What Shall be True

“Rainbow, please, it’s me! It’s Twilight!”

“Yeah right. Twilight’s long gone, and this is a pretty awful imitation of her!”

“It’s a disguise, dammit!”

“You think I buy that?”

“Dashie, it’s her! It’s really her! Stop trying to kill her!” Pinkie pressed against Dash’s shoulder, with no effect except the superficial protest.

Dash glanced down at Pinkie as best she could, then back into Twilight’s eyes. Her right eye was gone completely, covered by a patch out from which spread a few ugly-looking scars. Her left eye, though, was filled with enough raw malice to start a wildfire, but with just a hint of something else Twilight couldn’t decipher.

There were a few long, scary moments before Dash spoke again. “One question. Get it wrong and you die.”

Twilight nodded as best as she could with the hoofblade digging into her neck.

“The race through Ghastly Gorge, with all the animals trying to be my pets. Tank didn’t cross the line first. Which animal did?”

“The falcon. It was the falcon.”

Dash stared even more intensely into Twilight’s eyes, as if trying to pull a lie out of that answer. Then she flapped her wings a couple times, flying back and releasing Twilight from the chokehold. Her gaze didn’t relent, though.

Twilight just fell onto her hooves, taking a few seconds to get her bearings. She brought a hoof up to her throat, just to check, and felt it come back just a little damn with warm blood.

It was only as bad as getting scratched by Spike, but it still came with more than a few feelings of painful betrayal.

“Geez…could you be any less gentle?”

Rainbow fluttered her wings nervously, before folding them in. The wingblades, without a hinge at the wing joint, stuck out awkwardly to either side of her neck. “I couldn’t be sure if you were a Changeling or not. After all, you did die.”

“She didn’t die! She got sucked into the future!”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

As Pinkie let out a brief lecture on the permanence of death versus the impermanence of time travel, Twilight got her first good look at the prismatic battlemare. Her hair was short and choppy, like it’d been cut with nothing but a hoofblade (it probably had), as was her tail. Her entire right side looked awful, and everything down to just behind her hindlimb was coated with a webwork of nasty-looking scars. Her right foreleg was nothing but a stump just below the shoulder, and even her right wing showed signs of wear and tear. Scattered all over her body were a few cuts and bruises, which oozed red blood that glared obviously against her cyan coat. Much like her, the large, elegant wingblades she was wearing were sharp enough to be more than lethal, and well-worn enough to be undoubtedly battle-tested. The hoofblade on her foreleg was simple and crude, in sharp contrast with her wingblades, and scraped the ground as it ran along the front of her hoof without being attached to it below the ankle.

Rainbow let out a harsh noise that sounded somewhere between a groan and a sigh, and if she had enough legs, she’d probably be face-hoofing right then. “Pinkie, when was the last time I told you to give simple answers?”

“Five years and six months ago, almost to the day,” Twi interjected. Rainbow just shot her a look. “According to my memory.”

The prismatic pegasus mulled that over in her mind, then nodded slightly. “The day you disappeared. You’ve got your timelines straight, I’ll give you that.”

“Beeecause I’m Twilight.”

“We’ll see for sure soon enough.”

Twilight was about to ask what that meant, before a wave of fluorescent red magic swept through the three of them and spread throughout the rest of the town, phasing through buildings and reaching a height well above that of the highest rooftops.

“What…what was that?”

Rainbow just shot an idiot grin at a confused Pinkie Pie.

Twilight just stood there, gears in her brain whirring as she analyzed it. From the looks of things, it almost looked like some kind of…scanning spell. In fact, it looked exactly like a scanning spell she’d seen in her textbook on basic searching spells. It would identify ponies with magical potential and then list them, and their location, to the searcher. Most scholars disregarded it, since it was hard to cast and only worked on unicorns, alicorns, or other ponies who could do magic. But it seemed like these ponies had found a clever use for it.

“You developed a spell to search for Changelings?”

Dash’s smile grew. “We sure did. Then we use signal flares to tell the rest of us how many are left, and where they are. Pretty neat, eh?”

“Super-neat!”

“You bet it is, Pinkie! Good to see you, by the way!” They hoofbumped, Rainbow flapping with her wings to keep herself steady. Then Rainbow pulled her into a hug.

Twilight just shook her head in disbelief. “Whatever unicorn you’re using to cast that spell must be…wow…they must be really, really good.”

Rainbow jumped off of Pinkie Pie and did her best failed attempt at looking modest. “Oh, you know me. I just have a knack for attracting the best of the best to my team.”

Twilight was about to pull some snarky comment out of her bucket of assembled quips for Rainbow Dash moments, but she was interrupted by a single green flare arcing into the sky behind her.

Dash looked up at it, then smiled. “All clear for two miles. That’s my boys…” With a sudden motion, she took off and hovered above the two of them. “You should get goin’ to the Town Hall. We’ll be making a few announcements. You hear that, everypony!” She shouted at the various buildings around them. “Meeting at the Town Hall in five minutes! Ponyville is officially liberated! Meet at the Town Hall in five minutes for a few announcements from your saviors!”

She sped off to spread the message, leaving Pinkie and Twilight in a street that was about to become filled with ponies. Twilight shared a glance with Pinkie, who simply shrugged and walked over to collect her party cannon (could it still be called that if it shot bombs now?). Twilight tried to pay attention to where it went, and it looked like it disappeared into her mane, but…how could it even fit there? Did her mane have spatial-dilative properties?

Twilight shook her head and slid her wing over Star Swirl’s book, confirming its continued existence and proximity, before finally deciding to remove her bodysuit entirely. It was ruined anyway. Besides, there wasn't much point in hiding behind it when Ponyville was liberated. Pinkie waited patiently for her to finish, and once she did, she tucked the book firmly underneath her wing and the two of them started their walk to the Town Hall.

There were surprisingly few ponies who joined them on that walk. Twilight wasn’t an expert, but this most certainly wasn’t the entire population of Ponyville. Then again, Applejack said that a lot of the ponies fled to the Everfree. Maybe this really was everyone in Ponyville? As she walked by, staring at some of the ponies, Twilight got more than a few stares back, most of them nothing but pure awe and confusion. A lot of ponies were whispering, and she knew they were whispering about her. On one hoof, her presence might give them hope. On the other, all the whispering was seriously creeping her out.

When they made it to the main plaza, Twilight caught sight of Applejack right away, up near the front of the sparse crowd. Up there, on the porch of the framework structure once called Town Hall, stood about two dozen ponies decked out in all kinds of combat gear. They were clearly visible from anywhere in the crowd, but instead of crowding around them the Ponyville ponies seemed to be giving them plenty of space.

Twilight didn’t need to push much to get up next to AJ. After all, the crowd was pretty thin, and most ponies moved aside once they saw a living, breathing alicorn princess walking through the crowd.

“Hey, Applejack. Applebloom.” Twilight slid up next to the two earth ponies.

Applebloom glanced over, turned back, and then stared straight at Twilight like she’d seen a ghost. “T-Twilight!?”

Twilight just smiled, not sure if that reaction would ever get old. “The one and only.”

“B-But…you died!”

“Nope. Just sucked into the future is all.” Twilight glanced around them, finally noticing somepony was missing. “Where’s Green Hoof?”

“He was a Sleeper, apparently.” Applejack glanced over Twilight, looked her up and down, and then went back to looking at the stage with a furious fire burning in her green eyes.

Applebloom reached out and poked Twilight with one hoof, as if testing her corporeality.

“It’s really you…”

“Yes, it’s really me.”

“The last alicorn princess…” she breathed to herself.

It was Twilight’s turn to act surprised. “Wait…what?”

“Hear ye, hear ye, Fillies and Gentlecolts of Ponyville!” Rainbow interrupted their conversation by landing with a loud THUD! onto the platform/stage, right in-between a red unicorn stallion with a black mane, a missing ear, and two swords strapped to his flank, and an orange-and-black Pegasus with a short purple mane who was armed with hoofblades and belts of what Twilight could only assume were explosives. Upon landing, she stretched out her wings in a grand gesture that made Twilight wonder how often she hit somepony with her wingblades. “You have been liberated from your cruel Changeling overlords! From this day forth, you are free citizens!”

A murmur went through the crowd, which sounded mostly like surprise. Free? Was this actually happening?

Then Rainbow pointed at Twilight with one wing. “The Last Alicorn Princess has returned! It is time, fellow ponies, for us to rise up against the Changelings and throw down the reign of Queen Chrysalis! The Rebellion begins now!”

Everypony turned to stare at Twilight, who suddenly developed a keen interest in her hooves. She could feel Pinkie tense up next to her, just as Applejack chose to step forward.

“Hold it right there, Dash! Don’t’cha remember the last time you tried to take her down!?”

Dash looked surprised for a moment, then that intense fire from earlier roared up in her. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Deserter!”

“What did you just call me!?”

“I called you what you are! You know, a pony who abandons her friends and comrades in their time of need!”

“Ah am no such thin’! B’sides, it was your bucked-up plan that got us all nearly killed! If you’d listened to mah advice in the first place, Luna’d still be here to tell you to SHUT YER TRAP!”

Rainbow crouched low to the ground, wings flared and ready for a fight. “You know what I think! I think you like Chrysalis. After all, you did take a Changeling into your home!”

Applejack just stood firmly planted on the ground, her lack of armor or weapons betraying her power. “Ah didn’t know he was one ah them! And Ah want the Changelin’s gone just as much as you! Ah’m just bein’ SMART ABOUT IT so the WHOLE BUCKIN’ HORDE doesn’t COME DOWN ON OUR HEADS!”

“We have Twilight now! We can take ‘em! Unless you wanna SIT DOWN and CRY when she NEEDS YOU TO FIGHT!”

Applejack looked about ready to run up and break Dash in half. “HOW DARE Y—“

“ENOUGH, BOTH OF YOU!”

The Royal Canterlot Voice had a knack for shutting ponies up.

Twilight stepped out and between them, looking as imposing as she could. She must have been that way, too, because she was staring Applejack right in at eye level as she talked.

“Applejack, Dash is right. I can’t stand by and let you ponies go through Tartarus every day just to eke out an existence! This is still Equestria, dammit, and we’re a country that cares for and protects its citizens! Those were the principles we were founded on, and by all the Princesses, those are the principles we’re sticking to!”

“Twilight…”

She shot a glance at Pinkie, silently pleading with her, ‘Not right now.’

“Ha! You hear that, AJ! Gu—“

“On the other hoof,” she projected, rounding on Dash, who cowered slightly, but whose eyes blazed with fury. Apparently, she didn’t like having her command subverted. Tough. “Applejack is right too! These are Equestrian citizens, and they need to be protected and taken somewhere safe when the Changelings decide to do something about the attack YOU just committed against them! And I don’t care how good your force is, it’s not going to protect all of Ponyville from however many thousands of Changelings Chrysalis will send at us! So unless you have a plan for that, your revolution will be pretty short-lived!”

“But-“

“No buts, Applejack! Now, unless you have something useful or productive to say, you will both keep your mouths SHUT and your hooves to YOURSELVES, or I will personally cut you into GIBLETS and feed you to the MANTICORES! UNDERSTAND!?”

Applejack gave a small, humbled nod as she stood low to the ground. Rainbow Dash just glared daggers at Twilight for a couple seconds, before growling something that sounded like a yes.

Twilight nodded, then softened. “I’m just doing this because I need both your help to keep everypony safe. And if anyone has any suggestions or requests, I’d like them to come tell them to me as soon as possible.” As she addressed the crowd, she noticed something a little odd. She was taller than most of them. Sure, she felt larger than life, and far more in command, but this was different. She had clearly, physically grown at least a few inches, and was now the same height as Applejack.

With her peace made, she started walking back towards Pinkie Pie and Applebloom to take a seat in her former spot, taking note of the more-than-disconcerting fact that she was taller than Pinkie by a solid inch.

“Twilight,” Pinkie muttered at her, “Twi, you Pinkie Promised.”

Twilight just shook her head. “I know, Pinkie. But this is something I have to do.”