Chapters The world was dying, and it was all her fault.
She couldn't see everything from up there, but she could see enough through the early dawn haze. Cotton candy clouds. Floating rubble. Inverted mountains. Twisted trees. Checkerboard earth. On and on the pandemonium spread, a cancer festering upon the skin of Equestria. Her Equestria. Her birthright. Her-
No. Focus. Priorities.
Far above the defaced ground, a cloaked figure shook her head and redoubled her pace. Though her batlike wings were wide and strong, she flew carefully, for one does not idly glide into a gigantic enchanted cyclone ward. Fully two miles high, and several hundred meters thick, the unnatural maelstrom filled the sky ahead. Even at this distance, its howling winds were fierce enough to throw the hardiest of pegasi into a nosedive.
Luckily, she was no pegasus.
A horn plated in dark steel emerged beneath the alicorn's hood, its tip glowing red. With a fraction of her energy, the alicorn held her precious cargo, shielding it from the storm's fury. With a substantially larger fraction, she extended her magic, touched the wind, and made it her own.
The gigantic cyclone ward stalled. A hole opened on its surface, just wide enough for the alicorn and her cargo to enter.
Once she did, the storm's howl faded to a dull thrum on the edge of hearing. A steady drizzle soaked the alicorn's cowl, and pattered off the objects she'd brought, their craggy forms hidden by red telekinetic auras. After counting them carefully, the alicorn set her sights on what she'd flown all this way for.
First, the Heartstone.
An ivory sphere, big as an adult earth pony, hovered directly in the storm's eye. Some feet below floated a circular flying island, near one hundred meters across.
The alicorn landed with a grimace. The stone underfoot was checker patterned. The grass that poked through curled into spirals. And the Heartstone was split by a crack that gushed black ooze. The vile substance pooled beneath its fount, divided into six creeks, and drifted off its island to taint the lake, and the land, below.
The alicorn paced closer. A stench combining the worst parts of brimstone, sour milk, and burnt rutabaga sauce assaulted her nostrils. Ignoring said stench courtesy of more evoked wind, the alicorn briskly placed her cargo at equidistant points around the island, then faced the Heartstone.
Once, it had shone with the glory of a newborn star. Now it was dull, wan, and broken. Broken because of her recklessness. A pang of guilt gnawed at the alicorn's gut. She crushed it, gathered crimson magic to her horn and glanced at the lands beyond the Heartstone's island.
Then, Equinox Greens.
Once, they'd been hectares of lush forests, bold peaks, teeming jungles, and fertile fields; perhaps a bit much for your regular earth pony, pegasus or unicorn, but a veritable paradise for an adventurous young alicorn. Now, they were grotesquely defiled because of her weakness. Because of her stupidity.
Because of him .
A pang of pain ripped through the alicorn's chest. She shuddered, resisted the urge to touch the scars. Pain kindled anger. Her horn burned. She aimed at the Heartstone, and imagined it was his hideous goat face.
Then, everything!
Letting loose a furious bellow, the alicorn engulfed her target in lightning. Scarlet forks sizzled over fractured crystals, forcing them together. The flow of ooze became a trickle. Cracks mended. The Heartstone flickered to life.
It's working-
The Heartstone vibrated angrily. Its flickers vanished. Ooze flowed faster. Crystal pieces separated as if they were matching magnetic poles repulsing each other apart. An earsplitting wave of magical feedback hit the alicorn head on, and pushed her away.
No! I won't give up!
She pushed harder, and drew additional magic from the things she'd brought. Too little, too late. Fresh feedback screeched from the Heartstone, dispersed the alicorn's lightning, and blew her off her feet.
She lay tangled in her rain-sodden cloak. Beneath it the alicorn had worn armor, but upon absorbing the Heartstone's blast, her dark steel had melted into vapor. As had her strength. When the alicorn rose, her body trembled. When she spoke, her voice was a pained rasp.
"Why can't I fix it?" She hurled a second thunderbolt. No effect. She might as well have hurled a sand grain.
"Why?!" The alicorn charged at the Heartstone directly. Soon as she got within two feet of it, feedback spat, and the alicorn collapsed as if struck. Spent, her magic depleted, she crawled her knees, and stared at the Heartstone's noxious pool.
"Why...?"
Her reflection was answer enough. Storm-winds tugged off the alicorn's cloak, unveiling a body better left veiled.
Russet fur over bony skin. Five claw-shaped scars, right the heart was. Damaged wings, barely capable of flight. A dirty, unkempt black mane. Grey eyes, sunken in exhaustion. And the main attraction: a cracked horn, severed halfway along its length.
The awful sight hypnotized the alicorn, brought bile to her throat. She'd seen it once before, in a hospital window, on the morning after-
"Don't make me do this!"
After...
"Hahahaha!"
She tore herself away from the reflection. She tried to forget that monster's horrible cackling, that horrible night, the horrible things she'd done, and that had been done to her in turn.
She tried to forget, but she couldn't. Not then. Not now.
Not ever.
"Princess Celestia," she whimpered. "Princess Luna...I can’t do this."
So instead, the weak, pathetic, useless cripple did what she did best. She gave up. Her broken horn fizzled out. Her ragged wings hung limp. Her legs bent. She sobbed.
And then her shadow opened its mouth and spoke.
"You have to,"
Other ponies might have been surprised by this development. They might have asked questions. Or screamed. Or ran. Or something. The alicorn wouldn't know. She wasn't like other ponies. She was stronger. Cripple or no, she had to be.
"I have to."
Her shadow's mouth moved in time with hers, but when she stopped talking, it didn't.
"You have to make them afraid."
Her shadow's voice was soft, reasonable, and absolutely certain. The alicorn nodded, her confidence returning. Power returned in its wake. From out of the surrounding mist, dark tendrils oozed along the ground, and touched their summoner's hooves.
"You have to take their terror..."
The alicorn shuddered, not in terror, but in bliss.
She looked down at the ebony stems that kissed her feet. They pulsed tenderly, sending rosy energy singing through her body. Warmth filled her, strengthened her anew. The alicorn's pathetic tears evaporated, her pathetic doubts evaporated as well, and she smiled. As did her shadow.
"...take their phobomancy..."
Phobomancy. Yes. Her new magic. Her special magic. She hadn't had it before. That was why she'd lost. That was why the world was dying. That was why the disgusting snake still laughed in his stone prison. He thought he'd won. Well, he wouldn't win. She wouldn't let him.
She was, after all, a princess.
"...pour it into your crown..."
Yes! She whirled on her reflection. No sickness this time. How could there be? She was beautiful now. Her phobomancy had seen to that.
A glossy umber mane, styled in artful tussles. Obsidian steel covered bony, scarred skin. Membranous dragon wings - most assuredly capable of flight - encased her shriveled feathery ones. The old main attraction: a long curved horn, hard as adamant, sharp as a spearhead, black as midnight.
And the new main attraction?
A circlet of pure diamond, its six spokes studded by a ruby, emerald, orange amethyst, pink opal, blue sapphire, and purple quartz.
The Crown of Harmony, and its six Elements. My birthright.
"...and with it, save Equestria!"
My destiny.
"I have to!" cried the true princess of Equestria as she became one with her shadow, and hurled forth a blinding bolt of crimson lightning. For a split second, its heat evaporated the surrounding fog, revealing the sources of the tendrils which fed their mistress.
Ponies. Over a dozen of them. All stone. All screaming.
Then the split second passed, the princess' lightning struck the Heartstone, and the world went blood red.
The world was ending, and Princess Celestia heard its death scream.
At least, that was what she initially thought upon being roused by a shriek that shook her palace, smashed her bedroom's stained glass windows, and caused her dear pet phoenix to spontaneously combust. Fanning away some stray ashes, her ears ringing, Celestia darted to the nearest window frame. Froze. Gasped. The disturbance's source was impossible to miss.
Miles southward, past Canterlot mountain, past the chaotically deformed plains that she and her sister had spent a month restoring, malignant red magic seethed over Equinox Greens. Even from here the strange, vile energy made Celestia's eyes sting, her nebulous mane stand on end, and her horn reflexively flash gold.
Celestia forced herself to peer closer, and wished she hadn't. The world wasn't dying, thank Queen Eponia, but Equinox Greens was. Within the fading crimson miasma, everything-meadows, trees, streams and mountaintops alike-withered to a sterile, uniform grey. Celestia's heart skipped a beat. She knew that shade.
Everything's petrifying.
Another terrible realization. Another skipped beat.
Equus Nox! She's still in there!
Not wasting another moment, Celestia teleported away in a frantic burst of sunlight.
Crossing miles of sky within moments, Princess Celestia reached out with her magic, and what she felt brought her headlong rush to a cautious glide. A mile ahead, the initial blast-
An enemy attack? An accidental magical overload? What in Starswirl's hopelessly tangled beard bells caused it?!
-had dispersed, but a vast, dense presence of that skin-crawling energy lingered at Equinox Greens' core.
Celestia's eyes widened, and she instinctively drew power from sun over which she held dominion.
Queen Eponia's Heartstone. But who would dare-
Another presence! Celestia wheeled to face it, horn lit with solar fire, her ermine body abruptly encased in magical gold plate. Several hundred meters away, princess Luna gave a slightly chagrined wave. Dizzy from relief, Celestia waved back, concentrated, and used the Link of Harmony.
"Luna!" she said, her mentally relayed words reaching their recipient instantly. "Are you seeing this?"
Celestia indicated the corrupted remains of the land that, years ago, she and Luna had created together.
"Aye, Celestia," Luna replied sadly. "‘Tis a blight of dark magic. We hath ne’er beheld its like, not since-"
Thunder rumbled from afar, like cruel laughter. Both Princesses lapsed into grim silence. Even with their combined might, the six Elements of Harmony, and their strongest spell, it had taken days to make Equinox Greens. Today, somepony had unmade the Greens in seconds.
Celestia's eyes narrowed to fiery slits. She knew exactly who that somepony was. And though the name was poison in her mouth, she spat it out anyway.
"Discord."
"Impossible! We petrified him for all eternity-"
"And now Equinox Greens is being turned to stone. He’s *mocking us."*
Celestia reached a decision, and put on a burst of speed. She didn't know what dire Chaos sorcery the self-proclaimed Prince of Pandemonium had used to reverse his petrification and wreak the havoc below. But so help her, today would be the last day he wreaked such havoc freely.
Down Celestia dived, seconds away from reaching the Greens' center. Below the cyclone ward that shielded its heart, on the shores of a polluted lake, a ruined orphanage sat. On that orphanage's grounds lay petrified animals, frozen where they'd ran. All leaked magic to something hidden in the clouds. Something that burned like the light of a dying sun. Something with the power of a god.
Or a devil.
"Stay close, sister!" Celestia hardened her armor, and held a millennium's worth of combat magic at the ready. "I can’t cast the spell of greater banishment alone."
Before Celestia even finished her sentence, moonlight flickered, and Princess Luna materialized at her side.
"Is Equus Nox safe?" Luna asked out loud as she broke the Link of Harmony, and encased herself in reinforced frost.
When Celestia replied, her oath was a furnace roar.
"For Discord’s sake, she'd better be."
But her next oath, uttered only to herself, held no anger. Only a deep, gnawing fear.
Not again. Please, in Queen Eponia's name, not again!
Armed, armored and ready for battle, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna landed near the lakeside ruin. Once, it was a boarding house. Now, it was a biscuit house. The walls, stale cookies. The windows, cracked toffee. The roof, melted icing. A gingerbread gate sign read: 'EQUINOX FLATS ORPHANAGE'. Alongside the confectionery structure sprawled a smashed greenhouse that didn't contain a trace of glucose.
Past the greenhouse was a crater, ten feet deep, filled by ash, and utterly devoid of life.
Disintegration magic. This was where Equus Nox fought him. Where we found her; scarred, crippled, an inch from death. Where we swore to end it.
Celestia shivered, and looked on.
The crater bisected a wide dirt path, which led to a pier that extended across the polluted lake. At the pier's threshold lay a sphinx. Soon as the princesses saw him, he saw them. Petrified animals were scattered around the winged beast, but though his leonine body was also stained by stony corruption, he still breathed.
"Your majesties?" the sphinx wheezed, blinking through cracked spectacles.
"Intellectus!" Celestia rushed to aid him. "You’re hurt-"
"A mere...trifle." Intellectus rolled over, and lifted a trembling paw. "The child...she gave me..."
He clutched two scrolls. One was perhaps a week old, one was freshly written, and both featured the same familiar script.
Letters from Equus? thought Celestia, completely baffled. We never received these. Equus last sent us one just after Pandemonium, a month ago. When did she write these others? Why-
Celestia shook her head angrily. Enough baseless speculation. Such questions would be answered by the letters themselves. She reached to take them. Hesitated. Liquid dripped onto the parchments.
Intellectus was crying, and his expression turned Celestia's blood to ice.
"We've lost her," moaned Intellectus. "You...you must-"
Thunderclaps split the sky. Celestia and Luna jerked back, and whipped their horns into guard positions. They weren't kept waiting long.
From out of the Heartstone's cyclone ward, something descended, dived, and landed at the pier's end, a mere hundred meters away.
Living shadows churned around the creature, masking it with poisonous fog that stained the pier's planks. Sensing life, shadowy tendrils slithered toward the princesses, and hissed in hunger. By way of reply, Celestia snorted in scorn.
Another new trick, o "prince"? It won't save you from us.
Celestia strode forth, crushing the tendrils underfoot. With each step, her fiery aura drove back more of the cloying mist that the depraved coward hid behind. For the second time that morning - the second time too many - she spoke his loathsome name.
"Discord!"
While Celestia yelled a challenge, Luna cautiously trailed behind her sister, horn lowered. Its tip hummed faintly. In the lake ahead, water rippled. Nopony else save Celestia noticed. Striding faster, she blocked her enemy's view of Luna, and prepared to strike. At the last second, she hesitated. An important question remained unanswered.
"How did you escape?" Celestia snarled at Discord, wreathed in incandescent fires fueled by righteous wrath.
So help me, if you've done anything to my Equus, I won't just banish you. I'll *end you-*
"Discord…"
Sound and movement from behind. Celestia quickly glanced back, and saw Intellectus heave himself to his knees.
"I couldn’t protect her from him," the wounded sphinx said, his bespectacled face a pale mask.
Movement from ahead. Celestia was ready. A roaring wave of flame surged out her horntip, and scorched the cursed fog away. But instead of revealing a malformed draconequus chaos god, Celestia revealed something far, far worse.
"Nor could I protect her from herself," wept Intellectus.
Though only half Celestia and Luna's height, the other alicorn was every bit as imposing as them, and then some.
Like her opponents, she wore spell-forged armor. Blacker than pitch, the alloy exoskeleton tapered into razor-sharp spines that protruded from its wearer's joints. Unlike her opponents, this alicorn's wings were not feathered but membranous, and her face was the stuff of nightmares.
Obsidian scales distorted her features. Her snarling muzzle was filled with serrated teeth. Her spear of a horn could have punched through solid granite. And her eyes were the worst part: fiery, bloodshot, serpentine slits.
For a moment, Celestia was repulsed beyond reason. Then, she noticed two more things about the monstrous alicorn.
She wore a familiar Crown wrought of diamond, its spokes capped by six equally familiar gemstones. And she had a cutie mark etched on her steel flank, depicting a crescent moon against a white sun.
No two pony's cutie marks were alike. Celestia knew this one-and its owner-only too well.
Discord's still imprisoned in Canterlot. The blast, the strange magic, the petrification...it wasn't him, it was her.
The bottom dropped out of Celestia's stomach, and her flames extinguished instantly.
"Equus Nox? Is-is that you?"
Behind, Luna gasped, her water spell forgotten. Ahead, the steel-clad alicorn frowned, confused by Celestia's words. That is, until her own shadow whispered in her ear, dispelling doubt, and leaving only terrible resolve.
"My name is Princess Armonia," she said. "Fear me!"
Suddenly her horn flashed crimson, and forked lightning stabbed straight at Celestia's heart.
In some primal part of a mind gone numb with shock, a counter-spell was readied, channeled, and released. To Celestia's credit, her ward - a convex shield of enchanted sunlight - appeared a split second before impact.
To Armonia's credit, her lightning blasted the aforementioned ward apart a split second later and hit Celestia anyway.
As she was hurled backward, her breastplate a melted ruin, some primal part of Celestia's mind screamed that she had to evoke earth, revert it to mud, cushion her landing, and do it now . The rest of Celestia's mind didn't listen. All it could think of was the morning when she'd first met the little unicorn filly who would come to mean the world to her.
Why, Equus Nox? she thought, over and over again. Why?
Then Celestia hit the ground, and thought no more.
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.
"You promised..." moaned Equus Nox, her voice hoarse.
Celestia and Luna drifted closer, still humming with their shared magic, their eyes brilliant white.
At the sight of the beaten, wretched filly before her, Celestia eased her telekinetic hold, freed Equus' forelegs, and prepared a healing spell.
"Poor child-"
"I am not a child! " Equus slapped Celestia right in her stupid, patronizing face.
Celestia's head jerked to the side, and her stupid, patronizing healing spell dispersed. Luna's white pupils-no longer feline slits-narrowed, and her telekinesis virtually paralyzed everything below Equus' throat.
"Verily well, Armonia," Luna spat back. "Thou shalt henceforth accept responsibility for thine actions."
"Responsibility? How dare you say that to me?"
Equus' whisper grew to a shriek, and she thrashed uselessly against Luna's iron grip. "How dare you?! After everything I suffered-"
"Then suffer no longer."
Though one of her nostrils bled, Celestia's expression was merciless. Equus stammered into silence.
For ten years she'd known Celestia. Equus had seen the kind-hearted princess get angry. She'd seen Celestia get furious. She'd seen Celestia beyond furious, the night Discord hurt her. But this...she'd never, ever seen Celestia like this.
It's like she's looking at a cockroach, Equus thought in dawning panic. An ant. A grain of sand. Less. She's looking right *through me.*
Panic became horror.
She's looking at a world where I'm not even there.
When Celestia spoke again, she spoke Equus Nox's doom.
"We hereby revoke your right to the Elements and Crown of Harmony..."
Just like that, Equus' Crown lifted from her head. Six Gemstones detached from its spokes, and surrounded Celestia in a halo.
Impossible, Equus thought blankly. They're my birthright. My-
"...and for the safety of all Equestria, we exile you to the Silent Realm." Without hesitation, Celestia lowered her horn and cast a spell of greater banishing. Queasy grey energy streamed downward, stopped, and waited under Equus with a trapdoor spider's patience.
"The Silent Realm?!" Equus quavered, sweat beading on her brow. "Y-you wouldn’t-"
A second grey beam followed the first.
"To the world beyond thought and memory." Luna's voice held a hint of regret, but her chant was steady, and her magic unfaltering. Equus started to hyperventilate.
Say something. Say anything!
"Princess Celestia," Equus nearly sobbed. "I-I’m sorry-"
"To the world without despair, hate, or fear," Celestia continued, her chant unbroken.
Miles below, the banishing spells met, and created a whirlpool of static. Within it yawned a maw to infinite emptiness. To a endless, lifeless void. To the Silent Realm.
"Luna! Don't let her-"
"To slumber eternal, and dreams everlasting." Luna raised her voice and opened the portal wide enough to swallow Equus whole.
"Please, Intellectus," she begged to the only person in the world who might still be able to help her. Yet he was so far away. Too far away. He couldn't help her. He couldn't even hear her.
But surely he could see-
Below, Intellectus averted his gaze, unable to watch the appalling spectacle a second longer, unable to do anything except weep into his stone flecked paws.
"Goodbye, Equus Nox," Celestia gestured to Luna, and she let her prisoner fall.
Wind rushed in Equus' ears. This wasn't happening.
Fly!
Her damaged wings dragged at her sides. This couldn't be happening.
Spellcast!
Her broken horn was a lead weight welded to her forehead. Celestia wouldn't have let it happen.
Anything!
But Celestia had made it happen.
She loved me. She promised me the world. She said I was destined for greatness.
A wisp of shadow crawled in Equus' ear, and hissed.
She threw me away like a piece of garbage.
In a sickening instant her face twisted, her eyes became flaming scarlet slits, and she was Equus Nox no more.
"I'll never forgive you!" screamed Armonia, but though the raw hate of it made both her tormentors flinch, they did not, would not, look away.
Still screaming, her cracked horn sparking red, Armonia plunged into the Silent Realm.
At once, the portal snapped shut behind her.
"Nor will I," whispered Princess Celestia.
Her light faded. Her head bowed. Her body shook. Warm wetness ran down her cheeks. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except what she'd just done to the pony she'd once named her heir. Her student.
Her daughter.
"Dear Princess Celestia, my name is Equus Nox. I’m three years old, and I live in Equinox Flats orphanage."
A young filly's words came to Celestia unbidden.
"My favourite food is rutabagas, which I grow in their greenhouse. I like gardening. Do you like gardening too?"
They made the pain of the battle with Armonia seem like a mild ache by comparison.
"When I grow up, I want to be a princess because then I could fly and use magic. Flying and magic are awesome!"
Like the ghost of an itch.
"I don’t like scary monsters. Or when my rutabagas die. Or being lonely. But if I was a princess, I wouldn't have to be lonely because I’d be with you. Could we be friends?"
Like nothing at all.
"I’d like to be friends with a princess."
Princess Luna glided close, and leaned against Celestia. No more words were exchanged. None were needed. Luna's own tears said enough.
For a second the two siblings stayed that way, drifting together above the world they broke their hearts to save. But only for a second. There was much work to be done.
Celestia and Luna parted, nodded wearily to one another, and cast a new spell. The Crown of Harmony shined bright. The six Elements kindled. Sunlight, moonlight, fire, earth, wind, water and flora united, blossoming into iridescent radiance.
Slowly but surely, the princesses' healing magic revived Intellectus, the frozen statues stranded on a floating island, and the petrified wasteland that Armonia had left behind.
An empty sea stretched on forever. Armonia sunk through its still, noiseless depths. Her color - her very vitality - drained away. Shadows crept over her ears. Crimson embers spat off her horn. Through numb lips, she hissed one last bitter whisper.
"Never forgive you..."
Serpentine eyes slid closed, and Armonia slept.
She shrank, became a speck in the distance.
And then, she was gone.
