the Gala is over the forest is awake. A storm is coming but the ponies will be ready all tribes must unite or fall.
The Princesses have sent out summons and requests to all of Equestrias allies the gauntlet has been thrown by an unknown enemy but they will not stand alone. Together the tribes of ponies bovines and all manner of other creatures will stand and face this new foe. the gathering has begun.
The two Princesses sat filled with nervous energy. The plan they had prepared for weeks would soon be in action. “Sister, is your part of the plan ready? I just finished alerting all the guards. No pony is allowed entry until we sort this out.” Nightmare had mobilized the guard to code yellow, meaning the castle was on lockdown.
“I am as ready as I can be, Luna. Let's hope this works.” With those as the final words spoken, they sat and waited, for their guest would soon arrive.
With a stretch, Discord escaped his stone prison. “Well, that was unpleasant. If I never see another pigeon, it will be too soon.” Discord would have started causing problems immediately, but he just could not resist seeing the princesses' faces when they realized he was free. So, with a snap of his claws, Discord teleported to their private sitting room “If I'm lucky, I should have time to set up a nice prank.” Discord turned to start his mischief, and got a face full of cotton-candy cake, with a chocolate center if what his taste buds were telling him was right. Before he could move, he was tackled by a black alicorn.
“Now, Tia!” Celestia cast the spell she had prepared for this moment. Discord was suddenly coated in soap suds and, from the back of his mind once held back by his madness, memories began to surface.
A unicorn with a wild mane of white and black patches was walking down the street. Most ponies got out of his way. No one wanted to be near the chaos magician. As he passed through a darker part of town something caught his attention. With a quick spin, he went down a random road to find the source of the yelp he had heard. To his confusion, he found a pair of Gaiain fillies being surrounded by several pegasi who appeared to be from the guard. "Leave us alone, you bucket heads." the smaller of the two fillies was blue from head to tail but seemed to have a fire burning in her heart that belied her young age. "Why should we do that? You're nothing important. Just a pair of annoying mud ponies." ah tribalism - the bane of the modern world. Oh, how he hated it.
"Please, just leave us alone. We didn't do anything to you. Why chase us?" The larger filly was much calmer, but he could see a wicked glint in her eye. Like the other, she was one solid color (pink in her case).
He had enough of watching. "I agree. Why are you picking on a pair of foals? Ponies might get the wrong idea."
The leader spun around "It's none of your..." He paled rapidly (amusing as he was already white). "Shit! it's that crazy wizard! Run!"
They took to the sky and flew for their lives, fleeing from the laughter of the mad pony. "Well, that was fun. So, who do I have the honor of saving this day?"
After the two fillies looked at one another for a few minutes, the pink filly stepped forward. "I'm Tia, and this is Luna, Who are you?" The odd pony smiled kindly (for him) 'My name, children, is Discord, the chaos mage. it's an honor to meet you."
On and on, the memories continued; Discord watching two fillies as they explored his lab. Eventually, he would end up getting lost in the Everfree with his students, with all three finding a powerful tree and being filled with uncontrollable levels of magic. Discord woke up to find his students and friends had gained horns and wings while he had become something completely impossible. Finally, with tears brimming in his eyes, he remembered sitting with his friends; the new rulers; and his brother; the court mage; as they argued over the plans for building Canterlot.
Discord was shocked stiff until he felt the pony holding him loosen her embrace to a warm hug, and felt another join them. When he looked into the faces of the Princesses he found the last thing he expected, joy. Then, as one, his former pupils spoke. “Welcome home Professor, We have missed you more than you would believe.”
Discord blinked once, twice than with an honest, happy smile, he scooped them both into a tighter embrace “It's good to be home, my friends.”
After they finished their hug Discord sat down to catch up with his old friends, After staving off their apologies for getting him stoned. "So what have I missed?"
Celestia got a Cheshire grin. Moon sensed the danger but was too slow to stop her. "Oh, not much for me. The same old boring court crap, but Lulu has had some fun recently. Tell our professor about your new flame, sister, dear."
Discord leaned forward (well, his head did; his body went sideways). "Oh do tell?"
After trying to endure the stare of her mentor, Nightmare broke down. "Okay, I'm going out with a mare by the name of Midnight, She's smart funny, collected, and she's a wonderful father to our foal."
Nightmare realized she had let her mouth run away again when Discord's eyes went wonky. "YOU HAVE A FOAL?!"
They managed to calm him down and begin what was going to be a long explanation of everything he missed due to his madness.
One long explanation later:
"So that's what you missed, Discord" Discord just nodded sagely. It would have worked had he lost the strange outfit he was wearing. Celestia thought it was funny, but Nightmare wanted to burn it for some reason.
"So let me get this straight"-here he pointed to Luna-"' You used the exhausted magic of your marefriend to make a new star and place it next to the moon?"
Both Princesses face-faulted. Of all possible reactions, they had not counted on that being one of them.
"That's what you got from the story?" Nightmare felt a vain in her head pulsing-"We just told you everything that happened in the last thousand years - including the death of your brother, the fall of the griffon empire and 3 near wars with the yaks, and all you get is me making a new star?!"
Discord shrugged, his outfit disappearing in the process. 'Well, it was the only thing I didn't already know about."
Discord realized he may have pushed them too far when he saw their synchronized eye twitch. Then, 3 seconds later, they tackled him to the ground hell-bent on finding his (now mobile) weak spot. Just like old times. It was good to be home.
A grey stallion with a white beard and black mane walked calmly down the road of Canterlot. Discord was not ashamed of his appearance by any means but had no reason to show off quite yet. As fun as it would have been to see ponies panicking, he would get much more entertainment out of trolling the nobles in court tomorrow. Besides, by then, his position as the supreme judge would be ironclad. One of Discord's little-known abilities was that he could see the hearts of ponies. He normally used this to prank them. But the Princesses had convinced him to use this ability to find the truth in any disputes. He could not wait to freak out the next group who came to the court with some stupid complaint, and he pulled back the screen to show just how rotten they were.
Lost in thought, he continued walking down the road, only to stop when he accidentally bumped into a filly. She was purple with a beanie hat and a very curly mane. "Screwy, are you okay?!"
Discord looked over to see another filly (this one pink) followed by a small group of still more fillies.
"Yeah, sis, I'm fine.." the first filly trailed off when she saw Discord. The moment they locked eyes, it was like their magic sang. Okay, it was in a disjointed cacophony that would have made Vinyl Scratch cover her ears, but sing it did.
"What is your name, little one?" Discord felt like he knew this filly but could not remember why.
Screwball was confused. She felt like she knew this stallion.
"I'm Screwball, sir. Who are you?"
Discord blinked. The name brought back a faint memory from his time in stone. A memory of chanting and summons, of a deal for magic. His magic reaching for the life sparks of 2 foals, watching as one absorbed his gift, giving up their magic in exchange for what would have gone to their sibling, causing one to have pure chaos magic and the other to have magic twice as strong as a normal ponies. Discord's eyes shifted between the purple and pink fillies before he bowed in an overly flashy manner.
"My name, children, is Discord. A pleasure to meet you."
The girls could only stare at him in confusion. After a moment of looking at what they thought was a horrible actor, Sweetie's eyes widened. "Wait - as in the spirit of Chaos, Discord?." They had learned about him a few weeks ago but had not been sure if he was real or not. Discord's grin told them all they needed to know.
"Are, are you my daddy?" Screwball loved her biological father but had never really felt like he was her dad.
The question seemed to stall Discord for a moment as his eyes changed size while processing it. Finally, he answered, "I suppose I could be if you wished." the flying tackle hug he received caused several stones to turn into candy as their magic clapped.
A very confused Fluttershy came running up at that moment. She was able to feel the emotions between the new pony and Screwball, so she was not too worried. It was still odd, though.
"Girls, please don't run off like that. It's hard for me to keep up with you. E-excuse me, sir, but who are you?"
Discord could only stare for a moment. He had heard about a changeling queen living in Canterlot, but he honestly thought the pony had been high when they said that. He recovered quickly and introduced himself as usual.
"J.Q. Discord at service, madam."
It took 3 seconds for their faces to morph into the glorious looks of confusion he expected "What do the J and Q stand for?" Sweetie Belle's face at that moment could have given normal ponies diabetes.
Fortunately, Discord was immune. Discord winked at them. "I have no idea. I love seeing ponies' faces when I introduce myself that way. "-After taking a quick look around, he continued-"Now why don't we continue this conversation somewhere less public?" With a flash of magic, the group was teleported to a room in the palace.
Fluttershy was between the girls and Discord in an instant. After a short staring contest, Discord morphed back to his 'normal' form. "Oh, calm down, Miss. I just wanted to get us out of the public eye. Now for a proper introduction, I am Discord - the spirit of chaos, court mage of Equestria, mentor of Celestia and Luna, new supreme judge of the court, and lover of cotton candy. I would ask who each of you are but let me guess: Fluttershy, Scootaloo, Diamond Tiara, Silver spoon, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Spectrum Shadow, Dinky Doo, and of course, Screwball."
You could have heard a mouse fart in the room at that point. Spectrum finally spoke first, "Wow, so your magic gives the ability to guess ponies' names. Is that part of being chaotic?"
Discord clapped, "Brilliant deduction, young lady, but no. The Princesses gave me your names and a description of each of you so I would leave you out of any mass pranks I pull during the holidays." His words did not convince Fluttershy, While her stare may not work, she was giving it her best shot.
Discord just sighed-"Look, I'm not going to hurt you. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye" Discord completed the familiar promise, including a summoned cupcake.
Fluttershy went slack-jawed at the sight. "How do you know that promise?" While Pinkie had been the one to make that form of promise famous (hence the name), it had been a promise used by the pie family for generations. And seeing how, with few exceptions, the Pie family was quite introverted, the only way to know that promise was to know the family.
"I could ask you the same thing. I learned this with my old friend, Surprise." Discord, Surprise and Puddinghead had been known as the trio of chaos back in the day. He had lost contact with them shortly before losing his marbles. He knew they were dead now (no pony lived that long without some very strong magic backing them up [Celestia and Luna themselves being the most famous examples]), and now, he was sad. Why did thinking about the past always make him feel so sad? He was so caught up in memory lane that he almost missed what Fluttershy said next.
At the same time, Fluttershy was going over what she knew of the Pie family in her head. The girls had gotten together a while back to talk about their families (at least as much as they were willing to share). It took a few minutes, but she finally remembered the name. "You mean Surprise Pie?"-
Discord's eyes shrank for a minute as he tried to remember her last name. "Yes, that was it. How did you..." Discords magic was still a little hard to control. This showed when a light bulb popped up by his head as he made the connection-" Your friend Pinkie! Is she related to Surprise?"-
When Fluttershy nodded, Discord pulled them all into a hug, and with a flash, they were at the library in front of a very confused Midnight. She took stock of the situation, gauged the kids' reactions, and then turned to Shy with a 'happy' smile and closed eyes.
"Shy, please explain what is going on and why there is a chaos spirit in my living room, holding my daughter."
Both Discord and Shy could feel that they were on thin ice.
"Uh, funny story, Midnight," and with that, they gave her a rapid fire explanation hoping to save their bacon from the (understandably) unhappy tree spirit.
Midnight was going over the list of who she had to meet with, again. Meeting the hippocampus and kelpie leaders ( AKA seaponies and sirens) sounded like the easiest right now, though it was still difficult as she would have to be underwater to do so! The ponies of the water had moved into the oceans years ago after a group of their most powerful mages went crazy and tried to take over the world. They had separated themselves to make sure something like that did not happen again. Now it was time to bring them home, which was easier said then done.
Next, she had to meet the "fluff ponies" as they were called. In fact, however, they were really necromorphs. Only the queen, Marksaline, showed her true form and spoke using their normal language, which was untranslatable to other ponies. It was a well kept secret that the fluff ponies were actually from another world. They had come to this one seeking a home and acceptance. While their true forms were quite frightening, the new forms they took were so cute (and durable) that nothing could hurt them (and the reason they were called fluff ponies). But understanding them was still a problem.
Then of course there were the groups that were coming to Canterlot to meet with them; minotaurs, griffins and Saddle-Arabians just to name a few. To top it all off, she had a meeting this afternoon with some of the more intelligent forest creatures to hash out a contract for their help in whatever was coming next. Suddenly, her daughter appeared being carried by a chaos spirit. Oh joy. One quick explanation and near Myocardial infraction (heart attack) later, they were on the road to Sugarcube Corner with a mildly traumatized draconequis in tow.
Discord was not sure which was more confusing; the fact that this mare was dragging him though town by his beard with her hair, or the fact that the townsfolk were not even giving them a second glance. Something told him this was going to be a fun town. When he saw the building the were going to he could only roll his eyes (he even turned his eyes briefly into dice and got a 7). What was it with bakers and making their homes look like food? When they walked in, he had just enough time to register a Pink mare with a mane which resembled one of his cotton candy clouds before being dumped on his ass. "This is Discord, spirit of chaos, emperor of confusion, master of mischief and lord of tap dancing. Have fun. I have got run to a meeting, now." With that, the mare rushed out the door and ran into the forest. Discord turned to find his vision clouded by pink.
Castle of the 2 sisters
Midnight walked briskly into the meeting right on time. Already seated were Chimera, Krampus, one of Foggy's heads, the timber alpha and Slendy. Based on the way most of them were glaring at one another, it was going to be a long day. "Okay people, let's get to the point. What do I need to do to get all of you to accept me as the leader of the forest?"
Back in town
"So you're the 'uncle' Discord I kept hearing about when I was younger. We are going to have so much fun." At that moment everypony in town got a shiver down their spine.
Discord was just staring at this pony who seemed made of rubber if her movement was anything to go by. "Your family still talks about me, even after all these years?" Discord felt his eyes tearing up. He figured it would be an uphill battle just to get them to talk to him. "Well most of them use stories of you and our greatest grandparents to try and scare us into behaving, but it just made me feel happy to know that my crazy magic was just part of the family" Pinkie was on the verge of exploding into confetti. Her parents were never going to believe this
Discord could only laugh. He remembered some of the antics the 3 of them had gotten up to, so he understood why they would make good cautionary tales for the young with more bravery than sense. Oh who was he kidding? He was 100 times worse now than he ever was back in the day. "I can see them doing that. While your ancestors had quite a lot of chaos in them, their children were not so blessed, but I'm going to guess that you are the odd one out in the family?"
"More than most know, but less then you think ."
At that moment, her hair deflated and (to Discord) her magic shifted from fish/kumquat chaos to 2/2 earth . While Discord was trying to figure out what in the name of the world just happened, Pinkamena grabbed his claw and pulled him along.
"Lets go meet the others. I can't wait to see their faces."
Gilda just watched the scene play out in front of her. Once they left, she shuddered and went back to baking "I'm not touching this mess with a 10 foot pole. Better make sure the kids are safe once I get done with work."
Applejack was working the farm as usual. While the family was now official nobility, Granny (and, by extension, the other family elders who communicated with the aid of Spike's message fire) decided that they should only use the new power and rights granted to them when absolutely necessary, or if their lively hoods were put in jeopardy. Now she had over-stressed herself before but seeing Pinkie walk in through the gate with the unholy love child of a chimera and a manticore had her thinking it had happened again. Then it started talking. When had she got into the hard cider, and why could she not remember doing so?
Discord watched as another ponies brain shut down , First, the prissy white unicorn fainted then a group of 3 over-dramatic mares who should really try show biz faint for no reason (he had been on the other side of street facing away from them at the time). "Oh this is just ridiculous (and for ME, that's saying something). Pinkie, it was wonderful to meet you but I think I'll go check on the rest of the family. Ta,ta".
With a flash of light, he was gone. Pinkie was slightly disappointed but could not wait to hear about how it that meeting went.
"Huh." AJ was now even more confused-"That thing was real?"
Pinkie could only giggle "Yep and I think things are going to be getting a lot more interesting soon." Applejack did not like the sound of that. She did not like the sound of that at all.
"I wonder how long its going to take him to realize he forgot to ask for directions?"
????????
Discord looked around the random ether of the world "Hmm. Something tells me I took a wrong turn"- After pondering this for a moment, he pulled an expedition hat out of somewhere-"Onward for adventure and chocolate." He would later walk out of Luna's closet with no idea how he got there.
????????
Midnight's head jerked up as she observed the recent carnage. Slendy and Krampus were hiding behind what was left of the table waving makeshift white flags. Foggy was in the corner with 4 new burns and only one head left. The timber king was in over 200 pieces, which were twitching and trying to reform at a snails pace. Chimera was hanging from a chandelier by her claws with all 3 heads looking at Midnight in terror.
"Anyone else want some or can we finally put this to rest?!"-
As one, the strongest and oldest creatures in the forest nodded. They never wanted to anger their lady again!-
"Good. Now we just need to figure out where Stumpy got off to, and why I have the sudden urge to get blind, stinking drunk."
It took some time and a lot of hard work, but things in Canterlot were getting back to normal. Celestia was finally finishing the last few reviews. 5 families were on probation and 3 had lost their status as nobility but, other than a large amount of stress, most of the court was up to snuff. Discord being introduced as the new Supreme Justice caused another wave of panic, but made getting rid of the families who refused to do their jobs or had managed to gain noble status only through having money much easier.
Now, they could actually shut up about her "playing favorites" after Discord read the law of nobility to them verbatim.
Sir/Dame: Title earned through great acts and service to the crown: Non-hereditary.
Baron and Baroness: Settle a new area and form a thriving town: Hereditary.
Viscount/Viscountess: Earned through great acts of military heroism and by showing great leadership : Hereditary
Earl/Countess: Title awarded to inventors and historians for discoveries that better the life of all ponykind: Hereditary
Marque/Marchioness: Titles offered to all founder families after the Princesses took over governing : Hereditary (and all but one extinct).
Duke/Duchess: Title given to those of royal lineage/ those who run large cities. The great noble families: Hereditary
Prince/Princess: Title used by the Alicorn leaders of pony kind: Earned via ascension to the state of immortality .
Duchess Bluebell had also proven her worth recently. While her magic may still be sealed, her mind was not and she soon had the remaining nobility wiped into shape and back on track. The city and, by extension, the country had not run this well in centuries.
Of course they were still annoying in other ways.
Case and point.
Celestia watched as Nightmare set another piece of her mail on fire. "That was the 3rd contract request from that house! What is it going to take to get them to realize I won't sign my daughter into a marriage?"
This was, by far, the most annoying part of having announced her heir for Nightmare, and her sister was not helping. " Don't they normally send those to the father?"
Nightmare's face could have been used as a level "I just got back from comforting her after her actions to claim control of the forest. You now how most pones; even the omnivorous ones; hate violence, She was actually afraid I wouldn't want to be around her anymore. She's so stressed with all the meetings she has to deal with and being the envoy to some of the other tribes. So I decided to deal with these myself. I had no idea how asinine they were. No wonder she's been on a hair trigger the past few days "-
Celestia could only smirk at that comment-
"Not what I meant and you know it. Now let's get this done before it's time for me to raise the moon."
Dream world
Nightmare could only stare at her mare friend, Who had just explained and shown the current form of the plan she had to deal with the betrothal contract overload. "This can't be legal?" Midnight had with her a contract which would make any other betrothal attempts void while allowing their daughter to maintain as much freedom as possible. It was deceptively simple:
Party A is betrothed to Party B and they shall grow up along side one another to see if a relationship will work out. If either party feels that the marriage would not work they may back out of the betrothal on their 18th birthday. If both parties agree the marriage WOULD work, they will be wed on the 21st birthday of the youngest party.
Midnight looked like a preening bird "I checked it with every law book we still use, 5 lawyers, and Discord. The contract is perfectly legal and protects all parties from any repercussions regardless of the outcome. Now we just have to find a good candidate for the second party."
After 3 hours of dream searching, they had the nobility in 2 categories: those who thought the contract was a good idea and those who thought it was too lenient. Of those who agreed that the contract was a good idea, none of them had children who were not betrothed of an acceptable age. "Oh this is just ridiculous!" Nightmare just managed to avoid using the royal voice in her anger.
'Well this is still not as bad as the first few who tried to offer herd contracts to our 10 year old."
That made Nightmare speechless, then the dream world shook "WHAT THE BUCK IS WRONG WITH THEM!?"
Nightmare was hyperventilating while Midnight was on the ground with swirl eyes, after snapping out of it she continued "That's why they were happy to send you the contracts now. I gathered all of the family heads who made that offer and explained to them why I rejected their contracts"-here she blushed-"I may also have threatened to eat them if they tried something that stupid again."
Nightmare looked at her companion's sheepish face before blinking, once, twice, and proceeded to laugh her flank off. "I can't believe you managed to make me seem like the calmer individual in this mess" It took several minutes but when she calmed down they got back to work. There had to be some way to deal with the idiocy of betrothal contracts without threatening physical harm.
Several hours later, Nightmare was back to her nightly rounds. After having vented her frustration on several bad dreams, she ran into Spectrum, who had just come out of a door with a contemplative look on her face. After exchanging their normal greeting (hugs) Nightmare inquired as to what was on her child's mind?
"Mama what does it mean when ponies are dreaming about someone a lot?"
Nightmare answered that as honestly as she could, no reason to explain things beyond Spectrum's age "Well, that depends on what type of dream it was. If it's a nightmare, we may need to stage an intervention. If it's a good dream, then it just means they think about that pony a lot and being around that pony makes the dreamer feel happy. Why do you ask dear?"
Spectrum blinked "Oh I just got done watching one of Diamond's dreams where I was saving her from, something it was kind of hard to make out what exactly I was fighting in the dream. I actually thought she was having a nightmare about me at first which is why I checked. Thanks for clearing that up mom, night."
Spectrum walked away, not noticing her mother had stalled. 10 seconds later, she was racing back to Midnight's dreams with a new plan
Filthy Rich was a practical stallion. He was the big fish in the small pond of Ponyville. Contrary to his wife, he was comfortable with the current situation concerning the recent change in his family dynamic (due to his daughter joining the junior court of the moon). Now Filth did not have much of a temper (considering who his wife was, he had to be one of the most even-tempered stallions in Equestria). Still, if he had to deal with one more rich pompous smarmy shitlord, he was going to scream (and most ponies thought HE was bad). When Midnight showed up to meet him with a contract, he was ready to buck something, consequences be damned. After one very emotional conversation, they had both calmed down and come to an agreement calling in the girls and explaining it to them. It had gone much smoother than he anticipated. Apparently Midnight had thought ahead and gave them a lesson on the basics of betrothals and their purpose from a non-romantic perspective.
So one quick signature later, everything was finished and he could swear he heard a something akin to shattering glass as the dreams of several noble families fell apart.
Midnight stared at the kelp surrounding her. Her air bubble was currently tethered to the seabed waiting to be introduced to the leviathan. Apparently the sea tribes had been dealing with groups who worshiped the great beasts (AKA 'Kraken' and 'Leviathan') for years.
This particular group decided that sacrificing the delegation from the land tribes would gain the favor of their 'god'. She had no idea why they thought they could get favor with this creature. It was strong - incredibly so - but it was still an animal. For all of its impressive strength, its intelligence was not even on the same level as the dumbest dragon.
She was reminded once again of why she hated the main rule of future sight - one cannot see their own future.
Earlier that week.
Midnight had been dealing with a case of EDS (encroaching doom syndrome) for the past week, she could not, for the life of her, figure out the cause.
That was until she answered the door one day to see Lyra sitting in a water bowl in her true form grinning like a shark.
This was not good.
"Hi Lyra. What's up?"
Spectrum was still at school and they had a plan ready for when Midnight had to go to see the other tribes. So that was already taken care of, thankfully.
"I'm your guide to Coltlantus. Just let me know when your ready to go."
That settled it. She was going to drown (not that it would be permanent, but dying sucked).
She took a calming breath. No need to freak on a friend who was just trying to help. "Lyra, has it occurred to you that as a timber pony I need to be VERY careful around water? and on an unrelated note, how did you get here in a water bubble without causing a panic!?"
"Midnight, I'm one of the weirdest ponies in town (which is saying A LOT for THIS town). No one is surprised by anything I do anymore."
The facehoof that comment produced was loud enough to be heard at Sweat Apple Acres. -
"Besides I know how to make an air pocket big enough for you to stand in we can get there no problem."
Well that definitely made her feel better, and would only make Lyra feel worse when some form of disaster stuck. "So any advice on what I should do when meeting with the leaders? I used the books you gave me to cross reference everything else I found and they were the only things not outdated."
The sea tribes were ruled by a monarchic, but the rule for secession was odd. The title of king was earned at the death of the previous king by means of a bizarre trial. Whomever could produce the most controlled and creative display of explosive destruction was chosen as the new ruler.
"King" was the title regardless of the leaders gender.
"Well nothing I can think of. Leo is quite calm for a King so you should be good. Just be ready to deal with things going boom Also, be prepared. because Queen Marina is like an underwater Pinkie. That means that she most likely has a party planned for your visit, with a fire works display of course."
Lyra blinked when she saw the look of horror on Midnight's face. Going over her explanation, she could only wince (The thought of there being 2 Pinkies was cool to her but, for Twilight, it would be a nightmare). Twilight was currently devising a plan to make sure that, if the two ever met, the damage would be mitigated.
They had made it all the way to the coast and into the water with no trouble (other then ponies staring at Lyra, but she was used to that). Things seemed to be going well.
Then the cultists arrived.
Lyra, bless her, was not a fighter. She had the voice of a siren and all the skills there of, but her talent was entertainment not battle songs.
Twilight, on the other hoof, could fight on land but here, under the water, she'd get soaked through and be about as helpful as a piece of paper. Being made of wood and plant fiber was not always a good thing.
So here she was. Vines stretched out of her air pocket, trying to pull something anything from the kelp to help her get away. The only upside she could see was when the leviathan ate her wood pulp body, it would not be happy. When giving your enemy indigestion is your battle strategy, though, it's safe to say you are boned. She was meditating when one of them returned. he swam around her bubble ignoring the plants
"Welcome. I hope the accommodations are to your liking, miss mudpony."
His voice was obnoxious and syrupy, like he was talking to a child or somepony who was rather slow.
This was not surprising. Ponies of all kinds were quite xenophobic by nature, so racism and tribalism were common issues. While Equestria proper had made great strides in removing any problems between the pony tribes, the problem was still there. Case and point
"No. They're not."
Midnight could feel the magic of the ocean. It was wild and unyielding but she could not sync up with it. Her own magic; while wild in nature; was too different. What she needed was something to bridge the gap.
"Well good news you won't be staying long."
and this jerk just volunteered to be her test subject.
"You got that right."
With one swift motion, she brought her vines together, trapping the unsuspecting cultist and dragging his head inside the bubble. Before he could react, she sunk her teeth into his neck, pulling on his magic and blood. In under a minute, she had ejected the now unconscious seapony. While her body convulsed, her black coat became tinged with green and her back legs twisted and unraveled merging with her tail to create a large fin of wood and - kelp - by the looks of it. She stuck her head out of the bubble and found that the water did not start making her fall apart. With a slap of her new powerful tail, Midnight the seapony shot off back the way she had came. Hopefully, she would run into Lyra before to long.
Lyra had been searching for what felt like hours through the kelp beds when a dark green mermare smacked into her. She was about to demonstrate why the term 'curse like a kelpie' existed when she noticed the solid purple eyes of the other pony "Twilight? What happened to you?"
"I'll tell you later. We need to move now .I don't know how long the guy I knocked out will stay out for and I know neither of us want to deal with those guys again. So what's the fastest way to Coltlantus?"
Lyra still had questions but, fortunately, she agreed with Midnight. They could deal with that when they were safe. With no futher talk, they swam as fast as they could to the city. This was going to be quite a story.
Twilight was laying in her room appreciating the decorations. Unlike on land, where things could be built in whatever shape the builder could make work (Thank you magic), builders down here didn't have that luxury. Here, in the depths, you had to work with what you could.
This means that the 'room' was more along the lines of a hole in the rock filled with moss and sponges to make it soft with some kelp to make sure a random current did not cause the occupant to drift away during the night. She drifted off while planning to add moss to her bed in Ponyville. It was very comfortable.
Midnight was currently sorting her memories in the dreamscape, mostly to prevent odd dreams due to the fact that she had gone to bed the evening of the day after reaching Coltlantis. She and Lyra had been dragged into a party which lasted a day and a half and some how resulted in King Leo winding up with his head stuck in a hole among other things. The only reason the party ended was because half the city was about to pass out.
This is not to say that the seaponies were insane. At least they were no more insane than some ponies on the land.
The first thing they did after greeting Twilight and Lyra was to rush them to a hospital. Things had gone fine for Lyra but Twilight had to explain both her general anatomy and calm down the doctors when she started developing purple spots. This was normally a sign of a rare but dangerous illness for the sea tribes. For her, it was much more mundane and slightly embarrassing.
While her body did not need fur (due to the fact she was made out of plants and woods), she tended to feel exposed without it. For this reason, she found a way for her body to grow purple moss to simulate having fur and cover up any thorns on her body. Once the doctors had put her through a battery of tests to prove that A. she was not sick and B. that the spots were, in fact, just purple moss, she was allowed to leave.
She ended up walking right into the middle of a party which would make Pinkie drool.
Twilight later found out Pinkie had been banned from having a party of this caliber while within city limits, but that's a story for another time.
Midnight had a good time meeting everypony. Some memorable encounters included Calliope and Harpsichord, a pair of kelpies who were keeping the younger party goers entertained. Harpsichord was, contrary to popular myth, male (though still very feminine in figure).
The next memorable encounter was a sea-stallion by the name of Sea Breeze, who was the head of the local chapter of a group called the Moon Children.
As the name implies they were a group who worshiped the moon and its effect on the ocean. Needless to say, their moon worship, by extension, included Luna herself.
Twilight answered a very large amount of questions involving her mare friend as calmly as she could. The final question turned out to be if the moon goddess was currently courting anypony.
Twilight's answer caused Sea Breeze to all but pick her up and drag her to meet the other Children being introduced as the consort of the Moon goddess. That was kind of nice oddly enough.
She spent the next few hours answering questions and telling stories of Nightmare and Celestia's adventures, including tales of Discord. It took some prompting, but she went into some of her own exploits too.
The cult nearly had a conniption when she showed them a picture of Spectrum ( She kept it stored in glass and held it inside her barrel for safe keeping.) By the time she left to go to sleep, the scribes were hard at work updating their texts to include The Sun Goddess, Celestia in greater detail.
Their texts also now included The Chaos God, Discord, The Love Goddess, Cadence and last, but not least, Midnight, Consort of the Moon, Goddess of the Wild and father of Spectrum. the true Child of the Moon.
The next day, Palace of Kings
Midnight took a deep breath before checking the treaty once more. It was spelled out in legalese, but the gist of it was a rekindling of the tribal alliance between the sea and land tribes with all rights therein.
This, of course, included trade routes, non-aggression pacts and research cooperation. It also opened to door for any seafolk who wished to move inland to immigrate to the rivers and lakes of Equestria as long as they went through proper legal channels to avoid confrontation with nearby towns. The last thing any pony wanted was for a fisher to wind up injuring; or worse, killing; one of their new neighbors because they were unaware that somepony now lived in the area.
Well, everything looked in order. With her head held high Midnight entered the royal chamber ready for anything. The negotiations went much better than expected. Though they still took 3 days, most of this was spent making sure all the laws matched up and helping set up plans for eventual tourism.
Immigration was made legal between Equestria and Cotlantis. The King and his officials were aware that it was unlikely for a land pony to wish to move underwater, but they felt it was only right to offer.
Not to mention that their city was a legend made real. Even if ponies did not want to move there, being able to visit and see the city would draw the attention of academics and thrill seekers alike. The city council was thrilled at the prospect of new jobs and many ponies who had a talent for making utilizing or working with bubbles and those with good people skills were overjoyed at finally being able to find a new use for their skills.
The negotiations may have been swift, but helping set everything up and double checking safety measure to make sure things were safe for ponies who could not breath in the water took a bit longer. Midnight did not wind up leaving for three weeks. This was nice, however, the projected time for the tribe meetings had been a month minimum.
This meant for once she was ahead of schedule.
Midnight left with an escort of guards in case the leviathan followers wanted revenge. As she headed back to the surface, she started to speculate on what had happened while she was gone.
While Lady Midnight was gone, quite a few things happened.
The first of these things was the Sisterhooves Social. The yearly event was quite a joy to watch; especially with the local seamstress and her young sister making a spectacle of themselves.
Slendy held back a sigh while looking around. As usual there was a massive hole in the crowd of ponies enjoying the events. The only pony brave enough to sit near him was young Spectrum and he could see many of the adults were resisting the urge to grab her away from him and run. He had been introduced to the town the previous week. Most ponies thought he was an animated manikin - until they saw his mark.
He was quite surprised to find out that his mark was famous. Apparently one of the many ponies he had chased out of the forest over the years had recorded what his mark looked like and as more and more ponies had encounters with him more stories began and as the years past the stories grew and changed.
These stories were, in point of fact, the main reason ponies were scared of him. Slendy, to put it frankly, was a monster of the forest. He had lived there before the castle of the two sisters was even being planned. He had lived there, in earnest, for 9000 years. The only thing that predated him was the Tree of Harmony itself. Slender was still not quite sure how he came into existence. He simply woke up one day and had no memories nor family. For the longest time, he did not even have a real name.
He eventually learned that ponies had taken to calling him Slendermane . Seeing no problem with it other than some irony, he began using it as his name.
Midnight and Spectrum had convinced him to try integrating into society over many hours and pots of tea. So here he was getting used to town and letting them get used to him, Most ponies kept a fair distance from him other then that pink mare who he swore was made of rubber. Fortunately the kick in the pants over their two most recent screw ups made the towns folk think before acting for once. Thus, while they were being still very wary of him, the ponies were slowly getting used to his presence.
Oddly enough, his efforts were helped by Chimera when she decided to apply for training in the night guard. Having 2 creatures deemed monsters around town on a regular bases had caused the town to slowly start acclimating to a new normal. Hopefully, he'd be able to get within 3 feet of a new pony soon.
Cutie Pox
Thud Thud Thud
The plan had been simple. Make a potion that shows ponies the meaning of their mark. Thud Thud Thud
The girls had Zecora helping them and had double checked all the ingredients. Thud Thud Thud
However, it still messed up. Somehow. Someway. So now here she sat. Thud Thud Thud
Spike walked into Spectrum's room to see her head floating on a blue cloud and banging against the wall. After staring at the scene and processing just how wrong it was, he asked "What's going on?"
Spectrum's body reformed only to immediately start dancing. She had a black shoe on her flank, a Red star and a yellow triangle with an eye. Then, in a flash of light, a purple spark joined them. Without stopping her dance, she turned to face Spike before answering "I seem to have developed a perplexing disorder causing me to spontaneously gain cutie marks which I have no control over", Her voice had a heavy Stalliongrad accent.
At the same time Sweetie was making breakfast, which was not melting thanks to one of her new marks. While cleaning the floor and organizing the kitchen to be 17% more efficient. All this time, Rarity watched in awful amazement.
Scootaloo was dealing with her shifting going haywire as she tried to build a hive in the basement.
Apple Bloom was putting on a one mare talent show in the middle of town.
Diamond, Silver and Dinky, on the other hoof, had locked themselves in the tree house while their brains tried to process what was, for all intents and purposes, an existential crisis. Their brains had been full of every possible meaning of their marks. Thus, they were currently trying to list categorize and decide which meaning they each preferred. It was going about as well as could be expected.
"Okay Possibility 42 - I am the unknown heir to a foreign kingdom. Nope" Diamond stood to stretch "how's it going for you two?"
Silver and Dinky both looked up.
"I'm on 37 - child of an extinct noble house. Wrong." Silver answered simply. She had managed to chew through 3 quills while making her list.
"I'm on 25 - Apparently the flame means I'm a kirin under an illusion?" Dinky was very confused due to being new to her mark, her preferred meaning had not quite manifested itself. Her brain was dealing with a very large mental struggle over each possibility.
Screwball, however was currently in Discord's chaos dimension to prevent her fluctuating powers from turning Canterlot inside out. It took the combined effort of Spike, AJ, Rarity, Fluttershy and Discord to gather all the girls together and get them to Zecora's.
Spike had sent a message to her before they started searching so she was in the process of brewing the counter to the potion which caused this wonderful problem.
In the end they had 3 first hoof accounts of cutie pox, 4 accounts of what was basically a cutie mark personality disorder and one new account of HRIC (Hive role identity crisis) - the last of which a disorder common in young changelings who have to fill many roles in the hive rapidly and the closest they can get to a true mental disorder.
Fortunately, the counter worked and the town survived with less than the average weekly quota for property damage.
Rainbow's training.
Dash sank into her bed
"I think my wings are going to fall off" She had been overjoyed when she reported to Spitfire for training on the first day. Now, on the following weekend, she was cursing the mare (or she would be if she had the energy to do so). Spitfire was relentless with her training and held herself to an even higher expectation than her teammates on account of being the captain. So, naturally, she held Rainbow to those same expectations and was going to whip her into shape one way or another.
"Oh I'm sure you'll be fine dear. What did she say after you finished this week?" Shy was currently massaging Rainbow to help her relax, every muscle in her body was tense from stress and work. If this kept up, she'd be able to compete with Applejack on even footing.
Rainbow smiled faintly "She said I had one of the best records at the academy!" her ears dropped along with her wings and head."So she's going to make next week even harder!"
Gilda winced when she heard that particular groan "I'm surprised she let you come home for the weekends with that attitude."
"The only reason I got to come home is because I proved I can fly fast enough to go between here and the training ground without any issues. Shy, if I die next week please let Scoot know I love her."
Fluttershy was used to Rainbow's dramatic behavior (she could give Rarity a good run for her bits in that department when she wanted to). She was quite accustomed to both Rainbow's adrenaline highs and her tortoise levels of lethargy.
She could put up with a lot from her mates. Talking of dying, when they were not in a true life or death situation was not one of these things, however.
Gilda was shaking her head at Rainbow's dramatics when she felt something in the air. Gilda looked up at the same time that Rainbow turned around to see Shy.
When had she gotten so big? Rainbow gulped "Shy?"
Fluttershy had forced her body to grow to match Celestia in stature. This, combined with her stare, brokered no argument.
"Rainbow Dash listen to me. This training is not going to kill you. You've come home in worse shape from some of your stunts. This is what you always dreamed of and now you don't think you're up for it? I know you Rainbow. You never let us down when it counts, and right now your Princess, your squad and your family are counting on you. You Will Not Fail!"
After delivering her final piece Shy was back to normal and continued her massage like nothing happened "Also, do you think I'm going to let you die before you see our great grandfoals? Sorry to disappoint you dear, but that’s not happening."
Rainbow flopped back onto the bed and, in a few minutes, was falling asleep while Shy hummed her favorite lullaby. No, she would not fail her family. Spitfire was in for quite a shock when her trainee returned.
Midnight rubbed her eyes again. There was no way these reports were right. How? How had so many near catastrophes happened in the final week before she got back?
Throughout the week, each of the girls had saved ponies from several lethal or potentially lethal situations. Rainbow started the trend by saving a baby on her way back to training.
Fortunately, Spitfire had accepted that as a completely valid reason for being late as it was a guard pony's duty to protect the citizens above all else. The past week would have gone down as one of the worst for the year. Fortunately, all the disasters had been stopped or prevented.
Thankfully, this week, the only major event planned was Spike's birthday party - a nice safe party. "What could go wrong?" At the exact moment Midnight thought this, an imp in Tartarus sneezed.
Dragon instincts: Excerpt from a Study of Dragons by Midnight Void.
Hoarding is the most basic and dangerous of all dragon instincts. Hoarding is a hormonal reaction in young dragons to protect what they consider important. It's basic point was to make a dragon protecting their treasure stronger than whatever was trying to take it. Thus, the more they have to protect, the stronger they get. In a normal dragon family, the child or children’s hoard is carefully monitored by the parents to prevent their bodies from growing faster than their brains are ready to handle. Which is where the stories of dragons as monsters come from.
Most dragons see very few things (such as gold and gems) valuable enough to fight over, making true hoarding very controllable.
However for one dragon in Ponyville, this was not the case.
Midnight was currently helping the guard maintain order during the evacuation. For simplicity, they were having everypony slide into Pinkie’s party cave/ bunker where she had everything set up to wait out the current crisis. Spike was currently toppling buildings and was in the size range of an ursa minor. This was confusing Midnight as he should have been the size of Big Mac at the largest.
Fortunately, She had a surefire method to get him out of town.
Once everyone was safe, she ran to the forest entrance and pulled out 2 gems: Spike's fire ruby and the ocean sapphire she had gotten for him.
They had wound up on the bottom of his junk pile rather than as the main ingredients to his birthday dinner.
“Okay if his instincts as a gem collector still hold, these should be the most valuable things in town to him right now. But just to be safe,”
She scraped the gems together creating a noise somewhere between yowling cats and nails on a chalkboard.
Spike was confused. He smelled food, but all the tiny ponies had ran away. Thus, the only way he could get to anything was by tearing down walls.
Then he heard something horrid. What was making that racket? There, by the forest, was the tiny wood pony who had two of his gems!
Midnight knew immediately she had succeeded because she had to run for her life. The forest was going to take a hit for this but since Spike had dropped everything he was holding to chase her all she had to do was keep him wasting energy and he would go back to normal without a nearby hoard to protect, eventually.
What followed was best described as the plot of a bad monster movie as Spike tore through the forest trying to find his gems resulting in crushed timber wolves, cracked cragodiles , manticores involuntarily achieving upper atmosphere flight. Deeper and deeper they ran, culminating in Spike getting in a truly epic fist fight with a recognizable Ursa and a pissed off hydra. In fact, it ended up being a fight that would make any professional wrestling fan proud. Spike managed to win despite getting clothes-lined, drop-kicked, choke-held, pile-driven, body-slammed, suplexed and generally double-teamed constantly (though, in all fairness, with the obvious exception of the double-teaming, Spike WAS actually giving BETTER than he got).
All told, it took 9 hours to wear Spike out and, by that point, over an acre of the forest had been flattened.
While Twilight was making sure Spike was properly asleep and mourning the damage to her forest, the townsfolk had already started repairs. They were unsurprisingly adept at this as high levels of property damage were common (to the point of the town having an annual budget set aside with fundraising plans set up should it be exceeded in a given year).
The next day
Spike woke up with a pounding headache, vaguely wondering if this was what a hangover felt like (and making a mental note to never drink alcohol so he would never have to find out). He tried to get up like normal only to flail around and fall back on his front claws. This shocked him enough to notice some things.
1: he was outside, in the Everfree if he was not mistaken.
2. His legs were longer and more equal in size. As such, it was a lot harder to maintain his preferred upright posture.
He tried to remember what happened, earlier? Yesterday? But he came up with blurs and images of very tiny ponies “I don’t remember visiting Berry.”
Midnight showed up at that moment, but either she had shrunk (a distinct possibility with her plant based biology) or he had grown quite a bit. She hoofed him something which he quickly recognized as one of Zecora's potions which had been affectionately named wake up juice. After his head cleared she spoke "Well I have good news and bad news, the good news is you finally got your growth spurt. Congratulations on reaching adult size, Spike."
Spike's eyes bugged out.
'That's why everything changed" -He then realized that with an adult body, learning to walk upright again was going to take hours of practice to help his muscles re-learn that posture again, and not risk tearing them or losing his balance. "So what's the bad news?"
Midnight smiled, but it was very fake. "You have to help rebuild the parts of town you destroyed in a hoarding based rage."
As far as the town is concerned, it was the same as when Berry over-indulges or Derpy got carried away. In other words, it was just a fact of life. But, following that same logic, the one responsible for the damage was expected to help repair it as much as they were able after the fact.
Spike sighed, "This is going to take a long time, right?"
"Yep. So let's go, the faster we start the faster we get done."
When construction is done, finally:
Midnight stood in front of the town. Every pony had gathered in the meeting hall for her lesson on dragons.
"Thank you all for coming. Now to start I will explain the basis of dragons in general. All dragons, regardless of type or age, feed off of gems and crystals to survive. As dragons age and their core supply of magic grows, they will be able to survive longer and longer on a single meal. Adult dragons can go days on a single pure gem and last even longer through extended hibernation."
Here, she brought up two pictures: one of Spike in his current form and one of the red dragon who had been napping in the mountains a few months back.
"As you can see, the only major difference between these two physically is size and the fact that one dragon has wings and the other doesn't.
Some similarities include a diet of gems, a desire to hoard, incredible strength and a life span which has never been fully recorded by ponies (some dragons have even been around since before Celestia and Luna ascended).
Magically, on the other hoof, Spike is a gem collector; a group of dragons who are more native to Zebrica or Austrilaroo. They have an internal fire which, combined with their connection to the earth, allows them to burrow quickly and easily through the hardest earth and stone."
This ability had come in quite handy during reconstruction. Spike was able to carve out brick faster than some of the masonry ponies once he got the hang of it and could stop his claws from tearing up the ground.
"Fire drakes, as their name implies, are able to use their fire externally to devastating effect and due to having a connection to the sky (rather than the earth), have wings so that they can fly."-
This was basic biology in Equestria. All creatures with the ability to fly had a connection to the magic of the sky which gave them aid to achieve liftoff and maintain proper flight. Granted, there WERE some creatures that have wings but lack the ability to fly, but these usually fell into two groups:
Some groups of creatures who can't fly despite having wings simply lack the biology.
Other groups have bodies so large they could not fly even with proper biology.
"Socially, the 2 groups differ as well. While the fire drake tends to be solitary or stay in small family units, the gem collectors tends to live in large subterranean communities, basically filling the same environmental spot as diamond dogs. Due to this closer knit social structure, their societies have a large communal hoard of common gems to use as food and smaller personal hoards of rarer and hard to find gems that each individual had collected. Conversely, fire drake hoards tend to be massive and protected with extreme prejudice. "
The lecture continued on from here, covering facts that Twilight had found in old books and learned from either Zecora or the older entities in the forest. It was, by far, the most complete and in- depth explanation of dragons anypony had ever collected. It even included social, magical, physical and emotional difference between the 2 main dragon types. This same information would later become a staple of study in the book "The Lords of Fire and Treasure a Study of Dragons" by the ghost writer Midnight Void
The small village of Cornerstone was a very bland community. It was a town of geo-culturalists (otherwise known as rock farmers). As odd as this profession seems, it is very lucrative as the constant care and maintenance of the rocks allows them to become geodes full of gems of all kinds. The process, however, is very work intensive (leaving VERY little time for fun) when using purely earth pony magic.
The night air of the rock farm was still and quiet (even more so than usual). Not a sound was heard for miles. Not one thing was out of place for the traditional calm normal rock farming family. Despite this, however, Maud shot up from her bed "Things are going to get odd around here tomorrow." She promptly fell back asleep with a mental note to send a letter to Pinkie once the newest wrinkly in their lives was smoothed out.
**********
Screwball floated into the living room of her new home. She had never been this happy, convincing the doctors to let her leave the facility had been even harder than getting her parents to agree to let Discord be her guardian. In retrospect, that was actually pretty sad. Now, however, she got to live in a pocket reality where gravity could go sideways and the ground could go from dirt to cheese to chocolate in 3 seconds. It felt so good to be home. Discord was currently using his magic to simultaneously make breakfast, pack a lunch, finish Screwy's paperwork for school and check a map to find the farm. He knew where it was, dang it! He did not need directions!
"Hello. My name's Screwball. Please take care of me."
Screwball focused on keeping her eyes moving instead of letting them lock onto her sister. They had considered enrolling her in the Canterlot prep school, but one day looking around was enough to last her a lifetime. Most of the ponies there looked down their noses at her just because she showed up without a uniform for a tour. So they had agreed that if Ponyville was good enough for the Heiress of the Moon, it was good enough for the Heiress of Chaos.
While Screwy was getting to know her classmates, Discord was realizing why he forgot where the farm was "Cornerstone? But that's the most boring town in Equestria!"
It had won this not-so-prestigious award every year running since they started keeping a record of such things. This was not going to be fun. His chaotic powers tried to pull him away from all things normal with good reason; he discovered very quickly that even doing one thing normally was risky to his continued existence. Thankfully, having Screwball around lowered the risk of him fading significantly.
Now he just had keep focused long enough to get to the farm.
"This is not going to be easy."
Discord was teleporting around trying to end up in the town by happenstance. (His brain refused to focus on the town, It was literally so boring that it took a massive effort to remember it even existed.)
********
Screwball, meanwhile, was getting used to being in class with other ponies while keeping a lid on her powers. Thankfully, with Diamond and Silver behaving, no pony had taken up the mantle of school bully yet. It was not until she started making the balls fly around during recess that anypony realized something was going on. By the time class resumed, the playground had been turned into rubber and the kids had been all played out. Cheerilee had never seen this class pay so much attention, and, with the price of bad behavior being losing out on playing in the new rubber land, she had a feeling behavior was going to be at an all time high.
**************
Igneous Pie felt a chill go down his spine. He had been dealing with one of his 'senses' for days. It kept switching between the one he got when Pinkie was coming for a surprise visit and the one meaning life for the farm was going to be changed beyond all recognition. Each of the girls could feel something as well. The only one of them not on edge was Cloudy. No matter what they showed her, she refused to believe in the Pie Family Sense. She just viewed it as some collective insanity that came with being part of the family.
This idea was about to be tested thoroughly.
**************
Discord popped into another new area with gray sky, gray ground and gray houses (I would go further, but I think you get the idea).
"Dear me. This IS boring. Looks like the right place."
Discord started to walk into town then noticed everypony staring at him with frozen smiles, and the same hair and they all had the same mark.
"Nope. Still the wrong town." He quickly snapped his fingers and got out of there faster than Celestia could eat a cake (though he couldn't shake the image of Midnight and her friends finding this place by accident and changing things for the better in a year or two.)
Starlight blinked before shrugging and going back to planning how to collect more cutie marks with additional plans to deal with whatever that was which just showed up.
**********
Marble noticed a flash of light revealing something which had to be from one of her twin's worst dreams, and once again she lamented her muteness, "I don't want to die yet but nothing short of shrieking will get the others over here and this thing will notice me way before that." With no other option to avoid being detected, Marble curled into a ball and used her mane and tail to look like a big rock.
Discord blinked. This place looked familiar, With a deep breath Discord forced himself to think back to the happier times when he and Pudding had argued over the best way to set up the rock farm for maximum magic absorption . Everything was still in the right place. South for Spring, West for Summer, North for Fall and East for Winter. However, sometime during the past 1000-plus years, somepony had repainted/rebuilt the house and silo. The house was originally made of red river rock and the silo had been sandstone with a delightful yellow and brown spiral pattern.
"Well it always worked in the past."
Discord stretched before snapping his fingers and causing color to bleed back into the buildings. He heard a yell and a sound like a small army approaching immediately.
"Always works."
Now he just had to sit back and wait.
Igneous felt his gut drop. He had just watched two buildings change color faster than when he gave Pinkie a paint brush (Something he was never doing again)
"Girls! South field! Now!"
eleven seconds later, they were all staring at whatever this thing was who was staring at them each with equal intensity (It grew three more heads and proceeded to match each of their expressions.) the creature tapped a claw to it's chin
"Let me guess Clyde, Inky and Blinky."
He paused before turning to Cloudy and Trixie (who had just managed to get there.) Mrs. Pie, Magician.
Maud just Blinked at him "Maud, Limestone, Igneous, and Cloudy Quartz, that's Trixie." This was said in her usual deadpan as she walked over to a large rock "Marble, come on out. I'll keep you safe."
Discord watched the rock unfold into a pony while thinking about their names "I knew there had to some kind of theme here. I just guessed the wrong one. Now then to complete our introduction, I am Discord, Spirit of Chaos. With that out of the way, let's get down to business. I want to test the mana flow around here. These rocks used to be able to make pink gems with polka dots and checkerboard pattern gems from one rock."
This day would go down in the family as the day that normality ended. Some members also called it the return of chaos. Discord showed the family secrets lost to time on how to fuel the rock to produce gems of any kind or color. This was going to take a lot of practice to get the desired results. The process was simple (just push a little chaos in while rolling the rocks around) but focusing to get the gem you wanted was the hard part.
He explained to them that the sense they all had was a chaos based form of divination. Due to its origin, it was seen more as a medical condition then an accurate form of telling the future (which was ironic as the Pie family had more accurate predictions under its collective belt then most of history's best seers put together).
The only cloud (for Discord) was Trixie, who only remained annoying until he got fed up and removed her mouth with a snap of his fingers (Maud convinced him to give it back before leaving, though).
Discord helped them out in his own way before he would teleport away at the end of the day. Trixie also finally learned to keep her mouth shut (after getting it taken away three more times).
He worked with them for about a week before showing up with a purple filly who quickly proved her chaos was just as strong as that of her 'father'.
It took a month of stress, practice and chocolate but they all mastered the art of chaos infusion (Yes even Trixie.) Discord left for a final time after procuring Invites for the holidays. Things were looking up for the old coot and life was weird, just as it should be.
Spitfire was trying to solve a training problem. This was not uncommon because she had to be able to adapt training on the fly so all the newbies progressed to the same standard.
The two most common problems were convincing overconfident or whiny cadets to do their training. And grading the training for cadets who just squeaked into the program.
This, however, was NOT one of those situations and it was making her want to reach for some hard cider.
"Okay How can I upgrade my own training, without making it obvious we are on the same level already?" When she had been told she was going to be training Rainbow Dash of the house of Clover she had been expecting a whining noble or a fangirl.
Well, to be fair, she had the "fangirl" part right. However, she was a bit embarrassed to admit she had forgotten that this was the same pony who won the Best Young Fliers Competition and took notes upon notes during her tour when she wasn't hyperventilating. Spitfire had witnessed the results of this as Rainbow had used her tour to come up with new training plans of her own to push herself.
Of course, she did not realize she was already at the expected level of a Wonderbolt. In fact, she had shattered the academy record by completing the course in just over ten seconds only to break it again at the beginning of this week by doing it in ten flat.
Thus her current problem. Rainbow was already at the level to be a captain physically. She just needed to reach that level mentally, The problem being that, while she had the ABILITY, she also had the attention span of a fly when it came to doing anything academic.
Unless it was disguised as an exercise, a game or coupled with physical activity (or any combination thereof). Which was why she was busy making up a new course so she could quiz Rainbow as they flew. The only bit of levity she had gotten was watching the mare's face when she got her new standard issue flier mane cut.
"Well, on the bright side, she should be at an acceptable level or better by the end of the month. Only 2 weeks to go."
**************
Chimera (They never could agree on a better name) flopped to the ground exhausted. They had proven quite quickly that they were more fit than most of the ponies until they tried to copy the workout that the ghouls used.
It was cruel and insane and no living thing (not even a DEMIGOD) could complete it without injury (which made sense once one remembered that the ones doing it were undead). Mac and Ditzy had to stop several new recruits from trying to copy their routine for precisely that reason. While Chimera rested, they thought back to how things in town were changing. It started once the ponies got as used to her and Slendy as they were going to, helped by both Midnight and Gilda. None of them had realized the affect this would have on the other creatures.
Fluttershy was the first to find one of them when she found a cockatrice striking out with her hens. She'd had to have a stare down to make him leave, as he was not taking getting shot down very well. Add to this the fact that manticores had started to prowl around and timberwolves were starting to become a common sight in the park, even Snips and Snails could tell something was going on.
It took some investigating but they were able to figure out that, due to Midnight being in town so often and the fact that two of the strongest creatures (other than Ursa’s who were in a class of their own) were spending time there, the 'monsters' had started to view town as part of the forest, albeit a part that was all Midnight's territory. The good news of that being everypony in town was safe.
The predators viewed territory as very important. You do not hunt in the space of another unless you have no other choice. With Fluttershy getting used to them day by day and seeing them as more of her critters, this was not going to be a problem for a long time.
But they still needed discipline, which was why she could get a kick out of watching Manticores learning formations and how to march. It had taken quite a bit of effort to make them work together but, once it was accomplished, they were scary. The timberwolves on the other hoof -
"Now everyone sit." Slendy was trying to teach them how to behave and give them guard dog (or was it guard wolf?) training. It was going as well as could be expected until he lost his temper.
After one too many wolves ignored him, he had suddenly grown to the height of a door frame while black tendrils sprang from his back and his blank face split revealing a maw of jagged teeth
"I Said Sit!"
After that terrifying incident, they had never disobeyed him again. This would later be labeled as the start of the Everfree Legion, AKA the Monster Squad.
**************
Ralph and Ralf (Yes those WERE their names, yes they were twins and no, it is not funny [okay, maybe A LITTLE funny, but don't tell that to THEM]) were currently regretting ever thinking of joining the guard. Princess Nightmare was putting them through drills for fighting styles tailored to each tribe's abilities and magic, She was a master of ALL of them and was worse than any drill instructor could ever hope to be. Nightmare had taken one look at the state of the current guards and been appalled once she had pointed out the level of decline that had happened in the guard force to her sister, who was equally horrified. Nightmare took it upon herself to whip them back into shape as was her role when she lead the military. (Celestia later remembered that Luna's absence was the reason conditions degraded.) Both sisters had mastered forms of martial arts fit for each tribe and combined them.
This was what Nightmare was teaching. Utilizing speed, strength, and focus as the three pillars, each guard, regardless of tribe, was being run into the ground and put back together better than ever.
Whatever was coming they would be ready, no matter what.
Celestia calmly folded her latest report and watched as Luna crumpled hers. "More fan mail from the Sea Tribes, I take it?"
Nightmare looked at her sister with haunted eyes "Tia, I take back everything I said or even thought about you before I was banished. How you deal with this level of admiration day in day out and stay sane I will never understand."
Celestia was not sure what to say to that for once "Well I'm surprised I lasted all those years without you. I think I was one wrong turn away from snapping sometimes. And to think I had cut my magic in half from overwork. We really are "'a mess if we don't work together'", just like Discord used to say. Not to mention I have it on good authority that our subjects have not slept as well as they do now since before you left."
Nightmare grinned a tad sheepishly about going into a funk, "Thanks Tia, now let's get these done so you can go to bed."
The next letter they open was the report from Appaloosa which had been screened for accuracy. They were happy to see everything was going well. Trade was prospering and the tribe and town were getting along swimmingly to borrow an old seapony term, They also had a response from the fluff ponies, who were delighted to host their ambassador for however long the negotiations took. They also included a dictionary for the delegation to learn some common terms . For a language consisting of only three sounds, it was surprisingly deep complex and flowery. The introductory Raspberry when translated was 'Greetings new friend. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with this day?' For instance, after a quick message spell to send it on to Midnight, they continued.
Nightmare opened the next missive, "Oh The Saddle Arabians would be delighted to visit us. It's nice to see relations with them are going well. We haven't had a repeat of the bloody river, I hope?"
Celestia glowered, "Fortunately, no. The group responsible for that was handled with no quarter. Even the texts on their blood magic were destroyed or hidden away." Saddle Arabia was the homeland of ritual magic, just as Zebrica was the home of potions. Both of these forms of magic were important in that any pony could learn how to use them with practice. Unfortunately, both of these arts, just like the magic of a unicorn; could be corrupted by greed and a lust for power. This was the main reason for the story about Saddle Arabian magic only working in their territory; it stopped the untrained from trying something they did not understand.
In an attempt to lighten the mood, Celestia opened her next letter. Her ears drooped slightly (so slightly only Nightmare noticed.) "Well on the bright side, the griffins believe us that a threat is coming. The bad news is the only way we can secure their aid would involving stealing a dragon’s hoard... Again."
Nightmare winced from remembering some of their escapades when they were younger and the level of damage and money required to fix it. After calming down, Nightmare opened her last letter, "It's from Midas"-
She immediately blinked and reread the sender "He's still alive?" Midas was ruler of the Minotaur people and a renowned pain in the flank. He only respected one thing - power - and his view of females, (even females many times his power level) left much to be desired.
"Midas X is the current leader. He is actually not quite as bad as his ancestor but he has a reputation to uphold." Celestia clarified the letter demonstrated this as well.
Dear Princess Nightmare,
I have no doubt that you and your sister's concerns are justified, but, regrettably; I can't mobilize my forces on the word of a pair of worrying old nags, (their words; not mine) - immortals or not. Unless something big happens or you can gather more substantial evidence than a single traitor, I cannot spare the forces to aid you against a (potentially) nonexistent foe.
Sincerely,
Midas X
Nightmare calmly folded the letter, "You're right. He has much more tact than his fore-bearer." Midas I was boorish boastful and annoying to every other leader he met - especially to the two pony 'upstarts' who ‘pranced around, clearly demented, with delusions of divinity.’ The fact that each of the two individual pony legitimately WAS more powerful than literally a hundred of his best soldiers did nothing to quell this viewpoint. It was a known and begrudgingly accepted fact that the ponies controlled the cycle of the sun and the moon. This fact was actually the main reason no group tried to crush or conquer them after the Windigo winter, (The chaos incident was not spoken of.) Watching as they, without aid, caused a solar eclipse shut him up for a while, (but ONLY for a while).
After some reminiscing, they returned to their reports. Some including updated trade agreements, reports from the border and progress reports of the Research and Development Department about possibly reviving an extinct dragon subspecies, known as the weather drakes.
Meanwhile...
A mysterious, shadowy female figure crushed the report with her magic, "So they think some old styles and retraining will stop us? Fools! We've been growing stronger every year, every generation!"
She opened her report on the magician. There was some potential, but she was far from perfect. They did not need another Snowfall. She dismissed the reports on one Spoiled Rich. The mare was full of greed but, tough as she acted, her spine was jelly. Not much use there. Next she read about the exploits of old Discord. While he was causing upset in the short term and driving ponies nuts with frustration, everything he did ended with things being better in the end. "They got to him too, it seems. Damn! Could have used that distraction."
Lamenting a lost opportunity, she checked her idea box, tossing all the votes for peace in the fire, she sorted through the tallies for some good back up plans. She was sure they were unneeded, but always better to have something and not need it than need something and not have it. After sorting everything and double checking the main plans broke down as
Back up Plan A: Replace important ponies one by one, bringing the government under control under everypony's nose.
Back up Plan B: Bust Tartarus wide open and let the denizens cause mayhem and misery before swooping in as the saviors and be adored by everyone.
Back up Plan C: Go back to hiding and spying until the current young generation dies off and hope the Princesses have forgotten about us.
Back up Plan D: Break out the buffoon and hightail it north to safety.
She almost tore up plan D on principle, but as an absolute last resort, it could work. She just hoped they never had to use it. Their king was not known for being forgiving. "Soon Equestria will be mine and nothing will be able to stop my king's return. Not chaos or harmony -the shadow will rule all!"
The snow was falling, the air was cold, and ponies were bundled up. Winter was here, and Scootaloo was learning a new sensation. One of the problems with being an emotivore was that the being had to be very receptive to the point that they, (changelings) based their body temperature on the amount of love they had stored up. Being exothermic made winter a very sleepy time for changelings. Fortunately, they could stave off the cold if they had a good supply of love (which, thanks to her friends and foster mothers, Scoots DEFINITELY DID). Needless to say, Hearth’s Warming was their favorite holiday.
Scoots was wearing more winter clothing than most of her classmates knew existed, and she was still acting sluggish. She finally understood why mama Shy needed so much coffee during this time of year, (Rainbow needed the same amount of coffee, but that never changed.) The class was currently discussing roles for the Hearth’s Warming pageant. Scoots, though tired, was paying enough attention to put her name forward for her desired role.
Cheerilee blinked when she saw Scootaloo’s hoof shoot up to volunteer for the role of Clover. Most ponies only tried out for the roles that fit their tribe. It was very rare to see a filly willing to play a part which required them to fake being another type of pony. Scoots was currently thinking back to the stories her mother had shared, the history of their family that grandma tried to destroy. The history of Clover the Clever - or, rather, Queen Clover; the first changeling to willingly give love to help save her new friends.
This story was an instant favorite for all the CMC, the story of Hearth’s Warming from a changeling perspective was interesting. Clover had originally gone to the ponies to learn about their magic and find a new feeding ground that they could blend into. Contrary to popular thought, changelings did not need to steal love to survive; it was just the fastest way of getting it. Of course, this was also the worst way as it drained the creature of energy and often lead to death. This method also drastically increased the power of the feeding ling, but this came at the risk of being found very quickly.
Clover wanted something different, they knew how to steal love and how to collect love from an area during big events. But was it possible to be given love knowingly AND willingly? Was it possible to find a species, a nation, a town even that would accept the changelings and feed them voluntarily? This is what Clover had yearned for.
After The Windigo Winter, this dream had been closer than ever before. This, sadly, changed when Chrysalis I was born. Clover’s friends and fellow founders came to visit one day only to walk into a gruesome scene. Every changeling who had agreed with Clover was dead. Most of them in several pieces, this is the main reason that changelings were not well known, and though they did not know the details, Scoots wanted to honor her brave and noble ancestor. Fluttershy knew more than she was telling but, not wanting to traumatize the children, she only told them of the brave things Clover did. And that, unfortunately, she had died before her dream could come true.
Scoots was so moved by this, she was going to do her best to see it though. To this end, she had stopped using an illusion to blend in and the town had gotten used to it without a major panic for once. With Shy following her daughter’s plan, the town was becoming one of the most diverse places in Equestria, (it already held the position as the craziest town.)
Hearing the true history of Clover had lit a fire in the CMC, who wanted to try and find any other stories about the holiday that were forgotten. This inevitably led them to Granny Smith, who after amazing them all during Family Appreciation Day, blew their minds once again with tales of Old Holly Hooves and Krampus. This story was different than the normal tale of a kindly caribou. For starters both were satyrs, Holly visited good children to reward them for their behavior during the previous year, and help raise their spirits to keep the windigos at bay.
Krampus, on the other hoof, actively supported the windigos as he gained power from fear and hopelessness. He was famous for foalnapping young creatures to fill them with fear, punishing them for the next year to generate more fear and sorrow before dumping them in the general area he found them once they became emotionally numb.
The two crossed paths many times over the years. Their final battle was rumored to have taken out a mountain. In the end, Holly Hooves won, breaking Krampus’s bracer so he could no longer gain power from negative emotions. This did not, however, remove his immortality or change his temperament much.
The girls continued to gather stories in between rehearsing for the play and crusading. Including stories of Crystal the Snow Mare and a red nosed Caribou by the name of Rudolf. These were standard fare for the season, but the old legends they found in the library were not, (nor was the rarely told story where the two aforementioned Hearth’s Warming icons actually met and became friends.)
Reading about the Miser Brothers, a pair of pegasi so powerful and so in-tune with the natural elements that they could force the seasonal changes on their own, (though one was focused completely on heat and the other was focused completely on cold,) was both fascinating and terrifying. The next story in the book was the tale of The Grinch, a green fluff pony who hated Hearth’s Warming due to all the noise it caused. The girls read, entranced at the plans and, finally, the change that takes place within The Grinch. It filled them with hope that such a grump could see the true meaning and joy of Hearth’s Warming. The book also contained a spell which claimed to be able to bring snow structures to life. Needless to say this ended like most of their crusading attempts (though without tree sap this time.)
Scootaloo woke up later by the fire with Dinky curled against her. The snow had caused her to get so cold, she tried to hibernate. Dinky volunteered to warm her up as she was the one who caused the snow mare to fall over.
All and all, they had a fun winter and completed the Hearth’s Warming pageant. Amazingly, Nightmare was so pleased with the Pageant that she had a picture of Spectrum dressed as Puddinghead on her desk from then on. This was how the girls would spend winter for many years to come; telling stories, (especially as new Crusaders would eventually enter the fold.) And finding new tales and laughing together as friends, (as well as passing this on to future generations of Cutie Mark Crusaders.)
Midnight checked her list for the third time, map, supplies, and compass packed. Check.
Letter from Cadence agreeing to come and watch Spectrum while continuing the girls' lessons. Check.
Finally written assurance from both Rainbow and AJ that they would physically stop Pinkie from following Midnight when the latter left town.
Despite Midnight's best efforts, Pinkie found out about the seapony party and was determined to not miss the chance to participate in something of that magnitude. Midnight was a practical mare, and she was also the walking spirit of a forest of monsters, but these creatures she was going to visit, the fluffy ponies, were more deadly than any monster in her forest bar none!
These creatures; while hiding behind a veneer of cute naivety and innocence, were a literal horror story brought to life. Thus, they would not be exposed to Pinkie until safety could be insured for all parties.
The necromorphs were not native to Equestria the country or even the planet Equis. These beings came through a dimensional rift and the ship they were on promptly crashed in part of the Badlands. The impact shattered a strange artifact called the red marker to bits and killed all the occupants. However, the marker was still trying to send out a signal, which gained the attention of the Tree. Granted, all it could hear was a garbled message about wanting to be whole, and united. But it was able to establish proper communication, use its power to rebuild the marker, and extract the personality creating Marksaline. This, in turn, caused the necromorphs to go from the living dead to something more along the lines of changelings, albeit with a parasitic reproductive habit. They even had the same emotovoric feeding habits for negative emotions. This causing prevention of conflict by temporarily undercutting the rage of those involved.
This fact, combined with their friendly demeanor, vacant eyes, and strange language, made them an instant hit with other ponies. They were not, as their behavior suggested, any less intelligent than other ponies. But they had to cobble together their language to avoid panic due to their voices sounding like they gargled glass. Plus, their normal appearance resembled Ponyville's resident ghouls. Combine this with ponies' normal prey instincts, and the general tendency to panic, and well, you had a very bad time. These facts combined were the reason that Midnight, as a fellow monster, was going to be the first pony in generations to actually gain access to the necromorph home and meet the Queen. The ghouls had agreed to act as her guards for this journey.
After Nightmare found out about the Kraken, she LITERALLY hit the roof. In fact, they had just patched up the hole shaped like her head in the throne room. After extracting herself, she had tried to order a squad to protect Midnight and Spectrum around the clock. This led to the two of them having a private discussion which had required silencing spells. The end result of this was Midnight agreeing to take a squad of her choice with her on the next diplomatic mission, and she could think of no better group for this mission than the ghouls. After all, who in the world wants to fight a squad of smart undead?
Now, with all the preparations made and every spot on the list checked three times, Midnight was finally ready to go.
The trip to the badlands was surprisingly serene, especially compared to Ponyville. Once the group could see the Badlands, they wished they never had, but could definitely see why they were called The Badlands. It was like a wound in the landscape, lush grass ending abruptly at the border as if some force was stopping life itself from taking root. The land was dissolute and empty. No birdsongs or trees. Even the clouds in the sky ended, leaving the land exposed to the blistering sun, or the freezing night. the land before them was described in many old tales as hell before ponies discovered Tartarus.
"Forward we ride where many have died and evil hides, but ride we shall with heads held high for those who are dead fear not to die." After his verse, Clamper noticed the others staring at him with their jaws hanging off.
"Where did that come from?"
"I've been studying poetry. It just came to me."
Midnight started clapping at that moment, "Beautiful. I think we found what your talent would have been, Clamper. And I think you came up with a good squad motto. Now, let's get going, we have new monsters to meet."
They continued on, reinvigorated; "I thought our motto was going to be Quando Ominus Plumbus Moritati?"
"We can vote later, Scrap. Let's just get through this with everypony in one piece." The party progressed at a steady pace. However, the ghouls eventually started feeling dried out. For them this was but a minor inconvenience, however, For Midnight (the literal walking plant) on the other hoof, it was not fun to be in the Land of No Growth, (as the Everfree Forest itself rather aptly called it). While this area was not as hot or as dry as the Saddle Arabian desert, for instance, it felt worse for her because it seemed like the very air was trying to make her wither away. This combination of problems made them want to get to the hive sooner rather than later.
Their journey had one unexpected problem - as they were going through yet another canyon, the ground shook and with a horrendous roar, they came face to face with some of the few creatures strong enough to live out here, Maulwurfs. Maulwurfs, while preferring to eat plants, were still dangerous being a half bear, half mole creature. It was large and aggressive enough to be a threat to most pony-sized creatures. For ghouls, on the other hoof… "Well looks like lunch is served... CHARGE!"
The battle was short, brutal and one-sided. After a pleasant meal, the party camped to wait out the midday heat, they packed up as the sun was just sinking below the mountains, creating one of the most stunning sunsets any of them had ever seen. They continued through the night using the hotter parts of the day to rest. It took them 2 more days to reach the hive.
Cresting the hill to see a pony made of fuzz standing in front of a twisted mass of metal and flesh was an almost comical contradiction. With a long raspberry for a greeting, the pony turned around and bounced inside. As they entered the structure, the air instantly changed to a comfortable temperature, and the magic that they used to hide their forms burned off as they crossed the threshold. The pony who welcomed them had morphed from a cute furball to a hairless creature with thin bat-like wings and a twisted horn. "Welcome guests, my name is Puff, I will be your guide for the duration of your visit. Please follow me."
They continued deeper, hearing the creek of old metal and the sounds of hundreds of necros scurrying about. All the while, Puff answered any questions they had.
Soon they could hear the tune of a haunting song filling the air, reminding the ghouls of happier times, and Midnight of when she used to find Spectrum cuddling up with her in the early morning afraid of the light.
The final destination was a large room which held a helix-shaped object of the deepest red. Sitting at the base was a pony of the same color; an alicorn with 2 horns matching the shape of the aforementioned object. She was surrounded by a large number of small larvae-like creatures, and foal sized necromorphs. After finishing her song she noticed the visitors "Welcome, everypony. Please make yourselves comfortable. I should be done shortly. Just let Puff know if you would like anything while you wait."
The group quickly found some nice spots to sit and watch. The Necromorphs may have looked different from other ponies. They may have been carnivorous and even parasitic in nature, but in the song of the queen, the voice of Puff, and the eyes of the young, they could see the love and harmony shining through. The journey was long, the road hard, and the destination was as alien as they came but where there was harmony, there was hope for peace and friendship
Midnight and Marksaline quickly set up the table with every option they could think of. The necros had been invited to join Equestria before (with Marksaline retaining her power as a high ranking noble who leads them). This offer, while still valid, had never been accepted due to the sheer number of differences between the citizens. But with the resurgence of the night tribes, and the news of a Changeling hive joining the fold Marksaline wasverytempted to let the hive join their fellow ponies.
Sadly-
"I would have joined Equestria years ago, but we can't abandon the hive or the marker and it's quite stuck. We have been working for years but, even together, we lack the power to unseat it. Herman did too good of a job rebuilding it and gave it roots which also hold the hive in place."
"Are you trapped here?" Midnight could scarcely imagine such a fate. To be caged and never leaving it would drive her mad.
Marksaline giggled "No, but I need the growth to sustain our young. Many of my children have shown interest in joining different cities. We even have a group hoping to move to Coltlantis. But some of us will always be here. Now let us move to the topic of trade."
It was true that the Necros did not need much. In fact, all they needed was animals to complete their larval stages and negative emotions for food. Still, they had quite a few things they could trade. Years of living in a crashed spaceship had allowed them to reverse engineer most of the technology, producing the most advanced magi-tech ever seen. Fortunately, while behind in the field of science, Equestria's art and culinary skills were among the best in the world. Negotiations of this caliber were always going to be finicky (how do you compare the worth of scientific and artistic advancement?)
One example Midnight brought was an Apple family signature apple pie. Marksaline had heard the praise of this particular delicacy but had never had the chance to eat one as no one had figured out how to get one through the badlands intact before. Marksaline tried to eat it in a dignified manner for about 4 seconds before she dug in with the gusto of a starving dog. Midnight was glad she decided not to bring any of Pinkie's creations. While, objectively, some of (if not THE) best treats in the world were made by her, the Apple family pie was a staple in confectionary and commercially available throughout Equestria. They had also brought books full of examples of art and music to share. While what the Necros had was very good, these pieces had been made by ponies who spent their lives (on average 400 years) focused on this skill.
The final thing Midnight brought was a list of fast-growing easy to control animals from the forest who were hardy enough to survive the weather here as long as they had food, Which, considering the Necros had a fully functioning hydroponics system while not needing to eat any of the food themselves, was not a problem.
The Magi-tech that the ponies were interested in were far beyond what they were currently able to reproduce. It was true that they were on high alert with the recent traitor and his twisted plan revealed. Still, they could not draft the most brilliant minds in the nation into research and development without a current enemy, war or state of emergency. So they were hoping to trade knowledge, blueprints, recipes, techniques and the like to improve their skills naturally.
The meeting continued on from there, covering subjects of immigration, legal differences, military and economic agreements out the wazzou and plans for pseudo hives/corruption based buildings for the Necros to live in. Contact was made with King Leo to include the sea tribes to extend trade and further connect all of the pony tribes. Another aspect shared was medical records. The last thing anypony wanted was someone dying in the hospital because the doctors did not understand their anatomy and physiology. For the 6 land tribes and even the sea tribes, it was more of the same with basic differences (wing, horn, hardiness of the body and mind, variable dietary requirements and so forth). The major difference for the sea ponies was, of course, their muscular tail taking up half their body and an internal arrangement of organs which supported this. Doctors at Equestrian hospitals had to take new training to prepared for this so they could safely perform operations on any new patients.
But when the Changelings became involved, this got cranked Up To Eleven (possibly even Twelve). Not only did they have wings, horns, and increased muscle density, they also had a layer of nerveless chitin covering most of their body which was dense but easy to replace. Even their horn was made of it and could be broken and rebuilt many times. Their wings, in contrast, were delicate and very susceptible to damage when being used. The piece de resistance though was their emotovoric digestive system (an organ system which allowed them to process the energy of emotions into energy for their bodies plus extra magic) to create a sort of honey or jelly which could only be described as solid emotional energy.
This odd digestive system was shared with the necros but it was one of the few things that they had any knowledge on. Necromorphs, despite now being truly alive, were still some of the most durable and hard to kill creatures alive. They had no need for breathable air and over a third of their exterior body was made of dead cells. Add in the rapid fluff growth and you had a massive damage sponge. Their odd fur was also on the list of trade goods because of its durability and thermal regulating properties you could wear an outfit made from it all year round and stay comfortable and safe.
It took several weeks of negotiation and preparation but, in the end, Equestria was going to be getting yet another influx of new ponies. The major cities were soon to find an increase in the popularity of surreal and strange art with even stranger neighbors. Near the end with everything as ironed out as they could make it there was only one thing left to do:
"Now how about we celebrate this new alliance with a quick party?"
Midnight nodded "One moment please."
She quickly turned to one of the smaller alcoves "Pinkie, I know you two are in there."
"Aw, I thought I hid well" Pinkie unfolded from the ceiling
"You smell like cake batter all the time. Kinda hard to miss out here. So ready to have some fun?" Midnight just had time to cover her ears before with a thundering boom the area was transformed completely including a misspelled banner.
The party was long, loud and would have caused normal ponies to fall into a sugar coma halfway through. Every party game invented was played to death and Pinkie finally met her match at twister. Marksaline had never had this much fun (winding up as a twisted mass of limbs with a pink pony notwithstanding). even without Diane coming out, the necros could still sense her sorrow and rage which seemed to draw them in like flies to honey. even just the leakage acted like a potent drug to the necros, leading to quite a few tipsy and affectionate ponies.
The party eventually ended when Midnight forcefully removed Pinkie after prying her out of a snoozing pile of ponies who wore themselves out trying to impress her and make her happy believing her behavior to be a façade. Midnight was able to later explain to the Queen the truth about Pinkie's emotions once she sobered up. Once again, the meeting ended well and with quite a few passed out ponies. Now they just had to get home through the hell of the badlands.