The Fall of Armonia

Princess Armonia stared at the newly formed crater on the orphanage's lawn, and the stunned alicorn that lay inside it.

Oh my Goddess. I just knocked out Princess Celestia.

Tendrils pulsed. Shadows crooned. A fresh wave of phobomancy entered Armonia, made her giddy. Panic became pride.

Oh my Goddess, I just knocked out Princess Celestia! Not even Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra, or Discord himself could do that. I really am strong enough to-

"Tia!" cried Princess Luna.

Armonia jerked, remembering where she was and, more importantly, who she still had to contend with.

"Thou shalt cease this madness at once!" Luna leveled her horn between Armonia's eyes, and evoked water. Lots of water.

Behind Armonia, a twenty foot wave rose in a gurgling roar, crashed down, and swallowed everything below her neck. The pressure was incredible. Foaming waters pounded inward with enough force to render a fully grown dragon utterly motionless.

Armonia, however, was rendered utterly unimpressed.

"Methinks not, Luna," she sighed theatrically, rolled her eyes, and made her move.

Physical movement was out of the question, but she didn't need to physically move to spellcast. The liquid around Armonia froze. Next moment, it shattered, and some deft telekinetic pushes sent every jagged shard of it pelting at Luna.

Go on, Lulu. Do your thing. See what it gets you.

On cue, Luna's cobalt armor, dusky fur, and night sky mane faded into smoke. But although Armonia's icicles sailed harmlessly through her incorporeal target, she grinned triumphantly.

Phase one: complete.

Armonia released her hold over ice, and switched to sunlight.

Now for phase two-

A pained yowl broke Armonia's concentration. Too late, she realized who had been behind the target she'd never intended to hit.

"H-headmaster Intellectus?"

He writhed where he lay, fur covered in frost shards. Some had hit the stony patches of Intellectus' half-petrified fur, and caused no damage. Others had. Here and there, blood trickled down the Sphinx's heaving sides.

Blood she'd drawn.

Intellectus groaned and tried to mend the cuts. His uraeus - that peculiar cobra-shaped horn every sphinx had - sparked and gave out.

He was too weak to heal himself. Because of her.

"Sir, I didn't mean-" Armonia choked on the words, and tried new ones. "You weren't supposed to..."

Intellectus saw her through eyes fogged by pain, and cringed.

Not like this. I didn't want you to fear me like this.

Armonia's chest ached. Her vision blurred. Oily tears ran down her cheeks. And in the reflection she cast upon Intellectus' cracked spectacles, her serpentine pupils turned back to normal. Without thinking, Armonia cast healing magic. A gentle cyan breeze breathed over cut skin, and fixed it.

Intellectus blinked in surprise. His gaze met Armonia's. His panicked breathing slowed. His fear faded. A very large part of Armonia thought that was bad. A smaller, but very insistent, part of her thought otherwise. She swallowed, and reached for the closest thing she had to a father.

"I'm sor-"

Azure shadows lashed out of thin air, ensnaring Armonia. Smoke congealed nearby, and spoke in the Royal Canterlot Voice.

"Thou shalt address us as Princess Luna, just Armonia."

Completely bound, Armonia coughed and gagged on bewitched fumes. Her horn fizzled, her struggles lessened, and her eyelids fluttered. Warm fuzziness filled her head. Her limbs grew heavy.

She's putting me to sleep, thought Armonia lazily, while everything went dark. As if I was a bawling newborn foal.

A spark of terror kindled at the core of her.

As if I was a weak, pathetic, useless cripple who didn't know thing one about dream magic.

The spark was a bonfire now.

As if.

Phobomancy blazed through her every fiber.

As if!

The world snapped back into focus.

AS IF!

And when her eyes opened, they were red slits again.

"That’s Princess Armonia to you, just Luna." Blinding sunlight seared from her horn. At once, Armonia's bonds evaporated, and their dazzled maker was rendered corporeal again.

Phase two: complete. Phase three: pummel her.

Armonia leapt, spun in midair, landed on her fore-hooves, and bucked Luna with enough force to smash the ex-princess's suit of armor to smithereens.

Below, Intellectus curled up in a ball, grunting as ice shards pounded his back. Armonia didn't notice. She only had eyes for another alicorn who, as it happened, wasn't knocked out anymore.

"Lulu!" Princess Celestia hastily evoked telekinesis.

Too dazed to blanch at her embarrassing old pet name, Luna stopped an inch from the ground, held in Celestia's golden aura. The last fragments of Luna's destroyed armor melted, matting her fur. She moaned and rubbed a chest bruised by two hoof marks. Equus Nox's hoof marks.

No. Not Equus'. Armonia's.

Celestia looked up at the thing who had hurt her one and only sister. This time, her flames did not go out. Instead, they seared like never before.

"Enough!" roared Celestia, and the roar became a spell, and the spell became a comet, and that comet blasted Armonia onto her plated backside.

"Together, sister!" Celestia yanked Luna up, and sent more comets raining onto her already rising foe.

"A-aye." Luna wobbled once, regained her bearings, concentrated, and evoked wind.

Cerulean gusts whipped at Armonia, staggering her, and fueling Celestia's firestorm.

Armonia's ward, cast with a snarl, withstood the princesses' inferno, but bit by bit, she was pushed back along the pier, towards the lake that Luna was already raising into a tsunami.

"I give you this one chance," Celestia warned in Royal Canterlot timbre. "Surrender and relinquish your crown, or face the consequences."

Behind her cracking ward, Armonia laughed.

"I'll relinquish nothing," she said, and stomped the pier.

Rotted, burning planks suddenly went black, sprouted wicked thorns, and shot at the princesses like arrows! They both raised wards, barely deflecting the barrage.

"You don't call the shots here, Tia." Armonia's bat wings propelled her upward at incredible speed. A second later, she escaped lake and inferno alike. Two seconds later, she took control of lake and inferno alike, switching to a salvo of hailstones and fireballs.

"You don't hold power over me," continued Armonia, and brutally strafed her enemies' force fields.

Before Armonia could circle for another pass, Celestia and Luna dismissed their battered wards, spread their wings, and took the offensive. While Intellectus watched helplessly, three alicorns dueled high in the sky.

Princess Celestia fought with fireblasts, boulders, and beams of sunlight.

Princess Luna fought with waterspouts, howling winds, and coils of azure shadow.

"I'm not some lowly serf you can awe into submission!" Princess Armonia fought with everything.

Queen Eponia have mercy, Celestia thought in mounting dread. We taught her too well.

Boulders crumbled to sand. Fire ate wind. Flames were quenched by waterspouts, and the water froze and smashed against stone. Light was smothered by smoke. Shadows were purged by light.

"I am a princess of Equestria!" proclaimed Armonia.

Overwhelmed, Celestia and Luna tried to retreat. They tried in vain.

"The strongest princess!" Armonia warped into Luna's path, whirled on the spot, and bucked her downward!

"The best princess!" Again Armonia warped, spun and bucked! Celestia hit the dirt. Fortunately, a quick spot of earth magic reverted said dirt to mud, breaking her fall.

Unfortunately, being stuck in a two foot deep mud pit was a dangerous proposition mid magic duel.

Two steel hooves pinned Celestia's mud-splattered wings, and their owner lowered her horn. Its tip touched Celestia's neck, changing exposed flesh to stone.

"I'm the only princess our world will ever need," whispered Armonia sadly, and slid her horn home.

For about a millisecond.

In the following millisecond, vines burst from the soft ground and yanked Armonia off balance.

With all the fireballs and sunbeams and boulder tossing, I'd forgotten Tia could evoke plants too, Armonia thought wryly. Shouldn't have. Stupid of me. It was the very first spell I saw her use-

Armonia stifled a sob. She couldn't afford weakness. Not here. Not yet. There was a world that still needed saving. And a princess that still needed dethroning.

"Equestria weeps because of you, my student." Celestia made her binding vines thick as tree trunks. "You aren’t fit to rule it."

Fear filled Armonia. She used its power. Clouds gathered around, circled ever faster, and shaped a tornado.

"I’m done being your student, Tia!" Armonia's storm-winds uprooted Celestia's vines, and hurled Celestia herself aloft. "Today, I’ll surpass both you and Luna." She focused, aimed, and struck with lightning.

Melted armor broke completely. Beneath, ermine fur slowly petrified. Gasping, thrashing, Celestia conjured a ward, only to be struck again, and again, and again!

Luna soared through the tornado and clasped Celestia tight, shielding her. It was a futile effort. Stone crept up both princesses' crackling bodies, and Armonia's winds pulled them to dizzying heights.

"Today, I’ll restore this diseased world to life," said Armonia, gazing down to where Equinox Greens spread in a stained patchwork. "Today, I’ll fulfill my destiny." Armonia warped beside Luna, unaffected by the cyclone. "So sayeth Princess Armonia!" she decreed, and lowered her horn to pierce Luna's heart.

Time to sleep, just L-

An inch away, Luna opened eyes that were catlike slits.

"We think not," she said, and evoked purest darkness. "For thou still hast much to learn."

Armonia jerked back in shock as shadows engulfed Luna, hardening into umber armour that disgraced her own. Lightning lashed, but Luna's new carapace disgraced it too, deflecting the bolts with astonishing ease. What came next was worse.

Wind, rain and even light itself bent around Luna's horn. At the point appeared a speck of absolute darkness.

A black hole. Armonia tried to think of a counter spell, couldn't, and settled for an expletive. Oh, rutabaga sauce.

"Together, sister!" yelled Luna. Far away, the moon rose. Bathed in its ghostly light, the mare who was its mistress cried out to the heavens.

"DARKNESS, HEED MINE CALL!"

Luna's singularity jettisoned a torrent of blackness that hurtled Armonia into the upper atmosphere. She screamed, writhed, and pushed against the frigid current for everything she was worth.

"Nuh-no," said Armonia through gritted teeth. "I won't give up..."

Celestia warped a mile above Armonia, basked in the rays of the sun, and formed a second one upon her horn.

"BLAZE, LIGHT OF EQUESTRIA!"

Twin beams of searing light and chilling dark pinned Armonia between them and tore into her armour. Underneath, her skin seemed to boil and freeze all at once. Her horn drilled agony into her own skull. Her eyes watered. Above, in space, Armonia saw the sun and the moon draw closer.

"Can't...give up," she panted, somehow finding the strength to raise a ward.

Other ponies would have given up. She wasn't like other ponies. A weak, pathetic, useless cripple would have given up. She wasn't one, not as long as she had her special magic, her phobomancy, and the wonderful armor it gave her. The wonderful armor they were ripping apart.

More. I need more!

The fear wouldn't come to her. There wasn't enough. She'd petrified so few, and they were so far away. Too far away.

My fault.

What little remained was all focused into the ward, and burning up by the second.

All my fault.

When it was gone, only the cripple would be left, and a cripple could not save a dying world.

It's all my fault.

Discord was going to win.

NO!!!

Impossibly, Armonia's ward hardened a fraction.

"I have to-" she got no further, for at that moment the sun and the moon intersected, forming a solar eclipse. Next moment, Celestia and Luna's magicks combined, and shone with the iridescent rainbow light of creation itself.

And oh, how that light burned.

Princess Armonia screamed as her precious phobomancy was absolutely dispelled, screamed as her precious armor exploded, and when her screams ceased, Equus Nox hung trapped in Celestia and Luna’s telekinesis like a fly in amber.

The battle for Equinox Greens - and for Equestria itself - was over.