Dawn of The Ice King

We were spit out back at the race above the clouds once more, “Now that that’s over we just have to stop Starlight before- '' Twilight never finished her sentence as we were all encased in crystal, yes even me.

“Finding Starlight will be the easy part.” A voice said, it belonged to Starlight as she showed herself, “But stopping her will be another matter entirely. See the great thing about that spell is, I made it so even if you cast it it’ll send me back here too. I knew you’d try to stop me, I made precautions.” She said standing on top of the crystal, making us sink through the clouds. I struggled and flexed trying to break free making little to no progress, so instead I opted to glare her to death, or at least try.

“Oh ho! That’s an angry face, you have no RIGHT to be angry, you took EVERYTHING FROM ME!!! Our Town was a place of perfect equality and you and your friends took it away from me, so I made sure you’d come to see me stop the rainboom so you’d know that you and your friends' special cutie mark connection never happens!” She yelled, giving one last stomp pushing the crystal through the clouds but not enough to knock us out of them completely, she levitated herself to the underside of the cloud to finish her monologue, “Cutie marks for cutie marks, that seems fair. And you, Chris, I don’t fully understand why you side with them, you will never get a cutie mark, you don’t fit their world views.” She paused as if waiting for me to answer her, “Oh well.” She tapped the crystal and we plummeted through the sky.

I growled and took a deep breath flexing my wings hard just as Twilight lit her horn, we both caused the crystal to shatter, “CHRIS!!!! TWILIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!” Spike called out as he fell. Shit, I dived down and caught him, bringing us up to Twilight who I gave a nod to and she teleported us to a safe cloud.

“Where is she?” Twilight looked around, finding her talking to Fluttershy, I was still… I couldn’t… I was in my head and what happened next was a blur and all I know is that we got sucked into another portal to the future.

When we were thrown out of the portal I was ready and managed to land on my feet with a little flip, though the pain in my chest was back and felt even worse than before, I shrugged it off the best I could before looking at my surroundings. Spike was on his back a few feet away from me and Twilight was slowly coming to her feet. We were in a forest, a very familiar looking one, where have I seen these trees before?

“The Everfree? What are we doing here and why is it nighttime?” I heard Twilight ask with soft groaning coming from Spike who was still on the ground.

“What do you mean why is it night time? It’s a time travel spell, pretty sure it can spit us out at any time it wants.” I said, thinking that that was obvious enough.

“No… No, the way Starlight modified the spell makes it so you’re spit out at the exact same time just a different year.” She explained.

“Oh…. OH! Oh…..” I said as I realized what that probably meant, hearing rustling coming through the woods, my ear twitching in the general direction.

“Oh?” She asked.

“Well that could mean two things for this timeline. One: We got sent to one that has night and day switched or….” I trailed off.

“Or what?”

Not but a second later a group of near black armor clad ponies burst through the forest and surrounded us, The pegasus at the front jabbed a spear towards us, “Hands in the air, you’re under arrest for using unidentified magic without the Princess’ word.”

I smirked, “Or Nightmare Moon won.”

“WHA-” Twilight was cut off as one of the unicorn guards put a muzzle around her mouth, proceeding to bind her wings, wrists, and put a magic blocker on her horn.

They followed up with Spike, keeping him pinned, binding his wrists, mouth, and tail around his waist.

They went to try and push me to the ground only to be unable to budge me, “Hey, no need to get rough, I’ll cooperate.” I said with a shrug, curious to see what I could find out about this timeline, I had a lot of thoughts going through my head and I wanted to see them through.

The earth pony who was trying to pin me looked at the lead pegasus who shrugged and nodded, quickly the bindings were placed on me, including two horn magic blockers, smart, but ultimately useless.

“Alright, let’s go, the Princess is eager to see what caused the surge in strange magic.” The pegasus said, turning to lead the way deeper into the forest.

“Right!” A group of voices rang out, I felt a hard poke in my back, “Get moving creature.”
I shrugged and started following the pegasus, we walked for about 20 minutes before coming to an opening in the trees which led to a giant clearing, that had a restored Castle of The Two Sisters standing in it, though any paraphernalia that would lead you to believe that Celestia ruled not too long ago was outright removed, so I guess it was just now Castle of the ONE Sister.

“Welcome to Starfall Fortress, mightiest stronghold of the Nightmare Empire and home to Princess Nightmare Moon.” The Pegasus, whose voice was becoming vaguely familiar, said.

‘Much better name’, I thought.

+Yeah, but still, Celestia LOST, that’s not good at all. It looks like you were right, without the elements certain events play out differently. And apparently how the catalyst rainboom was stopped makes different events play out differently. This time Nightmare Moon winning was the change.+ Ixis said.

I grunted in confirmation, ‘Yeah, and It almost makes me want to experiment almost.’

“What are the bindings uncomfortable?” One of the guards asked.

I turned my head to look at him, a brow raised in confusion before I remembered I grunted. I shrugged in response to him, making the chains binding my wings jangle.

“Hmph.” Was all he said back.

Slowly we walked through the front doors, which, just like the castle were massive, why need doors that big? Until finally we were marched to the throne room.

“Your majesty, we found the ones who used such strange magic, it was this group.” The pegasus said, taking off her helmet finally, the color altering magic fading, revealing cyan fur and a short cut rainbow mane. Magenta eyes replacing the yellow ones and a cutie mark of… are those rainbow colored swords? I raised a brow at that, not able to do much else to voice my surprise.

After that shock wore off I turned my attention to the other Alicorn in the room. It was my first time seeing Nightmare Moon outside of illustrations. She was… surprisingly beautiful but also gave off an aura of fierce power such as if you even thought about crossing her you would be wiped clean from this realm. She very much looked like a more mature if not darker version of Dawn.

The armor clad Princess looked down at us, curiosity and surprise in her gaze, “A dragon, another Alicorn and a…. what are you? Your magic seems familiar to me but I can’t place it.” She asked me. I just gave her a deadpan stare, “Guard remove the muzzle from that one.” She commanded, the guard did so, not wanting to face his princess’ wrath. “Now, tell me, what are you, creature.”

“Drakon, Half dragon half human. Specifically an Ice Drakon.” I told her.

“Ice… Ah, that explains why your magic felt so familiar to me, I remember the Ice Dragons well, I thought they were all wiped out.” She said.

“They were and are, they will never return to the way they were but they live on through me. And what do you mean you knew them? I’m pretty sure Luna knew them. Not the Nightmare.” At that moment the room went deathly silent.

Nightmare Moon stood and walked to me and grabbed my face, she was about the same height as Celestia so only a hair shorter than me, “And who are you to think you can utter that name?”

I smirked and jerked my head from her grasp, “Me? I am Prince Christopher McGrath Regem Ad Glacies. Regent of The Frozen North, Prince of Equestria and Last of the Ice Dragons. And I am more than enough to handle you if need be.”

She scoffed, “You? Don’t make me laugh, you are bound by the strongest metal we have access to and your magic is being blocked by two blocking rings. You couldn’t handle a foal let alone me.”

I looked at her with a bemused expression before flexing my wings, snapping the chains and breaking free of my wrist cuffs, my tail already was free from its chain since it was connected to the one around my wings.

She quickly backed away on instinct, and guards rushed to form around me before remembering there were blocking rings on my horns, “Well, as surprising as that was, those rings are fixed to your horns unless enchanted to come off and without your magic, whatever you may possess, you are nothing, magic is everything for the creatures of this planet.”

I chuckled at that, “Maybe so, but uh, I’m not from this planet so I get nice little loopholes for stuff like that.” I reached a hand up to the rings and froze them solid to the point where they crumbled off my horns. I really didn’t need to use my hands to do that, but it was to show that I still had my magic even with rings on. Once the pieces fell to the ground I quickly sent out a wave of cold magic, freezing everything in the room up to their waist save for me, Spike, Twilight, and Nightmare Moon, “Like I said, I can handle you if necessary, but I’m not one to fight without provocation, though I can easily find a reason.” I said looking back at Spike and Twilight who were bound up and looking between the two of us.

Nightmare Moon studied me for a moment before breaking out into laughter, “Very well, you have me beat.” She said waving a hand and the chains around Twilight’s and Spike’s wrists and tail, respectively, fell away and the muzzles disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. The wing bindings and horn ring were still present, “Forgive me for not undoing those precautions, after all, you are still an enemy within my territory and a ruler must always be cautious.”

“Very true.” I said.

“CHRIS!” Twilight protested.

“Hush Twiggy, the adults are speaking.”

“I’m older than you.” She said.

“And I said hush so hush.”

Nightmare Moon smirked, before a seriousness overtook her face, “Now that I’ve released yours, you release mine.” I nodded and quickly the ice was pulled back into me, the guards, whose teeth were still clacking away, fell to the ground, rubbing their legs, trying to warm them up, “Before you make your requests of me, I have a few questions for you. You said you were a Regent of the Frozen north, There is nothing there, what are you the Regent of? And Prince of Equestria? If that’s the case, where were you when Celestia waged war against me on my return?”

I smirked, “The Crystal Empire and I didn’t exist until now.” I answered vaguely.

At the mention of The Crystal Empire I could see something click in her head and a small flare of magic flared deep in her core, “The… Crystal Empire, yes I remember such a place, but it is gone until… well no matter. Is that what you mean you didn’t exist until now, you managed to escape that curse?”

I shook my head, “Not quite, but that’s nothing you need to worry about, now I have a few questions for you before my requests. My first question, is Celestia still alive?”

Her eyes widened and her fur stood on end at that question, “ YOU HAVE THE GALL - Yes, she is just sealed away in the sun as I was the moon.”

“Better than nothing I suppose, Second, Luna, she’s gone isn’t she? Not completely but she’ll never be back right?”

She was quiet for a moment, “And how do you know this?” That confirmed my question at least.

“I saw her magic flare up deep inside of yours, you consumed her entirely and without the elements her essence can never be brought back from yours, at this point in time you are her and she is you.” I explained.

“Saw, how did… no matter, it’s not of any importance, but yes, she is effectively gone unless some souls or soul managed to wield the full power of the elements but I made precautions against such a thing so it will never come to fruition.” Nightmare Moon explained.

I nodded, “Makes sense, don’t want anything threatening your rule, one more question if you’d entertain me.”

“Doesn’t seem I have much of a choice in the matter, proceed.”

I smiled gratefully, “Thank you, do you have a pony in your ranks by the name of Fluttershy by any chance?” When I asked that question I could sense this timeline’s Rainbow tense up.

“Fluttershy…no, doesn’t ring a bell, do any of my…. Soldiers know of such a pony?” She asked, eyeing Rainbow in particular.

There were rounds of no’s but this timeline’s Rainbow spoke up, “There is, your majesty, she is one of our medics for our battle mounts. Though Fluttershy was her name before she received her mark, it was changed to Flutterbat afterwards.”

“Oh, he knows her premark name, how would that be if he only just came to be how would that be?” She asked, giving me a smile.

I smirked once more, “You know what, you caught me, but that secret I’m taking it to my grave, if you could kill me, which you can’t, so.”

“So you say, why do you want to see our medic, do you wish to take her out to cripple my forces?”

I shook my head, “No need, I’m not here to fight anyone, unless you want to go at it, that’s up to you, I just want to talk to her.”

Nightmare Moon seemed to ponder this, “And how do I know you’ll keep your word in this regard?”

I gave Twilight a small smile to which she went wide eyed at, “No, don’t you DARE!”

I turned my gaze back to the dark Lunar Princess, “You can keep them until I come back, they do mean a great deal to me so I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them. I’ll even take a guard with me, just one though.”

She took that into consideration, “Very well, you there-” She started to point to a random guard.

“I’ll take Rainbow Dash.” I interrupted her, causing her to glare at me.

“Who?”

Rainbow stepped forward, “T-That would be me, your majesty, That was my premark name.”

“And even more questions surface, fine, you get an hour after that you are to be back here so we can… discuss things more.” She waved us off with her left hand and used her right to pull Twilight closer to her, “Now…. who are you?”

I shook my head and turned my attention to Rainbow Dash, “So Rainbow, lead the way.”

She rounded on me in an instant, a sword pressed to my neck. I just raised a brow, “The name is Prism Blade, Commander Prism Blade, and you will call me as such.”

I smiled at that and pushed the blade down, “Or what Rainbow Dash? Your Princess can’t even handle me, what makes you think you can?”

She scoffed and turned away from me, “Whatever, follow me prisoner, Flutterbat is this way.”

We walked for a couple of minutes in silence and I took in the surroundings. The castle was completely different than what it was in my timeline, outside of not being a ruin anymore…. Well actually that was about it it just wasn’t a ruin and anything that was Celestia paraphernalia was taken down it was pretty much The Castle of The Two Sisters.

+I wonder if The Tree of Harmony is still under the castle.+ Ixis pondered.

‘The what?’ I asked her.

+The Tree of Harmony, it’s where the Elements of Harmony come from. It, and the Elements in turn, were created by six of the most powerful and harmonic ponies of ancient times.+

‘And you’re only telling me this now why?’

+You know, good question, I’m not too sure, just crossed my mind since we’re here in the castle as I recognize it…. For the most part.+

‘Right you were friends with Celestia and Luna eons ago, I forgot about that.’ I then came to a realization, ‘Man that must be rough seeing Luna as Nightmare Moon.’

+Yes, but I take solace in the fact that this timeline, this world will be gone once we leave.+

‘Maybe….’ I thought, finishing our conversation.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, I figured you’d be yapping more, filling my head with more of your nonsense.” Prism Blade told me with nothing but pure snark.

“Not nonsense Rainbow, I know you and Fluttershy very well, her intimately so.” She snorted at that, “You don’t believe me?”

“And why should I, anyone could look up my premark name the same with Flutterbat.” She explained matter of factly.

I nodded, “True they could, fine fine, how about the young flyers competition, the one you very clearly failed to complete.” She stopped walking, “I don’t remember exactly how you failed, I wasn’t paying attention, but I’m assuming it had to do with some floating purple unicorn. But if you didn’t perform the sonic rainboom that gave you your cutie mark originally, what caused you to get your cutie mark this time?”

She let out a loud sigh before once more rounding on me, only this time it was almost too fast to see as two shining rainbow blades came into contact with my hands, which barely reacted on reflex, and shattered on impact, “That’s how, I turned that sonic rainboom into weapons, how you managed to survive it I don’t know, but that proves nothing, everyone knows of the mad unicorn that stopped the young flyers competition all those years ago.” She pulled away from me looking at me dead in the eyes, daring me to keep trying.

“Also true, ok I have one then, if you’ll humor me.” I gave her an honest smile.

“Whatever, do your worst.”

“Ok, so you were around six or seven, never was sure on the age, not good with numbers, but it was at your grandparents house, the one on Bluebird Lane, across the street from Sky High Park, or what used to be your grandparents house, they died the year before and it devastated you, you were hurt and broken and angry and confused at how everyone was moving on so easily. To be fair, you were a child, a foal, dealing with something as traumatizing as death. What really made you pissed off though was that the house was sold about 4 months after they died and all their stuff was moved out, to this new family that just moved in from Stream City.

You didn;t understand how anyone could let anyone else move into that house, it was their house, your second house. And yet here was some new family taking everything from you and you would spy on them for months. You would watch them go about their daily routine, learn their ins and outs until you decided to make a move. You decided to break in and make them know they weren’t welcome.” I paused to look at her reaction, her eyes hardened but I could tell underneath that was pure disbelief.

I continued, “It was around 2 in the morning the time you were sure everyone would be asleep and that's when you made your move, knowing the house as well as you did you broke in effortless and started to destroy and ransack the place, you even packed paint supplies to mark everything that should be in its place. You were almost done and only had one more room left, the kitchen, you actually almost got away with it too until the lights turned on and standing in the doorway was and I quote-”

“The tallest skinniest filly I’ve ever seen.” We said together.

I nodded, “Yep, a gangly, pale yellow, pink maned pegasus filly who was tiredly rubbed her eyes asking who you were, you couldn’t answer her as you were too surprised,so the filly did the only thing she knew how she asked if you were ok and if you needed a place to stay the night, she could ask her parents, and once again you were too surprised so she took the initiative and went and got her parents.

When they walked through the house with their daughter you could hear the gasps of mild fear and confusion they expected to see some burly stallion in the kitchen but instead the saw a messy maned filly with tired and angry eyes and then they did the one thing you didn’t think they would do, they smiled and asked if you were ok, that act of kindness broke you, made you realize you were ruining a families home, some nice ponies’ home and you started to bawl your eyes out, the first time since your grandparents died that you cried and the little yellow pegasus offered you warm cider because that's what calmed her down and you gladly took it and once you calmed down you told them your story, of course they called your parents and your parents offered to pay for everything and you got in trouble but funnily enough your two families became close because of that to the point you had a second family. And that was the story of how you met Fluttershy and why you love cider so much it reminds you of when you met your closest friend.”

She just stared at me, confused to all hell, “H-How did you… I’ve never told anyone that, the only person who knows is…. But she’s never talked to anyone except me how?”

I shrugged, “I told you I know you, you told me one night… well not you exactly but a different you. It's confusing.”

“Who are you?”

I looked down at her and placed a hand gently on her shoulder, “I’m a friend Prism, a friend, I swear.” I told her honestly, sincerely, giving her my warmest smile.

She pushed my hand off her shoulder, “Don’t… friends call me Rainbow. And for some reason I believe you, you give off this feeling, like I should trust you so I am.” Her gaze hardened once more, “But I swear if you hurt her I will find a way to end you… I’m all she has left these days.”

I cocked my head at that before shrugging it off, “I swear I won’t now, you were leading the way?” She nodded and turned to lead the way.

It wasn’t that much longer of a walk when we got to an arch way and the distinct smell of animals hit my noses, how I didn’t smell it before now no idea but am I glad I didn’t. Rainbow rapped her knuckles against the arch way, “Flutterbat, I have someone to see you.”

“I’ve told you all I’m a veterinarian not a doctor…. Why do I even… Ok I’ll be there in one minute.” The pegasus I remember so fondly rounded the corner and it felt like my soul found it’s missing piece, she looked dead at me too and I felt and saw something shine in her eyes, “oh its your Rai- Prism Blades and who… or what is that?”

Rainbow shrugged, “Don’t know, he can talk though.”

I waved sheepishly, “Hi, I’m.. Chris… Chris McGrath.”

Flutterbat tilted her head, “And I’m-”

“Fluttershy, I know.” I told her, causing her to look at me than at Rainbow who just shrugged.

“How do you know me by that name? No one here except Rain-I mean Prism knows me by that name.” She said.

“Drop it Shy, he already knows my original name.” Rainbow told her lifelong friend.

Shy’s eyes widened, “How… what are you?WHO are you?”

I smiled, “A drakon, half human half dragon. And who I am is a friend… more importantly I’m your husband.”

Rainbow made a noise that was between half a choke and a snort and a laugh, “You her husband? Do you know how many stallions have tried to court her only to fail horribly?”

“Well if she’s anything like my Shy it's because she was literally too shy to deal with them.”

“Yes, in a way, I could always go on dates but when it came to the intimate part I couldn’t bring myself to do anything and they would get frustrated. It made me feel like they were only dating me for my body.” FLuttershy said dejectedly.

I looked at her, my wings sagging. I could understand why they would want her for her body but… "You're so much more than that, you're kind and caring, I… I'll be honest I don't know this you, I know a different you I was married to a different you. But I get the feeling that you're the same deep down. You care for everyone and everything and I bet this war is tearing you apart inside seeing others being hurt constantly especially the animals."

She looked at me intensely before sighing, "It really does, I'm so tired of the constant fighting of seeing my few friends and animals hurt only to be patched up and sent back out immediately. They all need so much more time to rest and recover."

"It doesn't help that we're running low on food resources…." Prism mumbled out.

I turned my attention to her, "What do you mean you're running low on food resources?"

She went wide-eyed at the realization that I heard her, "N-Nothing, forget I even said anything!"

"Fluttershy, do you know what she's talking about?"

The veterinary Pegasus pondered that question for a moment, "Well… some of the wild animals have told me that the plants are starting to die."

I raised a brow at that, "The plants are starting to die? Why would?" My eyes shot open in realization of what that meant, "That absolute fucking idiot!"

"W-Who?" Flutterbat asked, scared at my sudden outburst.

"The fucking parasite sitting on the throne that's who. God damn fucking idiot didn't even think it through. I didn't even think it through. Of course the plants would start dying, the magic can only do so much and I bet the Everfree is only doing this well because of that tree." I growled out.

"Fuck…" Prism Bolt was not happy that that got out.

Flutterbat looked between us confused as to what was going on, "What is he talking about Prism?"

The guard sighed, "The forest is dying, the science ponies figured it out. It's due to there being no sun in the past 10 years. Equis' magic can only do so much to sustain everything before it all gives out. Whatever tree he's talking about I have no idea but he is right the Everfree is doing better than anywhere else. Princess Nightmare Moon has thought it was just due to the war she's been waging to rule every other continent but…" she trailed off leaving the rest to implication.

Flutterbat gasped, "The animals…."

I growled, "And everyone is too chicken shit to stand up to her at risk of death or banishment." I moved over to Flutterbat and hugged her before kissing her forehead on reflex, "Sorry, instinct is to comfort you. I promise I'll get some sense into the Princess before I leave. I don't know if all this will still be around once I'm gone. But if it is I'm going to do what I can to make sure my wife and my friends don't die."

"But we aren't even the same as them, you even said so yourself!" Prism said, exasperated by my weird sense of loyalty to them.

"I'll be honest, it doesn't matter if you all aren't them or not, you're still my family and it's the least I can do after all you have done for me, let me repay the kindness you all have given me by giving you a reason to smile again. I'm ALWAYS going to protect my family." I told them, standing up tall and proud.

"Seriously what are you some kind of superhero?" Prism asked sarcastically.

Before I could answer, Flutterbat spoke up, giving me a warm smile, "No, not a hero, just someone who does what he has to to protect the ones he loves and cares about. And who they care about in turn. He's our hero and he always will be but more importantly he's my husband."

I smiled at her, "Thank you Shy, now… one last thing you may run into a different me after I'm gone I don't know honestly. I'm still theorizing all this as I go. But if you do give him time to become me, he's going to be broken and need lots of help and love. And I know you two can help him with that. Now if you'll excuse me I have a nightmare demon to tell at." I turned from them, my wings unfurling as I took off towards the direction of the throne room. Nightmare Moon. I'm coming for you for threatening my world and my family.