’s strong Stand kept her pinned. Even it was starting to twitch as the bands flaked away into air, returning to dust. 

Desperately she searched for something happy, something that wasn’t just noise or shouting or fear or sickness, and her eyes were drawn only to the sleeping foals they’d shouted in the company of. 

She summoned ｢Go Zone｣ to hold her own hooves to the ground, and Diamond’s too. It worked, for a moment, before it started to twitch too, and then it was beginning to pose and step in mid-air, the uninhibited version of Scootaloo’s willing imprisonment. The friction became harder to hold with so much movement, and with the range bobbing up and down weirdly she lost her concentration.

Okay, then, a party. Not a tea party. A birthday party? What kind of parties even were there? She hadn’t realized that her life was going to depend on this information one day, or she might have asked Pinkie for some pointers. 

With one band gone, and the others slipping away, Diamond’s hoof started tapping. Scootaloo felt the corresponding hoof of the Stand squeezing against her wing involuntary, and she closed her eyes.

While she waited for motion and exhaustion, she heard the breathy, measured sounds of crying. Even as the music returned, Diamond was making small staccato sobs under her breath.

Scootaloo shut her eyes tighter, and tensed up for the moment she lost control completely.


* * *


Cheese felt a mix of satisfaction and revulsion when the veiled head of the suit wrinkled at the edges and fell inwards. Either way, he was finished with the cannon, and he junked it, tossing it in a random direction. 

Then he prepared to play a grand game of tag with Ms. Lemongrass. Surely he’d need to do some serious hopping to get to Ponyville at the same time, but there was always the option to launch himself in something. Not to mention the incredible potential of those trampolines, if they didn’t all vanish back into thin air!

Just then, something closed around his whole back left leg! Until then, he hadn’t felt or noticed it, so clouded with his feeling of victory! His way forward had been overtaken by a single, determined dressmaker!

The hazmat suit had an opening freshly made on the veil, and it was slowly swallowing him. The interior was, in actuality, empty!

“Th-that’s impossible!” he said, and he felt silly for the words as soon as they arrived. “But how!?” He rolled it over for a moment, and then it came to him. “Under the parachute!” 

In that moment, Coco had the opportunity to create confusion about which was the real pony and which was the Stand! If she or her Stand had run out, they would’ve been ineffectually trapped by their dancing. The hazmat suit which seemed to have Coco in it was really empty, a simple trap. What he’d thought was her Stand was really her, truly being affected, while the suit did its best impression through her magic.

He turned as it absorbed another leg, taking full form around him. Panicking, he tried to tear at it, to think of some way to break her concentration, but it was too late. He spun again, and it spun with him the whole way. 

It swiftly enveloped his head, and then shut completely, and there was no outside air. He tried to force Coco to headbang against the ground, to simply smash her skull, but each hit she made landed on a plush cushion. 

Eventually, breathing harder, sweating and overall woozy, he gave up. “F-｢Feel Good Inc｣...”

The Stand retracted, and Coco found herself able to stand up again. She did so, emerging from the fabric above her, which began to fray immediately without her touch. She made her way over to the stallion, hovering an inch off the ground under her pseudo-telekinesis, and she took a deep breath.

“｢SOMETHING FOR NOTHING｣!” she cried out, and the Stand was next to her, already lashing out with its hooves. Its kicks careened him through the plate-glass window of consciousness, and only with him out for the count did she let her creations fully diminish. 

Then, for a minute, she stood looking down at his prone form. Sighing at herself, she increased her concentration and wrapped him in a sheet she could levitate. 

Then, she went back towards Ponyville, in the direction of her wards.


* * *


...

No, Scootaloo knew in her gut that something wasn’t right. What was it…?

The noise. Not the sound getting louder behind them, which was different than before, not swelling up to full volume like earlier. The sound of Diamond crying.

It wasn’t that.

Scootaloo opened her eyes and read her expression. Relaxed, open-eyed, even smug. 

Diamond Tiara was looking at the disintegrating band on her forehead and laughing as her hooves began to kick around. No fear or despair existed in her features!

“What? What is it?!” she asked, and then as the music grew quieter and quieter, she realized. Then she couldn’t help but snort herself. Was it really that stupid? 

As ｢Misery Business｣ let up, she let the dance carry her away.

And the two fillies celebrated, fervently and honestly, the gradual deactivation of a Stand. 

Throughout the house, the music died down. The legs roving on their way suddenly wobbled, and then retracted like snails to electric fences. The house’s magic was disrupted, its Stand powers diminishing, if only temporarily. 

The two took their opportunity, moving whatever hooves they had available toward the door. Scootaloo slid both of them along, and Diamond used her Stand to pull at it. This time, it opened with a minimum of complaint. 

Then, before their good luck could run out, Scootaloo froze the door in place and leapt out into the grass. Diamond followed her close behind, the last of the bands now truly gone. The two rolled into the grass, still pirouetting, but in a good mood despite their exhaustion. 

Then, the disease disappeared from them, and the world seemed to clear as they were capable of stillness once again. 

After a while sitting in the grass, missing their sleeping bags and the night sky, Scootaloo smile and said, “That was a pretty smart move back there.” She said it only because she felt somepony needed to.

Diamond smiled herself. “Well, without you, I never would’ve seen that chance.”

Scootaloo nodded, mostly to herself. It felt good to be an instrumental part in saving somepony’s life, she really had to admit it. And maybe, if she could admit that, then she could also admit that Diamond Tiara could have something noble and self-sacrificing in her after all.

Maybe.

When Coco arrived, with Cheese in tow, they’d all gotten a good walk further away from Canterlot. Removing the foals, still sleeping, was another task altogether, but accomplished succintly and simply. 

Behind them all, for a few minutes at least, the house sat peaceably.


* * *


Deep in the Royal Archives, a single student still studied, searching like a lighthouse in long sweeping motions as she rambled down the shelves. She would run, but that would be loud, and she was trying to avoid that more than anything.

So much had happened recently that she hadn’t been able to document, analyze, graph, report. She was an important member of unicorn academia, a prodigy for her age to be sure, and yet this had thrown her completely for a loop!

Star-Swirl would’ve known how to react to all of this. But then again, Sombra and Star-Swirl were contemporaries, so he probably had a better sense of the tyrant’s history. Deep time had already conspired to take away most of that sort of information, and despite her attempts to learn Pony Latin, Griffon Latin and even the much-simplified Dragon Latin, she was still stuck with the same run-of-the-mill vocabularies as all of the other day-to-day metropolitan ponies.

But, but! There! She saw what she was looking for, finally, recognizing it from the long-ago week spent reading the table of contents of every unforbidden book in the Archives. It was bound in black, but the spine was special, fluctuating in and out with ruffled edges like some kind of deep-ocean worm. 

She looked at the gold-embossed font of the cover, which had no art on it. This was a serious book, with a serious three-line title like Relic Hoarder's An Esotericist’s Guidebook to Those Things Which Must Never Be Bargained For or Won. She cracked it open, flipping fussily and looking to reawaken old memories. 

There! She found it, overshot it, cut back a sheaf of pages to find it again. One of the only illustratiions, an odd-looking piece of jewelry forged in the same colors as the dark King himself. An artifact of incredible power, without which he could never be complete.

“The Alicorn Amulet,” Moondancer read aloud, and shuddered.

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: Feel Good Inc
User: Cheese Sandwich
Stats
Power: E
Speed: D
Range: A
Durability: E
Precision: D -> B
Potential: D
Abilities: A microscopic disease which temporarily invigorates its carriers and causes dancing mania. The disease spreads through the air or by touch, but is susceptible to antibiotics, the immune system, and other diseases. Concentrated in a small area, it becomes more resistant, and can contaminate a particular surface or pony. The dancing can be optionally controlled by the user, and ends only when the infected lose consciousness or the Stand is withdrawn.

Stand Name: All Tomorrow’s Parties
User: 176 Lemongrass Ct, West Mustangia
Stats
Power: E
Speed: C
Range: C
Durability: A
Precision: E
Potential: E
Abilities: A Stand born of the memories of joy within the house, allowing it to travel the landscape. Inside its walls, any emotionally powerful event becomes a celebration. Ponies who lose consciousness inside the house can only awaken outside of its walls. 
> Captured City
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Canterlot, midday. The streets were bustling, but only at one point at a time, and with one patient throng. The rest was ghostly, empty, quiet. Ponies were at work maintaining the electricity, or acting as servants, or trying to scrape by. It was easier than other places - burning up the luxury eased the fall a little more than most of the higher-ups would’ve guessed. Ponies weren’t going missing here.

At least, not for the time being.

The process was easy, and they got it down pat in a couple tries: Coco knocked, they endured the reluctant stirring inside, and they had a brief, awkward conversation. The ponies at the door never made eye contact, really, all of them drawn with surprise to the ground, where one of the modest sea of foals would separate and present itself, rested and relieved. A few minor questions, nothing which seemed important to the ponies inside, and then the group set off again.

Other times it would take more work. For some of the children, their parents were still unconscious, the doors locked. The first of them panicked at that, but Scootaloo shoved the door off of its hinges to let them inside. From then on, she had to force them open without breaking them, which took a little more control and was a tedious eye-rolling chore. 

“I still think we should have thrown him inside,” she said, once the parade of foals was much smaller. Not all of them were from Canterlot, but all were taken nearby. 

“She’d probably just spit him out again.” Diamond said next to her. They were speaking to each other out of necessity, because both of them had to be side-by-side to lead the train along and not get lost in one of the dozen conversations in the mass behind them. She didn’t enjoy Cheese’s freedom either, but after his defeat he’d been… more agreeable. 

Coco had stood over him as he returned to consciousness, and offered him a hoof up. Diamond had been on standby, monitoring him for any sign of malice, but… there didn’t seem to be one. It was like something in Cheese Sandwich had been knocked loose, or put back into place. 

He was quiet, now, standing in the back of the group and away from the foals, who did their nervous best to ignore him. He hadn’t spoken a word to Scootaloo or Diamond since Coco had pulled him up. The only times he spoke were when he got the house to tromp to the city outskirts and when he trotted from the back of the crowd and sealed each foal-return with a brief, head-bowed apology.

Most times the parents would just stare at him, like they didn’t know what language he was speaking in. Other times they would try to say something, the sort of thing they would’ve rehearsed better over a dozen sleepless nights, dulled by the freshness of their wounds. The brief moment of eye contact he made was only to ensure they weren’t about to hit him, and even then it was half-hearted. When the doors wouldn’t open, he seemed to relax a fraction, and as the streets went onward and he continued his mute trudge, some of the color seemed to leave him. 

There was something lost about him, disabused. It set Scootaloo on edge. 

“Well, we could at least have tried,” she sad. “There’s no reason he needs to be out and walking around with us, even if he doesn’t have anything bad planned.”

“I think Coco’s trying to give him a second chance.” 

Scootaloo grimaced. “She’s going to give somepony one too many of those before long.” 

Diamond frowned herself, but kept talking to fill the silence. “Maybe she will. But it’s better for her to try, in a time like this.” 

“No maybe about it. Even the Elements couldn’t make friends with everypony they fought. She’s being too nice.” 

“Am I?” Coco asked.

They each stopped and looked up. Coco had stopped for a moment and turned to them, still smiling gently. Both of them looked at her, then at each other, and then Scootaloo spoke up.

“Yeah. You shouldn’t trust ponies even when you know you can beat ‘em. And there’s no reason why we couldn’t have made this trip while you went looking for Rarity. The sooner we find her, the sooner we can get on to stopping Sombra.”

A handful of confused complaints came from the crowd behind them, and everypony started walking again. Coco slowed to become level with the two, and continued.

“I wanted to make sure that she was still in the castle, and everypony I’ve asked has told me exactly that. I’ve also got a little information about the agents here.”

“You mean Sombra’s...?” Diamond asked, then trailed off. They weren’t ponies, but she couldn’t remember what they’d called themselves. 

Again, a nod. “They’ve got a lot more control here than I thought. Much more than in Ponyville. They’re using the castle as a base.”

Scootaloo blanched. “Then they’ve already got her.” Her wings fidgeted at her sides.

Coco interrupted her panic. “We’ve got to hope they’re not doing anything to her. If Sombra wanted the Elements gone for good, he probably could’ve just destroyed them.”

“There’s no way we could know that!” the filly said, increasingly agitated. “We might need to get to her right now!”

Coco pointed to the spire of the castle a few blocks away. “We’re nearly there. I don’t want to go in alone, and I can’t bring these foals into it. ...Rarity would want me to finish this first.”

Scootaloo saw her friend’s tight expression, and the cadence of her words, and realized that it was just as painful for her to hold back from storming the castle. Her ears folded back, and she inspected the paving-stones. 

“Go on ahead.” Diamond said. 

Coco and Scootaloo glanced her way. 

“There’s no reason for all of us to do this. I’ll get them where they’re going and meet you there.” 

Coco, for whom splitting up was not a very favorable idea, considered her. “Are you sure you’ll be able to keep them together without our help?”

Diamond smirked. “You have no idea how good I am at keeping ponies in line.”

Scootaloo cast a nervous glance away from the filly and past the foals, to the rear of their lineup. She lowered her voice a little further. “Do you think you can handle somepony like him getting rowdy?”

“He’s not trying to do that stuff any longer,” she said. “｢Misery Business｣ will tell me if he ever changes his mind.”

“Then what’s he really trying to do?”

Diamond shrugged. “To show he’s sorry, really. He’s just caught on recently that we’re going after the Elements of Harmony, and he’s biding his time to ask us about one of them.”

“Rainbow Dash?” Scootaloo asked, remembering the hedonistic explosion of the party. 

Head-shake. “Pinkie Pie.”

Coco puzzled at that. “Is he a fan?” His behavior would definitely make a little more sense, then.

“No, they met, once. I can’t get anything else out of him without asking questions directly, and he’ll know what I’m up to if I do. It’s better to let him keep his privacy for now.” 

Coco weighed that quietly. “Then make sure to meet us at the castle.”

Diamond nodded, and Coco started trotting away from the group. Scootaloo surveyed the now-meager group, looked to Diamond, nodded once, and trailed after the mare. 


* * *


From many familial islands, word started to spread. It may have taken a day or two, given how isolated the average Canterlot pony was. It was only the web of them, connected together, the sighs of relief, the excited chatter among each other that mattered.

In a carefully-set hideaway, Twinkleshine’s ears perked up. 

“｢Star 69｣.” 

Voices flowed in, singled out one at a time from a giant stream of noise-data.

“I can’t believe it!”

“It was the most amazing thing, as soon as we thought we’d lost Windy, she came back with him and made the stallion apologize!” 

“Yes, yes, her name was ‘Coco’. I think she did it alone, there were only foals near her.”

“She’s making a run of the same path he took, I think. If only repairs were that easy for the rest of us, eh?”

Twinkleshine’s brow furrowed as she quieted her Stand. What was this? It was the talk of a whole district of ponies, just about, the same one that was just devastated. Could it really be good fortune coming their way?

She immediately hoofed it for the nearest communicator. ｢Star 69｣ showed her that the leader wasn’t speaking, at present, which meant she was either resting or meditating over some meal or other. Or maybe just watching hawkishly in the kitchens… The thought of those appraising eyes made her wince, but she took up the small metal contraption anyway.

“Come in, HQ, this is ｢Star 69｣ trying to contact ｢Chop Suey｣. There’s been a development in the West District, not sure if it’s friendly or hostile. Please advise.” Then, she listened for any incoming reports with one ear and awaited a message with the other. 

There was moment of tense silence that drew out into half a minute. “HQ, this is ｢Star 69｣ trying-”

“I heard you.” 

The dry, upper-crust voice didn’t come over the communicator, cracked and mangled by imperfect machinery and unkind airwaves, but purely through her Stand. It was also in a rough mood. Twinkleshine knew that the makeshift radio was really a one-way street, when it came to a pony only satisfied with the best. 

“Go on, then. Tell me what’s happening before I have to send out reconnaissance of my own.”

“Somepony named Coco has been returning the foals that were just taken. She’s forcing Cheese Sandwich to apologize to each of the families, and he seems to be doing it. They’re moving along the West toward the castle.”

“You can hear him?”

“No, he never got in my range.”

Pitiless silence, dressed up for the hero of the revolution in plans and guesses. “No. No, that’s far, far too convenient. It’s a con game of some kind, I’m sure.”

That made Twinkleshine uneasy, but if it was true she had every reason to be. She’d learned not to pose very many questions since her first hour on the job, so instead she elected to ask, “What should we do?”

“I was preoccupied the last time he came through, but if he thinks he can rough up these ponies a second time, I’ll have to visit him personally and let him see what’s what.” 

“Who do you want me to send with you?” Twinkleshine asked, after another long pause. 

“Yes, come along and bring the nets. Do keep up, now.” 

“Nets? I don’t think I have any...” she started, and realized that Zesty had simply walked away from the communicator and gotten to gathering ponies. She sat and grumbled, “I hate when she does that.”


* * *


Canterlot’s castle was visible from almost any point outside of the city, but hidden from view all too often within it. Here, though, even a block away, it felt like a pony could hug the sides of the buildings and face away from those spires and towers, and still wind up seeing it. 

Coco knew that Rarity was in there somewhere, or that she had been, but very little else. Nopony she’d spoken to seemed able to tell her who exactly was running things behind the scenes here, only that there were plenty of agents around and that they patrolled to maintain curfew. 

It was disturbing to see a city like Canterlot so empty, but there was at least the comfort of the occasional pair of eyes darted out from behind shuttered windows and closed curtains. She wondered if this was what became of Manehattan during her journey to Ponyville, or if some other fate crash-landed into her home-city. 

Would the park where she’d made costumes as a filly still be there, if a half-dozen ponies like Berryshine wandered into it?

She tried to clear the thoughts from her head. She was closer to her goal than ever before, now. The only trick was getting inside. 

There was no apparent movement around the perimeter, which she found odd. There were no real gates or locks in between the castle and the city that coexisted around it, but there were clear positions where guards should’ve been standing. 

Scootaloo tried trotting forward, made it a dozen meters, and then bumped her snoot against a wall of solid yellow energy. Coco saw it ripple, the light shimmering in a wave until it revealed its full geodesic shape. Face scrunching, the filly stood back a little, spectated the light, and started to feel out the edge of the dome with her hooves.

“Opening. There’s got to be an opening.” She said to herself, and Coco agreed.

Together, counterclockwise, they started tracing its edge. 


* * *


From his twenty-sixth apology onward, Cheese Sandwich had exhausted his ability to feel worse. It wasn’t a muscle he’d stretched very much, even before he had his cutie mark, and usually he saw that as a blessing. 

He’d been certain of his righteousness. Completely, totally certain, that his Cheesy Sense returning was something he’d done. 

Celestia on a soda cracker, other ponies were trying to save the world. And they were doing a better job than he was, which meant that they might actually pull it off! At the leastest of the least, he was in no position to call shenanigans on them. 

Had he really done the wrong thing? Wasn’t his backup plan the best thing somepony could’ve done, in his position? It hadn’t been easy, it had taken sacrifice and work, even just starting. But now, the weight of each apology, the looks, assailed him more than any dressing-down from the ponies who’d outwitted him. If most of them spoke to him, he might’ve been able to argue his point, to reinforce his retreating position, but even the ones who did would’ve turned uglier still if he’d done that.

“It hurts when no one trusts you, doesn’t it.” Diamond said, and it took him a moment to realize she was talking to him.

He trotted forward, past the under-a-dozen kids still present. “A-are you reading my mind again?” 

She oriented herself so that she could keep an eye on them. They’d been well-behaved so far, or just cowed by all that had happened to them. “No. I just know from experience.” 

“Must’ve been an experience and a half.”

“Yeah. It only happened a few times, and every time I became stronger and tried to stop it from happening again. Whenever ponies didn’t like me, I tried to make them do it. Now, I guess it’s just not meant to be.” She huffed, resigned. 

“Come on, of course you can make ponies like you!” he said, voice raising a little. “That’s why comedy was invented, to grease the wheels of the friendship train! You just have to pick the right time, and knock ‘em dead!” At the last phrase, he motioned a boxer’s jab with one hoof.

Diamond blinked. Had he tried too hard to be enthusiastic there? “But… it’s really not a pony’s choice, if they’re likeable or not. Not everypony can get along with others.”

“Pshaw,” Cheese said. “If there’s anything I know, it’s that there’s something likeable inside of everypony. You just have to dig it up sometimes, and let other ponies know what it is!” Yes, all things considered, this was an extra-excellent distraction from the way he’d just been feeling.

Diamond chewed on that as they kept walking.


* * *


Zesty Gourmand passed the plain, samey, civilian residences one at a time. Her own mental and spiritual home was on the other side of the city, in the district of restaurants which now were so much dust and disuse. 

There was always more work to be done, more things to be perfected. Only a pony with vision could lead a resistance, not to mention charisma.

The reassuring heft of her coat carried her forward, the four unicorns and the net nearby. 

Suddenly, she smiled to herself, wryly. She had recognized the name “Coco”, she was certain, but only now did she remember from where. It was a small article in a trite magazine, the sort of thing she was occasionally given to reading for a moment’s relaxation, about the “ten rising stars of Manehattan fashion”. It made a great hullaballoo over her industry, and the size of her ouevre.

Well, she supposed it was a very equine temptation, to go for quantity over quality. 

The route to the West’s terminus was uncomplicated, and she passed through it at a brisk trot. The bare sun was a little more than she would’ve liked, but on the whole the day wasn’t completely unsalvageable. A few captures and interrogations might make a world of difference. 

When she stepped into the intersection of the castle and the district, it was with some hesitancy that she threw her gaze in all directions. There was no sign of enemy activity just yet, but signs were a blase and obvious way of discerning the world. She could feel, with the same certainty and straightforwardness that had made her the head of the Canterlot restaurant industry and the head of its underground guerrilla militia, that there was more ahoof. 

Nopony was fighting right now, in all of the city. This was a necessity; her own forces were sorely lacking, and most required much more training than they’d been able to receive thus far. But when her intuition presented her that impression, it was with the same whallop as the entire city being at war around her. 

She considered asking her silent, obedient companions if they felt any twinges of apprehension themselves, but it would’ve been pointless. Nopony ever felt what she did, and to drag out the fact into the open would be a garish waste.

When she first heard a door shut around the corner, she knew she was in the right area. Coat billowing, she dashed into the street and around the bend.

My, Coco was a young thing, wasn’t she? A bit of a tragic mane, perhaps, but certainly better than expected. The cutie mark was only proof that destiny was a harsh mistress. Next to a stallion like Cheese Sandwich, she looked like polished jewelry. 

Both turned to her, startled, as they were departing the doorway of some mean home. They were foalless, which was just more work and investigation to be done later. She might have to round up the foals personally, which was something she’d rather not have done. Young Coco might win some grudging respect for her youthful drive in the fashion industry, but on the whole, Zesty would rather swallow greasetrap fare than interact with children. 

“Hello.” Cheese said.

“｢Chop Suey｣.”


* * *


Coco and Scootaloo headed around the castle in search of an opening, and navigated its whole circumference without finding one. As the quest became more and more fruitless, Coco’s expression clouded over with worry. She didn’t even notice the gardens or hedge mazes, or the rest of the city revolving around them as they circled.

Several times, Scootaloo tried to hammer her hooves into the barrier, only to shake them off a moment later and continue skulking around the edge of the grounds. When they made it all the way back, she groaned loudly and hit it with a useless barrage. 

Coco was hardly in a better mood. She couldn’t even pass her Stand through or create fabric on the other side. Nothing would help pull her in. As they both stood in front of their starting point, she rubbed a hoof on her muzzle and regarded the whole dome.

“We could always try climbing it.”

Scootaloo grunted. “I just thought of that.”

“Stay right where you are.” A withering voice called from a ways behind them.

They both turned, and saw, some distance away, an older, almost lichlike mare. Her eyes were thin, and her pallid skin supported a pronounced horn surrounded by white hair. She wore a full white shirt with actual sleeves and buttons, which Coco’s mind quietly noted as a bold choice, and a long curving black coat that evoked something of a saddle in her mind. Behind her, Diamond and Cheese were laying in a repurposed fishing net. Both were bruised, held inside of a force field maintained by a quartet of strong-built unicorn stallions standing in easy formation. 

Coco started. “Who are-”

“I go by Zesty Gourmand. As you can see, I have your allies here,” she said, telekinetically raising the net to bring it in plainer view. “And it’s no use relying on that Stand of his. I’ve instructed my good associates here to go straight for both if any of them feel a little too giddy.“

Cheese looked at Coco in a silent apology. Beneath the scuffs, Diamond stewed in negative emotions.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m here to nip this farce in the bud. It’s one thing for a King to conquer and rule, but to pretend to make nice with these citizens is a step too far! The ponies of this city will never succumb to such cruel tricks!”

Coco softened and shook her head a little. “Oh, no, I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong, Ms. Gourmand, we’re not here to help Sombra at all. We’re just trying to make sure the Element of Generosity is alright, and find a route to the Crystal Empire.”

Zesty snorted, a dry sound like a spittake without water. “Even if your story were plausible, your acting leaves many things to be desired. Why would you arrive here so quickly after a crisis, or show up at all? Where’s the train that brought you?”

Scootaloo fumed and cut in. “What reason could we have, lady? Do you think we had Cheese take the foals so we could bring them back just after?!”

Not so much a laugh as a puff of air, ruffling the coat. “How should we know that they’re really the ponies who were separated from their families? And why should we believe that ponies like you won’t come bearing gifts in order to convince us of your good intentions? Do you think we’re completely unaware of the subtleties of strategy?” 

“That’s ridiculous! What if we really are the good guys here? You’re throwing away a chance for us to help out this city together!”

“I’m not about to believe a pair of ponies who just came back from the Castle occupied by Sombra’s forces. If you aren’t going to come quietly, I’ll be happy to show you why I’m not so easy to fool. Besides,” Sniff. “Even if you were telling the truth, I don’t think I need the help of a handful of vagabonds, thankyou.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, why don’t we find out?” Scootaloo said, and stepped closer. Above her, ｢Go Zone｣ formed, hovering and staring out through the aisle of the street.

Seeing the Stand, Zesty drew herself up and stared the filly down across the gulf. “If you want to settle this in the basest way possible, be my guest. ｢Chop Suey｣.”

Equidistant from both of them, bits of pavement, asphalt, brick, wall, glass, rubble and metal broke off from the structures around and coalesced in the center of the street, hanging in mid-air. They took the shape of an odd, composite sculpture of a pony, multicolored and hairless, perhaps a stallion. It stood a full pony’s height off of the ground, unmoving.

From the sidelines, Diamond and Cheese looked on at the Stand, concern growing. Cheese’s eyes searched the ground for something. On the opposite end of the street, Coco kept to the sidewalk and kept level with the filly, trying to size up the Stand and think of some way out of her predicament.

Scootaloo kept her eyes steady, locked with Zesty’s. The older mare beckoned her with a brief wave of her hoof, and she charged. 

Zesty’s Stand stayed perfectly still as she advanced herself, almost marching. Her features were soggy with relaxed confidence. The filly was nearing the Stand much faster, eyes fixed on it in case it made any sudden movements. But it didn’t, and neither did the mare. Coco tried to keep an eye on both, herself. 

Scootaloo realized that she was a little too far right to charge straight into her opponent. Was she trying to avoid running underneath of the Stand? It did seem like an opportune chance for it to attack, and she had no idea of its power. If it could beat Cheese and Diamond, it had to be something nasty. 

She decided not to take any chances, and veered a little further right to circle by it. 

No sooner had she done that than the Stand split apart into its constituent elements and swirled into a vortex, like a cyclone. More bits of the street and buildings dislodged themselves and added to it, and parts of itself shot out like bullets. 

Scootaloo realized she’d activated it. Was it that she’d come too close? She dodged and backpedaled, darting away from the minor projectiles, but they only circled and weaved themselves. 

In front of her, Zesty continued her steady march forward, coming closer to the Stand now. Scootaloo’s own dodging grew desperate as the mare reached the 

“To win in life, you must go after your passions in a straight line. If you allow your heart to dissuade you, you’ll never accomplish anything. Those who change direction are aimless, and ｢Chop Suey｣ eats them just like the world does.”

Then that was it! The change in direction! Scootaloo turned back toward Zesty. “｢Go Zone｣!”

A smattering of brick dust, sharp tokens of concrete and brittle glass froze in the air, dusting the ground around the filly’s hooves. 

“It’s useless! Once you stray from the path, my Stand won’t forgive you! Those who turn to the side are useless!” She was standing right in the midst of it, still facing forward, only her eyes following the filly. If ｢Go Zone｣ could get close enough to trip her up, then--

A line of debris swept behind Scootaloo and impacted, piercing into her side and biting into one wing. She yelped, and tried extending her Stand’s power, concentrating all around her at once. The sudden exertion was exhausting, and a cloud of cutting dust stuck to the outside, falling inwards and piling around her, sealing her further.

Just as her barrier flickered and died completely, Coco barrelled towards her, coming diagonally. “｢Something for Nothing｣!”

A sheet of white materialized in the air and swept up the toothy rubble into a bundle. Her Stand stood over the filly, wrapping her in layers and layers of soft material. 

Zesty frowned, and the attack paused, rubble drawing itself back up into her Stand, now three times larger than a pony. 

Coco, who was at a sixty-degree angle to the mare, pleaded with her without turning her head. “Stop! We’re not enemies, we can work this out and make sure that everypony gets what they need!”

“I see you know diplomacy when you’ve already lost. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be enough for you. To be frank, common ponies like you are in no position to be making offers at all.”

Coco’s head reeled as she tried to think of something. “Please, just help us save Rarity, and leave my friends be! After that, we’ll leave and never come back!”

Before Zesty could respond, a rock flew into the back of her head, skipping off of it and onto the ground. She began to turn around, and then seized up and stopped herself, half-shuddering. Another whistled through the air, and she ducked as it sailed past and landed on Coco’s side inside.

Back in the net, the unicorns reestablished the force field, tightening. ｢Misery Business｣’s arm was constrained by it, and then vanished entirely, leaving a small pile of rocks unthrown.

Zesty checked the back of her head with a hoof, making sure there weren’t any bad bruises. The skin was sore, but the rest was undamaged.  “If you don’t have the strength to win in the first place, it doesn’t matter how you act when you lose. I don’t believe you.”

“But I’m being honest with you! Don’t you want to save the ponies of Canterlot?!” Coco shielded Scootaloo with her whole body, her heart beginning to race.

Zesty laughed, then. It was brief, and vampiric. “You really don’t know me, do you. I’m here to maintain Canterlot, and its culture. The fact that ponies need to be alive to that end is no help to you.”

Coco blinked, mouth open. “W-Wuh?”

“I said I won’t be threatened or cowed,” Zesty said, coolly. “If this city is the last bastion of true progress in the world, the work of only a few of the finest and most ingenious of truly thinking ponies, then I must defend it! But I won’t be painted as some gauche unrefined storybook moralist who does it for the lives of peasants.”

Coco seemed barely comprehending at those words. “What did you just say?”

“It’s clear your group was sent because your lord thought I’d have a soft spot for a young dressmaker who saw me as an idealistic champion. It’s far too transparent, but he never was one for subtlety. No, there’s nothing about the ponies I meet that makes me want to save them. Only a few matter, or ever have, and the rest are free to live their meaningless little lives and die their pointless deaths. In the end, it doesn’t matter.”

That was enough, the end, the limit. That was the point where Coco had heard enough. Something inside of her changed, and her heart raced onward with new passion!

“That’s not true!” she shouted back, looking at Zesty through the periphery of her flashing eyes. "Do you hear me?! That’s not true at all! We're all here because of the ponies who came before and gave everything for us! Ponies spending their lives working for a future they’ll never see themselves…” She lowered her head, eyes closed, seething.

Zesty’s eyebrow arched.

And then, she turned! 

Coco Pommel turned her entire body!

She faced Zesty head-on!

“As long as I have the power of Stand, I'll never let you call that generosity a lie!" 

“Then die!” Zesty called, casting a hoof out, “｢Chop Suey｣!”

The debris flew at her in pelting waves. She threw up a sheet, and they burst through it with raw knifing velocity. She leapt out of the way, levitating Scootaloo in the opposite direction, and galloped for the revolutionary as soon as her hooves touched the ground. By now, the Stand was generating wind with its spinning, halting her progress as she ran into it.

A volley circled around her, and she threw up shield after shield, weaving as best as one pony. But it wouldn’t be enough! 

Zesty smiled, staring her down from only a few hooves away. Another sweep of the projectiles was coming from behind her, hitting her in a blind spot. It was an inevitability!

Suddenly, Coco began to dodge. She threw herself down, and sprang up to one side. She moved one leg away from the razor wind as it swept along. She craned her neck to the left as another flew past. It was as if she had eyes in the back of her head! 

Zesty became alarmed, stopping herself from backing up. “Impossible!”

Coco, at first shocked herself, realized herself what was happening, and smiled. Having so recently succumbed to it, there was no trouble identifying the sensation of ｢Feel Good Inc｣. It had been on the second rock Diamond had thrown with her ｢Misery Business｣! Now she could dodge for a little while longer!

Finally, with a burst of energy, she threw out her Stand. “｢Something for Nothing｣!”

The Stand hooked a foreleg against Zesty’s cheek, solid enough to knock her off of her hooves and onto her side. She rubbed the wound, waiting for another hit, but none came. 

Coco looked down at her, no longer dodging, as ｢Chop Suey｣ began to redirect itself. Her eyes were serious, cold. Above her, the vortex swirled angrier and angrier. 

Coco’s guess was confirmed with Zesty cringed, and covered her head with her hooves. ｢Chop Suey｣ was a double-edged sword. Anypony who changed direction could be targeted. 

A hail of street zoomed for the cowering critic, and she felt a tightness in her barrel as the wind increased around her. But there was no impact. Instead, she felt weightless!

When she opened her eyes, she saw a silken tether tied around her barrel, the other end of a long line of fabric held by ｢Something for Nothing｣. She relaxed her body, ready to hit a wall of some kind, but only collided against a giant, pillowy chair. 

Once she left range, her Stand disappeared, the animating intelligence evaporating and the bits of debris falling to the road. She felt almost relieved, and her breathing let up as the tether dissipated around her. She was unharmed.

She could’ve been eviscerated by her own power, her own folly, and yet she was still breathing. The weight of that hit her in waves, and she realized that she may have labored under a misapprehension.

Then, above her, Coco Pommel trotted into view, blocking out the sun. 

Zesty coughed, politely. “Ahem. Yes. Let’s talk.”

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: Star 69
User: Twinkleshine
Stats
Power: N/A
Speed: N/A
Range: A
Durability: N/A
Precision: N/A
Potential: D
Abilities: After the user hears a target speak, they can hear anything that target says, regardless of distance. This does not tell the user the target’s location, or any other information. The power can be deactivated and reactivated for any target at will.

Stand Name: Chop Suey
User: Zesty Gourmand
Stats
Power: A
Speed: B
Range: B
Durability: D
Precision: A
Potential: C
Abilities: A Stand which assembles itself out of any nearby materials at the time of its summoning. It attacks the latest target to change direction within range, hurling parts of itself at them. The user is not immune to this effect, and cannot deactivate the Stand if it’s targeting them.
> Evil (A Chorus of Resistance)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The headquarters of the apparent revolution had plenty of seats, but too many curtains. They were composed of shower curtains, bathrobes and old clothes stitched together, draped over the windows in a hasty job, and they bothered Coco to no end. If her Stand were permanent, she would have replaced them completely in a heartbeat. 

Next to her in the booth, Scootaloo wondered absent-mindedly whether the place still served food or not, or whether that had been killed like the lights. Beneath that bored surface, staring out at a novelty poster of a cartoon pizza with a smiling face, she wondered whether the other Crusaders were eating anything, and if their situation had improved any. Maybe they were cutting down the Everfree and chewing on the Poison Joke, or making stew from the bark. Was Zecora still around?

Diamond, for her part, was wondering when Zesty Gourmand would ever come back, or when Coco would notice that the former eminent critic had their names and jobs thoroughly confused. She’d left to go and check things out with various underlings because of her plans, but she meant to explain what this was all for later on, so the rest was lost to ｢Misery Business｣. Without any secrets to sniff out, she was left to glance back and forth between the table, her compatriots, and the rest of the room.

And Cheese, sitting at one end of the semicircle of red cushioning, simply felt lost. Nothing really occupied him, except the hope that Ms. Lemongrass hadn’t abandoned him at the edge of the city, or been chased off by some vengeful Stand-wielding parent or other. It was only because of Coco that he had survived all of this mess, and the fact that it was also her fault to begin with that he was present didn’t even cross his mind. Cheese Sandwich was a pony who accepted fate as it came to him, even if it came smacking him in the back of the head.

Time passed. There were no timepieces in the former restaurant, no cash registers, no machines of any kind. It was dim in a way that weighed on the eyes, and had the atmosphere of something waiting to become ancient and dusty. Ponies had not worked their craft here for a few days, and already so much had changed. There was war brewing, an attempt to stop the crushing, absolute force of Sombra’s empire, and it had transformed this property and the surrounding blocks into some sort of encampment. 

They were hidden, in the restaurant district. Whoever was supposed to rule over this section of Canterlot with an iron hoof, they had been finished off by now. The castle-dwellers weren’t infinite, but they were dangerous. 

When Zesty finally returned, carefully and silently opening the “Employees Only” door and holding it open, she had with her a cream-coated mare with a bobbing pink mane. Coco was the first pony to notice, turning her attention to the newcomer, and the rest startled when she spoke.

“Hello, everypony. I’m Twinkleshine,” she started, breaking away from her leader to stride in front of the table, “and Miss Gourmand has asked me to help get you up to speed on what’s going on here in our city. She’s hoping that you can help us collect an important artifact so it stays out of the bad guys’ hands. And in return, if you want, she can give you a possible route into the castle.”

All present considered that. Coco caught a questioning look from Diamond, and then shook her head minutely until it faded back into neutrality. There was no need to pry through all of their secrets right now, and especially not if they were allies. 

Twinkleshine continued. “There are a bunch of very nasty ponies from somewhere else running the show in Canterlot right now. If they have their way, they’re going to make room for more of themselves to come through and take over this city, and use it as a hub to control everything in the Princesses’ domain. I know it must sound weird to anyone from outside of the city, but we’ve already determined that they’re from another universe, outside of this one.” 

At that, the mare lifted her head and made brief, perching eye contact with each of her audience members in turn. When she noticed a total lack of reaction from all of them, she took a deep breath and resumed. 

“Um. Well, you see, we’re really understaffed at the moment, and there’s something that entered into the city just recently. If we can grab it, we can reinforce ourselves enough to help out the rest of the city. But if they get it back, they’re going to make sure that nopony ever lays hooves on it again.”

“What is it?” Coco asked.

“A last gift from the Element of Loyalty. I wish I could tell you more, but you’ll know when you see it. It’s being kept somewhere in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns by one of our best. If you can retrieve it and bring it back here, we’ll help you get into their HQ.” 

Scootaloo’s face perked up at the mention of Rainbow, and then she began murmuring to herself for the rest of the speech, trying to figure out what could possibly have come all the way here from Ponyville. Then she remembered something, Cheerilee, and became troubled. 

“Who’s going to be after us?” Diamond asked. 

“Hopefully nopony. We haven’t had any reports of her being followed, so if you’re quick you might be able to get to it without any problem. If not, you’ll probably run into Amethyst in that part of the city. She sticks masks on ponies that make them go crazy, but if you don’t let her get too close-up you should be fine.”

“Is it the key to where all of the Cloudsdale pegasi disappeared?” Scootaloo asked, and all heads turned to her. 

Twinkleshine looked shocked, swallowed, and nodded her head. “Yes, something like that. We have reason to believe that the enemy hasn’t noticed it yet, or doesn’t appreciate it for what it is.”

“Then I’ll get it for you,” Scootaloo declared, hopping out of the booth and stretching her wingtips at her sides. “Where’s a map?”

In the corner, Zesty made a small, tight grin.


* * *


The route to the school was much like the rest of the city, although now they walked closer to the buildings. There was a majesty to Canterlot that had been undimmed by recent tragedy, even though the alleyways seemed to gape at the group all the more. Diamond, who had always been afraid of being foalnapped or burglarized in some place so dark and enclosed, kept herself closer to the group, and watched those shadows from the rear, eyes darting from one to the next in jagged sequence.

Once a pony got used to all of the bustle, the city became an endless network of colorfully-lined sidewalks and not a vast multifaceted environment at all. Coco was more than familiar with the sprawl, and was making a note of a few landmarks here and there, shop-signs and windows broken in particular patterns. Cheese, a natural-born traveler, didn’t even do that; his internal compass ticked along, waiting for some new burst of party-demand while he trotted. 

Scootaloo was paying more attention to the city at large than any of them, keeping alert for a sudden oncoming army of enemy Stand users or an encroaching dragon-horde.

“Makes me wish we had a unicorn around to give us the tour,” she said, as she kicked a discarded can ahead of her. 

“I’ve seen a few.” Coco said. “They don’t seem very interested in seeing us, though.”

“No kidding.” Cheese said. Coco looked over at him, warm and pitying, but he didn’t look back.

“No moping either.” Scootaloo called back from the front. She had already pulled ahead several times, forcing them to lurch after her. “The faster we get this taken care of, the faster we can save Rarity and stop Sombra.”

“And find Rainbow Dash?” Coco asked. The answer came after a block of silence.

“...Yeah. Maybe.” Scootaloo said. “But we shouldn’t get anypony’s hopes up over it. Even if we had the key or the secret or whatever it is, we don’t have enough time to make a detour and use it. We’ve just got to leave it to whatever crazy ponies think they’re helping out here and keep trotting.” After a moment she added, “Why didn’t the hag just come out and get it herself?”

“She’s afraid Sombra’s ponies would get her,” Diamond said, raising her voice from the back of the group. “They’re strong Stand users, and she’s more valuable as a leader than a fighter. Or, at least, that’s what she tells herself.”

Scootaloo pffed. “Sweetie could take her job over in a heartbeat.”

“Who’s she?” Cheese asked. 

“Sweetie Belle? Only one of the most together ponies you’ll ever meet!”

Having been sent on this tangent, Scootaloo pulled back a little bit, and Coco took the head, still scanning. She smiled faintly as Cheese nodded his way through the exploits of Rarity’s little sister. When they were hopping over some train tracks and passing out of the once-glittering fashion district, Diamond interjected with her own testimony.

“And she had no idea of what my Stand could do, but she agreed to fight anyway. And then she showed up tired, and threw her Stand into the crowd as a publicity stunt, and then...”

Scootaloo, who hadn’t heard the story first-hand in such detail, listened as well as Cheese did. It lasted them a few minutes, until they were within a few blocks of the school. 

Canterlot’s Royal Academy sat on its own, a separate building from the palaces, although a tourist might mistake it at first glance. Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns stood at its foot, much like Ponyville at the base of the mountain, though much less plain. There was still gold and red outlining the windows, even if their glass wasn’t stained. A tingle of static reached out even this far, the stuff of magical experiments gone wrong and discharges of pent-up mana. 

It was only when they were a block away that Coco seized up, and a black sheet ushered the party up tight in the afternoon shadow of an apartment. All conversation stopped.

Cheese, who was the only one who could see over Coco, saw the group ahead, approaching from the courtyard. Through the iron bars of the gates, four of them. They didn’t look around or check behind themselves, only turning to speak to each other, too far away to pick up what they were saying. 

“Looks like it’s not Amethyst, or just her,” he said, and the fillies behind him grew nervous. “They’re discussing something...”

Coco whispered, “｢Something for Nothing｣.” An impractically slender black ribbon coiled itself around the gate’s metal and snaked down the street, spitting out more of itself until it connected to the can Scootaloo was still carrying. 

Faintly, as all perked up their ears and leaned in, voices could be made out.

“Are there any other exits?” Mare, muffled, the violet one staring up at the building.

“No.” Mare, lighter-voiced. “I can feel the magic. She’s still up on the second floor.”

“We all feel it. That doesn’t mean she’ll stay up there. She’s a native, she knows magic better than all of us.” 


“Tch. It doesn’t matter.” A stallion’s voice, yes, the one in sunglasses with messed-up hair. “There’s no one here anyhow. So long as we have a guard.”

“And are you willing to kill a pony the second you see them?” The violet leader asked. 

There was no answer, but two of the heads in view nodded slightly.

“Remember that we’re not here to incapacitate. We take the Stand, no matter what it takes. If we don’t get our hands on it, we’re going to have to start throwing guards through the portal, and then it’ll come down to us. So… ｢Goldfrapp｣!”

The clean, well-polished and speckled surface of the building broke off in four places, each with an audible crack. Each piece removed came off in a perfect oval, a mask with an expression of anger on its face which floated in the air in front of each pony. None made a move for them.

“Consider it a last resort if you like,” she said. “Just have it ready.”

“Fine.” Stallion, swiping it out of the air.

“Danke.” Mare, unmistakable even if she was being obscured. Coco had to bite her hoof.

Photo Finish, the pony who she had both dreamt and lost sleep over presenting her work to someday, the two-decade mistress of photography in the world of fashion. It took the dressmaker a moment to clear her mind and realize that this was not the same pony, in many ways not even a pony at all, but the conversation was already rolling along.

“Finish, you keep watch, and use ｢ARTPOP｣ on anything that gets too close. The three of us should be enough to overpower Velvet and get out safely.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little overkill?” Stallion. 

“Lights, when you’re playing for keeps, there’s no such thing. Now let’s hurry up.” 

And they departed, into the school. 

Scootaloo spoke first, as soon as the door shut behind them. “What’s the plan?”

“I’ve met Photo Finish before.” Cheese said under his breath. “I’ll distract her.”

“It’s not the same-” Diamond said, but Cheese cut her off with a hoof.

“I’ll still distract her. You three worry about getting to her.”

“There can’t be many places to look,” Diamond said, feeling a little too much like her old self in her bluntness. “We’re running out of time.”

Cheese stepped forward, out of the shadows, and cracked his neck. 


* * *


Photo Finish was a recent addition to the current castle guard, only having migrated to the new universe a day ago. She’d spent the last few hours tinkering with her newfound ability, understanding it, letting it integrate with her original talents. Here a person’s talent was written on their backside, and she felt comforted that hers had turned out to be a camera and a star.

She had never known the people she ran with now, on the other side. Not even through her lens, as significant as it had now become. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know them, either, although they were at least familiar. The sooner they could finish this up, the sooner she could figure out the intricacies of her ability and use it to elevate her art.

She polished the closest thing to a Polaroid this world had coughed up and held it at the ready. So much just to bring in a few key elements, the right frame for a country on a silver platter. Was she willing to kill…? Yes, of course! She came from an entirely different island than the rest of them, and she’d seen war. Real war, too, the kind that grazed you and threatened to bridge the distance even through a still image! 

And here she was, part of another diaspora, another prospective war if things went completely wrong. Sombra would win it, of course, but what about her? Already she wondered if she’d hear the glass crashing overhead and someone falling on her from above in a sneak attack.

The pent-up worry mixed with the faint static in the air, and soon her Stand was out, the whole benchlike surface of it. It laid itself out differently this time, still equally ready for her, everything still wherever she would go looking for it. It gave her solidity, like a lived-in home.

As she turned back to the camera, fiddling with it to pass the time, she finally noticed that she wasn’t alone. Directly in front of her was a tall amber stallion with puffy hair, smiling too close to her face. 

“Howdy!” he said. “It’s nice to see you again, Photo! Remember the time you lost your goggles in the punchbowl after all the daiquiris?”

This was one they had told stories of on the way, given warnings. Entführer, spreader of dancing-pestilence. She pressed the button on instinct, as much her new ability as her natural reaction to anything new of interest. The flash dilated his pupils, but it didn’t change his expression, and then the picture came rolling out like clockwork. 

“Well, that’s not very nice,” he said, half-pouting. “Is that your Stand?”

She ignored him, moving a few feet away and to the side, the workshop of her Stand moving with her as she slapped down the photograph and grabbed the nearest brush from its little glass bottle, gingerly drawing it around him with all of its chemical concentration. Immediately it bubbled against the surface, removing a swath of orange-brown from just off-center.

Cheese Sandwich hissed as part of his cheek disappeared. “So that’s what your power does. I was worried I was going to be trapped inside of a photo, or something!”

And then, without her conscious decision, her front legs threw themselves up, and the removing agent was cast into the air, disappearing from the Stand. The whole workshop spun around her to catch it again, and the photograph went floating into the air. She leapt, flailing, to catch it, only for her own hands - hooves - to lose their grip!

Ponies were moving past her now, a blur of motion her head turned away from, the sound of glass breaking just as she’d feared, and then she was alone with the curse-bringer.


* * *


Scootaloo flew up to the second floor’s center, a hallway, and ｢Go Zone｣ chucked her can straight through it, sending it hurtling down the length like a bullet, and she tumbled through the hole headfirst. Thankfully, the glass didn’t bite on the way in.

The place stank of magic and puberty, and they were already on the second floor like she’d hoped. Up close they were easier to make out, grey-green, blue and light purple, the last two being mares. All were facing her. 

The blue one was familiar, somepony who’d been in Ponyville pretty frequently. In front of her was a hand the same color as her, gripping the can in mid-air.  

“We’re compromised.” Amethyst Star said.

“I’ll take care of this. Get to her.” 

Nodding, then racing down the hall. “I’m counting on you, Colgate.”

“Get them!” Scootaloo said, pointing, as her own allies emerged from the stairs. 

Colgate gawked at the two newcomers for a moment, and had to dodge a passing blow from ｢Misery Business｣. They were gone around the next corner as fast as the first two, and she had the sneaking feeling that they’d been set up. 

Then she turned back to the filly, and hurled the can back at her. “｢January 28, 1986｣!”

“｢Go Zone｣!” Scootaloo slid underneath of the can, past the crayon-drawings and turkey-cut-outs, leaning far enough back that her head scraped the floor. 

Then she saw the can bob in the air, swoop a little, and come back. 

Sending her Stand out, she stopped it before it could hit her, but it only pushed against her ability with greater and greater intensity! After a moment, it began to strain against her like keeping a building from collapsing. 

She leapt out of the way, and ｢Go Zone｣ deactivated. The can flew back the way it had come, and impacted on the ground where Colgate had been standing.

Now, the filly could see, she was all too close. 


* * *


Coco pounded after the two, who had noticed her by now but weren’t stopping. The whole building felt much larger from the inside, and decadent for any early school she’d ever seen, with enough corners and turns to suit a university. The fact that none of it was lit only exacerbated the sense of space present throughout the whole structure.

“Follow the magic!” Amethyst yelled up ahead to the stallion next to her. “Just try to feel it out!” Then she threw back a mask, aimed straight for Coco. 

For a moment the world went dark, as ｢Something for Nothing｣ materialized a wad of fabric between it and her face. She shook her head and engaged the magic in her material, and it all fell off of her in a heap onto the floor. However, by the time she could see again, both were gone down a fork in the hallway. 

Diamond had slowed down to keep pace with her, but only for a moment. “They split up and went both ways! I’ll take her, you deal with him!”

Coco nodded as the filly went rocketed down the left passageway, and crossed her path to head her own way. The hallway had only so many doors this time, two already flung open and the stallion investigating the third. He heard her running as soon as she turned the corner, and turned to her.

“｢Jefferson Air-” he started, only to have his mouth gagged with something soft and pillowy. While he was off balance, ｢Something for Nothing｣ ran into him, knocking him onto his flank and throwing off his sunglasses.

Coco raced past him to halfway through the hallway, her power weaving furiously against all of the doorknobs, and ripped them all open at once. The sudden rush of air buffeted her, but she kept galloping, head swiveling left and right and left again and-

There!

She dove for the flicker of grey movement she glimpsed through one doorway, and then she was in a classroom with its chairs neatly folded over its desks and nothing but the smell of chalk, ink and sunlight. With a thought, her Stand shut the door behind her, at the same time she was already pushing herself to her hooves.

In the corner nearest the door, there was an older mare, grey a set of purple stars for a cutie mark. She wasn’t cowering, or frail, but she wasn’t in a position to overpower anypony as far as Coco could tell. 

Only three words left her mouth, cultured but not posh. “Friend or foe?”

“Friend. My name’s Coco. Zesty sent me to collect the key to Cloudsdale.” Coco said. “Where is it?”

Outside, the stallion began to slam on the door, which Coco was only holding shut by creating shock-absorbing material between it and the wall. 

“I’m Twilight. Twilight Velvet. And ｢Mr. President｣ is right there.” She pointed.

Coco turned, and saw nothing. Then she raised her head a little, and took it in.

Above the doorway, hovering with a propeller on its shell, was a small green tortoise. 

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: Goldfrapp
User: Amethyst Star
Stats
Power: C
Speed: D
Range: E
Durability: C
Precision: C
Potential: E
Abilities: Converts stone into masks with exaggerated features. When a target is wearing one of the masks, their demeanour and behavior change to fit its expression. Masks can only be removed by the user.

Stand Name: ARTPOP
User: Photo Finish
Stats
Power: D
Speed: A
Range: D
Durability: E
Precision: A
Potential: E
Abilities: Anything the user takes a picture of can be manipulated by manipulating its photograph. Destroying the photograph ends this effect.

Stand Name: January 28, 1986
User: Colgate
Stats
Power: C
Speed: A
Range: E
Durability: D
Precision: B
Potential: E
Abilities: ??? 

Stand Name: Jefferson Airplane
User: Neon Lights
Stats
Power: E
Speed: D
Range: C
Durability: B
Precision: E
Potential: E
Abilities: ???

Stand Name: Mr. President
User: Tank
Stats
Power: E
Speed: E
Range: E
Durability: A
Precision: E
Potential: E
Abilities: Contains an environment within the user’s shell.
> Schoolhouse Rock!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the Castle of the Princesses, a number of ponies were gathered. The guards were in comas, but those from across the mirror had come around it again to feed it more of them. There were still people left to summon, people it was vital for Sombra to get across into this reality. 
 
There were strict rules to running the portal. Pushing too many people through without reciprocating their number would threaten uncoupling the universes, or worse. And their newfound King’s magic couldn’t reach too far into Jupiter without willing hosts. 
 
So it was a delicate balance, dependent not just on power there but on their potential in this virginal magic-soaked kingdom. In this case, they had to tie the limp guard-horses like cordwood and throw them through in great heaving three-person tosses. 
 
There were three left to summon, and the first two came bursting through at the same time. The man had gained wings, and gasped with sudden relief at the solid ground beneath him. The woman was native, but tricky. She’d been an effort to subvert, but strong enough to be worth it. Most of the assembled knew her at least by reputation, and she smirked and nudged her companion. 
 
“Look, Flash,” Sunset said. “My alma mater.”
 

* * *

 
With her camera, Photo could create worlds. 
 
It was still around her neck, even as she was on the ground. She also had the mask in an emergency, but that would hardly need her Stand. Raw violence was not something she countenanced, when she could simply remove people from life’s canvas. It was like a betrayal of her gift. 
 
She closed her limb around it, and with a burst of will, upturned it towards Cheese Sandwich. He looked at her with crooked eyebrows as she punched the flash.
 
And yet, for all of the willingness of the shutter and the bulb and the complicated printing system, her own legs didn’t obey her! She kicked against the grass and spun away from him, catching the school in her lens instead. 
 
In defeat, the image printed and fell like overripe fruit from her neck, hitting the ground.
 
“You’re pretty tough-headed,” he said, conversationally, only keeping one eye on her. “I never really got the real you, to be honest. I mean, you wore sillier things than me half the time, but it wasn’t to make anypony laugh. It was just… putting on a show for yourself. Don’t you think that’s a sad way to be?”
 
She fell back into the grass, and he waited. ｢Feel Good Inc｣ could spread through the building, but it couldn’t discriminate if he couldn’t see the ponies it was targeting. At best, he’d only be able to feel out the number of ponies affected, and that was only if their enemies didn’t have some kind of immunity or trick to get around it.
 
This Photo Finish was a spunky character, for sure. Strong and silent type, maybe. 
 
“Hey, how does a pony with colored goggles on take such good photos anyway?” he asked.
 
And then, in front of him, a chunk of the school wall blinked out of existence. Behind the brick was now a rectangular cross-section, a science lab made of rubbery black tabletops and perchable stools and carefully rationed glassware. Posters plastered the wall with diagrams that were perfect for cheating tests with, and moderately expensive machinery stood against the wall, evenly spaced. 
 
He blinked, then looked at Photo. Under her, clipping through the grass, was the very edge of her Stand. The photo she’d taken had fallen between it and her, giving her just enough room to manipulate it. 
 
“｢ARTPOP｣!” she shouted in that unplaceable accent, and it rose from the ground, kicking her upwards, still holding a bottle of some supernatural chemical. She was facing him again, reaching for her camera, but with a burst of concentration he threw her hoof back. The motion made the bottle go wild, and she fell back to the ground breathing heavily. 
 
Then, with one deep breath, she was calm.
 
Beneath her the bench swung around a fixed radius, catching the bottle. In its momentum it slammed into her, and Cheese watched as she sailed through the air and straight for the room. In his shock, he didn’t have the wherewithal to stop her from reaching for her camera, and he threw a hoof in front of his face as the light overtook him.
 
As her Stand dissipated, and she thumped into the far wall, he ran after her. Then he fell, tripping on nothing, as one of his hooves disappeared.
 
As he thrusted himself back into a galloping position, he made contact with those goggles and that perpetual frown, and saw her rip a photograph in half. The deliberate tear took both hooves, and then between them the wall rematerialized. 
 

* * *

 
“I… don’t understand.” Coco said, staring at the flying tortoise.
 
The mare, Twilight, opened her mouth. Then she shook her head. “There’s no time right now. Who else is in this building?”
 
Coco put a hoof to her muzzle and thought, still transfixed by whatever ｢Mr. President｣ was. “Three Stand users and two more friends. There were four of each of us when we got here, but-” 
 
“Is there anyone in the hallway?” Twilight asked, almost but not quite daring to look out of the door herself. She might have been a decade older than Coco or twice her age, in that light, but she moved with the wincing care of a mother regardless. 
 
“Yes, one stallion, unicorn, with sunglasses and a star cutie mark. He might have gone for help, but I don’t know.” 
 
Twilight Velvet became frantic at the description, and was now enthusiastically piling desks around the door. “His Stand’s probably already active.”
 
“I didn’t have any trouble getting past him.” Coco said, although partly she knew better than to underestimate one of these powers. 
 
Twilight reached for the pencil sharpener by the door and ripped it off of its spindle. Coco cringed; she hadn’t seen a pencil sharpener until adulthood, when Suri entered her life and her sketches had to become erasable, and she remembered the week’s salary it took to get one with a warranty. 
 
With a few hearty shakes, ashy half-blackened wood-matter dusted the air. And, suddenly, began to float in different directions on some invisible current of air. Coco gave the room a once-over, but the many windows were closed, and the shavings weren’t heading for the only moving propeller. 
 
“He’s coming in.” Twilight said, and then, You’ll have to take the window. If I throw ｢Mr. President｣ outside and you hide inside, we can regroup when he touches solid ground again.”
 
Coco just looked at her. 
 
“I know it’s not the best plan, but it’s necessary! We can’t let Cloudsdale fall into their hooves!” She was already opening up a window, peering out onto the courtyard, and then galloping from it to the tortoise. “The coast is clear. Now go! I’ll stay behind and deal with him!”
 
Coco shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re asking, but I’m not leaving you beehind! Come on!”
 
“Don’t arg-” Twilight said, not looking back, and then the newly-placed fabric on her hoof tugged her towards the window. She stumbled backwards, turning, and Coco was already poking halfway out, conjuring the bulky plain-white form of a parachute. 
 
Between them, the ground looked mightily distant, and pencil shavings flew out over it like tumbleweeds in utero. Coco, who was more used to falls, regarded it with a kind of numbness. Twilight’s face took on a courage that wasn’t entirely there, and placed the tortoise in the crook of her leg, pressing it between herself and her newfound ally.
 
Then they leapt, and the harnesses wove themselves around their bodies as the parachute pulled against the wind. Twilight’s mane went wild above her with unremembered life, and the gentle green plane of the ground marched steadily closer in her swaying vision. Coco stared instead at the city, and at all of the buildings she still couldn’t see over from her position. Through their gaps she could see the rest of the metropolis in broad brushstrokes, almost as far as the restaurants.
 
“Nice try,” called an unfamiliar but boyish voice from above them. 
 
Coco turned, and made a hole in the parachute with ｢Something for Nothing｣. Leaning out of the window, like a filly watching a parade, was the Stand user she’d passed. Grayish-blue coat, sunglasses undamaged and back on their perch, and a grin that showed every tooth he could manage. Whether he made eye contact with her, she couldn’t tell.
 
Then, something shifted. 
 
“Nice job leading ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ straight after you,” he shouted. And then slammed the window shut.
 
Then, in a corner of her vision, the propeller attached to the tortoise disappeared. Then part of the shell, leaving behind air and inky darkness, like there was nothing inside of it, or something was eating it in small bites. 
 
Twilight noticed at the same time, shocked, as another piece disappeared and she grabbed the unfased remains of the animal. “｢Mr. President｣!”
 
Then, in a moment, both of them were gone, and Coco was alone, descending into the courtyard. Then, close enough she could feel the shift on her right ear, part of the harness disappeared into nothingness. With vicious suddenness, her descent became a spiral, and then the other string popped away, and it was deja vu all over again. 
 

* * *

 
Scootaloo’s first instinct was to lash out. She ignored it. This user’s Stand could overpower her ｢Go Zone｣ in a straight fight, and she didn’t understand why. 
 
Colgate stared down at her, smiling thinly to herself. Neither blinked, the filly standing crouched close to the ground and the mare tall and confident against the dim ceiling lights and the distant path toward Coco and Diamond. 
 
Colgate lunged first, using only her hoof in one blistering motion. Scootaloo stopped it before it could reach her. ｢Go Zone｣ didn’t face any problem, and she examined it. No weapon, no mark, just the hoof. A touch-based Stand?
 
The mare didn’t give her time to ponder. When the next hoof came, Scootaloo was already leaping off of the lockers, soaring through the air and hitting the floor. She slid on contact, down and away. Behind her, Colgate giggled to herself. 
 
If this was a touch-based Stand, Scootaloo knew she was at a disadvantage. Her range seemed only slightly further, and that was only assuming that it only worked close-up. How had the first attack worked, and why had it yo-yoed back past her Stand’s defenses? Had this poseur-mare gained some power over ｢gravity｣? Over the giggling, the filly tried to run through her options.
 
Wait. The giggling was closer, not further away. It was approaching rapidly, in fact! Scootaloo turned and the mare was upon her, sailing through the air like something bewitched! 
 
｢Go Zone｣ flew out without being called, pounding against the mare. Another Stand clashed against it, solid metallic blue, bone-thin and bipedal, with a single oval sapphire taking up the entirety of its face. Its spideresque limbs crunched persistently and quickly against the orange hooves, and finally it loosed a haymaker against the goggled orange head. 
 
Scootaloo’s entire body snapped back and tumbled away, her Stand retreating back into her. She fell against the floor and stayed motionless, groaning, as a few hooves away Colgate landed and approached her. 
 
“This is pretty good exercise,” is all she said, and then she kicked the filly in the wing. She cringed and rolled away partly, still reeling from the first attack, and Colgate nodded.
 
Scootaloo heard the hoofsteps running further down the hallway, back to where they’d been and then past that. Why? There was no door or anything down there. She was sure she’d been touched, and the Stand activated, but why stop there?
 
As she struggled back to her hooves and got her breathing back under control, ｢Go Zone｣ appeared next to her, holding her steady again. Down the hallway the mare had reached the end, and smacked a hoof against the window. 
 
“｢January 28, 1986｣!” The voice boomed and clapped down the hallway, filling the environment. Next to the window she stood, smiling patiently.
 
Scootaloo’s center shifted, her sense of balance suddenly existing two hooves in front of her body, and she tilted forward unintentionally. Her stumbling and trying not to headbutt the floor was helped along by the fact that her hooves stopped making contact with it, and she dangled in the air above it in a kind of sideways free-fall. 
 
She was heading straight for the window. The broken glass that she’d navigated so luckily before yawned at her eagerly, pulling her towards it. The pain in her side flared in sympathy with the picture that formed in her head, and her Stand caught a wall, digging in and forcing her to slow. She dangled from it as the tug became more and more powerful, threatening to rip her ribs out of her body if she didn’t give in. 
 
Colgate didn’t move.
 
Scootaloo fell toward a door, and her Stand kicked it off of its hinges. She gritted her teeth as she judged the opening, and sweated with the precision of what came next. 
 
Her front hooves were the first things to fall towards it, and turning her head against that force took too much effort for the middle of a fight. She let the doorway leave her periphery, and then for her first back hoof to be pulled away.
 
Then, a moment of intense friction, of her final leg against the very edge of the door! She took a breath and swung with it, grasping the other side of the doorframe and anchoring herself in it for leverage. Then, with one ultimate swing, she flung herself inside and ｢Go Zone｣ held her against the nearest wall. She huffed in its flypaper embrace. 
 
But the tug continued, stronger and more persistent. She’d barely been able to investigate the empty desks or the blackboard or the projector in the corner, let alone recover, and now it was pulling her again. 
 
“You’re not going to escape that way,” Colgate sing-songed. 
 
She took a deep breath and prepared herself. She’d figured out that the Stand moved things the user touched to other things they touched in straight lines, which meant she could overcome it! Taking the advantage was the important thing! She trained her mind on her heartbeat, tensing her muscles like coils of energy, and took off.
 
A couple hooves away from the wall, where the pull started to bring her back to the door, she summoned up ｢Go Zone｣ and shut her eyes tight. A single smashing hoof connected with her side, and she flew past the doorway. Maintaining her Stand through the pain was an effort as the world clenched around her, but it was back by the time she’d flown past the doorway. 
 
She clung to the corner closest to Colgate, still in the direction of the pull, which drew through the wall and pressed her against it. With a breath of relief she felt the tug weaken, and she considered the room. 

Nothing sharp, just desks and a teacher’s podium at the front of the class. It was a lot like the schoolhouse in Ponyville, although there was a lot less open air and sunlight. The door was on the floor where her Stand had smashed it in, and the windows were closed. 
 
She hadn’t noticed anything tactically useful when the pull returned, just as strong, but not behind her. It was stringing her back to the doorway, just like before! She was still heading for the window!
 
｢Go Zone｣ gripped the wall weakly, slowly her descent, and she realized her mistake. It was a Stand that made things collide, even if they weren’t in straight lines! That was why her opponent hadn’t bothered coming after her; her Stand couldn’t be resisted! 
 
She frantically scanned the room for something, moving like a snail inexorably against the wall, and then the doorframe was upon her. 
 

* * *

 
Diamond ran after Amethyst as fast as her legs would carry her. The mare could hear her coming, and was perfectly aware of her besides, but if she could land a single hit it would be over. 
 
Amethyst’s head turned from side to side, surveying the doors. This hallway led back into the rest of the school, which gave her a lot to check. Diamond hoped that she was tripping up in her haste. 
 
A mask flew at her and ｢Misery Business｣ vaporized it with a single chop. Amethyst didn’t react, only seizing the slight advantage to get further ahead. There was a corner ahead of them, and while she turned it she took the opportunity to throw another mask at Diamond.
 
It was obliterated, and Diamond barreled through the cloud of it. There was no fork here, no opportunity for a tricky escape or a double-back, so she rounded the corner after her opponent. 
 
Amethyst stood tight against the wall just around it, holding a wrathful and twisted mask in her hoof, and jabbed it forward for the filly. Diamond wasn’t fazed. A pair of pink limbs grabbed the stone on either side, shaking with Diamond’s momentum, and pulled them forward. Amethyst stumbled, and the Stand headbutted her.
 
Evasive on instinct, Amethyst ignored the pain, let go of the mask and kicked off of the wall, cartwheeling out of range. She was out of masks now, but Diamond could tell she was planning to make another one at the first opportunity. Somber, despondent, unable to do anything, instead of the violent and angry ones she’d been throwing up to that point. At no point during any of this had her expression changed. 
 
Diamond pressed her advantage and ran forward, Stand skimming the air above her, rearing a strike. Just one hit and it would be over! 
 
She stumbled as the ground beneath her shifted, and she glanced to see a mask forming in the tile. Pushing away from it, she tried to bridge the small remaining gap, and another appeared under her back hoof, sending her reeling. As her heart nearly stopped, ｢Misery Business｣ slammed a hoof into the floor, and the shockwave lifted her off of the surface. 
 
Then, as she rolled in the air, Amethyst’s hoof caught her in the stomach, and the air rushed out of her. With a deft motion the mare guided her muzzle-first into the floor, where another mask had already formed. 
 
It fit, and sealed itself coldly against her face.
 

* * *

 
Neon Lights felt a surge of pride as the last piece of the turtle assembled under him. Picking it up excited him a lot less; he liked hooves, but they were definitely a pain to get used to. 
 
A moment’s fidgeting, and he’d grabbed it. The propeller was turning now, and it was wriggling in slow motion, but that wasn’t important. ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ shifted the propeller into the hallway he’d come from, and then it was just struggling limply like a green infant.
 
He’d left two mares to crash into the ground, which was a waste. Maybe the lovely Ms. Star would be a little sweeter with him now, a little gentler in the right corners of his anatomy. Or, more likely, he’d just have to pursue fame and women from the subjugated masses. He didn’t really like ultra-dour ladies anyway. Had Colgate been making eyes at him the last time they were walking, or had he imagined it when he moved his eyes to her face too quickly?
 
Speaking of that, they were still under attack. He had what they came for, which meant he had to round them all up and return, or else make his way alone. Since his Stand made him impossible to hit, he shrugged and decided to try collecting his teammates. 
 
Just then, an adult hoof reached out of the turtle-shell and collided with his jaw. 
 
He fell on his ass, shocked, as the older of the two mares he’d sent crashing down climbed out of the reptile, angry. It was on its side on the floor now, undamaged for the moment. If it were broken then everything inside might try to occupy the rest of the room, and Neon’s taste for drowning in flesh wasn’t quite that adventurous. 
 
He regained his cool and looked her over, still on his back. ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ moved the back of his body back into its original standing position, and then the front, and she definitely looked familiar. A little old, maybe, but he didn’t like being so choosy about the pleasures of life. Seeing the same pony twice in such a short time made him feel like the world might be small and conquerable after all. 
 
“Aren’t you the lady who made the chairs talk?” he asked, head cocked. 
 
She didn’t answer, except by having her Stand hover over her head. It was pink, bulbous and elephantine, composed of pearlish orbs of various sizes, like a conglomerate of soap bubbles. It looked like it should be keeping a mantle company somewhere. 
 
Neon looked at it. “Yup, that’s you.” 
 
“｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣!” she shouted, and a kick arrived with his name on it. He kicked away backwards and it splintered the floor, which rumbled from the impact. 
 
And then began, in an at-first croaking voice, to speak.
 
“I came from the Everfree in the days when it was vibrant and untamed, during the endless rule of Discord when the trees lived and died by the whim of his humor and not by the order of nature, and the tree that was me survived his reign until eventually the forest was reduced and I was collected. Generations of robins lived in my boughs, just as endless children are now supported by myself and my everlasting siblings. All of us are-”
 
It was a nasty Stand, and it was already working. If left unchecked, the words became impossible to ignore, and then they became so annoying the listener couldn’t deal with them. Already they filled his ears as if they were being whispered directly into both at the same time. 
 
Neon waved a hoof, and ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ removed that section of floor, sending it out the way he’d come, and out of her range. 
 
She responded by crossing the gap and kicking at him again. Instead of sidestepping, he simply shifted her leg a few inches further away from his face, and then delivered a kick of his own into her barrel. 
 
She was knocked back a little, the leg moving synchronously although it was now glitched and separate from her body. With another use of his Stand, she’d shifted the pittance needed to be right over the hole they’d made, and her fall carried her straight through. 
 
Resisting the need to strut, he scooped up the turtle and began clearing debris from his exit. 
 

* * *

 
Photo had made a rushed job of it, but she had to. Fate had been her ally; one of the machines in the lab had been a microscope, which was exactly what she’d needed. 
 
When Cheese opened the correct door, leaning on it, the first thing he saw was the camera. With new reflexes he dove for the desks, facing away. She didn’t take the shot, if only to avoid the opening it would give him. 
 
“｢Feel Good Inc｣!” he shouted from cover, and she kept still Then he popped his head up to look at her, and the camera flashed straight into his eyes. 
 
It had been easy to cure his fever, she’d seen. Just kill some of it and reintroduce it, and you were clean completely. A few individuals who he’d gone after personally couldn’t dodge the sickness that way, but by all accounts - including hers, now - it provided perfect immunity to the airborne virus. A tiny amount of the disease, photographed under a microscope, half-removed by ｢ARTPOP｣ and quickly reintroduced into her body killed it in under a minute. 
 
But still she had to be careful. As the latest image printed, she slammed it onto her Stand and began to remove him. Just the center of the head would do, and he’d collapse and not get up again. She make the necessary strokes with cutthroat speed, as he cried out, broke cover and ran for her. 
 
His head disappeared from his body in a sudden acidic flash, and that was the end of him. 
 
Photo exhaled. She hadn’t even needed to use the mask, and the deed was done. So it went. She looked down at her headless opponent, and felt like a slayer of beasts in a land far from home. She lifted the camera to preserve him for all time. 
 
And then, with sudden impossible vigor, the body sprang up and towards her, its limbs gyrating wildly in the air. She shrieked, and the ghoulish wheeling smacked up against ｢ARTPOP｣, its front limb seizing in the air and then against the table, breaking bottles and knocking over chemicals as the knees bucked into the table and extended outwards away from her. 
 
The photograph, which she’d abandoned on the table, began dissolving from the noxious combination of agents and chemicals. As it faded, Cheese’s head appeared from all angles, and he gulped in air, head thrown back to the ceiling. Photo watched him from behind her goggles, almost trembling as she reached up for her camera again.
 
“Dare to be stupid,” he said, grinning at her like an animal. “You were smart to find a way to resist ｢Feel Good Inc｣, but you’re not the only pony my Stando could infect!” 
 
She raised the camera again, shakily, and he tossed one of her Stand’s bottles in her direction. The bench swung around into her shot, blocking the view. 
 
With her heart crawling up her throat and an urge to grab the mask and defend herself, she mustered the effort to withdraw her Stand. Its potential writhed under the surface of her, and then she had a clear shot to the Feindbild and he was already on top of her. 
 
As her rushed for her on his three legs, she let out the flash and then rolled as fast as she could. It was too late; his kick smashed into the lens. There was no time for ｢ARTPOP｣, only second-by-second movements. The mask would be necessary, she realized as the photo still printed around her neck and she beelined for the other end of the room. He was still coming after her, and she kicked a stool in his path. 
 
He’d been reaching out to smash her camera when she’d taken the picture. His hoof took up the frame, blocking out any other details. A moment and ｢ARTPOP｣ was with her. 
 
Cheese caught up to her on the far side of the room, the wall she’d destroyed which was now sparsely peopled with big windows and posters, and he ignored her, balancing on his back legs and using his front hoof to push at the glass of a window. After a moment it gave, and he slid it upwards, adjusting his grip to shove it the rest of the way.
 
Photo stared at him. Trying to escape, now? It wouldn’t do him any good. His other front hoof disappeared, and he stumbled with half of a leg, reeling back into a wall and slumping. 
 
She regarded him. With the camera smashed, she only had the mask left. That meant Amethyst would have to collect her later to remove it, but that was fine as long as this was finished. Wordlessly she cast her goggles into the recesses of the room and set the stone onto her face. 
 
From the moment the grotesque image touched her, she felt invigorated. Boiling blood, wasn’t that the phrase? She felt like she could overpowered a tank, with enough ferocity. Like she would only make herself complete by removing something from the world. 
 
｢Goldfrapp｣, she’d been told, worked as a filter. It removed all things outside of its emotion, destroying the mental palette of its victims and enhancing the strength of the users able to embrace it. She turned all of her thoughts onto killing her enemy, and her heartbeat raced somewhere far away from her mind.  
 
She bounded for him, an animal herself now, a mongoose for the snake. Time slowed. He looked up at her, then, acknowledging the end. 
 
“For a cameramare, it looks like you still need to develop.” His face broke out in a smile.
 
She was running, charging straight for him, ready to kill, but the room wasn’t cooperating. The environment wasn’t bringing her any closer! She stopped to get her bearings, and then found that she couldn’t! Her legs were making running motions without moving anywhere at all!
 
“There are ways to stop my Stand in small doses, but not when it’s all in one place. And I put almost the whole kit and caboodle right on that mask before we even started fighting.” He stood, leaning back, and pointed his half-a-leg at her. “Your focus was off from the very beginning!”
 
She snarled, and tried to bridge the gap to finish him finally. Her muscles obeyed.
 
And then her hooves sailed her out of the open window, and she was running away from the building altogether. In fact, she was heading toward the gates, into the city. It occurred to her, in her anger, that she didn’t know when she’d stop, or where. His Stand didn’t have range, only patience. 
 
As she ran past the gates, faintly, she heard him call, “Enjoy your exposure!”
 
She howled, and was gone.
 

* * *


Colgate waited as her Stand drew the filly closer and closer. Over the last minute she’d flip-flopped on what her final plan was, like she was a child again choosing whether to switch her spot in hide and seek. It put sugar in her pulse to argue between the window and her Stand. 
 
If she just threw her out, then she might still be some threat later on. If her Stand simply barraged the girl and kept forcing her to collide with its fists, she wouldn’t be able to pull anything else. Either way, ｢January 28th, 1986｣ was only able to affect two things at a time, and it took a certain amount of patience not to rush over and switch them so she could smash herself into her opponent, or a piece of tile, or a pen or something.
 
This was a mission. She couldn’t be sloppy and get a victory that wasted her energy, when there were two more revolutionaries to handle deeper in the building. Until the scrapper was down and out, there was no sense in moving her range around and trying to use her Stand anywhere else. 
 
“｢Go Zone｣!” The voice was strained, from just inside the room, and made mostly with the throat. Glass shattered, a window. She was trying to fly away! Colgate snorted. 
 
In the doorway, the door swung back into view, becoming stuck in the frame and splintering slightly on one corner. Trying to keep her out and make a daring escape! Or maybe the last punch had just set off all of her alien horse survival instincts. Ha. 
 
She waited for the thump of the body against the door, the telekinetic smash. She might bash her bones in trying to avoid meeting her destiny, which would be messy and annoying to check. But even if she didn’t make it out of the room alive, she’d still go through the window, one way or another. 
 
Suddenly, something crashed through that same window behind her. She only caught a glimpse of it as she startled and turned: a desk, flying sideways at high speed! And attached to it, an orange blur!
 
“｢GO ZONE｣!” the filly shouted, and the Stand was too close to dodge.
 
“｢Janu-!” Colgate’s head was snapped sideways by the force of the punch, and then the next four that followed brought her to the ground. Her Stand was slower than it should’ve been, pushed against on all sides by the air around her, and it fell back into her with a few more blows. 
 
Looking at the filly and the window behind her, the injured Stand user guessed what had happened. And she was correct: Scootaloo had slammed the door and made another opening through a window, so that the Stand effect would carry her around the building and to the window from the outside! Then she’d stuck herself to a desk as a shield from the glass, and let the power put her in the perfect position for a surprise attack! 
 
Well, she still had a chance to retreat and recuperate, if she could just get this filly off of her for a minute! She kicked off of the ground, wheeling for the window again, and made contact with the edge of it. 
 
Her opponent watched silently as she lifted herself up, and coughed out, “｢January 28, 1986｣.”
 
She’d touched the traffic-cone Stand, which was as good as the person. And now she’d touched the window again. There wasn’t a lot of glass to worry about - she’d stepped in some of it, she realized distantly - but it would push her away! 
 
The filly’s serious expression didn’t change as she was lifted off of the ground and pulled toward the window. Her Stand hung beside her, patiently. They might get a hit or two in, but they couldn’t have that much strength left, and then they’d be outside! Colgate mustered up her Stand’s fists to protect herself, and then stepped out of the way of the window.
 
Except her hooves didn’t move from their surfaces. She was stuck.
 
Alarmed, she stared down at them, and then ｢Go Zone｣ was batted backwards a little by her Stand, the user floating back a little before the gravity pulled her back. ｢Go Zone｣ smashed into ｢January 28, 1986｣ with jackhammer velocity, over and over until her Stand finally couldn’t keep up to block it! 
 
And then, with a final ferocious kick to her face, it punted her out of the window. 
 
“And that’s what I think of your Stand!” Scootaloo shouted after her, perched in the window, as the Stand’s effects wore off.
 

* * *

 
Amethyst Star regarded her situation with immaculate sobriety. She’d lost time, her team had been split up, Finish had probably been compromised and they still didn’t have their target in hand. She was close to bugging out, smacking on one of the masks herself, but it was pointless for her. She could already control her emotions, and let them out when she needed to, with whatever intensity she desired. 
 
The filly, clearly no civilian, laid on the ground. Amethyst left her there, half-hoping for suffocation as she glanced through the nearby doors. Their opponent could be slippery when she wanted, but her Stand was fundamentally about commanding attention. If they couldn’t hear her, she wasn’t out of hiding just yet. And she had to still be in the building if people were fighting in it. 
 
Suddenly, with a great cracking strike, she was thrown into a wall. Things snapped, and she slid down its length, trying to get off of the pain and back to observing things. She was in danger, damn it! 
 
In front of her was the girl, still wearing the mask. Its sleepy groaning expression stared at her, and yet the pink pony was on her hind legs with her arms crossing. Was this some kind of hidden Stand ability? 
 
Amethyst swallowed her questions; she didn’t want the enemy to notice her confusion and take any more of an advantage. 
 
“You want to know why your Stand’s mask didn’t knock me out?” came the voice, slightly muffled.
 
Amethyst winced. She had to keep her body language under better control, and figure out what was going on here. Information in, never out. Maybe the mask had been blocked by something, possibly her hair...
 
“Wrong. Your power’s affecting me completely. It’s just that I’ve cancelled it out! I used the effects of one mask to balance this one’s!” she gestured her hoof downwards in the air in front of her face.
 
That wasn’t possible. Amethyst got up, and fell over again, back against the wall. If she put one of the rage-masks on her face first, it wouldn’t stack against the depression model, it would just bounce it away. She must be using some trick to make the features look different, and adjusting very well to the anger properties. 
 
But then how was she speaking?!
 
“I’m wearing both masks.”
 
No. No, it was some kind of trick. ｢Goldfrapp｣ brought another depression-mask to Amethyst’s hooves, and she latched onto it, taking off in a limping sprint. She’d rip off the girl’s mask and replace it with the real thing!
 
Her opponent didn’t move, but her Stand appeared next to her, pink and sharp-looking. On its face, the rage-mask looked out onto the world. 
 
Oh.
 
And then, swiftly, ｢Misery Business｣ knocked her legs out from under her. The mask went wild, and the Stand caught it, pushing it from the air directly onto her face. 
 
As her motivation began to drain, and her ability to remove the mask herself dwindled with it, the Stand gave one more precise chop, and she was out. 
 

* * *

 
Coco completed her swing, her Stand pulling her back up to the window. It was shut, but ｢Something for Nothing｣ spun in the air and kicked with both hind legs to herald her. She padded the edges of the window to keep the glass off of herself, and then her hoof made contact with something that wasn’t air, and all of the weight of her body wrenched against that contact. A little magic, in boots materializing around her hooves, and she had the leverage to wrap another hoof into the building, and then her head. 
 
Tumbling, she reentered the room she’d just escaped, her body complaining over how much easier it had been to leave than to come back. The stallion watched her, half-impressed. 
 
She took three breaths, pushed herself up from the ground, and sent her Stand after him. 
 
｢Something for Nothing｣ galloped out of her aura and aimed for his head, only for its punch to pass through empty air. His head had shifted a hoof to the right, and he delivered a kick that appeared under Coco, knocking her back to the ground. 
 
The Stand flew around him in a tight circle, trailing a line of fabric like an impossibly long tail extension. He tried to anticipate where it would strike, clutching onto the tortoise, but Coco ran at him separately, ready to get in a hit of her own. He didn’t bother looking at her; his Stand could redirect the punch without an issue.
 
“｢Something for Nothing｣!” she shouted, and the fabric trailing after her Stand rose madly into the air, slicing through it with an intense artificial wind as it spiraled around him. He had to return his head to its correct position to avoid being clipped by it, but otherwise it was a weak attempt to trap him, and she didn’t seem to understand his power. While he was working out an escape route, her cream-colored hoof smashed through the swirling ribbon - 
 
And directly into his muzzle. 
 
He stumbled at that, mouth open and smarting, and realized that his Stand’s gas had been dissipated. It was all around the room, but not around him! His aura exuded a little more in response, now, but he was defenseless enough to actually be hit! 
 
Not playing around any longer, he reached out with his ability, as far back as it would go. The hallway he’d come down still had a little of his Stand lingering in it, and he latched onto that. If he sent only the turtle, it would only take one trip. As Coco threw another punch, he slammed a hoof on the shell to get inside of it.
 
But he didn’t. 
 
As he looked into the beady, narrowed eyes of ｢Mr. President｣, he felt the Stand pushing against him, resisting entrance. He fumbled to hold onto it as Coco’s hit drew him further back, trying to remove the floor underneath of her and failing. He was spread too thinly! 
 
Another hit incoming, and he held up the turtle in front of himself. Coco hesitated, and he seized the opportunity to shift part of the turtle to the hallway. The push of the Stand weakened, and he sweated as he wrestled with it. 
 
A bundle of fabric wrapped itself around ｢Mr. President｣, and nearly ripped it from Neon’s hooves. But luck was on his side; he pushed into it desperately, and it gave way! In seconds he’d passed into it, and the rest of it was shunted into the hallway beyond. 
 
Inside the turtle was a kaleidoscoping environment, green and hilly but filled with endless layers of stable clouds. He could see the pegasi flitting towards the edge of the diet landscape, and focused on being closer to the surface so he could climb back out again. As he searched for a way to do just that, he discovered that focusing on it was all he needed to do; the sky narrowed above him, and he tumbled back through. 
 
Out in the hallway, he caught his breath. It was much stuffier outside of the turtle, ironically. He checked his surroundings, and he was facing down the same hallway he ran, right on track! Nearly whistling in relief, he spun around.
 
And saw two fillies, pink and bruised-orange, standing and staring up at him. Surprised melted into scowling, and both of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their Stands rising up out of them.
 
Neon slumped.
 

* * *

 
“The rest haven’t come back.” Flash said, inspecting the unconscious pony who was a walking lapse in the nature of Photo Finish. Not that he knew her too well. 
 
Sunset sniffed. “Amateurs.” Then, after a moment, “Our numbers are too low, we’re out of sleeping guards, and we don’t have time to wait for them to bring Cloudsdale to us. We’ll have to go ahead.”
 
And with raw magic alone, she picked up Photo’s body and threw her through the portal. 
 
Then she glanced around the room. “Any volunteers?”
 
Most of them were there, and nervousness crowded the air and pooled in the shadows. No one raised a hoof. 
 
One mare asked, “Why don’t we use the white one?” Some murmuring souls agreed with her.
 
“Don’t ask questions.” Sunset said, and her horn lit up. Each person who’d agreed was plucked from the assembled and flung through the portal at unhealthy speed. 
 
There was a short, stunned silence, and half of the room summoned their Stands. They hung in the air in droves, staring at her. Sunset shook her head and smiled tightly against her own judgment; she had to test out her power eventually anyway. 
 
“｢Pepper｣.”
 

* * *

 
Coco, Scootaloo, Diamond and Cheese headed back. Twilight, who had been unconscious when they found her, was resting inside of the tortoise Scootaloo was holding. Tank, apparently. The four were battered, tired, and yet in some ways more invigorated than ever before. 
 
“You sent her into the city?!” Diamond asked, incredulous.
 
Cheese shrugged, quietly. “She’ll have made it out by now. I made sure she couldn’t do anything but run and tire herself out.”
 
A shadow appeared, as of a city-sized cloud being thrown in front of the sun. The shadows around them didn’t stretch so much as swing, and vindictively. All turned their heads upwards. 
 
Above them, the moon had thundered into the apex of the sky. They looked around for a Stand user somewhere, and saw nothing but empty streets and mumbling windows. ｢Go Zone｣ hugged the tortoise closer to itself. 
 
Overhead, the stars did not appear. 
 
The group hustled for the restaurant district.
 
｢To Be Continued｣
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]
 
Stand Name: Jefferson Airplane
User: Neon Lights
Stats
Power: E
Speed: D
Range: C
Durability: B
Precision: E
Potential: E
Abilities: Fills air around the user with a gas which is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and otherwise unnoticeable. Anything surrounded by the gas can be twisted, chopped and moved around within it without permanent damage.
 
Stand Name: January 28, 1986
User: Colgate
Stats
Power: C
Speed: A
Range: E
Durability: D
Precision: B
Potential: E
Abilities: Activates when the user touches and designates two targets; the first flies at increasing speed around any intervening objects until it touches the second. 
 
Stand Name: Tales of Brave Ulysses
User: Twilight Velvet
Stats
Power: A
Speed: E
Range: C
Durability: E
Precision: C
Potential: C
Abilities: Causes inanimate objects in range to speak, in endless streams of language. The speech cannot be blocked out by other sounds or hearing impairments, and dominates any listener’s thoughts. If activated on more than a handful of objects in range, the sheer noise becomes incomprehensible and debilitatingly painful.
> Let's Impeach the President
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The portal was shining with energy, given and received. There had been warnings impressed on Sunset Shimmer, in another life, that nothing should be passed through in unequal quantities. The whole exercise might break the balance, destroying the anchor or fracturing the universes. Thankfully, for these purposes any two people were completely interchangeable, so the now-useless piles of royal guardsponies made an excellent fuel.

But her much more recent mentor, who had come in her dreams, had brought back that ancient ache for the power of magic. It was rekindled, even when she thought she’d finally become a hero, and the she-demon waiting within her, the consequences of so much power too eagerly cast, came pouring out again. She knew perfectly well that she’d been horrified at this evolution only a week before, and yet the whole idea was so preposterous to her now; it was who she was. Equestria had made her into an exiled hellcat, but Jupiter had forged her even stronger.

But she wasn’t selected for her individual talents. She knew enough to know that Stands were the important things, and there was no guarantee of what kind an individual would have. But after Twilight Sparkle, she was the closest thing to an Element of Magic that the land had on offer.

And she knew exactly who to invite along with her. Now that she was thinking of Twilight, and her yappy assistant, she had another idea entirely, although it wouldn’t have worked in a space like this.

Through an unending metaphysical ribbon of greasy black, Sombra heard it, and acknowledged.

As the portal sparked, Flash took a step back. He was probably worried it would explode, although it was plainly impossible to anyone who’d seen Starswirl’s diagrams. The structure would naturally buckle and fall into its own singularity, or else failsafe as a regular mirror and reintroduce the moon-cycle timer. Neither would have been acceptable, but they could still have moved on to the Amulet.

Then, ultimately, hooves seeking steady ground. Something close to a faceplant, hardly worthy of royalty. Blue, armored, intelligent; their ace in the hole.

The VP cast a glance at Flash, then Sunset, who nodded, and then at herself. She saw the moon adorning her flank, and then craned her new neck to examine the afternoon sunlight. With an experimental push she could already feel the fabric of the hours, and how easily it could be ruffled. With a twirling kind of shove, something that made the whole silk-mass turn upside down without really disturbing it, she asserted herself over the daytime.

The moon swung overhead, almost drunkenly, like a ball thrown too high hanging in the air on its intertia alone, separate from every other cog or force of the universe. Vice-Principal Luna was on that level herself, Sunset noted with approval, as she now roved the room regarding the sparse and broken-up accomodations.

Flash gave Sunset a look of worry, and she pretended to ignore it. At worst, what she’d have to do is fight. Twilight defeated a Luna with a thousand years of added brooding, so a substitute like Sunset could probably handle the diet version. Not to mention that Sombra still held all six Elements of Harmony, even if he couldn’t use them, and it was only a matter of logistics for him to zap any out-of-control infantry with them.

“There’s no one here,” the VP said, in her typical voice. It was surreal all over again, hearing the same voices and seeing the mouth movements remain roughly constant in a completely different species.

She spoke immediately. “We had to make room for your arrival. We do still have a few loose Stand users. You should probably manifest yours now, so we can figure it out.”

“I think that controlling celestial bodies may be my last worthy ambition, Sunset. Do you reckon that I need convincing of my own strength?” Luna only made eye contact half of the time, when you went to her office or smiled at her in the hallways. She just seemed perpetually more inerested in the rest of the world where you weren’ standing, and no one at CHS had really known why.

“No, I think you need full knowledge of your weaknesses before we make any plans.” Sunset said, bowing low with a sarcastic sweep of the hand. Hoof. Adjusting back was already becoming obnoxious.

Luna considered this, staring off into space. There was something majestic even in that, Sunset noted. She had never looked upon the face of the true Princess Luna, and had found the VP a frightening aberration when they first met. It was a clue that Jupiter and Equestria were not truly tethered, not really equal halves of the same cosmic symmetry.

Something on her face must have betrayed that thought, because Luna came down from her celestial reverie making eye contact. The eyes briefly combed over Sunset’s body, as if checking for weapons, and then were finished with her. She walked to the nearest window that wasn’t opaque with stained color.

“I think I’ll take care of myself in that matter,” she said, to Sunset’s irritation, and then, “What’s left for us to do here?” She was waving a hoof through her reflection out at the city, where light was compartmentalized across the landscape and buildings became great rectangular shadows blotting each other out.

Flash spoke, his wings ruffling twitchily at his sides from their sheer unfamiliarity. “There’s a rebellion. If we don’t put it down, it’ll be a lot of work for the Empire. And they have something valuable on their side now that we were trying to keep a hold of.”

“The city in a bottle.” Luna said, glancing solemnly upon her newfound kingdom.

“Turtle.” Sunset said.

Her poetry ruined, the fledgling alicorn huffed and turned. “If they have it, it will bolden them. Send out whoever we have left to crush them, wherever they are. We still have the Princesses here, and they’d want to secure them next even if I hadn’t come.”

“Yes, and one of the Elements.” Sunset said, and smiled internally as the VP’s ears perked.

“Where?”

“With the Princesses. It’s Rarity, so she wouldn’t be very dangerous even if she woke up.” Sunset had always privately taken Generosity to be one of the lesser Elements. Loyalty she understood, Laughter was even important in its proper place, and Magic justified itself, but surely a friend could be stingy or selfish?

“There’s no reason to become drunk on victory if we’ve already faced a loss today.” Luna said.

“I’ll check on her and gather whoever’s still around.” Flash announced, already trotting away, flicking his restless wings experimentally.

When Luna said nothing, Sunset excused herself too. “I’ll call back the users active in the city and circle the perimeter.” Then she was gone, trotting to the main entrance with the broiling itch of ｢Pepper｣ running through her fetlocks.


* * *


Twinkleshine and Zesty stared out at the city, neither speaking or even allowing their expressions to change, although the former’s eyes darted to the latter from time to time for some signal to stop. Around them, nothing stirred. Speeches were yet to be given, forces unmarshalled, only the sound of shifting pages cutting through the black curtain.

Moondancer had noticed that the stars were out now, and had taken an embarrassingly long time to realize that this wasn’t normal. She had to read it off of the reactions of her acquaintances, since she was no stranger to looking up and seeing that time had rocketed past her. She wasn’t overly concerned about it by now, though; she’d already adjusted to a world where Sombra had conquered the land and controlled the sun and moon. To see him actually using them for something wasn’t shocking as much as disheartening.

He’s getting less busy with other things.

She needed to speak to Coco Pommel urgently. It may have been a mistake to let her be sent on some mission out into the world without talking her through all of this first. The last few hours may have been the crucial ones, on some great magical timescale. If the night was eternal, the world was going to turn sicklier fast, and there wouldn’t be nearly as much time to reverse it. Her group could make it all the way to the Crystal Empire, overcome the dread King, and still see the world dry up and fall away.

She contented herself with her last-minute cramming, the small stack of featureless books sitting beside her on the velvet cushion. The backs were getting greasy, and the dangling light over the table was glinting off of her glasses and hurting her eyes, but those were exhaustible resources now. She cast a spell absentmindedly to dull the headache, and continued the final stretch of her study.

It was several minutes before Coco Pommel and her friends returned. They had, after all, needed to traverse an entire city. It was clear that they’d also been fighting, and that it had been a messy job. Zesty spoke her first words in an hour out of a sense of raw relief when she saw the tortoise cradled to the orange filly’s chest.

“Where’s our operative?” This question had been weighing on her, since her communciations officer had reported to her that Velvet hadn’t spoken any longer.

Scootaloo looked up at her, wry despite her tiredness, and tapped the side of ｢Mr. President｣ with an idle hoof. Her frog passed into the surface on the third tap, like testing the water in a pool. The fleshy parts of the animal had retreated inside of its shell over the course of the journey, and it remained dormant even as its power activated.

Twinkleshine stayed at the window, listening. Her last report had been of the sudden silence of half of the enemy forces, and how they had shouted incoherently before they disappeared from her range. It shouldn’t have been possible for that to happen, except if they were thrown through the portal, which meant some sort of change or reorganization was happening. Now, she strained for some witness or recollection of the sudden appearance of the moon, some key.

“Why is it night?” Diamond asked, stretching out her hooves.

“Something’s changed,” Zesty said. “Or broken. We have to trust in our advantage. I wanted us to work systematically, but this is a victory we have to press.”

Coco spoke up. “What are you going to do?”

Zesty sniffed. “Gather my forces. They clearly need rallying, and they’re hardly a battalion, but we’ll have to march on the Castle while there’s still a chance to stop them.”

“How many ponies do you have?”

“Whoever would volunteer. Maybe one-hundred and seventy, with a dozen Stand users among the ranks. It’s not nearly as much as a general could hope for, but... we all must accept these disappointments. My officer’s informed me that they’ve lost many of their own ponies now, so we need only hope that the arithmetic works out in our favors.”

Cheese interrupted. “Why not get some more volunteers?”

Zesty glowered at him. Instead of looking sheepish, he motioned with a hoof towards Scootaloo. She followed the gesture, and then, suddenly, caught his meaning.

So did Scootaloo, who had felt like she was being cross-examined until she noticed Zesty’s expression. The unicorn wasn’t casting her tired glance downwards in a look of dry superiority, or because of her gangly height, but because she wasn’t looking at the filly at all.

Diamond glanced at Twinkleshine, who was worried. There were messages she didn’t want to give yet, too much information for the filly to read at a glance - how was she thinking about so many things at once? It was like she was processing an entire post office. Diamond wondered, idly, if this was how all secretaries and personal planners thought.

Zesty spoke. “Yes… Yes, we’ll have to ply some diplomacy there and see if we can scare up some reinforcements. In the meantime, whoever among you is willing to make war on the seat of Canterlot’s power should prepare yourselves.”

Moondancer coughed without looking up, the loose hairs in her mane jangling with the motion, and Zesty remembered her existence.

“And - per our agreement - there’s a conversation you may wish to have.”


* * *


Luna’s regarding of the moon was interrupted by streaks of light arcing across her newly-discovered sky. With eyes better than she’d ever had in life, she could see Sunset Shimmer below in the courtyard, throwing rockets of ruby flame through the protective bubble. They curved along the sky and deep into the city like reverse shooting stars, moving purposefully but never in a clear pattern.

She was sending messages. Calling back the subordinates.

Luna knew something about those; she could’ve been a superintendent, if she’d really wished to be. Mostly she’d become a principal because she didn’t want to leave school, and because she hated the thought of actually teaching anyone. At least in Canterlot High she and Celestia had built a space where they could indulge their personal quirks without being inspected. The gall of inventing entirely new celebrations still impressed her, and yet Celestia did it with such ease out of the strength of her authority.

Now she was in authority up to her neck, feeling it crowd her shoulders. She was not disheartened that she had to answer to a despotic King, because there were always people to answer to and managerial difficulties. Adding in more than one kind of magic was only asking for trouble.

And, besides, she had more power over her subjects than she ever did as a vice-principal. In Canterlot High she’d been the right hand of the “real” leader, someone who had the luxury of wandering the halls to check for loiterers, or the odd couple in the stairwells, or the students who would take perfunctory naps behind the stage on the far end of the gym. She had always imagined, striding those hallways, that it was where power lay. Not in delegating, but in doing.

Although it may have sounded preposterous to someone else, and she was perfectly aware of that fact, Luna felt she was more than capable of handling the coming onslaught. She was, after all, now a supposed immortal, and she could control the moon itself. Where before she had cowed the occasional troublemaker with threats of suspension and laboriously dramatic calls to family members, she could now hold the moon in the sky and let light dwindle from the world.

As far as she could predict, she could not be refused!


* * *


The booth was, unfortunately, insufficient. The four ponies instead crowded the floor with the ragged-looking mare, sitting while she tried to organize her thoughts somehow. Then she pushed her glasses upwards on her snoot - a nervous gesture - and cleared her throat.

“You... are on a journey. One of incredible importance. But it isn’t a straight road to the Crystal Empire. If you were to head there immediately… it wouldn’t be pretty. Sombra would be too powerful, and even if you defeated him, he would cause enough damage to the ponies of Equestria on the way down to make it a pyrrhic victory.”

“How do you know that?” Diamond asked.

“Because Sombra has too much control!” Moondancer exclaimed. “He rules the realm of dreams, the connections of magic around his Empire, the railways and trade routes, and the orbit of the celestial bodies. And soon he’ll become even more powerful, strong enough that nopony will have any chance of stopping him! If he can be thwarted, then there’s still some chance that the Elements can be restored, and Coco will be able to revive Generosity.”

“I thought we might have to travel in a strange pattern.” Coco said, almost to herself. Then, rustling through her pack, she found the map that ｢Something for Nothing｣ had copied off of the table back in Ponyville. Unrolling it, with the practiced muscle movements of someone who has had to chase and re-roll many tubes of fabric, she revealed the two-dimensional scan of the land, and of the strange cutie marks littering its surface.

The unicorn took special interest in this, pausing the lecture to lean over it hawkishly. Despite understanding the deep importance of the discussion at-hoof, Coco wondered idly how many cooling and anti-itching charms Moondancer was using in order to retain the sweater. Ever since the great names in fashion had first arrived, too many ponies made the simple mistake of finding what worked and sticking to it. They gave themselves uniforms, and turned dressmakers into tailors for them, nothing more than repairponies.

It was, for any self-respecting dressmaker, a tragedy.

Moondancer had taken to nodding, now. “Yes, this confirms a lot of my theories. I’m surprised at how similar it is to the Map Table, though.”

“It’s from the Table,” Scootaloo said, huffily.

The mare’s eyes took on new interest as they caressed the fabric again. “Then this is part of Harmony’s plan. And your next destination may already be where I’d have advised you to go.”

Cheese, who had never seen this map and hadn’t known it existed, and altogether felt very out of the loop on this one, put on his best art-gallery posture and peered at it from a distance. The cutie marks were familiar, of course, especially the smattering of Pinkie’s. If he took it as a line from point A to point B, it would sidewind them up through Princess Twilight’s mark, then into two others (one of them being Rainbow Dash’s), and finally to the Empire itself.

Coco looked over the map herself, trying to divine new sense in it with the unicorn’s words. “Why do you say it’s ‘Harmony’s plan’?”

The adjusting of glasses. “Well, that’s what Stands are, essentially. With the Elements incapacitated and the Princesses down and out, Equestria’s last defenses have been activated. Ponies have become like batteries of powerful magic. I think that’s what Cadance activated in the vision, before she was overtaken.”

Being reminded of that painfully personal sight, as if it was part of a stageplay they had all seen together some casual evening, stirred everypony at the table. Troubling thoughts clouded them.

Diamond voiced one. “Then why do the ponies from Jupiter have them?”

Moondancer blinked. “Jupiter...?” Then, with sudden realization and a hoof up to stop any further detail, “Oh, the Human World. Well, my guess is that it runs on the same basic rules. If a pony can have a Stand here, then their counterpart should be able to have one.”

Scootaloo, who as a filly was too well-versed in the language of comics to let this slide, asked, “Why doesn’t Sombra just use his own Stand to take over the world?” And the question she didn’t ask, because she knew the unicorn wouldn’t be able to tell her.

Diamond glanced at her, and then appended, “And what is Sombra’s Stand? Do you know?”

“I don’t. We haven’t received any communication from around the Empire yet, and nopony’s sent out an expedition. But he’s barely a pony at this point, and certainly not a creature of harmony, so his power shouldn’t very terrible yet.” At this, she hesitated, imagining something and shuddering, and said, “But if his forces reach the Amulet, he may become powerful enough to destroy all of Equestria without help. I-if he hasn’t already.”

“The Amulet?” Coco asked.

Her interlocutor was already tapping a hoof on Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark, her mind cleared by the need to explain something to a willing audience. “The Alicorn Amulet. I spent hours trying to figure out how to track it down, but I’d bet anything this is it. It was a large portion of Sombra’s power that got stripped away from him by the Princesses. Anypony who wears it gains incredible magic, even non-unicorns. With Stands in play, I’m not sure what it could do.”

“What do the rest of the cutie marks mean?” Diamond asked, pointing specifically at the two Moondancer wanted least to talk about.

The raggedy unicorn did everything in her power to ignore the gesture. “Well, as far as I can tell, each one represents a pony on this quest who’s standing in for one of the Elements. It was only because of displays of each of their aspects that they were able to defeat Tirek and create the Table in the first place, so it’s attuned to ponies who share them. Especially Coco and Mr. Sandwich, since their rubber chicken and rainbow thread were two of the keys.”

Cheese didn’t make much of that, but Coco blanched. “H-how did you know I gave that to Rarity?”

“She wrote about it.” Moondancer said simply. “The Elements kept a diary between themselves for a few months, and they recorded all of their experiences with Harmony in it. The Princesses made sure to have a copy made for the library archives, so I knew that if anypony was destined to battle for the Elements, it would probably be one of those six.”

“Who were the others, then?” Scootaloo asked, trying to figure out who Rainbow Dash’s would’ve been.

“The Wonderbolt Spitfire, the Breezies, Silver Shill, and technically Discord. None of them seem available, though. The Breezies aren’t even in Equestria, and I couldn’t even guess about the other three.” Moondancer almost giggled nervously, and then stopped herself. Everypony around the table was as serious as her most stonefaced professors.

Worry had massaged its way into Coco’s psyche, now, and she tried not to let the fillies see her expression. She had set out on this journey alone, for the purpose of proving herself! Having some sort of force on her side was, in some ways, much more concerning. And the fact that ponies who read the right books were aware of her only made it worse; did Sombra know…?

Finally Cheese cleared his throat - a sound like a ventriloquist might make. “Actually, I want to make sure the record’s straight. I’m supposed to be taking a magical journey with the rest of them?”

Moondancer nodded, and waved at the Map’s scattering of balloons. “Yes, you’re represented by Pinkie Pie’s cutie mark, here.” Then she hmmmed and peered at it close enough for her breath to ruffle the fabric. “I think it’s in so many places because it wasn’t clear when you’d leave Canterlot and run into them. There must have been an indeterminate variable somewhere...”

“Cheesy Sense.” Diamond guessed to herself, hoof on her chin. “He only came toward Ponyville after we’d rescued it, and the Map couldn’t predict when that was supposed to happen.” Then she looked up at Moondancer, and asked, “What about the rest of them? Are we supposed to go back to Ponyville?”

“No, Applejack’s cutie mark is yours.” Coco said, with astoundingly smooth confidence. “You changed at the orchard when Sweetie fought with you.”

“Look, who cares about destiny?” Scootaloo said, finally. “This is nice and all, but it’s not like ponies only fight against bad guys because harmony tells them to or something. We should get out there and save Rarity already!”

“Did ponies fight against Tirek?” Diamond asked.

The filly fell silent. No one spoke, even Moondancer, who was trying not to remember the feeling of losing her own abilities. Her power being stripped away into nothing, taken from her, like taking a metaphysical potato peeler to her being. The foalish helplessness, even for the Princesses. Even for Princess Twilight, in the end.

Princess Twilight…

She coughed. “It’s alright, I’m about done. We have enough problems to worry with now, without thinking too much about destiny. But it’s good that Harmony is on our side. And your path is set clear ahead of you, so it should be your best shot at reaching the Empire and weakening Sombra.” She made a practiced sweep with her eyes of the assembles faces, not really making eye contact any of them. “Any questions?”

Diamond, who had finally pinpointed what they’d been avoiding, pointed to the Map. “What about here, where Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy’s cutie marks are? Where’s that?”

Moondancer looked uncomfortable, and tried to think of something tactful to say. The whole truth… may have been a little much. Before she could choose her words, Diamond’s eyes widened, and she looked suddenly ill.

“Tartarus...” she whispered. “We have to go into Tartarus.”


* * *


The inner landscape of ｢Mr. President｣ was, in the end, rather impressive. It was more complex than most of the constructed realities of unicorn culture, including those few which lingered on in museums, and the schlocky modern ones that came in comic books and cereal boxes. There was a breathing sense of nature to it, a texture of truly being-in-place, that marked its sophistication.

Zesty pondered this, staring out of the window at the abrupt edge of that landscape. A statement on the impossibility of the thought of death, maybe… She was never much for art, if she was honest. Her medium at least favored the blind and the deaf, although it wasn’t particularly kind to the stupid.

The room she was in was already there, as a sort of waiting area suspended from the “ceiling” of the sky. Her temporary lodgings hung in place like an obedient chandelier, while outside disparate clouds of pegasi wheeled this way and that, organizing themselves and spreading messages to the rest of the ponies they’d taken with them. There weren’t very many, she was certain.

She had made the request to rally volunteers, especially those with military flight experience or Stand abilities. It had taken a moment to find someone who was even halfway in charge, but it hadn’t taken long to get word out.

“Do you think you’ll be able to convince them?” Twilight Velvet asked, sitting in a chair and trying, ritually, to fan away her exhaustion.

Yes, lots of motion among the pegasi, but very little coming towards them. The architecture was exquisite, although the interiors left far too much to the imagination. The last thing a room needed was potential, it was like not letting a child grow up and take on its own life. Sterility, awful sterility lurking just beyond the edges of this lively aura. Was that the nature of existing in the soul of an animal? She wondered...

Twilight shrugged, and didn’t take it personally. She had been more than used to the silent treatment in her time, and she was sure that whatever her leader was thinking was important. She turned her own mind to Twilight, and hoped that she was being well cared for.

There weren’t many doors in the buildings of New Cloudsdale, or easy partitions between bedrooms, kitchens, and the other motley assortments of living spaces. It was assuredly hospitable, but not in any way in particular. When Blossomforth entered, it was only after she spoke that the ponies really seemed to notice her.

“How bad is it out there?” she asked, in her best gruff voice. Zesty turned from the windowpane, which was large enough for an adult pony to fall out of, and regarded her. White coat, watermelon-themed mane, and a certain gentleness not typically seen in pegasi. A deft hoof.

“As bad as when Nightmare Moon returned, and possibly worse.” Twilight said, her voice taking on a sense of teacherly urgency. She hadn’t left the confines of the tortoise for long, but she’d been able to catch a glimpse of that blacked-out sky through the normal entrance.

Zesty adjusted her coat around herself and said, “Frankly, we need every hoof we can get, or else Canterlot may well be doomed. Five fliers may make the whole difference.” They were not pleasant words, but they bore speaking.

“Most of us don’t have special powers.” Blossomforth said, guarded. “...But we do have Rainbow Dash. As long as she’s sleeping here, there’s still hope for Equestria. Endangering the lives and families of the ponies who live here to aid you would be… irresponsible.”

“Is that what Rainbow Dash would think?” Zesty asked, helpless to crook an eyebrow. Blossomforth didn’t rise to it.

“There are already volunteers, though, aren’t there?” Twilight said softly, gaze intent. “Some ponies who regret coming in instead of fighting, and want to prove themselves.”

“I’m not here to let fools charge into battle,” the pegasus said, stiff.

Once, she had been so carefree, but she had been the first pony to come across ｢Mr. President｣ in those first minutes of terror, and the flock had respected her as its de facto owner since. Time crept on around her as her days became more and more interesting, and now she was being given a temptation to cast off that responsibility for some greater good. If she had held a Stand for herself, she would’ve felt it steaming at the edges of her consciousness, ready to appear.

“Then what?” Zesty scoffed in genuine offense. “Are you going to let the Princesses rot until your ark gets snapped up by a vulture?”

Blossomforth hardened. “When it’s time to help them, Rainbow Dash will come back. And if she doesn’t, then… I don’t know. We have to trust that something will happen.”

“My daughter is the Element of Magic,” Twilight said, “and I know we can’t hold out hope for that.”

That renewed the pegasus’ interest in her, and fear crept into the white face. “Then... what? Blind aggression at the heart of our enemy’s power? We can’t have been given sanctuary inside of Rainbow Dash’s legacy without a reason.” Or, at least, to believe anything else would be suicide.

“Then I’ll take you in single combat,” Zesty said matter-of-factly.

Bad move. “If either of you use your Stands in this room, or have used them already, you’ll be escorted out for good.”

“Believe me, you would know.” Zesty said. Privately she was very disappointed at how badly these talks were going, but she couldn’t quite understand why. She was a creature of command, of critique and management, not of diplomacy.

Twilight made another attempt. “I think there is a reason for that legacy to carry all of you. You’re meant to play a part in saving Rainbow Dash, and the rest of the Elements. That’s why Tank came here, to Canterlot. He knew, partly, what he was going to be needed for.”

Blossomforth considered that, eyes narrowing and trying to read any form of dishonesty on the open face of the older mare. “Why should we believe that?”

“For the same reason you believe that this place was an intentional sanctuary.” Twilight said.

“...” A beat. “Nopony can know that for certain. It’s not enough to risk lives over. I’m sorry.”

“And what about the lives of the rest of Equestria? Or the ones who are going to march on the Castle alone to try and stop this infernal night?!” Zesty demanded, drawing closer.

Steely, uncowable. “Even if you convinced me, are you going to make the case to the rest of the ponies here one by one? You have only a dozen volunteers, and none of them are even quality fliers or weatherponies. If you need help so badly, you can get it a lot faster in Canterlot instead of philosophizing with us. Guards.”

Two pegasi stallions, in no special garb but with above-average musculature, entered the room.

Zesty trotted to the door, exasperated. Never in her life had she met somepony with such ridiculous standards. But behind her, there was no sound of hoofsteps.

“No,” Twilight said, finally standing, her pleasant reasonability becoming cloudily unreadable. And then, after a deep breath, “｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣!”

A pearlescent strike, visible only to the two Stand users, hammered into the floor. The other three ponies in the room were still perfectly aware of it, and rushing to stop her from whatever it was she was doing, but she stood straight and kept still. Before she could make another, a guard had tackled her.

Zesty, who in the heat of the moment had been about to summon up ｢Chop Suey｣, was pinned to the ground before the inclination could even instantiate itself in words. She could still do it, but it would be pointless against a pony who was already behind her. Fighting an urge to spit curses into the floor, she was already planning out how best to move her sparse troops, and who to blame for their casualties.

As Velvet was being drawn back up to her hooves, her calm expression interrupted by the hoof gripping her mane for steering, she regarded the room.

It started to rumble.

Not just it, the entire landscape. There was something like an earthquake, or a falling-in of the heavens, a tectonic shift throughout the universe of ｢Mr. President｣. And then, from all angles, a single enrapturing voice.

“I am ｢Mr. President｣. I am the physical soul of a youthful body, and I grow with time. In many decades I may be as large as the world beyond myself, although I may not exist for so long. I was born from a moment of dreaming terror, and I continue to exist as a means of ensuring the suffering of Rainbow Dash, my final owner, will end. In loyalty to her, and what she believes in, I have created enough space to hold everything she held dear, and to house her in her weakness. And I have traveled to the nearest seat of evil, knowing the role I play will be small, for the good of the ponies she would have defended. If by my actions I can hurt the forces which have harmed her, even in part, then my existence is justified.”

Twilight Velvet nodded, though it was difficult, and her ability deactivated. Outside, ponies flew vigorous corkscrews past each other, moving with renewed activity.

The guards stared at Blossomforth. She nodded, more solemnly than the unicorn had, and they released their captives.

“You can’t have anypony who doesn’t want to go,” she said coldly, and walked back the way she came.


* * *


Neon Lights trudged back to the Castle, only dimly aware that it wasn’t supposed to be so dark out. He’d been asleep when he got the message, and his mane was singed to match the wide splatters of bruise along his face. He imagined he could see a little wisp of smoke if he forced his eyes into he right corner of his vision.

Amethyst hadn’t shown. He’d have looked for her, but all the burning voicemail told him was to get back to the Castle and be ready to defend it. One of two wasn’t so bad, he hoped.

Goodness the moon was bright, wasn’t it? He dwelt on thoughts of couples on benches.

There were others, up ahead. Some he recognized, and others he hadn’t been given enough time to smooze with. Almost none of them would be interested in the same music as him, and half of them were men, so it wasn’t a terribly huge loss. Although he could see Miss Roseluck up there, the only of those three sisters to bridge the gap. He’d always taken her for a homebody.

She didn’t look back at him as she passed into that barrier, but the dull blue glow of its magic crested across her body like a waterfall, her tail swishing lazily with the motion. He had the sudden urge to come up behind her and bury his muzzle in it, which passed through and over him like all of the other idle fantasies.

When he passed through, they were already mostly assembled. At the front of the building was Sunset Shimmer, who had finally come through. She was a Roseluck and a half, though without that quintessential gentleness. A real hellcat, and a managerial type to boot. Not on the table, in other words.

Sombra had not needed to offer Neon Lights anything in particular to convince him to make the switch between realities, and it hadn’t been a matter of pride or dreaming for the man; he’d simply been shown what he was missing.

Sunset, who had a completely different demeanor than she’d had back in CHS, locked eyes with him and stepped forward, moving with a natural grace. He could feel the air heating up around the two of them, although he could tell it wasn’t a Stand power. She’d been a unicorn, after all. Maybe a powerful one, compared to someone like him.

“Who took the tortoise from you, and where’s the rest of your group?” she asked.

So he told her the story.

When he’d finished, she threw out a burst of magic that looked, to his new equine instincts, like a painful load for the average unicorn. The burst of pyrotechnical light seared itself clean through his eyeballs, or at least it felt like it, and then another message went flying off into the night.

After a moment, she said, “Colgate is a valuable ally here. Your talent is misdirection, not head-to-head combat. Don’t split up again, or I’ll spitroast you. ｢Pepper｣.“

Then, a few small, orange centaurs popped soundlessly into existence, mid-gallop. They were small enough for him to crush with a hoof, more like figurines than he was used to, and their faces were the only things that didn’t move. They stopped and turned to him, as if surveying some kind of giant horse-god, and then he felt his wounds getting better.

He reached up to touch his face, and then flinched. “Ouch.”

“Leave it alone. I need you alert tonight.”

And then, with incredible force, something flew for the barrier in a dark blur, like a comet striking for the ground. Sunset craned her head away from Neon to see it, and then halted the motion in mid-air. Colgate stopped moving, suspended in a matrix of red-orange magic.

The mare herself was very confused about the note, to use the power to make herself and the magic collide, and why it had worked so well. The first one, which hadn’t woken her up or managed to burn her for ignoring it, was likely still hovering near the School.

As she found her feet, she gradually became more and more briefable.

Between the two, bits of ｢Pepper｣ kept their own station, awarenesses piercing the protected bubble and imposing into the unnatural night over the vast and mostly darkened city.


* * *


Coco Pommel and her friends moved, a little reticent, out into the now-nighttime air. A chill set into them as they moved, and soon they split apart, moving twin routes across the gridwork of the city. The lights were unkind to them, though the moonlight itself had become almost too much to look at directly.

This was their third circuit through the city, and it was exactly as unfamiliar, one path of hundreds. Still the Castle loomed, and it was hard to judge even how many floors it was. Moondancer led them onwards, taking a rather sharp detour and veering away from the front entrance long before it was even in line of sight. When they came upon it, it was from the Archives’ entrance.

“You have ten minutes’ head start. Bring down the shields before the pegasi arrive so we can storm our way in.” Those had been Zesty’s last curt, nodded words to them.

Diamond submersed her worry in the worry of others. “We’ll make it. If we can get Rarity out of there, we can keep her safe inside of ｢Mr. President｣ with no problem.”

Nopony asked whose unspoken fear she’d been trying to allay.

｢To Be Continued｣


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣
User: Vice-Principal Luna
Stats
Power: A
Speed: A
Range: B
Durability: D
Precision: C
Potential: D
Abilities: ???

Stand Name: ｢Pepper｣
User: Sunset Shimmer
Stats
Power: C
Speed: C
Range: B
Durability: A
Precision: E
Potential: D
Abilities: ???
> Break On Through (To The Other Side)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Canterlot Archives were always a small, mostly out-of-the-way section of the larger castle, and didn’t usually see guards outside of their most important wings. Even among unicorns, there were very few ambitious enough to try stealing from the Princesses, and too many rumors of the horrible magics active within the castle at night.

The actual defenses, as Moondancer understood them, were just keyed to the magical signatures of different unicorns. You could be added to the wards by a librarian or an assistant if you needed to stay past closing some night and still leave to go home, but coming and going as you pleased required the permission of one of the Courts themselves, as did getting into the more restricted sections. Although they weren’t the be-all-end-all of pony knowledge that they had been a thousand years ago, she had often dreamed, wistfully, of that kind of total access.

Twilight had given it to her in passing, as a parting gift on the way back home from the city. It was no bigger a deal to her than loaning a library card. It was… touching, mostly.

The defenses went up a few hours after everypony had their night terrors, but she had stayed inside of the Archives in the hopes that they’d protect her somehow. The ambient magic, the possible defenses, the feeling that the magic was trustworthy in that area. It was only after a few rounds of panic that she realized the shields going up weren’t actually a defense against anything. A few minutes after, she learned from experience that they were just an extension of the regular wards.

“Alright, quickly,” she nodded to the rest of her group under the unnatural night sky, and stood on her hind legs. Her hooves pushed against the bubble, encountering no resistance but defining a void in it, tearing a semicircle that dragged to become a lopsided archway.

Scootaloo dashed through first, and Diamond after her, both quiet against the undewed grass. Coco came last, and it was a squeeze Moondancer tried to widen the opening to accomodate. Mostly she kept her eyes peeled for guards patrolling in their direction, but none arrived.

A little more wiggling and Coco had worked her way past, and stood making the same survey. It was hard to tell if the enemy was overconfident or understaffed, but neither seemed like bad news.

For Coco’s part, she’d never been this close to the castle, or even dreamt of it. The most the Royal Sisters had ever done in her dreams was stand in the background of the Gala as everyday ponies romped and cut rugs in her latest, most creative designs. Now she had some sense of the real majesty of the building, of how it seemed like the trunk of a tree with the rest of the city as its root system, and she couldn’t even enjoy it.

“Okay,” Coco breathed. “We have a time limit. Where would the barrier’s magic be coming from?”

“Probably the throne room,” Moondancer said, “but we don’t have to go there to-” She stopped, and cried out.

The other three turned to her, cutting off their search for enemy Stand users, and saw something black and indistinct clawing at her. It was a frothing silhouette of a hoof coming from nowhere, pawing desperately at one of her back hooes with animal drive.

Then that back hoof started to disappear, and she sank, like she was being dragged down into the earth itself! Scootaloo rushed for her first, ｢Go Zone｣’s hoof already outstretched a few inches over her shoulder. Under its commanding aura, her descent slowed, and suddenly froze.

Coco stared at their surroundings for some hint of motion, some clue that they’d been found out. Stand users were not, in her experience, masters of subtlety.

Moondancer herself, though panting in response to her surprise attack, had taken stock of the situation admirably. “It’s not pulling me down. It’s… out. Maybe something like Limbo, it’s hard to tell. It feels like my leg doesn’t exist right now, but it would if I could pull it back out. ...If that makes sense.”

“So long as we can… get you out of there...” Scootaloo was already straining, feeling a wave of pins and needles travel down her body and play chopsticks on her wingtips worst of all. She had used up her power in a few big stunts already, and her wings were entirely through with being connected to the rest of her body.

A long line of fabric unrolled itself from Coco like a red carpet, landing softly in what everyone was beginning to notice as a thick black mass directly under Moondancer. The mare readjusted her glasses with her magic and made a single, flailing grab for it.

It took more strength than she liked, especially when she found she couldn’t kick her back legs, but she managed a tight, hugging grip on it. At first she worried the artificial vine would tear, but nothing happened, and she calmed as Coco began to pull.

Diamond rushed over to the dressmaker’s side, her own Stand materializing beside her. With the flats of its scissorlike limbs it tugged on the fabric not stuck in the mare’s teeth, but still the black pool, whatever it was, wouldn’t let go.

“I can’t keep this up much more.” Scootaloo said, voice slightly raised. She hadn’t changed her posture since she started, and Moondancer could see the sweat beading on her face.

She also found that she couldn’t adjust her grip; clearly, ｢Go Zone｣ was keeping her hooves fixed in place, too. She took the chance to scan the disturbance with a simple spell, something to distinguish regular magic from anomalous.

Suddenly, the hands tugged at her much more insistently, and she sank several inches further into the Earth. Scootaloo’s expression hadn’t changed, and the tether she was gripping hadn’t snapped, but now she sank slowly as the hands dragged her further and further under.

Still, her scan had worked.

“It’s definitely a Stand, but it’s seeking me out based on my magic!” she called as she fell.

Diamond, the only other pony present in a state to talk, swiftly glanced to the rest of their party. “But we’re not being attacked! Stands are magic too, aren’t they?”

“Not perfectly. Antimagic fields wouldn’t keep Stands out, they’re closer to the source of magic than regular spells. I think it’s attacking anyone with unicorn magic because that would be the only way to break through the wards.”

“Yeah, fascinating.” Those two words alone gave Scootaloo a headache. “I can’t hold this any more, guys!”

Moondancer looked up at her, still slipping away, and said, “Hold on! ｢Tragic But Magic｣!”

A smaller version of ｢Go Zone｣ appeared, something only a little larger than a foal, with poorly-defined black and orange stripes looping its barrel and empty, white eyes instead of goggles. Scootaloo couldn’t get a good look at it, but she felt her burden being lifted, slightly. The pull of the black hooves lessened enough that Moondancer wasn’t sinking any more, but she felt as if she was treading water as the tar-like substance licked at the edge of her mane.

Coco peered at the Stand while she pulled, and then let the rope glow with telekinesis in a final burst of effort. ｢Something for Nothing｣ reknit the fabric tighter as it threatened to tear, and DIamond joined with her Stand, hoping to tip the scales just enough.

Then she felt the pull of the rope behind her go slack. Before she could turn around, Moondancer shouted something.

“She used magic through her Stand!”

It was true, and unlike her, Coco’s body sank into the dark uninterrupted.

｢Something for Nothing｣ was already reacting, trailing lines of fabric from high windows and metal fenceposts from the nearby garden, trying to pull its user in all directions but downward. She could feel the cold hooves reaching up for her, and she felt something familiar among them, brushing at her left fetlock. A grip she'd been familiar with, in the early mornings after the endless nights, one well-rested and eternally displeased.

Suri?!

A moment of panic came close to her, and the grip solidified, even as she slowed her descent. She became painfully conscious of her bones, and how many directions they could really be expected to twist, even as the dressmaker in her carefully noted how ridiculous it was for her to be draped and twisted with random lines of tied-off fabric. Ridiculous, but not unworkable, accounting for coat and personality...

She kicked against what couldn't have been her old boss, and found no purchase. Her physical Stand now tugged at the rope in her place, next to ｢Misery Business｣, and it had no effect.

Moondancer's mind revved as Scootaloo tried to take her situation in, straining for some extra height of strength and power. She could feel herself slipping, the tight coil of friction lessening and slowly letting the darkness slip through. Her power was cheesecloth in the face of that tide.

｢Tragic But Magic｣ hovered sympathetically next to ｢Go Zone｣ as Moondancer ran the numbers. She'd seen the user and the Stand in action, so her own let her understand the ability. If Scootaloo ran to help Coco, it would certainly stall this power for an extra minute or two, but it would be a sacrifice. Her glasses were askew. ｢Tragic But Magic｣ could give and take friction, for a little while, but not on a scale that would stop her being pulled in. What was the equation for friction again? She tried to estimate the force tugging against her, her friends against the Stand, some way to switch the balance. The lenses were falling down against her snoot, and the sickly-slow slide of it made her clench her eyes shut.

Then, with a new reservoir of determination, she snapped them open.

"Scootaloo, let go. It's our only chance."

"I -- won't - leave you!" the filly shoved her own hooves against the Earth, as if it would help.

Coco couldn't hear them over the blood rushing in her ears now, the oily mass consuming her cutie mark up to the feather. If they defeated the user, she knew she'd be safe - probably. That was how it had worked before, Stands never seemed to destroy things completely.

She resigned herself to it. Diamond and Scootaloo were capable, they'd probably make it to the user somehow, somewhere.

From the black tar something rippled and burst upwards, trailing strings of oil. It was gradual and silent, blocking her view of her rambunctious allies as it grew to a few inches above her.

From the murk, a face manifested, and it was the one she least wanted to see.

Suri had never made that sort of glazed-over, twitchily exuberant face, and it didn't suit this mold of her. In the special celestial magics of the courtyard, he dappling of starlight came down against the contours of her face, and it rotated through dour annoyance, disgust and quiet judgment before it finally lifted its front hooves and slopped them wetly onto her shoulders.

Coco felt the inkiness run down her coat in phlegmy rivulets, numbing her body like the back hooves already missing. Suri made to headbutt her, and her head collided with a sheet of white linen, immediately turning it uncleanably grey-brown.

Then, suddenly, she felt the contest of wills that any Stand user felt in a direct confrontation, all at once and pushing at her with the intensity of a train. She would've taken a step back, if she'd been able, but the same mental reflex forced her to yield - and the sheet dissolved back into air.

Then it pounded at her again, the same sensation from multiple angles, and she realized too late that the rest of her tethers had been covered. ｢Something for Nothing｣ twisted away the one holding Moondancer, keeping it out of reach for the mire, as the rest violently evaporated.

She glanced around as her barrel faded into the draining murk, and saw a decently blunt rock a few hooves away. She conjured a slingshot of fabric around it, working to cast it directly into the Suri-thing's face - but the white linen crumbled and faded. Then it pushed closer, a mockery of a kiss, and pressed its forehead to hers.

"｢Go Zone｣!" came the cry ahead of her, and suddenly the creature slid off and away from her. The inkiness rolled off of her face as if it couldn't find purchase, and she saw the orange and black goggles of Scootaloo's Stand hovering over her. Below, the darkness failed to take her any further, as if she'd suddenly become buoyant.

"｢Tragic But Magic｣!" Moondancer shouted, and Coco raised her head to see. The unicorn was free!

Her Stand appeared, what looked like a filly's version of ｢Something for Nothing｣, and then it carefully ran a straight line of fabric towards Coco's position. Her face felt half-paralyzed, but the end flapped towards her mouth and she worked half her jaw to grip it in her teeth.

Diamond Tiara took over for Moondancer, who talked excitedly while Coco was worked out of the muck. "It's not a matter of stopping it from pulling you down. You just need to stop it from getting a hoofhold on you! It's so naturally sticky that in its normal state nothing can fall into it!"

Scootaloo nodded, wearily, not inactive enough to be relieved but certainly feeling better. "Making things slippery is way easier than keeping them still."

One tug, harder than the others, and Coco came free like the cork of a bottle. She sailed a ways through the air, heading for the stone wall of the castle itself, before colliding with a bunched-up sheet of damask linen like a ball into a catcher's mitt.

Once she was on the ground again, she found feeling returning throughout her legs, all pins and needles. She trotted in place for a moment as Moondancer came over.

"They're on the lookout for magic, so they expect that somepony might make it through the barriers. They might know we're here now, or this might be an ability that works without the user knowing. Either way, they have to be around here somewhere."

"Is there anywhere besides the throne room we could shut off the field from?" Scootaloo asked.

Moondancer shook her head.

Diamond added, helpfully, "The castle's very secretive about its security measures, so the only surefire bet is that the nexus will be somewhere the Princesses are always going to have access to." Moondancer frowned, and prevented herself from reflexively testing some anti-mindreading protections.

Scootaloo's breathing had returned to normal now. "Then we have to get there fast. Sneaking through the castle rooms is going to take too long for that, so we'll just have to break straight in."

Moondancer thought a bit and scowled. "They'll have a lot of protections on the front doors, I'm sure, and I probably couldn't disable half of them even if I could use my magic. If it's their base of operations, it won't be as easy as going in through the fastest route."

"Maybe for a city full of unicorns." Scootaloo said, and all of a sudden looked very pleased with herself.


* * *


The Vice Principal, who had worn the title for so long that it clung to her like this new spectral hairstyle and the weighty jewelry bound against her neck, surveyed the city. Her original instincts told her not to bother - it was too dark for a human eye to make out anything interesting from a distance, only the indistinct arguing shapes of buildings crowding horizons. But her newfound senses let her pick up movement, snatch it from distances that surprised her.

The information was still reeling in her head, and it had to come in heavy bursts, but she could make out the forms of ponies coming towards her. The castle she was in had been built on the edge of the peak of its mountain, and it towered over all of the other buildings and their citizens like a judge over her courtroom.

Many ponies, now. Not the whole city, and not really an army, but more than she had available at the moment. Most of them were unicorns, so ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ would take care of them swiftly. She knew that Stands were not as common as all that, at least among the normal herds of the land.

Sombra had not intended for Stands to exist - that is, they were not part of his vision of things - but they had worked out to his advantage as long as he had more of them on his side to work with. Luna did not pretend to care about the potential abilities of those outside in terms of anything but the numbers game.

The portal still lay behind her, and with it a handful of other people who might benefit from stepping through. She wasn't privy to who they might be, or what shape their abilities would take, but she had been informed very strictly that the portal had only so much room for sentient beings to step through. A creature with intelligence had to be traded for another, like for like, in order to maintain the connection.

There were sacrifices that could be made, in the name of one or two extra combatants. Many had been sent back to call her forth, pawns for a queen, and at least some of them would return, begrudgingly or by compulsion. But so far, before the various gives and takes that would define any real battle - if it came to one at all - she couldn't know.

Perhaps she was giving it too much thought. She'd been assured now that she was quite immortal. She couldn't be a proper ruler without a city to take care of, that was true, but she would be able to enslave any of the ponies who came to stop her. The only thing that was truly threatening or unknown to her was magic, and her power neatly kept that from being an issue.

There was a crashing sound from behind her, the singing of glass shattering and a thud that echoed slightly. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw a bundle of cream blankets, enough for a whole barracks, slouching with gravity against the floor.

A head burst up from them, almost the same color, with a tealish mane. Not even looking at her, the pony was facing the thrones, and she sighed in relief as she wrestled here way out of the mass and towards the ancient structure. She stepped quietly, cautiously, never looking around but gingerly questing over the stained shards of glass, examining the steps to the chair with deep fascination.

The Vice-Principal had seen this kind of behavior before, of course. Antics. Not that many students were ever really sneaking around anywhere under her purview, especially not at the seat of her power - she intentionally left the lights off and kept to an out-of-the-way office to ensure that she wouldn't receive visitors - but a few always had designs on their permanent records, or someone else's, or the veteran status of so-and-so a person.

She cleared her throat, and the pony froze for a moment before spinning in place. Then, strangely, a look of relief came over her features.

"Oh, Princess Luna, it's so good to see that you're okay! You probably don't know me, but a lot's been going on, I'm just looking for a way to switch off the castle defenses. Is there a magical conduit somewhere around here?"

How odd, that the ponies who lived under her rule her didn't seem to fear her; she must have become soft with years and years to fatten up her sense of mercy. With a thought, and a bit of clumsy exertion that forced an eye to twitch, her horn sparked and she lifted the pony in a field of deep blue magic, holding her by her back leg and dangling her up in the air.

"Wait, you don't-- oh. Oh, dear," the pony said, realizing that the VP was not the goddess she'd come to know.

Luna thought of the ponies coming toward the castle. It would be a little while before her reinforcements arrived, that was for certain, but for them to enter into the building already... Well, that was much more than she had expected of them. That had clinched it; she needed more ponies fighting, some that could handle whatever intrusion had just occurred.

"I don't know if Sombra's controlling you, or if you're not the real Luna, but either way, I have to stop you and shut off the magic here. Where's it being controlled from?"

Of course the VP knew where the control was, but she'd never tell that to somepony who asked her. She considered sending a message out to Sunset to check for other intruders, and then let her magic do the trick automatically, enjoying the warmth that it generated at the base. For now, she would just kill two birds with one stone.

The portal now stood up towards a wall, a mass of energy as much as a mirror. Things had changed on its surface, and there was something warm about it, as if she could sense it had been used lately. She remembered the hoods of cars, and wondered what it would be like for this small, relatively frail creature to be cast out and find itself with hands and feet. Without Sombra to aid the transition, would it even be able to communicate, or walk, or understand its situation?

The VP was much too used to idle amusements, and the stolid face of the pony looking down at her brought her back to reality. It was nearly petulant, and she resolved not to push this one in but throw as a practice of her magic. If she missed it would only mean broken bones, or another shattered painting of a hieroglyphic pegasus or what-have-you.

She reared up the throw, pulling the pony back on instinct even though the windup wasn't strictly necessary, and then--

"｢Something for Nothing｣."

Her left back leg wrenched to the side, and she stumbled to keep her balance. Something was wrapped around it, and it tugged again as she tried to adjust. She snapped it with her magic and saw a thin line of something - thread, but thicker - leading up to the pony's mouth. She looked angry, and let it fall from her teeth wetly.

Luna glared at her, and then felt the impact of a full pony, something almost as large as she was, colliding into her side. This time the impact hit, and it staggered her a few feet to the side. At the same time she saw the Stand she felt it wrap something around her abdomen, forcing her half-extended wings uncomfortably against her body. It trailed out, appearing out of the Stand's hooves as it bounded for --

The mirror.

As Luna felt herself being pulled toward it, rather insistently considering she was digging her hooves into the floor to slow herself, she realized what the game was. Of course, it wouldn't matter even if she were passed through - the castle defenses weren't located anywhere in the throne room, and the interloper wouldn't have enough time to reach them. It was an elementary matter to pass through and back again, as long as the connection was stable.

She had her pride, however. No matter how petty, there would be no victory for the enemies today. With another impulse of magic, she flung the mare directly at the mirror's surface, a beige fastball for a cosmic windowpane.

The Stand changed direction mid-gallop, and the line of material tugged her less as it lengthened. With a single bound, it caught the mare in mid-flight, doing something like a bridal carry as it sailed safely out of the mirror-path.

Luna's horn sparked again, ready to make a second try. Just then, the Stand's line of material went taut, and she found herself stumbling over again, horn fizzling as she hit the ground like bad slapstick.

Oh, that was it. Snarling, her wings finally snapped out with enough strength to break the tie, shredding it with her very feathers. She shoved against the floor and leapt into the air, her own Stand wreathing her now. ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ bubbled and frothed at her back, and with a single, mighty wingbeat she descended upon the Stand and user at once.

The two tried to dodge out of the way, but the black night-essence of her ability clouded their path. Another step and the Stand disappeared as the mare hit the wall, her tie lopsided against her chest, pressed to the stone under an image of Luna - the other Luna - in the nighttime.

Coco gazed up upon the angry goddess.


* * *


Scootaloo and Moondancer galloped together. The filly was exhausted, but she easily scampered faster than the unicorn, even accounting for the sweater. Neither complained.

Scootaloo had volunteered to fly up to the throne room personally, and then found herself unable to do it, straining and puffing to hover until Coco finally stopped her. Flying had been the best part of having a Stand, and she missed it already.

So they were heading around the side, looking for an entrance other than the very front, or else for something worthy of ambush and sabotage. The building had a great big circumference, and running it made Scootaloo feel light-headed, like she were on a great big carousel with the whole of Canterlot city blurring around her. Moondancer kept focused for some enemy, some evidence of Stand activity, anything that her senses could share with her about magic even if she couldn't cast a detection spell.

They came upon their first target very quickly, a light blue mare standing alone and unaided, looking out onto the rest of the grounds with her muzzle all but pressed against the magical barrier. She didn't even hear them as they approached, and Moondancer noted the strange, small creatures that littered her feet, a small group of bright-orange ponies with large, alien torsos attached.

They resembled some rough sketches made by the hoofful of early dimensional explorers who had returned to Equestria. They had been partially confirmed by the very cryptic account Twilight gave of her visit to the Human World, but Twilight certainly hadn't mentioned the muscle, or the spiderlike quality of the way the things moved across the ground.

Scootaloo ignored them, rushing forward. Her own Stand was already brandished, and it slammed a hoof into the back of the mare's head, cracking it against the barrier. The whole operation was quiet, except for the grunt of exertion the filly let out between clenched teeth.

The mare slumped, but the small creatures didn't disappear or make big moves. Moondancer considered the possibilities while Scootaloo caught her breath.

"We'd better hide her bef-" Moondancer started.

"｢January 28, 1986｣!"

Something came hurtling at them from the night ahead, turning end over end and glinting. It looked like an emptied pickling jar, but Scootaloo dodged away from it as if it had a bomb inside. Moondancer took her cue, and it curved halfway through its path, smashing harmlessly against the barrier itself, leaving a ripple of energy across the shield that dissipated within a few hooves of its start.

Scootaloo moved with the momentum she'd thrown herself with, rolling across the grass and cobblestone until she felt the solidity of the castle wall beside her. The next projectile couldn't hit her if she kept away from the barrier, but she still had to worry about being seen. Could she hold onto the wall for long enough to climb out of view?

Then she realized that Moondancer didn't know what was going on, and had never seen real combat. The unicorn stood there almost blithely, staring ahead wide-eyed into the darkness and waiting for another attack.

"Get out of the way!" Scootaloo hissed, at risk of blowing her position.

Moondancer shook her head. "We need to understand what's happening!"

"I fought her before! She can make things hit each other, no matter what, but she has to touch them!"

"Then why is she throwing these at her own defenses?" Moondancer asked, softly and half to herself.

Another jar flew out, heading for the barrier. Its path curved just so, putting her in the center of its trajectory. She watched it careen out of the dark, and adjusted her glasses.

"｢Tragic But Magic｣!"

The miniature ｢Go Zone｣ appeared again, and this time Scootaloo had enough presence of mind to really get an eyeful of it. The stripes had become minimal, and didn't really turn into arrows as much as coil out of sight. The goggles were just brass circles painted around white eyes, and the whole impression seemed more like a model from a craft store than a Stand.

But it thrust out both hooves, while Moondancer covered her face with a fetlock reflexively, and the jar stopped in mid-air. When it hadn't exploded on her face, she put the hoof down and stepped around her Stand, investigating it.

There was nothing outwardly magical about the jar - it was probably taken from the on-site kitchens. She couldn't sense any spells inside either, especially not by sight. If they'd raided the kitchens for weapons, why not take some carving knives? No, there had to be some reason--

"Look out!" Scootaloo shouted. Moondancer started turning in the direction of her voice, on high alert, ready to swing around her Stand - and then the impact came.

Scootaloo saw it crash out of the dark like a train, yet another jar coming from behind. They'd thrown it around the edge of the castle in the other direction!

When it hit Moondancer, it was hard enough to make her stumble and fall forward, smashing into pieces on contact. All of the shards wriggled in her wounds, unbearable, and she twisted against the ground to put her back to the barrier. They worked themselves loose of their own accord, doing only a little further damage on the way out.

It was only after the last piece was out that she realized her hair was down and in her eyes. They'd snapped her pin.

Minuette - no, Minuette was her friend, this was from Jupiter - sashayed out of the darkness with a stallion at her side. Scootaloo recognized him immediately, and made to warn her ally about his ability, but... she didn't know what it was, actually.

The centaurs rushed over to the two, crowding around their hooves before returning to their normal, idle state.

"Hmm, I don't think I've seen you before." Colgate said, leaning forward comically to peer at her enemy.

Neon Lights smirked. "I think I saw her in the CHS library once. Not a student."

"Ooh, Crystal Prep material," she tittered. "She must be pretty good to get in here without the VP eating her." Then the blue unicorn trotted forward and leaned over her, almost crowing. "Issat so, hmmmm?"

Then she saw Moondancer's expression, and her smile faltered.

"That hairpin was a gift from my sister!" she shouted, and threw herself upwards onto her foe, hoof uppercutting.

But then the other-world Minuette, and the rest of Canterlot, moved a hoof to the left, and the punch went wild, slicing empty air.

The smile came back, thinly, and Colgate loosed a hit of her own into the unicorn's barrel. It landed solidly, but then ｢Tragic But Magic｣ was beside them, and her hoof didn't come free.

With a back leg, Moondancer kicked for Colgate's skull, and again things changed just before she could make an impact. Her enemy was a few hooves backwards now, no longer connected by the force of friction between them. As she fell onto her back, her hair was swept out of her face, and she cast a glance at the other of the two.

Neon's eyes were inscrutable behind his sunglasses, but he was smirking himself.

"Did you figure it out?" Colgate asked. "Most ponies would have to get close for ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ to work, but there's no rule that says you can't put it in a bottle and seal it up to use later on."

Moondancer processed that. ｢Jefferson Airplane｣? There had been reports, something from Twilight Velvet, yes, and - the jars!

The user exuded a vapor that gave him control over space itself, it had taken Velvet everything to figure out that it was a limited ability because the range would change based on wind and the environment. Left alone in a room, he would fill it up and became master of everything, but outside there shouldn't have been a problem.

Except for the jars.

Colgate smiled daggers at her. "You won't be able to hurt me now, you know. Even if you could escape ｢Jefferson Airplane｣, your little Stand there didn't look too powerful. By the way, are you both color-coordinating?" She turned to address Scootaloo too, and realized with only seconds to spare that the filly was running right for her.

Scootaloo kept her eyes closed and her head low like a bull's, expecting a nasty impact. ｢Go Zone｣ rose vertically out of her, already on its back hooves and ready to strike.

Oh no she didn't. Colgate's face set in frustration at the sight of that Stand, and her own spindly monstrosity rose out of her. She took a step closer to Neon, hoping to get within his range, and glanced worriedly at the various pieces of ｢Pepper｣ as they crowded around her again. Those could ruin all of it, if their de facto second-in-command decided the fight had gone on long enough.

Moondancer watched the hooves and fists clashing against each other - the battle was  hard-fought, but short, and with a few traded collisions of limb-on-limb their opponent's Stand had taken the advantage. A single, savage strike into ｢Go Zone｣'s barrel and Scootaloo was knocked through the air, tumbling into the grass.

｢Tragic But Magic｣'s connection to Scootaloo began to weaken, and Moondancer clenched her jaw involuntarily. She became deeply aware of her horn, even if most of her arcane knowledge wasn't combat-tested. Neon kept watch over her, waiting for some move, trick or plea.

Finally, she made one, springing directly for him.

It was pointless. He shifted her, and she did it again, and a third time. Her tenacity was unlimited, the fire in her eyes only increasing with each failed attempt! It set his teeth on edge, and it was exactly the reason he considered himself a lover and not a fighter.

Another silent, insistent lunge, and he finally found somewhere to maneuver her. She appeared a few inches over the shattered remains of one of their jars, and let out a half-strangled squeak in answer to the pain.

Colgate waltzed over to Scootaloo, coming just within range of a finishing impact, and then lost her balance, falling over in the grass like someone had taken the trouble to oil it. Scootaloo chuckled breathily, still not up again, looking like she'd been awake for days. It was the face of a person with a semester riding on two big assignments and enough time to do one. Resignation. Gallows humor.

"My ability has a little more range than yours, right now," she said as she stood up again, flexing her wings lightly like squeezing invisible stress-balls. "This'll stall you until my friends blow down your stupid wall."

Colgate's eyes widened. So that was their plan. She tried to struggle back to her hooves and launch another attack, but she couldn't get the ground under her to support her weight. It was like Sombra's magic had worn off, and she'd forgotten how to walk completely.

Still, she laughed a little, mouth closed, as she examined the filly's state. "I bet one more good impact would be enough to knock you out, wouldn't it?"

Scootaloo said nothing.

"I've already hit you. If my Stand touches the ground right in front of me, like this-" her Stand gingerly pressed a flat but bulbous palm to the grass, "Then you'll jump right into my range! ｢January 28, 1986｣!"

Scootaloo smiled, and didn't move.

Colgate made sure that she'd activated it - yes, yes, she had. Why hadn't it worked?

Then Neon yelped from behind her. She didn't have time to turn around, or the ability on her new terrain, but she could hear the whooshing noise. Then Moondancer was flung past her, bumping her shoulder into Scootaloo's side. The filly slid much further than should've been possible, letting the ground take most of the impact, but she still sank toward the grass, huffing.

At least she was out of range, now! Colgate took a moment to make sure that was true before she sprained something, but she was able to stand just fine.

Then she let her Stand free again, and bore down on her new target.

Moondancer had been observing closely, but hadn't known at all what Scootaloo was planning. The filly had stamina and tactical understanding that baffled her, especially here. She had been well-rested, and usually had trouble losing energy when it was completely dark outside, but she felt the fight taking a larger chunk out of her than she realized.

All of this, of course, through the pain in her barrel. The glass hadn't cut deep, because the large shards had been laid flat by gravity, but even they clung to her pelt and her sweater now, inextricable so long as she just had her frogs to pick them out.

Meters away, Scootaloo slumped. ｢Tragic But Magic｣ withdrew, losing its form.

Colgate noticed and seized her opportunity, her Stand's fist whizzing through the air. Moondancer could see it coming, and turned to one side, half cowering. The strike hit her in the shoulder, but it was clean and true, and she tumbled once and flew towards the castle wall.

Before she could make an impact, Colgate muttered, "｢January 28, 1986｣."

Her target came back towards her in freefall, with nothing to latch onto to slow herself. And with a good jab, her momentum was reversed and she flew back towards the wall, helpless as before. Another moment of concentration and her body was rounding back for another round of pain, as Colgate stood patiently and waited for the next moment to strike.

It was a demented game of ping pong, for sure. Moondancer shouted something incoherent neither of the Castle's defenders could hear, and then swung around for her final impact. Neon came closer to Colgate, not quite daring to touch her yet, but enough for his Stand to start enveloping her. They had run out of jars for the moment, but they could always replenish, and if this threat of taking down the defenses were actually true there were thousands of containers to put it in.

He could start a brand.

He watched the spiderlike arm of Colgate's Stand, admiring it in its own way. Her mane smelled of lemons and dish soap, which must have been some enchantment since she'd been thrown out of a window. Or maybe ponies naturally smelled that way...

Moondancer came up, and Colgate readied a real piledriver. She'd gotten bored; this time, she'd let this messy-haired thing hit the wall, hard enough to jellify something.

And then there was a brief flowering of pain in her leg.

Her head snapped down instinctively, and she saw a shard of glass. She only had the time to note what it was before the next one hit, and the next, each one stuttering her own ability to process and react to the hit.

In front of Moondancer was a wave of small pieces of glass, glinting like pebbles in a stream and heading straight for her. She huddled closer to Neon and made herself a smaller target as his Stand washed over her.

The glass entered into ｢Jefferson Airplane｣, and dispersed out of the other side, harmlessly. It took a moment to funnel through, and for the whole time Neon stood patiently, deeply enjoying the feeling of a mare hugging his legs for protection. Then the glass was gone, and he made a mental note not to walk in that direction.

Under them, the centaurs had scampered, filling in the space on the ground between their legs. Both of them felt exhausted, but didn't have the time to tell Sunset to knock it off.

Moondancer came just after, and set down on the ground Colgate had been touching. She looked remarkably alright, and Colgate wondered why she wasn't more visibly bruised. That, and how had she thrown shards of glass without a Stand? Was it something to do with physics, a lucky chance from being thrown back and forth so fast?

｢Tragic But Magic｣ appeared over Moondancer's head, this time done up in blue. It was still a pony, and small even for a pony, but its limbs were thin and ropey, its whole body suggested a caricature of starvation, and its aquamarine color scheme was askew, as if it were a model someone had painted blindly.

Colgate snorted at it. What under Jupiter's clouds had -

Her thought was interrupted as the glass came back, punching into her back legs. She drew next to Neon, yelping, and he closed his eyes in concentration.

Around them, the glass flew, always curving, always returning, always coming back for a second and a third pass. He didn't have enough stamina to combat it at that moment, not forever. All they needed was one good opening, one solid hit and she'd fall unconscious, and the effect would wear off.

"I can't-- hold them off, they're slicing my--" Neon said, his voice drowning out Colgate's thoughts. A shard of glass clunked against his glasses, chipping them before it flew back off into the endless misdirection of his ability.

Colgate looked at Moondancer, standing smugly only a few feet away, just out of reach, just like her friend. Leave safety and come fight me. As if there were any other tricks she could have. A Stand that copied things wasn't a match for someone who had perfected her own ability!

No, this had to be finished now. Colgate drew up to her full height and threw herself away from Neon, willing herself not to be quartered by his Stand and shredded from all sides. Shards hit her, but the fear was worse than the pain, and once it came she was dulled to it. Anyone could walk with a few cuts, let alone make something else throw a fist.

Moondancer backed up a couple of steps, her confidence wavering as Colgate drew closer to her. Both unicorns were wounded, both were tired, but one of them was undeniably more powerful. ｢January 28, 1986｣ bubbled into existence, and it towered over its petty doppelganger.

A juggernaut of a punch started in her Stand's ankles and twisted its way to the fist in a crackle of fierce, whipcrack motion. ｢Tragic But Magic｣ made no effort to move, but its user did. In fact, she was running directly into the attack!

Trying to get close for a punch, probably. Tch. Colgate didn't give it another thought, in the two seconds it lasted.

Then the fist drove home, twisting as it impacted. Again Moondancer threw herself into it, abandoning any chance of a direct hit, and again it impacted on the same spot. This time, though, it was followed by a second jabbing motion, quickly thundering into a barrage of blows.

Colgate strode over to the magical wall and tapped it once, primly, with an outstretched hoof. Her power activated, calling Moondancer to a final, undelayed crash, but ｢January 28, 1986｣ clenched a hand around the base of her neck and hoisted her off of the ground.

The pull became stronger and stronger, pressing in on Moondancer head as the Stand blocked her airway. Her legs kicked and twitched helplessly, and then finally the Stand let go and the world was racing away under her.

This time, there was no delaying her crash. Colgate observed it almost clinically, the hit, the great rippling of defensive magics, and the slump before she'd slid all the way to the ground. Fainted.

Neon, at this point, brought over Scootaloo. Trying to move her a good distance with ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ was unwieldy, so he'd settled for gathering her in his hooves and awkwardly two-stepping back to his compatriot.

"So how're we gonna... go about this?" he asked, a little hesitantly. It was a question on Colgate's mind, too. She'd learned that the filly was a great enough threat to be worth taking out first, but there wasn't much that either of them could do unconsciously, and having a teammate did make her feel much safer.

Was this sweatered, mop-headed pony unconscious, though?

Well, it was possible to fake being knocked out, but there was no way a pony would be able to get up for a few days after a hit like that, unless they were wearing armor. She couldn't have faked the impact or else she would still be moving, and she couldn't have cast anything - even they weren't supposed to, just in case.

She decided.

"Let ｢Pepper｣ drain the little tangerine. I'll finish the adult."

He nodded, but she was already approaching her enemy. And, independently of him, the various centaurs took their own cue and crowded around the unceremoniously fallen body of the filly.


* * *


Roseluck stood with the other gathered humans, staring out onto the city through an impermeable shield. Ponies were coming for them, they'd been told, but only after minutes of uncomfortable silence did they see any sign.

It was difficult for her to know who was who - she had mostly stayed in her group, but she was the only one of the trio to pass over. To be perfectly honest, she was hoping to be assigned to the bit of the shield that overlooked the gardens, especially now that she knew it was basically her destiny to tend to them. The marks were one of the best parts of visiting this place, as far as she was concerned - they clarified all of the little niggling questions that a high schooler was bound to happen. She felt solid here, even if it was only by comparison.

A wave of ponies marched up. Everyone gathered on her side of the shield had learned basic marches in middle school, and knew they were conserving energy. This was still a siege, for a little while. A great number of them flew, more than she'd been expecting, and perched directly on top of the shield, staring down at them hawkishly.

It made her nervous, but she knew it was irrational. It wasn't like they could break it open by putting weight on it, and it did cover the whole territory. She knew her own group could pass through, but the process seemed unwise the closer the main contingent came to them.

Unlike the pegasi, they stopped completely a few meters from the shield, like they might have been reconsidering their whole plan. If only she were so lucky.

Beside her, Smith and Cloud Kicker called out their Stands. She had never used hers, personally - her work had mostly been observation and trespassing, making sure that no one came up with a way to overthrow the new monarchy in their basement.

In her defense, she'd only had a day to start out, and then everything had gone belly-up. There was only so much of a city a person could search in a day, especially if they didn't have a magic wand attached to their forehead.

At the fore of the opposing group were two ponies, one gaunt and ghoulish in a great big coat, and the other a dark yellow with poofy black hair and a little vest. She didn't recognize any counterparts for either of them back on Jupiter, but that didn't surprise her.

If anyone else knew who they were, they didn't shout it out either. Probably they weren't looking at the crowd as a selection of individuals, just thinking about it as a collection of forty or fifty ponies with a couple spoonfuls of pegasi thrown in. That was an elementary mistake - Rose had made more than enough bouquets to understand that every group was really just an impression left by putting a bunch of individuals close enough together.

She tried to pick out someone's face, anyone's. Most of them were unfamiliar, or the light just wasn't strong enough to make them out and get a definite sense of color. That irked her as much as the threat of the shield coming down, although she knew both were pretty silly.

There! In the back, past a few other heads, she made out a hairstyle and a skin color that were unmistakable. It was someone from Canterlot High, though not a student. And not as easygoing or sweet as Rose was used to. No, she was decidedly very nervous, with a grimness to her eyes that clashed with the mellow phlox of her body.

Cheerilee didn't seem to notice she was being stared at.


* * *


Coco desperately needed to stall for time. The mirror, swirling with magic she could feel across the room, felt more and more like some kind of furnace the closer she came to it. Magical items that were already around must not have been affected by Luna's Stand - otherwise, how was the barrier still up.

Luna looked terribly unregal in her anger, and a few hooves taller, her nostrils flared and her eyes fixed on Coco, waiting for any sign of motion. It terrified Coco to imagine that the other world might have its own Princesses ready to overtake them, but whatever she was, there was no chance of actually doing damage to her. It seemed just as impossible to get her through the portal, especially from any distance.

She considered tying them together and pulling her through the portal, but didn't know if that would even work. Maybe her Stand would work differently there, or they'd appear in different places far away from each other, or something would go wrong. Her Stand probably could have kicked it over and smashed it into pieces - that always seemed to work in stories about magical glass - but...

She had to know if Rarity was still in the castle, first.

The black sludge coiled up around Luna's shoulder like a viper and struck. ｢Something for Nothing｣ responded automatically, headbutting Coco in the abdomen and piledriving her away.

Unfortunately, the sludge followed after her, changing its direction in mid-air and darting after her like a piece of living calligraphy. There was room left before the throne wall, but not enough to lead any merry chases.

She knew from that moment that she was going to be caught in that well of inky despair again, and she pushed that certainty from her mind, kicking off of the wall and racing for the thrones again. The Stand was faster than hers, doubtless, but if she could distract the user it shouldn't matter!

Luna hadn't moved, just watching as Coco came close enough to check the thrones again, only to need to abandon them immediately. Even a fruitless search was too lucky for this pony!

A ribbon of fabric lashed out and whipped at the blackness, immediately becoming corrupted. It snapped away as Coco hopped from the throne platform, and then her Stand carried her in the air, its front legs underneath of hers.

It was almost comical. She was heading back in Luna's direction now - there was nowhere else to go, now that she'd backed herself up against the far wall - and the former Vice-Principal flew the meet her, crossing half the distance in a couple seconds' wingbeats. The feeling was privately exhilarating, and the pony's slow, exhausted pace made it easy to rush up on her - ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ from behind, and the goddess of night at the front.

No, there was still room for a last-moment drop to the floor. Her horn glowed as she slowed her approach and summoned more of her power, holding the pony still in the air and sending another snaking oiliness after her. Both of them circled around her, anticipating some extra trap or trick, and Luna lowered herself to the ground, finding the sensation of telekinesis and flight at the same time a little overwhelming for her first time in mortal combat.

She expected to see some mask of fear, or loathing, some final spittle against her from a creature who had never seen a truly overpowering force.

Instead, the pony stared back at her calmly, dangling from the air. "When that barrier comes down, they're going to defeat everypony you have here. Sombra won't be able to save you! We'll make sure that all of you go back to Jupiter!"

Big words, a final attempt at a boast. The magic keeping the building locked down was rooms away, and to get to it this pony would have to escape the room she was already in and evade Luna's own ability. In her passage to this new land she'd been given a brief introduction to alicorn magic, and knew that even the strongest of illusions and tricks would not deter her sight, nor the most devastating blasts of power do more than temporarily inconvenience her. She couldn't be outpaced even if the whole building were brought down on her head.

The pile of blankets which had crashed through the stained glass were flying through the air, just inside of a blind spot. She drew in a breath, turned to them and flexed her magical muscles. A new spell burst into existence, invented for the moment, a cutting wind that tore them to ribbons.

Tatters blew around her, sticking to her legs ineffectually, still enveloped in their own pockets of magic. She turned her eyes back to the pony above her.

Coco smiled. Time, a little more time!

It took the new Princess a moment to notice that the smile, even though it was frozen in the air, was getting very slightly further away.

Then she felt it, something she almost didn't notice by its natural familiarity. Her hooves were sinking into a circle of ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣!

In her shock, her magic faltered, and ｢Something for Nothing｣ lifted its user upwards, bearing her towards the high red-and-gold ceilings and away from her thrashing enemy.


* * *


Colgate came closer steadily, her Stand out and ready for funny business. Neon wasn't with her - he was keeping his field in the filly's general area, just to make sure there were no tricks on her end before she got drained completely.

Ponies were tougher than she had imagined - there was still no real bruising, and the sweater was intact. Still, she herself hadn't survived a drop from a second-story window unscathed; it couldn't take more than a few decisive blows to crack one of their skulls.

Moondancer laid perfectly still, glasses painfully askew, the whole of her face itching in the unnatural night air.

Colgate came a hair from closing the distance, and then, instead, stopped completely. "No," she murmured to herself, "Too easy." Then she turned her head back to her companion and flung some words at him. "Do you have anything else sharp?"

He shook his head. Colgate retreated from Moondancer's body, sideways, heading for the wall. After a moment's inspection she plucked a half-broken jar up, one fragment of more than sixty percent of the original. Its teeth were beyond jagged. Once she saw it, she calmed down. That would be her ace in the hole, an unblockable direct hit.

She stopped herself. No... Glass hadn't done much damage before. She didn't let her Stand imprint on what she was holding, letting it drop impotently back onto the grasses of the Castle lawn. What she needed was close at hand, though - where the grass gave way to a path, her Stand worked at the largest cobblestone it could find, tearing it from the road. It was three times larger than her head, and its heft felt like enough to crush a pumpkin.

Moondancer resisted the urge to shift positions. From under her hair she watched the mare go about this whole ritual, perfectly impassive. Scootaloo was helpless nearby, still actually knocked out, and they might have been killing her. If only she knew the user of that orange Stand - what had they called it? ｢Pepper｣?

Colgate nodded to herself, setting the stone back down. Now, she was safe, or as safe as one could expect to be in a direct fight. She swept any further concerns from the palace of her mind, choosing action in the moment over the anxiety of infinite preparation. When she came at her enemy this time it was in a rush of hooves, eager to get the whole thing over with.

｢January 28, 1986｣ drew up a fist to throw straight downwards, and Moondancer jumped - literally - into action.

Colgate reared back as the mare shoved off from her position on the wall and bridged the gap between them in a single second, hoof pulled back for a punch. How?! It was impossible for her Stand to reposition itself and then make a direct shot, but it could at least knock her out of the -

Moondancer's hoof connected with Colgate's chin in a single, noisy uppercut. The mare's bottom lip scrunched upwards as her body pulled up and away, finding no sanctuary from the attack. This close she could see Moondancer's eyes, eyes that seemed like they could never have been knocked unconscious.

A blue fist intervened, and Moondancer went tumbling. This time she didn't pretend to be knocked out, just dusting herself off and standing up again.

"Why aren't you taking damage?!" Colgate screamed. "I'm getting direct hits on you every time!"

Moondancer kept a poker face. "Magic."

"Your magic can't work inside of the Castle, it's part of ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣'s ability!"

So that was the Stand name...

"You're right that I can't cast anything, but that power did nothing about the magic I already had around me. It was the kind of defense that could only react to what happened in the here and now, and not the kind that cared about history, so it completely missed my enchantments." She straightened her glasses smugly.

Enchantments that kept her safe? Colgate consulted her accelerated learning in magic until a rebuttal spat out. "Enchantments like that would only work on objects! You would've had to bring a shield with you!"

Moondancer raised an eyebrow, and continued slowly, dramatically dusting off her sweater. "I made sure to keep my outfit ready for emergencies. I can't use it like a helmet without getting suspicious, but it protects most of my vitals."

Colgate seethed at how utterly unfun her violence had become. "You really did run into them on purpose! ...It doesn't matter. Now that I know, you're still doomed! I'm not getting close enough to give you another chance. My Stand will settle this for me instead, before you can get close enough to lay another finger on me!"

Moondancer stood still. "So will mine."

"Not before your head caves in! And if you think you can do something tricky like change the stone to target me instead, you don't know the first thing about ｢January 28, 1986｣!"

The slab of stone lifted from its seat of earth, pulled up and animated by the Stand's gravity. Once it whizzed past Colgate it would be as good as done.

Moondancer smiled, casting her hair back with a hoof. "You've got it backwards. I don't want to stop that rock; in fact, I want it to head this way! It looks like you underestimated the power of ｢Tragic But Magic｣!"

Colgate's jaw set at that mockery - and then clenched, tightly, as her hooves left the ground.

Neon saw too, but he was too late to stop it.

After the initial shock, she laughed in raw disbelief at... at the nerve. "I'll just smash you with my Stand before it comes to crush you, then! You won't be able to use any other tricks with brain damage!"

But there was one thing that Colgate had not considered! One thing which, though she had believed it in the moment, did not shine through to her as she prepared her strike! Of the two Stands, ｢January 28, 1986｣ was undoubtedly the stronger one!

Moondancer could see it, even though the blue unicorn couldn't wrench herself around in the air to get a glimpse herself. ｢Tragic But Magic｣'s ability was to take most of the power of a Stand, not all of it, and the slippage was clear when two objects were on the same trajectory.

Colgate felt the rock collide into her back, plowing her forward faster than she'd been moving, directly for Moondancer herself. Its momentum argued with hers and won out, and she zipped past her Stand, forcing it to dissipate limply at the edge of her range.

Moondancer drew her sweater up over her face. She looked ridiculous.

Colgate screamed against the wind, and collided.

A moment frozen, a mare sandwiched between a headbutt and a junior boulder. A few nasty snaps, and suddenly the rock forgot its directions completely, and collapsed back to the Earth. Colgate fell onto her back wetly, and ｢Tragic But Magic｣ lost its form, dissolving back into its potential.

Moondancer worked her neck back through the hole, and immediately stepped over her combatant, heading for her associate.

Neon Lights stared at her.


* * *


The Vice-Principal splashed for a moment in her own ability, bobbing against it, before she finally threw one of her hooves over the lip of the circle and climbed out. Whatever  laid at the bottom of the chasms it created, she was completely unaware of it.

Dripping with ichor, she glanced up towards the ceiling to get a fix on the target's new location. It was empty.

She cast an eye to the door, and it was ajar! Only slightly, but opened from inside of the room! It was possible that she might not have heard or recognized the sound in the ruckus of using her new abilities, but for a pony to open that door while fighting with her...?

No, perhaps it was merely left open when Sunset Shimmer had left to go deal with the rest of the troops. But where would the pony be hiding? Had she traveled through the portal in some ultimate act of escape?

That, at least, could be known. A flicker of magic over the surface and she knew instantly that it hadn't been used since she'd come through. Outside, then.

She moved towards the doors, throwing them open completely with her magic. The hallway to the throne room was only slightly curved, and she could traverse it in seconds anyway. There definitely hadn't been enough time for this pony to make it deep into the castle. Even if she somehow knew the true source of the magic, it would take her a couple minutes more to reach it and shut it off.

But outside, the hall was barren. There were no guards, no troops, no foes, only the yawning air. There weren't even alcoves large enough for a pony to hide in, not for this stretch. If this pony had been moved along by her Stand and ducked into the first door she found, maybe then she would've escaped.

If that were a plausible idea, though, she could be anywhere. Luna felt the force of ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ and considered changing its condition, making it something like "having beige fur" or "wearing clothes" just so it would ensnare the rabble immediately.

...No. Opening herself up to enemy magic was unwise. This pony may have come with allies, and if not there was still some way that she got inside. Luna dismissed the deeper aspect of her power, gritted her teeth and summoned her magic again, this time creating a spell that would show her all of the ponies in the building and their locations. It swept out from her in a wave of frothy blue, and then she had it.

...Wh-what?!

There was a pony down the hallway, in fact at the very point she'd been worried about! But it wasn't the one she'd been fighting, the signature was different, the size. Co-conspirators!

Before she could react any further, a kick landed like a missile directly on her withers. Something cracked.

Coco Pommel had slowed her descent only slightly, but the impact transferred all the force of her fall into the Princess. She had wanted to stay covered on the ceiling, a further extension of their game of keepaway, but she couldn't have risked it.

Luna spread her wings and threw Coco off, but the mare only fell into a tightly-stretched piece of linen and catapulted back, striking the base of a wing this time. There was a grunt of legitimate pain, and then she was being held in that field of telekinesis again, robbed of free movement.

Then, before either of them could make another move, both felt something. A thunderous vibration that seemed to rattle the castle floor itself, coming from outside. Luna darted to a window, leaving Coco held in her magic, and saw great circles of emptiness engorging themselves on the stuff of the magical wall. Where it had glittered with arcane inscrutability, now it dissipated.

The alicorn had been correct about the strength of her magic. Spellcraft did not need to be learned for her, as long as it was combative, for more positive magics would've been the bailiwick of her sister. Her abilities could not truly be tested, and her body would not be harmed by any power or artifact that the ponies of Canterlot had close to hoof. In flight she would outrace them, in magic she would outcast them, and in raw strength she could outlast every member of the city.

But there was a magic she had not counted on! Indeed, a field of magic which could threaten to transcend and overpower even the wrath of an alicorn! Against all circumstances it railed, with the burning intensity of its practitioners behind it!

Yes, that very magic was the magic of friendship!

From Princess Celestia's royal bedroom, ｢Misery Business｣ finished smashing the complex-looking glass globe which Luna had thought about, in the seconds when Coco  had asked her where the power was being controlled from. Snatching it from those thoughts had been the most difficult part of her task, laying hidden in the pile of fabric and waiting for an opportunity to dart to the barrier's true controls.

Beside her, both Princesses and the limp body of Rarity laid, stacked next to each other on the bed like cordwood. Her Stand carefully ground the larger remaining pieces to dust, and she bit her lip, hoping that their other allies hadn’t been intercepted by something they couldn’t handle.

Luna watched as the first line of defense fell, and the siege came to an end.

Outside, ponies charged.

｢To Be Continued｣

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣
User: Vice-Principal Luna
Stats
Power: A
Speed: A
Range: B (A for Automatic ability)
Durability: D
Precision: C
Potential: D
Abilities: A cloud of ichorous ooze which sticks to skin, and manifests bad and traumatic memories for those caught inside of it. Its secondary, Automatic ability activates when ponies in range fall into a category or condition set by the user, at which point a large pit of ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ appears directly underneath of them, pulling them out of the world itself.

Stand Name: ｢Tragic But Magic｣
User: Moondancer
Stats
Power: E
Speed: E
Range: E
Durability: E
Precision: E
Potential: S
Abilities: When the user knows the name of a Stand, has seen its effects, and has identified its user by sight, ｢Tragic But Magic｣ can take the diluted form of that Stand. In this state, the user gains an intimate knowledge of the workings of the original Stand, and is able to use a strictly inferior version of its abilities. Physical power and durability are not carried over in this process, though other attributes are. This ability only works for one Stand at a time, and ends automatically if the user of the original Stand moves too far away or falls unconscious.
> Fight For Your Right
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zesty stood with her people, most of them unicorns, staring out onto the barrier as it collapsed in on itself. She was at the fore, potentially the first to take some kind of damage, the most vulnerable of all her forces. This was as it had been for all of military history - the leaders worth remembering had been such masterful ponies that they could stand with their whole armies behind them and still have no fear.

Not that she really had any great love for history, or the adoration of its scrawlers and scribblers. Or that, as a mare of total culture, she was in any way unaware of the incredible magical power most of those leaders had, such that they were more like indestructible ornaments or walking storms than actual combatants. Her Stand offered her some measure of that omnipotent security, but she resisted the urge to summon it up.

The few assembled on the other side were definitely a motley crew, but they couldn't be underestimated. She looked for some hint of any of them activating their abilities, and found no sudden movements or flashes of glinting light. Their abilities were still sheathed, then.

Most were familiar to her from reports. One she had seen previously, a wrinkled green mare with years of extra weight to throw around, who peered back at her dimly. Zesty's mind centered on her, summoning up whatever she could recall of their encounter - but they had never fought directly.

She sighed, and wished that Twinkleshine had been suitable to join them. She was still running communications from inside of the tortoise, but her messages were largely pointless now. If things went south, she would keep a chronicle through her power of what they had all done this day.

Not yet...

Cheese tensed beside her at the moment the magic broke and fizzled. It happened in small sections and expanded outward, and he stood on the fronts of his hooves with unconcealed excitement. The pegasi, who had been patiently waiting for their opportunity, swept inside, keeping some distance and judging their angles of attack like circling hawks. A couple had already commandeered nearby clouds, hoping to wring a burst of lightning out.

Not yet...

Everything was oiled and behaving, a true managerial dream, and the enemy was still in shock when there was enough of an opening to pass through. It was the only luck she was going to have, more than she could have asked for in the mess of fluctuating morale trailing behind her.

Now.

"Straight ahead!" she shouted, with a voice unused to the volume, and in that moment her words were the only things that anyone heard at the Castle. "We enter those doors or we die! ｢Chop Suey｣!"

Her Stand appeared, ripping tufts of soft earth and chunks of hard pavement to sustain itself, circling in the air and capturing the attentions of the Jovians as they each readied their own abilities instinctively. They didn't bother to ask what her next move would be, only to wait for the ball of random matter to move.

Which is why she barreled ahead, with Cheese at her side.

The earth ponies and unicorns behind her, who had been waiting for some signal and nervously feinting towards their foes for several seconds now, leapt after them into the fray.


* * *


Coco was still held in the grip of the goddess, and this time ｢Something for Nothing｣ didn’t materialize beside her with some great rescuing impact. She hung there, snout to snout, having her soul stared into, and she began to wonder if passing through that portal wouldn’t have been a wiser strategy after all.

Despite the fact that her journey was based on undoing everything he’d wrought, Coco had never bothered thinking far enough ahead as to what her final encounter with Sombra would be like. She had heard stories about him, about his defeat by the establishing of the Crystal Heart at the center of the Empire, but had assumed she would be able to worry about it as it happened, if she really made it that far. Harmony was on her side now, but it wasn’t a match for an alicorn.

Even in this grip her thoughts drifted absurdly to Tartarus, to the Empire, and to the unfought battles which still lay ahead. She had hoped never to really meet her match until the very end, when she would have every possible advantage the quest could give her, all the experience she woud need. Here, there was no chance of victory, or stalemate.

Diamond was already making her way out of the room, and she wouldn’t be heading back to the throne room if she valued her life. Escape was the first priority, then.

While she was thinking this, Luna’s horn glowed, briefly, and Coco’s leg snapped.

She cried out with the pain involuntarily, feeling the break as cleanly as if she’d really made that fall back in Manehattan. It was her right back leg, and it consumed her for a moment, blotting out the world trying to translate itself into vision. Her cry was strangled, and it fell away into silence as some other bit of magic ripped it from her.

Luna let out a grunt of animal satisfaction, and the aura focused on one of Coco’s front hooves, waiting to make another wet wrench. It was true that the defenses had been breached, that the VP had been distracted, that she had in some sense been bested by the first enemy she’d come across, but she still had the pleasures of omnipotence. Coco looked on this time at that magical glow, helpless to stop it behind the pain-signals of her first injury.

“｢Misery Business｣!” the cry came from behind Luna, and she wheeled in time to see the oddly-pointed pink hoof reach her. The impact sent her flying across the throne room, but her magic remained untouched; Coco floated in the air where she’d been.

“Diamond?!” Coco gasped, as at least some of the magic drew away from her. “You have to get out of here, it’s not-”

Of course, Diamond saw exactly what Coco hadn’t wanted her to. “She broke your leg. I won’t stand for that.”

No sooner had she finished that sentence than Diamond was also surrounded by a blue field of magic and carried aloft into the air of the throne room. ｢Misery Business｣ swept her up in its front legs, trying to carry her away from the influence of the still downed Princess, but the field merely followed her, keeping her from descending toward the ground.

"It's not going to work!" Coco said, and then the magic threw her in a blur of cream, tumbling into the far wall. Diamond saw the impact, how it came fast enough that Coco didn't have time to conjure up a landing pad, and took real damage.

Her attention turned to the mock Princess, who was undamaged and righting herself. The magic drew the filly closer, and her Stand steered her with it, winding up for another strike.

"How can I defeat you?" she asked, and it hardly sounded like a question.

Luna spoke, her sense of silent vengeance slipping out of anger. "You cannot." A small pink child of a horse would not be interrogating her, that level of indignity was more than she'd endured even on Jupiter!

Diamond watched, and tried to perceive beyond the limits of her Stand, to the thoughts beneath thoughts that it might, in moments of utter desperation, plunge itself into. But nothing came, no words unspeakable, no thoughts that couldn't be shared. She didn't know if it was the alicorn's nature to be immune to her powers, but unlike Cheese she didn't feel the oppressive force of the mind itself pushing away her inspection.

No, it was as if the Princess simply had no hidden depths to be investigated. She didn't believe that sharing her plans would make any difference.

Diamond had always been afraid of Nightmare Moon, and had considered it strange how little discussion the return of the real Princess Luna had garnered. She stayed indoors on Nightmare Night, and was glad for it when she learned that the Princess herself had decided to harass the townsfolk for half of the evening. As if she cared enough about candy to risk her life!

But it was odd for her, to be moving towards this impression of the Princess so fearlessly. Distant compartments of her mind may have squirmed in squeamish dread at the threat, but their voices came far away across valleys and rivers of experience, and from the beginning she had been ready to take on the Princesses themselves to achieve her ambitions.

The filly swooped in with a burst of energy as she drew within range, letting her Stand separate from her as they came towards Luna on both sides. The scissor attack was as perfectly executed as a chess move - Luna would try to deflect the Stand from experience, assuming that a filly's kick would do no lasting harm, and then Diamond's kick would stagger her while her Stand merely feinted and came in while she was staggered!

Then a flash of light, and Coco appeared between ｢Misery Business｣ and Luna, hanging in the air with her head spinning. Diamond froze, both with her Stand and in mid-air as Luna stopped moving her. Coco met her eye and shook her head, and Diamond saw a motherly firmness to the mare's features, even as back hoof dangled out of the normal angle. Maybe Zesty would have some sort of healer.

Diamond recalled ｢Misery Business｣, and it swept back to her, pushing her away from Luna's influence. Again the magic lingered around her but didn't trip or pull her, like a slack rope tied around her soul. She hoped that the slack would keep up - there was something else she could do in this room, at least, and it was destroy the mirror-portal that was drawing all of these unsavory types to her universe.

Then another burst of magic, and she felt a rush around her whole body that threatened to make her sick, only for things to switch like slides in a projector and her to be back where she was. She felt the tingle of magic across herself, and realized that she'd just been teleported, herself.

In front of her Luna, who hadn't moved for any of this, drew her closer. Now the pull was back and tight, cinched around her heartbeat and knotted out of her own muscle. She couldn't have struggled against it even if she'd had the strength of her Stand in each leg - it was a feeling of utter oppression, the force of another's will cascading onto her like the weight of a mountain.

Behind the Princess, the ominous black mass of her Stand drew itself up, coming out of her aura like the cloak of a dark witch in some gruesomely oudated bedtime story. As it caped and covered her, Diamond recognized it, and felt it waiting to devour her with viperish anticipation.

Then, a crash! From the windows came the pegasi, tumbling as best as they could against showers of shattered glass and into the room. Diamond recognized all of them, though not many by name; she'd never had a reason to speak to weatherworkers, or them to her.

Some got their bearings faster than others, and when they saw the Princess each became an army of one. Some swooped towards her, while others approached Diamond and Coco, or hung back entirely, checking for some key piece of information they didn't feel themselves to have yet. Almost none of them were likely to have combat experience, and yet their mere presence rang out in the face of the filly's predicament!

Luna flexed her will, and the magical force stretched out, suspending all of the pegasi like the air had been replaced with some kind of gelatin. How had they come here so quickly after the fall of her first defenses? Surely most of the ponies might know the location of the throne room, but why did they expect her to be there with such fervor that they threw themselves through the windows?

Understanding this was the least of her worries at just that moment; as the aura of blue settled across the wide room, her magic became something shaky, and wavered. She could tell why just by listening to her own instincts: there were a couple of dozen targets now, and without the right sort of training she couldn't focus on all of them! Her mind was being stretched in too many directions, preparing for too much fine manipulation.

She grit her teeth as her magic retreated, slightly, and some of them dipped in the air before their wings began to flap again. She would have to end them quickly, to prevent any news being spread that she still needed to learn her abilities.

"Her magic's too weak to control all of you! She doesn't have enough control to use it on a lot of ponies yet!" Diamond shouted for all the room to hear, and for the annoyance Luna used some of her reserve to silence her. "Don't let the black shadow behind her t-!" The filly's mouth moved and made no noise.

Enough had gotten through, clearly. The pegasi who could move rallied themselves, and the goddess refocused her attention on her Stand.


* * *


Neon stumbled back as Moondancer approached, and then remembered himself. "D-don't come any closer! I still have the little one hostage!" It didn't sound as much like a threat as he'd been hoping; the words came out as if he were asking for help with a problem, and she continued moving as if she were determined to fix it for him.

What were his options? It was true that the shield had just come down, and that opened up the terrain, although he wouldn't be able to defend the Castle properly if he got too far away. The best he could do in that vein would be a long game of keep-away, hoping that the city would help him lose her so he could double-back. If Sunset knew that he was doing that, he had a feeling ｢Pepper｣ would drain him dry automatically.

Half of the centaurs had already quietly cantered to Colgate's body, sucking up what they could. He tried not to look, if just so he could anticipate some lunge from the wild-haired mare loping towards him.

The other option that came to mind was to cut his losses. The filly was what she was after, probably, and if he couldn't use her to get out alive, then he could sacrifice her. One less combatant, and maybe it would be a blow to his enemy's morale. Two birds.

He needed to calm down about being struck; for this moment he would be fine, even if the mare was still copying Colgate's Stand, because she'd never managed to touch him. But if the defenses were down, that meant ponies could be coming to help her right this instant, and that was worth preparing for. He gathered up all of the patches of his Stand that were still active enough in the night air to hold something, trying to give himself as large a protected area as possible with the fickle movements of his ability.

The filly appeared in front of him, and Moondancer changed her trajectory with the moment, turning to look him straight in the eye. She was worn out, he could tell, and whatever her power let her do, if she copied him it wouldn't help her very much. His thoughts almost turned to the offensive; if he could just find a way to strike her beneath that sweater...

"If you let her go right now, then I'll let you leave," she said, and her eyes bore through his soul. Even with a hoof resting above the skull of the sleeping filly, ready to punch downwards with all of gravity's cruelty, he could not feel an advantage. It was like seeking a handhold on a perfectly smooth cliff-face!

"Your Stand can't do anything to get to me!" he said. "If you try to get any closer, I'll just move those shards of glass underneath of her!" The thought hadn't existed in his mind until after he'd spoken it, but as it occurred to him he realized that he really could pull it off. And if he could coax her that little bit further into his range, he would be able to deal with both of them!

Moondancer looked almost bored, as if he were a disappointing dinner date, or he was forcing her to explain a joke. She stepped forwards without any provocation, entering the outermost layer of his ability! She probably didn't even notice that he'd extended it, just judging a safe distance in her head under the influence of her dizzy victory and her exhaustion!

"I warned you! ｢Jefferson Airplane｣!" he said, and the filly reappeared in the air chunk by chunk. The glass was easier to move, shards coming all at once from where the shield had stood. He automatically prepared where she would head if she ran forward, directly into the glass and facing away from him - the most disorienting position he could manage.

But Moondancer didn't rush forward as the filly fell. Instead, her horn lit up.

At Neon's hooves, the glass glowed for a moment and transformed into a small patch of balloons. The filly fell into them harmlessly, and they provided her cover as they hovered just over the grass.

He balked. They hadn't been warned that unicorns could do that.

Moondancer rushed forward, and the patch of ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ appeared behind her just as her hooves left the ground. But she wasn't anywhere near it a moment later, facing it as she ripped Scootaloo from the grass. The pool lingered, as if it were unsure of what direction to take.

But she was only a couple feet away now, and in the center of his ability! Apart from a few balloons, she had no defenses against him now, and she'd summoned up her own defeat! He changed the flow of his Stand, so that all directions she took would stumble her directly into that bubbling darkness, and waited for her to spin around and try to make some attack on him. If she stalled for time somehow, he could just drop both of them in one at a time!

Moondancer lowered her head, like she was gathering the energy to cast something truly nasty. Her energy focused in her horn, and Neon felt his job becoming even easier. He gathered his own strength, ready to dump her in as soon as she threatened to actually hurt him. It would take a while to use ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ again, but if it defeated her he could gather Colgate and get inside toward safe ground.

The mare thrusted her head up with her whole body, like jumping and stopping at the last second, sending her horn lancing upwards. A balloon popped, and in the same motion another behind it popped, and another. She spun and continued, as if her life depended on it. Neon stood there watching her, completely confused. Had she snapped the rest of the way now?

Then she spun, met his eyes, and in the same turn threw her hoof right for his face. It was a move too far towards desperation, and ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ carried it away with the rest of her into the abyss.

Or it should have.

As her hoof connected with him and shattered one lens of his sunshades, he realized what she’d done. The balloons had been conjured full of gas, and when she let it out it had created a safe pocket to move in.

He tried to move her now, but his effort had been expended. The centaurs were clearly finished with her, and now moved towards the current fray; he could see them as he stumbled backwards. Still, he reached out before she could make a second attack, and moved himself away from her range.

When he appeared he was flanking her again, which was good, and he had the Castle to his back so he didn’t need to worry about an attack from behind as much. The mare wasn’t moving, hadn’t even turned around to search for him - she just stared outward onto the city. He reached out with his power, ready to vanish away those pesky bubbles of air, when he felt something cold and wet around his hooves.

He’d forgotten, but just as he’d commanded, all directions had led to the pit.

Although he would never know it, Moondancer had, in fact, copied his ability. ｢Tragic But Magic｣ had made it possible to position those pockets of air around herself instead of letting them disperse, and it had given her an inkling of where each step would send her.

She didn’t turn until she felt it fade, and the hole had closed up, satisfied.


* * *


Smith had been waiting for a day like this for most of her lifetime without ever knowing it, and now it was here, she cackled into the wind. She’d always been a kindly sort, and age had put an end to her tussling, but her farm had been waiting for a good long while for the wrong sort of suit to show up and ask the wrong questions. It had been what she’d taught her son, and what he’d taught her grandchildren.

No, time hadn’t been kind to her. It had left her alone, renamed, and then swept away so many of Bismarck’s smarter investments. She’d had to turn a life of skills in the kitchen into something even humbler, and spend her days preparing food for brats in something so big it had no right to be called a school. Colleges were smaller, in her day.

So for her, when the time finally came that things ceased making sense altogether, it was no great surprise.

The ponies were charging, coming upon them in waves with something tall and thin yelling at the front. There was a great commotion above them, and Smith swerved her neck to make sure that they weren't being bombarded. Above, the winged critters were crashing into the upper windows, right next to a large banner.

Even with her eyes she could read it fine, blue words on vanilla linen: "JUPITER LUNA HERE NEED HELP". Someone's Stand, a faceless distant cream thing, vanished from one end. The sign was effective; the ones who could fly were all heading straight for it. Smith picked one at random and flung out ｢Strange Fruit｣.

The lasso sailed through the air from her side, stretching out further than anyone in her family had ever thrown it, but landing true around that bluish abdomen. Some of the two-tone mane got caught in the fibers, and it tightened nice and easy, yanking her straight out of the sky.

A few of the other winged ones had to put a hold on their plans and dip around, looking for some way to help her. Most of them didn't look like they could even see the rope! Smith chuckled at the expressions she could make out, the sudden worry and fear as she plucked one out of the flock. It was easier than wrangling back home had ever been, that was for sure.

Just then the other ponies were approaching, all ferocious eyes and stomping legs, a whole army without the soldiers. The flower girl was nearby, and she made eye contact with someone or other, shouting the name of her own bit of magic into the din of the battle. That athletic type who'd been kicking a soccer ball in the lunchroom one too many times did the same, and started to fight back herself. About time.

Beside Smith, Roseluck was having her own struggle, one with aiming her ability. The wealth of targets precluded any easy selection, and there was no one pony that it would make the most sense to go after besides the leader, who was already close to barreling through them all.

The florist dove sideways to get in her way, summoning up ｢November Rain｣ and waiting for eye contact, but the gaunt and deathly-looking quadruped didn't give her the time of day. Her companion, maybe some sort of frizzy-haired lieutenant, bounded alongside her as the coat flapped behind her like a set of leather wings.

A piece of debris detached itself from the rolling midair mass which Roseluck had torn her eyes from, and pelted straight for her. She scrabbled backwards on her hooves like she was backing into a wall, and a chunk of concrete missed her skull narrowly as another one swept downwards and arced into her side.

She lurched to one side, expecting a third strike, but the next piece went zipping for another one of her comrades - a friend, Cloud Kicker.

"Cloud!" Rose shouted over the movement and rabble, and made herself heard. Cloud turned in the direction of the noise, and their eyes caught one-another's, and then the world rippled around them and became looser.

｢November Rain｣ was good at stopping things from smashing into each other; it forced things to be one-on-one, and Roseluck enjoyed it for that. Although many might have snickered at the phrasing, she always considered her calling to be the creation of intimacy between people. The takeaway of this was that Cloud Kicker only flinched at the speeding piece of rock and wasn't clipped by it; if the leader of the rebellion had been paying attention to her targets, it would've seemed as if Cloud had simply disappeared.

Roseluck surveyed the battlefield, looking for some good opportunity of attack, some decent target that wouldn't be mobbed by someone stronger, and again her eyes rested on Cheerilee. It was surreal to see her here, in a world of talking horses and dragons, to see anything as blase as a Social Studies teacher in a land full of magic. The purple pony kept to the back of the mob, and she hadn't tried to pass through yet.

A unicorn came through, and phased through Rose unknowingly as she made her way toward the doors. She was mostly gray, with a mane streaked with white and purple and a look of hard-set determination, and the florist considered her for a moment.

"I'll handle her!" Cloud Kicker said, following the turn of Rose's head and already wingbeats away.

A nod, and the world shuffled back into existence around them, covering the recent pegasus with a full-body sensation of being immersed in fresh air. She dove after the graying mare as she galloped on, but her lunge came up short. Another, following after the bobbing tip of the mare's tail, and Cloud was able - just - to grab it in her teeth and hold on like a tin can on a wedding limousine.

Twilight didn't turn around, but overhead Blossomforth swept down and towards the wrinkly green mare who was somehow ripping her volunteers out of the sky. Smith saw her coming, and although Blossomforth couldn't see whatever she was doing, she made out the charades of spinning and throwing a lasso and ducked out of the way on instict.

｢Strange Fruit｣ kept traveling, snagging one of the ponies in the rearguard of the stampede, and caught him easily. Perfect Pace's hooves all wrenched at once against the ground as he felt the rope tighten around himself and looked down at it, feeling his body already starting, in some way he didn't have a reference for, to change. A couple of ponies stopped and turned back for him, and the rest moved on.

At the head of the pack Cheese and Zesty continued moving, leaving even the safe range of defense that ｢Chop Suey｣ normally offered. She chose consciously to put off recalling it, not wanting to diminish the chaos for a moment; if she could control every aspect of this battle, all of the commonfolk of Canterlot and Jupiter would still be fighting in this courtyard until the ending had been determined. It would be a sudden and evasive entrance without stealth!

Unfortunately, that easy victory, a win without fighting, was not in the cards for Zesty Gourmand.

The doors flung themselves open, and behind them stood a single pony, an orange unicorn with her jaw set grimly and her horn mightily ablaze.

Zesty met the unicorn's eye, and saw something there that Cheese didn’t. She charged ahead, gaining a half-second's lead before he adjusted automatically, and both of them saw dancing spots across their eyes from the intensity of whatever magic was about to be cast. Behind them, the raw and random matter of ｢Chop Suey｣ fell as a whole to the ground, the cohesion between every piece disappearing all at once.

Then the spell was cast, and the world became bright. For a moment Zesty thought she'd gone blind, and then she felt the heat from her cardinal direction: straight ahead. She forced her eyes to endure the pain and not to squint, waiting for some second spell that would roast her bones inside of her flesh or catapult her into the sun, and then she made out the shape of the flickering fire around her.

It was in columns, leading in an arc from the doorstep to a few hooves behind herself and - she had to turn to make sure he was still with her - yes, Cheese. He didn't seem to have any issue with sudden bright light, and Zesty tried to hold her eyes open even further out of spite, drawing in the full height of each thin, softly-spinning pillar of inferno - easily two stories of the castle. They were lucky not to have lost all of the tortoise volunteers in one fell swoop with that spell, but it was clearly defensive, not a direct attack.

Their entrance had been blocked off, completely.

She turned to Cheese.


* * *


The Vice-Principal targeted without paying attention, like some great machine of war cloaked in a hanging shroud of death itself. Many pegasi were zipping towards her, some even circumnavigating the room around her for a better advantage, but there was no chance of a surprise; she knew how many in the room were left to be vanquished, and there was no chance of someone sneaking in for another attack.

｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ moved with extreme prejudice, falling onto all it crossed like the night itself. There were only so many ponies it could handle at once, without them setting off some condition of hers, and changing it to "having wings" would only have littered the floor with abyssal holes.

In some ways, she enjoyed the logistics of this, partly out of a sense of duty. Once she  understood her power fully it would be impossible for her to feel this way again; she would simply know the optimal route and travel it every time. Fighting would become a chore, and so she would ensure that none ever dared to challenge her.

For now, she simply caught any of her subjects which drew too near to her in her magic, trapping them or using them as projectiles while her Stand swooped and claimed each of their comrades one at a time. That, and she kept a good distance from the mirror, perhaps superstitiously.

Diamond looked at the brave faces of the pegasi as they ignored their fallen comrades, and regretted having ｢Misery Business｣ active. The physical body of her Stand swooped down for the nearest pegasus - maybe Raindrops, a big shopper at her father's establishment in another life - and cast her out of the path of the roving shadow. She sent it out to help another, mouthing its name, but then she was wrenched from the air and it left range, dissipating again.

Now that the chaos was dissolving, Luna drew the filly closer and pondered what to do with her. Libraries of spells were available, of course, the entire arsenal of magical culture laid bare in front of her, and yet nothing had been as satisfying this night as decisively and sharply breaking the leg of a pony who had managed to strike her.

Very well, then, the personal touch. Luna's horn glowed, and the magic concentrated itself on a foreleg this time, the left one.

A blur of motion. The pegasus Diamond had saved flew straight for Luna's head, ready to deliver some kick to the base of her horn. It was pointless, and all three could see it even before the magic caught up to her and arrested her momentum. The pegasi not trapped in the floor sinking silently beat their wings to join their ally, and Luna prepared another round of freezes.

And then something pulled, hard, on both of her back legs at once. She staggered backwards with them, and then the pink form of the filly's Stand appeared and jabbed her in the base of the horn, sending up a spark of pain. The lead pegasus began to flap her wings again, and by the fourth she was already latched onto the Princess' neck. The others followed, each striking her without retreating, lifting her as she tried to get her bearings and understand what was happening to her.

With her head sideways and her neck craned against her will, she could see the white and faceless Stand on its hindlegs, long trails of material leading to her own back legs. If that had been all, perhaps she would've been able to summon back ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ and removed them on instinct, to regain control of her magic as the filly's Stand now hammered at her horn. But something clouded her judgment for those crucial seconds!

Standing between ｢Something for Nothing｣ and the portal that would send Luna crashing back into her own reality, away from the godhead and everything that came with it, was the standing form of Coco Pommel.


* * *


Sunset had mixed feelings about returning to the form she'd spent most of her life in. The human world was hardly superior to this one, except in that in lacked any benevolent tyranny, but although both kinds of bodies had their ups and downs there was something like taking two steps back about returning herself to this one.

In her first days on Jupiter, she had figured that there were other portals there, too, and that if she merely sought them out, she'd be able to branch up and outwards into higher and higher existences. It hadn't worked out that way, but the fact that Sombra had been able to fix up the portal so that it worked continuously had automatically won her respect. She could sense something like temporal magic when she stepped through to return to Equestria, but she hadn't been able to sniff out any details in the time she'd been here.

Case in point, right now the courtyard of the castle was being overrun by some hare-brained revolution. She'd sealed off the main entrance, but there was still a side-entrance to worry about, and then the various cells of ｢Pepper｣ to consult before she launched some kind of a counterattack. Why the VP Luna wasn't bothering to take care of these ponies herself was mind-boggling, but perhaps the power was going to her head.

Sunset had no qualms admitting that her Stand was not meant for close combat with a number of ponies. She didn't much understand ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣, but with a bit of creativity she felt that she could've overcome most Stands with it. That was Luna's problem in the end - even taking on the mantle of the Princess of the Night and the most ancient and devastating of magics, she was still a school administrator.

The fire-pillars she'd cast out had been a gift from Sombra, and they worked like a charm, blazing brightly enough to turn the sky black again and hide the stars from view. She doubted that anypony would be stupid enough to run into them, but crazier things had happened. The short-term issue was to bolster the right ponies, and run out their enemies' resistance long enough to figure out where they were coming from.

If she remembered correctly, there was an entrance to the Archives, which she remembered she had meant to burn down earlier. The path towards it was a little difficult to remember, but there were only one or two true dead ends in the whole castle.

First, though, she cast her mind back for any magical defenses she could conjure up - the extreme locks she had put on her diary in the hopes that Celestia wouldn't be able to read it, or the ones associated with forbidden magic. The castle had some defenses, but too many had been tested and breached already, clearly. Not that it had been difficult to get in, back on her last trip through and her struggle with Twilight and her pet.

Oh. A thought came to her like a wrecking ball, and she immediately sent it away, toward the writhing intelligence of Sombra. It listened, and agreed with her.

Just then, there was a shadow, an inky spot difficult to see among the colonnades of fire except for its constant blown-about waviness. It moved like a piece of plastic caught in a light breeze, floating through air like water. One of Luna's guards, or a stray pegasus coming to investigate?

No, there were no wings, no attempt to move upwards, no change in direction; this was a falling object. Sunset aimed precisely and blasted it with a bolt of fire, suddenly dropping it out of the sky like some mindless pigeon.

It tumbled to the ground and somersaulted forward, still a puddle of darkness more than a living thing. Clearly it didn't take to the fire, and Sunset prepared another bolt of the same when the black shroud came off.

Zesty Gourmand stood and threw her coat off of herself with a hoof, careful even in her panic not to use magic. The material was thick, and she'd wrapped herself up in it as she'd fallen to prevent any distracting singes. Feeling solid ground under her hooves was a relief after Cheese Sandwich had fired her from some ghastly whimsical blue cannon like an everyday acrobat, but she didn't make any sudden moves.

First, flammability.

As the firebrand watched her, trying to work out what had just happened, Zesty tore off her shirt in a mess of buttons. Here, at least, the air was not uncomfortably cold, and against the canvas of fire she stood tall and stared down her enemy.

Then, she charged. Another bolt of fire met her immediately, and she flung the shirt into it, not allowing the wash and spray of heat to alter her path ahead. She had to get inside of that building, no matter what happened to her!

Sunset watched as the burning shirt was cast aside, and her mouth set in a line. There was still no way that this tall and spooky looking mare could use magic against her, but she moved with such confidence that it seemed like spontaneous combustion wasn't an issue for her. It wasn't worth the risk to find out why; she summoned ｢Pepper｣.

Zesty watched as a wave of small, odd creatures poured down from the door of the castle around the hooves of her opponent. Each was like a pony with a second upper body perpendicular to the first, something like that monster which had rampaged across Equestria and stolen the magic from everypony in it. Zesty herself had not met him directly, having hers drawn out from the side of the street, but from a distance she certainly hadn't wanted to.

These diminutive versions, all of which were marbled red and orange like frozen snapshots of fireplaces, filtered their way towards her in disheartening numbers. Stands typically came in one defeatable piece, or centered around a user, but to see an entire army of them...

She kept forward. "Whoever you think you are, you won't be keeping up this barrier for much longer. Your magic won't be able to stop me from entering that castle, or anypony else fighting for my city!"

｢Pepper｣ swept out, and individual members of the army fired a few pellet-sized bolts of magic at the food critic, most of which landed with brief, searing stings. She pressed ahead anyway, not even looking down at them.

"How many ponies have you brought here to die?" Sunset asked, approaching herself.

"More than your tawdry false court can handle, you pathetic outsider." The gaunt pony already looked weak naturally, but her gait was becoming slower now as ｢Pepper｣ gathered around and absorbed free calories from her. A small group would take a while, but this close to the user, Sunset's Stand could drain anyone dry.

"How did you bring down the barrier?" Sunset continued, not really expecting an answer.

Her interlocutor just chuckled, half in disbelief, and shook her head. Now the mare's pace was at a normal trot; soon she wouldn't be able to stand at all.

Sunset took a breath and stepped closer. "If you haven't noticed yet, my Stand is taking away your energy. It's not gone, don't worry, but I'm going to put it back into the people fighting away everypony you brought here today. Your forces will be taken down by your own power while I char-broil you, unless you tell me what I want to know."

In reply, the greyish unicorn looked up, eyes glazing, really beginning to feel the weight of ｢Pepper｣ all around her. Sunset suspected most ponies would've tried to bat away the little centaurs, to shoo them out or try some kind of escape, but none of these thoughts seemed to occur to the revolutionary.

"I've already told you what's going to happen here, if you'd been capable of listening through all of this flashy parlor-magic. I never speak falsely, I don't suffer fools willingly, and I don't give warnings twice!"

Then, in a surge of movement that shouldn't have been possible, the taller mare struck Sunset across the cheek. The leg wasn't strong, but it was bony, and Sunset flinched as she waited for another strike.

None came. There was only the first, which she realized only had enough strength behind it to make her take half of a step to the side. After that, the mare slumped, and Sunset stood over her, horn glowing again. None of the spells she'd cast had been too taxing up to now (after all, she'd been a student of Princess Celestia herself), but she could run her magic reserves dry completely and use her Stand to refill them if it came to that.

Here, it wouldn't. There was no frenzied final jolt upwards, no secondary source of strength, not even the usage of a Stand. This madpony had really wanted to fight one on one in plain hooficuffs.

"Once I set you on fire, I'm going to have my Stand take in all of the waste heat. Once you're completely gone, they'll give me enough power to find the rest of your operation and burn it to the ground," Sunset said, and her horn shone like the sun itself. "For each piece of information you can give me that I find useful, you can save one of them."

As the next few seconds crawled onward, the mare didn't reply. ｢Pepper｣ pushed a little more energy back into her, but it had no effect. She laid on the ground silently, and waited for it to be over.

Sunset hmphed. "If that's how you're going to be, then fine."

"You should've kept moving forward," Zesty said from the ground, almost mumbling.

Before Sunset could ask what she'd meant, a piece of burning turf was flung through the wall of fire, careening towards her horn like something possessed. Reinforcements?! A bolt of magic disintegrated it, but another followed, and three more behind it, some of them just chunks of fire without anything in the center.

They couldn't be doing this without magic! Had this been some tactic to keep her busy until they figured out some counter for ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣, or did they have some kind of double-agent among the courtyard? No, she shook her head as she retreated, neither of those were possible. It was some kind of a Stand, for certain.

Seven more projectiles lanced through the air, passing over the fallen form of Zesty, and now Sunset was working to dodge them. Unless there were living things putting out the heat, ｢Pepper｣ was useless, and even in a crunch Sunset could tell the difference between her own fire and elemental fire.

Whatever was happening, she needed to open a vantage and see what was going on outside. As she blasted half of the racing shots, she dodged around the rest, and called down the pillars of fire.

There were no ponies behind throwing things into the flames, no Stand user waiting for her, but something still burned in mid-air. She tried to cancel it, but it wasn't in her control; her fire had been commandeered.

The floating, angry mass continued tearing out bits of cobblestone and earth and flinging them, burning, always in a perfect arc. Sunset couldn't keep still enough to work out what was going on, and she dismissed ｢Pepper｣, calling up the energy it had gathered to keep herself from falling behind.

"It was decided the first time you deviated from the path, when you let me touch you. You won't be able to dodge ｢Chop Suey｣ any longer, no matter what you do," said the mare behind her. Sunset dodged again, and saw that the creature wasn't even looking at her, only tilting her neck slightly to cast a peripheral glance backwards.

On shaky legs she made for the entryway, and Sunset turned to stop her, frantic and angry at how badly this had all somehow turned out. But her body didn't obey her! Instead, her hooves skittered under her and brought her closer to the piece of rock hurtling towards her!

Behind her, along the wall of the castle which had been obscured by the flames, Cheese Sandwich stood patiently.

Sunset called out in her mind, pressing down on that psychic link for assistance. There were tricks here that she hadn't been ready for, and her emergency plan needed to be put into action immediately. It was already being taken care of.

Her body jumped into the path of a torch made of dirt, and she mustered her extra energy. Before the collision, she burst away in a blink of light, and ｢Chop Suey｣'s power went sailing away.

Inside the castle, on the second floor, she caught her breath from the teleport. It wasn't something she'd even considered in years, and it was definitely not her strong suit, but she didn't wretch. Her body still seemed not to be hers, but she added more energy to it, forcing her willpower along.

She had to find Luna.


* * *


The Princess stared at the leg she'd broken with burning intensity, and a kind of hatred, as if with a momentary glance she could cow it back into being broken. It hadn't been some sort of illusion, it couldn't have been - she was immune to those. And she refused to believe that she had been so incompetent at breaking bones that she had done no serious damage, the crack had been audible!

Diamond saw it too, but couldn't read any reason in Coco's subtitles, only her hope that they might all make their way through. Her Stand made another strike, and another, trying to find a weak point on the horn where it would snap and break away permanently. She didn't know if it was possible to do, and it would be a gruesome injury, but as long as she tried it didn't seem like any more magic could be thrown out into the room.

Even without her balance, this close to the mirror Luna began to fight back against the shoves moving against her from all angles. She couldn't be defeated this way!

Her wings opened up and prepared to beat great gusts of wind across the throne room, only to catch on something. Fabric sealed them against her sides again, and she called back ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ to befoul them - but one of the pegasi let go and fell against it in an act of sacrifice. The delay was too wide, the world still spinning, and Luna screamed in animal frustration as they dragged her to the bridge between the worlds.

She fought for purchase against the threshold, as the cream pony and her Stand passed under her and the work turned mostly to the pegasi. She wished for a form with claws, so that she could bury herself in the heart of this world and never let go for anything, for any reason! She couldn't be forced back through this way!

Just then, there came a rumbling from the other side of the portal, a sound of passage, of something living gasping its first great heaving breaths.

A muffled roar, a shout heard from the other end of a house.

Something came through, long and metallic and as big as Luna was, separated into spears but without a head, the rest of it still inside the bridge, the gap between. She realized, as it gripped onto the floor beneath her, that it was a claw.

Then a snout pushed its way through the portal on top of it, and got stuck. The pegasi had to wheel away with her in tow; there was just no room to push her through, now, as the rolling mouth of the creature protruding through a good portion of the room.

A crackle of unnatural energy, and the portal itself grew - not into a wider mirror, but irregularly like something inconstant and amoebic. Another claw appeared on the edge, and a dreadnaught of scaly flesh pulled itself into the room.


* * *


Below, in the courtyard, motion ceased. Moondancer stopped her approach with Scootaloo, Roseluck paused getting close to Cheerilee, Twilight Velvet turned away from Cloud Kicker, and Cheese Sandwich stopped from just inside of the building and stepped back out again to get an eyeful of whatever had just happened.

He saw great chunks of castle wall being shrugged off of something huge, and he ducked back inside only to be sealed in by them. He half-expected the rest of the building to come down around his ears at just that moment, but for the time being it held.

Against the sky, the long, silver body of a dragon uncoiled, and roared into the artificial nighttime. The upper layers of the castle laid around it like an eggshell, and it spread its wings as if to steal away all of the air in the world.

Scootaloo stirred, and Moondancer stared up mutely.

｢To Be Continued｣

 [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: ｢Strange Fruit｣
User: Granny Smith
Stats
Power: A
Speed: B
Range: A
Durability: B
Precision: C
Potential: E
Abilities: Manifests as a neverendingly long lasso. Anything caught within it once it’s tightened cannot move, and transforms gradually into a tree.

Stand Name: ｢November Rain｣
User: Roseluck
Stats
Power: D
Speed: C
Range: B
Durability: D
Precision: A
Potential: C
Abilities: Upon eye contact, the user can make themselves and a target invisible and incorporeal to any living thing except one another.

Stand Name: ｢Pepper｣
User: Sunset Shimmer
Stats
Power: C
Speed: C
Range: B
Durability: A
Precision: E
Potential: D
Abilities: Group Stand. Amplifies the natural life-force of anyone or anything in range according to the user’s will. Collects any energy spent by living things within range, and can use it to boost the user or attack opponents.
> Here Comes the Hotstepper
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coco took in the dragon as a series of shockwaves. The floor juddered under her with its first crash into reality, and then the world was filled with its girth like the air was turning to steel. When the ceiling came free a couple of seconds later, she was already racing towards Diamond, trying to focus just enough on her leg.

It was certainly true that the mare's leg was broken, by any medical definition. The bone had been snapped almost cleanly in half, and it would've taken surgery, or a very powerful magician, to convince it to become whole again. Even if it were splinted from the outside to allow motion, the nervous tissue inside would become intermingled with shards of bone, and the dressmaker's journey would end with her unable to walk. The Vice Principal's intentions had been brutal, and her magic followed suit. 

But! 

While she laid on the ground quietly, ｢Something for Nothing｣ was able to splint the injury from the inside! The bone had not been tied neatly back together, but bundles of gauzy fabric kept the ends from disturbing the rest of her leg. With that cushion compensating for her, and maintained by its contact with her, it was possible to walk with only a slight limp!

It was still painful, although she conjured up another band over her skin to constrict the blood flow. Diamond was picking herself up in the wake of everything that had just happened, and they were only a few hooves away from each other, and then the ceiling started to shake loose. 

Large chunks of alabaster rock rained downward. One split into the royal throne like a pickaxe into a boulder, while others slammed into the floor and threatened to smash through. The integrity of the castle was magical, but it was mostly supported from the outside. 

｢Misery Business｣ materialized over Coco’s head with its scissor-hooves already outstretched, pincering them around a pony-sized chunk of rock. She didn’t even notice as she galloped over to the filly, and the two of them, now joined, swiveled their heads around in search of an exit.

The way in had already been blocked, and the air was lousy with the whipping, shouting forms of pegasi traveling this way and that, trying to take in what had just happened to them. For the two heroes, even the Vice Principal had been lost in the confusion. Still, though, there was a route outside.

Without question or hesitation, they bolted for the windows. A light carpet rolled out over the shattered, multicolored glass as they approached the nearest, what had once been a picture of Celestia herself. 

“They’re still here, somewhere,” Coco realized, and that note of understanding rang out over the din of confusion. If the portal was destroyed, then their only hope would be for Rarity and anypony else important to still be kept in the building somewhere.

Diamond couldn’t hear her, but she felt the sudden change of direction. There was no big warning of it, but suddenly her friend was facing the blocked-off door. The door was still open, and it was tall, but it was half taken-up by a single artificial boulder. Half of the pegasi had decided to either regroup or flee through it, but not all of them were able to.

｢Something for Nothing｣ flew ahead of both of them, striking the rock at the same time it arrived. Coco winced and faltered; wrong hoof. The next blows came easier, but were just as ineffective. 

Diamond’s Stand wrenched at it, and even then it was an effort, but it finally came loose. She stopped momentarily to scan the room, hoping for any final, useful secret, but the mood of the room had been laid entirely bare. 

Coco was already barreling out, and Diamond fell into line after her. The hallway beyond the door was much more spacious, mostly because the rubble had fallen toward the sides of its central path. A yellow pegasus flew out after them and then dove and tumbled straight through a stained glass window, leaving only a momentary racket and another wound in the walls.

It was then, turning in the direction of the sound and seeing only bloody wings swooping to the earth, that Coco realized the seat of Canterlot would not survive. The castle was as good as forfeit already, and although she had never once considered it in her days of making dresses and trotting amongst her city, though the castle had never even stood out among the Manehattan skyline from such a distance, she felt a sudden and deep mourning for it. 

Diamond overtook her, then. "Come on! The controls were in one bedroom, Rarity might be in the other!"

Just then, somepony entered from the other end of the hallway, all oranges. Her mane was on the road to dishevelment, and her hooves gave way under her as she bumped into the doorway. There was a glint of determination in her eyes that made her seem almost to be staring into space, and it took several paces before she moved her eyes from her hooves and took in the destruction. 

Coco stood up straighter and tried to gauge some kind of intention in the unicorn's face, whether she was a guardian of the castle or one of the fastest to get inside of it. The fact that Diamond was silent made her doubtful of charging in, but she hadn't seen the features anywhere Zesty had been.

Her horn glowed, and the unicorn shot out a ball of fire, sailing it through the air in an arc. ｢Something for Nothing｣ shot out on its own, ready to piledrive Coco and Diamond out of the way, and then the ball arced and flew out of the shattered window. A moment's wild glancing, anticipation, and she realized that it wasn't coming back.

The unicorn shut her eyes and concentrated, speaking between rapid breaths. "｢Pepper｣."

Her hooves steadied suddenly, no longer twitching and jerking this way and that as they were covered in fire. Then, like they were some archway into another world, living things began to pour out of them. Red, strange things, like ponies but deformed at the heads, like a minotaur had been glued to the barrel orthogonally. There didn't seem to be an end to them, and they rushed forward, never running into each other as they crossed the floor one gallop at a time.

｢Something for Nothing｣, still hovering in the air, flourished a long ribbon of white against the floor and swept the creatures back with a long whiplash. They tumbled en masse, bulwarking each other, and soon the swell was enough to stop the fabric moving at all. There were easily hundreds of these beasts, covering the fractured tile with undeterred scurrying!

｢Misery Business｣ had joined Coco's Stand, and Diamond ignored the oncoming wave to yell across the distance to the unicorn. "Where are they keeping the Element of Generosity?"

There was no answer, but Diamond saw something and nodded to herself, sharply. Before she could ask anything else, something flashed in the unicorn's eyes, and the gathered Stands glowed momentarily. 

The ribbon caught fire supernaturally fast, its entire length burning out automatically. ｢Something for Nothing｣ dropped it on reflex from its front hooves, and retreated closer to its user as the ashes drifted for a moment in the air like oversized dust particles, and even they began to disintegrate. 

｢Something for Nothing｣ ignored the miniature army and galloped a few hooves off of the ground straight for the enemy. If her Stand was so far-reaching and powerful, it probably wouldn't be able to defend her directly!

Scorching blasts of magic burst from the Stand creatures, and Coco felt her Stand take the brunt of several, like being tapped all over with hot pokers. Each one felt like a setback of its own, a drain on something difficult for her to put a hoof on in the heat of the moment. One grazed her bad leg, and she leaned closer to the ground on her front hooves as it tried to go limp under her again. 

And yet, the threat came through. The unicorn shut her eyes again, and with a moment's teeth-gritting teleported out of the room. The casting seemed to evaporate a  fifth of her Stand, but the rest remained behind, making no sign of knowing that their master was no longer commanding them. They marched forward relentlessly anyway, filling the floor in their hundreds. 

"I was right, they're keeping her and the Princesses in Luna's bedchamber!" Diamond said, as if they were alone, "And she just went there herself!"

Coco nodded but didn't move her eyes from the Stand. It had started stampeding their way, although none of it was glowing now. She called back ｢Something for Nothing｣, trying to calculate the fastest path through, and at the same time felt herself being lifted bodily upwards.

Before she could get her bearings, her weight shifted in mid-air and ｢Misery Business｣ was already fastballing her over ｢Pepper｣. After a moment's flight a pillow waited for her at her impact point, and she sent out a line of fabric to pull Diamond after her. If they could get out before the things could properly turn around, they had a good chance of outrunning them, or at least escaping out of a wind-

Crack!

She smashed her shoulder directly on the floor, and it felt like the building itself had tackled her withers. Her body bounced with the pain, skipping like a stone on a lake, and she saw the pillow still many hooves away. A panicked burst of blue-tinged magic drew it closer to her, and she collapsed into it on her side, unable to turn off of her shoulder in time.

The texture was different now, lumpier and more poorly made. The second impact still came, hard enough to remind Coco of her own soreness, but as she laid there and breathed she realized the entire makeup of the thing felt... sloppy. It was hers, untampered and able to respond to her magic, but not all there.

｢Misery Business｣ dropped Diamond next to her, and she stood up again, already looking back at the threat - but ｢Pepper｣ was still moving towards where they had been. After a few more moments, the army had cleared the spots where they'd been standing and was heading for the throne room itself. 

In the pit of her stomach, Coco realized that the two of them probably hadn't been the real targets. 

"It's a few hallways away!" Diamond said, and then hurried out of the room. The dressmaker breathed in and followed after her, keeping ｢Something for Nothing｣ drawn and hovering over her.


* * *


Cheese Sandwich was, all things considered, having a very interesting afternoon. His internal clock was perfectly set, even with the sudden craziness in the sky - on the day that Discord had taken over Equestria, he'd been able to keep things smooth down in Trottingham by partifying the schedule, but there had been a lot more excitement there. It was like the world got hiccups.

Eternal night? Not so hot. 

As soon as Zesty had escaped into the Castle, an entire for-serious dragon had sprouted from the top. He couldn't begin to guess where they'd been hiding it, but it was a big fella, and probably an intense threat to the entire city. There wasn't enough ｢Feel Good Inc｣ in him to give it a good injection, but there was still some hope with that one mare. 

He could feel her some distance away, already jumping in space twice, and his Stand had been reduced within her somehow. He let it stay dormant for the moment, until he could figure out what trickery she was up to. The cast-off part of ｢Feel Good Inc｣ was still regenerating in him, but it would take a while longer, probably longer than they had to fix the whole dragon situation. 

Still, do what you have with what you've got, y'know?

There were a number of smaller skirmishes, each of them revving up again as they tore their eyes away from the skyward form of the silver lizard. Nearly all of the faces were familiar to him from one place or another, a moment in a quiet corner away from coming to the surface, and it made it hard to tell who was on which side in half the pairings. 

Zesty had told him to help secure the front entrance, so he headed away from the tangling ponies he couldn't recognize, sweeping his head for a good conflict to interrupt. No, not there, not that one...

A hoof came flying from the behind and struck him upside the head, hard enough that his hair bounced a little. A yelp of pain came from the same direction, and he swung his head around to investigate. 

A pallid pegasus with a shock of fiery-orange hair was clutching a back hoof gingerly and trying to keep aloft in the air. Easy target. 

Cheese quickly turned the rest of his body around and felt in his hair for what the guy had hit. The tentative start of a good rummage hit on something, and he pulled it free: a hoofheld grater with a big hoof-shaped dent knocked into it. 

At this point the pegasus had just about recovered, but as he prepared some kind of second attack, Cheese threw the newly-useless metal right at him. It struck, and he tumbled the last few hooves to the grass.

"｢Feel Good Inc｣." Cheese intoned, and the pegasus wobbled back upwards. It was difficult getting righted while keeping the hurt hoof off of the ground, but that was no reason to turn down a challenge.

"Whoa-oa-oa!" The pegasus said, spreading his wings out like he was trying to scare off a bear, stumbling a little to regain himself or at least get away from his chosen target. Then ｢Feel Good Inc｣ sank in a little further, and he was back on three legs, swaying side to side with fear in his darting eyes.

"How's it hanging?" Cheese asked, smiling, and the stallion's eyes were drawn to him.

"Wh-what are you doing to me?" he asked, and then his hooves spun out from under him, and he pronked into the fray.

Twilight Velvet was neck deep in some kind of standoff with a pegasus of her own. Both of them had their eyes locked, the unicorn calmly disapproving and the pegasus heated and breathing heavily, wings half-outstretched. 

"｢Chumbawumba｣!" she shouted, voice rising with each syllable, and then jumped higher and faster than should've been possible. Without a single flap of her wings, she was far above and descending onto the older mare, who merely raised her head a few degrees to follow the path.

The front fetlocks of ｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣ crossed over her head, and the pegasus nosedived towards the manifold bubbles. At the moment of collision Twilight felt her Stand straining, and then the attacker bounced off again, higher, with the wind and blood rushing in her ears like grinning madness. 

The headbutt against her Stand had been much harder than Twilight had expected, worse in fact than should have been possible for any pony. The next strike was guaranteed to be harder just by the height of the drop, and the mare backed out of her vulnerable position. 

It was no use. Although she moved with decision and paid little heed to the chaos around her, she couldn't dodge away from the angling of the pegasus, or her momentum. At best she could force a swooping at the end of the dive, which would cost almost none of the power built up using whatever ｢Chumbawumba｣ was. 

The pegasus dove for her again, but before she could concentrate on a second shield, another pony twirled and jumped in between both of them. There was a blur of wings, and he snatched her inconvenience directly out of the air, swinging her around him like some deranged ballroom dancer. 

"Don't hurt me, I'm not doing this!" he pleaded as she looked just as confused as Twilight felt, and then there was a ruffling of wings as she dizzily tried to free herself from the constant spinning of the two. 

"Augh, my head!" she complained, her voice close to squeaking as he brought her wingtips up to her temples. Without the adrenaline and the wind, the noise started by ｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣ hitting her hair was starting to break into her consciousness. 

"What a horrible night to have a curse." Cheese deadpanned, and Twilight realized abruptly that he was standing next to her.

Cheese smiled at the graying mare. She'd been present at a couple of his bashes, but she was a librarian and a mother - not exactly the type for his more in-depth portfolio. 

Parents were good for getting young party ponies in training to parties, they were good at participating in parties themselves, but whenever you tried to mix the two it would snag somewhere. The mother dancing with her foal, the corner taken up with idle talk sinking the mood, the filly crying at the punchbowl - he hadn't been trained for these, and he'd been more than lucky to come out of them in one piece.

Twilight didn't recognize Cheese from any point before Sombra's takeover, although she could tell he was an odd bird, and his magical signature involved a lot more than any earth pony she'd seen up close before. Why he wasn't tripping the magical defenses they'd been warned about was beyond her, and she would've liked a great deal to interview him about his comings and goings, in another life. 

The two swing-dancing pegasi, one moaning with her headache and the other shamefully twirling her, began drawing attention from elsewhere. Several of the other fights slowed, as their attention was drawn away.

One irritated female called out, "Kicker, Heath, what do you think you're doing?" 

"It's not on purpose!" Heath yelled, and then dipped his partner low with one hoof. Cheese clapped his hooves together at the mastery of it, and the anger on Kicker's face inflated.

"Screw this! ｢Chumbawumba｣!" she shouted, wings flaring outwards. Her hooves exploded off of the ground with her fellow soldier still pressed against her, swooping laterally over the grass for Twilight and Cheese together. 

Cheese prepared to activate the strain of ｢Feel Good Inc｣ inside of her, but Twilight stepped in front of him. He could see over her pretty easily, but one she pulled her Stand out in all its bubblebath glory he left the hoofball in her court. 

True to her name, Kicker flew closer to the ground and kicked off of it with tremendous force, enough to make it shake a bit, and to send her higher up in the air. Gravity compressed her, stinging the eyes of her partner, bringing her clarity against the hair-tearing noise of the Stand she'd been struck with. 

Twilight waited patiently for Kicker to get close enough, and then jumped to one side. Cheese was amazed she hadn't been waving a big red banner, but it didn't work; Kicker had too much time to adjust herself, she was already too good at flying! He tried to make her dance, to slow her down, but the sheer speed was enough to lock her muscles outside of his influence. With a single hairpin adjustment, she careened directly into ｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣!

When she bounced off again, it was with a great sound of popping, and Twilight felt something wet along her cheeks as she strained. She dabbed at it with a hoof and realized she'd cried blood. 

Kicker and Twilight both knew that it wouldn't take more than a single attack to destroy the Stand completely. Yet the mare didn't signal to Cheese for help, or even look at him. He assumed that the ask was obvious, but there was nothing he could do to help with his Stand, not at that velocity; he rummaged anxiously in his shirt for a backup party cannon.

Then Kicker and Heath smashed into the Castle, hard enough to knock in stones from the second-floor wall, and he stopped. The mare hadn't been trying to dodge after all -she only wanted to line up the shot. 

When the ｢Feel Good Inc｣ in the two pegasi didn't move, and then its presence started to fade, he breathed easier. His Stand was close to out, but he could still feel Zesty trudging up the castle, and the fiery-haired one jumping in all directions.

"They're conked out," he told Twilight, casually, and held out a handkerchief. 

She nodded and took it, wiping her cheeks. Only afterwards did she notice that a dozen multicolored ones trailed after it back to his hoof. 

Cheese coughed politely and disappeared the whole ensemble behind his back. Then he noticed, dawningly, that they were being watched from all sides. It was real trouble sensing that in his line of work.

He surveyed all of the faces staring back at him, and at each other. Some were wounded and cautious, just waiting for a first strike. Others were dumbfounded, trying to figure out what series of magic tricks had just come together and who by. He cleared his throat, straightened his shirt and stood up on his hind legs, hooves-on-hips.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Fight!" he waved his hooves frantically up and down in the air. 

Some of the ponies shrugged, others blinked. Then, they got back to it.


* * *


The Vice Principal was devoting most of her energy to keeping the dragon from flying off in a random direction and destroying her infrastructure when the message came to her. It was wrapped up in fire-magic, flying like a lightning-bug with a vengeance up to her level. 

She was still adjusting to the tactical change, deciding whether to attack the thing that had just burst out of the portal, and she took Sunset Shimmer's spell as a good sign that there was a point to this. They hadn't managed to overcome the castle walls and upset the portal in the same fell swoop.

The portal was broken now, which simplified things. It was a loss, but one she could deal with. Being thrown through still impressed itself on her mind, and it ran deep into her, her first experience of intermingling fear and omnipotence. With a secondary spell, she allowed the fire to relay its message.

In her voice, it said, "Report: I'm wounded but not critically. I advised our King to have a large dog sent through the portal as a distraction technique, clearly it worked. It should be at animal level intelligence if it's not utterly insane. Hoped to find you in the throne room, need help to recharge, will be up soon."

Then, after a second's silence, it fizzled out like the last embers of a campfire, and cold returned to the highest point of Canterlot. 

Luna tried to flex her magic deeper into the mind of the dragon, entrenching her aura and gripping metaphysical reins in spectral hands. Leaving it to the magic, she looked out upon the stars, and then tore her eyes from the wheeling constellations to her squabbling subjects. 

They were standing below, her soldiers and the natives, but she had no issue telling which was which. Many pegasi were escaping from the story they’d all been present on, and she contented herself with firing pinprick beams of black light at them, tearing into wings and watching them spiral and drop out of the air. She wasn’t able to get all of them, but each success eased the stresses on her mind. None of them magically cured themselves, either.

Now, then, what was the next order of business? Any position as high-paying as hers came with standard military training, so she knew the basic structure of resistances, if not the finer points. There was nearly always a point of weakness: a leader who could be removed, families to be threatened, some ultimate hope that could placed into jeopardy…

Hmmm. She threw out another spell, a speeding blueblack comet, and watched as it zipped into the city and became invisible among the buildings. It would take a little while to track, doubtlessly, so she returned her mind to the scaly forehead she now perched on top of. A thought, and the wings snapped outwards, nearly blowing her off with the sudden force of the wind.

She outstretched her own to break it and gripped her hooves in tighter. None of the ponies below were stupid enough to try attacking her in this position, even if there hadn’t been time for word to spread of her fearsomeness and invincibility. Some of those pegasi would survive their landings and share their stories, which was just another direction to attack from. 

It would have been easy for her to attack each of these ponies directly in this moment, just by spraying enough spells beneath her. She could even convince the dragon to stomp them all out for her and accept the casualties of her own former wards. But that would breed resentment, hatred - she would be plotted against for the rest of time, and spend altogether too much of her reign stamping out upstart groups who believed she was the only dangerous part of her kingdom.

Better to let her soldiers prove themselves, and write the history books with as little of her involvement as possible. She sniped as minimally as possible, and waited for her spells to complete as her heart rate finally came to a resting normal. 


* * *


Flash Sentry felt deeply unsuited for guard duty. He was a doer, the wings had proven it, and just because his ex-girlfriend had a more combat-based ability didn’t mean he needed to be the one keeping track of the bodies. 

The Vice Principal Luna of this world was a fancy one, no doubt. Her bedroom was about as big as his house, and there was more than enough room on her bed for the three he was guarding. 

Two of them were the original rulers of the land, Princesses instead of Principals. It was like a storybook version of the school in so many ways, and it had freaked him out when he first learned about it, but now he had a pretty fair grasp on the whole thing. They had chunks of black rock jutting out of their horns at uncomfortable angles, and the expressions of people sleeping badly. 

He had worried that they were about to wake up, when he was first brought over. He didn’t dare touch them, although they hadn’t even shifted from their spots. It was a deep unconsciousness, he knew, and not one that even they would be able to escape. Sombra was their superior. 

The third was completely foreign to him, unicorn, all white with a disheveled purple tail and a mane that covered most of her face. She wasn’t nearly so badly-off as the Princesses, and he’d considered using ｢American Pie｣ on her, but he decided not to risk it. She could be nearly as ancient as them, some court advisor or special unicorn for all he knew. 

Sombra had wanted them all to keep an eye out for anything to do with a few ancient wizards, just in case they still had failsafes in place to muck things up for him, so Flash assumed that she was one of those and left well enough alone. That involved a lot of staring at walls and waiting for some kind of interruption. Which wasn’t likely, since they were deeply protected on top of whatever the two Princesses already had cooked up. 

There had been a big crash earlier, all throughout the Castle, but nothing since. Something big must have been rolled out, probably whatever VP Luna’s Stand power was. He kind of wished he could be in the middle of things with her, watching all of these abilities working, just to get to the root of them. If they won too decisively, he might not have the chance to see what had happened.

Just then, in a burst of light that made him take a step back, Sunset appeared in front of him. She was wearing a big equine mask, which of course was really her true face, but behind it he could still see her the way she’d been. She’d fallen back into it just before they entered through the portal, part of the influence Sombra had on her, and it reminded him too much of what she’d been to him. 

The frustrated cunning on her face sang out through memory, and then she took a deep breath, and put a hoof to his head. The contact was ginger, and for a moment he could see some delicate bit of pinched-in flesh underneath which he had no name for. Then, accepting the cue, ｢American Pie｣ activated.

Flash's eyes widened, and then his guardly demeanor returned to him. "That bad, huh?"

Her jaw was set, producing a grim look that was very nearly funny on a horse face. "Stay on the alert. I'm going-" 

"You're going to recharge. That's smart, but make sure this dragon you've summoned doesn't destroy the whole city."

"Sombra can rebuild it down the road," she said, her horn starting to glow. 

"You don't know that," he pointed out, but by the time he finished the sentence the glow had become a bright flash, and she was gone. 

He sighed. She always was a firebrand, although now he could see how much of her was buried underneath of that, and how much of it had been lost to her over the years. It was the first time he'd used ｢American Pie｣, and it felt a lot safer than the overload he'd been experiencing, but bits of Sunset's history were drifting around his mind. 

She really would let the whole place be reduced to rubble, which didn't make him feel terribly secure, but she did seem to still have some affection for him. She wouldn't have trusted just anyone with a Stand like his to use it on her, unless it was necessary. 

He tried to figure out where the gaunt mare in the coat would be now. Probably three floors below right now, assuming she was still walking. If she managed to get around whatever bits of the Castle were collapsing, she would be upon him eventually, and probably with some new trick. Her Stand seemed to hurl items at people and force them not to dodge, but the range was limited, so he'd have to test out his wings or else put the Princesses in the way to stop the onslaught...

Just then, there was a burst of green light illuminating the room, casting his shadow on the wall in eerie technicolor. He turned, quickly, looking over his shoulder as he did and preparing to dodge, but there was nothing throwing projectiles from the window, and no fires had broken out. The room seemed undisturbed. 

He took a cautious step further inside, checking for any intruders inside the doorway. If any of them had a power that concealed themselves, and whatever they were carrying, then they’d just have to get him out of the doorway to make an escape with any of the three ponies there.  

But there was nothing. No sound from the hallway outside, none from within. He listened harder, but nothing came, except the creeping feeling that he wasn’t alone. 

Then something poked out from beneath the royal bed, a great big greyish thing, like metal but not quite, not shiny. He thought for a moment that it was a living thing, and stepped back, and then he noticed the hole on the end, and red danced in his vision like an overbloated gnat. 

There came a click, like a piece of plastic ker-chakking into place, and suddenly everything was dark. 


* * *


As Scootaloo came to, she first noticed that she was deep in the thick of things. The noise was awful enough to wrench her out of the halfway point between waking and the dark, and she couldn't have closed her eyes and passed back out if she'd tried. 

Which was good, in a sense, because Moondancer was standing over her, and she didn't look too good. 

"｢Tragic But Magic｣. No... ｢Tragic But Magic｣..." the mare said, her hair sticking to her face as she spun on her hooves and took in the whole cacophony. "｢Tragic But Magic｣... there!" 

Scootaloo pushed herself up, still a filly surrounding by warring islands of grown-ups. Normally that wouldn't have bothered her, but with all of the commotion she began to worry that somepony might stampede by and trample her.

Her mind reached for ｢Go Zone｣, and the Stand touched a hoof to it, tiredly. Not much of a charge there, but it would be back in the morning.

Ha. She looked up at the sky and couldn't tell if it was really night yet or not. 

Then Moondancer spun around again and noticed that she was back in some position to talk. "Scootaloo! Are you feeling okay? Any breakages, internal damage?"

The filly fluffed out her wings to steady herself and shook her head, taking in the scene herself. There was very little tradeoff between the different ponies fighting, no crossing over from one fight to another. It was like a fight in a movie, where they came together one at a time so that things would be "fair".

She wondered for a moment if that's what Stands did, or the rules that worked underneath them. Having one made you a lot luckier at finding other ponies who had them, if "luckier" was even the word. Maybe they were like magnets, somehow.

Then she saw the dragon, and the little philosopher tucked away in her mind shut up shop. It was a thunderbolt to the flank, and with it, she was up.

"What are we doing about that?" she asked, dashing back to Moondancer. 

"I'm working on it. The way inside is open, but nopony's gotten in yet."

Scootaloo followed her eyes to the entrance, across a courtyard of paired-up ponies doing the Jupiter tango. "What about Coco?" 

"I don't know. She took down the wall somehow, but the dragon appeared from the same area of the castle we sent her up to."

To punctuate this, there was a bright twinkling of light next to the dragon's snout, which Moondance had observed in remarkable stillness for the last minutes. Even that didn't flinch it; the creature was exquisitely trained, and probably nonsentient, but where Sombra would have access to dragons in the Frozen North she couldn't guess.

"Scootaloo?!" came a worried voice, unfamiliar to Moondancer. It sounded closer to Celestia's than anything, but the pony it belonged to was staring dumbfounded halfway across the courtyard. 

Scootaloo finally made her out against the crowd and cacophony, and the recognition in her eyes was overtaken with terror. "Miss Cheerilee?!"

Cheerilee bolted towards the filly, trying to close the gap as quickly as possible. Scootaloo's mind was still processing her on the field, trying to draw a line back from her going with Cloudchaser to being in ｢Mr. President｣ to coming here again, when the reunion was interrupted. 

"｢November Rain｣!" a mare shouted, jumping out of a thickly-populated section of the battlefield like Pinkie throwing a surprise party. Then, in a flash, both of them were gone.

Scootaloo's hooves raced faster than her mind, bones begging for a good stretch before they were put through anything else. Moondancer called out behind her, but it was too difficult to hear with the wind in her face and the all-encompassing noise. 

She reached the spot where they'd both just been, and didn't disappear herself. Whatever the power was, it wasn't affecting her at the moment, but it also didn't rely on touch - what then? Where could they have teleported to, the inside of the Castle?

Just then, the mare jumped back into reality on the ground a few hooves away, with Cheerilee straddling her barrel and landing interchanging blows to her muzzle. Now that Scootaloo could see clearly, she realized that it was one of the Flower Sisters, the ones who always freaked out over everything. 

"｢November Rain｣," she coughed, and then Cheerilee fell through her. For a surreal moment they were both in the same place, like overlapping ghosts, and then the flower pony rolled over and stood up again.

｢Go Zone｣ immediately stamped a hoof on her head, holding her down on the ground while Scootaloo investigated what just happened. She wished for a moment that they hadn't split up after all; Diamond would've diagnosed this perfectly in a few seconds. 

"Scootaloo! Scootaloo, don't hurt her, we need her awake!" Moondancer called from a few hooves behind, turning her head this way and that. 

"What? Why?" she asked, but Moondancer didn't seem to notice her. 

"What in the sweet name of Celestia is she doing here?" Cheerilee said, as scandalized as the filly had ever heard her, and she didn't even point. 

"They can't see me," she realized. 

Just then, the air shifted, and came down with enough force to knock the filly over and into the mare's side. Some braced themselves, and some fell over with enough of a vantage to see the dragon beating its wings. 

With an incredible amount of force, it tore free of Canterlot Castle, trailing behind parapets and hallways like eggshell, and swept down for the courtyard, claws outstretched to stamp the whole warring ensemble into oblivion. 

She looked to Cheerilee, to Moondancer, to what was left of the castle itself, and tried to muster up the power to move them, to just slide all of her friends to safety! There had to be an open route that would get them out of range, the shockwave would do half of the work for her!

But as she tried to remove the friction under her teacher and her friend, nothing happened. She tried a second time, but the two only stood staring at the descending weight of the monster.

And then it was upon them.


* * *


When Sunset appeared before her, Luna was still standing atop the dragon, trying to jostle it out of its stillness. She filled its mind with images of prinesses, war, gemstones and hoards of treasure - but there was no visceral reaction for any of them. 

"Vice-Principal-"

"Your Highness." Luna corrected, seeing in the horizon that her spell was coming back around the buildings. 

"Your Highness, my apolo-"

"It doesn't matter. This dragon you've summoned for me was tactically advantageous, but it won't respond to my control. Once I've reinforced some proper behavior, I'll be taking it to wherever this rebellion holds a compound and incinerating their hideaway turtle." Her magic sunk deeper, carving new grooves into the creature's mind, keeping it from giving any indication of whatever discomfort or pain the rewiring caused it. 

Sunset's tones came clipped. "Sombra would prefer that you keep ｢Mr. President｣ intact. It is an important harmonic artifact at this point."

"And why should you be the one who decides what's best for the King?" Luna asked, suddenly raising her voice. It was only slight - with some effort she could make herself heard to the entire city - but it was enough to evoke a reaction. "Why is it that you believe you can perform all of these maneuvers and tactical decisions on my subjects without consulting me?"

The unicorn played apologetic. "I didn't mean to offend you, your Highness, but the King has given me a direct connection to his mind... I was under attack, and I panicked. If I'd had time, I would've come to ask for your say-so." 

Luna didn't bother giving her an answer, and in the silence that followed the two stood between the night sky and the chaos below. 

Then, Sunset added something. "Maybe it would be better for you not to think of this as a dragon."

Luna's face asked the question for her, but then she remembered what Sunset's message had said. 

The mare repeated it herself, just in case it wasn't obvious enough. "The portal is only capable of changing something's outside. Twilight Sparkle's pet dragon became a dog on Jupiter, but I still saw him talk, and think, because he was still a dragon. And this dragon-"

"I understand," Luna sniffed, and then ignored her somewhat-underling. It took her a moment to muster up the right signal to send - she had never much liked dogs - but with a brief brainstorm it was done.

Her essence whispered to the dragon with desirability and purpose, of red meat and the retreating bumpers of cars. She couldn't know for sure what was being processed, what things the giant reptilian form saw in its world-encompassing eyes, only that it would be effective. 

Her spell returned to her, and not as Sunset's had. The information integrated into her immediately with closeness, and she knew where they were hiding. The turtle was almost on the other side of the city, and guarded. Originally she would have sent someone after it, and stayed behind to make the revolution's defeat all the more crushing, but with the destruction of the castle she realized things were escalating out of her hands. Better to go, and now.

First, though, a test. 

She aimed, and the creature underneath of her shifted like a collapsing building. Muscle and bone worked together on a scale that was disgusting to watch, but the overall feeling was rewarding, like learning to drive. A more solid command, and the wings flapped, throwing gulfstreams at those below. Sunset gave some warning, and Luna didn't hear it. 

Then the dragon took off, and dove down, ready to crush all of them. It had been an impulse, perhaps an unwise one, but those who didn't get out of the way could have their crushed skeletons revived some way or another. Sombra was sure to have methods for exactly that sort of thing.

Luna tempered her thoughts. She was starting to sound like Sunset, blind to a ruler who had broken contact with her. It may be that he had a means to do anything, even determine her loyalty and ability to serve him in her rule, and take her throne from her if he deemed her unworthy. 

She felt a twinge of fear then, and remembered the bands of cloth pulling at her, the portal itself crackling with energy as she came near it. 

And then, just before its landing could quake the rest of the Castle into alabaster driftwood, the dragon disappeared underneath of her. 

As she fell into the dragon-sized pocket of empty air it left in its wake, her legs kicked like she was doggie-paddling, and it took a gaping three seconds for her wings to snap open automatically and rescue her. Despite herself, she glanced farcically around, trying to see if she had somehow misplaced the monster, or if she had somehow overridden the mirror's enchantments and turned it back into dog.

The air equalized as Sunset fell behind her, screaming in dread surprise. She was hardly loyal, but her cleverness was still of use, and Luna's magic lowered her to the ground more gently. Opening the channels in her mind further, she tried to broadcast her thoughts in all direction, searching for wherever they had managed to transmigrate--

The world thundered, and ponies went flying like flapjacks, crying out. Others, already retreating, fell over and tumbled in heaps as the ground itself protested their fighting. Sunset fell the rest of the way to the ground, and landed with a grunt, holding onto it with all of her limbs. Luna's Castle shook, but stood. 

Below, the enormous clawmarks of the dragon marked out the courtyard. They had made it invisible! She reached out her magic to it again, but it simply wasn't there; there was a Stand in play somewhere. She called ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ to her, preparing a new condition.

Before she could speak it, though, the dragon reappeared, crouching in those giant prints and regarding the ponies around it with some curiosity. Then, a second time, it flickered out again. 

Interesting.


* * *


Coco's tailing of Diamond soon turned into a full-blown chase as the building grew more mazelike around them, a matter of fast turns around corners and blind charges through decorative archways. The epicenter of the damage had been the throne room, but rubble was omnipresent, pieces of ceiling and fixtures, overturned furniture. It looked as if the place had been lazily ransacked, somewhere between ruination and being put back together again. 

The dressmaker, whose skill had never really been drawn to interior decoration no matter how much she'd been told it overlapped with her profession, tried to take that as a sign. 

It was a breathless affair, and her Stand galloped faithfully at her side, never dissipating. It was much more normal to feel through it now, to know its full capabilities hanging only a few hooves away from her. It had manifested to help her save Rarity, and now here she was, about to do just that.

The orange mare hadn't shown up, which would've been the final sign that they were close, but with another hoofful of turns Diamond stopped, and they were there. 

The first thing that paused Coco was the slumped-over pony dressed in guard regalia. She didn't remember any guards being in Zesty's army, but the thought that the people of Jupiter would knock out one of their own made no sense to her either. 

The second was that he was lying unconscious in the doorway, which was as open as it could be, and his head was facing inwards. There was nothing very peaceful about the way he looked, but he was breathing. She traded glances with Diamond, who said nothing for fear of waking the stallion up. 

They edged closer, making an effort to be quiet, and from the right angle they could see a large darkened room, and a bed, and three more slumbering figures on it.

Rarity slept with the royals and did not dream, and Coco's heart scrabbled to her throat. The Element of Generosity had not been treated with any great hospitality here, but there were no marks on her, nothing but the wear of time uncurling her mane and smudging her makeup against her eyelids. She lay still, like some elaborate sculpture of the disassembled mare carved from some great tusk older than the world.

Why wasn't there a way to wake her up?

Diamond whispered like a professional, and Coco's ears had to twitch before they picked up the words. "-Business｣ on him to find out where the exit is."

"..." Coco hesitated. It wasn't a very smart idea to go waking up a potential enemy already defeated...

Diamond quietly voiced the thought the mare was avoiding. "We can't just leave him here to have the whole thing fall on his head."

The filly was right. Maybe in some burst of desperation, she would have to be selfish, to fling a mare into her own firestorm, but... not so close to Rarity. She took a deep breath, nodded with a minimum of defeat, and approached. 

Diamond watched vigilantly, eyes darting from either side of the hallway to the other doors to the sleeping form. She sensed no thoughts coming from it, nothing for her Stand to exploit; he wasn't a faker. 

Gently, Coco outstretched a hoof and prodded the nearest part of him, a relaxed leg kicked out into the hallway proper.

As soon as she made contact, the stallion's eyes shot open, and he gasped like he'd been resuscitated from drowning, taking in a whole body's worth of air at once. He sat up violently, head reeling up and back into the doorframe as he righted himself, his breath coming in heaves and his face frozen like he was staring down a train.

In other words, he was harmless. 

Coco did her best to smile and said, "Hello. We think you should probably head outside, this castle isn't a safe place to stay right now."

Then, in a single fluid motion, his fear dropped and solidified, like he was a completely different pony, somehow older. His face set, his head lowered, and then he flung himself at her. 

Diamond didn't even have time to warn her.

｢Something for Nothing｣ flew in to intercept, but he flung out his wings and dived sideways without paying it any heed. The detour took him a couple hooves further away from her, and it bought her time - she rushed for the door before he could use whatever his ability was.

But he was naturally fast, a marathoner pegasus, or whatever the equivalent was on Jupiter. With only a well-timed wingflap he circumvented her Stand completely, and kicked out, his legs coming in unison for her broken leg. 

They landed, and Coco fell in the doorway like a tree. ｢Misery Business｣ interposed too late, driving the pegasus away from the room but towards Diamond. The filly realized this and rolled out of the way of his next strike, knowing that he was trying with his entire being to activate his power on her. 

"Your Stand won't help you, Diamond Tiara," he said, looking down at her, and a coldness washed over her. "There's nothing that I want to keep secret that would help you." 

"H-how do you know my name?" Diamond asked. She'd never seen this stallion before, she was positive, and nopony else had noticed her! ｢Misery Business｣ tried to read him, but he hadn't been lying.

While she looked, he continued. "Moondancer, Scootaloo, Cheese and Zesty are also doomed to failure here. None of you are going to stop this eternal night, even with all the prophecies in Equestria behind you."

"Wh-" Diamond said, and couldn't formulate the question. She felt like she was suddenly on the receiving end of her own trick; he was reading her mind, somehow. Except he hadn't activated his Stand yet! Or... had he only read Coco's? Yes, it must have been something like that!

With no further explanation, he launched himself for her again. 

Outside, the ground thundered, and the floor shook. Coco laid on the floor as her friend dodged, trying to knit herself back together again. 


* * *


Zesty spoke thinly as she trudged, in a sotto voce tone nopony nearby would have been able to pluck words from. The stairs here were bastards, and gaudy in both directions with finery and desecration. The whole building was like a sugar-high schoolfilly's idea of dialectic, and its brute-force assault on her eyes more than made up for the lack of ambushing Stand-wielders.

She climbed for several floors as bits of ceiling continued to dislodge themselves, never encountering the mare who had run away from her. Let her run, then.

Shakes came, and for a while she had to hope it wasn’t just her. The coat had become a weight sagging gradually on her back, but she wasn’t about to relinquish it. 

She rounded another corner, growing used to the ritual and the sheer lack of excitement it brought. 

She had never been inside of the castle before, although she allowed ponies to believe whatever they liked about the higher circles she trotted in. The Princesses were skilled at keeping their subjects as a whole appeased, and so she never saw fit to bother whatever cooks worked for their senates and officials. In dire circumstances a pony could survive on trash, after all, and at the other end of the hallway a small brown figure darted quickly out of sight. 

Zesty stopped. 

Silence had taken on a new texture in this environment, with its juddering infrastructure, and her ears had not quite adjusted. They swiveled and flicked uncharacteristically as her eyes stared straight ahead. By the size it hadn't been the unicorn she'd just been fighting, although the thought of using foal soldiers sickened the critic more than usual. 

A lifetime spent detecting the subtlest notes of sensation paid off, and she saw the barrel before the gun could fire. It brought a dot of red with it, consuming one tiny patch of where her coat had used to be, and then there came a great angry clacking, and it disappeared for a moment. 

"｢Chop Suey｣," she said, with schoolmarm authority, and by the chunk of wall suddenly taken out she knew exactly how close her target was. Hugging the wall, she raced towards that corner, and the gun withdrew, only to fly back out alone and join the body of her Stand.

The colt came after it with a sudden cloudy-minded panic, entering the relative light of the hallway and observing what was forming in the center. He was young, maybe young enough not to have a cutie mark yet, and A piece of wall launched itself at him with enough force to crack bone, and he threw himself out of the way with his whole body. He'd seen battle.

Zesty moved herself, jumping back to the center of the hallway. It was a limp motion, intensified only by the flapping of the coat in the air behind her. ｢Chop Suey｣ targeted her, and she ignored the creaking pain as she sidestepped a couple pieces of random detritus. The colt realized that he wasn't in danger any longer for enough time to stop cowering, and then her Stand launched the device directly at her.

She caught it, distributing the impact along her shoulders, and the colt saw every second. He burst towards her in a moment of anger, and like a perfect gambit in chess, her Stand redirected itself towards him.

He dodged one clump of rock, a half of a torch-handle, a chunk of dislodged ceiling, each impact leaving impressions in the floor. The whole time his eyes stayed glued to the Stand. The demented hopscotch was tiring him out, and when the whirling dervish of random matter suddenly collapsed, he glanced around in all directions for some sneak attack.

There was none; ｢Chop Suey｣ had been dismissed. Instead, he came to realize, Zesty was staring down the sights of his weapon at him. The red dot flickered across his forehead; he'd lined himself up perfectly with the barrel.

"Rrrgh," he growled, unretreating, his eyes focused entirely on Zesty's hooves.

The weapon was more than a little small for them, but she held it with only slight trouble. "Where are the Princesses being held?"

His animalistic anger subsided, and his mouth set in a line as he acknowledged her eyes for the first time. "You don't know. You're not from the castle." The words were close to murmurs.

She hoisted the rifle closer to her eye, making it clear to all and sundry that she was the interrogator here. "Your forces are close to defeated already. Name the other Jupiterian patrols in this area and their abilities, and I'll let you live."

His expression grew serious. "They really have control of the entire royal castle? ...I was hoping I'd just been jumpy, shooting that guard."

Zesty arched an eyebrow. Nopony could expect such a shallow psychological ploy to work on the very organizer of the resistance, surely? Not even foals were so uncunning, unless they thought very little of their target. Probably there was somepony from Jupiter waiting nearby who would notice the colt's absence any minute.

"What about the fully-grown adult dragon popping up out of nowhere? We were all sure that was something big happening with Sombra. Are you just messing with one of the mirror portals?" he looked genuinely unsure, with a sincerity found mostly in the very young that Zesty had never much appreciated.

Her mind cast back to something. Coco Pommel and her band rolling through, trying to help things along. That mare's story had been unbelievable, some roving altruist in the midst of a total takeover of civilization, and yet it had been true! It was a disturbing precedent, something which flew in the face of everything Zesty knew about the world - about the tempests of falsity and braggadocio people would put before her along with their food, their correspondence, their invitations and well-wishes.

This was not that world any longer! She understood that instinctively since she had been first defeated, and helped back to her hooves afterwards, but only staring down a weapon at a foal did she realize the enormity of the change. Falls were not as shattering, incredulous tales were believable, and harmony was no longer instrumented by the Princesses! It was up to ponies themselves to create this world now, an interim kingdom which could struggle back into the light!

A few days ago, that very idea would have seemed impossible to her, it would have been proof that her work was entirely in vain. Now, though...! Now, she knew she had to give it a chance, because she'd seen how the alternative would twist her, how much strength would depend on others! To disbelieve and fire would be a betrayal of that ｢generosity of the soul｣ that Coco Pommel had bestowed on her! Zesty Gourmand!

Many emotions flickered dustily through Zesty's eyes, and her hooves pulled upward. The barrel lifted a few degrees upward, and the red light came unstuck from the colt's head. He looked relieved, and trotted forward.

She held out a hoof in his way, and he stopped. "Tell me how you came here," she said.

He breathed, nodded, and began to choose words.


* * *


Moondancer opened her eyes and focused, feeling ｢Tragic But Magic｣ extend out from her again like a limited ray. She'd landed on her hooves, many meters from where she'd been before, but already things were coalescing again. The pinkish mare who knew Scootaloo was dashing in her general direction in the aftermath, and there was no free mana in her system to fling her to safety. 

Wherever Scootaloo was, she was hopefully subduing the cream mare. ｢November Rain｣ had been the only useful Stand here for dealing with this creature, and even its effects were limited. The unicorn's mind hydroplaned underneath of her as she stared down the dragon, and hoped it wouldn't notice she was as fleshy and corporeal as it was.

It didn't, at least for the moment. It seemed like a beast of burden, probably something Sombra had enslaved and brainwashed, so it made sense for it not to have an independent will. Stories from her foalhood flashed behind her eyes over and over, the knight who gets eaten by the dragon and cuts her way out of its stomach, the enchanted gemstone which explodes inside of it, all of them based on being eaten. 

｢Tragic But Magic｣ wouldn't work with just one eye. She was out of time. 

She blinked, and for a moment the monster was distracted by the shrieking terror of the other ponies. She breathed for a moment with her eyes closed, waiting for it to move again to maximize the confusion and keep her position a secret. As long as nopony was looking for a unicorn popping in and out of place over and over, she could keep this up long enough for Gourmand's forces to regroup!

"What just happened to Scootaloo?!" the mare called from a short distance away, the only thing on the battlefield moving closer to the dragon.

Moondancer looked up and opened her eyes, suppressing the Stand. The dragon regarded both of them, staring like a housewife checking a dust mote for spider-legs. It raised a claw, casting a shadow even in the low light, and Cheerilee froze in her tracks, staring upward at it. 

"｢Tragic But--"

"｢Go Zone｣!" came the shout, almost out of nowhere, as Scootaloo jumped back into reality. Her captor appeared with her, crumpled on the ground and not long for the waking world. 

Scootaloo's friend slipped off of all of her hooves at once, even though she hadn't been moving, and flew sideways along the grass like tumbling down a slide. The claw thundered against the earth after her, sending her flying, but achieving nothing. 

The filly took off in the air after her, and then a dark shape came darting after both of them. It didn't fly so much as will itself to move forward, a blueblack arrow that was upon them both in an instant, the crest of its front sparking with constant magic. 

Scootaloo turned in mid-air in time to see Luna coming after her, but not in time to do anything about it. Momentum had already decided her path, and there was no way she was going to let somepony she cared about take that fall. 

Luna came into full resolution for only a moment, long enough for the crackling of magic to focus into a knife-edge. She sneered and threw it forward, feeling it tear furiously through the air and leave hot shimmering ozone in its wake.

Then, it passed straight through the pegasus, like she was some kind of ghost. Luna called it back and altered it, channeling more of her raw desire to land a hit, and then send another burst outwards which boiled the air blue-green. 

Oblivious, Scootaloo's Stand grabbed Cheerilee from the air and slowed their fall, building up the air resistance gradually. One of her wings flapped uselessly in the air, only useful for forcing more air between her body and the outer edge of the courtyard. Her coat didn't even singe. 

Luna stared at this, until she focused another spell on her perception. The effect of the Stand was obvious, and she traced it backwards, spinning with it to follow the path. 

Huffing and working to stand up straight, a single unicorn was staring up at her with bleary eyes. The Stand wasn't very strong, more like an echo of a greater presence...

Ah, there. 

The alicorn dropped out of the sky and headed for the mage. She was a clever type, for certain, but completely occupied. Luna stared her down and waited, silently, as if she were expecting some kind of speech.

"We're going to stop you!" Moondancer said, and the Princess looked at her with a bored bemusement. Then, as fast as she could, the unicorn blinked. 

It wasn't fast enough. A thought, and a burst of magic lanced through the sky and struck Roseluck in the side. At the same time she reopened her eyes, Moondancer felt her Stand melting away like a snake losing its skin, and became aware of the supreme emptiness of the battlefield around her.

Luna stared down at her, and the alicorn's shadow rose up over the rest of her body like the hood of a cobra, a malevolent second skin of its own. She didn't turn away, or try to leap out of range - she wasn't sure she could, anyway. 

For a moment, being stared down by the goddess, her thoughts went out to Diamond Tiara and Coco Pommel. She hoped they'd been lucky enough not to encounter her. If they could get Generosity to ｢Mr. President｣, they could still flee the city and make their roundabout path through to the Empire. With the Alicorn Amulet, and whatever the other points would give them, things could be different.

With a shuddering breath, she straightened her sweater, and then ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ was upon her. 

Further off, Cheerilee was having a crisis of her own. The schoolteacher's life had been defined for the past week by nightmares, first on that terrible night of collapse and then every night since, and now they were coming true. 

Above them, the dragon - the dragon! - pounded its way back to Princess Luna, forcing them to grip the ground with their hooves. 

"Scootaloo!" she cried out, once the wind and her heartbeat subsided enough that she could hear herself, "What's happened to Ponyville? What are you doing here?!"

The filly seemed not to hear her, facing away to the giant lizard, until she spoke, "I-I got the one who was trying to hurt you, Miss Cheerilee. It was the DJ... We all did our best to keep everypony safe." 

"I should never have agreed to go!" Cheerilee said, rushing closer to the filly. 

At the same time, she looked around the courtyard and realized that most of the ponies had been thrown back to the perimeter or out into the city, or they'd fled. She had hoped that they would accomplish something, something that would make up for the nightly visions of her students in fear and pain, but they hadn't even entered the Castle itself.

Then, for a moment, she turned active again, pivoting from where she stood and sweeping the area. She made it through a third of a circle before she saw the edge of the courtyard, and her eyes lit up the way they always had when she finally understood the answer to a problem. 

She nodded to Cheerilee. "Come on, we're getting out of here. Coco can handle herself until we regroup, and Moondancer'll come back after we finish off Luna." The way she said this was so matter-of-fact, nothing like the crazy schemes she would try to sneak past adult sensibilities. She spoke as if it were impossible for the side of harmony to fail, like she couldn't see the same world around her that the teacher did.

Despite this, Cheerilee's reply was, "Who's Coco?"

"I'll tell you after we make like trees. ｢Go Z-hrk!" Scootaloo stopped with her Stand half-materialized, and in the low light it took a moment for Cheerilee to see it too. 

Around the filly's neck was a rope, tight and leading back far, far away to a indistinct figure in the middle distance. 

"Scootaloo! Can you breathe?!" Cheerilee asked, stooping. Neither of them had slipped off in another direction, so the rope must have stopped her, but the filly nodded back to her. 

"C-can't move," the filly said, opening her mouth only a smidgen. Then they both felt the thunderous footsteps as the dragon moved again across the remains of Canterlot's courtyard. 

Cheerilee stared from her student to the rope to the creature, and then she let out a single sob in the night air and smacked her own cheek, hoping to wake up, wake up! 

"Run, Cheer." Scootaloo murmured, weakly, as her coat began to fade. "Keep safe. It'll... work out." Then, out from under one of her wings - which looked absolutely mangled - a long branch of wood suddenly jutted into existence, adorned at the tip with three small leaves tasting the sunless breeze.

The schoolteacher screamed. 


* * *


Flash Sentry was still processing all of the information as he dodged ｢Misery Business｣, flapping his wings up into the air and corkscrewing away. That was to say, his Stand had done all of the real processing for him, but the actual thinking it all through aspect was still up to him. 

He thought back to everything recent that had happened in Coco Pommel's life, everything about the filly whose Stand was hovering after him, and kicked off of the ceiling hard enough to hit the ground again. It was slow, he could tell. 

Coco was here for Rarity, of course. He could have guessed that just from touching her, it was like a big heart-shaped stain on a piece of her Stand's fabric. Whether any of the other ponies had managed to get into the Castle, though, she didn't know. Either way, it would be important to relocate...

Against his better judgment, he considered just giving her Rarity for a moment. Until he had her perspective, he hadn't realized that the unicorn on the bed was supposed to correspond to the fashionista who ran with Sunset. Maybe Sombra wouldn't like it, but it wasn't like she had some way to wake the mare up. What was more worrying was that they knew about the Amulet...

"You should just give Rarity to her," Diamond said, looking as threatening as a diminutive pink pony could look, "And what is it you want with the Alicorn Amulet?"

He grimaced, kicking himself mentally, and tried not to think. 

She smirked. "So Sombra doesn't have all of the power he needs after all, does he?" 
Then the Stand had descended on him again, and he kicked off again. He would have to go straight for her.

She hopped out of the way, and for a moment he wondered if his intention had been noticeable to her Stand or not. No, he'd just telegraphed the attack, that was it. After seeing her in action for so long, he understood in the moment how annoying it was to fight against her. What would Coco do here? 

He realized, and leapt off of the ground. Sure enough, where his back ankles had just been were white trailing loops of fabric. He didn't even know that she still had the energy for that, and probably she didn't either. 

His dodge broke the filly's concentration for a moment and made a small pool of doubt. He seized the advantage, swooping from the air to kick her. One of her Stand's pincer-arms stopped his hoof short, and it was his opportunity. 

Once ｢Misery Business｣ struck out for him with its other hoof, missing him as he arced around it, the reaction time was too slow to stop him from flying past Diamond. His wing brushed her face before the next strike from her Stand hit the wall, and ｢American Pie｣ did the rest. 

He hit the wall, holding out hooves against it to steady himself like a drunk person in an alleyway. 

Diamond watched him do this, and realized too late that he'd been able to repeat whatever trick he'd used on Coco. She still hadn't been able to figure out what it was - even in terms of things he didn't want other ponies to know, there were some that came and went too fast to read, faster than ponies typically thought.

He turned to her, and she kept ｢Misery Business｣ close to her. It had put a hole in the wall, it would be able to deal with whatever psychic nonsense he had on hoof. So long as his Stand wasn't powering up with each person he touched...

A thought occurred to her. "What knocked you unconscious in the first place?"

For all the thoughts that were running through his mind, the stallion couldn't help betraying the answer to her. 

She blinked. "That's... couldn't be..."

He wrenched his body around and came charging for her again. ｢Misery Business｣ waited until he was closer, and then struck out again, ready to pin him to the wall. 

He dodged underneath of it, shouting, "Spoiled Rich gave up on you for being a spoiled brat who couldn't learn to control people the right way!"

Diamond froze, and the stallion headbutted her, big metal helmet and all. She reeled back from the blow, ｢Misery Business｣ already striking for him again. Thoughts flashed through his mind, some legible, but she didn't bother to read them. When the first hit missed, she hit again, and again, and again, but he was like water.

He landed with a huff on the other side of her flyswatting. She got back up to her hooves - and then the rubble of the wall collapsed on top of her. 

While she cried out, he turned around and strode back over. ｢Misery Business｣ hovered over his side, flickered for a moment, and then struck for his armor. 

The attack drove him a hoof to the right and into the wall, denting the armor and making him wince, but he stepped forward anyway. And before the second hit could come, he stomped on her skull, and her Stand flickered away again. 

Flash pulled Diamond from the rubble. The weight was liveable, and he spent a moment adjusting her so that he could hold her in his front hooves and fly at the same time. What he really needed was to get in contact with a really high-quality pegasus.

On the ground, Coco tried to feel out her leg. She'd bundled up the bits of bone that had come loose, but against the flashes of pain she still had to set the bone itself properly again. While she tried, she knew that there was a big commotion behind her, but she couldn't send out ｢Something for Nothing｣ to handle it. 

With one last gasping crack, which went on about twelve seconds too long and made her think she'd done something terribly wrong, she fixed her leg again. This time she felt lightheaded, and not at all in a position to stand up, but once the pain had cleared away from her vision, she could see the room ahead of her again. 

The bed. Rarity. She pulled herself closer to it, trying to put some weight on her leg and wincing, doubling down on the wrapping inside. It had to work, she was so close... 

Flash hefted the weight and trotted closer as he watched the mare crawling for the bed. She didn't have a plan now, and she probably didn't know that he was still nervous to touch the ponies that lying there. If the Princesses were really as old as he'd been told, his Stand might knock him unconscious!

No, he would have to get this filly away somewhere she could be interrogated or used as a hostage, and then get whoever wasn't whaling on Zesty Gourmand's army to help him carry the Princesses and Rarity to another location. And Coco, too. If there was anything to this Elements replacement thing, they might be as valuable alive as Rarity was.

And he wouldn't be able to get any of that done with her still making progress.

Coco inched closer to the bed. Lifting herself up onto it would be the hard part, but she managed to start that part of it, using her front hooves. The blanketing was exquisite, the kind of material a wonderful gown could've been made of, with all the rich color of one of the stained-glass windows.

She lifted herself further up, and then felt the bedroom falling away from her all at once, like she was falling out of her own body. It took her a moment to realize that someone was gripping her from behind and lifting her up, and she could feel the effort they had to put into it.

｢Something for Nothing｣ tied their hooves to her, but if they cared they didn't make any sign. She tried to do something else with it, to think of something else to do in the first place, but then they neared the ceiling and the world lurched and spun around her, and they dropped. 

Flash held onto Coco and positioned her perfectly for the fall, sandwiching her between him and the momentarily rushing air. She didn't struggle, or even seem to appreciate what was happening to her, but a ribbon of fabric appeared underneath of her. It stole some of the momentum, but they tore through it, and hit the ground.

Flash stood over her for a moment, until the hasty binds on his hooves melted away into nothingness. 

Coco watched in the corner of her swimming vision as he hoisted up Diamond's unconscious body, and trotted further into the room. He disappeared behind the bed, and a large double-window opened, and then her vision went dark.

｢To Be Continued｣



[Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: ｢American Pie｣
User: Flash Sentry
Stats
Power: N/A
Speed: N/A
Range: E
Durability: N/A
Precision: E
Potential: B
Abilities: The user gains perfect knowledge of the personal history of anyone they touch. This Stand cannot be deactivated.
> Total Eclipse of the Heart
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coco’s Bizarre Adventure, Episode 17: Total Eclipse of the Heart

Beneath the Canterhorn Mountain, in the shadow of the seat of Equestria, there had stood a town by the name of Ponyville. It was abnormal in many ways, making it the center of many contests, invasions, social changes and magical events. In only a few short years it had become the seat of a power all its own, a six-sided throne of harmony still yet to be understood!

Into this town had come a fire! Not a physical one, laid by a madmare, but a fire of the spirit! Into the desperation and nightmare of this town under siege, a mare had come, and whoever she met gained the potential for great things! Her fire spread throughout the town, until it finally put an end to its greatest horror, the pony who had been tranforming their loved ones into musical discs! It was because of this that were now together, their families one step less fractured. There were more mouths to feed, more rabble to control, more space to be taken up and more ponies to suffer when things turned bleak.

But it had not been for nothing! At the head of this town were two indomitable souls, Sweetie Belle and Spike, touched by the same spark that caught inside of Coco Pommel! Each had fought in their own way to protect the Element of Generosity, and had learned the strength of their own abilities!

The constant nightmares, the ponies terrorized by the DJ before she was finally fought to a standstill, the shock of sending an Element of Harmony to the halls of Princess Celestia, the struggle to maintain the harmony of the ashes of Ponyville using only ｢Private Eyes｣... It was the undertaking of a lifetime, something on a level unknown even to the ponies of this unusual town!

But it was not for nothing!

“｢Electric Funeral｣!”

With a start, still laying on the floor of the regal bedroom, Coco Pommel woke up.


* * *


Cheerilee’s mind warred with her hooves, revulsion and compassion warring in her hooves. Scootaloo had come so far on her own, even seeming so small and fragile - but she’d been stopped here, at the exact moment their paths would intersect again.

Why would she ever have listened to one headstrong filly’s demand that she go be protected with the rest of the pegasi?!

The shame welled up in her, and compassion won out through guilt as she tore closer, teeth clamping down on the rope. She had much finer dexterity with her mouth than the average earth pony, from years of learning to write - not to mention that the chalk had eventually killed most of her sense of taste, so the rope gave her nothnig to complain about. She pulled at it as hard as she could, hoping to fray it somehow and end whatever curse was powering it.

Scootaloo couldn’t speak any longer, but her eyes spoke volumes. They were so soft, unpanicked, nothing that she’d have expected from any filly.

The pegasi had been perfectly kind to her, and accomodating enough to give her some solid pathways in their endlessly shifting citadels of clouds, but they also didn’t associate with her very much. She would be earning her keep with the few other earth ponies eventually, working the soil to keep them fed without risking their lives outside of ｢Mr. President｣. She hadn’t been looking forward to that, had thought of it as a great horizon in her life, a moment where she would have to prove herself!

And yet, in the midst of all of that, one of her own students, a filly without a cutie mark to her name, had been through life or death situations! Scootaloo’s strength had surpassed her when she hadn’t been looking, and now she’d become the protector of the two of them.

She pulled, straining cords of muscle in her neck, all to no avail. The rope was immovable, a fact of the world. Her eyes followed it away from Scootaloo to the pony down the line…

Granny Smith?!

That settled it, she had to be having a nightmare! They were always next-to-impossible to wake up from, but they came with as little logic and as much terror. What else but dream logic would have made her come this far from shelter? She looked at the rope again, the immutable reality of its existence which seemed to outdo even the castle-sized dragon standing nearby, and then her eyes drifted down it to the filly again.

Scootaloo’s body was covered in long wooden protrusions now, sticking out at odd angles. She was turning into some kind of plant, with sparse leaves and dappled bark that appeared in patches like some sort of rash. Half of her face had turned, now, twisting her mouth into a half-grimace.

“For her.” Cheerilee heard herself say, in a sentence that was more breath than noise.

Then, on the spot, she turned and charged down the length of the rope. It was a good distance, reaching from outside of the courtyard, but it moved in a straight line. She had no idea if breaking it would even reverse the effects, but the ground passed under her hooves too speedily for her to reconsider.

Smith saw her attacker coming from a mile away, and even faintly recognized her. There was no real love between the cooks and the teachers at Canterlot HIgh, but she was one of the young ones, always getting drooled over or with some rumor of being engaged. Her name didn’t come through, but her colors certainly did.

Frankly, she looked more nervous than angry. She probably hadn’t even passed the threshold that a person has to, to kill someone. Pretty city things like her could go their whole lives without throwing punches, especially if they got to be something like a teacher instead of going off and serving a few terms.

This world had a few more teeth than she’d been willing to give it credit for, though. The winged ones were the nastiest, and it was worse when her secret weapon was being used on someone else. ｢Strange Fruit｣ was certain death, but it was a helluva wait to get there.

As the purple one galloped closer, Smith made sure the rope was secure around her leg. It was. Then she stood firmly against the ground, shifting her weight a little bit. Her reaction time had been given back to her when she came over, but she’d been worried her bones wouldn’t follow the instructions anyway, just to be stubborn with her.

Cheerilee rushed for the (hopefully) other-world Granny Smith and leapt in the air, crashing into her with her whole body. Her goal wasn’t to attack, not directly - but if she could simply strain the rope from this end, then it would either fray or snap her leg! As she careened through the air, she closed her eyes, and then felt the collision without any of the resistance she’d been expecting.

It wasn’t like hitting a wall, like she’d always expected fights would behave. This was a living thing, with all of the same organs as her, and it reacted. The mare was old, and although her front hooves jabbed into the teacher’s underbelly painfully, they both fell backwards. Cheerilee was on top, catching her breath enough to put some force into the next hit, when three more jabs came, and then another four after that.

Smith used every limb she had available to shove the mare off of her. This one was halfway to meaning business, and that made her a threat. No one survived long in a skirmish being cocky, no matter what they’d earned or whose skull they could put on their mantle. She rolled to her side and got up, beating feet back to better cover towards the city.

When Cheerilee saw this, any sense of panic was muted by the sight of the rope. It continued to stretch out behind the mare as she ran towards the city, like some demented extra-large fishing line. She rushed over and stepped on it, hoping to get some reaction, but Granny wasn’t even tugged backwards. If her plan was just to keep away until it was too late, there might be no end to the rope she could create!

She gritted her teeth and gave chase, head reeling and looking for some weakness. Stands were so massively unfair, the way that they had to be interpreted from the tiniest of clues, and punished wrong answers with things worse than death. Her thoughts went back to the satisfying feeling of her hooves landing on other-world Roseluck’s face, when her power didn’t do anything to protect her.

Ahead of her, other-world Granny Smith paused for a moment. There was something in front of her, not easy to see in the dark, like it could’ve been some trick of haze and streetlight, or a complicated, distant sunspot on her vision. Cheerilee moved closer, on the off chance that it was something friendly and not a second pony from Jupiter waiting to trade off and finish the fight.

Smith stared at the boogeyman floating in front of her, something like the horse that had just been following her. It was like something a child would’ve drawn on a wall, if they were fifteen feet tall. It was an outline, clearly some kind of power, and her instincts took over as she juked sideways. It floated in the air silently, giving no chase.

Whatever it was, she was out of the courtyard in no time at all, leaving behind the general silence and strafing towards the nearest building. She didn’t look back, and she couldn’t feel it following her as she focused her mind entirely on turning corners.

Cheerilee, in the meantime, was staring at the stringy thing hanging in the air. It was three dimensional and easily the size of a pony, but mostly empty space, like some kind of avant-garde art-piece. It floated in front of her, dull and unresponsive, and yet she felt as if it was breathing, brimming with some kind of energy all its own. It transfixed her so completely that she didn’t even continue her chase!

She reached a hoof out to touch it, and felt the energy suddenly increase. No, more than that, it was boiling over, like steam burning her fetlock!

The anomaly burst forward, its front hooves slicing the air. She cried out, ducking underneath of it, and it passed over her completely.

The projection pounded at the air just above the ground, and she watched from the grass. It never turned, or even acknowledged her, and after a few moments something else appeared underneath of it, a white and red string outline of a pony holding its hooves up, trying to block the stomping punches.

Cheerilee stared at it, and felt something unlock inside of her. A force she had never felt before, like moving a leg after it had been in a cast for months on end. A force that could put her ｢beyond nightmares｣!

She almost had to sit down, to process the elation and the panic, to wonder if this was how it felt for a pony to have a Stand - but the rope still trailed off into the distance, and she couldn’t see Granny Smith any longer.

A glance back, hesitant, and she saw what was left of Scootaloo. Still attached to the rope, but now nothing like a filly in shape, a wing cracking into a dozen thick boughs and a body hanging loosely around a large trunk. Whatever had happened to her face, it wasn’t visible any longer.

Cheerilee darted down towards the city with renewed vigor, finding the streets deserted except for the rope ahead of her. She followed it relentlessly as it crossed one corner, and then another, and then headed down an alleyway. Without even raising her head, she barreled into it, and as the bricked-in darkness parted she could see Granny Smith standing patiently in the middle of the artificial hallway.

Then felt something tighten around her front hoof, yanking her forward hard enough to trip her up, and the front of her body slid against the hard stone as she tried to free herself.

It was useless. Smith smiled at her catch - a simple loop left in the rope had been easy enough to tie, and now she could pull it taut between herself and the edge of the alleyway. The teacher was lifted up into the air by her own hoof, dangling a few inches too high to stand on solid ground.

“I won’t let you do that to her… not after everything she’s been through!” the teacher said through gritted teeth and dirty hair, but didn’t struggle on the line. Smith could almost laugh at the thought of chit-chatting in the midst of a battle, but this was no battle at all - she was like a piece of linen hung up to dry!

“Too late for anythin’ like that, ‘mafraid. Soon as I call the name of my secret weapon again, it’ll reel back into me and the little ‘un’ll be plum outta luck,” Smith said, gauging the reaction. It was the truth - and she would have to wait until she’d done that to get this one properly rooted in place. The rope only worked one pony at a time, even if she could control it how she liked.

“Love is the seventh wave!” she shouted, like it meant something. National anthem?

Suddenly there was something between them, another one of those outlines. The rope passed straight through the center of it as it galloped in the air, striking for her.

She wasn’t used to seeing one of them move, and she backed away as quickly as she could. But then ｢Strange Fruit｣ lost slack, and the girl almost reached the ground, and as Smith fumbled to fix it the opponent was on top of her.

It hit her square in the jaw, but she didn’t move.

Another hit, and then another, and nothing happened. It was like having confetti thrown at her in a birthday party - the whole thing passed through her, delivering more useless kicks to the rest of her body. She stood still for a moment, waiting to see if she’d get a rash or something, but nothing in her body complained. In fact, the outline had even started unravelling around her as it struck!

Still, there was fire in the eyes of her enemy, and Smith couldn’t abide that. She was still getting the gist of it, probably, and there was no reason to give her more time to figure something out. Better to break her will in one blow of the hammer!

“｢Strange Fruit｣!” Smith called out, and the rope detached, starting to reel in to her. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it in some distant way, like prodding through a cloud of gas with a long iron pole to test for mines. There would be a minute’s wait as it curled up and came back to her, but there was nothing for that.

In the meantime, the teacher hung limp in the air, still staring at her grimly like a child who’d lost too many times in a board game. Sulkiness, that was all.

“I don’t know who you are, but you’re nothing like Granny Smith. And that’s why I’m not going to regret what I have to do to you,” she said. The gum-flapping wasn’t very impressive, but Smith glanced around to see if it was gonna get backed up with anything.

There! She caught it in time, the spitting image of that little one she’d just disconnected from, flapping through the air right for her. Smith didn’t give this one a chance to hit, twirling the rope up and into its path.

It exploded against the solid twine, stretching and melting around the edges towards her at the same speed, and then it was just hanging off of her like the last one, like those cans of string kids would ruin her property line with every time a new family moved to the orchard.

Then, they tightened. She felt her legs spreadeagle underneath of her, and her bones protested as she collapsed all at once. It wasn’t bad enough to break something, but she was halfway to a hogtie, and she couldn’t pull her legs free for anything.

It didn’t matter. Another half a minute and it would be over, this last resort would blow up and there would be time to regroup and deal with any stragglers.

She felt herself being pulled towards the teacher now, dragged against the roadway. It wasn’t pleasant, but she gritted her teeth and pushed against it as ｢Strange Fruit｣ went slack again and the teacher’s hooves met the pavement.

Smith looked up, still wriggling, as the teacher bridged the two feet between them and raised a hoof over the start of the rope.

“If you’re meaning to trample me, you should know the little ‘un can’t turn back without my help,” Smith said, and she couldn’t help the nasty smile cross her face. Just another few seconds, a moment of doubt, and it would be finished.

Cheerilee brought her hoof down without hesitation, snapping into the leg with the intention of doing as much damage as possible!

Smith cried out, more in shock than in pain - that had mostly become dull to her. “Hey, hey! Don’ you want to save her?”

“I will. You’re going to turn her back, once I break your leg!” Cheerilee said, and reared back, lifting both of her front hooves!

“It’s already said and done!” Smith snarled, and then hissed in pain through gritted teeth. “There’s - no way for me to do somethin’ about it without the rope touchin’ her!”

Cheerilee looked into her eyes, completely calm. “You will.”

She raised a hoof again, and this time Smith smiled. “Too late! ｢Strange Fruit｣!”

The rope came from behind Cheerilee, giving her no time to react. It just curled around her barrel and tightened, cinched automatically and chafing against her coat. If it had kept moving, it would’ve left scars.

Smith chuckled, and waited for the first bits of bark to pop out as all of this Stand hooey disappeared from around her.

Cheerilee brought down her hoof again, impossibly, and this time something cracked on the impact! Smith wheezed with pain and confusion, looking up at her. Why wasn’t she turned?!

Then Smith saw it. Attached to the end of the rope, there was a long line of brown cords trailing back out of the alleyway. They were retracing her path, keeping the end of her Stand connected to the filly!

“I won’t let you disfigure her and then leave her behind like that! And neither will ｢Love is the Seventh Wave｣!” Cheerilee shouted, and stomped her hoof down again. “Now bring her back!”

The bone gave, and suddenly Smith couldn’t feel that leg any more. As the shock and numbness traveled from her hoof to her eyes, the rope hung limp for a moment, and then, quietly, dissipated.

Down the line, it went, unbinding the schoolteacher, and then the cord that had been attached to it started to disintegrate. Cheerilee took a deep breath in and chased after it, leaving her enemy curled up in the alleyway with a broken hoof. She had to make sure!

She raced after the cord even after it picked up speed, never letting it out of her sight, until it brought her back to the courtyard.

On the other end, lying in the grass, was the unconscious form of Scootaloo, whole and herself.


* * *


｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ swept out onto the mage as Luna watched, cold and disinterested. There was no grand attempt at escape, no thrashing or sudden dodge, not even any magical resistance; it simply swooped down upon her. She said something, too quiet to hear, and then she was blotted out by a curtain of darkness.

When it came away, nothing remained but a modest pool of darkness marring the ground.

Luna surveyed the rest of the battlefield. Someone was turning into a tree, and she considered smashing it for a sense of finality, but let the urge pass. She might have been present to fix the mistakes of her army, but she wouldn’t interfere with their successes.

Speaking of that, Flash Sentry was flying in from the distance, holding something. A small filly, pink and out like a light. A thought, and both of them were teleported to her immediately.

Flash looked completely dumbfounded when he appeared in front of her, but he recovered well enough to sweep into a bow. She regarded him coolly, awaiting some explanation of why he had left his post, and he seemed to take her meaning.

“Our security’s partly compromised,” he said. “They’re the two ponies who infiltrated your throne room, but I’ve incapacitated the other one. She’s unconscious, and she doesn’t have any plans in place in the event that she gets knocked out, but we need to relocate. Sunset can keep Diamond here under so we can use her later.”

Luna listened, and nodded simply. “Very well.” Then she reached out with her mind and teleported the other Princesses and the Element of Generosity to the courtyard with them. They fell onto the grass with their limbs splayed oddly, but she wasn’t trying to be aesthetic.

Flash was perturbed for a moment, but then he remembered who he was in the presence of. “A-alright. I’ll need some help moving them because of ｢American Pie｣, but I don’t think the resistance has much left to throw at us. There were only a few Stand users that they really put stock into, and most of the pegasi have already been dispersed.”

It was true. Around them the battles had been scattered to the edges of the courtyard, with the dragon dominating the center. They stood in its shadow as Luna kept its mind occupied, and she considered her next action.

“Our priority is to find and seize ｢Mr. President｣,” she said. It was true that she could simply destroy it from where she was standing, if she felt the need, but there was no telling what that would do the surrounding area or to the ponies inside. She wasn’t willing to massacre the capital of her empire without at least trying another method first.

“Oh, they left that with Twinkleshine-” Flash started.

“I know its exact location,” she cut him off. “I only need to make it a crushing victory, which means bringing the dragon. You’ll have to hold the fort until I return.”

He nodded, promptly. He wasn’t very intelligent, but she appreciated him as a soldier much more than someone crafty like Shimmer. And with that out of the way, she turned and approached the dragon. It was clear that ｢Mr. President｣ was being moved, in some kind of desperate attempt to escape the city with it, and with her imperfect range she couldn’t allow that to happen.

Flash said nothing to the retreating figure of the VP as he watched Rarity’s body sink silently into ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣. Next went Princess Celestia, and finally the other Luna. He knew that there was a time for questioning tactics, and this wasn’t it.

Coco had really come close to denting that godly facade, and it wasn’t something he could put up with. The Amulet still needed to be taken care of, not to mention whatever was supposed to happen at those other points. Sombra hadn’t briefed them on Tartarus at all, but he’d have to get some kind of update on what use it could be to travel there.

There was a colossal trembling as the dragon lifted off, with Luna in tow. It was surreal to see it flapping upwards, taking up an impossible chunk of the sky...

Up there in the air, Luna had left even Sunset behind. With such tremendous wingbeats, it would be a matter of a minute before she’d descend upon her quarry, and the whole point of this resistance would be over permanently.

Just then, she became cognizant of someone else in the area, another pony “aboard” the dragon. She turned in time to see the mare climbing up over the edge of one wing, pulling her grey body up just shy of one of the wings.

Unicorn. Apparently tenacious. Luna could feel the Stand, too, which was just yet more trouble to go through. It appeared a moment later, over the mare’s head, a mess of solid soap bubbles. Luna probed it, and found only moderate strength behind it.

The mare caught her breath for a moment, gripping her hooves against the scales of the hide. “Well, then. It looks like the end of the road.”

Luna prepared a new spell, but stopped when she heard something over the whoosh of the air and the wings. Voices, the same voice in dozens of places, coming through the entirety of the dragon.

She couldn’t make out the words, but she wouldn’t have been able to if she were directly beside them. The words weren’t important; it was about making noise!

Her grip on the dragon loosened, and she had to fight to seize it again like gripping a wriggling fish. The wingbeats picked up speed, and there was a note of pain in the simple mind. Luna grimaced as she picked up the signal, trying to work out some way to handle it, and then her attention was split in two as she realized the mare was running for her.

She was upwind at the moment, so she had a simple advantage. With a single burst of magic, she lifted the mare in the air and tossed her to one side.

“｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣!” The mare shouted over the air, and the bubble Stand appeared behind her, lifting her out of her fall and back towards the dragon. Luna gritted her teeth, and turned her mind back to the increasing thrashing of the creature.

She seized the reins more tightly and ran with the desire to lose control. With her hooves planted firmly to its back, she let it do a complete spin in the air, the leather of a wing smashing into the bubbles and exploding into further cacophony. As soon as the roll was finished, Luna let her horn light up, and focused her energy in two deep places.

Two eardrums, the size of small children, were suddenly awash with blue light. A moment of crushing force, and they both imploding, popping like blown-up plastic bags. The dragon lifted its head to the heavens and roared in pain, bringing claws up to its skull and twisting in the air completely free from her influence.

Then she doubled down, clamping the mind as firmly shut as she could. It deadened underneath of her, becoming dormant again, and she made sure to keep her hold tight as she turned her head, scanning for the mare again.

She was gone. Good. She reoriented herself, feeling out the distant signature of ｢Mr. President｣. It was traveling across the city at ground level, at roughly walking speed, towards the outskirts where the buildings started to thin down into individual houses. Easy pickings, low cover.

A burst of thought and the wings flapped, finally pushing her away from the courtyard.

And then, just as quickly, the entire dragon went limp underneath of her. She panicked for a moment, worrying that she’d starved the brain of oxygen or shut off something important, and when she felt it out she could tell that the creature was in distress of some kind.

...Nightmares?

The unconscious form of the dragon plummeting toward the edge of the courtyard, stretched out and doing nothing to protect itself from the impact. Its wings were outstretched still, hanging loosely in the air without fighting it, and its whole body spiraled clockwise as Luna felt the gravity and air rattle her teeth.

And then she saw them.

The three of them were on a square of fabric, a flying carpet shining with blue light. The cream-colored one, the lead revolutionary, and one she didn’t recognize at all, holding a long rifle in his hooves and aiming it directly for her.

It was the first gun she’d seen in Equestria, and the instincts of home took over for a moment as she teleported herself a few feet to the right. The dragon fell away beneath her now, alone, and she watched with quiet intensity as the carpet spun and the foal tried to get his aim back.

She’d tried to deal with these Stand users before, and she was getting more than sick of being blindsided by them. Right now, she needed information.

A burst of magic teleported Flash into the air, and she smacked him into the foal’s side before teleporting him beside her. As the three of them swayed and held onto the dipping fabric, she picked Flash’s brain for anything useful about what had just happened.

Ah, yes…

Luna had seen the truth, of the gift that Coco had left in her wake! With Sweetie Belle and Spike present to coordinate, and several agents of Jupiter being held as makeshift prisoners, it was possible for one of her own Stand users to be turned against her! ｢Private Eyes｣ had given them a view of the Castle even before the dragon was summoned, back when eternal night fell.

And in the same way that she now understood Rarity had been sent to her, the dragon had been able to use one of her soldiers to transform a pony into a disc and send it to the heart of that turmoil! Button Mash had been sent, alone, for his ability to instantly knock out and resurrect those around him!

Luna felt a wave of relief that the idea hadn’t occurred to any of them before she’d crossed over into Equestria. If it had, they would have had a perfect ambush on the throne room, and everything could’ve ended before it had even started.

With a whim she ripped the gun from his grip, and turned it on him in the air. It fired fast enough that he only had time to gasp, and then it dissipated as he fell unconscious. The carpet drove its way closer regardless, and another Stand activated.

Pieces of scale and grass and stone flew straight up towards them like reverse rain, and Luna strafed to the right, teleporting Flash back to the ground before he could say whatever made him look so panicked.

The random detritus hung in the air for a moment, and then it made some decision and careened for her in the air, moving with a mind all its own. She swept out of the way of the cloud and then watched it curve around and back towards her, more diffuse this time. More came from below, shards of the world slicing through the air for her.

Then she felt something on her back, a weight pulling her groundward on her wings. She tried to turn her head to get a better look, but it held onto her too tightly, kicking at her oustretched wings as it piggybacked against her. From the hooves around her neck, she knew it was the grey mare again.

With that distraction, she didn’t have enough time to get out of the way of the shards again - so she accepted that she’d be picking them out of her coat at some point and stopped trying. Instead, she twirled in the air so that her back was facing them and waited to hear the screams. Meanwhile, below her the dragon still wasn’t moving, and she tried to reach out for it.

It was a heavy sleeper, but part of that was something Sombra had done to dreams themselves. She wanted to feel slighted at not being given the responsibility of holding power over them, but she had never been very fond of dreams. If she could just jolt the damned thing awake without doing any more permanent damage to it…

Time passed, and the impact didn’t come. She probed her surroundings with her magic and found the flying carpet approaching her from the side now, trailing the shards like the tail of a comet. They suddenly dropped down out of the sky, losing twenty or thirty feet in a few seconds like an amusement park ride, and the mare on her back’s power materialized directly in front of her.

It was too close to dodge the punch. It came directly onto her ribcage, with enough force to kick her diagonally backwards in the air, and the cloud of debris turned back to her again. They’d stopped it from hitting her once to protect an ally, which meant there was a trick to it.

She felt for the Stand’s nature, and got back the right impression.

Then she teleported down to the carpet’s level, ten feet away, and lifted up the gaunt mare who stared at her so defiantly. She was practically the only passenger on it with a spark of consciousness, and she stared with infinite defiance even as she was pulled out and held still, aloft in the air.

The shards came down for her, and she was completely helpless. The cream one tried to do something, but Luna teleported her a safe distance away and off of her carpet, so she went falling through the air with little Button Mash. Hopefully she wouldn’t have the strength to switch to the defensive and they’d both just splatter on the ground already.

That was when a curtain of black covered her vision completely! A black tablecloth had drifted onto her head, covering her like she was about to disappear in a magician’s trick, or she was about to be bamboozled again, and she kicked sideways out from underneath of it.

The cream mare was still falling, but now she had a parachute, and she was holding the foal. She hadn’t done this recently - she’d dropped it from above in advance, when she saw what was going to happen!

Before Luna could realize that she’d moved in the wrong direction getting the curtain away, the cloud hit her. It was like being pelted by a dust storm in the middle of the desert, she found her sight overtaken and her body slammed in six dozen places. If she were mortal, the first strike alone would’ve hospitalized her.

But it wouldn’t work that way. She shook the mare she was holding to redirect them again, but this time they just dropped out of the sky like the dragon did. Then the older mare with the bubble Stand swooped in with her hair waving madly in the wind and snatched the diseased-looking one out of the air.

Not once, even in that moment of high-velocity rescue, did her expression change or her eyes leave the newly-minted god’s. Her heart was driven by a feeling of complete defiance, one that would take her to the death if need be!

Luna remembered to check, and realized that ｢Mr. President｣ was actually close to the edge of the city there. It would be outside by the time she could make it over, and then there was always the chance that whoever was carrying it could toss it off of the mountain and out of her range!

She cast a glance back below, and found the courtyard suddenly populated. Someone had used a Stand, but the place was suddenly lousy with pegasi and a few other ponies. At this point the magic had checked before she could ask, and she realized that it was…

｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣?!

No, a weaker signature, not nearly as much magic. It was the copycat!

Although she didn’t have the chance to investigate completely, this was a correct deduction! Far below on the ground, Moondancer had used ｢Tragic But Magic｣ and saved herself from being swallowed up by Luna’s power by swallowing her own body in a pool of darkness! The innermost secrets of the Stand had been revealed to her with her power, and she had learned that all of the souls collected by it could be brought back by the user if there were ever a need!

Bolts and waves of fire raced below as Sunset tried to get a handle on the situation and Flash checked for an escape route, and then Sunset’s head started to shake like she was in pain, and her hooves came loose from the ground, and she started to dance.

Luna seethed. There wasn’t any more time for this, any of this! All of these setbacks could be put right in a matter of seconds, once she had enough peace of mind and her heart wasn’t split in two places at once!

Abandoning the dragon, she beat her wings against the air, kicking out a small shower of random hard matter, and swooped low towards the city, just above the buildings. The fastest route was a straight line, and she followed it relentlessly.


* * *


Coco was back in the air less than a minute after being cast out of it. There was no time - Luna had left, and they had to track her down as fast as possible. There wasn’t even time to communicate with the pegasi - they might not be fast enough.

Cheese noticed her as soon as she fell with Button, and he was beside her, smiling warmly and much, much too victoriously. “Getting some exercise?”

She nodded tiredly and looked around. “Where’s Diamond?”

She was in the hooves of the same guard who had taken her, surrounded by a ring of approaching pegasi. Once he made the orange mare start dancing in place, he pressed a hoof to Coco’s forehead and gave her the rest ｢Feel Good Inc｣.

It didn’t help her mental state very much, but she felt her Stand becoming more solid underneath of her. She’d only barely managed two long squares of fabric before, when getting to the false Princess and blocking her vision had been necessities, but now she could at least create a few more.

“I’m coming with you,” he said, and although he was smiling and personable, it wasn’t a question. “So’s she.”

Zesty was airdropped onto the ground by Twilight Velvet, looking as dour as ever. “We need to get moving, there’s no time. The Jupiter Princess may already be at her objective. Twilight here will perform crowd control and stop any stragglers.”

Coco nodded to the older mare, and pointed a hoof to the foal in the grass. “Look after Button.”

Then, on a longer length of fabric, the three of them were airborne. It wasn’t the team Coco would’ve chosen on her own, but both had enough confidence that she moved with them. Unfortunately her Stand wasn’t capable of extreme speeds, especially with three passengers. Even as they neared the edge of the courtyard she knew that they wouldn’t catch up in time.

Zesty wolf-whistled, loud enough to hear over the air, and several of the pegasi broke off from the confusion on the ground and flew upwards.

“Get in front of us. If we’re going to save the world, we need wingpower,” Zesty said, and the four looked at each other for a second before doing what she asked.

Coco could see what the point was before Zesty needed to explain it to her, and ｢Something for Nothing｣ wove harnesses around the four of them.

“Hi-yaaaa!” Zesty shouted, without a trace of irony, and after a moment’s takeoff the world was zipping past them.

Behind her, Cheese was talking into the wind. Coco couldn’t hear a word of it, even when she turned her head to ask him to repeat it, but he wasn’t even facing her.

Zesty manipulated the reins this way and that. “We have to hope that she’s made it outside of the city, to the drop point. If she’s failed us, there won’t be any way for us to know.”

With that cheery sentiment in tow, they raced on between the dark buildings and the black sky.


* * *


Luna could feel where the pony was before she saw her. Right outside of the walls, just barely past the city limits, and completely abandoned on open ground.

Twinkleshine huffed and puffed, trying to catch her breath as she twisted her head this way and that. She was so close, and she darted in what she hoped was the right direction in all of this wretched darkness.

Luna finally came close enough to see her, but not enough to safely hurt her. A bolt of magic might crack open ｢Mr. President｣, and that wouldn’t do at all. She swept closer as the mare bolted, oblivious, for the nearest hiding spot - a house on the outskirts.

She tried the lock, and it opened. Ponies were forgiving, in that sense. Luna let her, and then drifted down, taking her time to check for any tricks. She knew that the resistance would be coming after her if they were smart, just as quickly as their little wings would carry them, but she still had time before any of them could arrive.

Against her own godly nature, she felt tired. They had unraveled her in a dozen ways in the course of her fighting, always able to respond to her just in time. It was a tenacity that she neither respected or feared, but that her muscles acknowledged entirely on their own. She hadn’t believed that she would need to rest in her new body, but now she knew that it was possible to overexert herself.

The door had been shut too hastily, and it was still open a crack. She would’ve preferred to burn the house into cinders from outside, but it would’ve been too dangerous. Or maybe just unsatisfying; at this rate, she was considering just atomizing the turtle when she came upon it.

It was on the second floor now, and Luna teleported next to it. The pony clutching it to herself was backed into a little alcove, and she squeaked in fear. Ivory coat, pink mane, no one familiar, but the look on her muzzle said it all.

“That’s what wrong with you. All of you...” Luna said, hearing gravel in her voice as the mare stared at her bug-eyed. “You don’t care enough! If you had wanted to protect that Stand, you would have given your life for it! Every breath would have gone into its protection! You would have run for the edge of the mountain and jumped off to keep it from me!”

The mare blinked at that, and her face resolved into a scowl. A bolt of magic flew from her horn, and then hung suspended in mid-air a few inches from Luna’s face.

“Y-you aren’t taking Tank anywhere! Coco Pommel’s coming up to this house right now, and she’s going to take you out of the picture completely!” she shouted. There was no anger in her face or her words, only fear.

Luna matched the name to the memories she’d drawn from Flash, and then scoffed. “Let her! It’s useless!”

And it was! Even if Coco tied her wings together and threw her down the mountain, or buried her in fifteen tons of rubble, or knocked her unconscious for a few hours, she wouldn’t be able to hurt the source of Luna’s power! The nearest portal to Jupiter was still in the Crystal Empire, and without it to eject her from Equestria, no pony could hope to do anything against her but stall for time!

In spite of the setbacks and frustrations she’d faced, this was Luna’s belief, a statement that could be written on her heart: “I am invincible!”

“You don’t believe me, but my Stand ｢Star 69｣ lets me hear things no matter how far away they are! They’ve just landed outside! You’re finished!” the mare shouted, clutching the turtle to her sentimentally.

“Pah.” Luna spat, and the spell hanging in the air smashed into the mare at triple the original intensity, exploding against her face and knocking her unconscious immediately. She slumped against the wall still holding the turtle, and it struggled to free itself as Luna plucked it with her telekinesis.

The turtle wiggled it legs ineffectually, spinning a sort of propeller on its back, and Luna tightened her grip a little, squeezing it until it stopped moving. There would be no more resistance to her, now!

With it in her grasp, she was able to separate the Stand from the user. Of course the ability continued working while the animal was asleep, so she called up a spark of electricity in its brain and knocked it out, watching the small ineffectual legs hang limp in the air. She resisted the sudden, giddy desire to smash it against the wall, to see the despair in the eyes of whatever came out.

Downstairs, the door swung inward hard enough to slam into the wall, thundering through the house. It hadn’t been a bluff, then.

Fine.

Luna appeared on the first floor, where the gaunt mare stood, staring up at her witheringly. Behind her, Coco stepped in and shut the door behind her, sagging lower to the ground. Both of them were magnitudes more exhausted than her, and yet they were still trying to come to some final standoff.

She sighed, and stood taller, fighting her own increasing weakness.

“Attack,” she said. “I’ll give you one attack, and then I’ll end you. Go on.”

Both of them stared back at her, as she made no moves at all. Then, finally, the taller and paler of the two moved.

“｢Chop Suey｣!” she strained, and the turtle left Luna’s grip, pulled in between them. Then, just as quickly, her Stand’s influence stopped, and it went sailing through the air like a football directly for her hooves.

Then it stopped, as the magic reasserted itself, bungeeing it back to its rightful owner.

“Useless.” Luna said, and with a flicker of magic Zesty Gourmand slumped onto the floor, out cold.

Coco slumped lower, hardly able to meet the goddess’ eyes, breathing harder. Luna judged that she had one more use of her Stand left before she wouldn’t even need to be defeated.

“I get it, now...” Coco said, weakly. “You… don’t know where you are, do you?”

｢Something for Nothing｣ appeared, and loosed a single punch into Luna’s chest. She didn’t flinch, or move, and then it faded away, and Coco collapsed, face-down, into the floor.

“Useless. Useless! You were worse than useless!” Luna shouted at her. “Why even attack, if you would disgrace your entire world this plainly?!”

“Because… I don’t have to hurt you to defeat you...” Coco muttered inanely, in her last seconds of awareness, and then giggled to herself. “You still think this is a random house...”

Luna straightened herself again and felt out the house, ignoring the effort it took. Yes, there was something else here, something it was harder to get a hold of than a regular Stand, maybe because it was woven into the building itself…

Her magic sputtered, and she cast it again, slumping, trying to find what was happening to her, which of her infinite spells would counteract it. She didn’t feel like she could teleport across a long range right now, but there had to be something, something-

This was the moment of her defeat!

When her spell completed, and she gained the information she needed, her eyes widened. The Stand was one that ｢created parties｣, that took a pattern of behavior and forced it on everyone inside. They had let her defeat them, one at a time, first the mare who had led her inside, then the turtle, then the tall mare and then Coco, all four of them had been knocked out!

A slumber party!

She had to escape! A teleport, short range, or a hole blasted into the wall! She called on the magic, but nothing came to her that she could cast. After a moment, even the mental indexing faded.

She reared up, stumbling to one side, past the slumped over bodies. None of them would be able to awaken while they were inside of this house, but there had been a third pony outside, waiting for this to be over. If she could just force him to open the door…

She threw her weight against it, and as loose as it had seemed when she first entered, it didn’t budge! Again, and this time it creaked, but she slid against it to the floor, unable to stand again.

She had come from a world where the only escape from war had been to live her days out in a dark office and deal with the problems of teenagers. And now, as the house seemed to dim around her, and the dream of godhood lay crumpled at her hooves, she could barely keep herself conscious.

Her eyes leaked bitter tears as the force of the house forced them closed. “Useless….”

Useless.


* * *


Flash and Sunset were surrounded from an entire side, by an entire bonafide flock of pegasi. Thankfully she’d been able to send a wave of ｢Pepper｣ in between them as a defensive wall, but the sheer numbers didn’t bode well for them.

Plus, she was still shaking, jittering, her hooves moving in odd directions. She was wasting her own energy at this rate, and she was the only one of the two with any defensive power even if Flash weren’t busy holding a hostage with half of his hooves.

“The Stand affecting you will wear off if you fall unconscious,” Flash said, not loud enough for the enemy to hear him.

She nodded as they backed up. The courtyard was as ruined as the castle now, as the portal, as their invasion plans. They had mangled the world.

A few pegasi lunged forward at the sign of weakness, and one unicorn floating on some kind of collection of bubbles. ｢Pepper｣ multiplied underneath of them, and they dropped out of the sky, completely unconscious. Sunset tried to ignore her headache; it took intense strain to stop herself from two-stepping out of her own safe zone.

Then they hit the splayed-out tail of the dragon, and there was no further backwards to go. ｢Pepper｣ drew inwards, closer and tighter to them, and so did the pegasi.

Flash hooked one leg around her barrel, holding Diamond Tiara with the other one. His wings strained, and he lifted both of them upwards. Then the world went black around her, as she stopped struggling and flopping in his grip.

He completed his arc, flapping desperately and trying to keep aloft under the weight of three people. The pegasi took to the air, following him carefully like carrion-birds, waiting for some final slip-up.

Then, all of a sudden, the night sky wavered, and the bright blue reappeared.

The sun hit Flash’s eyes and he tottered, losing his balance and falling out of the air, onto the dragon’s back. The weight was too big for him to bear it up again and outrace any of the winged ponies, it was obvious to every onlooker. None of them knew what his ability did, only that he was important enough to have been inside of the Castle, and they wanted a few more moments to wait out some final sneak attack.

He couldn’t even see them, now, in the sudden glare of the sunlight. Everyone was shocked by it.

But it was enough time for ｢Pepper｣ to return to Sunset.

A few of the small centaurs had reached her, galloping faster than he’d flown. She’d used them to drain her own energy and render herself unconscious, and with that stored energy she could wake herself up again!

He watched as her eyes shot open, like a parody of someone hearing an alarm clock go off, and then the rest of her Stand was around her. She’d planned this, he knew from when he picked her up, but now was the moment of truth.

To the pegasi watching, it had seemed like he’d been trying to outfly them, or maybe to find cover in the city, but that was untrue! It was his intention to land on the back of this dragon from the moment he’d started moving!

“｢Pepper｣! ｢Pepper｣! ｢Pepper｣!” Sunset shouted, and then all of it was there with her. Her reserves were low, too low to use her powers on everyone she would have to face now, but she could focus all of her stored energy into one place, one entity!

With a sudden snuffle that drew everyone’s attention away from the two Jovians, the dragon woke up.

It roared with sudden pain and awareness, and she pumped more energy into it, pouring salt into the wound. There was something wrong with it, some damage she hadn’t witnessed earlier that would make it harder to reverse-engineer the Princess’ control, but all she needed right now was movement.

The dragon took off all at once, its wings flapping out of synch before finally settling into a rhythm. It swerved drunkenly, smashing the upper floors of a few buildings, before it finally achieved real altitude.

“The Vice Principal just lost,” she said, and it took Flash a moment to realize that she was speaking to him. She held out a hoof, and he took it.

｢American Pie｣ showed him the communication with Sombra, the moments where she was under. The VIce Principal, floating defeated in the dreamspace, suddenly limp and pathetic. The judging eyes that flashed with green and purple light…

Their mission was clear, even if Canterlot had been a failure. The Alicorn Amulet was ahead, they had a hostage on their side to prevent this prophecy from coming true, and there were still forces from the Crystal Empire sweeping across the land. In a few weeks’ time, there would be no Canterlot standing either way.

Deep in the Empire, the dark King seethed and gnashed his teeth, and focused his attention on the cream-colored mare who had stood so firmly against him.

｢To Be Continued｣



[Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand: ｢Love is the Seventh Wave｣
User: Cheerilee
Stats
Power: D
Speed: C
Range: B
Durability: D
Precision: C
Potential: B
Abilities: Transforms memories and other psychic impressions left in the air into physical, multicolored networks of a tough yarn-like material. These impressions play out in the fashion of whatever left them.
> Different Strings (Omake)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dragonforce


Spike stared up at the dragon as it burst from the roof of the Castle. Entire floors he'd spent his earliest days wandering came off with it as it roared, his own childhood speared by its neck. 

It was larger than he'd imagined a dragon could get, even the ones he'd seen during their Migration, and yet he felt a kind of understanding for it. It was something raw and primal, as big and as thoughtless as the sky! He knew that this was the kind of creature he was descended from, the thing that he would turn into someday even if Sombra took over the whole of Equestria!

Moondancer muttered something to herself, and then her voice became audible. "Spike, I need you to hold still. Don't panic."

"What?" he said, not even turning to her. 

As it turned its head back and forth, he realized he could tell that it was a female, not quite a catch but still slender with sleek joints and clean scales. He couldn't tell anything else from this distance - he would have needed to smell her to figure out anything else about her, and she was no Rarity.

"Rarity!" he shouted at the same time he thought it, when the realization struck him like a sledgehammer that she was still in there. He rushed towards it then, hoping to duck a path through the chaos and carnage of the battlefield - and then fell over.

Moondancer's magic tugged at his legs, and her voice was patronizing and annoyed. "No, stay still."

"B-but she's-" his words died at he saw the anger - no, the intensity on her face. He had learned from his earliest days of disrupting classes that an angry unicorn was nothing to mess around with.

"I need you for this, Spike," she said patiently. "I wasn't expecting this, but there's only one way we're going to stop it before Jupiter unleashes it on all of us!" 

She didn't bother to explain what the way was, only to drop her head so that her horn was pointed at him, and then further down so that it was straight at the ground beneath him. It glowed and crackled with energy, bright and snappy, and he could feel it in the air around him. 

He tried to see if she was doing something to him, making him into a cannonball or helping him fly or something, but he only felt distantly hungry. The brunt of the force was going into the earth below the two of them, and he could feel from experience the rough disc she was drawing under him. 

"Let's just hope my geology's up to snuff..." she said to herself.

"What do-" he started, and then the world gave way underneath of him. He yelped, and the air whooshed upwards, carrying the echo beyond earshot as the light and the surface became a hole in a black landscape, and then a dot.

When he realized that he was falling, he scrabbled with his claws against the sheer surfaces of the hole. It was a cylinder, just large enough to fit him, and as he prodded the walls to slow himself, he felt something hard behind the soft earth and stone. On instinct he scratched for it, and a shimmering emerald greeted him dully behind the wall of soil.

He reached for it, a point of stability, and then it broke off from the wall. He went tumbling again, a few more feet, and he struck the wall again, looking down for some hint as to the length of the passage. The tunnel was slightly curved, and he couldn't make out the bottom, only a faint light entering it from one side. 

The Canterhorn Mountain had existed for a long time, and many ponies had tried to map it in the early days of Equestria, but after the Princesses had established a home inside of it there had been surprisingly little effort put into its exploration. The natural caves had been left as they were, and it was only in rumor that they lived on for the ponies of the city above them.

Twilight had been down here, he remembered, when she'd had to save Cadance from the changeling hive. She'd mentioned that the place was full of magic, and gemstones,  and then prodded him never to go sneaking off for it - as if he wanted to go running off into some abandoned mineshaft every time he wanted a snack! 

But if nopony had been down here in ages without permission from the Princesses, why drop him? He looked up, but Moondancer hadn't followed him. 

Then his movements tore too much at the soil in his claw, and he was falling again. He picked up speed this time as he saw other gems pass him by - blue, red, indigo - and then they started to dot the walls. His hunger grew as he saw them, something in the back of his mind blotting out whatever might have been going up on the surface. 

If nopony ever visited this place, he might have half a chance if he just stayed down here. It wouldn't be much of a basecamp living in the dark, but if nopony bothered him and he had all the gems he could eat... 

The hole suddenly got tighter, and he had to adjust himself to keep falling. Or no, that wasn't right - as he looked down he realized that he'd gotten taller, his legs long enough to reach the other wall without kicking them out and his snout now long enough to take up part of his vision. It bothered him a little bit, but there was something exciting in it.

He was starting to see the idea. 

More gems passed as he slid down, hoping that the hole wouldn't get too tight for him to pass through. He grew again, and then a little more, and then he had to tear at the earth himself to open up the path - and then he was out. 

He fell, but when he landed it was the ground that took the damage instead of him. A glance around and he could see it - an endless shimmering cavern tiled in sparkling gems and long glassy panels of black. On instinct, he could smell that this was the heart of it all, the center of Canterlot.

And it was his.

Above, Moondancer looked around for some kind of help. ｢Tragic But Magic｣ could've latched onto any of the ponies on either side and drawn something out of them if she held her attention for long enough, but that raised the problem of which one to look at. Thankfully not enough of the fights had been resolved for any of the Jovians to throw themselves at her yet, but that advantage would run out soon enough.

She tried to focus on the magical signatures instead of the Stands themselves, trying to gauge the magical power on the enemy's side, but it was pointless. Harmony was being flung in so many directions that it might as well have been seltzer or water balloons - the only point she could make out with clarity was the obvious one, the center of what was left of the Castle. 

Then suddenly the dragon roared with feeling and lifted upwards, agitated enough to escape its perch. It dove in the air with its claws outstretched, heading for the ground with the force to send most of the combatants flying.

A few of the smarter ponies went running, losing alliances in the crowd, but Moondancer stood her ground. It would just be a matter of predicting the shockwave and trying to contain it. Her horn hadn't given out on her yet, she could do that if she had to...

But as the dragon fell, the ground itself roared in answer, and the shockwave came early. In fact, it came from the wrong direction! 

Dark purple talons broke the shell of the topsoil like nothing, and within seconds the dragon had emerged from its burrow completely and taken to the air. Its wings and scales shed gemdust and rock-matter the size of pavingstones, and both dragons screeched in different keys as it drove its head into the white one's underbelly. 

The two went rising back up into the air slowly, like a collective hot air balloon, but on the other two axes they were a violent storm of limbs, thrashing in a circle around each other. The dragon Jupiter had brought onto its side had been large enough to demolish the Castle, and large enough to threaten the city into submission if it came to that - but it hadn't been the right size for the whole of the mountain. 

Spike, whatever was left of him in that screaming beast, was maybe one and a half the size of what he was fighting. His claws tore without piercing the skin, but sent a hail of alabaster hide glinting off into the courtyard - and then his jaw seized upon its neck. 

There was a great thrashing of its tail, a crying out as all of its limbs went into some kind of fit, and then the dragon went limp completely. Moondancer had to cast a quick spell to check, but it hadn't stopped breathing. Was it playing possum? She wanted to warn Spike, but realized that he wouldn't hear her, and even if he could he probably wouldn't understand what she was trying to say. 

But he didn't make any sudden moves, even to bite down. He flapped steadily, as they both were lowered to the ground, and when they both landed the ground merely coughed up a small rain of pebbles and dirt. Her mane clumped with grass, and she didn't care - the Jovians and ponies were staring from the outskirts and whatever cover they'd managed to improvise. 

The white dragon stayed limp as Spike let it go, and then it lowered its head to the ground - and he grew, just another twenty or thirty hooves worth, but visibly. He looked almost disinterested, glancing around the courtroom as it drew itself back to its claws. 

"A dominance contest." Moondancer said to herself, and wished that there had been some spare paper for her to note it down on. They'd never witnessed one of these in the wild, but it completely validated Haykamp's theories! 

Which meant, hopefully, they just gained an ally.

In the night sky, Spike roared, and the other dragon joined in at a slightly lower pitch. 


Sweetie Belle Run


Canterlot had grown more than dark under the eternal night sky, for the weeks that it had lasted. It was only through the Princess's magic that it was possible for food to grow, and by simply tracking the movement of rations any resistance upstarts could be found immediately. The restaurant district had been obliterated, every building turned to liquid in an instance and smelt into a black-metal briar patch nine blocks long. 

Ponies drudged, keeping their abilities close to their chests and pretending not to see those that flew overhead. Their last hope had been the pegasi hidden within the last gift of Rainbow Dash, and yet those same pegasi slowly began to arrive in their workforces, with black-ringed eyes and unmoving tongues, unwilling to speak of what had happened to them. 

The rail lines had been taken over at this point, and every holdout that somepony could get news from had gone with them. Even the Elements of Harmony had been lost, their whereabouts known only to the legion of maids and servants that now tended and repaired the Castle of the Night - they had been abducted along with most of Ponyville as the entire town had burned to the ground. 

So when ponies came trudging up the mountain, none of the newly-minted perimeter guards could figure out why. 

They moved in a rough line, not precisely a formation, and they weren’t armored like the guards of the Crystal Empire. In fact, not all of them were even full-grown ponies - at the front they eventually made out a white-coated filly, and towards the middle of the throng was, of all things, a zebra. By the time they could see enough to be concerned, the ponies were upon them. 

Sunset appeared at the edge of the city, having been torn from some very important experimentation with the Amulet. Her sleep cycle hadn’t been affected as badly as most of the ponies under her, but even she was feeling crabby now. 

“What’s your business here?” she asked the crowd from a good distance away.

They ignored her, trudging forward. They didn’t seem mindless, only driven by a single purpose, so she channeled some magic into her horn and blew a fireball twice her size a few feet into the air. It hung there like a beachball at the peak of its arc, and then fizzled out. 

They were still moving forward, the filly at the very lead of the messy pool holding something in front of her eyes. “You’ll want to get out of the way.”

It took Sunset a moment to realize that the filly was speaking to her and not to her own people, and then she could hear buzzing in the air. She turned her head up a little, and then had to summon ｢Pepper｣ around herself. 

The bullets came down heavy, scattering into the field of energy her Stand put out, but the rest of the guards weren’t so lucky. A whole legion of planes swept downwards out of the sky, and the good-for-nothing guards behind her drew themselves back behind the city walls. 

Sunset gritted her teeth as her Stand tried to make do with what it was being given. The bullets weren’t preferable when it came to filling her reserves, but they counted for something! They had to! 

She aimed a burst of magic through her Stand, and shot it straight for the headset-looking thing that the filly was holding, hoping that it was the center of the Stand attack. Another filly swept her out of the way, and the bolt of fire slowed in mid-air in front of her, illuminating the battered orange of her face. 

Sunset watched as the second filly came charging for her, taking faster strides than should’ve been possible and only giving her a few seconds to respond. She stood up in the crowd of her Stand and prepared them to sap the energy of this new Stand user, while at the same time trying to think of who else could be called in to deal with these ponies the most efficiently. 

The filly was a pegasus, and wtih a couple beats of her wings the two were only inches apart. ｢Pepper｣ started drawing energy out of her as soon as it was able, as forcefully as possible, and she didn’t make it close enough to land a hit. Sunset stared down at her as she slumped, tired like she’d been running around too much and needed a nap. 

Then she looked up at the rest of the crowd, which was now drawing itself away from her and towards the city, almost marching. There was a look of determination on their faces after all; they were haunted, but unwilling to waver from their path even a little, even in the face of death! She didn’t recognize any of them, but surely if there’d been a crack team of mercernaries they would’ve shown themselves before now?!

One of them stood out to her as not moving - another foal, this one laying low to the ground and aiming a sniper rifle! She panicked as he lined up the shot, and on instinct tried to throw herself out of the way - except she couldn’t move! Her hooves were stuck to the ground at four different points!

She felt a sudden pressure on her back, and turned her head to see an orange-and-black Stand floating above her. ｢Pepper｣ fired at it, but it didn’t move!

And then the foal fired, with a distinctive plastic click - and she fell to the ground, unconscious. 

Sweetie piped up again with a voice much louder than her frame suggested, walking alongside the line of Ponyvillians as the guards shrunk back from them. “The workshops are changing shift in fifteen minutes. We can spread out to each of the major ones and then perform a pincer attack on the Castle, but it’s going to be tricky.”

Scootaloo appeared next to her in a flash, and they walked silently. Ahead of them, the city stretched, quiet for only a few minutes more. All ears were perked, even as they edged forward with determination born from pain!

“Alright, if there’s no questions,” Sweetie shouted, “Here’s how we’re splitting up!” 


Happiness is a Warm Gun


Jewel Joy rode on her ｢The Holograms｣, feeling the wind rush in her mane as the mock-train moved by underneath of her. The orange filly sped in front of her, much faster than she’d expected at first blush, and already the chase had been going on for a good half hour. If not for how much she enjoyed the landscape speeding past, she would’ve gotten bored and ended it sooner.

Ah, but now she tripped up. The filly saw something, and it distracted her just enough! Jewel Joy let her Stand pick up speed and close in.

And then she heard something, loud and persistent even over the air, and her own eyes were drawn away. 

Coco cackled into the night air as ｢Megadeth｣ impregnated the countryside with its hollowpoints. It rattled in her hooves until it finally sputtered and died, its sleek black design steaming and disfigured from the sheer heat of the rounds forced through it. She frowned, and then tossed it over her shoulder.

The train had disappeared, which was a result. The filly was cowering, well out of the line of fire, staring at her with wide eyes. 

Coco winked, and then looked for whoever had been hunting her. She’d run into half a dozen Stand users up to now, to the point that they seemed magnetically drawn to her, and she could tell by now when somepony had killing intent. 

She stepped over the tracks, grinning lopsidedly as she approached the mare. This one sparkled in the light, and she scooched away on her butt, sunglasses hanging loosely from her wide eyes. 

Jewel Joy threw up her hooves; this was the mare Sombra had sent a warning about. “｢The Holograms｣!” 

A wall appeared between them, sixty feet tall and five thick, and a shade away from transparency. The mare’s grin died, and then she fished around behind herself for something, eyes cast off into the sky in concentration.

This time, when she produced ｢Megadeth｣ it was as large as she was, a slender mess of rotating gear-teeth and interlocking black clamps that hummed and whined its way to life. The magazine stretched out somewhere behind her hooves and curled cutely on one end, like a lock of Rarity’s hair.

That reminded her. 

She turned to the filly and put on a calm voice so’s not to spook her. “Do you know where Rarity is?!”

Scootaloo had made her way back to her scooter, and now shook her head violently as she righted it and kicked off, speeding for the horizon. Coco watched her go, and shrugged.

Then she turned back to the mare ｢Megadeth｣ was trained on. “What about you?”

Jewel Joy sweated.
> Horse Latitudes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coco woke up to nighttime, and bustling movement. Above her, the moon sat in a squat corner of the sky, merely a crescent, and she sighed in relief.

A stretcher of some kind had been laid underneath of her, and she had to check to make sure that it wasn’t something she’d made herself. To the left and right of her there were identical ones, and more past each of them, stretching her into a row being endlessly patrolled by vaguely doctorish volunteers. 

She tried to sit up, and found that she could without any worry. A few inches further, on the road to actually standing, her leg squealed at her in pain. She looked at it disapprovingly, like a mother, and then felt around it with ｢Something for Nothing｣. A reapplication of her makeshift splint, and the pain dulled into a background hum. 

It was then that she noticed the others in the stretchers. Some she’d seen, in the last minutes of the battle, hiding or running this and way and that, and they slept now with a kind of complete stillness. Beside them were others, though, including many pegasi, who twitched and moved as restlessly as their injuries would allow, breathing heavily or making noises that were the prelude to screams. 

Besides the nurses, there were pegasi flitting this way and that. It took her a moment to notice one against the night sky, but in the next minute she made out dozens dashing overhead, blocking swathes of stars out for seconds at a time. Some clutched large blocks of material to their stomachs, while others moved unimpeded, zipping off towards the furthest corners of the city.

News was spreading. She realized that however lively the city seemed around her now, it would be a lot worse once everyone was healed and awake to ask what had happened. Which meant, in turn, that if she wanted to get something done, there was no better time than the present.

She felt out her leg a second time, then a third, making sure everything stayed secure. It was easier to hold the splint in place now, when her power wasn’t being thrown in all directions. She’d never tried to see how many different things she could pull off at the same time, back when she’d been experimenting, or if it got worse when she became tired, but now it was clear that ｢Something for Nothing｣ wouldn’t go on fighting after she did. 

The pony next to her, a lime-green pegasus, juddered against her bed as she swung her hooves wildly in the air, smacking at the emptiness. Her mouth was working at something baser than words, a choked sob whose sound just wouldn’t escape into the air. 

By the time Coco was on her hooves again, there was a voice calling her name in the distance. It wasn’t panicked or high-pitched, so she knew it wasn’t either of the fillies... 

Wait.

She turned in the direction of the voice - Moondancer! - and then galloped towards her. The mare was still in her sweater and glasses, her hair put up in its usual bun again, with the whole ensemble as prim as when they’d first met each other. If she was tired, she did an excellent job at masking it, and probably an even better one alleviating the symptoms with magic.

After Coco had been running for a few seconds, Moondancer controlled her panic and stood still, figuring it was no use running into her, or coaching her about the clear and present damage to her leg she’d been able to scan for with some basic medicinal scrying. The unicorn was nothing close to a doctor, but she could still recognize the physiologically impossible and choose not to question it. 

“Where’s Scootaloo?” Coco asked as she stopped.

"The last time I saw her she was talking with Cheerilee, or she might be sleeping. I think she-" 

"Zesty?"

Moondancer smiled, thinly. "She couldn't be happier right now."

"Cheese Sandwich?" Coco asked next, with exactly the same urgency.

"Around somewhere."

"Button?" 

"On his way back to Ponyville, I think." 

"And Diamond?"

Moondancer opened her mouth, and then was silent for a moment. Coco drew closer, her hooves on the mare's sweater, shaking her. 

"Did he drop her?!" She knew that she wasn't a professional, but she might be able to save a life with ｢Something for Nothing｣ if she could keep within range of the wounded pony for long enough...

"No, he and the orange unicorn got onto the dragon, and... escaped with her."

Coco reeled back. "Where were they going? How long ago?"

"Towards the Amulet, as far as I can tell. They have a few hours head start right now, but the eyewitnesses say they were being careful not to hurt her. I think they want to use her as a hostage, but we're close to figuring out exactly what route they're taking. I just need to get the info from Cheese-" Moondancer said, and then peered over Coco's shoulder. 

Coco turned her head, and saw a makeshift hospital bed lifting up - the mattress came away from the rest, although the pony sleeping on top of it didn't move, and Cheese extracted himself from underneath one hoof at a time, lowering it back down gingerly. All this completed, he noticed that the two mares were looking at him, and waved at them good-naturedly before fishing something out of his hair. 

Moondancer was about to teleport them closer when a sheet twice the size of a pony appeared behind Coco. She fell backwards into it, the corners humming with cyan magic, and then the whole thing went taut. Like a trampoline, it launched her into the air, and she vaulted the complete distance just as Cheese produced the scroll.

"Coco! The Sense has been pinching my knees since the sun came back!" he said, grinning like a fool.

She almost stopped to congratulate him, and then shook her head. "Have you figured out where they took Diamond?"

The sparkle in his eyes guttered a little, but his smile didn't fade completely. "Yeah, Mash says other ponies figured out how to use Sweetie Belle's Stand, so they've been looking at every part of Equestria they've been to. She put all the notes together to go with what the Map gave you." He hoofed the scroll over. 

Coco unfurled it, and read it over. 

The Crystal Empire was in a real state, apparently. Sweetie's hoofwriting was very neat, if it was hers, but somepony else had made jagged sketches of black towers and stormclouds. Each was a landscape devoid of ponies, until the last one, where dozens and dozens stood in ranks, their faces masked by some kind of metal helmet with glowing eyes. There were only thirty or forty in the picture, but they filled up the available space completely. 

Beneath it, the Hollow Shades, as forested and dark as ever, but almost completely empty. There was a note made that Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark had moved on the Map down there, which Coco started at - but it hadn't stayed. It had moved over to Manehattan half a day after that, where it was staying now.

Manehattan looked like a city somepony had left to rot for half a century. Buildings were defaced, shops were closed, alleys had become darker, and something was definitely keeping the ponies afraid. Most of them stayed indoors, but they weren't being made to work, and those that walked the streets could have been homunculi or clones or some other thing that nopony in Ponyville knew much about.

That was yesterday. A few hours later, ｢Private Eyes｣ stopped being able to see it. 

Moondancer was reading over Coco's shoulder, and wasn't surprised to hear that somepony with the Alicorn Amulet was messing around with the closest available city, or that they could sense it was being watched somehow. The place where Magic had been on the Map hadn't actually been laid out somewhere - and nopony had visited it. Had it just been lost in the wilderness north of the Shades? 

Cheese, who hadn't thought to read the notes on his rush over, read over Coco's other shoulder through a pair of smart bifocals that neither of the mares were noticing. Tartarus was still the location of the last two cutie marks, and nopony had been very close to it, but nothing seemed any different there. 

Getting from Magic to Loyalty and Kindness meant hitting the mountains head-on, but it was a route that would only take a fortnight or so to travel up to then. It was possible for them to take a detour around, if necessary - unless something else happened on the way there, or they had to spend a couple of weeks inside of Tartarus.

Shudder. 

With no warning, Coco let go of the scroll and turned on her hooves, running in the opposite direction. Moondancer gasped, and her magic just barely saved it from hitting the dewy grass below - but by the time she'd retrieved it and rolled it back up, the mare was already flying out of the courtyard on one of her magic carpets.


* * *


Button Mash looked up at the siding of the house, and then looked away again. It wasn’t right to think that way - this was a living house, with a personality, and his mom would worry sick over him if he couldn’t show it some consideration. 

“So,” he coughed into a hoof, “Cheese told me you wouldn’t mind heading to Ponyville for a little while?” The question mark came on its own, a squeak in his voice.

It didn’t respond. Cheese’s advice hadn’t been very detailed or helpful, actually. He wondered, briefly, whether ｢Electric Funeral｣ would rouse it for better or worse, and then kicked himself mentally. This was a potential friend, and he was like the ambassador for Ponyville right now.

“We’ve got a lot of ponies there who could, y’know, use some help,” he said, not making eye contact. “I’ve got to go down there, anyway, and it would be an easier place to lay low if Sombra’s going to send ponies to take back the fake Princess Luna.”

It shifted a little bit in its foundations, moving a few inches to either side, like someone deciding whether or not to get out of bed. He took it as a positive sign.

“There’s a lot of ponies who could have parties inside you, as long as you give them back afterward! And there are others who could stay inside you to help the food shortage! The best party pony in all of Equestria used to hang with us!” He tried to think of anything else to throw at the wall, but the words hung in the air as he wracked his mind further and further.

Then, altogether, the house creaked and lifted itself from the ground. At first it seemed just to hover, but then he could see the shadow underneath of it resolve into a tangle of thick squiggly noodles with rounded points like misshapen hooves. They smacked into the ground one by one, and then it was towering an extra story. 

It hadn’t been a perfect sweep. There had been a lot of hurrying, and not a lot of time to secure Rarity. Sweetie wouldn’t be happy that they were keeping her sister here, hiding her inside of some kind of secret safeguard of a Stand. It was best for the Elements to be spread out, in case Sombra had some kind of plan for gathering them together. 

But he’d been able to help out the city, and he had some very frantic assurances from Cheese that the city was going to expand and send some pegasi back down to Ponyville when they had an opportunity, maybe with food! That was good news to bear, at least, not to mention that he’d helped overthrow a fake tyrant Princess Luna! 

Not that it would stop his mother having nightmares tonight. If she could sleep, right now. 

Coco had been so whirlwinded from the second he woke her up that there was no time for them to talk, not really. He didn’t mind that, since he got all the information he could through a few minutes ago anyway. Seeing her again so soon was like bumping into somepony after you promised to meet them ten years in the future, it was hampering the road for them. 

And it was the only chance he’d get to do that, he was sure. Unless Coco broke off Princess Celestia’s bedchamber and carried it with her, and Spike’s firebreathing stayed completely accurate, all the fancy tricks in Twilight’s Castle wouldn’t bring in any reinforcements. They had to hunker down and hold the fort, and wait for a siege that wouldn’t end or a final moment of triumph. 

One of the black trunks - legs - reached out toward him gently, as if it was trying to sniff him. He leaned over towards it, curious, and then it was curling underneath his chin and spiraling around his barrel. A single moment of tightening and his hooves left the ground. 

He didn’t dare breathe as the ground flew further and further from him, until he was finally above the second story of the building - and from there he could really get an eyeful of the ground stretching far beneath them.

For a moment, he thought that he’d simply raised his voice too loudly and annoyed the big sentient house, and that it was about to lob him like a hoofball down the side of the mountain. 

Then, it set him down, gently, on the rooftop. It was slanted, so he had to dig in with two of his hooves on the tiles, but they held for him after a moment. Then, as a whole, it lurched backwards, and started rocking like a boat on the waves as the ground moved by underneath of it. 

It took a moment for him to realize that they were already heading back downwards, and he clutched tighter as he concentrated on his breathing.


* * *


The restaurant was much better than it had any right to be in these circumstances - one of the few that hadn’t been used as a base of operations yet. The two of them sat across from each other in a relatively clean booth, with bowls of ice cream still left in the freezer. 

Everypony was celebrating right now, although most of them were doing it by sleeping. It was like having a welcome party, and just like everything else, Scootaloo seemed pleased but aloof over it. The filly was eating just fine, having resuscitated shortly after she got off the battlefield, and it was like there was nothing short of death that would stop her moving. 

Of course, since Coco was still reportedly asleep, she wasn’t in a grand hurry to go anywhere. Which was odd at first, considering how strong of a leader she’d been, but the last few hours had given them enough time to refresh the basics of this… quest. 

“There’s nothing I can say, is there.” Cheerilee said, smiling sadly. Beneath the table, ｢Love is the Seventh Wave｣ drew small impressions in the air of purple and orange outlines chasing each other in circles. 

The filly shook her head and put her spoon down. “Coco needs me, or it won’t just be her leg next time.”

“And what if it’s your leg?”

The reply was automatic. “Better than everypony else’s.” 

Cheerilee couldn’t keep up the smile much longer. “You’ve grown up when I wasn’t looking.”

There was a small, proud smile. “Thanks.” 

“No, I’m… I’m sorry. If I’d stayed in Ponyville, then-”

“Then you wouldn’t have been here to save my flank when I needed you.” Scootaloo leaned back and stretched, cracking the sore joints in her wings. “Everything’s on a schedule. If we don’t mess it up, it’ll work out.”

The silence stretched on, as the dessert ran in rivulets down the sides of the glass bowls. 

“I can’t go with you,” Cheerilee murmured.

“Yeah...” Scootaloo didn’t make eye contact. “Ponyville could use the help.”

“No, here. Sombra could send another wave any day, and most of the teachers are gone.”

“Bring Ponyville up the mountain, then.”

“Miss Gourmand’s going to try.”

Scootaloo chuckled. “Are you gonna keep calling her that?”

Cheerilee’s smile widened an inch, and then retracted. “I hope you do alright.”

Scootaloo thought of Tartarus, the few depictions she’d seen in foals’ books, most of them read by the mare sitting across from her. “I will.” 

“How long until you’re back up?” Cheerilee nodded to the slowly flexing, bruised wings.

“Whenever she needs me.” 

Suddenly, her vision darkened. She put her hooves out, making sure that she hadn’t just gone blind, when the whole thing finished spinning itself. It was pitch-black, a string replica of a pair of chunky sunglasses. 

Scootaloo lifted them from her head and turned them around in her hooves. They kept their shape. 

“I guess my Stand doesn’t do transparency,” Cheerilee shrugged.

“Keep at it. You’ll find out all kinds of crazy stuff you can do.” Scootaloo said, putting them back on like goggles acoss her forehead.

“I don’t think it’s all that, really.” Cheerilee concentrated for a moment, and her Stand drew an image of her in the air over the table, floating neutrally. She focused a little harder, and the outline filled itself in, turning the hollow air into fine surfaces.

After a moment, it was filled in just like her, with negative space around the face. The ears took a little more work, and there was no cutie mark, but it looked like someone had colored her in very clumsily through a glass window. 

“This is about it, really.” Cheerilee said, waving a hoof at it. 

Then she felt the same kind of energy, across the table. Scootaloo’s appeared, orange and black and about the same size as her, and then it drifted closer to ｢Love is the Seventh Wave｣. The two floated next to each other for a moment before Cheerilee noticed that the Stand had the same sunglasses on it as Scootaloo.

｢Go Zone｣ pressed itself into the string creation, which flexed underneath the pressure as the smaller Stand sunk into it. After a moment, ｢Love is the Seventh Wave｣ raised its limbs up in response, and hugged back. 

Cheerilee wiped her eye.

Scootaloo leaned forward and kept her eyes on the rest of the ice cream. “Keep at it.”


* * *


Violet Blurr stood in the alcove above the doorway, holding her breath, as the two mares came trotting through. Both were close to colorless, and seemed older than the rest of the ponies, although she wasn’t an expert. 

“It can’t be easy knowing she’s in Ponyville,” the taller of the two said. She was bundled in a thick coat of some kind, and she followed behind as the white-and-violet-maned mare stopped at a window.

“It’s easier than not knowing,” she said, staring through at the wreckage of the courtyard. The whole building had been gouged out except for the lowest floors, and there was still some room for things to go south. 

“She’ll make it,” the taller mare sniffed. “Even if the rest of us don’t. Not even Sombra could get rid of the Elements.”

“I don’t think he’s really tried up to now.” 

“Don’t give yourself wrinkles. Harmony’s part of the world. If you kept cutting it out until it stopped coming back, you’d run out of world first.”  

“Sounds like somepony’s gotten to you, Zesty.” 

Zesty coughed politely. “Well. It wasn’t possible for anypony to take on that brute alone. I’m not stubborn enough to deny that teamwork won the day, with the lion’s share of luck on our side.”

The older mare shook her head. “Magic isn’t luck. It’s more... audacity. I’m where she got that from, probably.”

“Not your husband?”

A brief laugh. “Night Light would get the vapors knowing half of what I’ve done this week!”

“You don’t tell him?”

Quickly, the laughter seeped out of the air. “He doesn’t ask. Doesn’t think it’s proper to worry about the Princess who stopped Nightmare Moon, either.”

“We’re going to need somepony to help relocate the Ponyvillians here, you know. You could help escort her specifically, if you wanted.”

The mare paused and considered it, having her little meditative look-see through the window. Violet took her chance and leapt forward. 

“｢Purple Rain｣!” she called out, and the fog started to rise off of the ground, choking the air with magenta.

“There you are,” Zesty said, turning around, and then Violet hit the wall. No, the wall hit her! 

She didn’t have any wings, so she took the brunt of it and pushed off, falling to the floor. They’d known she was around, which meant that she wouldn’t be able to distract or panic them.

As she focused on forcing the mist further upwards, filling the room with it, another Stand bore down on her, an indistinct mass of clear spheres. It threw a hoof out at her and missed as she scurried backwards, hitting another wall. Another dive, and it hit the wall instead of her, hard enough to leave a pony-sized hole in it. 

She panted. Neither of the mares were looking at her. 

“My Stand’s inescapable! The more you move inside of it, the more you lose yourself and revert to the ponies you used to be! In a few seconds you won’t even have Stands to fight with!” she said, and she wasn’t lying. It was better to tell them now, before they started getting reverse-senile. 

But they didn’t turn around. They just trotted away through the red mist, toward the boundary she’d drawn. They wouldn’t be able to cross it, and she fought the urge to shout that at them.

“That was the last Jovian?” the older mare asked. 

“So it seems,” Zesty said, crisply.

There was a great creaking in the building, and Violet looked around herself. The Stands didn’t appear again, but there was dust falling around the holes they’d made. In fact, the section that popped out while she fell had half a dozen siblings, swiss cheese holes reaching up to the ceiling. 

All of the bricks floating in the air fell at once, and Violet backed up until she was against the wall again. They plonked loudly to the ground, some of them bouncing, and then she felt the wall groan against her. 

She jerked forward on instinct, but it was too late. The architectural yawn rose through the building, and her eyes followed it as the last of the bricks echoed against the ground. 

Then the wall collapsed on top of her. 


* * *


Coco dropped off of the carpet once the hit the outskirts of the city. This wasn’t where she’d helped knock out the Princess Luna from Jupiter - she knew what direction she’d come in, and she was never going to get there in her state before they made off with Diamond and the Amulet. 

She tried to distract herself as she galloped towards the edge of the cliff.

The Amulet was moving, so somepony already had it, and they were powerful enough that nopony had taken it from them, or maybe ponies kept stealing it from each other. Either way, it wasn’t buried or hidden away somewhere. If that pegasus had really been reading her mind when she touched him, he wouldn’t know that - so it might be possible to beat him to the city and then save Diamond afterwards…

Moondancer popped into existence next to her. “Coco! Stop!”

“Can’t!” Coco yelled back.

“Everypony’s still in Canterlot! I want to come with you!”

“Good!” Coco huffed. “Get them together and meet me in Manehattan!”

“You can’t beat them over there on your own!”

“I can try!” Coco said, and then she ran out of mountain.

As she fell and her legs paddled against the air, she concentrated on the air between herself and the jagged rocks below. ｢Something for Nothing｣ rushed ahead of her, working out the angle for the maximum trajectory, and spun the sheet as tightly as possible. 

Now she just had to not go through it. 

Beneath her, ｢Something for Nothing｣ darted back and forth, this way and that, trying to add as many layers of thickness as possible. At this speed, it would be two or three - but from there she could probably travel the length of the city in a few seconds. If she could contrive to keep that momentum up without getting airsick...

“Coco!” Moondancer shouted, a few hooves above her. She startled and looked up - yes, the unicorn was floating just above her! “You don’t have the stamina to do this all the way to Manehattan! You need all of us!”

“I need to help Diamond!” Coco said.

“But we’ll get there ahead of you!”

What?

Moondancer’s horn glowed, trickling sparks into the rushing air, and then the sheet beneath them glowed with her magic. Coco pushed against it, but she was no unicorn - and the ends curled up towards them as they fell. 

Then she felt something tighten around her barrel as she was looking down, another white sheet! The other end was in Moondancer’s teeth, and Coco felt herself being pulled upwards as the two spun and switched positions!

“We’ve got a faster way to get in the vicinity, all of us! I was about to tell you-” Moondancer started, and then she crashed into the fabric. 

Coco’s mouth was open when Moondancer came back up. ｢Tragic But Magic｣ made a sheet between them, breaking her fall a little, but the the unicorn was moving back along her trajectory, and grabbed her around the middle like she was a giant hoofball. All of the air left her, and her eyes rattled as they divebombed in the wrong direction. 

“Parachute!” Moondancer shouted as they passed the top of the mountain again. 

Coco fumbled for a moment, and then there was one between the two of them. Her whole body had been tucked under two of the unicorn’s legs, but now they shared the straps and anchors roughly equally, and both of them felt another kick to the chest as they slowed down again.

After she’d breathed for a couple more moments, Coco asked, “How?” If this was just an attempt to keep her safe, or to tempt her to stay in Canterlot a little longer...

“Train,” Moondancer breathed. “We’ve got - one in the station. Just about the same speed, but no need to rest.”

“What about the - spikes on the tracks?” They were drifting lazily now, and both had to orient their bodies close to the edge of the cliff to make sure they wouldn’t slip off.

“That’s where the fun comes in,” Moondancer deadpanned.

｢To Be Continued｣


[Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: ｢Purple Rain｣
User: Violet Blurr
Stats
Power: N/A
Speed: N/A
Range: C
Durability: N/A
Precision: N/A
Potential: E
Abilities: Fills a moderately sized area with a dark smoke. Anyone caught inside of the smoke cannot leave while the ability is active, and quickly reverts in spiritual and mental age, losing their Stand in the first few seconds of being affected.
> Train
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Despite the best efforts of all involved, it was threatening dawn by the time the last of the group had boarded the Friendship Express. It sat a good few yards outside of the station, unceremoniously halted in its progress down the mountain, the frontmost of its seven cars already angling downwards against the grade of the slope.

Scootaloo came last, alone. As she approached she looked away from the windows and out onto Equestria itself. The land stretched out up to a hazy horizon, the odd hill and distant forest obscuring any true glance at the Frozen North, but she could feel its presence chilling the air just beyond the eye's detection.

What she could see, in abundance, were the evenly spaced outcroppings of jet-black rock on the tracks, craggy spires like massive talons bursting from the ground, the smallest about a story and a half tall. She knew from experience that a little ways away from the peak, they evened out and became infrequent, but unless Coco had been very modest up to now there was no way for them to do something like pick the train up and move it over one of them.

Which just meant she didn't know something, really. She shrugged at the grimness of the landscape and pulled herself up onto the train proper - she had to stick one hoof over the edge at a time, without the help of a platform. As a filly she hadn't liked trains very much; they were too loud to hear yourself think and too fast to race with, a constant reminder that she wasn't up in Cloudsdale, but the feeling only came back to her after she'd come into the doors, and only then as the ghost of a memory.

Moondancer was sitting in the aisle with her back to the doors, hunching over a selection of lit candles and bits of chalk. Several of the seats closest to the door nestled stacks of title-less books, three or four high with dirt worked into their time-wrinkled jackets. The unicorn didn't turn around, and Scootaloo kept quiet.

Muffled voices came from the next car down, so she headed for it. The door opened quietly after she removed the friction from the hinge, and she made her way across a small walkway over the firm industrial bolt of the car coupling. On the other side, the door was already open, mingling conversation and the night air.

"The Shades are dandy," Cheese said. "Perfect for s'mores and scavenger hunts. Not so good for ballroom dancing and hanging out at the arcade."

"I've heard they're haunted by vengeful spirits," Coco said, conversationally, and the filly paused in the doorway.

Cheese waved her off. "That's all for tourism."

Scootaloo let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and then Cheese continued, "The ghosts just stay in their trees unless somepony bothers them."

Coco finally noticed her, and the mare's eyes lit up. "Scootaloo! You're okay!"

She was, mostly. When Coco got out of her seat and gave her a brief, sisterly hug, there was something about it that reminded her of Rainbow, and she let the knots in her wings distract her as she drew Cheerilee's sunglasses down over her eyes. Coco peered at them curiously, but said nothing.

"We did good," Scootaloo said, matter-of-factly, and then headed for a seat of her own. "What's next?"

Coco answered. "We've got to get the Alicorn Amulet back from somepony who took it. Sombra's sending ponies after it, and they have Diamond with them already, so we'll be racing them to get them both back."

Scootaloo realized that there was a certain emptiness to the car, and that Diamond wasn't off in another one preening her mane or something. She frowned. "And it's all in the Hollow Shades?" She wasn't very versed in the Shades, since they weren't a major city, but visitors from around that area had always talked about them like the Everfree outside of the Everfree.

Coco's face grew uneasy. "No, it's been taken to Manehattan. But even if Sombra can figure that out and get a message to them, I think the two ponies who have Diamond will think it's in the Shades anyway. One of them read my thoughts, somehow, and they know what the Map used to say, so they'll probably take that as the real location."

Scootaloo chewed on that for a moment, and then shook her head. "What... happened, in the last few hours?"

Coco smiled patiently.


* * *


The train started moving just after the sunrise, with no fanfare or attention. With the whistle disabled only the ponies close enough to the edge of the city could hear it moving, and they were mostly too asleep to register that the great turning of wheels and axles was anything out of the ordinary.

"But what kind of a Stand user could stop Sweetie Belle from looking at a whole city?" Scootaloo asked. That detail alone had stuck with her, something that made her feel suddenly and concretely unsafe.

"Could be the Amulet," Cheese said, staring out of the window abstractly as the world started to crawl along beneath them.

"I've seen the Amulet before, when this traveling magician pony came back to Ponyville to fight the Princess..." Scootaloo trailed off when she saw the looks the other two were giving her, and then laughed awkwardly, "It was before she was a Princess, of course. But it was just a necklace. It made her magic a lot stronger, and she took over the whole town, but it didn't make her that strong."

Coco tapped a hoof against her chin and thought about that. "Maybe it has a different effect on Stands. Or the pony behind it is gaining power from something else."

"Cutie marks, probably," Moondancer called from ahead of them, not turning around. "She reported blank-flanked adults in the streets, whoever has it might be harvesting their harmony like Tirek did. Now stay in your seats! But don't get comfortable yet, we'll be walking if this doesn't work!"

The train's movement finally became steady, just in time to tip down the mountainside, and then the wheels started turning for real. As they approached the first crystal outcropping, Moondancer's magic gripped every open door in both cars and shut all of them with a single definitive whipcrack, and then Scootaloo's ears twiched with the absence of the wind.

"Does anypony know what she's actually about to do?" Scootaloo asked.

Coco smiled. "Magic was never a strong subject for me."

"They actually made you learn magic in sch-" Scootaloo started, and then everything warped. Suddenly she and Coco were several hooves apart, as the train car split itself in two straight down the middle. The tracks sped by underneath, and the gap widened enough to allow the jagged tower of rock through - and then suddenly they were lurching back forward.

Not expecting the sudden reattachment, Coco and Scootaloo both fell forward onto the floor, face-first. The filly was still trying to wrap her head around what kind of magic the unicorn was doing when Cheese's voice rose over her thoughts.

"Two more incoming!" he called, perched on his seat and looking out of the window again.

｢Go Zone｣ immediately grabbed Coco, lifted her up like a pony-sized sack of potatoes as Scootaloo tried to get as far from the center of the car as possible. They sat down beside each other, and then there were glued by friction just for safety's sake.

The next time it happened, the car's separated further, and without the shock and the wind in her ears Scootaloo could notice the grinding and protesting of the train itself. It was being ripped apart and put back together somehow, like wearing down a jigsaw puzzle.

Up close and personal, the black spires were jagged and nasty. There wasn't an inch of smooth surface on them, just a kind of geometrical certainty that made them branch off into tinier protusions like tree branches or stalagmites. The surface was a glassy onyx color that reflected the inside of the train in a kind of passing, dirty-green light, and Scootaloo felt as if she were in the Everfree, being watched by somepony.

The two came together for only a few more seconds, only long enough to brush against the tracks like a hoof on a lover's cheek, and then they were thrown apart again for the next one.

Coco studied these outcroppings, hoping for some key into the mind of her enemy. She hadn't forgotten when she'd first seen them in her mind's eye, in the final dream that had been forced on her - but clearly they weren't much of a solution to somepony trained in magic. There was something mesmerizing about them that made her feel queasy about staying near them for too long, but for the most part they seemed like needless, mindless brutality.

When they came together next, she felt the force of friction lifting from her body, and breathed easier. For all of this, Cheese hadn't turned or moved an inch from his seat, keeping his eyes out of the window like a foal on a trip, but finally he turned around and sat normally, looking content with himself.

At the same moment, the doors opened again, and the atmosphere of magic across the cars lifted like a thick burning smell evaporating from a room.

"Everypony okay?" Moondancer's voice came, softer this time, as the mare herself trotted in through the door. Her hair was whipped around by the wind - the train was still on the tail end of picking up speed, just leaving it's downward momentum and heading out onto the tracks proper.

Coco nodded, looking no worse for wear. Cheese was relaxed in his seat now, and flipped disinterestedly through a magazine of some description - the front bore no title, only pictures of mares frolicking at the seashore.

Scootaloo, still a little rattled, asked. "You do magic like that all the time?"

Moondancer smiled sheepishly. "I'd been thinking of how to use the trains for transporting goods for a couple days, but nopony would be able to perform most of the incantations unless they had a cutie mark that specialized in spellcasting."

"So you have a cutie mark for magic, like the Princess does?" Coco asked, and wondered what it would look like if a pony other than Rarity had a cutie mark for generosity.

Moondancer coughed. "It's not all that, really. A lot of unicorns have cutie marks that make them good at different schools or types of magic, it's just about the specific spells it makes them good at. Twilight's good at everything, which is how she got to be a Princess. I'm..." she paused for a moment, and blew air out of the side of her mouth, "I'm best at magic that takes a while to set up."

"What else can you do?" Scootaloo asked, leaning forward a little.

"A little enchantment and illusion if I have to. My magic's never been great at attacking ponies directly, so I was lucky to have a lot of ponies defending me back in Canterlot."

"And now you have more ponies defending you," Coco said encouragingly.

"Yeah, but it's not like I have much to teach any of you. Although..." Moondancer suddenly turned abstracted, and stared into the middle distance for a moment, before shaking her head. "I'll have to do a little reading. But there are some things I'd like to tell you about, while we have a few minutes."

"We're going to be on this train for another couple weeks, aren't we?" Scootaloo asked, feeling her wings clutch at the realization.

"I'm trying for sooner, but in theory yes. We won't be able to restock on fuel, so if the train stops moving for any reason we'll be wasting time starting it up again. Not to mention that it's a big moving target for anypony who thinks it's not a part of their side, so you should probably keep away from the windows when you're sleeping."

While the others were talking, Cheese lifted an eyebrow and turned the magazine vertically. Coco frowned at him mildly and gripped the corner with a bit of cloth, pulling it out of his hooves and across the aisle. She meant to tuck it away under a seat while the filly was still gulping and thinking about train marauders, but the sideways page caught her eye; it was some kind of comic strip about a stallion in a giant burgundy helmet terrorizing a beach party.

Cheese squinted across the car at her out of the corner of his eye, hooves crossed over his chest, and Coco tossed the magazine back over. He caught it expertly, and Moondancer pretended not to notice what had just happened.

"So, what's the hubbub with the Amulet?" Cheese asked, all business. He'd encountered a few magical items in his day, many of which hadn't enjoyed his company, but none would've been important enough to make all this fuss over.

Moondancer thought. "The Alicorn Amulet is... complicated. Most of the history about it isn't in the public eye, and I've only been able to research it for a few days. All of the primary sources seem to be in legends somewhere. But it's clear why Sombra wants it."

She looked around for another question, but all eyes were on her, and she realized that none of them had really felt the impact of the return of the Crystal Empire. To learn that a piece of old legend was real always caused an upheaval in academic spaces, a storm of retractions and reprintings and I-told-you-sos that made it impossible for anypony who kept up with more than a few journals not to catch onto it. Waves of interviewers and folklorists had descended upon the Empire, until many were simply turned away by Princess Cadance's own edicts.

"Alright," she said. "I'll have to take a few breaks to keep the magic running before we get onto safe ground, but I'll tell you the story of King Sombra."


* * *


Sombra was originally a unicorn and a mage, in some small and unremembered town along the coastline of Equestria. His early life, for all anypony could tell, was spent sojourning and taking magic lessons, which he took to very well. His talent, ultimately, was his unsurpassed magical control, which allowed him access to his magic past all punishment and rational thought. If his temper was ignited, he was dangerous beyond reason.

His era was much less peaceful than most, and life in those days was determined not by war, but by an endless series of skirmishes with neighboring kingdoms. The griffons, minotaurs, lions, and half a dozen other species regularly tried to carve up the countryside and take it for themselves, or to pillage the smaller towns in order to make some kind of political demand from the Princesses. Whether it was his own town that was put in harm's way or some other that he cared about, or simply a fit of boredom, he took to battle like a fish to water.

In siege or conquest, alone or in armies, he roved the land and expanded Equestria's borders, stamping out the other creatures and eventually scaring many of them over the oceans. Without teachers to filter what he learned any longer, he was able to scavenge the remains of libraries and personal collections, taking in magic he hadn't used before, inventing more as he went.

Soon, he no longer scared or attacked his enemies, but enslaved them, stealing their willpower, their hearts, their minds, and anything else he could get his hooves on. And as time went on, and his magic grew, he began to doubt the benevolence and wisdom of the Princesses who would allow such dangers to remain in Equestria peacefully. Believing that the best policy was to take the fight to ponykind's opponents, and set the species up above all others, with unicorns above the rest for their proficiency at magic, he appeared in the court of each Princess and tried to convince them to follow his plans.

Celestia did not take kindly to his proposal, believing that her subjects needed chiefly to find a way to live in harmony. She rebuked him, gently, and sent him on his way, escorted by the royal guard - and when he fought back, desperate to change her mind with some errant bolt of magic, he was barred from Canterlot.

This was no great deterrent. In the night, he stole away into the court of Luna, disguised. But the Princess of the night was quick to see through his illusion, and when he made his proposal to her she balked at him and cast him out herself, believing that the ponies her sister looked after needed to become tolerant of the less bright and beautiful aspects of the world. When she removed him, she placed him under a spell of her own, such that he would place himself under exile, and leave the kingdom of his own accord.

And so he did, first heading as far south as possible, into the domain of the hippogriffs. He was more than disgusted by them, but was now so convinced of the disease in the ranks of the royalty that he beseeched the queen of the hybrids to stand with him and make war with weapons and magics of his devising. She refused, and when he again turned violent and desperate, they did not have the might of the alicorns to defend themselves. After the devastation that followed on that day, the kingdom of the hippogriffs withdrew across what became known as the Badlands, and have had terse relations with mainland ponies ever since.

Whether by walking the coastline and avoiding detection, or through some other contrivance, Sombra managed to travel alongside Equestria without entering it. A number of towns were destroyed in his journey northward, and he must have noticed the relative peace that they were now enjoying, even as he dipped into other kingdoms and experimented with new ways of burning and melting and evaporating their subjects.

By the time he reached the Crystal Empire, he was no longer quite a pony himself. His abuse of magic beyond his ken had charred and twisted his horn, his eyes would glow and give off green smoke even when he wasn't channeling his energy anywhere, and his wounds in battle had been healed over through sheer willpower, leaving him a lumbering, frightening pony to behold. And although he was allowed entrance in from the Frozen North, he was not given an audience with the Princess of the Empire.

Princess Amore, the originator of the Crystal Faire, had brought unprecedented harmony to the ponies of the Empire. She may have been the pony who cut and fashioned the Crystal Heart, helping to drive the great Storm which was once the Windigoes out of the Empire's territory and further up past the mountains. Whether she was or not, however, she was a beloved and kind ruler, working to ensure that the Empire could expand throughout climes that regular ponies couldn't tolerate.

Amore had received word from Celestia and Luna, who had learned of Sombra's attack on the hippogriffs and could guess his next plan of action. And so Sombra was stalled, and granted every kindness and luxury her staff could afford, and kept as content as reason would allow - but he never gained his audience.

With the Crystal Heart in place as a beacon of harmony, Sombra's magic was weakened, and he wasn't able to make a show of force to intimidate the ponies around him into submission. It was Amore's hope that, with nowhere left in the world to run and nopony to ally with, the unicorn would allow himself to become a subject in her Empire and simply fade into obscurity as a minor wizard of the court.

She badly underestimated him.

The Crystal Empire was older than pony history could record, existing at least as long as the founding of Equestria. Raw forms of magic tend to crystallize naturally when they're left alone for a long time, so it's been theorized that the Empire formed overnight in the wake of some massive magical discharge, ponies and all.

There was originally some argument about whether crystal ponies were really alive or simply constructs, but their ability to use fine magic requires intelligence and skill that no construct has ever displayed. Whatever they're the end result of, they've always been a withdrawn people, containing most of their lives and worries to the four walls of their single city. There have been no recorded crystal pony adventurers, thrillseekers, warlord or conquerors - it is simply their lot to remain at home and maintain the advanced levels of magic which course through the Empire.

But it's been stated in no uncertain terms that the Empire has a dark side. Something, maybe a lot of things, has been kept inside of it. Whether they were imprisoned inside of it, or were simply further side effects of the Empire's foundation, is unknown - but they were unable to roam freely for as long as harmony moves freely through the streets.

Under the cover of his magic, Sombra descended to the lowest points of the city, down through dungeons and sewers and deeper rooms that had laid untouched since the founding of the Empire. Down there, in the cavernous reaches of the under-city that played neighbor to Tartarus itself, he disappeared.

For three days and nights, he was nowhere to be seen. When word spread of how far down he had gone, many ponies simply gave up on him, knowing that he was beyond saving in his lust for magical power. Amore hung her head in mourning for him, knowing that he would not return, and corresponded with the other Princesses to explain his fate.

On the third night or the fourth day, he returned, bursting from the ground and cracking the pavingstones in the center of the city. He was no longer a pony at all, but a wraith, some half-living thing that dealt only in magic and suffering, and he struck at the Crystal Heart before anypony could stop him. It blackened and dimmed, and he cast it out of its guarded hold, destroying the center of the Empire in one swoop before secreting it away to continue to hold off the torrential storm of the North.

Amore confronted him as quickly as possible, demanding that he should listen to reason and call off his conquest, which could never come to pass for as long as Equestria stood. When he gave her no response, she brought to bear the entire magic of the Empire - but without the Heart, even that was sickly and weak. Her best strike simply passed through his shade of a body, and with green smoke billowing from his eyes he gripped her horn in his magic and tore it out.

Amore cried out, and fell limp in shock.

Twisting that magical conduit and its connection to the Empire, he lifted the crown that she had worn upon her head, and smelted the two in the air, binding them together with dark magic. To be the ruler of a principality in those days was entirely about power, and Amore had gained a title on par with the alicorns by controlling and wielding the combined harmonic might of the Empire. Harnessing that same magic, Sombra was able to give himself a physical form once more, and control the Empire in totality without conscious effort.

During this time the crystal ponies could feel his wishes, and at times could glimpse his very thoughts, and whatever had once driven him was now gone. Sombra no longer wished only for the protection and safety of ponykind, as they had felt when they allowed him shelter in their palatial districts and secret gardens. Now his thoughts laid only in conquest over the rest of the world's kingdoms and the enslavement of those beneath him.

Because of the pedestal it set him upon, it became known as the Alicorn Amulet. He wore it as part of his armor, constantly, as he worked to train his armies and overthrow the Princesses. When news finally reached them that Amore was no longer ruling the Empire, the two swiftly took the sky and descended upon the enslaved populace of the Frozen North.

Sombra had woven enchantments and tricks, but he had believed he would have more time. He was only interrupted thanks to Amore's daughter, Fioritura, who had braved the rest of Equestria to deliver the news as fast as possible, apparently making the journey faster than any pony recorded since. And without time to properly prepare for a siege, he allowed himself to be challenged in direct combat.

Even in his original state, he would have been a force to be reckoned with for the Princesses in those early days. With his command of the Empire on top of that, it was impossible for the Princesses to simply banish him using the Elements of Harmony - for he wielded as much of harmony's power as they did, if it pleased him. Celestia struck for him with the peace-sword Clarent, which she had used only for knighting and ceremony for many decades, and the blow was true, but passed cleanly through his head as if he were made of vapor.

Sombra brought much of his Amulet's power to bear in the first minutes of the conflict, although it hurt the Empire and its inhabitants, and not all of them survived his initial volley of attacks. The sky darkened with disharmonious magic as he sprayed vitriol and raw mana into the sky. Celestia's wings were pierced by his attacks, and she was wounded for a time, falling out of the sky. But while her sister fell, Luna swept in and drove forth the spear of night that legend calls Rhongomiant, striking him directly in the chest of his armor.

The metal was unpierced, having been the one thing he'd spent the most time preparing, and he threw her backwards in his magic, splitting the staff of the night-spear. Luna, too, was weakened from the fighting - she had not been in combat for some time, having grown used to the armies of the night and the peace that had grown in recent years. In that moment she called out across the Empire, beseeching the ponies to relinquish their false King as a master and to aid her and her sister in his defeat - but her cries fell on cowering and pained ears.

Lumbering forward, he pursued her as she went to her weakened sister, and the two spoke in low voices, murmuring words of comfort.

He reached out in his magic and called down a mighty thunderclap of force on the two sisters. A blast on that level wouldn't damage them too badly, but it would weaken them enough to make them malleable. He had put a great deal of thought into controlling the minds of the alicorns, considering them almost a challenge for his newfound skills in dark magic.

But the spell he called for didn't come. The Empire did not answer to his beck and call.

Snarling, he turned about on the ponies nearby, who were frozen and watching, demanding their magic and threatening pain and torment to those who opposed him in favor of the Princesses. And this moment of unreasoning rage was his undoing, for his eyes were so full of black magic and blacker hatred that he couldn't see that his subjects were not disobeying him until it was too late.

On the ground, where Luna had struck his armor, laid the Amulet.

He clambered for it without dignity as the two Princesses finished speaking the names of the Elements and rose into the air, eyes aglow. His armor clattered around him as he became incorporeal again, once more a shade, and when he snatched for the Amulet his hooves passed through it ineffectually.

The beam of Harmony struck him as he howled, and his form was cast out of the Empire and into the great storm, in the hopes that it would be enough to contain him for a time.

But Sombra was a creature of great and unwavering magic, magic which knew no fear or fatigue. And as he disappeared, he called on the greatest part of it, enough to make his ill-gotten Empire disappear alongside him. Whether this was prepared in advance or a feat of unimaginable spellcraft is unknown, but the Empire vanished, and all of its ponies left with it, leaving only the Princesses, the Amulet, and the dead among the frozen wastes of the north.

And so the roof of the world was quiet for a thousand years.


* * *


It had taken a couple of sittings over a few hours, punctuated by holding very tightly to the seats as the black spires intruded on their cars, and Scootaloo only realized gradually that the story was over. "That's it? Nopony knows where all his power came from after he went under the Empire?"

Moondancer nodded, and cleared her throat so she could go on talking. "Princess Cadance didn't want ponies disturbing the Empire's underground looking for trouble, so she chose to maintain peace using the Crystal Heart. Most of the crystal ponies found her edicts very wise - although that's partly because she's Fioritura's descendant."

"Then is the Empire going to crawling with monsters when we get there?" Scootaloo asked.

Coco answered this time, thinking. "Sombra wouldn't destroy his own headquarters. If he's still not able to enter into Equestria, then it's the last place he can give orders from for now. What he wants is to get his hooves on the Amulet."

Moondancer nodded. "Great minds think alike. But I think that whatever he did to come back already gave him enough harmony to become solid again. He just wants the Amulet so he can control the Empire without thinking about it and move onto bigger things."

"If it's so powerful, how's Trixie the only pony who used it?" Scootaloo asked. "She's not exactly the sharpest magician in Canterlot." For a moment she wondered where Trixie was - probably in her cart heading for the border, or through the Badlands. She hoped, idly, that the showpony hadn't been attacked by some rogue Jupiterian.

"It draws all of its magic from the Crystal Empire, so for the last thousand years it was just a tacky necklace," Moondancer said. "It was stolen from the Princesses' care by a very ambitious jewel thief a couple of centuries after they got it, and ever since it's been tossed around shady markets and backwoods deals."

Cheese walked over to the far end of the car and peered through the window. "Anypony else noticed we've got somepony on our tail?"

That shut everypony up. Eyes turned to windows, but there was no sign of movement outside except for the passing of trees and the transforming curve of the horizon.

Cheese listened at the door, hmming to himself like a kid playing doctor. "At least... two, and one of them's way jollier than the other. They just opened up one of the doors and closed it again."

Moondancer's voice was soft, trying not to disturb the air. "We've got a couple more kilometers before the next crystal. I won't be able to help if we don't deal with them by then."

The car fell silent as the landscape rolled on around them.

｢To Be Continued｣


[Rush - Something for Nothing]