Midnight Rising

"I remember my mother, my father. The Princesses. I remember them all. Do I remember...? Yes. Yes I do. I remember her."

"In just a few more minutes the Harmony device will finish powering up, and I will restore Equestria to her TRUE FORM!!" Flurry Heart thundered, her eyes wide with madness. Her head was the only part of her exposed, and she paced around the device. "You will live long enough to see it, to see the world as you know it end, replaced with how it SHOULD BE...and, should you survive past that, you will be placed on trial."

I weakly tried to stand, finding my limbs unwilling to support my weight. "I...do not understand! Why are you doing this?!" I demanded. I figured I could probably stall her long enough to regain my strength, if I could just keep her talking. It would also put the final piece of the puzzle into place.

"To restore harmony and friendship to Equestria. Your Empress is a monster, and her vision a terrible injustice. She is possessed by horrible, misguided notions of superiority. I intend to use the facsimiles of the Elements to cleanse her of these ideals, and return her to the way of Harmony" Flurry Heart exclaimed.

"The Elements... You know they won't work" I said, drawing on what the Shining Armor AI had told me.

"But they will!" Flurry Heart exclaimed. "When I escaped Tartarus 20 years ago I came out on the shores of the seas. My friends, they had come out elsewhere. I wandered for a bit, and found a tribal village. Cut off from the civilized world I knew the ponies there would know nothing about what had happened all those centuries ago. As expected, they had no idea who I was, but they knew I was an Alicorn. They gave me everything I asked for, catered to my every whim, and it is there that I began to plan. I knew that, even as an Alicorn, I could not challenge Twilight directly. The defenses at Castle Twilight were insane, even back then. Nevermind Twilight's own power. Plus she still had the Elements of Harmony in her possession. I knew that I needed them, but there was absolutely no way to get into the Castle and take them. Then I remembered the Starborn. I knew that Twilight had created the Starborn, hence their name, referencing Twilight's cutie mark. I knew that the Stars were the perfect mix of machine and life, and I reached out to them with my mind. I used my magic to implant the Starborn with the notion of self, and caused their uprising, hoping to destabilize Twilight's Equestria. But, that didn't work."

"Empress Twilight created the Starborn, and YOU caused their uprising? The history books say that the Starborn were created by a private concern" I stated.

"More of Twilight's revisionist history... She created the Starborn, and took credit for it, until they turned on Equestria. Then she had the information changed. Same reason why your books speak of Equestria's famine, which NEVER happened! The Princesses did not turn their backs on Equestria, Twilight MURDERED THEM!! Celestia and Luna, she savagely cut down without remorse, and usurped the throne. Celestia's diary escaped the purge, and Fluttershy showed it to me, along with a potion that allowed me to see the past as it had truly happened, in case I did not believe the book. I drank the potion, and I believed" Flurry Heart told me.

"You... You drank a strange potion, given to you by a traitor, and saw some kind of fucked up vision that was supposedly the past? Are you insane?!" I asked, dumbfounded. What kind of idiot would drink something given to them by their ENEMY?

"FLUTTERSHY SHOWED ME THE TRUTH! SHE WAS NO TRAITOR!" Flurry Heart yelled, stomping her hooves. "But I couldn't save her, or Pinkie..." the mad Princess said with a hint of regret. "As I was saying, though, my plan to destabilize Twilight's Equestria through the Starborn did not work. I was counting on her to see the Starborn as her children, and hesitate to have them destroyed. I underestimated her heartlessness, even with all I knew. When that failed, I felt as though there was nothing else I could do. I felt as though I'd lost. Then, something happened... One night, in the tribal village, six foals were born at once. Two Unicorns, two Pegasi, and two Earth. Their colors? Purple, pink, orange, white, blue, and yellow. I saw them and...I knew. Harmony had birthed a new generation of bearers. But, without the Elements of Harmony, these six filies would be useless. I asked the village elder if I could take the fillies and raise them as my own, and he agreed. I had the Starborn bring me a ship, and I left with the fillies for the Siren system."

"So the Starborn buying water filters and hydroponics equipment WAS tied in with you" I said. "What happened to the foals?" I asked, afraid of the answer.

"They're right here" Flurry Heart answered, gesturing to the Harmony device. "As time went on, I came up with the idea of creating facsimiles of the Elements of Harmony. Moondancer, the Pie sisters, and Sunburst had found me about five years after we escaped Tartarus, and we made a home on the planet Etherea, in the Siren system. Selling the resources the Starborn were digging up we amassed a massive fortune, and I used it to buy seven soul gems on the black market, and we used a facility in the depths of Hydra's oceans to study what we knew about the Elements of Harmony. When the fillies came of age, we harvested their souls and put them into the soul gems, creating the facsimiles of the Elements. But, we couldn't use them on their own, so that's why we needed the Harmony device. I had Moondancer buy materials to aid in its creation, but eventually the seller caught wind of what we were doing and stopped selling to us. By then it didn't matter, though; the device was finished. I spawned a dark creature to test the Harmony device and it worked; it cleansed my magical spawn of evil. That's how I know it'll work!!"

I was floored, and more than a little disturbed. "Hold up. You took six newborns from their home, raised them as your own, and then, when they became adults, you HARVESTED their SOULS to power your FAKE Elements of Harmony?! You're a monster, Flurry Heart!" I exclaimed.

"I will be the savior of Equestria! So what if I broke a few eggs? The ends justify the means!" the mad Princess ranted. "Just like with the Starborn. Moondancer and the two Pie sisters you saw weren't the only ones imprisoned in Tartarus that made it out. There was one more; Marble Pie. She couldn't bring herself to fight, but she wanted to help bring Harmony back to Equestria. When I saw her interacting with the Starborn I knew how she could contribute. The Starborn have done a good job evolving on their own since I gave them the gift of introspection, but they could never make the leap to being truly alive on their own. They would need help, and I knew where to find it. I asked Marble Pie if she would be willing to give her soul to the Starborn, and she agreed. I harvested her soul and put it in a gem, and I plan to give it to the Starborn after this is over. With the power of Marble Pie's soul, the Starborn will know not only true life, but they will know compassion. After they were made to be slaves, I think this will give them a new perspective" Flurry Heart declared with a gleam in her eyes.

I couldn't believe the things I had heard from the mad Princess. A cabal of half-baked, hare-brained ideals packed in with more than a little insanity, and the harvesting of the souls of the innocent for use in her sick plans. "What about the attack on Equus Prime? What did you hope to accomplish with that?"

"The Starborn wanted that. Like a cut that draws blood from one who thinks themselves immortal it was intended to show Twilight that Her Empire could be attacked, severely. It was a show of force, meant to hurt the Empire. It was also intended to draw the fleet away from Equus so we could get the Host of Harmony near the planet without interference. I hadn't expected Twilight to just send a Royal Hunter instead of the fleet" Flurry Heart told me.

"So now I see why they pledged their allegiance to you. I just want to know; why? Why do you care so much about the other species?" I inquired.

"If they had subjugated pony kind the way you have, you wouldn't like it so much. Would you? Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine if you were a Griffin, or a Minotaur. I would say 'imagine if you were a Changeling', or a Yak, or a Bison. But I can't. Want to know why? They're all EXTINCT! They never surrendered, never relented. They would NOT submit themselves, and they would NOT go quietly into the night! And now? They're all extinct for it" Flurry Heart said.

"They were ignorant to resist in the first place" I commented.

"No, Royal Hunter, it's YOU who is ignorant! You serve an illegitimate empire, built upon a foundation of lies, falsehoods, murder, and conquest. An empire that I intend to end" Flurry Heart stated, turning to face the Harmony device. I got to my hooves, my strength regained, my gems recharged.

"Not if I have anything to say about it" I declared, keeping my stance low, watching as Flurry Heart turned back to face me, a brow piqued.

"Come then, and face HARMONY!" the mad Princess bellowed, taking to the air and firing a magical beam of fire at me. I moved to dodge, but was too late, the beam slamming into me like a boulder. I was thrown through the air, coming down hard on the glass floor, my gaze falling on the planet Equus, far below.

"Such arrogance and hubris. I am ashamed to be an Equestrian, but I know this bastardized version of Equestria will soon come to an end. And I, Princess Flurry Heart, will show the world the way of peace and friendship it has long forgotten!!" Flurry Heart boldly proclaimed, turning back to face the Harmony device, now fully charged. "Harmony, return to us!" she thundered, reaching out to the device...

...and pressing the fire button.