You’re going to die.
Overwatch jumped in shock at the voice. He had no idea somepony was in here with him. But wait, where was he? He glanced around, but all he could see was darkness. And then his training kicked in. He had to analyse the situation, and either find a way out of it or make it favorable to him. He assumed that he was indoors, because the last time he had checked it was daytime. He would have kept gathering information about wherever he was, but apparently he had a conversation to keep up. This being was clearly hostile, so maybe he could distract it…
“Try me.” he said, the words coming out far shakier than he had intended.
Do you really think any of you are getting out of this city? The unknown entity said, amused.
"Any of us? This city? What do you-”
Suddenly, Overwatch cut himself off as images began to flash around him. He looked around and saw innumerable golden spires, gleaming in the light from a beautiful sunset. He would have enjoyed the scenic image, if he didn’t see Equestrian Royal Guards everywhere. He examined the scene further, and saw that they were scrubbing away some sort of strange green splotches. One of them tripped over a severed head, causing Overwatch to giggle despite himself. Then, he froze. That was his head. That meant the splotches were--
Splat go the little bugs. He heard the voice giggle. He tried to pinpoint it’s location, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once. As he was trying to tell where the voice was coming from, he ended up twirling around, and a look of horror froze onto his face.
Oh, I see you’ve found your little queen. The voice teased. You really are a smart one. You know, after all this comes to pass, I might just spare you so I can keep you as a pet. You certainly seem like you could learn a lot of tricks.
Overwatch tried to come up with some sort of witty retort, but he was too transfixed by the sight before him. The Queen was lying on her back, gasping for breath. Her exoskeleton was scratched and torn open in a number of places, but most notably her underbelly. Overwatch could even still see her beating heart through all the blood and pus that was desperately trying to cover the wound. He held his breath as he realized a guard could see it too. He tried to close his eyes, to spare himself from witnessing what the guard would do, but it was too late. The guard thrust his spear straight up into the hole, and through the heart and spine, and the Queen collapsed, twitching.
“What do you want!?!” he screamed at nothing in particular, his voice barely audible through all of his crying.
What do I want? Oh, I already have what I want, my little Changeling.
The room-or wherever he was-became dark again. This time, though, he could see something. A blue Alicorn mare walked towards him slowly in full battle regalia, grinning maniacally.
Blood.
Overwatch snapped awake in a cold sweat to hear the sounds of collapsing buildings and hornfire, and he remembered exactly what he was doing, just as a small drone ran up to him.
“General Overwatch, sir! You’re awake! When that brick fell on your head I thought --- We need you to direct the forces attacking Canterlot’s South gate! Come with me!” the drone said quickly, nearly out of breath.
Unable to resist a small smile at the fact that it was only a dream, the general happily obliged.
He had a battle to win.
When he got to the city's South gate, he nearly gaped. It was, to put it lightly, heavily fortified. There were ramparts everywhere, with towers lining the approach, each containing two Combat Mages, one conjuring shields and the other raining all sorts of weaponized spells on the Changelings below. The pegasi swarmed around these very towers, easily gaining aerial superiority. Amidst all this, the ground had several tightly-packed combat formations of earth ponies, each of them looking strong enough to crush the skull of even the largest Changeling Soldier.
And he, out of all the generals on the War Council, got to bring it down.
He grinned.
These ponies may have had the upper hand in brute force, but not in intelligence or planning. Whereas this battle was actually a first contact scenario for the equines, Changeling infiltrators had been slowly creeping into their ranks for decades and acquired all the information any invading army needed to know about the defenses. That was actually how they even knew about this supposedly secret escape route. Some of the Swarmers fighting up in the skies may have caught a glimpse of it, but they were busy concentrating on not being killed.
As for what he knew about the defense forces, the pegasi had no ranged attacks when away from a cloud bank, so they would resort to slamming into whatever they wanted to kill at very high speeds. Fortunately, what the Swarmers lacked in speed they made up for in maneuverability, and the pegasi would never target anything on the ground because they were afraid of slamming into the ground. The Unicorns up on the towers had to alternate between one casting offensive spells and the other shielding the tower, and the Earth Ponies' formations only protected them from melee-oriented ground forces directly ahead of them, and even then only when it was unbroken. Any of the Changelings at his disposal capable of both flight and ranged attacks could eliminate them with little to no effort.
Speaking of which, how many Changelings were there for him to command? He looked around. There were a few isolated deployments of Soldiers and even a squad of Elites on the ground, but they were under fire from the Unicorns, so they were pinned down behind whatever cover they could find. The Elites sensed his presence and telepathically reported in, not knowing that he had already seen them. Then he looked up. There was a veritable army of Swarmers up there, using their exceptional maneuverability to evade the pegasi's mad dashes like it was nothing.
Overwatch scurried up to the top of a mound of nearby rubble and let loose a series of sharp clicks, which conveyed his strategy to the rest of the Changelings there. The ponies, not used to seeing a fully-fledged Changeling General in his full black and red armor, froze for a moment, perplexed at this new developement.
The Changelings made no such pause, and leapt into action immediately. The Swarmers began circling the top of each of the towers containing the Combat Mages at close range, which caused both mages in each pair to forego the shields in favor of rapid-fire energy blasts, succeeding in eliminating many of the Swarmers, but not enough. Once that happened, the aerial assailants quickly scattered just as the Pegasi attempted to ram them, hitting the towers instead, causing them to crash down on most of the Earth Ponies. The rest were thrown into disarray by the scattering of their formations, and were quickly mopped up by the Soldiers and Elites, who had taken the opportunity to charge. Soon, none of the equines remained alive.
Overwatch couldn't help but grin as he took the first step into the Castle, his troops following closely behind. Whoever that Alicorn was, she was wrong about today.
At least, he hoped she was.
As soon as Overwatch came into the entrance hallway, he noticed something. There was a set of six display cases smack at the other end of the room, each on a golden pedestal with some sort of necklace inside. Perplexed as to why the ponies would just leave this valuable-looking display to be ravaged by the armies of Queen Chrysalis, he walked toward them cautiously. The other Changelings followed suit, and soon a procession of the insects was headed down the long hallway. When Overwatch got to the set of display cases, he immediately recognized what was inside from the reports he had gone through the day before. These were, apparently, the weapons of mass destruction wielded by Celestia’s prodige and her motley gang of conscripted lackeys.
He would have taken them, but he wasn’t stupid. They were probably rigged with lightning runes or something, and those things could easily turn him into bug roast faster than he could say ‘oops.’ Either way, the task of keeping the wielders from reaching them had already been assigned to General Chuddy. Interfering in another General’s operation, especially if it was to aid them, was considered the highest form of disrespect. On the other holey hoof, there wasn’t a single Changeling who respected Chuddy anyway, and he was far too inept to survive this battle without an immense amount of luck.
Overwatch came to a decision, and immediately issued his orders to the others.
“Soldiers, guard this room. You too, Swarmers. This is likely the only room with a ceiling high enough for you to fight efficiently. The rest of the Elites and I will go forward.”
As soon as he said this, he noticed parts of the walls start to rise, each section revealing one of the Equestrian Royal Guard, as well as more of the pegasi flying down from a balcony above. This had been a trap.
He should have seen this coming.
He may have previously been busy thinking of his strategy, but if there was one thing Changelings were known for, it was their reflexes. He immediately spun around and began his clicking, which he always used to relay orders, since merely talking could be interpreted by Equestrian translation spells, and besides, it was much faster.
Even before he started his clicking, the other Changelings had already entered the fray. They had reflexes, too. The Elites, as was standard procedure, immediately picked out a target and began all attacking it at once, while the Swarmers rained hornfire down on the guards who weren’t so close to a Changeling that they couldn’t risk missing. The Soldiers immediately charged blindly in a haphazardly disorganized formation, but they began to truly form up when they heard the clicks, as did the Swarmers.
The Equestrians may have had the element of surprise, as useless as it is on a horde of creatures with such a fast reaction time, but they had made one crucial mistake: They were understaffed. They had clearly thought that even if any of the Changelings would come for the weapons, it would be a small, easily overwhelmed group. Instead, they got dozens upon dozens of bloodthirsty insects raining down upon their ranks. In a few minutes, the ponies had been completely wiped out.
“Like I said, guard this room.” Overwatch said. “Elites, form up on me. We’re going hunting.”
As soon as he had emerged from the more crowded areas of the room, the Elites came to him. Like most squads of their breed, the accents on their black armor were color-coded to indicate what role that individual played. Light blue for Combat Flyer (who was abnormally small, but clearly full-grown), orange for Brawler, yellow for Sniper, dark blue for Medic, pink for Heavy, and purple for-
“Wait, where’d your leader go?” Overwatch asked the group.
“He got wasted before you even arrived, sir.” the Combat Flyer said, stepping forward, at attention.
“My condolences. How did he go?”
“The two of us were trying to engage one of the High Guard unicorns at close range.”
“What? You tried to engage one of those without even a full squad?” Overwatch responded, very puzzled at the strikingly poor judgement of the two.
“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, sir.”
“Why? How? When? What?”
“We were directly behind her and she was distracted with trying to dislodge Gemstone over here.” the Flyer said, nodding his head in the general direction of the sniper.
“Yeah, I can vouch for him on this one, sir.” she said in a sincere, if disgruntled, voice.
Overwatch sighed in disappointment. “Very well, then. Come with me. We’re going to see where those secret passages lead.”
“The barracks?” Gemstone suggested. “You know, that one place crawling with guards?”
“You’re right. Let’s fly on up to that balcony. There ought to be some sort of door up there or something.”
“Yeah, that might be a problem.” the Combat Flyer said, nodding in the general direction of the Brawler.
Overwatch followed his gaze, and his eyes finally landed on the Changeling in question, who turned so he could get a better look of what was being discussed. The Brawler had a wide, bulging purple scar where his left wing should have been.
“Ummm… okay then!” Overwatch said, not wanting to dwell on his disability for fear of alienating him. “Hold on. I have an idea.”
The general spun around to face the wall on the far end of the hallway from the entrance, which strangely enough either had a door cloaked with magic or none at all. His horn and armor lit up, and became brighter and brighter for slightly less than two seconds. After that, a single bolt of magic shot out of his horn and obliterated a good chunk of the wall, revealing another room beyond.
He began to walk through, and silently beckoned his fellow Elites.
Once the squadron got through the hole, they all looked around. They could easily tell that they were in the castle library, mainly because of the books everywhere, though many had been knocked off the shelves by the bombardment above. An old, wrinkly Earth Pony at the front desk saw them and immediately tried to hide behind it, but each of the Changelings knew that they weren’t here to kill civilians. They would be harvested in due time. However, not wanting any interference in the operation, the heavy obliterated the desk that the stallion was hiding behind, and the pony went scurrying away.
“Fan out.” Overwatch ordered. “There could be guards behind any one of these shelves.”
The squad immediately complied, and began checking every corner. The hallways were all over the place, skewed at seemingly random angles in definitely random locations. This was going to be hard.
Gemstone had barely left the front desk when she saw another pony. This one was also a civilian, but it was a unicorn, and you could never be too careful around those. Out of habit, she immediately slinked into the shadows of a relatively unlit corridor to observe the mare’s actions. This particular unicorn had a very light brown coat mostly covered by a black sweater with pink buttons. Her mane was red, with a purple stripe and a light purple stripe, and the part on the front of her scalp was bent back, held in place by a hairpin that looked like it was just a pair of pink spheres. She was also wearing black-framed glasses over her purple eyes.
She was apparently on her way to check out what looked to be an incredibly large pile of books, mostly on magic. Gemstone slid even further back into the corridor, partially out of strategy, but mostly out of fear. She knew that if this unicorn really was studying that much magic, she would be even more of a threat to the squad than the unicorn that killed Shotty, let alone just her, since the others had already gone off to patrol the rest of the library. Hopefully this pony would just go away.
Then Gemstone noticed something.
You see, Changelings can feel how much love is in a pony. They evolved this sense in order to pick and choose their targets more effectively. Eventually, this capability further developed to the point where they could sense any emotion, and even feed off of residual love without harvesting the pony. However, this sense has a downside. If they initiate this connection with a pony consumed with anger, the love stored in their glands will deplete. Sometimes, the anger can be so strong that it can do this without such a connection.
As the pony walked closer to her hiding spot, Gemstone could feel her legs quivering. This pony had no love within her.
This pony was filled with not only anger, but hate.
Fortunately for Gemstone, this pony apparently didn’t even know anything big was going on. She was sort of just strolling along to the front desk-
Oh no.
The pony in question got to the front desk, and noticed that it had been obliterated. Surprisingly, she seemed to take this in stride, examining the scene before her. Finding nothing that she seemed interested in, the peculiar mare simply walked around, apparently looking for the stallion that had worked there. She looked around for what seemed to Gemstone to be hours, if not days, and eventually found him hiding beneath some rubble on the other side of the room.
“Stumpy?” she said, puzzled. “What’s going on here? Why is the front desk in 568,742 pieces? And why are you hiding under 8 of them?”
“M-M-Moondancer!” the old stallion whimpered. “You’re good with magic, right?”
“Well, I’ve been studying my whole life, so I like to think I am. Why?”
“B-Bugs! Big bugs! Kill them!”
Moondancer looked around.
“I don’t see any ‘big bugs’, Stumpy.” she said skeptically, much to Gemstone’s relief.
“B-B-B-B-”
“Okay, calm down. I can think of at least eight species you might be describing, and only two are dangerous. Were these things intelligent?”
Stumpy nodded.
“Were they wearing anything?”
Stumpy nodded again.
“What were the-”
Stumpy pointed his hoof directly at Gemstone.
“Okay,” Moondancer said, walking up to Gemstone and casting a translation spell. “I don’t know who or what you are, but you blew up the front desk, so I’m not inclined to be lenient. Now tell me, little insect, what is your excuse?”
Gemstone didn’t answer for quite a bit. At this point she had foregone all semblance of dignity and curled up on the floor. However, she finally did answer after a good twenty seconds.
“That’s racist.” was her answer.
“Wait, what?”
“Calling us bugs. It’s racist.”
“Okay then, tell me your excuse, mammally challenged life form.”
“We are not ‘mammally challenged’. That implies that we wish we were mammals, or would be somehow better if we were. We do not and would not. We are perfectly happy with what we are and you have no right to revoke that.”
Moondancer sighed in exasperation. “Fine. What do you call yourselves?”
“You mean my breed, species, squad, hive or army”?
“Army? Well, at least now I know you’re hostile.” Moondancer said as her horn began to glow. “Goodbye, little bug.”
As Moondancer said this, Gemstone had finally mustered up the courage to fight. She knew she would not survive, but maybe she could buy her squad some time to run, if they realized what was going on before they became putty. She jumped up, attempting to thrust her horn into Moondancer’s throat, but the pony teleported across the room before that could happen, and shot a steady beam of magic directly at Gemstone. She countered this by simply jumping to the side and letting the beam destroy the door behind her, and activating the cloak spell she had used so many times before. However, this unicorn had clearly been studying magic for a very, very long time, and nullified it with ease. As this was happening, the rest of Gemstone’s squad arrived and entered the fray, having heard the sounds of battle from their individual locations. Gemstone used this opportunity to take up a similar position to one she usually adopted during battle: high up in the shady rafters, carefully firing concentrated bolts of magic down and scampering around in a way so as to not be noticed. Strangely enough, Moondancer seemed to focus all of her attacks on Slick, the squad combat flyer, and conjured up a shield to hold the others at bay.
“Gyaaaah!” Slick shouted as he flew around the room, narrowly dodging hundreds of potentially lethal bolts. “What did I do?”
Of course, Moondancer hadn’t cast any sort of translation spell on him, so all she heard was a series of squawks and chirps, similar to the sound of a bird with mouth herpes. Now, one does not consider it normal to hear a bird with mouth herpes, and so Moondancer’s concentration was broken for about a second as she tried to figure out how Slick was making such a sound.
Coalshard, the squad Brawler, noticed this and took advantage of the opportunity. He ran straight at Moondancer and slammed into her, knocking both of them to the ground. During this scuffle, Moondancer noticed that he did not have one of his wings, and so she took a few hits in order to concentrate enough on a teleportation spell to transport him to the roof of the castle.
Meanwhile, Overwatch was still standing a good distance away from the fight, formulating a strategy. He had already worked out most of it, and now that Coalshard was on the roof, he just had to wait for one more thing…
As if he had read his general’s mind, which, given the telepathic net that all Changeling Elites shared, he probably did, Nielegef, the squad Heavy, fired a burst of five large, flaming bolts of magic from the air above Moondancer, each easily as powerful as the one Overwatch had used to blow a hole in the wall earlier. Moondancer, believing she was taking advantage of his tactical mistake, altered her shield to reflect said bolts directly back at her attacker. As a response, Nielegef dodged out of the way, allowing one of the bolts to blast a hole in the roof, and the rest to fly through it into the air where Overwatch hoped they wouldn’t hit a Swarmer.
Overwatch let out clicks which contained orders relevant to his plan as he flew up through the hole. The rest of the Changelings followed suit, and found themselves on a shingled roof directly next to the castle’s main tower. Moondancer had soon teleported up there with them, and was actually able to gain the element of surprise, given that she teleported directly behind them. The abnormally large sparks flying from her horn proved to be too fast for even a Changeling to dodge, and soon Coalshard was on the ground, with Welder, the squad Medic, standing over him, trying to cast a healing spell. He went down, too, shortly afterwards, from his hind legs being turned into yams.
“Yams? Really?” He said, looking at Moondancer. But she hadn’t cast a translation spell on him, either, so she just heard more mouth herpes.
“Wait, that was you talking?” she replied, disgusted, as she telekinetically flung Slick into a wall.
Gemstone didn’t answer; she didn’t want Moondancer to be able to spot her on a nearby rampart. Her conscious squadmates tried to answer, though. After all, witty banter was considered an important part of combat by most Changelings, and a wave of grating noise rushed over Moondancer, causing her to wince in a similar way to when one hears dragon claws on a chalkboard, causing her to fall to her knees in pain.
Niegelef saw this, and immediately fired the most powerful concussive bolt he could muster. It hit its mark, and Moondancer flew through the air and landed directly in front of a window of the main tower. Both he and Overwatch immediately walked over there to see if she was still conscious. As they did that, they saw what was happening through the window.
Queen Chrysalis herself was standing in the room below, accompanied by a squad of Elites, in front of a Husk, a pink alicorn mare, and a… baby dragon in a tuxedo and a top hat? What? Overwatch snapped back into focus, and took a deep breath. Just watch and listen, Overwatch. It’s what you do he told himself. He was a bit worried about the alicorn, but the Queen was smart enough to have a backup plan in case the mare attacked.
Immediately after that, a squad of infiltrators and soldiers came into the room, having captured six mares. Overwatch grinned. His trap had worked. The prodige had fallen.
For a good minute, Chrysalis had a conversation with the ponies in the room. It was too far away to hear them, but the Queen appeared to be monologuing.
Overwatch sighed. He had never known the Queen to be one to make such a rookie mistake, but at least she had a good amount of guards in case the alicorn or the dragon took advantage of it.
And then Chrysalis did the unthinkable.
She sent her guards away.
In the presence of an alicorn.
“I can’t look.” Niegelef whimpered as he covered his face.
As Chrysalis went on and on with her monologuing, the alicorn distracted her with witty banter, presumably as she made her move. Or was she actually that inexperienced in wartime scenarios?
Then the alicorn did in fact make her move. She walked up to the Husk, her horn began to glow, and - Did she just revive the Husk? That shouldn’t have been possible!
Chrysalis was still standing there, looking directly at the group, clearly aware of what was going on. Strangely enough, the dragon never even moved. Was it some sort of lawn gnome?
The pink alicorn had a brief conversation with the former Husk (as absurd as that was), and soon they began to rise into the air as both their horns began to glow. They appeared to be somehow combining their magic into some form of superweapon. Overwatch looked at the Queen, expecting her to do something to stop it.
She did nothing.
The next thing Overwatch knew, he was waking up in a strange forest amidst a crowd of other Changelings, most of whom had hit the ground far too hard to live.
Suddenly, a collective shiver went up their spines at the same time. It was a strange feeling, but they all knew what it meant.
The Queen was dead.
Untold months later...
Things were not going well for those few Changelings that remained. Harvesting love from the ponies in settlements near their base in the Everfree Forest had become impossible for fear of discovery, and they had to resort to ripping open the minds of whatever wild animals were unlucky enough to stray near to or, more often, attack their camp. Tearing the love from another being in such a way was a hard job, but it was their only choice. These attacks had reduced their numbers from hundreds to little more than a few dozen. A zebra who lived nearby had agreed to give them maps and medical supplies, but only if she could harvest the ivory from their dead. Some of the other Changelings protested, but Overwatch didn’t mind. The way he saw it, it was more important to maintain the survival of the living than the sanctity of the dead, but of course there were some who simply didn’t see it that way. Most of the Infiltrators had taken a new form and run off to nearby Pony towns, hoping to start new lives. Of course, Ponies were herd creatures at heart, so for the most part this worked. He would have been thankful for this, but these Infiltrators had betrayed him and renounced his command, so they never reported back with anything they had learned. And the Infiltrators still loyal to him couldn’t risk infiltrating these settlements, as the traitors would often expose them to gain the trust of the Equines. Luckily, though, they were still kind enough not to reveal where his forces were camped, or that they even existed.
That left Overwatch with five other Elites, about three dozen Soldiers, around 30-40 Swarmers, and eight of the 53 surviving Infiltrators.
And all of them were surrounded by Timberwolves.
He exhaled calmly. The Queen was dead, and so protection of the Changeling race had fallen to him. He had to defend them. He and his troops had fended off assaults by these creatures before, but only from the safety of the camp walls. This abnormally large pack had somehow managed to knock over some of these walls and make their way in before the guards even had a chance to properly respond. And now, once again, he had troops to direct.
“Flame spells!” He called out to those who could hear him. “Wide burst!”
As he said this, he examined what troops he had at his disposal, as he had done so many times before. The five Elites who had fought with him on that fateful day in Canterlot were already in the middle of the pack, smashing at what appeared to be the Alpha Male. The rest were on their way to the small hive in the middle of the camp to grab some Fire Nectar so as to not get accidentally set on fire themselves. The entire camp was already a mess of Timberwolves and Changelings, so there was really no strategy to be had. All he could do was enter combat himself. He superheated his armor, and had just body-checked his first Timberwolf into flaming little splinters when all the Timberwolf pieces not on fire began to coagulate in the center of the camp. As he looked into the eyes of the beast being assembled, he felt something he had not have any experience with since he was but a hatchling.
Fear.
Suddenly, a small green-and-yellow object fell out of the sky and onto the Timberwolf’s neck, shattering it.
The previous day...
“Listen, Lightning Dust, I don’t want to expel you. You’ve shown great promise as a flyer and if not for the paperwork required by both of us for you to skip the Academy you would already be a cadet in the Wonderbolts.” Spitfire stated. She had just called her into her office right after Rainbow Dash and her little gang had left.
“Wha- then WHY did you tear off my badge!?!” Lightning Dust half-sobbed, half-demanded.
“That was just a pretense. Those ponies are held in very high esteem by the Princesses, so I hope you can understand that I couldn’t go against them directly before Celestia or Luna put in their two bits on the whole situation.” Spitfire said calmly.
“Then… what do we do now?” Lightning Dust asked, her voice wavering between fear and hope. “My entire life up to this point has been preparing to join you. Flight training is all I know. I don’t even know if I could even find a job anywhere else.”
“I know.” Spitfire sighed. “All we can do now is sit back and wait for this to blow over. If the Princesses don’t order me not to, I can easily just accept you in next year. How does that sound?”
“Really?” Lightning Dust sniffed.
“All we can do is hope. Dismissed.”
Lightning Dust walked out of the room. Tears still hadn’t stopped streaking down her face, but she didn’t care.
She was still going to be a Wonderbolt.
Now she just had to explain to her family why she was home early.
Lightning Dust walked in the door, having found her way back home by the last light of the evening sun. Her parents and little brother were right there, having some sort of argument.
“I’m home.” she mumbled.
Her little brother, Cloudrunner, was the first to notice her.
“Ah, speak of the oh-so-perfect little-”
“Lightning Dust.” her father interrupted. “Why are you back? Did you graduate already?”
“Of course she did, she’s just that perfect!” Cloudrunner said, loading that last word with all the venom he could muster. As usual, the parents of the two paid no attention to what he said.
“Oh, Lightning Dust!” her mother said, hugging her tightly. “I’m so proud!”
Lightning Dust broke up the hug as soon as she could. “Mom, I didn’t- I got kicked out.”
Her parents both gasped, but in the case of her father it was more of a sigh. Cloudrunner just sat where he was, the maniacal grin on his face promising that she would never hear the end of this.
“Explain.” her father said, anger slowly rising in his voice.
“There were some trespassers, and- they got in the way. They were also the princesses’ special favorites, so...”
“You had to have noticed them.” her father said, the anger clearly reaching dangerous levels.
“I didn’t! I really didn’t!” Lightning Dust shouted, tears beginning to well in her eyes once more. “They came up through a cloud bank directly under-”
“You know, Lightning Dust, we used to brag to our friends about you.” her mother interjected with the same anger as her father. “And now… I refuse to let our good name be tarnished by allowing you to stay here anymore.”
“Wha-”
“Get out of this house, Lightning Dust.”
With her head bent and her tail between her legs, Lightning Dust wearily complied.
Cloudrunner’s grin briefly disappeared as he asked his question.
“Does this mean you two love me now?”
“Shut up and go back in the basement, Cloudrunner.”
The next morning, Lightning Dust found herself in the corner of one of the many bars on the Cloudsdale Strip directly next to the alley she slept in, constantly ordering more Cloudtart Whiskeys. Even though she had previously always had at least one stallion try to flirt with her when she came here, nopony made any effort to approach her, since they could see she was in too foul of a mood for them to emerge unscathed.
She was also trying to think of what she would do next. Even if she could survive for a year begging for money on the streets, who would respect her when she became a Wonderbolt? Her family certainly wouldn’t, not unless she got really famous and they wanted to mooch off of her. There was only one thing left to do, and she had already started doing it.
As an evolutionary reaction against drunk flying, pegasi had lost the capability to fly under those conditions. As a direct result, if Lightning Dust consumed enough alcohol, she would not be able to use her wings for easily the next few hours. Now to see if she was there yet.
She tried to open her wings, and they didn’t open. That was good, but she ordered another whiskey just in case she was simply too drunk to realize her wings were open.
She gulped down the last of her favorite drink and wandered out of the bar.
And then to the edge of the cloud she was on.
At least she got to die in a semblance of something she loved to do.
