> Legends Never Die: The Beginning of Harmony
>  by bookhorse125
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: The Fall of the Emperor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thousands of moons ago…

You could almost feel the hopelessness in the air.

In front of her towered a creature of colossal size - though that may just be her mind playing tricks on her. He radiated fear, and her legs felt weak - she wanted to just stop, turn around and go home and never give him another thought. She would never complain again, just so long as she didn’t have to face him ever again.

“Don’t let him get to you.”

She turned to see her best friend standing behind her, looking like she was feeling the exact same thing.

“Don’t let them get to you, Gusty.”

Gusty gave a weak smile and turned back to face the massive blue ram in front of her. She tried to remind herself, he wasn’t any scarier than the Chimera, than her brother, than all the armies she had run from in the past month. Then she took a quick glance at his eyes and felt all her confidence disappear.

Nope! Definitely worse! He is definitely worse!

She felt her friend’s hoof on her shoulder, and the physical contact was enough to make her take a deep breath and calm down. Gusty glanced sideways at her commander. He caught her eye with a stone-cold expression, nothing like the cheerful, laughing stallion she had been talking to just a few moments ago. His gaze flitted between her and the ram in front of them, his massive curled horns glowing bright yellow and crackling with black lightning.

He gave a small, almost inconceivable nod.

Gusty lit up her horn, and the unicorns around her did the same thing, their nervousness melting away and being replaced with a courage that you only found when defending something you truly cared about.

“For Equestria!” she screamed with all her heart, her soul poured into those two simple words that carried so much meaning, and she heard the cry echoing up and down the lines. Gusty forced her legs to move, and soon she was running, all her fear turning into an undeniable rage and anger, anger at what this creature had done, anger that she had never done anything about it until now, anger at what this world could be - and the fact that it wasn’t.

In front of her, she saw Grogar laughing, as if he doubted that these petty little unicorns could do much against an all-powerful tyrannical dictator such as himself. He sent out a wave of magic that threw dozens of unicorns off their hooves and flung them back. Gusty threw up a shield just in time, but she was still thrown backwards a couple meters. Still, she remained on her feet, and when she lowered her shield and kept on charging, Grogar looked surprised, and a little amused.

She didn’t stop to think about that. The tip of her horn glowed white-hot, and a rope of pure white light grew out from the end of it. Gusty wrapped it around one of Grogar’s horns and pulled.

He wasn’t expecting that. He jerked forward a step and grunted with surprise, then shook his head from side to side in an attempt to throw her off. Gusty went along with it, flippin through the air and landing on his back. She tightened her rope and prepared for the worst.

Grogar roared and bucked, trying to throw her off. Gusty hung on - just barely - and dug her hooves into Grogar’s back to gain more balance. Whenever he almost threw her off, she would tug him in the other direction, disorienting him and making him furious.

All around them, the unicorns stopped and stared at this bizarre sight, then remembered that there was still the rest of Grogar’s army to be dealt with, and they quickly got busy.

“YEEEEE-HAW!” Gusty whooped, yanking on his horn. “How’d you like that, you oversized donkey!”

He stopped. “What?”

She grinned, all the insults she had been longing to throw at his face bubbling up inside her. “Stupid goat! Mooney-eyed moron! Brain full of horse feathers! Complete and utter idiot!”

Grogar stopped, his face contorted into a nasty snarl that Gusty was glad she couldn’t see. He roared and lit up his horns, sending out a massive blast that threw Gusty off his back and tossed both her and all the other unicorns away.

Even with his army decimated, Grogar was still much too powerful for them to take on their own.

“Gusty!” Her friend offered her a hoof, and she pulled her back up. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Gusty assured her, then winced. “No, really, I will be,” she added hurriedly, looking around them, her heart sinking. “Everypony else got it worse than I did.”

Her friend sighed and said, “We can’t take him. We - we have to retreat before somepony else gets hurt.”

“When we’re this close?” Gusty shook herself off and shoved down the pain. “I’m not giving up when I’m this close to defeating him and saving our home - our dreams, Maggie! Don’t you remember what we’re fighting for? We can’t just give that up!”

“I know,” she said, her voice breaking. “But you know we can’t do this alone.”

“Then we’ll hold off until help arrives,” Gusty said in a low voice. “But we aren’t giving up and going home with our tails between our legs.”

“What help?” Maggie cried, her voice pleading. “Please, I know this is hard for you, but we can’t stay here-” She paused, turning her head this way and that as if she had something in her ears. “What’s that?”

Gusty frowned. “What’s what?” But she heard it now, too. A flapping sound that sounded distinctly like… wings?

She turned around to see a huge cloud coming their way - except that it wasn’t a cloud. It was a group of pegasi, coming down from Cloudsdale. She heard the sound of thundering hooves and turned to see a stampede of earth ponies running towards them. And from what she could see on all of their expressions, they were here to fight.

The sight seemed to inspire the unicorns, and they were back on their hooves, horns alight, and Grogar looked furious. He lifted his head and stretched out his neck, and that’s when Gusty caught a glimpse of something on his neck.

A cracked green bell, pulsing with light every time Grogar lit up his horns.

Like he was drawing power from it.

A memory flashed in her head - Grogar standing over two ponies crouched on the floor, one standing protectively in front of the other. One of them looked like Gusty, and one of them looked like her brother. Grogar lifted his bell without a glimmer of remorse in his eyes and blasted it with magic. The bell’s ringing echoed in her ears, much louder than it must have been.

Gusty gasped. “Everypony!” she cried, her voice loud and clear. All the unicorns and pegasi and earth ponies paused as they turned to her. “Attack him all at once!” she instructed, lighting her horn and taking a step towards Grogar, looking into his eyes to let him know that she was unafraid. “I only need him down for a few moments.”

“You heard her!” Maggie yelled, charging the ram herself and inspiring everypony else to do the same.

Grogar constantly found himself under attack from unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, working together so seamlessly that he couldn’t determine where they were, where they would be, or what their plan was. He roared and tried to shoot blasts at the ponies whenever they attacked him, but there were so many of them, too many of them, and he couldn’t keep up. All the ponies pulled back for a second before launching themselves back at the massive ram, fighting with everything they had.

They weren’t just fighting for then - they were fighting for the future. They were fighting for their dreams, for the future, for the world they wished they lived in. And they weren’t going to give that up.

Grogar paused, summoning all his energy into one massive blast, and Gusty saw her chance. She ran forward, her horn blazing as brightly as the sun, everypony stepping out of the way when she came barreling through, and Grogar faltered just a moment too long.

Gusty reached down inside her and summoned all her anger, her fear, her hope, her love, her resentment, every strong emotion she had ever felt in the past year, and poured it into her magic, sending a massive blast of energy straight at the arrogant ram’s face, blinding him and everypony in vicinity.

She hit his chest and leaped back off, flipping through the air and landing on her hooves in front of him.

Grogar recovered and snarled at her, “You pathetic little pony. As if somepony like you could defeat somepony as powerful as me! Even when you pour in everything you have, it still isn’t enough - and it never will be.” He lit up his horns, drawing power from his bell - but his bell wasn’t there.

He stopped. “What…” He tried again, growing more and more furious. “What did you do?” he roared, reaching up a protective hoof to his bell… but he only felt empty air.

“Looking for something?” Gusty asked innocently, holding up the cracked bell, the rusted object clunking dully. She held it above her head with her magic, taunting him with it, a satisfied smile coming to her face at the anger and sheer panic that made up the ram’s expression.

“Give it back!” he screeched, his voice cracking.

Gusty snickered. “Or what? Do another voice crack? Yeah, I don’t think so.” Her horn glowed brighter, illuminating the field with a bright white light, and Grogar took a nervous step back. “You want to rule over us all for eternity? You want to sit upon a throne so high that nopony can tear it down?”

She thought of what she wanted to do, the spell flashing through her mind, her horn glowing so bright that everypony looked away. She thought about her parents, murdered at the hoof of this vile creature. She thought of her brother, and how much he had lied to her, just for this insufferable goat. She thought of the world that was - and the world that could be. And she thought of her friends. The ponies she cared about more than anything.

They deserved a better world than this one - a safe, happy world. That world could not exist while Grogar was still on the throne.

Gusty fired, and her beam of light surrounded Grogar, dissolving him and whisking him away, up up up into the sky until it exploded against the night sky. Four stars appeared in the wake of the explosion, shaped just like Grogar’s arched back.

There was a moment of peace and calm… and then it seemed like all of Equestria erupted in cheers.

Gusty was hoisted onto shoulders and paraded into Canterlot, where there were streamers and confetti and balloons and cheering ponies and they carried her into the castle and set her down on Grogar’s throne, screaming her name, claiming that she was the greatest pony who had ever lived, begging her to tell them how she had managed to permanently defeat the worst villain they had ever witnessed, and she had no idea what to do about it.

Eventually, her friends shooed all the ponies away and shut the doors to the throne room, and she was alone.

“Well,” said Maggie, “that was… interesting.”

“I know, right?” Gusty laughed, the feel of the moment really sinking in now. They had done it, they had defeated Grogar, and now they could rebuild. Everything she had ever wanted was happening - though she glanced at the bell she had been carrying around everywhere, careful not to let it out of her sight. “But what do we do with this?”

“Someplace nopony can get it,” her commander said, relaxing now that he wasn’t commanding an army at that moment. “Someplace nopony would even think to look, and certainly not Grogar. We don’t want that thing falling into the wrong hooves.”

“Hm,” Gusty thought. She walked over to the window and looked out upon the joyous capital, all shouting in jubilation. Confetti still rained on the streets, and she sensed that the celebrations would go on into the night… and the next week… and perhaps the next month… and that she would be dragged out to join them, but she didn’t mind. These ponies needed something to celebrate after years of living under Grogar’s tyrannical rule.

She lifted her eyes and spotted a silhouette on the horizon - a tall, jagged peak jutting into the sky, outlined by the setting sun. “I think I have an idea.”

Her gaze shifted to the new constellation in the sky of a ram, and Gusty the Great sighed, feeling, for the first time in a while, that everything would - truly - be okay.

And so an evil villain has been defeated, she thought to herself. There may be more - in fact, there will probably be more. But whatever the future holds, as long as we’re in it together, I know we’re going to be okay.
> An Explanation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So let me get this straight. You went on a crazy expedition to try and find Sunny, taking you across the land to places that have never been explored by ponykind, and then you eventually came up here when Flurry sensed that the Crystal Empire was in danger, got kidnapped by Sombra, freed yourselves from Sombra, came back and defeated Sombra, then defeated Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow.”

Zipp cleared her throat. “Ah, we fought Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow. Something tells me that they’re going to be back. For revenge,” she added, in case it hadn’t been made clear.

Haven rolled her eyes. “Whatever. And, meanwhile, Sunny was being held captive by this… this ‘Legion of Doom’, escaped, and then went off to… other lands to befriend creatures that we had never heard of nor seen before today, and the majority of them did not want to be befriended because Cozy Glow told them that ponies wanted to exterminate them all, so they threatened to retaliate and are planning to attack us at this very moment.” The queen turned to the earth pony sitting next to Zipp for confirmation, and she shrugged.

“You forgot the part where we found a magical tower that controlled the sun and moon and came to everypony else’s rescue,” she said modestly, stirring her tea and taking a sip. She made a face and hurriedly set it down, the crystal cup rattling against the saucer.

“Yes, yes, that happened, too,” Haven conceded, rubbing her temples with her hoof. “I’m just trying to make sense of it, that’s all.”

“Don’t worry,” Sunny agreed, adding a spoonful of sugar to her tea, “we all are.”

“You know no more than we do,” Pipp added, clasping her mother’s hoof. “Well… mostly,” she added with a look from her sister.

Haven sighed and leaned back in her seat. “I’m not going to ask,” she decided. “I have enough to process for one day.” She stood up and turned to Flurry Heart. “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done, Princess. Now, if you don’t mind me, I’m going to turn in for the night - it has been a very stressful day.” She gave both of her daughters very stern looks. “Do not leave for another magic quest without telling me first - I want to be able to say a proper good-bye this time.” She wrapped her wings around Zipp and Pipp, pulling them in for a hug and planting a kiss on both of their heads before nodding respectfully to Flurry and Sunny and leaving the room.

Sunny watched her go, and when the door closed, she said, “You know, all things considering, she took that very well.”

“I’ll say,” Flurry agreed. “From what you’ve all told me, the world is just recovering from uniting all three pony tribes - and given some ponies’ reactions to that, I don’t want to know what would happen with about a dozen others.”

“Yeah… wait, I only met eight!” Sunny protested, watching Flurry hide a smile. “How many other tribes did you know about, Flurry? Do we need to send friendship ambassadors to all of them?”

“Probably should hold off on that,” Zipp interrupted, scratching her wing. Pipp swatted her hoof away, glaring at her, and Zipp lay off the bandages for a while (her mother had FREAKED when she saw that Zipp’s wing was hurt and insisted on getting it treated right away), but the moment her sister was looking away, Zipp started pawing at the itchy canvas again.

“I think there were about…” Flurry paused, doing a mental count. “Gosh, I don’t even know… at least twenty sentient ones, though the majority of them rarely get involved in Equestrian affairs and are fairly peaceful. I don’t think we should be worried about them until this whole thing calms down.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Sunny said fretfully. “I do not want to make any more enemies than I already have. It’s a wonder I still wake up each morning.”

Flurry could tell that she still felt bad about the other tribes wanting to declare war on the ponies and said gently, “It’s not your fault, Sunny. My aunts told me all about Cozy Glow and her schemes - she could sweet-talk a filly out of candy without breaking a sweat. They would have done this anyway.”

Sunny gave a small smile and stood up. “Well, I think I’m going to go see if Hugo’s back - and that all my friends are settled. See you in the morning.”

“Good night, Sunny,” Pipp called as the earth pony left the room.

“Her friends,” Zipp said quietly as the door closed behind Sunny. “I mean… I want to like them, I’m sure they’re perfectly nice… creatures, but the way Sunny talks about them… I just…” She sighed and stopped trying to talk, apparently at a loss for words.

“You’re worried that they’ll take her away from us,” Pipp finished in a low voice, staring down at her hooves. “I know. I feel the same way. Sunny’s finally back, and it’s wonderful, but I feel like there’s a part of Sunny that’s… lost. Or at least will never be the same again. And it honestly scares me.” She wrapped her wings around herself and shivered. Zipp nudged her.

“Look,” Flurry said, glancing at the door to make sure Sunny was really gone, “I don’t know what will happen - you might want to talk to Midnight about that,” she added teasingly. “But I do know that you and Sunny have a very powerful friendship, the kind of friendship that nopony, no matter who they are, can take away. Sunny is an amazing pony, and I know she has enough room in her heart for both you and all the other creatures. But you are her best friends, and I know she will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”





The night breeze ruffled Sunny’s mane, and she wished she were brave enough to fly. But ever since her fight with the Legion of Doom, she had become wary of her own powers, fearing that they were too much for even her to handle. And she didn’t want to endanger her friends.

She sighed and scanned the night skies for any sign of the zeppelin that her friend Hugo was piloting with her other friend Kailani, taking all of the abducted ponies home after being freed from their Sombra-induced mind control. They had been gone since earlier that morning, and she was beginning to get worried.

“No sign of them,” came Imara’s voice, and she turned to see the changeling land on the balcony behind Sunny. “I flew as high as I could, but I didn’t see them.”

Sunny sighed. “Thanks for trying, Imara,” she told her friend before turning back to the sky, desperately wishing she could spot something that the changeling had missed, but there was nothing. “How is every creature?”

“Oh, they’re fine,” she said dismissively. “Settling in right away. I tried to tell them not to test our host’s hospitality too much, but will they listen?” She rolled her eyes.

“Flurry Heart’s a wonderful pony,” Sunny insisted. “Nothing we do is going to make her any less hospitable.” She glanced back up at the sky, which remained empty. “What exactly are they doing?”

“Lukas won’t leave the library, Little Braveheart’s following Brooks around because it’s a tad too cold for her up here, Hugo and Kailani, still don’t know, and Midnight’s getting an oversimplified history of everything we know happened from Izzy, Ash, and occasionally someone else if they decide to drop in.” She shrugged. “As for me, I’m being helpful.”

Sunny laughed, and Imara shot her a dirty look. “S-sorry,” Sunny wheezed, wiping her eyes. “You were saying?”

Imara scoffed and tossed her head. “Well, I have been very busy in investigating what we’re up against,” she said, still sounding offended. “You see, the strangest thing is, we don’t have any mention of a ‘Queen Chrysalis’ in changeling history books - trust me, I’ve read them from top to bottom. The farthest we go back is King Thorax, and he was the father of Queen Monarch - so we have very minimalistic history lessons.”

The thought sobered Sunny up. “How strange,” she agreed. “There’s probably something, it’s just hidden. And nopon - sorry, no creature would realize that, because they probably forgot all about it.”

“What?” Imara said sharply, whirling around to face her. “Explain.”

“You should join Izzy’s history lesson,” Sunny said seriously. “A lot has happened while all you creatures were holed up in your kingdoms. Which is not your fault,” she added hurriedly as Imara opened her mouth angrily. “But… Okay, oversimplified version: there’s this group of ponies that thinks that all different types of ponies - and probably all creatures - are meant to live separately so that they can be with others like them. They began to spread rumors about each other, and as tensions between ponies rose, the other creatures decided that they wanted no part in whatever was about to occur, so they withdrew into their own kingdoms in social isolation while ponykind fell apart.

“But this group of ponies decided that it wouldn’t be enough, so they took a magical memory-erasing rock that they used on the whole world, erasing any and every memory of unity and friendship between the tribes. They all separated and rewrote history as it made sense to them, and they had lived that way ever since. Oh, and magic disappeared, which made them all angrier at each other, and the world almost froze over because of their hatred for each other, but everything worked out in the end,” Sunny finished.

There was silence on the balcony as Imara stared at her, open mouthed.

“Wow,” came a voice behind them, “maybe I should have come to you for the history lesson.”

Sunny turned to see Midnight standing in the doorway to the palace, Izzy next to him. “Hey, Midnight, Izzy,” she said as Izzy pulled her into a hug (ever since she had come back, it seemed like Izzy couldn’t get enough hugs, and Sunny had missed her, so she went along with it). “What’s going on?” Her gaze shifted to the necklace hanging on Midnight’s chest, the pale crescent moon standing out against his dark coat. For reasons she didn’t know, seeing that gem had snapped her out of her crazy magic-induced trance - if only for a while, but it was enough for her to come to her senses. “Is it another vision?”

He glanced down at the moon. “Actually, no,” he said, sounding surprised, like even he couldn’t believe it. “I thought I would be getting them all the time now, what with the Legion of Doom still out there, and-” He paused, clearing his throat. “No. That’s not it. But… Look, I know we’ve only been here for, like, a day, but every creature’s anxious to be getting out there again.”

Sunny sighed and turned back to the sky, the stars glimmering against the velvety dark expanse. It was truly beautiful, but she had little time to appreciate that. “I know,” she said, “and I want to, too. But we can’t leave without our friends, and we have no idea what we’re going into. We know who they are, we know where they’re based, we know what they’re capable of, but what do we do about it?” She looked down at the crystal floor and pawed at it nervously. “And I’m not quite sure I’m ready to face them again. After what happened last time…”

“We’ll work on that,” Imara assured her.

“We are not going to let them take our friend away so easily again,” Izzy agreed, putting her arm around her friend’s shoulders. Imara looked surprised that the pony had agreed to something she had said.

Sunny smiled; their devotion always made her feel hopeful. Even if that hope was futile, it was still something for her to cling to - something she could hold on to in the days ahead.

Because something told her it was about to get rocky.
> The One You Thought You Knew
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zephyr Heights truly was beautiful - a modern marvel of the world, a testament to all that ponies could accomplish even without magic.

And Termite officially hated it.

He shifted uncomfortably - he wasn’t used to disguising himself in a pony form. In fact, he hadn’t turned into a pony since his younger days when they had to transform into any creature that the teacher rattled off, rapid fire, and if you missed a beat, then you were out. The longest lasting was the winner.

Even more uncomfortable was the fact that he kept being asked all these questions. Ponies would stop him in the halls of the castle and question him on what to do about the lack of security, and where the queen was, and if the earth ponies or unicorns might have done anything to her. He would stammer the best answer he could, but he eventually realized that was making him look suspicious, so he would tell them to meet him later that day.

Hopefully by then, he would have collected all the information he needed, and the original pony would be back at work.

Termite was seeking information on the ponies themselves - what they were planning, how big their army was, how they planned to exterminate all the changelings - and, most importantly, what their weaknesses were.

But that required a disguise, and he had discreetly watched from the shadows (as a house fly - he had narrowly avoided being swatted at least two dozen times) to see what pony he could impersonate that would get him the most useful intel. He eventually found somepony named Helios, he thought, and now he assumed that this pony was put in charge - because, apparently, their queen was gone.

So Termite was disguised as Helios, a sunny yellow pegasus with a ridiculous bright orange mane, trying to figure out how these ponies worked without appearing too suspicious.

When he wasn’t disguised as hideously colored creatures (how anyone could live with being that bright, he had no idea), Termite was a dark green changeling with deep red wings and eyes, and, in his opinion, that was a much more sensible color palette than what these ponies thought was.

They honestly reminded him of Imara, and he wanted the similarities to stop there.

And when he wasn’t pretending to be hideously colored creatures, he was right-hoof to the Queen Monarch herself, and he had been promoted to a much more powerful position ever since their own hive had been infiltrated by a pony seeking to destroy them all. The queen had never expressly given her permission to put him essentially in charge of the defense of the Changeling Kingdom, but beggars cannot be choosers, and someone had to make sure that the next generation of changelings was safe from the impending threat looming over them. So he had given himself that power, and now all the changelings would follow him to their deaths - the queen wouldn’t risk taking it away under the risk of losing her power.

Ah, yes. Being in charge of the changelings. Every time they obeyed his orders, it was pure bliss.

Contrast that with this miserable place.

Termite bumped into a pegasus and stumbled back, muttering, “Sorry.”

The light pink pony blinked and seemed to register who he was - or who he looked like. “Oh, Helios! Thank the stars,” she said, looking around furtively as if they might be overheard. “Listen, I need to talk to you - it’s very important.”

“I’ll get around to it,” he mumbled, eager to find some kind of record of who ran this land.

“Sir!” the pegasus insisted, grabbing his hoof and pulling him down the hall. She lowered her voice and whispered, “It’s about the queen.”

Termite stopped. That could be useful to him. “All right, you have five minutes of my time,” he snapped. “But make it quick, I have some very important research to do, um…” He paused, realizing that he didn’t know her name.

“Glimmer,” she said brightly, and he had to truly refrain from rolling his eyes. How thick were these ponies?

In his frequent wanderings of the palace, eavesdropping on any and all conversations to see what he could detect, Termite had determined the location of Helios’ office, and he led Glimmer there now. Inside, he sat behind Helios’ desk, putting his hooves up on the paper-covered oak and glaring at the pegasus who looked slightly shocked at his behavior. Well, let them. “Five minutes,” he reminded her in a warning tone.

“Right,” she said, composing herself. “Sir, the queen has been… conspiring. With…” she glanced at the shut door and whispered, “traitors.”

“Traitors?” Termite shrugged. “So?”

Glimmer looked shocked. “W-why sir, aiding and conspiring with enemies of Equestria makes you an automatic traitor - you should know this.”

He blinked. “R-right. Of course. Um… who was she conspiring with?”

“Sunny Starscout,” the pegasus whispered. “A-and all of her friends, in a kind of kingdom up north. There was this horrid pony who mind controlled us all, and all I know was that Queen Haven was up there with an earth pony and a unicorn, and then she…”

Termite wasn’t listening. He hadn’t been listening ever since she said Sunny Starscout.

“Sunny Starscout is a traitor?” he said sharply. “What did she do?”

The tone of his voice was enough to scare her enough that she didn’t ask questions. “S-sir, you could just look at your phone,” she whimpered, looking around her. “N-now, if you don’t mind me leaving, I’ll just…”

She sidled out of the room, but Termite didn’t notice. He glanced at the device that Glimmer had pointed to with curiosity. He had seen all the other pegasi using these strange black rectangles, taking pictures and scrolling through and watching tiny ponies trapped inside of them. He picked it up and tapped the black screen gently.

He yelped as the screen lit up. After several minutes of testing and going to the strangest games and taking about a dozen pictures and even slamming the ‘phone’ on the desk once or twice, he finally figured it out, and he opened the… the… the ‘search bar’ and typed in ‘Sunny Starscout’.

About a million things popped up. He selected the first, and it was an article about how Sunny Starscout had brought magic back and united ponykind once again - When was the first time? he thought. He selected another, and it was a picture of the pony with a golden horn and pair of matching golden wings, just like he had seen her. Another revealed that Sunny Starscout had apparently willingly walked into the company of three of Equestria’s greatest enemies and had been charged with treason, as well as her friends when they had pledged loyalty to her.

“Well,” Termite said to himself. “This could be very useful.” All the answers right here. I’ll finally find out what these ponies are planning!

As an entire day of vigorous research proved, that was absolutely nothing. He couldn’t find one thing about how the ponies were planning to exterminate the changelings - or any other creature, for that matter.

But he discovered something else.

Ponies weren’t the enemy; Sunny Starscout was the enemy. That pony was clearly up to something, something Termite could easily assume was no good. And now that he knew that she was considered a traitor and all of Equestria was supposed to be against her…

Well, a new plan was forming.

Suddenly, his choice of disguise seemed like nothing short of a stroke of pure genius.





All of Zephyr Heights was either gathered around the palace or was watching down below in the city on the massive screens, relaying live feed from further up the mountain. Termite took a deep breath and stepped out into a massive wave of flashing lights and screaming.

This is so different, he thought to himself, then grudgingly admitted, but it’s not that bad.

He stepped behind a platform, and instantly, his face - or, rather, Helios’ face - filled every single screen throughout the city, and he cleared his throat, silencing the crowd.

“Citizens of Zephyr Heights,” he began (that seemed like a good way to start a formal speech), “I am sure that you are quite worried - as am I - about the absence of our dearly beloved Queen Haven. But I am here to assure you that, though she may be gone, I am here to make sure that our city will continue to thrive amidst this crisis.”

The ponies began to whisper amongst each other, he was sure he could even hear it from below in the city, and Termite couldn’t help but notice - again - how it seemed to be primarily pegasi. He knew that the pegasi had dominated the city, but once the three pony tribes had united, hadn’t the only queen in existence taken over to rule, not just the pegasi, but all ponies? Still, something about that theory didn’t sit right with him, and he vowed to ask what kinds of leaders the earth ponies and unicorns had.

“I am sure,” he continued in a loud voice, and the whispering ceased, “that you are wondering what kind of crisis I am referring to. Well, it has come to my attention that our beloved queen has been caught associating with…” he paused for dramatic effect, “traitors of Equestria, including, but not limited to, our princesses Zipp and Pipp, as well as the pony you believe has saved you: Sunny Starscout.

“As much as I wish it was otherwise, the pony you may have thought was working for the greater good - uniting ponykind, bringing back magic - all the evidence points to her working for a much darker cause.” More muttering from the crowd, and Termite let it continue, prepping what he was going to say next in his head. “We are not alone in this world,” he finally decided. “There are, out there, other creatures not at all like us, but just as deserving of your friendship and recognition as the pony next to you. But this is not how Sunny Starscout sees it.

“This pony,” Termite said dramatically, waving a hoof at the giant screen behind him, where a picture of Sunny Starscout had been displayed, “wants to eliminate all other creatures until ponykind is the only species left, and her to rule all of ponykind. Everything she has done for you - it was all part of a quest for power. She is using you to gain more for herself!”

The crowd gave a collective gasp, and no more quiet muttering plagued the crowd, but loud voices screaming at him for more. Termite held up a hoof, and they all fell silent.

“I know that it may seem like there is no hope left,” he continued, “but I assure you, if we take action against Sunny Starscout and her friends, we can prevent this disaster from happening, and put this pony in her rightful place - a jail cell.”

“What about our queen?” shouted a reporter, pad and pencil at the ready. He flicked his tail, and the pony next to him immediately snapped a picture. “What will happen to her?”

“The matters concerning our most imperial majesty,” Termite said, the lie of an answer coming to his tongue immediately, “are still yet to be decided. Whether or not she was acting of her own accord or was under the influence of these… power hungry ponies remains to be seen. But I assure you that we will be trying our best to rescue Her Highness and bring her back here safe and sound. For now, though, I will continue to take care of all of you just as well as she would have, just as Her Majesty intended. Fear not, for everything shall be taken care of.”

He answered a dozen more questions, lying for the answers for each of them (the ease of which these phony stories came to his lips may have once concerned him, but now, it was extremely useful), before he dismissed the press and left for bed. He stopped by the hidden room he had found underneath a grate, where he had hidden the real Helios, just to make sure that he was safely asleep for as long as Termite would need him to be.

“Sweet dreams,” he whispered to the snoozing pegasus, though he knew he couldn’t hear him. “Of course, mine are only just beginning…”
> Heading Out
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well, that’s everyone,” Kailani reported, and Hugo sighed with relief.

“Does this mean we can head back to our friends now?” the griffon asked as he gently steered the zeppelin away from the glowing city of Zephyr Heights. It was early in the day, the sunrise casting the entire landscape below in a dazzling golden light, and the hippogriff and griffon had just finished dropping off the last of the ponies that had been abducted by Sombra. “I keep feeling like something awful’s happening.”

“You and me both,” Kailani said ruefully. “I hate leaving them like this - I mean, we only just meet them.”

Hugo steered the floating basket into a channel of wind heading north to speed their arrival. He adjusted the wheel a bit, tied it down, and stood back, wiping the sweat off his forehead and joining Kailani on the deck.

“I can’t believe there was all this out here and we didn’t realize it,” Kailani whispered, looking over the railing at the landscape passing below them. “It’s like having the whole world open up in front of you. Don’t you just want to… explore it all?” She leaned her head against the railing and sighed with contentment. The wind ruffled her coat and mane, and she closed her eyes, soaking in the blissful moment.

“I don’t know,” Hugo admitted. “I mean… It is amazing, but it seems like everywhere I go…. You know, I’ll never really belong.” He flapped his wings woefully.

“You weren’t made to belong,” Kailani told him, gently placing her claw on his arm, “you were made to be you.”

Hugo smiled, and he joined his friend at the railing, the wind blowing in their faces as they played “I Spy” with the slowly passing landscape below. Hugo was amazing - he was used to spotting intimate details, so he always found what Kailani pointed out and made his objects so hard to spot that the hippogriff always gave up.

The day turned into night, the dark sky above sprinkled with silver stars, the crescent moon glowing in the sky as the Crystal Mountains neared. The northern lights became visible, filling the sky with rainbow lights that shimmered brighter than anything the two creatures had ever seen.

Hugo frowned at the ground.

“I Spy… something blue,” the griffon finally decided.

Kailani groaned. “Is it the sky?” she asked teasingly, then scanned the ground. “Hm. Is it that blue jay?”

“Nope.”

“That flower?”

“Guess again!”

“Is it a pegasus?”

“No-” Hugo paused. “Where?”

“What?”

“Where’s the pegasus?”

Kailani pointed to the horizon. “Right there!” She grinned at Hugo. “I spotted something you didn’t! I win!”

But the griffon was very uninterested in competition anymore. “There’s two of them,” he muttered. “And they’re flying right towards us.” He scrambled back to the wheel and untied it, preparing to dodge the newcomers, but Kailani held up a claw.

“No, wait. I… I think I recognize them,” she said, squinting. The light from the moon and the northern lights reflected off of something silver that both the pegasi were wearing, and she finally made out the crest of Zephyr Heights on both of their chest plates. “They’re guards from Zephyr Heights!”

Hugo yelped. “Are we in trouble?”

“I don’t think so,” Kailani replied. “Wait… I do know them! They’re two of the ponies we brought home from the Crystal Empire! Something must be happening!”

Hugo gently steered the zeppelin out of the wind and lowered the sails so that it floated aimlessly, moving at about a tenth of a mile per hour. He joined Kailani on the deck as Thunder and Zoom landed. The green pegasus flopped onto the deck, breathing hard and apparently exhausted. His comrade merely rolled her eyes and kept her rigid composure.

“What’s going on?” Kailani asked, fearing the worst.

“We have a message for the queen,” Zoom said tersly. “All of Zephyr Heights has been convinced that Sunny Starscout and her friends seek to destroy all other creatures and rule ponykind. We don’t know what might happen to the queen, or anypony else, but we can assume it won’t be anything good.” She nudged Thunder, and he woefully got to his hooves, pulling out his cell phone from under his wing and tapping away at it.

“Woah,” Hugo whispered, seeing the pegasus’ face bathed with light as he stared intently at the tiny screen.

“There,” Thunder said finally, showing the screen to Kailani and Hugo.

On the screen was a sunny yellow pegasus behind a podium, his red eyes flashing with anger as he waved an angry hoof at a massive picture of Sunny Starscout, in full alicorn form, behind him. The clip wasn’t very long, but Kailani could already guess what the bulk of the message was - and it wasn’t anything good.

“That’s not good,” she said fretfully, wringing her claws together.

“How does it work?” Hugo questioned, cautiously poking at the cell phone. He pulled out his reading glasses from under his wing and put them on, curiously peering at the device. “Is it some kind of-”

“Uh, Hugo? Not exactly the kind of problem we’re trying to fix,” Kailani interrupted, and he huffed.

“Fine.” He looked Thunder in the eye. “But please tell me how it works?”

The pegasus shrugged. “I’m not really sure.” He looked at his phone as if seeing it in a whole new light. “I think it’s…”

“We should get back to our friends,” Kailani asserted, gently nudging Hugo and giving him a pointed look. He nodded and scrambled to the wheel, raising the sails and gently steering the zeppelin back into the air current. The hippogriff turned back to the two guards and said, “You should get going, too.”

Zoom nodded. “If anything else happens… we’ll be in touch.”

“Find a unicorn you can trust,” Kailani suggested, remembering something about how unicorns could teleport messages.

The two guards gave each other a look before taking off into the sky, disappearing into the clouds drifting lazily above the zeppelin. Kailani watched until they were gone, the thought of what was waiting for them back in Zephyr Heights worrying her.

“Do you think everything’s going to be okay?” she asked her friend.

Hugo frowned as he spun the wheel. “What do you mean? Everything’s worked out so far, right?”

“Yes, but…” She sighed. “It’s different when it feels like the whole world is against you. We already have most of the other tribes on our bad side, and now the ponies will obviously be joining forces against us, too. If we’re going to really do this… then how are we supposed to save the world when the world hates us?”

The griffon tied down the wheel and let the zeppelin drift. He walked over to her, the two standing at the railing and watching the cloud-streaked sky pass above them.

“There will always be ponies who don’t get along with us or agree with us - but that doesn’t mean everyone does. It may be a little harder to find allies, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. They’ll be there - just like we’ll always be there for each other.”

“I suppose,” Kailani admitted. She sighed and looked up at the stars. “I just hope we’ll be enough. To change the world, that is. I hope we can do it.”





They arrived in the Crystal Empire in the morning, touching down gently in a large square in the Empire’s streets that housed a statue of a wingless dragon holding the Crystal Heart. Imara was there first, whooping and hollering that they were back, and then the others, and Kailani was so thrilled to see that her friends were okay. She leaped out of the basket before it touched down and spread her wings to slow her descent.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Hugo watching with jealousy in his eyes, and he was so distracted he nearly crashed the floating ship into the giant crystal statue.

“Everything okay out there?” Sunny asked as soon as they were out of the boat and safely on the ground.

Kailani and Hugo exchanged a look. “Well…”

“More or less,” Hugo eventually decided.

Sunny sighed. “Why am I not surprised.” She rubbed her forehead. “Well, tell me how bad it is. And don’t try to sugarcoat it, I can handle it.”

And so they told her. And she looked like she could, in fact, handle it, which was very surprising. Kailani would have been freaking out by now, especially if her own kind had betrayed her when she had just brought back their most valuable trait.

I suppose all of us have betrayed our tribes, she thought, looking around at the group of creatures that had gathered around the zeppelin. But it’s all for the greater good, right? We’re doing this to save the world, so it’s okay… right?

I hope every creature back home is alright.

“We should go defeat Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow right now!” Little Braveheart suggested, sounding way too enthusiastic to be heading onto the field of battle to make Kailani comfortable. “We know where their headquarters is, right? So what if we just wait until they’re all in there, and then blast it to bits!”

Sunny winced. Ash said, “Or… we could not do that.”

“We don’t even know if they would be in there,” Lukas added, shifting his hooves and looking worried. “We don’t know enough about them at all!”

“I’m with Lukas on this one,” Flurry said. “Things have changed since my aunt was around - we need to know how different they are. And we still don’t know how we’re going to defeat them. With the Elements of Harmony in their possession, and magic apparently a bit weaker right now than it was back then…” She shook her head.

“Woah, woah, wait.” Zipp held up her hooves, still looking very unhappy that she wasn’t in the air. “Who said that magic is weaker now? We can all still do stuff, right?”

Flurry landed on the ground and folded her wings, getting the look on her face that Kailani had decided meant that a lecture was coming. “Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow were able to nearly overpower us, weak as they were. Magic isn’t the same as it used to be, and nopny’s had it for a while. Most of you are, no offense, pretty weak on a magical standard. If we want to defeat them, then we need stronger magic than normal magic - and the most powerful magic of all is the-”

“The magic of friendship,” Sunny finished, looking like she was thinking had. “Which is why it’s so weak right now - everypony’s divided, so it isn’t as strong as it could be.”

“But we can still defeat them,” Imara said, her voice pleading. “Right?”

“We’ll find a way,” Sunny promised. “It might take some improvising, but we’ll make it work. If we could gain access to the Elements of Harmony, we could just use those…”

“Sounds like a plan we should make up on the way,” Little Braveheart announced, gently pushing them towards the zeppelin. “We can go to their hideout and stake it out, waiting until the perfect moment to steal the Elements and vaporize them with magic rainbows!”

“Maybe we should plan things out a little bit more,” Sunny began as the buffalo leaped onto the ship.

“No time! The longer we sit around and wait here, the more time every other creature gets to stew in anger and grow more powerful and prepare to launch an epic attack on every other creature and everyone is engaged in an awful war that we could have stopped if we just started moving!” She ran to the wheel and called down, “Hugo, how does this thing work?”

“Um…” The griffon sidled towards the ship. “Perhaps I should…”

“Little Braveheart’s right,” Flurry decided as he ran up to stop her from breaking his precious vessel. “The more time we spend here, the stronger they get! We have to act now.” She spread her wings and flew above them, her voice commanding as she said, “We’re heading out. Now.”
> Ship in the Sky
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a very rushed operation where all of Sunny’s friends grabbed the little supplies they had picked up and said good-bye to Alphabittle, Haven, and Phyllis (Flurry had invited them to stay in the Crystal Empire for as long as they would like, and as the outside world was a bit hectic at the time, they agreed to lie low until it had all calmed down), the eight ponies and seven creatures stood on the deck of the zeppelin as it took off into the sky. Just like the day before, it was clear and breezy, with a hint of cold in the warm air.

Kailani stood at the back, watching the Crystal Mountains retreat behind them, an unsettled look on her face. She shivered and rubbed her arms. Everyone else gathered around in a circle, Sunny in the center with her map.

“We should reach Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow’s hideout in five days,” she estimated, tracing the most direct path with her hoof. “We shouldn’t experience anything bad there. But we should talk about strategy. Together, they could easily overpower us - they’re much more powerful than we are.”

“If we work together, they aren’t,” Ash interrupted, and Imara rolled her eyes without anyone noticing.

“The magic of friendship is stronger than anything,” Flurry agreed.

“Are we really basing our entire plan on all you ponies holding hooves and, what, singing a song?” Brooks interjected, looking skeptical. “I’d rather have a back-up plan. What are their weaknesses? Are any of them afraid of fire?” Flames danced around his eyes and horn.

“I don’t think so,” Imara scoffed, stepping forward. “Look, Chrysalis is a changeling - sort of, and I am, too. So I probably know something you guys don’t.”

There was silence as they all stared at her. Pipp eventually ventured, “Which is…?”

Imara blinked. “Oh! Um, perhaps she… hm.” She frowned. “Maybe she thinks the world should work a certain way, and it doesn’t, so she’s angry and keeps trying to take it over so that she can show every creature how they should act.”

“That was extremely detailed,” Sprout hissed to Hitch, who shrugged.

“That’s one idea,” Sunny told her, looking at her other friends. “What about Tirek and Cozy Glow? Wait…” She stopped, remembering when she was held prisoner by them. She had figured out a way to reverse the mind link, allowing her to enter their minds and see their memories and thoughts.

Tirek wanted to prove himself, but felt like he couldn’t, so he stole magic to make himself feel better. Cozy Glow wanted power to keep ponies safe and happy, and secretly wanted friends, but didn’t want to admit it.

Great, she thought to herself.

She knew the weaknesses of the worst enemies in Equestrian history. So what did she do about it?

“You can’t forget,” Izzy spoke up, “that they’re working with Permafrost and Sour Lavender - they’re ponies who tried to erase all of our memories and separate ponykind again,” she explained to the creatures with bewildered expressions. “We have to find a way to make them give up this philosophy that all tribes are meant to be separate.”

“All of these sound pretty impossible on their own,” Ash said, wrapping her arms around herself and looking nervous.

“Well, we’re not doing it alone,” Little Braveheart reminded them all. “We’re doing this together.”

“Together…” Sunny sighed and looked down at the floor. Deep inside her, she knew that there was only one way to really defeat these villains and make sure that they never came back - and it involved something she wasn’t sure she would be able to do. Worse, it was something her friends couldn’t help with.

She would have to face this on her own.

“Hey, you okay?”

Sunny’s head jerked up, but Ash wasn’t looking at her; she was speaking to the hippogriff at the railing. Kailani jumped as she was spoken to.

“I’m fine,” she quite obviously lied.

“You are most definitely not,” Hugo asserted, tying down the wheel and coming over to stand beside her. “Come on, you can trust us. Who are we going to tell, anyway? Just about everyone hates us right now,” he added teasingly.

“That’s just it.” Kailani turned to face the rest of them with a worried look on her face. “The world’s against us in every way possible. We’re on our own here - is anyone else worried about that?” She rubbed her arm, looking down at the deck. “Like, does anyone else wonder… if it’ll really be enough?”

Hearing the hippogriff voice all of their inner thoughts wasn’t comforting, and most of the creatures on the ship didn’t want to admit that they had been thinking the same thing - it would feel too awkward.

Zipp finally stepped forward. “I feel that way all the time,” she admitted.

“Me too,” Pipp added. “I just never said it out loud.”

“We’ll be fine,” Little Braveheart said brightly. “I mean, have you heard about what these guys have done?” She waved her hoof at the ponies around her. “Combine that with our raw awesomeness, and you’ve got a recipe for success. We stick together, no matter what. And we are so going to defeat these guys.” She stuck out her hoof in front of her, saying, “Who’s with me?”

Sunny, Izzy, and Ash immediately put their hooves/claws on top of Little Braveheart’s, joined soon by Brooks, Lukas, Hitch, Sprout, Kailani, Zipp, Pipp, Midnight, Flurry, and Imara. Even Hugo reached his claw over from where he stood behind the wheel.

The small moment was enough to give Sunny immeasurable hope. Even if she failed, her friends would be able to carry on without her - they would save Equestria if she couldn’t, she was sure of it.

Zipp finally spread her wings. “I’m going to scout out ahead,” she announced, but her sister stopped her.

“Uh, no you’re not! Trust me, you are in no condition to-”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, flapping her wings and rising into the air. She flinched a little and sank a tad, but one look at Pipp’s face made her brush it off like it wasn’t much.

“I’ll come, too,” Kailani decided, flapping her own lavender wings and joining the pale pegasus in the air. “I’ve just got - the strangest feeling.” She shrugged, and the two zoomed off, as if they had never been there. Sunny retreated to a quiet corner of the zeppelin and pulled out her Journal of Friendship and began reading. Hitch came over and sat beside her.

“Who wants to play charades?” Imara suggested, and Izzy quickly agreed. The two dragged the others into it, playing the game in the center of the deck.

“A rusty nail!” Little Braveheart guessed.

“Correct!” Izzy cried, picking up another slip of paper and reading it.

“Um, a street lamp!” Midnight guessed.

“Yup!”

“The plastic container that toothpicks come in!” Pipp said confidently.

“Yes! You guys are really good at this,” Izzy said as she dug in the basket for another paper while Hugo kept time on his watch.

“How?” Imara asked incredulously. “How are you guys getting that from… from that?”

“It’s Izzy,” Sprout whispered to her. “Best not to question it.”





“You said you had a strange feeling?”

Kailani hesitated. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I don’t know what it is, just this kind of chill that says something else is coming. We’re missing something important here, and I don’t know what it is. But there’s a kind of imbalance… I was feeling it when Sombra was in the Crystal Empire, and when he was defeated, I thought that would be that. But now it’s back… and it’s different.” She rubbed her arms. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

“My mom had something like that,” Zipp told her as they flew through a cloud, goosebumps springing up on her skin. “Alphabittle told me about it - he said that, on the morning before they left, she said she felt like a scale had been tipped - a scale of good and evil, light and darkness.”

“So what do you think it means?”

Zipp shrugged. “I’m not sure.” She sped up suddenly, flying up towards the sun and flipping upside down before looping back to fall into formation besides the hippogriff.

Kailani gaped. “H-how did you do that?”

“Oh, that?” Zipp snickered. “Just a little trick I’ve been working on.”

“That was awesome!”

“That was nothing. Watch this.”

The pegasus poured on speed, flying in tight formation around clouds and diving through them, transitioning seamlessly into another flip, another twirl, another loop-de-loop. When she was finished, the immediate surrounding sky was clear of clouds, and Kailani just about forgot to flap.

“Woah,” she whispered hoarsely, awestruck. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

Zipp shrugged. “I mean… why not? We’ve got time, right? Okay, so, the first thing you want to do on those tight turns is fold in your wing like this…”

They worked on flying tricks for at least an hour, probably more judging by the sun’s position, but it barely felt like fifteen minutes to Kailani. The thrill and rush of soaring through the sky at such speeds was exhilarating, and she didn’t think she ever wanted to come down. She would never look at the sky the same way again.

“Oops.” Zipp looked back behind them. “I think we went a little far. We should be heading back.”

As they flew, Kailani asked, “Did you mean what you said back there? About… worrying if we would be enough? Or were you just saying that to make me feel better?”

“Of course I did,” she said sincerely. “I worry about it all the time. Me and my friends started out as just a small group of ponies wanting to change the world - bring magic back, unite the tribes, that sort of thing. And as time went on… we kind of graduated to bigger crises. And every time we go to fight the bad guys and rain down magic-of-friendship-induced-justice on our enemies, I always wonder if we won’t be able to do it. Everypony has a breaking point, right? So I wonder when we’ll meet ours… and I wonder if this is it.”

“Wow,” Kailani whispered. “That’s… like, my thoughts exactly. It’s so weird to hear someone else say them.”

Zipp laughed. “Same. Say, what do you do back home? Your home, obviously - what’s it like back there? I haven’t seen anything outside of Zephyr Heights for my entire life until this point,” she added ruefully.

“I know, right? And then the world is so much bigger than you thought,” Kailani agreed. “Well, I mean, I’m not royalty or anything, but my dad is the captain of the royal guard, and he keeps trying to get me interested in that, but I’m not really, especially since I would have to make decisions about protecting the entire hippogriff population, which usually involves going underwater… and I hate having so much weight on me. I prefer the open skies… just me and the clouds and that bird over there.” She sighed contentedly.

“Can you believe I couldn’t fly until just a few months ago?”

“What? How did you survive?”

Zipp shrugged. “I lived through it, and even I’m not sure how I did it. What’s it like underwater? Can you, like, hold your breath really long?”

Kailani gave a sly smile. “Not really. I’m not supposed to tell non-hippogriffs, but this-” she held up her necklace “-is part of a magical pearl that can transform us into seaponies. When we came out from under the water, we wanted a way to travel between the two worlds, so we smashed the pearl into tiny pieces and gave each hippogriff one. I always prefered Mount Aris over Seaquestria, personally, but whenever there’s a crisis, we always retreat under the waves.” She let the charm thump back onto her chest with a sigh.

“At least you don’t have to make tough decisions like that,” Zipp said ruefully. “I get to be queen of Zephyr Heights one day, and believe me, my mother has made it very clear that I don’t get a choice in that situation.”

Kailani gasped. “Really? That is so cool! Tell me literally everything.”

They continued to talk for the rest of the flight back to the zeppelin, and Kailani felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders. Confiding in other creatures - making friends with them - made her feel like her world had been opened up even more.

Also, Zipp was a fantastic flight coach.
> Behind Your Back
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grogar’s bell sat in front of Chrysalis, and she glowered back at it.

“What is the point,” she hissed, “of having an all-powerful magical artifact that can render our enemies powerless if we can’t even use it?”

Cozy Glow glared at her. “Because Sunny Starscout and her friends would know it was us,” she  pointed out. “Think about it - who would steal magic right now? We have to time it exactly right.” The filly pounded the table with each syllable to emphasize her point.

“Which is…?” Chrysalis leaned back in her chair, her and Cozy having a staring contest.

“Golly, I thought you would be smart enough to figure it out,” the filly said innocently, blinking her large eyes. Then her face shifted back to a scowl. “Sunny Starscout and her friends are obviously going to try and track us down, and when they do, we’ll be waiting for them with that bell.”

Chrysalis froze. That was the plan? It completely jeopardized her plan. And from the look on Tirek’s face, he knew this, too.

So had they been planning behind her back?

She didn’t like this.

Sure, she had been planning behind their backs, but that was different. She had a cause that was actually worth fighting for - something important that needed to happen. What did her partners want? All of Equestria’s magic and complete power and control over all of ponykind.

A real noble cause. Without any real ambition behind it - without any real reason behind it.

How pathetic.

A new plan began to form in her head… Yes… If the fools wanted to use the bell, then the bell would be used… though on more than just those ponies.

But first, she would have to secure her own weapon - a back-up if she failed.

“The plan has a few flaws,” she said arily. “For starters, you all know what happened with Discord’s magic - too much power is too much for any of us to handle. We should obviously deal with her friends, but leave Sunny Starscout alone - only she can handle her own power, and we should use that.”

Cozy Glow sat, thinking. “The mind link does open up whenever she does handle all that magic,” she said slowly. “If we can get her back under our control…”

“Her friends - all of Equestria won’t stand a chance,” Tirek finished.

Chrysalis felt her expression curling into a cruel smirk. They would have no idea what was coming to them. “Wonderful,” she said briskly, standing up and picking up the bell. “We should keep this in a safe spot - we don’t want somepony to steal it.”

Cozy Glow and Tirek nodded, completely trusting of her, and Chrysalis picked the bell up with her magic and brought it with her out of the room and hid it behind a torch on the wall - a place only she knew about. She didn’t trust Cozy Glow or Tirek anymore - they were plotting behind her back, and she knew about it, so they were obviously both terrible at working behind her back and were not trustworthy.

She spread her wings and flew outside, a satisfied smile on her face.





Cozy Glow watched her go.

“She’s gone!” she called in a singsong voice.

Tirek glowered at her. “Obviously. Now where did she hide the bell?”

The pegasus filly led them out to the torch, where Tirek used his magic to remove it, revealing the faintly glowing bell inside. He reached out to take it, but Cozy Glow slapped his hand away.

“We can’t make her think we’re up to something like this,” she hissed. “Chrysalis thinks she’s outsmarting us, but her outsmarting us is really us outsmarting her.” She rubbed her hooves together. “It’s perfect. As if she didn’t know that we could tell that she was planning on backstabbing us. And when she does, we’ll be ready for her… with a nasty little surprise.”

“But why wait?” Tirek demanded. Behind him, Permafrost and Sour Lavender poked their heads out and nodded along. “Why not chase after her and drain her magic right now and deal with the whole thing?”

“Because she has to think she’s outsmarting us,” Cozy Glow said, all the pieces falling into place in her head. “Chrysalis wants to use Sunny Starscout against us - she wants to take over Equestria and rule it for herself. But it was working together that got us so far, so if Chrysalis doesn’t want to be a part of that, then so be it. We don’t need her. This is a new time with a new cause for evil.”

“So why are we waiting?” Permafrost spoke up. Cozy shot him a withering glare.

“Because,” she hissed, “Chrysalis has a good plan - such a good plan, in fact, that it can be turned against her.” She caressed the bell lovingly. “We’ll play her game for a while - letting her think that she’s the only one who knows where Grogar’s bell is, that she has the ultimate weapon at her disposal. But when she tries to stab us in the back, Tirek, you’ll whip out the bell and steal her magic. While she’s distracted with that, I’ll take over Sunny Starscout’s mind and use her to destroy her friends. Even if she does break away, that’ll be so awful that she’ll never recover from it. And then if anypony tries to resist, well…” Cozy Glow put the torch back and rubbed her hooves together. “They’ll wish they hadn’t.”

Tirek, Permafrost, and Sour Lavender were all nodding slowly, though even as Cozy Glow said the words with absolute certainty, she felt within her heart a horrible feeling that she hated.

Stabbing somepony in the back… This wasn’t new to her. She had done this before.

But with Chrysalis… Cozy wasn’t sure, but it felt different somehow. Maybe because she had worked with her before, had laughed around the campfire with her before, had told jokes and done evil and committed crimes and taken over the world with her before.

Cozy Glow was ashamed to admit it, but Chrysalis meant something to her.

And whenever she had betrayed ponies that had meant something to her…

Her mind flooded with images of her past friends, ponies and creatures who had trusted her, put their faith in her, hung out with her and told her their secrets.

And the looks on their faces when they had realized it… Cozy had pretended, on the surface, that it made her feel good… but pretending that only made her feel worse. Because, on the inside, the shock and hurt and pain in their eyes was something she didn’t think she would ever forget - not as long as she lived.

“Where are you going?” Tirek demanded.

Cozy shrugged. “Just… thought I’d get some fresh air. See if I can find Chrysalis.” She turned and flew away before he could ask questions.

Tirek glared after her, briefly considering the possibility that Cozy Glow might be planning to betray him, but he quickly dismissed the notion. The foal wasn’t giving off the same kind of tell-tale signs that Chrysalis had been. He was sure that she was fine.

The pegasus filly sought refuge in the scraggly forest that surrounded their cave, flying slowly through the trees with nothing but her thoughts and woes.

It was a great way to contemplate life’s problems. She highly recommended trying it.

But then she heard voices.

“Ugh! I got my hooves stuck in mud again!”

“Quiet, Rose! We don’t know who could hear us!” There was a massive sucking sound, like hooves being pulled out of a mud puddle. “There. Happy now?”

“Not even the slightest,” Rose said woefully.

“Here,” came yet another voice. There was a faint tingling sound, like magic, and the sound of Rose gasping. “Better now?”

“How did you do that?”

“Oh, it’s just a spell I’ve been practicing for a while,” said the third voice bashfully.

“A very very useful spell!” came the second voice. “Can I call you over whenever my parents tell me to clean my room, Jinx?”

“Absolutely not,” Jinx said, her voice firm.

Cozy Glow was so astounded at the fact that she was hearing the voices of ponies - and not only that, but ponies who must be her age - or the age she was when she got turned to stone - was enough to make her woozy. She made an emergency landing and stepped on a twig, which snapped, the sound echoing in the silence.

The three ponies froze.

“Sh. Did you hear that?”

“Of course I heard it, Lofty. What do you-”

“Sh.” There was a sound like wingbeats.

“Be careful, Lofty,” whispered a voice.

Cozy contemplated trying to hide, but she wasn’t fast enough before the branches of a bush in front of her parted, revealing a light orange pegasus filly with a bright orange mane. When her eyes landed on Cozy Glow, they widened in shock.

“Crusaders!” she called excitedly. “It’s okay! It’s just a pony!”

Cozy felt her heart skip a beat. Crusaders?

The branches parted some more, and a green unicorn with a purple mane and a pink earth pony with a lighter lavender mane appeared on either side of the pegasus. Seeing them made Cozy Glow remember the Cutie Mark Crusaders - Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. She felt a pang of sadness that she didn’t fully understand.

“Wow,” said the earth pony, whom Cozy decided must be Rose. “What are you doing all the way out here? We didn’t think there was anypony out here.”

“Well, except for-” the pegasus started, but the unicorn elbowed her, and she shut her mouth.

“What’s your name?” the unicorn asked instead.

She swallowed, and before she could stop herself, she said, “Cozy Glow. What’s yours?”

Stupid! she mentally scolded herself. You shouldn’t have told them that! How do you know you can trust them?

And yet trusting them was exactly what she was doing. She had barely met them for five minutes, but she already found that she trusted them more than both Tirek and Chrysalis combined.

“Nice to meet you, Cozy Glow,” the unicorn said, holding out her hoof. “I’m Jinx Evergreen, and these are my friends Rose Blossom-'' she indicated the earth pony, who waved “-and Lofty Skies.” The pegasus folded her arms and beamed. “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing out here in this part of Equestria all by yourself?”

“Oh, I’m not alone,” Cozy said before stopping herself. “I - I mean, I got lost, and I’m just trying to find my way back. It was a real stroke of luck that I ran into you three!” She blinked her wide eyes and tried to look as innocent and woeful as possible, sticking out her lower lip.

“Where’s your family?” That was Rose Blossom. When she saw Cozy Glow’s brief hesitation, she said, “Y-you do have a family, right?”

“Not anymore,” Cozy whispered to herself. She caught herself and looked up - all three fillies were staring at her, concerned. So she stammered, “S-so I found a new family - a better family. We were just on our yearly camping trip - we try to go someplace new every year. And I got lost, and all I want now is to get back to them.”

“Don’t worry!” Lofty soared above her head and pointed at the sky. “We’ll help you get back to them!”

“Oh.” Cozy hadn’t thought this far ahead, but she supposed she would be able to work something out. “O-okay.” She walked next to Jinx and Rose as Lofty Skies led the way above. “So! What are… you guys doing down here… all alone?”

“We’re not alone,” Jinx insisted, putting her arm around Rose Blossom’s shoulders, the both of them grinning. “We’ve got each other.”

“We’re the Crusaders of Harmony!” Lofty told her from above.

Cozy stopped in her tracks, then leaped forward to catch up with them. “Oh?” she asked, trying to sound cool and collected. “What does that mean?”

“We’re on a mission to protect friendship and harmony,” Rose explained. “Because we don’t want to be without each other, and we know that it’s better when we work together instead of dividing.”

“That sounds… really nice.” Cozy Glow looked down at her hooves, wishing she had something like the bond that these ponies had, the kind of passion they had.

Because no matter how many evil things she did, it never seemed to fill that void.
> So Much More
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pipp stood on the deck of the zeppelin, staring out at the bright, glowing city in the distance. Zipp landed behind her sister and said, “You’re thinking about it, too, huh?”

She sighed and lowered her head. “Yes,” she admitted. “I-I can’t help it. I just…” She stopped, at a loss for words. “Zephyr Heights has always been my home, and I’ve been happy there. But now that I see that there’s more out there, and now that I met everypony else, I just wonder if things will ever be the same again. I’ll never be able to look at the city the same again, and I worry what that’ll mean.”

“I don’t suppose there’ll be much choice for me,” Zipp said ruefully. “I mean, since I’m going to be queen and all that.” She sighed and followed her sister’s gaze to their hometown. “But I don’t know how I’m going to sit on that throne and rule just one city when I know that the world is so much bigger than that.”

Pipp looked behind her, where most of the other creatures were asleep. Lukas was still awake, reading Sunny’s Journal of Friendship by lantern light, holding his hair out of his face to see better, but the others were curled up and snoring.

Zipp followed her gaze and said, “They seem really nice.”

“Oh, I know that,” Pipp said hurriedly. “I just…” She paused. “I don’t know what to think.”

“There’s nothing wrong with any of them,” Zipp said indignantly, remembering earlier that day. “I can see why Sunny’s friends with all of them. They may look different or sound different or think differently than we do, but in truth, on the inside, we’re all the same.” She put her hoof on her sister’s shoulder. “There’s so much more to us than the outside.”

Pipp shrugged, not quite sure if she agreed. For all her life, she had been told that it was what you showed other ponies that counted. No matter what she did, it was always for the pleasure of somepony else. She knew there had to be more to it than that, but her mind was conflicted.

“I guess so,” she said instead. Her phone vibrated underneath her wing, and she pulled it out, the light of the screen illuminating her face. Her eyes widened, and Zipp immediately knew that it wasn’t something good. “What…”

“What is it?” Zipp demanded, peering at it over her sister’s shoulder.

Pipp’s voice shook as she said, “Th-there’s some kind of rally going on… about us.” She met Zipp’s fearful gaze. “And our friends. About how we’re dangerous traitors who don’t care about anypony other than ourselves.”

Deep inside her, Zipp remembered being under Sombra’s mind control - that hopeless feeling as everything she cared about crumbled around her. This felt scarily close to that.

“Pfft,” she said dismissively instead, “who’s going to believe that? I mean, after all we’ve done…”

“Apparently everypony.” Pipp tapped on the clip that she had been sent and showed it to her sister. “Look at this!”

Zipp fell silent as the shaky video rolled over hundreds of angry ponies, unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi alike, standing shoulder to shoulder and screaming in rage. They threw rotten food at pictures of Sunny, held signs with massive Xs through Sunny’s cutie mark, and at the head of it all was a pony that Zipp, unfortunately, recognized.

“That’s Helios!” she said with a gasp. “He - he’s Mom’s most trusted assistant. She must have left him in charge while she was gone. But… he would never do this.”

The two pegasi looked at the city in the distance, swearing they could almost hear the angry roars of the crowd even from this far away.

“What do we do?” whimpered Pipp. “Should we tell Sunny?”

“In the morning,” Zipp agreed. “She needs to know about this. They all do.” She was struck by a sudden thought and asked, “Who sent you that?”

Pipp examined the name of the sender on her screen. “Thunder.”

Zipp nodded as she thought about it. “Kailani told me that Thunder and Zoom dropped in for a few moments when they were flying back - that’s how they knew that ponykind was turning against us. They must still be in the city, keeping an eye out for us.”

“Good thing I got a hotspot before we left on this crazy quest,” Pipp agreed, then stifled a large yawn.

Zipp gave a small smile. “How about we go to bed? We can worry about all this in the morning.”

“I’m f-f-fine,” Pipp stammered around another yawn. “M-maybe just a quick nap…” She crawled over to her spot and curled up. Zipp pulled a blanket over her, and Pipp mumbled sleepily, “Thanks,” before falling asleep.

The pegasus gave a small smile and retreated over to her sleeping spot next to Kailani, but she didn’t think she could sleep. Her mind kept straying back to Zephyr Heights, wishing she could be there herself, hating the feeling of being so helpless while her world fell apart around her. She sighed and rested her head on her hooves and closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed and she drifted off into dreamland.

The zeppelin was silent as it gently drifted through the sky. A slight breeze made the flame in the lantern flicker, and Lukas looked up from his book, frowning. When he saw that it wasn’t anything to worry about, he went back to reading. Flurry felt the slight shift in temperature and woke, rubbing her eyes as she lifted her head.

“Everything okay?” she muttered, yawning.

The yak nodded. “Nothing to worry about so far.” He turned a page and kept on reading.

Flurry lay back down, but she knew that it would be futile - once she woke up, she always had trouble getting back to sleep. She sat up instead, looking out at the landscape around them. The silence was slightly uncomfortable, so she said, “You don’t sound like other yaks I’ve met.”

Lukas nodded. “I read a lot,” he explained, looking up and putting his hoof on the page he was on so that he wouldn’t lose his spot. The wind stirred the pages and flipped a couple on top of his hoof. “There’s only so many books in Yakyakistan, and I’ve read them so many times I could recite them from memory if I wanted to. None of the other yaks really care about them that much, so…” He shrugged and flipped the stray pages back.

“Once this is all over,” Flurry agreed, “you should come to the Crystal Empire and go through our library. It goes back thousands of years.”

The yak’s eyes widened. “How many books would you say are in there?” he asked breathlessly.

Flurry smiled and said, “Oh, about…” She shrugged. “I would say a couple thousand or so, give or take a few.” Her smile grew as she watched the effect that these words would have on the creature in front of her.

Lukas looked out into the distance, whispering, “A thousand…” He looked as if the whole world had just been opened up in front of him. Then his expression clouded over, and he said, “If this is ever over.”

“It will be,” the alicorn said confidently, standing up and walking over to him. “As long as we have the hope to believe so.” She glanced at the passage he was reading over his shoulder. “Oo, I remember my aunts telling me about that,” she said, leaning closer to read more. “The time that Aunt Twilight traveled through time and visited all those alternate timelines, chasing down Starlight Glimmer to try and stop her from changing the past - I requested it about a dozen times,” she remembered with a laugh.

He gaped at her. “Y-you were here for this?”

“Not all of them,” she conceded, sitting down next to him, “and I was only a filly for most of them. But my aunt and her friends told me everything. Perhaps I should mention that I was frozen in time for at least a century - that might help.”

“Not really,” he told her. “Because I don’t see how anyone could be frozen in time for a hundred years - that doesn’t make any sense!”

Flurry grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “Welcome to Equestria, my friend.”

The sky began to get lighter as every creature began to stir, and by the time that Sprout had dragged himself from bed, the sun had risen in a glowing, shimmering ball of glory, casting the entire land in a golden light. The sky was streaked with clouds but looked otherwise clear and absolutely beautiful. Below them, the dark green trees passed underneath them, swaying gently in the breeze, and to the east, they could just barely see the glimmer of the sea.

Little Braveheart squinted at the horizon in front of them. “Can’t this thing go faster?” she asked anxiously. “I feel like they’re planning something evil.”

“They’re villains,” Pipp snorted. “Of course they’re planning something evil.”

“Yeah, but… more evil than usual,” the tiny buffalo said, struggling to find the words.

Kailani frowned and shifted her feet. Hugo gave an insufferable sigh and told the buffalo, “No, this ‘thing’ cannot go any faster,” he said in an annoyed voice. He untied the steering wheel and readjusted their course slightly. “She only travels as fast as the winds, and-”

“What if there was a way to make her move without wind?” Zipp said thoughtfully. “I mean, the wind could obviously help, but  what if there was some kind of wing contraption on the sides that would push it forward even when there is no wind?”

Hugo stared at her open-mouthed. “I think I could make something like that.” He pulled out a worn leather notebook from under his wing along with his reading glasses and a pencil. Flipping to a blank page, he began sketching out some kind of contraption with a bunch of arrows and formulas and fancy terms. Zipp hovered behind him, her own wings spread and flapping, giving him suggestions.

Lukas and Flurry were in a very animated discussion that Midnight joined in when Lukas realized that he had been there for some of the events in the Journal of Friendship and remembered them. Sunny came over and told them about how she had found the journal, and all the things she had found in it, and it looked like one big nerd convention for Ancient Equestria.

Izzy was telling Imara all about her inventions and crafts and unicycling. The changeling was very intrigued that she had disguised all her friends as unicorns and brought them into Bridlewood without anyone noticing, though Izzy did admit that their cover was eventually blown.

Pipp stood by the railing, alone, scrolling through her phone, bored. When she looked up and saw that all her friends were hanging out with the other creatures - even Sprout and Hitch were engaged in a conversation with Little Braveheart - she rolled her eyes, though inside, she felt like she was losing the thing she cared about most - her friends. It was as if they were trading her for someone better, and she hated it.

All her life she had tried her hardest to be perfect, and here were these new creatures, with all their flaws and weirdness, and her friends seemed to like them over her.

It was not a comforting feeling.

She felt a presence by her right shoulder and turned to see Ash standing there, smiling at her pleasantly. “What’re you doing?” the dragon asked curiously, Brooks the kirin behind her, looking like he regretted being over here.

Pipp shrugged and stood up, sliding her phone under her wing. “Not much,” she said truthfully.

Ash nodded like this was perfectly fine. She didn’t press her, and Pipp wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She turned to look at the receding horizon behind her and saw, out of the corner of her eye, the dragon doing the same thing.

Ash sighed. “It’s quite a view, isn’t it?”

“You should see Zephyr Heights,” Pipp surprised herself by saying. “Especially at night - and especially from way up high. It looks like it captured all the sunlight in the world.”

“Meh.” Brooks stood next to Ash, though he still kept his distance. “I prefer solitary confinement. No one to hurt then.”

Ash nudged him, saying, “You’re not going to hurt any creature.”

“But I might,” he fretted, the stress making flames roll off his pronged horn. “You don’t know how awful it is to be so dangerous and not able to do anything about it. I could explode into a fiery ball of anger at any moment, and then-” He broke off, curling up on the side and looking away so that they wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes.

Ash put her wing around him. “But you’re not,” she said calmly. “All emotions are the same - you will always have them, but what matters is what you do with them.”

Pipp turned away and looked back at the mountain disappearing into the distance. She remembered what her sister said, and thought, Zipp was right. There’s so much more to the world - and to those inside it - than we can even imagine. But we can try to see it.
> Secrets, Lies, and Double Lives
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the second time that week, Cozy Glow snuck out to go visit her friends.

She didn’t tell anyone that this was the plan, of course. She waited until Tirek and Chrysalis were both involved in their own evil schemes - Chrysalis preparing to backstab Tirek and Cozy Glow, and Tirek finding out how she was planning to backstab them and turning the tables so that her plans would really backstab her.

It was a lot to keep up with. And though Cozy found great pleasure in giving creatures what they deserved, the only thing that really made her happy anymore was hanging out with the Crusaders

Which was getting harder and harder every day.

Lofty Skies was fine with Cozy Glow hanging around, especially since Cozy knew more about flying than she did, and would constantly demand that she give her flying lessons. Cozy Glow discovered that she was actually pretty good at all those fancy Wonderbolts tricks she had seen Rainbow Dash do at the School of Friendship, and they had great fun, whooping and soaring through the sky while Jinx Evergreen and Rose Blossom worked together to find any evidence of Sunny Starscout and her friends being in the area.

The other two fillies were nice as well - Jinx knew exactly how to make Cozy laugh, and just talking to her made Cozy feel lighter. She wished she could tell Jinx everything, but she knew she couldn’t - there was no way any of them would care about her when they knew that she was an infamous villain seeking to destroy all of Equestria from anypony else’s perspective. They wouldn’t believe her when she said it was all for the greater good. Rose Blossom was nervous and smart, always making the logical decision and thinking things through. She analyzed every situation they were in and was careful not to go too far with Lofty Skies’ crazy schemes.

Both Jinx and Rose were very curious about where Cozy came from, and she had to make up a story that she told them every time. She made it close enough to real life that it wouldn’t be that hard to remember: Cozy had been abandoned by her parents to an orphanage, but it was awful there and she ran away (that part was all true). Then she said that she found her way to a small town of ponies, which was also true, and found a new family. No need to mention that her new family consisted of two other vengeful villains that were working behind each other’s backs.

Thinking about it reminded Cozy Glow of the School of Friendship. And for some reason, thinking about the School of Friendship was less painful when she was with the Crusaders, like them being there eliminated the pain.

And she did admit to herself and herself only that, yes, she considered them as real, actual friends. Which made what she would eventually have to do to them hurt all the more.

“So, wait,” Rose Blossom said one day as they trotted through the woods, still searching for clues, “what are your relatives’ names again?”

“Um… Queenie and Scorpan,” Cozy lied, thinking of the closest names to Chrysalis and Tirek’s real names as possible, so that they were easier to remember. She knew Tirek would kill her if she mentioned his traitor of a brother (now that she was thinking about it, she didn’t really blame Scorpan for his decision to side with the ponies, though it was the throwing-his-own-brother-in-jail part that always made her angry) so she decided not to mention this to him. Like, ever.

“How’d you meet them?” Jinx asked, a concentrated look on her face as she made three small stones move in a circle in front of her, her horn glowing brightly.

“I, um…” Cozy cleared her throat. “I was penpals with Scorpan for a while, and we met Queenie at a… project.” Close enough to the truth. “We grew kind of close, and we’ve been like family ever since.”

Rose opened her mouth to ask another question, but, up above, Lofty Skies called, “Guys! Take a look at this!” She disappeared from above them and off into the trees. Cozy, Rose, and Jinx hurried after her.

There was a clearing just up ahead - a clearing that had clearly been lived in very recently. In the middle was a blackened spot of earth that clearly had once been a fire, and there were hoofprints all around. Cozy froze and approached a set of four hoofprints, pressed deeper into the earth… as if the pony there had taken a very big jump.

Or had taken off into the air.

There were six spots around the fire that had flattened grass, implying that somepony had slept there multiple times.

Six ponies… pegasi confirmed… that over there looks like unicorn magic… camping out here of all the places in Equestria… Cozy Glow froze as the realization washed over her. I know who was here.

“So weird, isn’t it?” Lofty Skies said excitedly. “Who do you think it was?”

“There’s six different sets of hoofprints,” Rose said, leaning down and staring at them all. “No, seven! No, eight!”

“How in Equestria can you tell the difference between two sets of hoofprints?” Jinx asked.

Rose pointed to one of them. “This one’s the smallest, those two are slightly bigger than the others, but one pair is lighter and not pressed in as hard. And over there - that one’s a bit different from all of them. See, the shape is a bit rounder and more… dainty.”

As she continued to point out the slight differences that defined the different sets of hoofprints, a different set that the earth pony filly hadn’t got to yet caught Cozy Glow’s eye, and she walked over to investigate. They were around one of the sleeping spots, standing in a way that made her think that the ponies they belonged to were staring at the pony lying there. She stared closer at one print in particular, with a slight nick in it.

Her breath caught in her throat. She knew where she had seen a hoofprint like that…

Permafrost had a small nick in his hoof. She had always noticed it but had never asked where he had gotten it.

And this hoofprint had a nick in it.

So what was Permafrost doing out here? And that other set of hoofprints beside it must be Sour Lavender’s.

It seemed like Chrysalis and Tirek weren’t the only ones working behind each other’s backs.





Tirek looked up from his book - the book they had retrieved from the Canterlot Library Restricted Section so long ago - as Cozy Glow marched into the room, her expression contorted with anger. “Where have you been?” he growled, scanning her face for any of the signs of treason or betrayal that he saw in Chrysalis’ face, but there was none - not that he could tell.

“Where are they?” the filly seethed, her voice so full of anger that it took Tirek by surprise. She usually spoke in a cute, adorable, innocent voice.

“Where are who?” he asked back, looking up from his book, secretly genuinely interested.

“Them,” Cozy Glow hissed. “Those ponies we picked up, who want revenge on Sunny Starscout and her friends. Where are they?” she added in a low voice.

Tirek was taken by so much surprise that he stammered the truth. “I-I think they’re in there-”

With a swish of her tail, she was gone. Tirek dropped his book on the table and leaped to his hooves, following her out of the room. He looked around and spotted her dragging Permafrost outside by his ear, and the unicorn looked so taken by surprise that he went along with it. Behind him, Sour Lavender and Chrysalis poked their heads out of their caves. Their eyes met Tirek’s, and he shrugged. The three of them followed Cozy out of the cave.

“AHA!”

The pegasus was hovering next to a very confused Permafrost, pointing triumphantly at the ground.

“I knew it!” she crowed. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” She whirled around as the other three villains joined her on the shores of the dirty lake that surrounded their headquarters. “Those two,” she said in a low voice, pointing at Permafrost and Sour Lavender at the same time, “have been sneaking out to do Celestia knows what with Sunny Starscout’s friends!”

Permafrost and Sour Lavender exchanged a fearful glance, a shared message passing between them: How did she know? Chrysalis took one look at the two ponies and snorted.

“They wouldn’t have the guts,” she scoffed. “And what would they have to gain, anyway?”

“For once, I agree with the changeling on this one,” Tirek growled, and Chrysalis whipped around to glare at him.

“For once?” she demanded, but he didn’t elaborate.

“Why,” Cozy Glow seethed, “would anypony in their right mind who had already tried to take over Equestria once before be okay with being stuck as the second most powerful pony in the land?” She pointed an accusing hoof at the two stallions, who stood next to each other. “They obviously want to use our own strategy against us - create a mind link between them and one member of Sunny Starscout’s little group, and use said pony to have leverage against us and them!” She glared at Permafrost and Sour Lavender. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I think you’ve got the wrong idea-” started Sour Lavender, but she cut him off.

“Don’t play dumb with me! I see that little nick in your hoofprint - there’s only one pony in all of Equestria that it could be, and it’s you. So what were you doing?”

“Scouting it out,” Permafrost mumbled. “We found them in the area and wanted to see what they were up to.” He was looking down at his hooves, from the miniscule nick in one of them to the print he had made in the mud when Cozy Glow had dragged him out there. In all his life, he had never considered that something as small as that would make such a big difference.

“Yeah, right!” Cozy snapped, but Tirek and Chrysalis both looked like they were trying not to laugh. She felt flush rising in her cheeks and huffed as she flew back into the cave.

“Drama queen,” Chrysalis scoffed as she flew back to her own cave, no doubt perfecting her evil plans to stab them in the back. Tirek glared at Permafrost and Sour Lavender until they scurried back into the cave, their heads bowed together as they whispered something. Tirek himself stalked back into the main cave where they had all their meetings to see Cozy Glow sitting at the table, her head resting on the stone. She lifted her head when he entered.

“I’m telling you,” the foal insisted, “they’re up to something! I think they’re planning to betray us, just like Chrysalis is. You can’t seriously believe that-”

“I’ve had enough of listening to you,” Tirek told her, picking up his book as he sat down.

Cozy Glow looked like he had just slapped her across the face. “But - but I thought - I thought that you-”

“Listened to all  your ‘brilliant’ ideas?” Tirek asked, making air quotes around the word. “Poor, poor naive pony. You’ve never amounted to anything, and you never will. You can’t fool me with that innocent little act of yours. Face it - the world will never care about you, or any of us. Just when you feel that they might, they’ll dump you in the ditch like they’ve always done. And the sooner you accept that, the better you’ll be.”

Once he said the words, he wished he could shove them back into his mouth, because he could see the hurt in Cozy Glow’s eyes, but this was the world, and she should wake up and see it.

Cozy turned and ran out of the cave, leaping into the air and flying to her refuge on top of the giant ram-shaped rock, where she wrapped her wings around herself and tried to keep from crying.

She remembered the words she had told the Crusaders of Harmony: I found a new family. A better family.

That was a lie. This family was no better than her old one.
> Unrest and Resentment
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

All across Equestria, and through the lands beyond it, every pony, changeling, dragon, hippogriff, buffalo, kirin, griffon, yak, and every other creature in existence was getting restless and resentful of each other.

Isolating themselves from the world would no longer protect any of them.

Word spread quickly, even despite the fact that several creatures had few known ways in and out of their kingdoms. News on the street was, there were other creatures out there - creatures who wouldn’t hesitate to completely annihilate them.

The other creatures, of course, had heard from Cozy Glow that ponies wanted to rule the world and would stop at nothing to achieve it. They hardly knew about the other creatures in the world other than themselves, but some, like the changelings, would see these new creatures as a threat, just like the ponies, while others would see them as potential allies, as they were all against the same foe. Still, no matter where you lived in or outside of Equestria, you knew about the ponies and Sunny Starscout’s supposed quest for power.

The ponies believed that these strange new creatures were dangerous and wanted to destroy them, which was true, but only because they had been told lies, which none of them knew were lies. It was easier to believe the lies than accept that you were wrong. Ponies all across Equestria were told that Sunny Starscout had intentionally provoked the other creatures and wanted to use their attack on Equestria to rise to power and take control of the land, all part of an elaborate story that Termite had concocted.

The changeling was still in Zephyr Heights and was still very much in power. He had the entire pony population hanging on to his every word and believing every lie that came out of his mouth. Though his original assumption that ponies were going to attack the changelings was wrong, he still saw Sunny Starscout as a massive threat, and as long as the rest of the world saw it like that, too, he would keep up the rumors.

The pegasus who had told him about the queen interacting with traitors - Glimmer - had become his constant companion, and he had managed to get it out of her that Sunny Starscout was working with different creatures from multiple different tribes, and had her give witness testimony in front of the entire city that these creatures were dangerous and could not be trusted in any circumstance, further solidifying his claims that they were all in danger.

Further discussions with Glimmer revealed that Sunny Starscout and her friends were hiding out in the Crystal Empire, and Termite was working on getting public approval for an expedition to the northern city (which he had never heard of before, but the earth ponies’ technology said that something magical had once been happening up there).

He always dreamt of exacting his revenge on that pony for getting by him, for getting so much power and being so pathetic that she didn’t even use it for her own gain, who could so easily win over the hearts of every pony in Equestria without breaking a sweat. His daydreams consisted of the different ways he would do that - publicly force her to confess, make her watch while he destroyed everything she had helped create and destroy her world, and her friends… Personally, he was leaning towards the last option. It would seem the most satisfying.

Unicorns, being very protective of their magic, were absolutely outraged to hear that the pony that had brought back magic was using it to her advantage, and most of them in Bridlewood, the least developed of the three pony cities with the fewest visitors from other tribes, bought the story dishearteningly quickly, and while there were one or two ponies who had doubts, they never voiced them.

The pegasi in Zephyr Heights were also decently easily convinced. Having Termite right in front of them, seeing the fake evidence he produced first hoof, was useful in convincing them faster. A few ponies, mainly in the royal guard, such as Thunder and Zoom, were still unsure or completely convinced that Termite was lying, and Thunder continued to send information to Pipp as secretly as he could. The other guards who agreed that Sunny Starscout would never do something like that were secretly plotting their own plan - that they would remain loyal to their queen and do as she would like them to do.

In Maretime Bay, yet more ponies were doubtful. The farthest from Zephyr Heights of the three cities, full of a mix of unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi, and as the place where Sunny Starscout had spent most of her life, the residents confided in each other that they just didn’t think that the earth pony turned alicorn was capable of such a thing. She had never wanted power, she wanted magic and friendship. Everything Termite was planting into their minds combated with what they already knew about the last descendent of Twilight Sparkle.

And more ponies there than anywhere in Equestria thought that, perhaps, they should put aside all the rules and laws that they had been restricted by for the past few months and pool their efforts together to save the Equestria they longed for and the magic that coursed through it.

Thunder and Zoom occasionally visited Maretime Bay with a few other members of the royal guard who thought that there was more going on here than meets the eye to meet with Toots and Sweets, the unofficial heads of the group of ponies in Maretime Bay that thought the same thing, and they discussed what to do.

“We have to put the law aside,” Sweets eventually suggested at one meeting. “It’s keeping us bound, and we can’t do as much as we might be able to do. We’ll work it all out later, but if we don’t do something now, there won’t be an Equestria to come back to. For me, it’d be worth it.”

Zoom shrugged, not sure how she felt about that. Then she thought of her queen, up north, and of Sunny Starscout and her friends, and how hard they were working to save Equestria when it was falling apart around them, and her inner guard suddenly relented, allowing her to make, not the logical or rational decision, but the right decision.

“We need to convince everypony otherwise,” Toots began, but Zoom interrupted.

“No, that won’t work. We can try, but Helios-” she hesitated as she said the name, still unsure who the pony in charge of Zephyr Heights really was, because it wasn’t the nervous secretary she used to know, “-is pretty convincing. No, our best bet is to be there when Sunny Starscout needs us.”

Sweets gave a small chuckle. “Because if there’s one thing that Sunny Starscout will try to do, it’s try to save the world even when all hope is lost.”

There was a beeping noise, and the four ponies looked over at the computers - they were meeting in the room with the magic-tracking device. In the southeast of the map, in a particularly swampy area, there was a blinking red light while the computers went crazy with a million different frequencies.

“And I think,” Toots spoke into silence, “that might be right now.”

Thunder pulled out his cell and texted a message to Pipp: We’re on our way.





Elsewhere, in the changeling kingdom, Queen Monarch was slowly losing control over her subjects, who longed for fighting and the downfall of ponykind. She tried to suggest a peaceful solution, but the changelings were hearing none of it, especially since Termite had gone missing on an expedition to the ponies. Everyone was convinced that he had been kidnapped, and they swore that he would be avenged. They also wanted to show the ponies who they were dealing with - that the changeling hive was not going to lie down and accept their fate. They were going to show the ponies that, if they tried to annihilate them, they would fight back - and win.

The seeds of rage and resentment against ponies that Cozy Glow had planted there were starting to grow, and not only that, but with Termite’s help, they were thriving.

In the Dragon Lands, dragons that had previously lived in the Everfree Forest had returned to live with the rest of their kind, bringing news of everything that had happened and was happening in Equestria, and the dragons were furious. They were gathered together now, planning what they were going to do about this looming problem of ponies on their borders. Many of the dragons, who were larger than dozens of ponies, were upset by the idea that these tiny ponies thought they could pose any threat, and decided to bring the fight to them - give them a taste of their own medicine.

And every other dragon, excited at the prospect of a potential fight, quickly gave in and agreed.

At Mount Aris, the hippogriffs and seaponies were torn between two lines of thinking - either hide and wait it out without getting involved, or going out and fighting. Eventually, one of the soldiers in the army pointed out that, hiding from the Storm King in the past (everyone knew the story - it was the history of the hippogriffs in five minutes) had never worked - they had still had to face him. Hiding from the problem wouldn’t solve anything, and his speech inspired the others to get ready above the waves, preparing to strike.

The worst part about it was, they were fighting for the wrong cause - and they had no idea.

The buffalo camp was in an uproar - poor Ash had stammered when she had told her story of how she and her friends had come to the camp, and the buffalo chief had believed that ponies, especially Sunny Starscout, had really wanted to hurt the buffalo, and when they had escaped with Sunny’s crazy powers, that had only reinforced that idea. So when spies had gone past the borders of their camp and snuck around the pony settlements and come back with news that the ponies were rallying, the buffalo were furious - and were planning a vicious counterattack.

Obviously, the kirin in the Peaks of Peril were cut off from the rest of the world, but a kirin who had been on their way to the shortcut through the Peaks (they had devised a system to keep other creatures from sneaking in or out, and they had been on a shift-change when Brooks had led his friends out) had overheard their conversation and misheard about how ponies were supposedly dangerous creatures who wanted to take over the world, carrying the news back to the rest of the village.

Conflicting emotions turned kirin to nirik, and losing all sense of rationality, they prepared to fight back.

To the northeast, in the tumble-down city of Griffonstone, the griffons were angrier than ever. Some of them had seen the massive zeppelin in the sky above them, had seen the pony at the railing, and had told everyone in town. Now, they wanted to fight back. They were done with the ponies stealing all the riches and shoving it in their faces - the griffons might really start breathing fire, they were so angry. Crowds gathered in the streets, mobs with torches and pitchforks, ready to fight their hardest to get what they felt was theirs.

With nothing left to lose, they weren’t going home empty clawed.

Further to the north, in Yakyakistan, Prince Sujeed, ruler of the northern village, felt the cold still in the air and growled in frustration. The yaks had all seen Sunny Starscout the other day, and they were ready to show these ponies that they were done with them acting like they were the bosses of the world, strutting into their own town and walking around like they owned the place. And Prince Sujeed, who was eager to fight someone and was looking for someone to blame for this sudden shift in the weather, went along with it.

With each angry cry, with each hatred-fueled act, with each shout, with each lie and rumor spread, the howling storm on the horizon grew worse and worse.
> Taking Action, Part One
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once again, Haven stood on the balcony, letting the wind sift through her wings, feeling that strange feeling she had always been feeling for the past few weeks. It was different now - the first time, she knew for sure that it had been for Sombra, but now that he was gone, she had expected the feeling of wrongness in the world to go away - but it never had.

At first, she had worried that King Sombra had returned and was going to take over all of Equestria using a slightly different method, but then, once she had been having the feeling for a while, she noticed that it was a bit different than her previous one.

It was still a tip between light and dark - and, quite dishearteningly, it was still the darkness that was winning - but it wasn’t from Sombra - it was from somepony else, somepony she still didn’t know.

And it was the fact that she had no idea who it was that scared her.

If she had been in Maretime Bay, she would have asked Phyllis if she could see that magic detector system that she had created - with Sombra, there had been a hint as to where Sombra might be because of the magical energy he was emitting.

But now… and here. Trapped up in the north, in a city that should not exist, while her daughters once again risked their lives for the safety of all of Equestria. The rushed good-bye replayed in her head - Zipp and Pipp giving her a quick hug and telling her that they loved her - and then they were gone. Loaded onto a zeppelin with the rest of their friends, off to heroically stop all evil with the power of friendship.

Haven wished she could help them, or simply be there for them. She knew that the new creatures had the best of intentions, but she wanted to be with her daughters while they went off on adventures with the strange creatures, in case things didn’t turn out… as expected.

Whenever she thought about it, her mind was completely blown - she had thought that having unicorns and earth ponies beyond her borders was terrifying enough when she didn’t know anything about them, but having at least eight other tribes outside that were completely different from her and her subjects was enough to make her want to enforce a lockdown on her entire city to keep the pegasi - and furthermore, her daughters - safe. They weren’t even ponies, with their only difference being the fact that they had a horn instead of wings, or lack thereof. These were completely different creatures with different abilities, different looks, different… Well, everything.

Haven gave a frustrated sigh. It was all too much to keep up with. All she wanted was the best for her subjects and daughters - to keep them safe.

But right now, it was quite likely that nopony needed her efforts anymore, no matter how hard she tried - and that broke her heart more than anything.

Because Zipp and Pipp were always off on their adventures, and if what she had heard was correct, then her own city was once again in rebellion, this time against, not herself, but her daughters and their friends, though it was impossible for Haven to not get caught in the crossfire.

How much she would give for just one - just one day of peace and quality time with her fillies!

She felt a presence behind her and turned to see Alphabittle and Phyllis, both looking at her, concerned. “What’s going on?” she asked, her mind immediately going to worst-case scenarios, such as her daughters being in mortal danger, and she wasn’t able to do anything about it. “Is Sombra back or something?”

“No,” Phyllis said quickly. “Just… you’ve been really… quiet.”

“Is everything all right?” Alphabittle asked, standing on her left while Phyllis stood by her right shoulder.

Haven sighed and lowered her head - there wasn’t any use in hiding it, and maybe they could be of some help to sort it all out. “I have that feeling again,” she admitted. “The one that says that there’s an imbalance in the world - between good and evil, light and darkness. Last time it was because of Sombra, but… what does this mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Phyllis scanned their faces, looking for any signs of recognition of what she was thinking of. “Or is it not?”

Alphabittle sighed. “Just tell us what it is,” he told her in a tired voice.

“You don’t have to be all huffy about it,” Phyllis huffed (and, yes, I see the irony here, very funny, moving on). “But isn’t it those three villains - what did Sunny Starscout call them? The ‘Legion of Doom’, was it? Anyway - I think it’s them. They’ve obviously been causing trouble, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to assume that they’re planning something much bigger than just releasing Sombra.”

“But - Sunny and her friends fought them!” Alphabittle protested. “They - they fought them off and drove them away, and they’ll never come back… right?” He looked around at the other leaders, holding onto a thin hope that this was the case, but the two mares’ downcast expressions told him otherwise. He sighed and sat down, saying, “Okay, layer on the doom, why don’t you.”

“Sunny said herself,” Haven began, putting her hoof on Alphabittle’s shoulder, “that they’re definitely going to be back - they only managed to temporarily defeat them. She said that they have a much bigger plan releasing Sombra, and that he was just the opening act - the worst of it is still coming.”

“What could be worse than having your mind taken over by some creepy shadow guy?” the big gray unicorn asked?

“I agree with you on that,” Phyllis comforted him. “Living your worst fears over and over in your head was awful - I can’t imagine anything worse than that.” She stopped as the answer occurred to her. “But… what about your worst fears actually coming to life?”

“Especially if Sunny’s right, and one of them can steal magic,” Haven added.

Alphabittle sat up, looking alarmed. “Woah, woah, woah!” he interrupted, his horn sparking with anxiety. He stood up, his eyes wild, his bulk towering over them both as he growled, “Nopony’s taking my magic - not if I can help it.”

“No, nopony’s taking your magic,” Haven assured him, patting his leg. “We’ll make sure of that.”

“We’ll take care of each other,” Phyllis suggested, stepping forward. “Like Sunny and Sprout and Hitch and Zipp and Pipp and Izzy do. We’ll take care of each other, you know, like friends.”

Haven gave a small smile. Though she had never admitted it, not throughout her entire life, being a queen had gotten in the way of having friends - everypony always bowing to her and treating her like she was already in charge of the pegasus city, when all she had really wanted was somepony to talk to, to confide in, to tell her secrets to. But she had never found somepony like that - until now. “Yes,” she agreed, putting her hoof in front of her, on top of Phyllis’. Alphabittle copied the movement, setting his large gray hoof on top of the two mares’. “Like friends.”

They all smiled at each other, and Haven remembered the first time magic came back - the broken picture frame of Sunny and her father, the earth pony herself telling everypony there that it was up to them to bring back magic and friendship, or to stay separated by fear and mistrust. And Haven did choose - she chose friendship, so that, perhaps, though she never admitted it, her daughters could have what she herself never did.

A sliver of light came down from the sky and materialized in front of the three leaders, transforming, with a burst of light, into a scroll, which fell to the floor with a quiet thump.

Alphabittle lit up his horn and picked up the letter, a concerned and puzzled look on his face. Haven and Phyllis both understood this - the only ponies (or creatures) who knew that they were up here were Sunny Starscout and her friends - all of her friends. Despite knowing otherwise, Haven couldn’t help but wonder if one of the creatures had decided to rat them out, but she forced these thoughts from her head. Trust in other ponies’ choices, she told herself. Because there’s always a reason behind them.

“What does it say?” she asked instead.

“Are our kids okay?” Phyllis demanded. “A-and their friends, too, of course, but mostly-”

Alphabittle held up his hoof, and she fell silent. He unrolled the scroll, and Haven thought she caught a glimpse of one of her daughter’s hoofwriting - Pipp’s, she was sure. She hadn’t been there for many of the seconds of her younger daughter’s struggle to learn to write before she went to school, but she had seen it enough that she could recognize it upon sight. Her heart immediately sped up - why would Pipp be writing to her?

“Is something wrong?’ she asked, longing to know what the letter said.

Alphabittle glared at her. “Perhaps,” he said in an annoyed voice, “if I could actually read it, I would know and could tell you.” She could tell his teeth were clenched.

“Right, sorry,” she said hastily, taking a step back as Phyllis did the same thing. They wanted with anticipation as the unicorn read the letter.

Alphabittle cleared his throat and read, “Dear Mother, Alphabittle, and Phyllis, I hope you are well. I meant to send this letter sooner, but more information came along that I knew that I needed to include, so I had to write it all again. I hope it finds you okay - I had Flurry send it to you instead of Izzy because it’s absolutely vital that you get it.”

“Are the others-” Phyllis began.

“We are all fine,” Alphabittle read in a loud voice, “and I hope you are, as well - oh, wait, I said that already. Nevermind, then. But I don’t think you have any connection to the outside world up north, so I decided to write to you about all the troubling events that we have been hearing about.”

“Troubling events?” Haven asked, now concerned for her daughters’ safety as well.

“Well, why don’t you read it!” Alphabittle tossed her the letter, and she fumbled to catch it. She smoothed it out and scanned the paper, continuing where he had left off.

“One of the guards from Zephyr Heights - his name is Thunder, I know you’ve seen him around - has been giving me information on what is currently happening in the city. Unfortunately, it is nothing good. The pony we assume you left in charge, Helios, is acting like the shift is permanent, and he has managed to convince just about everypony there that Sunny is planning to take over all of the land and couldn’t care less about anypony in Equestria, which is just awful! Sunny would never do something like that!

“But it gets worse. As we are working with her, nopony will trust or help us anymore - at least, not many of them. Thunder tells me that some of the guards and several ponies in Maretime Bay also aren’t convinced, and they are doing the best that they can to help us - at least, I hope they are. So far, nopony has harmed us yet.

“From what we have heard, you are not in any immediate danger, which is good. Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood are in complete turmoil right now, and all the ponies who want to fight against Sunny are meeting in Zephyr Heights very soon. Please, stay safe. We don’t want you getting in danger because of us. Sincerely, Pipp.”

“Well,” Phyllis said after a brief bit, “I don’t know about you, but-”

“Wait, there’s a postscript,” Haven interrupted, squinting at the letter. “P. S., this is Zipp. Sorry we didn’t get to spend more time together - I promise, after this is all over, we’ll get together sometime. But if you feel like you need to do something, go ahead and do it, because I think you can. Don’t tell Pipp I told you that,  though.”

The three leaders exchanged a look.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Phyllis eventually asked.

Haven nodded, her expression grim. “Let’s go get our kingdom back.”
> Taking Action, Part Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Your Majesty.”

Hardly, Monarch thought as she studied the changeling in front of her with her calm purple gaze. “Cercus. What brings you here today?”

The faded peach colored changeling kept her head down and said in her wheezy voice, “My… The changeling I took in. Imara. You know her… everyone does. Well… it seems to me that she has disappeared, and… I was wondering where she might have gone.”

Clearly, this changeling had not been around, though Monarch did not say that out loud. She never wanted to offend her subjects, so she said in her trademark firm, quiet voice, “I am afraid that she has decided to side with the ponies in this conflict that has plagued our hive - at least, that is what we can assume so far. She brought a pony into this very room, disguised as one of us, and left with it when it ran away.”

Cercus growled deep in her throat, which made her start hacking and coughing. “That little…” She broke off, another cough climbing up her throat. “I knew she was… outspoken, but I thought she had more sense than that.”

“I would think that all of us would have better sense than that,” Monarch said quietly to herself, thinking about the kingdom. “Cercus. Who are you loyal to?”

The changeling looked surprised. “Why… you, my queen.”

“If you had to choose,” Monarch pressed, “between me and someone else, who would you pick?”

“My queen is the only queen I shall ever follow,” Cercus said passionately, looking horrified. “Why? Are there… others who think differently?”

“It would appear so.” Monarch turned her face up to the clouded-over sky and closed her eyes. “I do not believe I am in charge here anymore. This whole crisis with the ponies and Equestria has given others opportunities that they may never have had - opportunities that I do not wish they had.”

“Does my queen wish that we did not have a problem with the ponies?” Cercus asked, then coughed.

Monarch sighed and opened her eyes, studying the dark sky above her. “I don’t know.”

“But they want to destroy us all!” Cercus reminded her. “They - why, they kidnapped Termite and are probably holding him hostage until they attack, demanding our surrender for his release! They must be stopped!”

“But I’ve just been thinking,” the exhausted changeling queen said in a tired voice, “that we don’t actually know that. All we have to go off of is assumtpins and someone else’s word about what’s going on - which completely contradicts another testimony that we have heard. Everything is so conflicting and confusing that I don’t know what’s really going on anymore…” She sighed and looked out over the kingdom. “But it seems that the kingdom has decided that for me.”

“Your Highness’ word is still the law,” Cercus supplied in a helpful, yet wheezy, tone.

In a quiet voice, the queen said, “How I wish it were so.” Monarch nodded to the changeling in front of her. “You are dismissed.” She stood up and walked out of the room via her own private chambers, while Cercus scrambled out of the throne room. Once she was alone, Monarch sighed and turned to the portrait of King Thorax, her father. The first ruler that the changelings had… at least as far as the history books said.

Monarch sat in front of the picture, her father’s kind face staring back at her, and pretended that he was still here, and she could talk to him, like she had done so many times in the first few years of her being the queen.

“I don’t know what to do,” she told the painting. “I’m losing control, I’m not sure what the truth is anymore, the kingdom is falling apart…”

She took a deep breath to steady herself. “But I wish you were here. You were so amazing in situations like this - you always knew just the right thing to do, and how to make changelings listen to you and obey. I wish I was more like you.”

An old refrain popped into her head: What Would Father Do? It was uncalled for, but it suddenly brought the queen a great deal of peace, because this refrain was how she had gotten through her first week without curling into a ball and crying from all the stress. Taking another deep breath, Monarch thought of how this had all started.

That strange changeling from out of town had come with a pony who was supposedly sympathetic towards the other creatures. Monarch had asked the pegasus to speak, and she told her of the chaos that plagued the pony tribes at that very moment, suggesting that she and the other changelings stay out of the matter until it was resolved. But she had also mentioned joining her and fighting against the ponies, securing a place in society and bringing the changeling hive back to its glory days. And Monarch had been tempted.

But now when she thought of the supposed chaos in Equestria at that moment… she couldn’t help but feel sorry for the ponies. If it was anything like what was happening at the hive, she hoped they might find strong leadership to lead them through this troubling time.

Then she thought of Imara, and the changeling she had brought with her - who turned out to be Sunny Starscout, a traitor of Equestria who supposedly wanted to use ponykind to gain power for herself. Monarch wasn’t sure if she believed that, either, though with her guards and citizens acting of their own accord, there was little she could do.

Now the disappearance of Termite, which she had to admit was a relief - he had been getting far too controlling of the changelings. But every changeling treated him as a martyr, a creature that needed to be avenged. His disappearance had only fanned the flames, and now Monarch saw a potential fight as inevitable - her subjects would never stand for a ceasefire. Plus there were all these other creatures out there that could pose a threat…

And then there was the hive itself. Back in her father’s day, Monarch remembered how cheerful the citizens of the hive had been, sharing love. But now that all seemed to be slipping away.

She needed a solution. She needed a miracle.

“Your Majesty!” There was a heavy knock on the door. “Your Majesty, come quick! It’s urgent!”

The clear urgency in his voice was enough to convince her - she leaped to her hooves and ran from the room, leaving the picture of her father - and her temporary peace - behind. In the throne room, three guards were standing in front of the throne, all bowing and the one in front, a dark blue with splashes of an even darker green, was the one that spoke to her.

“Your Highness, on our mission to the Equestrian capital, we encountered an… alarming situation,” the guard eventually decided.

Instantly, Monarch was on guard. “What kind of ‘alarming situation’?” she asked.

The three guards stepped aside, the first one saying, “We found him in the forest next to the city.”

At first, Monarch wasn’t quite sure what was so alarming about it - all three guards were pointing at a yellow and orange changeling whose bright colors reminded Monarch of Imara - that would be a good thing, right? Having brighter colors usually indicated that you were sharing love instead of keeping it all for themselves.

But then there was the way that he kept looking around like he had never seen this place before, kept shifting his hooves as if he was nervous to be there, and the fact that Monarch was sure she had never seen him before…

“You may leave,” she instructed the guards, an idea coming to her. “I wish to speak with him.”

“But-”

“Alone.” She fixed the guards with her sturdy gaze until they left, her shoulders sinking slightly as she relaxed once the last guard’s tail disappeared around the corner. She stood up and leveled her gaze with the creature in front of her.

“What’s your name?”

The changeling looked no less nervous now that the guards were out of sight - in fact, he looked even more nervous than before. But after a slightly uncomfortable silence, he said, “M-Midge, Your Highness.”

Monarch inclined her head in greeting. “And where are you from?” When he looked apprehensive, she assured him, “Don’t worry, I’m just trying to get a clear picture of the situation. I mean you no harm.”

Midge took a deep breath and said, “The Everfree Forest, Your Highness. It’s… it’s part of the forest outside of Zephyr Heights. Loads of creatures live there.”

“Hm.” A thought occurred to her - didn’t the strange changeling with the pony who was sympathetic to their cause say that she came from that exact same place? “Have you ever met a changeling named Morphosis?”

“Morphosis?” Midge tilted his head, confused. “No. I’m the only changeling there - and trust me, we’ve been through those woods a million times, and the only time we’ve encountered anyone else is when we found these three fillies who were running away so that they could stay friends…” He trailed off, as if the memory was painful.

The new information made Monarch’s mind reel. If the changeling was lying about who she was and where she was from… then why should she trust anything that anyone from their party said?

You shouldn’t, a voice in her head said. You’ve been fed lies and are being used for it.

But no one else would believe it. The kingdom is far too gone to be brought back to rational decision making at this point.

You’re on your own now. What will you do?

What Father would do. Fight back - fight for what was right. Even if no one backed her up on this - she wasn’t going to sit around here and watch her kingdom fall apart around her.

She was going to do what she should have done long ago.

“What do you know of the situation in Equestria?” she asked Midge, curious to hear from yet another source so she could determine what the truth was.

“A bit too much,” he admitted. “More than I would like to. But the world is in chaos - ponies have been convinced that the pony who brought them together and gave them magic wants to use them for her own gain, which she would never do, and from what I’ve heard, all the other creatures want to fight the ponies because they think that the ponies want to destroy them all, which makes the ponies want to defend themselves and fight back, and meanwhile, there are these three villains who put the whole thing in motion and are the only ones benefiting from this.” He took a deep breath and said, “It sounds a lot worse when you say it out loud.”

“And what of Sunny Starscout?” She knew of all the rumors and lies, though she had not quite guessed the complexity of them, and she wanted to know what Sunny Starscout’s role was in all of this.

Midge shrugged. “I know she hasn’t got anything to do with this. Word on the street is that her friends say that she had a spell cast on her that allowed Cozy Glow - that’s one of the three villains I told you about - anyway, the spell let Cozy Glow control her mind, and she manipulated Sunny into joining her and the other two villains, Chrysalis and Tirek, which meant that she had to be charged with treason, and then her friends went after her, meaning that they were traitors as well. But I know that she’s innocent - she would never do something like this.” He tilted his head at her. “Why don’t you know all of this?”

“Let’s just say that there’s a lot of misinformation going around,” Monarch said ruefully. But there was one more thing she had to check before taking his word seriously. “Did you ever meet this Sunny Starscout?”

“Once,” he said carefully, looking like he was carefully selecting his words in his head. “But I’ve known two of her friends for longer. I… I disguised myself as one of the royal guards in Zephyr Heights, and I have grown rather fond of them. But I promise, if I thought that they were up to no good, I would join forces against them without a second thought. But I don’t think that’s the case here.” He shifted his hooves and made a decision. “There’s… something you should know.”

“Could it possibly be worse than the fact that I’ve been tricked and manipulated, and now none of my subjects will listen when I try to tell them this?” Monarch said in a trying-to-be-humorous voice.

“I’m afraid so.” Midge lowered his head. “One of the Legion of Doom… Tirek… he can steal magic. I can’t change form anymore. He attacked the forest a few days ago and stole magic from every single creature there was.”

“Sweet Celestia,” Monarch whispered. “What kind of evil are we witnessing?”
> Arrival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunny was not okay - Sprout could see that immediately. She stood at the bow of the ship, staring at the trees below, a pained expression on her face, but whenever anypony tried to talk to her, she quickly insisted that she was fine.

Sprout and Hitch exchanged glances, and they made a silent agreement between them.

“So, Sunny,” Hitch said casually as the two stallions stood on either side of the mare, “how’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” she said in an automatic voice. Then she caught the looks on both of their faces, and she sighed. “Okay, not fine,” she admitted before turning back to the ground below. “It’s just… the last time I was here, it was because I was kidnapped against my will, and most of the memories I made here were… not pleasant.”

“What exactly did they do to you?” Sprout demanded, sidling protectively towards his friend.

“They chained me to the wall and invaded my mind, making me do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted,” Sunny said matter-of-factly, feeling a slight amusement at the shocked and enraged expressions on her foalhood friends’ faces.

“I wish I’d punched that Tirek’s face in,” Hitch growled, stamping the deck with his hoof as if imagining that the wood deck resembled the centaur’s red face.

“You and me both,” Sprout agreed. He put a hoof on Sunny’s shoulder and said, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ve got us here now - and a bunch of awesome back-up creatures.”

Sunny couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I guess so,” she said, wiping her eyes. Then she spotted something ahead, and her expression turned sober again. “There it is.”

The other ponies and creatures joined them at the rail, with the exception of Hugo, Zipp, and Kailani, the latter two helping the former find a good place to land where they could take off easily. Just visible between the trees was a small swampy marsh lake of muddy water, and in the center of that was a huge rock formation that looked like a ram head, with caves leading in and out of the tunnels that ran through the structure.

“Well,” Hitch said in his sheriff voice, “this is it.” He turned to the others and said, “All right, everypony! And - um, creature!” He cleared his throat and tried again. “This is where we will make our final stand. We will fight with everything that we have, because we know what we are fighting for, and it will be worth the struggles!”

From somewhere behind them came Zipp’s voice: “Aye aye, sheriff!”

Hitch scowled, but Sprout caught the slight color rising in his cheeks and smirked at him. When the sheriff turned and caught his eye, Sprout mouthed, “I was right,” to him. Hitch’s scowl deepened, and as he strutted away, he flicked Sprout in the face with his tail, but the other stallion thought it was totally worth it.

The other creatures scattered, making final preparations for the landing, and Hitch walked amongst them, encouraging them to keep it up and reminding them what this was all about.

Sprout chuckled as he turned back to Sunny. The mare had lapsed back into a deep silence, and he wanted to get her mind off of the coming fight. There was only one thing on his mind that he knew he could truly distract her with, and though he didn’t want to give her more worries, he knew that he had to tell somepony.

He cleared his throat and said, “You know, I’ve been feeling like… like there’s somepony else in my head.”

Well, that got her attention quickly. Her head snapped up, and she looked at him sharply, saying, “What? Has it - has it tried to do anything? Like take over and force you to do things you don’t want to do?”

Though she pretended like it was all fine, Sprout knew that her experience with the mind link had not been pleasant, and she still hated the feeling.

“No,” he said after thinking, shaking his head. “It's just kind of… there. Like it’s waiting for the right moment to strike. I’ve been… I don’t know, investigating it a little bit, but I don’t think it’s Cozy Glow, or Tirek, or Chrysalis. It’s somepony familiar… but I can’t quite figure out who it is.”

“Sprout…” She put her hoof on his, resting on the railing. “Are you okay?”

“I will be,” he assured her. “Because whenever they try to take over, I’ll just think of you, and my friends, and everything will be okay, because I know that you’ll be there for me just like we were there for you.”

Even as he said it and smiled confidently, deep inside, he wondered if this was true. After all, he wasn’t like Sunny - he hadn’t exactly saved the world and brought the world together like she had. In fact, he had helped tear it apart. So some dark part of him wondered if his friends would just leave him behind… After all, what had he ever done to make them think otherwise?

“We will always be there for you,” Sunny assured him. “No matter what.” She gave him a smile, and he felt his fear melting. “I saw you with Little Braveheart earlier. You seem to be getting along well.”

He returned the smile, and it was completely heartfelt. “Yeah. She’s crazy,” he stressed. “Like, completely insane. She dared me to jump off the side when we were passing over that hill back there, and I asked her if she would do it, and she shrugged and said, ‘Probably.’ ” And she laughed, the sound that he had missed so much while she was gone, and he felt his heart swelling up inside his chest, and he knew that he would do anything, fight anyone, give up whatever he needed to, just to keep her safe.

Inside his head, he felt that presence, just out of his reach, stirring as if it had just been given something - something that it wanted, something that it needed.

The feeling unsettled him.





Hitch led the way through the scraggly trees, keeping low to the ground as they ducked under lowhanging branches and vines and through thin bushes, the branches scratching at Sprout’s coat. He blew a frustrated breath and wished he were back on the zeppelin, just him and Sunny, completely safe.

You’ll never be safe.

He froze. That voice… that was not his voice. It came from a different place… The place in his mind where that presence lurked.

If only Sunny wasn’t with Izzy and Imara towards the back of the line. He needed to tell her about this - she needed to know. He couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t feel like he could trust anypony else with this information. But should he really be worrying her with more information right before such an important moment?

It could wait until later. It would be fine.

Right?

“Here,” Hitch hissed, stopping. Sprout bumped into his tail, and the sheriff whipped his head around to glare at him.

“Sorry,” Sprout whispered.

“No talking,” was his response. The other creatures fell silent as they all crept into the scraggly bush with a perfect view of the Legion of Doom’s cave. Zipp and Kailani, the best fliers, were positioned in trees around them after covering up their tracks.

“Look!” came Little Braveheart’s voice, so quiet it was just above a whisper. For a creature so crazy and excitable, Sprout didn’t think she was capable of being quiet. But the way she moved without making a sound, and the way she could practically breathe the words so that no speaking was required, told him that she had done this before - many times before.

“Cozy Glow,” Sunny muttered under her breath. She schooched over to the side slightly to give Sprout more room to peer out of the bush (he was amazed that they all fit, and they were so squished as it was), which he was thankful for. Villains were something he understood.

The filly was flying away from the cave, a look on her face that Sprout had seen so many times before, had worn so many times before - a mask that covered all feelings of hurt or sorrow or abandonment. She stopped, hovering in midair, her eyes closed and taking deep breaths as she calmed herself down before scanning the trees around her, picking a direction and flying off in it.

“What’s she doing?” Imara hissed.

Sprout opened his mouth to answer, but Brooks beat him to it. “Calming down,” he said in a quiet whisper. “She needs a few minutes to herself. She’ll be back, don’t worry.”

“Why would she need to do that?” Imara snapped back. “She’s a villain - they don’t have any feelings other than anger and hatred.”

“That’s not true,” Sprout protested, his voice rising slightly in indignation. “It’s the pain and the loss that lead to the anger and hatred - and just because you’re a villain doesn’t mean you’re incapable of feeling love or happiness. We have feelings.”

“How would you know that?” the changeling retorted. “You say that like you’ve been one-”

Sprout flinched and lowered his gaze. He felt Sunny’s hoof on his own and knew that he wasn’t angry at Imara - just wishing that it wouldn’t have to keep being brought up. He was sorry - wasn’t that enough?

Imara noticed this and her mouth dropped open. “Oh,” she said quietly. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know-”

“You shouldn’t assume things about ponies before you know anything about them,” Pipp snapped at her. The changeling recoiled and opened her mouth to say something in indignation, but Izzy nudged her, and she fell silent.

They waited for at least an hour - Sprout couldn’t keep track of time, but they didn’t see any of the other villains, and the sun had moved significantly by the time Cozy Glow came back, looking much happier than when she had left. In fact, she appeared almost… cheerful.

A horrible thought struck him, and apparently Hugo as well, because the griffon whispered in a worried voice, “Do you think she found the zeppelin?”

“I don’t know,” Sunny said in a strained voice. She reached her hoof out, and Izzy took it, giving it a squeeze. The earth pony took a deep breath and her expression hardened. “Seems like now’s as good a time as any. “What do you say we end this?”

The other creatures nodded. Sunny stood up, and though her hooves were shaking slightly, she led the charge into the cave, all of the creatures screaming definitely, and they ran (or flew) across the stones that led into the mouth of the largest cave, where they met… nothing. Sprout skidded to a stop and leaped to another stone before he tipped off of the one he stood on, looking around with a bewildered expression that matched the one on everyone else’s face.

“Where are they?” Imara demanded, her hooves curled into fists. “I’m done with all the hiding! I’m ready to fight!”

“I’m afraid you missed your chance,” came a voice from the dark, shadowed area above the stone ramps that led to more caves. There was a flicker of motion, and then Chrysalis stepped into the light, holding something with her magic. A rusted green bell floated next to her, pulsing with light. Tirek and Cozy Glow joined her, and from one of the caves, Sprout caught a glimpse of Permafrost and Sour Lavender peeking in.

“Well, what do you know,” Chrysalis said conversationally as she walked towards them. Every creature got into their fighting stances, wings spread, horns lit, hooves ready to charge. She gave Permafrost an appraising glance. “They really were dumb enough to come to us.”

Sprout froze. They knew that we were coming. How?

Maybe one of you is a spy. A traitor to the group. Who gave this information quite willingly, I might add, came that strange new voice in Sprout’s mind, and he shook his head, trying to get rid of it.

Sunny was suddenly enveloped in a golden glow, and her wings and horn appeared. She reared up on her back legs, her wings spread, horn blazing with light, and she let out a defiant yell.

A bell rang. And everything turned black.
> The Cost to Pay
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Sprout opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was stone. Groaning, he lifted his head, and was startled to find out that even that wore him out. It was like all his energy had been sucked away.

He staggered to his hooves and looked around. He was clearly underground, because the only light came from a single torch flickering on the wall, illuminating the trickles of water on the damp stone. Sprout was standing in a cave, slightly elevated over the ground, and everything beyond that was tinted green. He walked forward and realized that was because a sticky green goop had been plastered on the mouth of the cave, keeping him from leaving.

Beyond the torch was a long tunnel that sloped upwards into darkness, and he knew that was the way out. It was tantalizingly close, yet it could have been on the other side of the world.

“Anypony there?” he asked in a quiet voice, straining to hear in the silence.

“Sh,” came a voice that he recognized as Hitch’s. Perhaps he could sense the glare Sprout was sending his way, because he added, moments later, in the same hushed voice, “Everypony’s here.”

“Creature,” growled Imara.

“Right, sorry,” Hitch corrected himself. “Every creature is here.” He looked around. “Just have to figure out where here is.”

“It’s a system of caves and tunnels underneath their main headquarters,” Sunny said, her voice so quiet that they all had to strain to hear it. Sprout wondered if he was the only one who caught the tremor in her voice. “I heard them talking about it one day. They’ve never really had any use for it.”

Well, they do now, Sprout thought ruefully. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he saw Sunny across from him, in a cave higher above the ground, the entrance covered in the same sticky green goo. Sprout wished he could give her a hug, she looked so scared.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said out loud. “We’ll… we’ll figure this out.”

Sunny met his eyes, and he was startled to see that they were glittering with tears in the damp torch light. “How?” she whispered. “How did they know that we were coming?”

Sprout fell silent - he felt like he knew, but he didn’t want to tell them about the voice in his head, or what it had suggested. They would think he was a traitor for sure, aiding the bad guys and telling them everything. He wanted to tell Sunny - he knew she would understand - but he didn’t want the others to know. It would just be too awkward. So he kept his mouth shut.

Keeping things from your friends? came the voice, louder now than ever. Tut tut, that’s not very honest of you, is it?

Sprout’s head jerked up as Permafrost entered the room, flanked by Sour Lavender. The latter looked nervous at being in the same room as the ponies they had just kidnapped, or maybe that the other villains would discover them down here, but Permafrost’s cold eyes were staring straight into Sprout’s green ones, and he knew instantly that this entire conversation was going to be silent.

You’re one to talk, he retorted in his head, the mental communication coming naturally to him. Perhaps it was all the time he had spent arguing with his own conscience when he was emperor of Maretime Bay.

Permafrost didn’t answer to that, but his eyes narrowed slightly. This gave Sprout encouragement, and he added, You can’t keep us down here forever. We can, and we will, get out of here and defeat you. And nothing you do will ever stop that.

Then why are you still here? he asked in a falsely sympathetic voice.

As if she had the same idea, behind the two ponies, Imara tried to turn into a tiny bumblebee, to slip out of her cage, but hard as she tried, she couldn’t do it.

“My magic!” she gasped, her eyes wide and panicked. “I-it’s gone!”

The others gave panicked shouts and hurried to try their own magic - those of them that could try it. Flurry and Izzy’s horns wouldn’t light, none of the creatures could fly, and even Kailani’s necklace wouldn’t work. Permafrost didn’t have to look, but inside Sprout’s head, he said, You see? You can never leave. Unless…

Sprout hated his tone of voice, so certain and haughty and all-mighty. Unless what? he growled.

I have a proposal. The intensity of the unicorn’s gaze increased ten-fold. I will let your friends go, if… you give up all their memories of you. And leave and never come back.

Sprout’s shock must have shown on his face, because across from him, Sunny whispered, “Sprout… don’t do it. Whatever it is, don’t do it. It’s not worth it.”

But it is, he thought, his heart sinking horribly. It would be worth it… if you guys got free. He wished more than anything that Sunny was included in this mind conversation, or that she was next to him - he felt his knees going weak, and it took all of his strength just to remain standing. He stared back at Permafrost, and he saw in the unicorn’s eyes that this was what he wanted, and Sprout was determined not to give it to him. He steeled himself and met Permafrost’s eyes.

Why? he demanded. Why do you want their memories of me? Why not anypony - any creature else?

Oh, please, none of them are desperate enough, Permafrost snapped in his head.

Excuse me. Did you just say I’m desperate? Sprout asked indignantly, though, as the unicorn said it, he knew that he was right. Desperate to prove himself, desperate to put the past behind him and forget about it, desperate to show his friends - show Sunny - that he wasn’t a scared, confused little colt anymore, and that he cared about them.

He thought of Equestria, thought of how big the world was, and how amazing. All of that would be lost if the Legion of Doom had their way, and his friends were the only ones who could stop it. He had to face it - he hadn’t really ever contributed much to the group. It was always Sunny, was always Hitch, was always Izzy, Zipp, Pipp who saved the day. He just sat on the sidelines and… did what? Offer moral support? Waved pom-poms in the air and shouted cheesy chants that didn’t actually do anything to boost their morale?

It would be worth them forgetting about him if they could save everything else.

And he thought of Sunny - amazing, powerful, hopeful Sunny who had never given up even when everything seemed awful and terrible and out of reach. Sunny, who had run off with a unicorn to a pegasus city while her hometown wanted to arrest her. Sunny, who showed everypony that they didn’t have to be afraid of each other. Sunny, who brought back magic and the better world that she had always dreamed of. Sunny, who had reached her friends even when they had completely forgotten about her and seemed completely lost. Sunny, who escaped the Legion of Doom’s clutches and found other tribes because she cared about creatures she hadn’t even met yet.

Sunny, who had given him a second chance.

Who had forgiven him for everything.

Who had promised that she would never give up on him.

Suddenly, there was a new presence in his mind, somepony who hadn’t been there before, and yet felt extremely familiar.

Sprout.

That voice was familiar as well.

Don’t do this, Sprout, Sunny pleaded with him. Please don’t do this. It’s not worth it. We’ll find another way, I promise!

Sprout stole a quick glance across the cavern and met Sunny’s eyes for a brief second, and in that one look, he knew everything that she was thinking, and he almost faltered, because he wanted to stay here, with her, forever and ever, but if he did that… they would never get out of here. The world would be destroyed.

He forced his gaze to meet Permafrost’s and instantly, all of the warmth that he had felt from Sunny vanished.

Well? the unicorn demanded. What’ll it be?

Meeting the frosty pony’s icy eyes with his own steely green gaze, Sprout said, Yes. Fine. Do it.

A smirk crawled across Permafrost’s face, and he lit up his horn. It shone bright, distracting everyone’s attention from their failing magic to this frosty blue glow that enveloped them all. It grew brighter and brighter until they all had to look away, lest they be blinded, and he could sense that their minds were being wiped of all memories of him, something that the unicorn should know very well. He tried to ignore the way his heart sank when he thought that his friends would no longer care for him…

Sprout looked across the cave at Sunny and said, I’m sorry. And she nodded, and everything was all right.

Then everything went white and disappeared.





He gasped as he woke up. A loss of equilibrium still haunted him from the instantaneous teleportation, and it took him a while to collect his thoughts and calm his racing heart. Once he could see clearly again, and the sense of dizziness that lingered had cleared, he looked around.

No longer standing in a dark cave covered with sticky green goop, he was standing knee deep in mud in a swampy area surrounded entirely by trees. He struggled to the edge and pulled himself onto dry land, wiping the muck off his hooves and legs with a disgusted expression.

“Uck,” he muttered to himself. Then he remembered what had just happened, and his heart sank down to his hooves. Sunny. Hitch. Zipp. And everyone else. Were they okay? Had Permafrost kept his word and gotten them to safety? He glanced at the sun to get his bearings and ran off into the trees, getting smacked in the face with branches the whole time, but he didn’t care - he had to get to his friends. He had to see if they were alright.

He had to know if they still remembered him at all.

Eventually, he heard voices up ahead and skidded to a slow walk, creeping forward unseen until he saw the zeppelin between the trees… and in front of that, Sunny. She was pacing back and forth in front of the grounded ship, looking nervous.

Just seeing that she was okay was enough to calm Sprout’s racing heart, and he let out a relieved breath. Sunny looked up, instantly on her guard, and Sprout melted back into the shrubbery, trying to conceal himself. If Permafrost had gotten them out, then he must be telling the truth about the other part of the deal…

Still, he couldn’t help trying to reach out to that connection he had felt earlier…

Sunny? he asked tentatively.

In the clearing, the mare froze and rubbed at her head, a confused expression on her face.

“Sunny?” came Hitch’s voice, and the stallion came barreling into the clearing, looking relieved to see her. “Oh, thank the stars,” he murmured, running over to her and pulling her into a hug. Sprout felt a flare of jealousy that he didn’t fully understand. When he saw her face, he asked, “Sunny? Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she hurriedly assured him. “I just… I thought I heard Sprout in my head.”

“Sprout?” Hitch asked, his eyes narrowing. “Where is he?” He glared at the bush opposite him as if he thought it would magically produce him.

Sprout felt his heart sinking. So Permafrost had been telling the truth. He slipped away and followed the sun until he was well away from his friends. Now where would he go? He couldn’t go home, he couldn’t follow his friends without danger of being found… But now that he had seen the Legion of Doom himself, he didn’t want to sit back and do nothing.

The answer came to him. He could go to the Everfree Forest and join the creatures - the other outcasts - there. At least until this whole thing was over and he could run away to one of the other kingdoms and hide there, where his friends would never find him, and he could forget… forget about them.

Yes. As much as he hated it, that did seem like the best option.

Leaving his old life, and his friends, behind him, Sprout turned and ran.
> Joined Forces
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunny stared off into the distance, feeling like she was… missing something. Something important. But she just couldn’t quite place her hoof on it.

Hitch’s grip on her shoulder tightened. “Sunny? Are you okay?”

“Hm?” She shook herself. “I… yeah, I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “What… what happened?”

The sheriff shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “Everything’s a little foggy at the moment, but I remember… We got kidnapped by the Legion of Doom. Somepony told them we were coming, and I want to know who, but then Permafrost came in and… I think he teleported us out of there.”

Sunny frowned. “That doesn’t sound quite right. Why would he do that? He hates us - he hates me.”

“You think I’m an expert on bad guys?” Hitch shrugged. “I don’t know why he did it, all I know is, we’re out here, free, and our friends must be around here somewhere, too.” He gave her a playful nudge and grinned at her. “What do you say we go find them and show those villains that they messed with the wrong group of ponies?”

“Sunny? Hitch? Is that you?” Izzy stumbled into the clearing, looking distressed, mud caked around her hooves. When she saw the two earth ponies, she let out a relieved sigh. “Thank hoofness I found you!” she stressed as she wrapped Sunny in a hug. Then a more distressing thought occurred to her, and she stepped back, saying, “My horn won’t work, Sunny! I think - I think my magic’s gone!”

“It was that bell,” Sunny told her. “It can steal the magic from anypony - or creature.” She looked down at the ground in defeat. “Without magic… I don’t know how we’re going to defeat them.”

“The same way we always do,” Izzy said encouragingly, putting her arm around Sunny’s shoulders and giving her an encouraging squeeze. “We don’t need magic when we have friends by our side!”

“We beat Sprout without magic,” Hitch added confidently.

The mention of Sprout brought back that strange feeling that Sunny was having, like she was missing something important. But as the other ponies looked like they were perfectly fine, she decided that it must be something to do with the stress of the whole hopeless situation. Perhaps the feeling came from the lack of magic… Yes, that had to be it!

“Sunny!” Three creatures burst into the clearing: Pipp, Imara and Ash, at the same time Brooks and Lukas ran in from the opposite side. Pipp skidded to a stop in front of Sunny and waved her phone in her friend’s face.

“Things are much worse outside!” she stressed, scrolling through clips and comments. “Everypony thinks you’re a crazy pony who just wants more and more power for herself, and they really don’t like us, either,” she added, her face anxious. “Even if we defeat Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow, how in Equestria are we going to deal with this?”

She thrust the phone in front of Sunny’s muzzle, and she had to push it back to see it more clearly. It was a clip of Helios, standing in front of all of Zephyr Heights (and Sunny knew that the message would be passed by word of mouth to the rest of Equestria), declaring that Sunny and her friends were all enemies of the state, and that anypony who saw them should report them to the proper authorities (a.k.a. Helios) and not engage them directly - they were rumored to be very dangerous.

It was the looks on the ponies’ faces that sold it for Sunny. Her heart skipped a beat with fear as she saw the scowls and glares and heard the shouts of the angry crowd.

Zipp, Kailani, Hugo, Little Braveheart, Flurry, and Midnight all raced into the clearing while Sunny thought, and Pipp briefed them on what the situation was, her expression panicked. All the creatures looked to Sunny, the same question written on each of their faces: “What are we going to do?”

Sunny sighed and put a gentle hoof on Pipp’s phone, lowering it. “We’ll have to worry about that later,” she told them all. “We can’t expect any help from the rest of Equestria, and I have no idea what will happen after this, what with all the tribes wanting to go to war with each other, but I do know this: if we don’t defeat the Legion of Doom right now, there won’t be an Equestria to come back to, angry population or not. I don’t know how we’re going to defeat them, but we are going to, and when we do, we’ll go home and tell everyone that this is all a huge misunderstanding.” She put her hoof in front of her. “Who’s with me?”

Izzy was the first one to join her, a huge grin splitting her face. “Let’s go save Equestria,” she said as she put her hoof on top of Sunny’s.

“And get our magic back,” agreed Imara, placing her hoof on top of Izzy’s. The unicorn and the changeling exchanged a smile as the other creatures and ponies pledged themselves to the fight.

“I’m in,” said a voice across the clearing, and the creatures all turned to see Thunder, Zoom, Toots, and Sweets standing there, all looking ready to fight.

“Me, too,” came Midge’s voice opposite the arrivals from Zephyr Heights and Maretime Bay. The changeling stepped into the clearing with Queen Monarch at his side, and Sunny and Imara, the only two there who had seen her before, quickly bent their knees in a polite bow.

“Your Majesty, I know what it looks like,” Imara begain, but Monarch held up a hoof, silencing her.

“I believe some of this is my fault, at least,” she said. “I was blind and naive and wouldn’t listen to common sense. And I understand that one of these villains is a former queen of the changelings?” Sunny nodded to confirm this, and the queen closed her eyes, making a decision. Opening her purple eyes, she said, “Then I feel like this might be some of my responsibility as well.”

Sunny took a deep breath and looked towards the direction that the villains’ headquarters was. “It’s not going to be easy,” she warned them all, “but this is our only chance. We need to fight with everything we have if we’re going to defeat them and bring back the Equestria we all want.”

“We’re with you, Sunny,” Hitch told her, the others nodding along with him. “Now and forever.”





Chrysalis took a deep breath as her newfound power ran through her veins, feeling the tingling sensation that told her that no one, not any creature in the entire world, was as powerful as she was.

Or… would be. She cast a disdainful look at Tirek and Cozy Glow, thinking, Not much longer.

Because they still had that strange device that Sour Lavender called a ‘sell fone’ (he had explained that they would have to use the device sparingly in order to conserve battery), the Legion of Doom had been keeping up with recent events outside their cave, and the current plan was to give the ponies back to Equestria, and the other creatures back to their respective kingdoms, so that their rulers may do what they wished with them - Chrysalis didn’t care the slightest. Though she had requested that she could drain them all of love before they left - she was starving. She needed something to eat after a century in stone.

And now that Sunny Starscout’s magic ran through all three villains… well, there was no reason to keep the earth pony mare any longer. Chrysalis glared at her partners in crime, thinking of the best way to steal the bell and suck Tirek and Cozy Glow dry.

The pegasus in particular had been giving off a very strong aura of love that Chrysalis was curious about. There was no way that she had gotten that from her and Tirek.

So she was hiding something as well…

All these secrets and hiding things made Chrysalis uncomfortable. The thought that she wasn’t the only one with a secret plan made her think that, perhaps, they were planning something as well, and might even know her own plans.

Cozy Glow lit up her new alicorn horn and grinned with relish as she vaporized a nearby rock. “Let’s go destroy Sunny Starscout and her friends right now,” she suggested.

“There’s no reason to keep them,” Tirek agreed, but it was Chrysalis who led the way to the hastily converted dungeon. She was secretly impressed with Cozy Glow for coming up with the idea to use the catacombs beneath the main cave, with Chrysalis’ green goo over the mouths to keep them there. But, of course, she would never mention that.

But she skidded to a halt when she entered the prison cell area, squinting in the dim torch light, hoping against hope that she was hallucinating.

No. She wasn’t.

They were gone.

“Where are they?” demadned Cozy Glow, rounding and flying out of the cave as fast as her newly enlarged wings could carry her, Tirek bounding after her. But Chrysalis lingered, squinting at the dark, empty caves. They were empty - completely. There were no hints as to what had happened. And the goop was still prohibiting exiting the cave, so there must have been magic involved.

Of course, with Sunny Starscout and all her friends stripped of their magic, there was only one pony it could be…

“That blithering fool,” she hissed, leaping into the air and flying off to go find Permafrost. “Did he really think he could get away with it?”

“Get away with what?” asked an innocent voice behind her, and Chrysalis turned to see Cozy Glow hovering behind her, looking curious and (trying to be) adorable. Behind her Tirek stood with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Chrysalis as if he suspected something. But Chrysalis pushed it aside for now. If they wanted to get out of THIS pickle, they would need to work together. So she put her plan on hold for now.

“That idiot unicorn!” the former changeling queen snapped, whirling around to face them. “He’s the one who got them out!”

Cozy Glow frowned, as though she didn’t quite follow. “Why would he do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know! But we need to take care of him and his stupid friend as well,” she decided, turning back around and flying off to go find him. She stopped and glared at her comrades. “And if you don’t want to help, then fine. I’ll take care of it myself.”

Her eyes flew around the room until they landed on Grogar’s bell, floating just behind Cozy Glow and gently drifting after her when she moved. Chrysalis remembered it doing something like that back when they first tried to take over Equestria, but they had been practically inseperable when they had Grogar’s bell out - it usually meant that they were fighting against Twilight Sparkle and her friends. Tirek had explained that the bell followed its master around wherever he or she went so that it could heed to their services more easily, and none of them had wanted to go wading into the question of who the master was.

But now Chrysalis knew. And it made sense. Cozy Glow had retrieved the bell from the top of Mount Everhoof, she had used it against Celestia and Luna in the Third Battle of Canterlot, and she was a pony - just like Gusty the Great, the pony who had stolen the bell from Grogar in the first place. Perhaps the ancient pony had added another spell to the enchantment that kept the bell safe - that only a pony could properly weild it. That way, no evil creature from another land could use its power.

Chrysalis thought of all that power in the hooves of the manipulative little filly in front of her, and she expected to scoff at the notion and be completely unworried. There was no way that Cozy Glow could pose a significant threat to her.

And yet… she was startled to find that she felt afraid. She had heard and seen what this pony could do, and having immeasurable power in her hooves wasn’t comforting.

I need to put my plan into action, she thought, panicked. NOW. When we drain Permafrost and Sour Lavender of their magic, I’ll grab the bell and turn it on them, then steal all the magic, defeat Sunny Starscout and her friends once and for all, and rule all of Equestria alone.

As if the thought summoned them, Sour Lavender and Permafrost suddenly burst into the cave, looking just as panicked as she felt.

“They’re… back!” the pegasus gasped, skidding to a halt and trying to catch his breath. “They’re… outside… right… now!”

Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow gave each other a look, then ran to the mouth of the cave… and saw Sunny Starscout standing at the head of a large group of creatures and ponies, looking ready to fight.
> Battle for Friendship
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunny stared down the Legion of Doom, feeling her heart thump faster in her chest. She took a deep breath and reminded herself what she was fighting for.

Friendship. Harmony. Unity. Magic. Everything me and my friends have worked for.

Everything my dad wanted.

She glanced at the others, and saw them all staring back at the Legion of Doom with steely glares and fixed, almost calm expressions.

We can do this.

“Golly, you guys are resilient,” Cozy Glow snapped, glaring at them with a hatred filled expression. But call Sunny crazy, because she thought she saw a flash of sadness in there as her eyes swept over Sunny and her friends. “But face it - you’ve lost!”

“We have your magic,” Tirek reminded her, gesturing to the bell beside him. “Your lands have abandoned you. There’s nothing you can do.”

“We haven’t lost,” Sunny told them. “Because we haven’t given up hope - and we’re going to keep on trying. No matter how many times you knock us down, we will stand - Equestria will stand - friendship and harmony and magic will always stand. Forever and always.”

“What a pretty speech,” Chrysalis snarled. “Such a shame that it’ll all go to waste.” She lit up her horn and shot a massive blast of magic straight at them. Sunny and her friends scattered, just like they’d planned, and divided into a total of five groups, the last two being slightly smaller than the others, that ran all over the place, and each caught the attention of one of the members of the Legion of Doom.

Flurry, Midge, Imara, Monarch, and Midnight took on Chrysalis. Flurry Heart made it very clear that she didn’t need magic to exact her wrath on the changeling queen. She dodged Chrysalis’ blasts with all the grace of a pony who had been taught by a Wonderbolt, despite the fact that she couldn’t fly, and whenever she got the chance, she would land a punch or a kick to the changeling, trip her up, or try to knock her out of the air. Imara joined her, and together, they managed to jump on Chrysalis’ back at the same time and knock her down. It didn’t last long, but even delaying her for a few short minutes was enough to encourage them to keep going.

Midge and Midnight seemed to communicate without words, dancing around the queen and tripping her up every chance they got. Midge could still fly (Tirek had only stolen his ability to shapeshift), so he would bat around Chrysalis’ head and block her vision, while also infuriating her almost beyond recognition. She would send blasts of magic to try and hit them, though she always missed, and that made her more angry than ever.

Monarch was very passive aggressive and you could tell she was having a bit of a hard time really fighting, which she was clearly not used to. But she consistently changed shape, one moment a giant cragadile, the next, a tiny mouse, Chrysalis’ magic beams passing right over her head. The changeling queen turned back into her original form and tilted her head at the struggling creature in front of her.

“I always wondered what it was like to be angry,” she said calmly, nodding her head to one side so that the blast of green light that Chrysalis sent her way passed harmlessly over her shoulder. “Really, truly angry. And now I am glad that I never have been.”

“And why is that?” Chrysalis snapped, panting as she tried to rise into the air and gain some ground on her attackers, but Midnight leaped through the air and knocked into her wings, sending her spiraling back towards the ground. She struggled to her hooves and glared at Monarch, recognizing the queen’s eyes - they were the very same eyes that that traitor Thorax had had - and just seeing them made her blood boil with fury. “Anger gives you power,” she informed the changeling queen, taking a threatening step towards her. Monarch didn’t even flinch. “It gives you motivation, it gives you strength that you would never have otherwise!”

“Does it?” Monarch asked calmly. “Or is that simply the fake purpose you have?”

Chrysalis paused, and Flurry Heart gave her a well-placed kick. She stumbled back hissing and shot a blast at the alicorn, scorching the ground in front of Flurry while the pony danced out of reach.

“I don’t have to be a genius to recognize it,” Monarch continued as if nothing had happened, avoiding yet another shot of magic from Chrysalis. “You’re fueled by revenge - and you think that, by taking revenge on the ponies you blame responsible, everything will be fine again. Well, let me tell you that it’s not. I spent the first few years as queen dealing with problems that I had no idea how to handle yet, and I was always seeking someone to blame. But that never made the problems go away. In fact, when I took a step back and looked at it from a different angle, the solution came to me - and it had nothing to do with other ponies or creatures.” She put her hoof on her heart and said, “It had to do with me.”

The speech reminded Chrysalis so much of the one that Starlight Glimmer had given her all those years ago, but it had everything that that one had been lacking. She felt the words hit her heart, and knew, deep down, that Starlight Glimmer and Thorax weren’t the problem - she was the problem.

“No,” she hissed to herself. “They are the problem - they are what’s wrong. Don’t let them-” She stopped and took a step back, shaking her head. “Don’t let them get in your head.”

“And I’ll have you know,” Imara snapped, taking a step forward and glaring at the former queen in front of her, her chest puffed out with pride as she said, “We are happy the way we are now - sharing love instead of taking it. We don’t want to be selfish and greedy anymore - I’m going to make the world a better place, and I have a feeling that others are going to agree with me.” She cast a glance at Monarch, and the queen nodded in agreement. Imara grinned and turned back to Chrysalis. “So maybe it’s time that you changed how you look at things - because I know how short sighted creatures can be, and it never ends well.”

“Stand back, everypony,” Flurry Heart announced, her muscles tensed. The other creatures were so startled by her threatening tone that they didn’t argue or bother to correct her pronoun. Chrysalis turned to face the alicorn, and when changeling eyes met pony, she forgot that she was looking at Flurry Heart, because all she saw was Cadance, all she saw was Shining Armor, all she saw was Twilight Sparkle… This pony was all of them, and more. And she was scared.

“This,” Flurry said in a low voice, “is for my parents.” She took a running start and leaped at Chrysalis, hitting the changeling right in the chest and knocking her back. Chrysalis landed on the ground with a massive thump, one of her wings pinned under her. She tried to stand back up, but Flurry took a threatening step forward and glared down at the creature who had caused her family so much pain and suffering. Chrysalis swallowed and cowered before her.





Tirek was also having less-than-successful results with his battle against Little Braveheart, Lukas, Hitch, and, surprisingly, Pipp, who proved that she could actually be very useful in a fight, not so much with the physical stuff - Hitch and Lukas mostly took care of that, and Little Braveheart was shouting with glee like a crazy buffalo while jumping on Tirek’s back and pulling on his hair. But Pipp turned out to be surprisingly good at talking to the raging red centaur.

“Why in Equestria would one need all the magic?” she asked him, her wings folded neatly and her face a mask of calm, as if this were something she did every day. “Surely you don’t need that much. I can’t even imagine a use for all that magic.”

Infuriated by the pegasus’ calm speech, Tirek roared and lifted her into the air, trying to drain her of magic when he remembered that he already had. He resolved for throwing her through the air, but years of fake flying had given Pipp practice, and she merely spread her fluffy wings, slowing her fall until it was a soft landing. She turned and studied the raging centaur’s face as he batted Hitch away, then yowled as Little Braveheart hooked her hooves around his horns and pulled backwards.

His new magic-infused size and bulk made him harder to fight, but Lukas wasn’t only big, but he was strong, and fast; he could dash around Tirek’s flailing legs and charge at him, knocking the massive centaur off balance and sending him toppling to the ground. Tirek stood up again, furious, throwing Lukas off his feet and sending the yak flying through the air until he crashed into the ground, sending off shock waves that made Tirek stumble again. Hitch landed a well-placed kick to his jaw, and the centaur responded by knocking the stallion to the side.

“Of course,” Pipp continued as if nothing had happened, helping Lukas to his feet and brushing dust off of the massive creature’s hair, “sometimes, we do things that are irrational.”

“I’m not irrational!” Tirek roared, a ball of fire appearing between his horns and flying towards the pegasus princess at a startling speed. Pipp and Lukas scattered, the tips of her wings getting slightly singed, but she refused to give up. She took a deep breath and steeled herself.

“Sometimes we do things without reason,” she kept going, looking straight into the centaur’s eyes. There was something about the pink pony’s eyes that made Tirek seem unable to look away - he kept batting Hitch, Lukas, and Little Braveheart away, but he missed more often than not. “Except for approval.”

Tirek suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Pipp’s wings, holding her inches from his face as he snarled, “I don’t need anyone’s approval, little pony.”

“Little?” Pipp’s eyes flashed, and she twisted out of his grip. She landed on the ground and glared at him. “Little?”

She slammed her hoof down on Tirek’s beard, pinning it to the ground and forcing him to look into her eyes. Hitch, Lukas, and Little Braveheart all stood back, gaping at the small pegasus. Even Tirek was afraid of her, and he flinched as she glared at him.

“I think you’ll find I’m average height,” she hissed in his face. “And at least I don’t need to absorb all the magic in Equestria to compensate for the fact that I’m worried that I’ll never mean enough to my parents!”

Tirek flinched; she had struck a sore spot. He expected to feel angry and furious, gaining the power and strength he needed to fight back against her (even though he felt that this puny pony could hardly pose much of a threat), but instead, he found himself feeling… sad. All the anger simply evaporated, leaving him feeling empty and… exhausted. There wasn’t anything left for him to fight for now.

Pipp seemed to sense this, and she relaxed her grip, sighing. “Look. I know what it feels like to want to prove yourself to your family, or to others - I do it all the time. Nopony ever seems to care about me, so… I give them something to care about. But if they don’t love you for who you are…” She took a step back and let him go, though he didn’t move. “Then they don’t really love you at all. And you shouldn’t try to make them. Because no matter how hard you try… they never really will.” She cracked a small smile at his huge physique. “Because let me tell you - no amount of magic or power will ever compensate for that.”

Tirek struggled to his hooves, thinking hard about what the pegasus had said. He finally growled, finding a weak, struggling anger deep inside him that was nowhere near as strong as his previous anger, but he clung to that tiny flare of fury like a lifeline. He had to finish this, had to fight back. Had to prove himself!

“You’re wrong,” he said in a low voice. “Because it will be worth this!”

He lit up his horns, and several jagged rocks jutted out of the ground, surrounding Pipp and trapping her in place. A massive fireball appeared in between his hands, and he raised it above his head, preparing to throw it at the pony princess in front of him.

But then behind him, he heard a voice say, “Indeed it will.” And then Lukas knocked his legs out from under him, Little Braveheart grabbed his horns and forced them down, and Hitch helped Pipp out of the cage of rocks as the yak and buffalo tossed the massive centaur inside instead.

“How in Equestria are you so calm about this?” Hitch asked her, baffled.

Pipp shrugged. “I deal with stuff like this every day. It’s social media in a nutshell.”
> The Fight Continues
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zipp, Kailani, and Hugo had cornered Permafrost, and wherever the unicorn tried to break free, one of them would attack, directing his attention away and giving the others a chance to prepare themselves. Zipp was still angry with him for that whole chaining-them-up-and-stealing-their-memories incident, and she wasn’t going home without some revenge being dealt.

She spread her wings and took a flying leap through the air, landing on Permafrost’s back and knocking him flat while he was distracted (and annoyed) by Hugo listing off the first one hundred digits of pi. The unicorn struggled under her weight but couldn’t move. He tried to use magic to get her off, but couldn’t get a clear range for his spells, so the pegasus remained.

Permafrost spotted Kailani taking a step forward to help, and a nasty grin spread across his face. Lighting up his horn, he sent a powerful blast, more powerful than he had ever done before, straight at the hippogriff.

Kailani froze - literally. She was now covered with a thin yet strong layer of ice, frozen in place, and Zipp was not happy. Over the past half week, she had grown quite close to the hippogriff, and she was her friend. And she did not like her friends to be frozen by the very same unicorn who had chained her and her other friends up and stolen their memories.

With an angry roar, the future queen of Zephyr Heights slammed Permafrost’s head into the ground with a satisfying crack, and the unicorn yowled in pain.

“Let her go,” Zipp growled in his ear, and he flinched away from her wrath. “Or else.”

He had the nerve to squeak, “Or else what?”

She ground her hoof into his back, and he yelped. “Do it,” she snarled. “Now.”

Permafrost hurriedly lit his horn, and the ice around Kailani shattered, the hippogriff imprisoned inside gasping as she was set free. Zipp leaped off of Permafrost, completely forgetting about him as she wrapped her wings around her friend.

Behind her, Permafrost struggled to his hooves, his horn glitching slightly as he lit it.

Sour Lavender, perhaps seeing that the fight wasn’t going his way, was trying to escape, but Thunder and Zoom put a stop to that, with Toots and Sweets on the ground as backup. The two Zephyr Heights guards put themselves in front of the fleeing pegasus, their arms spread as wide as they could make them, their wings even wider.

The purple pegasus growled and tried to duck underneath them, but Toots and Sweets blocked his way out there as well. The two Canterlogic employees pulled out a very special gadget - a portable unicorn entrapment device that sprung out from a tiny box instead of being installed in the streets. They had only been able to make one successful one before the pony tribes united, so it hadn’t been displayed at their annual showcase, and they had halted production when magic returned. But Sweets had the idea of arming themselves with some of the more harmless things that Canterlogc engineered, just in case.

With Thunder and Zoom bearing down on him from above, Sour Lavender tried to fly low through the gap between the two pegasi and earth ponies. Sweets pressed the button on the side of the tiny box in her hoof and tossed it into the air. The metal box expanded, spreading out and growing walls and ceiling until the pegasus was entirely trapped in a metal box.

Sour Lavender shrieked with panic and tried to backtrack, hitting against the solid metal wall as the box plummeted to the ground. Toots and Sweets bumped hooves.

Inside the box, Sour Lavender sat dejectedly in the cold metal cage, huffing. He couldn’t believe that he, a pegasus, the most technologically advanced species of ponies, had been beaten by some earth ponies and their magic-growing box. His head jerked up as he suddenly heard Permafrost holler in pain, and he knew instantly that the unicorn was in trouble.

So? he scoffed to himself. Why should I care? Still, the longer he sat in the darkness (except for the hole in the roof), hearing the sounds of the battle around him and knowing that the pony that he may have, once or twice, considered a… friend, was in trouble, awakened something in the pegasus.

He was done waiting in the dark, hiding in the shadows, letting those he cared about getting hurt. Though he didn’t remember anything since before he joined the organization with Permafrost (and he had his suspicions why), he knew that he didn’t want to lose the unicorn.

Filled with a different kind of strength, he rammed against the side of the box until it tipped over, landing on the release button and causing the box to shrink back into miniature form.

Thunder and Zoom leapt forward, wings spread, preparing to grab him again, but the purple blur that shot out wasn’t heading for the edges of the swamp, like they thought he would be. He was streaking towards another group of ponies and creatures… and when the two royal guards saw who he was heading for, they took off after him.

Zipp ducked the icy blast of magic that Permafrost sent her way, and Kailani dashed away, discreetly sneaking up behind the unicorn with Hugo, who looked incredibly nervous about the whole thing. Though, to his credit, he still went through with it. The unicorn’s eyes were so focused on Zipp, filled with so much hate, that he didn’t notice the hippogriff and griffon as they crept up behind him.

But somepony else did. Sour Lavender flew through the air, knocking into Hugo. The two purple creatures rolled across the ground, with the pegasus on top, pinning the griffon’s arms to the ground as he struggled.

“Hugo!” Kailani cried, running to help her friend. Permafrost stared openmouthed at the pegasus, as if he couldn’t believe that he was here. As the hippogriff finally threw him off, Sour Lavender landed next to the unicorn and stood in front of him protectively, wings spread.

“What are you doing here?” Permafrost demanded.

“What, you thought I would let you fight all by yourself?” the pegasus barked back, though there was something in his expression that told Permafrost that wasn’t the only reason. “We’ve got a pact, remember?”

Permafrost shrugged. He had honestly forgotten about that. But as Zipp, Kailani, Hugo, Toots, Sweets, Thunder, and Zoom surrounded them, the two ponies stood back-to-back, Sour Lavender’s wings spread and Permafrost’s horn alight, and they prepared to fight. But for now, they were in a stalemate, not going anywhere for the time being.





Cozy Glow was dealing with Izzy, Ash, and Brooks, and it looked like she was going to win for a moment. As she was now an alicorn, and the others had no magic whatsoever, it seemed, at first, that it was a clear victory. She twirled around, her horn lit, as she fired blast after blast after blast at the unicorn, dragon, and kirin. The spells came to her naturally for some reason, and she took this as a sign that she was destined to have control over all the magic.

Still, something inside her tugged at her mind, and she knew it was important. Worry about it later, she told herself. You’ve got a battle to win!

Even though their magic was gone, Ash could still breathe fire, and Brooks could still turn into a nirik. The fiery kirin danced around her now, avoiding all her magic beams and retaliating with his own blasts of fire that she had to put up magic shields to protect herself from. Even so, the force was enough to send her spiraling backwards through the air, where she fell victim to Ash and her fiery breath. Still, Cozy wrapped beams of light around both the nirik and the dragon, holding them to the ground for the time being. She smirked with satisfaction and lowered her shield.

Then something hit her in the back of the head: a large clump of swamp muck. Growling furiously, she whipped around to see Izzy standing next to what looked like a stick-and-stone version of the earth ponies’ splat-a-pults, scooping up balls of muck and launching them at the alicorn.

Cozy Glow growled and sent a blast of magic straight at the cursed contraption, but just before she sent it, a ball of mud hit her right in the face. Izzy giggled and laughed as the tiny alicorn gasped and wiped the sludge off her eyes. The look on her face was so murderous that Izzy stopped laughing at once.

“You’ll pay for that,” Cozy snarled. She put a protective bubble around her that was soon covered on one side with balls of swamp sludge, and the other side entirely engulfed with flames from Ash and Brooks. Inside the bubble, Cozy Glow’s horn glowed brighter.

The bubble expanded rapidly, a swirling ball of out-of-control magic that knocked all three of them off their feet and hooves and causing Izzy’s contraption to crumble to dust.

“Ha!” Cozy crowed when the magic finally faded. Izzy looked at her destroyed sludge-a-pult and sighed, lowering her head. The alicorn hovered over the three creatures, pointing a hoof at them as she told them, “You will never beat me! I have more power than all of you-”

“What’s going on?” called a familiar voice from across the muddy lake. Cozy froze and whipped around to see Lofty Skies, Jinx Evergreen, and Rose Blossom standing at the edge of the forest.

“Oh, no,” she whispered, automatically trying to sink into the background so that they wouldn’t notice her.

The earth pony filly’s eyes locked on her and widened in shock. “Cozy Glow?” Rose Blossom asked in a shocked voice. Jinx and Lofty Skies followed her gaze, their jaws also dropping and their eyes widening.

“What are you doing?” Jinx asked, her eyes flying between Cozy, Chrysalis, Tirek, Permafrost, Sour Lavender, and the ponies and creatures fighting them. They finally landed on the glowing green bell in the center of it all, and the puzzle pieces seemed to click in her head when she took a moment to regard the fact that Cozy Glow was now an alicorn, and hardly any of the ponies and creatures were using magic. She gasped and said, “You’re stealing magic?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” Cozy protested, holding out her hooves in apology.

“Why would you do something like that?” Lofty Skies demanded, spreading her wings and flying towards the alicorn, studying her from a distance. “The Cozy we know would never do something like that.”

Cozy flinched, and, tears of anger and pain streaming from her eyes, she shouted, “The Cozy you thought you knew was a fake! I’m a fake! For all of my life I’ve been deceiving ponies and creatures alike to gain power! There, I said it! Everything was a lie! For a moment, I thought I liked being friends with you, but I should have known it would have ended like this! I never meant for you to find out like this - I never wanted to hurt you - I just felt so happy, but it never mattered anyway! Nopony really cares about me, do they?”

Her overwhelming emotions made her horn spark brighter as it lit, and she disappeared in a flash of light, reappearing just inside the mouth of the cave, on the ground once more, and she ran deeper into the hideout, sobbing. Lofty Skies, Jinx Evergreen, and Rose Blossom exchanged a look, and none of the Crusaders were sure what to think about this.

“Did you hear that?” Lofty Skies asked her friends as she flew over. “She didn’t say that she liked pretending to be our friend - she said she liked being our friend.”

“But she lied to us,” Rose Blossom protested. “Like, big time.”

“She’s been stealing magic from the ponies who brought it back,” Jinx added. “And she’s working with those two - stars, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. They’re the three villains that everypony’s warning us about. We never should have trusted her.”

“But she’s-”

“Our friend?” Rose Blossom scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Stars, Lofty, she’s nothing but a liar and deceiver, and that’s all she’ll ever be. I should have expected so from a pegasus.” She covered her mouth with her hooves as soon as the words were out of her mouth, and she looked to Lofty Skies with a horrified expression. “I - I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you, I just…” She sighed and shook her head. “Old habits die hard.”

“It’s okay,” Lofty Skies assured her. “Mistakes happen. Maybe we should give her a second chance.”

“It’s one thing to give a pony a second chance,” Jinx said thoughtfully. “But how do we know that she’ll take it? How do we know that she won’t just lie to us again?”

“I guess we’ll have to trust her.” The pegasus looked at the cave into which the filly had disappeared. “She may not deserve it… but shouldn’t we at least try? I get the feeling that nopony ever really tried for her. Maybe we should change that.”
> The Real Reason for Friends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunny dodged magic blasts and leaped over rocks and muddy puddles as she ran through the midst of the fight, her goal in her sight. Grogar’s bell, she had been told it was called - and, according to the Legion of Doom, the artifact that they had forced her to bring to them when she was under Cozy Glow’s influence through the mind link.

“It has the power to absorb any creature’s magic,” Flurry Heart had explained to her along the way. “And it can release it to another creature entirely. It was how they almost beat my aunt and her friends. They had to unite the world to beat them that time.”

And now, as Sunny looked around her, she thought that the world was united. Earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi fighting side by side. Other creatures finally coming out of the shadows for the first time in over a century. All of them uniting against these three villains who threatened everything they knew and everything they didn’t. Fighting not only for themselves, but for others.

For what was. For what had been. For what was to come.

Fighting for friendship.

Chrysalis, Tirek, Permafrost, Sour Lavender, Cozy Glow. One by one, they fell, overwhelmed by the teamwork that the creatures and ponies demonstrated, not letting each other fight alone but working seamlessly together as one.

Just watching it was enough to make Sunny’s heart swell with pride. She wished that the circumstances weren’t so dire, so that she could sit back and enjoy seeing all the friendship and magic at work. Or that she could dive into the midst of it and help her friends where they needed her most.

But they needed her most right here.

The plan was, Sunny’s friends would distract and bring down the villains long enough for Sunny to grab Grogar’s bell and use it to steal Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow’s extra magic and give it back to her friends, where it belonged. Then, with the villains suddenly much weaker than before, Sunny would take the rest of their magic, and they would bring them back to Zephyr Heights to show all of ponykind.

Hopefully, word would spread to the other kingdoms, protecting them from the impending war that was looming over them. Perhaps Equestria could open up its borders again and become more accepting towards other creatures! Thinking about such a happy future, possible now that this fight was really here, gave Sunny the courage to keep going.

So much was riding on them. They had to do this. They had to succeed. Failure wasn’t an option, and she didn’t want to think about what would happen if they did.

She shook herself and leaped to another rock. No. Don’t think about that. You WON’T fail.

Because Grogar’s bell seemed to take to drifting after Cozy Glow for some reason (Sunny desperately wanted to read more about the bell, and how it worked, and what had happened to it all those years ago, but for now, she focused on the present), Sunny was watching when three little fillies appeared from the forest, and she recognized them as the three who had run away to stay friends.

Midge recognized them, too, and his breath caught in his throat as he watched them, losing concentration on Chrysalis.

As Cozy Glow fled into the cave, the former changeling queen snarled at the way that the filly gave up so quickly. Then she saw Sunny reaching for the bell, a hopeful expression on her face, and she was filled with boiling anger.

No. She was not going to be defeated this easily!

Growling, she lit up her horn, and Sunny gave a shout of surprise as she was thrown back, landing in the middle of the muddy lake. While all her friends were distracted by the distress of their friend, Chrysalis shifted form into a tiny field mouse and wriggled out of Flurry Heart’s hold. She changed back into her original form and lunged for the bell, grabbing it and holding it close to her chest.

“Hey!” Imara shouted.

“She’s got the bell!” Flurry called, pointing at the changeling as she lifted Sunny with her green aura and threw her onto dry land. The earth pony hit a tree and crumpled to the ground.

“Sunny!” Hitch called.

Tirek took the distraction as a chance to stand up, blowing away his prison with a powerful blast and lifting up all the other ponies and creatures and tossing them onto land so that they formed a pile on top of Sunny. Even the Crusaders of Harmony weren’t spared, and they clung to each other, shaking in fear.

“Like I said,” Chrysalis panted with anger, hovering in front of them next to Tirek, who pounded his fist into his other hand threateningly. “You’ve lost.”

Cozy Glow walked out of the headquarters, wiping her eyes and looking around, startled to see the swamp suddenly empty. Her gaze landed on the pile of ponies and creatures at the edge, and narrowed in on the three fillies in front. Then she saw Chrysalis raise Grogar’s bell, her horn glowing brighter as she prepared to strike.

“NO!” she screamed.

The bell rang, and every creature flinched, waiting for their last bit of magic to be sucked away. But it never came, and they all opened their eyes to see Cozy Glow, having flung herself in front of them. The bell was sucking away her alicorn magic until she was just a regular pegasus again.

As the bell’s magic faded from sight, Chrysalis and Tirek gaped at the filly, who shot them a withering glare before turning back to the group of ponies and creatures. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go! Get out of here!”

Imara didn’t hesitate. She led the other creatures into the forest, ducking as Chrysalis shouted, “No!” and sent a magic blast that scorched the tree behind her, just above her head.

Tirek roared and grabbed Cozy Glow, pinning the filly’s arms to her side and crumpling her wings in his massive red hand. “What in Equestria were you thinking?” he demanded, shaking her and squeezing her tighter when she didn’t answer. “You let them get away!”

“What happened to power?” Chrysalis added, her own green magic engulfing the filly and forcing her to look into the changeling’s eyes. “You could have all the power you wanted!”

Cozy gave her a sad smile. She turned and looked at Lofty Skies, Jinx Evergreen, and Rose Blossom, all three of them standing at the edge of the forest, staring at her with matching shocked expressions on their faces. Behind them, Sunny appeared, watching, being supported by Hitch after her crash.

Conflicting thoughts ran through Cozy’s head right then. It would be so easy to turn on them, steal their magic and get back everything she had worked her whole life for. That’s what the old Cozy Glow would do, she remembered. A week ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated - she would have joined Tirek and Chrysalis as they sucked Sunny Starscout and her friends dry and locked them up so that they could never stand in the way of their plans. She would have gone through with her and Tirek’s plan to turn on Chrysalis before she turned on them. She might have even gone so far as to take all the power for herself. She would do anything to get all the power so that she could protect everypony from what had happened to her.

It would be so easy to just forget everything that happened and go along with life as it normally was.

But… would it be? Would Cozy spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder and thinking about the friends that she’d had - the friends that, for a few, short, golden hours, she thought cared about her? Who had cared about her. Who were her friends.

And she realized, with a jolt, that she cared about them, too.

“Power isn’t why you make friends,” Cozy said, turning back to the villains. “I finally understand that now.”

“You don’t need friends to get power!” Chrysalis screamed at her, her rage boiling over.

“With power, you can get whatever you want!” Tirek roared, and Cozy flinched as droplets of spit hit her face. “You don’t need friends!”

“Friendship is a disease!” Chrysalis added.

“Friendship is a waste of time!” Tirek agreed.

“It’s pointless!”

“It makes you weak!”

“It’s a… a distraction!”

“It’s all a lie!”

“Yes!” Chrysalis jumped on the opportunity, pointing an accusing hoof at the Crusaders of Harmony. “They’ll ditch you the first chance they get. They don’t really care about you!”

“They care about me more than you,” Cozy said coolly.

“Are you insane?” Tirek demanded, shaking her again. “What happened to the real Cozy Glow? She would never turn to friendship over power!”

The pegasus shook her head slowly. “No wonder Scorpan ditched you,” she said in a falsely sympathetic voice. “I would, too.”

The centaur’s jaw dropped, and his grip on Cozy slackened enough that she could wriggle out of his hand. She gave the shocked creature a pat on the head and said, “I’ve changed, Tirek. For the better, I think.”

“You think,” snarled Chrysalis, taking a threatening step towards the filly. “But how do you know?”

Cozy Glow shrugged. “Guess I just have to take a chance.”

“It won’t last,” the changeling said in a low voice. “It will never last. They’ll abandon you just like they did before - just like my hive abandoned me!”

Cozy studied her face and said, “I don’t blame them.”

She flew over to join her friends, who pulled her in for a group hug. Cozy sank into them, feeling all the anger and revenge she’d felt over the years sinking away as if it had never been there, replaced instead by an undeniable happiness, and she wanted more of it. She wanted all of it.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to the Crusaders. “I never meant-”

“Hey, it’s all good,” Lofty Skies assured her, grinning at Cozy Glow. “But you have to tell us what it’s been like so far. I mean, teaming up with two super villains to gain all the magic in Equestria and probably take it over? That is so cool!” She gasped as inspiration struck. “We should totally make a movie about it! I sense a massive bidding war on the horizon!”

“You forgot the part where I was frozen in stone for a hundred years,” Cozy teased, and spread her wings, inviting her friends in for a hug.

“It’s not worth it!” Tirek called after her, his voice breaking slightly. “It’s not worth giving up all that power-”

“Oh, but it is,” Cozy snapped, turning to glare at them. “Because friendship is the most powerful magic of all. And I am never giving it up.”

Behind the four foals, just barely visible in the trees, Sunny watched the whole thing go down, and something that Cozy Glow said stuck with her. “The most powerful magic of all…” she murmured to herself.

She thought that they would need to get their regular magic back to defeat these villains, because they were using magic against Sunny and her friends. But perhaps the magic that they needed to defeat them was inside them all along. The most powerful magic of all. The magic of friendship.

“Sunny!” hissed Hitch, next to Sunny. “Come on, let’s go before they catch us!”

“We came here to beat them,” she said calmly. “And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

She stepped out into the open, and Chrysalis and Tirek both lit up their horns when they saw her, advancing threateningly and clearly intending to destroy her. But Sunny wasn’t the least bit afraid. Reaching deep inside her, drawing out the magic that had always been there, Sunny tapped, not into her anger and fear and panic like she had done in the past, but into her joy and happiness and love for her friends.

“Sunny?” came Hitch’s uncertain voice as all the other creatures poked their heads out of the trees to see what was happening. “What are you doing?”

Sunny took a deep breath and let the magic come out.
> The Most Powerful Magic of All
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The funniest part about it all was Chrysalis and Tirek’s faces. They gaped at Sunny as they were bathed in a golden light, then realized that they were doomed, and their shock turned to fear and anger.

Sunny’s wings and horn appeared, golden with a rainbow sheen, and the colors in her mane seemed to glow brighter as well as her mane lifted off her shoulders and began to flow and wave. She rose off the ground effortlessly, without even flapping her wings, and her eyes began to glow a bright white light as magic coursed through her.

As he stared at the hovering alicorn in front of him, something strange struck Tirek’s mind. This wasn’t normal magic - it was the magic of friendship, more powerful than anything he could put together. This was what defeated him. And nothing would ever take it away forever.

His gaze switched to Cozy Glow, hugging her friends as they watched Sunny. She had left them for her friends, even though she knew that Tirek and Chrysalis would hate her for it, and if they won, would hunt her down and seek revenge. But she thought that it was worth all the potential risks, and she didn’t care what they thought of her.

You don’t need permission, or someone’s approval, to make friends, or be happy.

A memory bubbled to the surface: His brother Scorpan, begging him to give up their quest. I can’t do this anymore, he’d told him. I’ve seen what they can do, and who they really are, and I can’t take away something that important to them. And it will never make you happy, but I think that they might.

A bunch of prissy ponies? Tirek had snorted. What good could they do? He had paused as a thought struck him. You aren’t… making friends with them, are you?

And why shouldn’t I? Scorpan asked. Brother… this isn’t what you really want. This isn’t going to satisfy you or make you happy. It’s time to give this up.

No! he had roared. I will not! This is the only way!

Scorpan had sighed and pulled his medallion over his head, tying it around his brother’s neck. I love you, brother. I always will… no matter what choices you make. He took a step back and said, I’m sorry.

During his thousand years in prison, Tirek had felt nothing but hatred for his brother’s betrayal… but now he wondered, for the first time, what Scorpan had felt, handing over his brother to be trapped and imprisoned for a thousand years like that. And that madallion… Every time he thought of the words that his brother had said when he had given it to him, Tirek wondered if he had really meant it.

He may never know for sure. But, looking up at Sunny Starscout, he knew one thing.

Friendship was truly never ending. It was always there, buried underneath all the grief and pain and anger and unhappiness, and it would last. It would always last.

He wasn’t going to lose anything else.

Chrysalis finally snapped to her senses and activated Grogar’s bell, aiming it right at Sunny, but Tirek stepped in the way, feeling his strength deflate, but knowing that this was the right choice.

The changeling blinked, then, as the yellow light and black lightning from the bell vanished, shoved him unceremoniously to the side and suddenly got an idea. Turning the ancient artifact on herself, she released all the magic kept inside, the power flowing through her and making her horn spark with all the energy.

Chrysalis laughed as she flapped her wings, until she was the same height as Sunny Starscout. The mare’s eyes narrowed.

“You fools! I have all your magic, and now-” She created ropes of light that soared through the air, wrapping around Sunny and binding her wings and hooves to her sides, “-I have your friend. What are you going to do to stop me?”

“Sunny!” cried all her friends down below. Chrysalis smirked and sent a blast of magic, powerful enough to create a giant crater where it hit, intending to scatter the creatures so she could go back to her hive and take over. But the annoying little creatures just dodged around it and kept dodging every blast after that, all the while calling out to Sunny and screaming to each other that they had to make a plan.

Chrysalis spotted Monarch standing next to the trees, her calm presence and commanding composure making the creatures calm down as she shouted instructions. Her rage only doubled when she saw Cozy Glow listening eagerly with her ‘friends’, and Tirek’s horns glowing as he opened his mouth, preparing to suck away all of her magic. She snarled and fired a beam of magic at him that sent him racing back into the cave. Chrysalis clutched Grogar’s bell close to her chest and turned to Sunny.

The alicorn was still tied up, though she was struggling. Chrysalis was pleased to see that she was still in her super-powerful-magic state, and she closed her eyes, trying to find that mind link that Cozy Glow had planted there so long ago.

But… it was gone.

There was a tunnel, there was a connection, yes, but Chrysalis couldn’t enter Sunny Starscout’s mind. The earth pony had put up stronger walls and barriers - nothing was getting in there that she didn’t want.

Her whole plan was falling apart.

Chrysalis roared with fury - and Sunny lit up her horn, a glittering rainbow aura dancing up and down the golden tip, and the ropes that the changeling had put on her evaporated as easily as if they were made of dust. The former changeling queen didn’t notice yet - she was too busy lighting up her horn and forming a massive green ball at the tip, which Sunny saw, with a jolt of shock, that she was planning to throw at her friends down below. She frantically searched her mind for a solution - and then she found one.

Cozy Glow. Sunny reached out with her mind, finding the connection that was still there, strongest between her and the filly. She could block Cozy out, but now she let down her walls on purpose, she wanted the pegasus foal to talk to her. She was surprised with how easily the mental communication was coming to her - it was as if she had done this before. Listen to me. Get my friends out of here. I’m going to hold off Chrysalis for as long as I can, but if things don’t work out, you need to save Equestria. Keep everyone from fighting and keep harmony and friendship alive.

What? Down on the ground, Cozy Glow looked up at Sunny, a shocked expression on her face. I can’t do that! Nopony trusts me, remember?

I do, Sunny told her in a quiet voice. You knew my ancestor, right? Tell everyone her story. Tell them about what we can do when we work together. Teach them to be friends, not enemies. I know you can do it. And my friends will help you - I’m sure of it.

Cozy Glow looked at the ground. Then she said, Something your aunt once said to me… “The real magic has been right here. And the more who understand how powerful it is, the stronger we will all be. Together.” I never really understood what it meant, but now I do. It isn’t really about what we can do, but what we can inspire others to do. And that together, we accomplish so much more. She was quiet, then added, You really are the last Sparkle.

Sunny met her eyes, and for a brief moment, the white glow faded from Sunny’s eyes, and the two smiled at each other. Then Sunny was turning back to Chrysalis, her eyes white again, as Cozy Glow shouted instructions down below, directing ponies and creatures into the forest.

By this point, Chrysalis had realized that Sunny was no longer bound by her side, and she was now aiming the truly massive ball of destructive magic at Sunny. And when she finally shot it, Sunny just barely had time to put up a golden shield to protect herself from the force. Even so, she was still knocked over by the blast.

Sunny retaliated with a blast of her own, which met another one, sent by Chrysalis, in the middle of the space between the two airborne creatures. The beam coming from Sunny’s horn was golden, whereas the one from Chrysalis’ was a sickly green that fought hard against the bright gold. Sunny strained and pushed with all her might, but bit by bit, the beam edged closer her way - Chrysalis was winning.

“Sunny!”

Down below, Hitch, Izzy, Zipp, and Pipp were all watching with matching horrified expressions. The sheriff thought, If Sunny has friendship magic inside her… maybe we do, too. And maybe it will be enough to help her win!

A bright yellow glow surrounded Hitch, and he was lifted off the ground, his eyes shut tight.

“Sheriff?” Zipp said uncertainly, momentarily distracted from the fight above the ground. “What are you doing?”

A beam of yellow light shot out of Hitch’s chest - right where his heart was - and hit Sunny up above. The alicorn gasped as newfound strength flooded her, and she pushed back against Chrysalis with all she had left.

Pipp gasped as she realized what Hitch was doing, and soon, a pale white glow surrounded the pegasus and lifted her into the sky as well, another beam coming straight from her heart and giving Sunny more magic. The two airborne creatures were now even and in a stalemate, but it would soon be Chrysalis who felt the strain of keeping the fight going.

Zipp and Izzy, at the same time, also were lifted into the air, surrounded by their own glows - blue for Zipp, bright pink for Izzy. Up above them, Sunny was pushing Chrysalis back more than ever now - the giant orb that had formed where their magic beams connected was right on the tip of Chrysalis’ horn, and she strained to keep from losing.

No! she thought to herself. I’m supposed to win. I have all these ponies’ magic! They cannot defeat me!

A voice suddenly appeared in Chrysalis’ head: I feel sorry for you.

Chrysalis’ eyes, which had been shut in concentration, snapped open, and she stared across the battlefield to meet Sunny’s glowing white ones. She felt the connection close off, and Sunny’s eyes narrowed in concentration.

“NO!!!” Chrysalis screeched.

Sunny Starscout, fueled by a love for her friends unlike anything she had ever felt before, felt the magic come straight from her heart, surrounding the former changeling queen with blinding gold light, stripping away her magic and returning it to its rightful owners. With a final surge of power from Sunny, the changeling disappeared.





“Sunny! You’re okay!”

As she was lowered to the ground, Sunny was immediately overwhelmed by Hitch, who wrapped her into a hug so strong that it knocked her over.

“Oof! Yes, yes, I’m fine, okay, get off of me!” Sunny protested weakly, laughing too hard to care. Hitch stepped back to let her stand up, then wrapped her in another bone crushing hug, this time joined by Zipp, Pipp, and Izzy. On the shore of the lake, Flurry Heart had to hold back all the other creatures with a magical force field, just letting Sunny have a peaceful moment with her friends.

And as she stood there, ankle deep in mud and swamp and murky water, in the aftermath of one of the most intense fights she had ever been in, surrounded by the four best friends she would ever have, Sunny sighed and relaxed into her friends’ embrace, knowing that, no matter what came next, everything was going to be okay. Whatever came next was going to be, in a word, perfect.

Because with these ponies by her side… how could it not?
> Trial in the Clouds
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“The meeting of the Council of the Affected will now come to order.” A sky blue pegasus banged a gavel on the table. “Will Her Majesty Queen Haven of Zephyr Heights please begin by proposing to the council what her proposal is?”

Haven, seated at the head of the table with Alphabittle on her right and Phyllis Cloverleaf on her left, rose and said, “I propose that, in light of everything that has happened, we lift all charges of treason or crime from Sunny Starscout and her friends, both new and old,” she added, nodding to the creatures seated at the table.

“Objection!” called Helios from next to the pegasus who called the meeting to order. “That’s against the law, Your Highness.” He sat back, looking very pleased with himself.

Haven glared at him. “And that,” she said through clenched teeth, “is exactly why we’re having this meeting.”

Sunny sighed and shifted her gaze to the table in front of her. The Council of the Affected was composed of all the ponies - and, in this case, all the creatures - who would be affected by the new decision that may be made. Starting with representatives from each of the three tribes - Haven and Helios representing pegasi, Alphabittle and Jinx Evergreen’s father representing the unicorns, and Phyllis and Sweets for the earth ponies. Sunny’s friends, of course, were all there, because if Sunny’s charge of treason was lifted, then they would be off the hook as well.

But first, they would have to convince the council. Something like lifting the charge of treason needed a unanimous vote. And Helios wasn’t budging.

From the very moment that Sunny and her friends had walked through the door (led by Thunder and Zoom, their heads down so that it looked like they hadn’t come of their own free will), the yellow pegasus had been shooting Sunny glares so intense it was a wonder she didn’t catch fire. Even as Permafrost and Sour Lavender were passed along to a new set of guards to be brought down to the dungeon, the pegasus’ eyes never wavered from Sunny’s. Pipp and Zipp kept muttering about how strange this was - they didn’t remember the pegasus being this much of a jerk before.

“Why should we do such a thing?” he demanded now, glaring right back at Haven as she sat down again. “Our ponies saw her walk right up to this… this… this Legion of Doom, as you call it, and walk away with them! If that isn’t treason, I don’t know what is!”

Haven looked to her daughters for an explanation, but it was Flurry Heart who took the floor. She cleared her throat and stood up, and even Helios fell silent.

“Sunny was under the influence of a pony named Cozy Glow,” Flurry explained, reaching under her wing to pull out a piece of paper, which she slid across the table to Helios, who read it furiously. “A spell designed to create a connection between the minds of two or more ponies - a mind link. This connection allows one to enter the mind of another, even giving them the ability to control actions, memories, and thoughts.”

“And how do we know that this is the spell that was used?” Helios snapped, shoving the paper away from him. Jinx Evergreen’s father caught it, and he smoothed it out and scanned it.

“I’ll show you.” Flurry gestured to Sunny, and the earth pony stood up and followed Flurry Heart around to Helios’ side of the table, where they made sure he could see. Flurry lit up her horn, a sunshine yellow light filling the already sunny room. Yellow light surrounded Sunny, and a singular symbol appeared above Sunny: a curving golden strand weaving between two horseshoes.

“So?” the pegasus snorted, rolling his eyes. “Big deal.”

“If you’ll look on the corner,” Flurry Heart said calmly, pointing to the paper that was now in Haven’s hooves, “you’ll see this exact symbol. It’s called a spell sign - it’s a way of identifying a spell without using words. The spell I used reveals the spell sign of the last spell cast on a pony.”

Helios gaped at her. He flushed as he looked down at his hooves. “W-well, say that is the spell that was used,” he finally snapped. “Who’s to say that it still wasn’t her free will? How do we know that someo - somepony put the thought into her head that she was going to abandon her kingdom?”

“I thought you might say that,” Zipp said, standing up as Flurry and Sunny sat back down. “So I brought in the pony who did it.” She turned to Thunder and Zoom, guarding the doors, and nodded. The former pushed open the door, and a foal trotted into the room.

“Who’s this?” Helios yawned, acting disinterested.

Cozy Glow glared at him. “My name is Cozy Glow,” she said in a cold voice. “And I’m here to tell you that what they’re saying is true.”

“How riveting,” he said in a bored voice, propping one hoof on the table and leaning his head on it.

“Here, Cozy,” Zipp said, nosing a glass of clear liquid towards the filly, who picked it up without hesitation and drank half of it. Now Helios looked concerned.

“What was that?” he asked sharply.

“Just a little something I made,” Zipp said modestly with a shrug. “It’s a potion to make whoever drinks it tell the truth.”

“Because we want to make sure that we hear nothing but the truth,” Imara added, smiling pleasantly at Helios from across the table. “You know all about how important it is to tell the truth, don’t you, Helios?” She blinked her wide eyes innocently, but Sunny noticed that the way Helios squirmed in his seat suggested more than just discomfort - perhaps there was panic and fear in there.

But how? He couldn’t have known Imara before.

“Cozy Glow,” Haven said in a kind, gentle voice, redirecting Sunny’s attention back to the filly, “could you please tell us what happened?”

She shrugged. “Sure. We - that is, Tirek, Chrysalis, and I - we wanted to take over Equestria, but we didn’t want anypony standing in our way. So we went to Sunny’s house and put the spell on her that would allow us to enter her mind and control her thoughts and actions. Then, without her, none of her friends would be much threat. I didn’t do anything drastic at first - sudden mood changes, strange thoughts that she couldn’t get out of her head - but the longer it went on, the weaker she became.”

Cozy swallowed and looked straight into Sunny’s eyes for the next part. “It took all of us together to finally break her and have complete control, but when we did, we had her bring Grogar’s bell to us so we could use it, and we used her as a shield to escape Zephyr Heights. If they tried to hurt us, we threatened to hurt Sunny. We kept her captive so that her friends would hopefully remain out of the picture - and we set up a distraction for them in the north that would keep them busy.”

“King Sombra,” Flurry said, her wings shuddering slightly. “You call that a distraction?”

“Well, it worked,” Cozy said. “But Sunny was also growing stronger - she had begun entering our minds and reminding us of… things we had tried to forget - and then we realized that we hadn’t been holding on with the mind link as tightly as we should have, and we couldn’t use it anymore. Sunny escaped and went off to go try and warn the other tribes that we had been lying to them about ponies wanting to destroy them all.

“Then we discovered how much more power Sunny had than we thought - and that if she used it in just the right way, we could reenter the mind link and get her back under control. But that failed - something snapped her out of it before we could really use her for anything good. So we gave up on that. But we did use the mind link - I used the mind link - to make her do things she didn’t want to do, things that would only benefit us.” She looked down at her hooves. “I’m really sorry about that, Sunny,” she added in a whisper.

“That’s all we have to go off of?” Helios asked with a nervous little laugh. “There’s no evidence to back it up or anything?”

Wordlessly, Pipp slid her phone across the table, the screen playing a clip of Cozy Glow confessing her involvement in Sunny’s traitorous activities. When it was done, the room was so silent that you could hear a pin drop.

“What is Grogar’s bell?” Haven asked, the look she was giving Cozy Glow surprisingly hopeful.

“It’s an ancient artifact that can steal the magic from any creature and give it to another,” Cozy explained. “It used to belong to an ancient ram named Grogar when he was the first emperor of Equestria, but after he was defeated, Gusty the Great hid the bell atop Mount Everhoof. We only recovered it… it feels like a few months ago, but it was actually a century ago. All I know is that Sunny knew where to find it, so we had her bring it to us.”

“Thank you, Cozy Glow,” Haven said. The filly gave her a smile, but Zipp noticed how she was teetering on her hooves ever so slightly. Opening her wing, the exhausted filly leaned into the older pegasus.

“Well,” Haven continued, looking pointedly at Helios, “I think that settles it-”

“Uh, no it doesn’t!” the pegasus contradicted, sitting up straight. “How do we even know that was the truth? That ‘truth telling potion’ could be nothing more than a glass of water for all we know!” He pointed an accusatory hoof at the half-full glass of clear potion on the table and lifted his nose haughtily.

“Why don’t you try some, then?” Imara suggested, gently scooching the glass over to him. “If you’re so sure.”

Now Helios looked uncertain, and he regarded the glass, weighing possibilities in his mind. “I shouldn’t-”

“But if it’s just a harmless glass of water,” Imara urged. “You aren’t - you aren’t afraid of it, are you?” she asked with a pretend gasp of shock.

Helios glared at her so hard that it was a wonder the changeling didn’t spontaneously combust into a pile of glitter from the ferocity. He looked around the table and saw that every single pony or creature was expecting him to either drink the potion or admit his cowardice. Grumbling and mentally swearing his revenge, Helios grabbed the glass and downed the rest of it in a single gulp.

“There!” he snapped at Imara. “Happy now, you little-”

“Well, first,” Imara said, indeed looking very happy, “I would like to ask you a few questions, just to make sure that this is legit. That’s all right with you, isn’t it, Helios?”

He gulped and muttered, “No.”

“Oh, wonderful,” she said cheerfully, clapping her hooves. “We’ll start with something simple. What’s your name?”

“Termite,” he said automatically, then clapped his hooves over his mouth as everyone except for Imara gasped in shock. “I - I mean-”

“And where do you come from?” Imara continued in a cheerful, calm voice as if nothing had happened.

“The Changeling Kingdom,” Helios peeped in a voice several octaves higher than usual.

“And where is the real Helios?”

The doors opened, and a very dazed pegasus walked into the room, shaking his head as he struggled to get his bearings. He scanned the room, his eyes widening in shock when he saw all of the different creatures, and the fact that his queen was back so soon, and Sunny Starscout was sitting there with all her friends. “What… what’s going on in here?” Helios asked, his eyes landing on the duplicate of himself. “Oh,” was all he could muster before collapsing on the floor.

Flurry Heart lit her horn, and Termite’s disguise burned away, revealing the dark green and red changeling for who he really was. “Imposter!” the alicorn shouted, pointing a hoof at him.

Thunder and Zoom leapt forward, but Termite hissed at them and shifted into a falcon, spreading his wings and disappearing out the window before the guards could catch him.

“How did you know?” Flurry asked Imara, stunned.

“I grew up doing this,” the changeling said with a very smug look on her face. “Besides, from what I hear, he was acting very strangely. And it would take a master manipulator to do all of this,” she added, waving her hoof around them, indicating the city below. “Plus, the only creatures who wouldn’t change their mind with the evidence right in front of their faces are the creatures who are idiots or the creatures who don’t want something to happen.”

The sky blue pegasus cleared his throat. “Let’s keep moving.” He hit the table with his gavel. “We need a new pegasus representative. Your Majesty, would you like to make a selection?”

Zoom raised her hoof, and Haven nodded her consent. The guard prefered to stand next to the queen rather than sit down at the table, but Sunny felt a huge weight lift off her chest as she joined them - everything was going to be okay.

“Name?” the pegasus asked for the records.

“Zoom Zephyrwing.”

“Profession?”

“Royal guard.”

He nodded and made the note. “Let us proceed.” Bang.

“All in favor of lifting the charge of treason from Sunny Starscout?” Haven asked, and all hooves and claws in the room raised. Sunny, who wasn’t allowed to vote as the matter was concerning her directly, glanced across the room at Cozy Glow, who was looking at Thunder and Zoom with apprehension, and she got an idea.

“Actually, could we extend it to all those who fought bravely against Chrysalis in the swamp?” Sunny asked, turning to Haven.

She gave a little start as she realized what Sunny was saying, but she eventually conceded by announcing, “...All in favor of approving the change?”

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, fourteen votes were in favor. Haven, Alphabittle, and Phyllis added their votes, as well as Zoom and Sweets. Jinx Evergreen’s father hesitates slightly before putting his hoof in the air, but it was there, it was approved, the ruling passed.

A huge grin on her face, Haven drafted the new proclamation on official looking paper and signed it with a flourish, then sent id down the table to the pegasus, who scanned it and said, “Approved as read,” before adding the royal seal and rolling it up. “This meeting is officially adjourned.”

Bang.





Termite ducked into a low alleyway, back in his original form as he watched Haven make the announcement - all charges of treason or any crime had been lifted from any pony or creature that fought against the Legion of Doom in the swamp, even those who changed their mind. If you ended up fighting for Equestria, you were off the hook.

He growled and ducked back behind the brick building before he was spotted.

All that work… for what? Nothing. Sunny Starscout and her friends had gotten away as usual, and his queen was surely going to be very angry with him when he returned home.

A boiling, blinding rage built up inside the changeling as he walked away, a new path laying out in front of him… and he would take it.

“Soon, Sunny Starscout,” he snarled as he took the first step onto this new path. “Soon I shall have my revenge."
> The Sun Rises
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I still don’t see why you had to have your lighthouse redone again, Sunny,” Hitch commented as the two earth ponies stared at the glittering structure in the early morning light. “I mean, you just got a new one!”

Sunny shivered slightly in the chill. The sun had not yet risen, but the edge of the sky was pale, so she knew that warmth and light would be coming soon. “I know,” she told her foalhood friend, “but this is what I saw in my window in the Hall of Princesses. I even went back and checked it. Besides, Hitch, just look at that rainbow!” She felt a smile crawling across her face as she stepped back to get a better look at it.

Sunny’s new lighthouse - or Crystal Brighthouse, as she called it - was larger than her old one, made to accomodate not just her, but all of her friends. The structure was made of a shiny crystal material, with stained glass windows showing all three pony tribes, and the three crystals that brought them together. The crystals in question were in the center of the Brighthouse, generating the massive rainbow that split the sky in two that Sunny was looking at right now.

“It really is something,” Hitch admitted. He smiled down at the two seagulls and crab that were now following him everywhere - he didn’t have to speak their language to know that they had missed him.

“Just think about it,” Sunny said passionately. “Whenever ponykind needs a reminder about magic and friendship and harmony, they can look up and see this glowing in the sky - and at the end of it, Maretime Bay, and us, and our friends. And everything will be fine again.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Hitch said teasingly, nudging her. “Nothing is ever fine for long with us.”

Sunny laughed. “True,” she told him. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the cool morning air. “Besides,” she added in a light voice, “it’s not like I had to pay for it.”

“It came from me,” came a familiar voice behind them, and Sunny and Hitch turned to see Flurry Heart walking up the dirt path to the Crystal Brighthouse, a huge grin on her face. Sunny ran forward and pulled the alicorn into a hug, which she returned, even pulling Hitch in, though he protested.

“Wow,” Flurry said when she let them go, looking the Brighthouse up and down. “You’ve really outdone yourself here, Sunny. Want to do my house next?”

“Ha, ha, no,” Sunny said. “And I just took what you gave me and ran with it.”

“True,” Flurry admitted. “But you came up with the plans. And I absolutely love it.” Her eyes landed on the stained glass windows surrounding the front door - Sunny had tried her best to match the pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony on them to the ones on the window in Zephyr Heights - and gasped. “Oh, did I tell you? Queen Haven’s letting me have all those ancient windows that we found. I’m moving them to the Crystal Empire later today.” She grinned at Sunny. “Want to come see them when they’re done?”

“I’d love to,” Sunny said truthfully. “What are you planning to do with them?”

“Oh, I’m thinking that I’ll put them in the throne room,” Flurry said thoughtfully, tapping her chin. “They’ll look nice, though I might have to renovate the color a little bit to match.”

“Don’t forget to add those signs pointing to the exits,” Hitch reminded her.

“And the signs on the doors,” Sunny laughed, remembering Alphabittle’s wheezy face as he had collapsed on the streets of the Crystal Empire on their last trip up there. The three ponies looked at each other before dissolving into giggles.

“Woops,” Flurry said, looking at the sky. “I’d better get going. Promise me you’ll visit?”

“Of course,” Sunny assured her at the same time Hitch said, “Yeah!”

Flurry smiled and pulled the two earth ponies into one more hug. She flapped her wings and rose a few meters above them and called, “See you around!” before lighting up her horn and disappearing in a flash of bright yellow light.

Sunny turned back to the horizon and took a deep breath. Even that was enough to make her smile.

Ever since she had come back to Maretime Bay, she had felt so light, so happy. All the trials and tribulations were over - now she could just spend a quiet moment with her friends in her hometown, without evil villains chasing her all over the place.

There was no magical crisis. There were no lost memories. There was no darkness on the horizon. There was no hatred or cruelty or danger.

Just her. And the four absolute best friends a pony could ever ask for.

As if reading her mind, Hitch said, “It’s really sad that they had to go.”

The thought of the memory was like a punch to the gut, and Sunny had to blink furiously to keep from crying again. “I know.” Sunny sighed. “But they wanted to try and spread the word in their own kingdoms about the lies that they’ve been told. I guess seeing how Termite had riled up all of ponykind back there was kind of unsettling.”

Imara, Ash, Kailani, Little Braveheart, Brooks, Hugo, and Lukas had all decided to go home yesterday afternoon. They had spent the whole day in Maretime Bay together - they had, in fact, spent the week touring Zephyr Heights, Bridlewood, and Maretime Bay, in that order, while Sunny’s Crystal Brighthouse was being built. Having magic really sped up construction. But all the creatures had been kind of clumped together, discussing something in hushed voices, and Sunny had wondered what they had been whispering about. Now she knew.

As the day turned to night, Ash approached Sunny and told her about all of the creatures’ intentions.

“We love it here, Sunny - we really do,” the dragon had assured her. “And we love all of you. But we love our homes, too, and we don’t want either of them to get caught in a war.”

“We’re going to try and convince them of the truth,” Kailani had declared, her eyes wet with unshed tears but determined. “We want to help save the world, and this is the only way we know how.”

“We can do this together,” Sunny had suggested.

Little Braveheart put her arm on Sunny’s shoulder. “No, Sunny, we can’t,” she said in a quiet voice. “This is something that we have to do alone.”

“But we promise we’ll come back to you as soon as we can,” Hugo told her, trying to be optimistic. “Once all this is over, we’ll take you on a tour of our own kingdoms, and we’ll stay together forever and ever.”

“It’s going to be okay, Sunny,” Imara had said, giving Sunny a grin that she noticed wavered slightly with the changeling’s exceptionally shiny eyes. “We are going to be okay.”

And as much as she hated to admit it, Sunny knew that Imara was right. She cared about all of her friends so much, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing them. She wanted to turn into an alicorn and cast a magic spell that would make them all stay in Maretime Bay forever, and they could just be friends, but she knew that would be wrong.

So they all said their good-byes, with many promises to visit in the future, and to send letters by some form or another if anything important happened, and lots of hugs and shed tears. Then all the creatures boarded Hugo’s zeppelin and flew off into the sunset.

It was then that Sunny had finally asked Zipp, Pipp, and Izzy if they would like to live here in Maretime Bay with her and Hitch, and they had said yes so fast it sent Sunny’s head spinning. Then, laughing, they had run off to go pack, promising to be there in a few days. Sunny had no doubt in her mind that Haven would take some convincing to let her daughters live in Maretime Bay, and would obviously want to plan a big, sumptuous celebration to send them off, but she was so excited to have them here with her that she didn’t care how long it took.

Her friends. Every time she thought the words, she felt a small thrill of happiness, a feeling of success. After all these years, after all this time, she had finally gotten to the world that her father wanted for her - that her ancestor had lived in.

“It all seems so crazy,” she said, “that a few months ago, you were just the sheriff, and I was only a smoothie pony with some awesome skating tricks.”

“Ha.” Hitch smirked at her. “Little Braveheart does not have awesome skating tricks.”

Sunny burst out laughing, remembering how she had attempted to teach her friends how to roller skate - with varying degrees of success. Most of them got it after a bit of practice - that is, they could fly down the street without crashing into too much - but it was the memory of Little Braveheart that got Sunny every time.

The tiny buffalo had tried to perform some of Sunny’s tricks before she was even used to the wheels, and had ended up taking an unexpected swim in the ocean, and Kailani had to go fetch her. The grumpy expression on the buffalo’s face made Sunny crack up just thinking about it.

“We have fun together, don’t we?” she said after a while. Her smile faded as a new thought occurred to her. “How’s Cozy Glow? Is she okay?”

Hitch frowned. “I mean… she’s got her own house and everything, and she doesn’t spend a single moment without her friends, but you can tell that this is all hard for her. Everything is so different now, and everypony that she knew is… Well, you get what I mean,” he eventually decided on saying.

“She never knew her parents,” Sunny said quietly. “And now they’re gone. She made so many mistakes with so many ponies and creatures, and she never got to apologize.”

“But she’s got a good group of friends,” Hitch said confidently. “I think she’s going to be alright.” He was silent. “Are… are we alright, Sunny?”

“What do you mean?” Sunny asked, surprised.

Hitch shuffled his hooves nervously. “Well, it’s just… you remember how it used to be? Back in the old days? When it was just… you and me?”

“Yeah?” What does this have to do with anything? Sunny thought quietly to herself.

“I miss those days,” he said quickly. “Now, with all your new friends, and saving the world, and everything is so big and important now… it feels like we’re not as close as we used to be, and I miss it.” He looked dejectedly down at the ground. “I know, I know, it’s selfish of me-”

“Hitch, stop,” Sunny told him. “I miss the old days, too. And I love all of my friends, but you’ve been my friend since foalhood. Even if you didn’t believe me,” she added teasingly. “What do you say we… hang out a little bit? Just to make up for lost time.” She took a deep breath. “I’d love to just spend a nice, quiet moment with my friends… everything seems so crazy nowadays.”

“You’re telling me,” Hitch snorted. But he looked much happier now as he said, “Should we be worried? About Termite? He seems kind of… vengeful.”

Sunny looked at the horizon, now much brighter, the edge shimmering with gold. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “But I do know that, no matter what comes next, I want my friends by my side - no matter what.”

The sun rose, casting everything in a blinding golden light, and Sunny smiled.

“We did it, Dad,” she whispered. “We’ll do our part…”

Sunny put her hoof to the sunrise, then placed it on her heart.

“Hoof to heart.”

Everything was going to be okay.
> Epilogue: Reign
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

His prison had been growing weaker…

He had been growing stronger…

The magic splintered and broke…

And the ram awoke…