Bright Lights, Colors All Around (3/3)

Zero Volt galloped after Nightmare. The ground underneath him was breaking apart, and he was forced to sidestep every crack and fissure in his path. Eventually he reached the edge of the cliff and saw the roller coaster tracks. Despite what they were actually designed for, the tracks were smooth enough and close enough to each other, and he jumped onto those tracks, using them as grind rails. The tracks rumbled underneath his hooves. There were still roller coaster cars running along these tracks ahead of him, and they were heading in his direction. Fortunately there were multiple sets of tracks, and he switched rails to avoid the oncoming cars. Before long, the rails reached a large platform, and Zero Volt hopped onto it and galloped in pursuit of Nightmare.

“You decided to follow me?” Nightmare said. “Very well then, I have plenty of time to entertain your death wish before I reach the gate back to Equestria.” The two of them rapidly approached a portal behind her, and when they stepped through it, Zero Volt found himself in the middle of the air fleet. “Laser!” Cyan streaks appeared across Nightmare’s two smaller heads, which opened their jaws and each fired a laser across the ship’s deck. The lasers sliced through the ship’s hull as they made their pass, cutting the ship into four pieces. Seeing a hard light path nearby, Zero Volt ran across the deck and jumped onto it, continuing his pursuit.

Nightmare aimed at Zero Volt and swept across his path with another laser. Zero Volt jumped over the laser as it swept across. Nightmare fired again, but Zero Volt jumped over the second laser. This time, Nightmare prepared both arms and fired two lasers, one sweeping from each side. Zero Volt waited for the lasers to reach him and jump over both as they crossed each other’s paths. Despite the damage caused to the fleet, the hard light path remained unharmed by Nightmare’s attacks. Nightmare grew impatient and fired both lasers at the path again. This time, rather than sweeping them across the path, Nightmare guided the lasers toward Zero Volt. She could trap him in between the lasers or she could force him off the edge. At this point, she didn’t care how she killed him; she just wanted him dead.

Meanwhile, Zero Volt was getting closer. Nightmare wasn’t traveling particularly fast, and despite her attacks, Zero Volt was closing the gap between them. He moved to avoid the lasers that were aimed at him, and when they tried to box him in, he moved or jumped around them. Before long, he was in front of Nightmare’s arms. He moved closer to the right one and jumped onto it. In her frustration, Nightmare recklessly aimed the other arm at Zero Volt. Instead of hitting him, her laser seared through the arm he was running along. Nightmare growled and flailed her damaged arm, which now had cyan smoke rising from its wound. The cyan Wisp burst out from Nightmare’s wound and flew next to Zero Volt, who had leapt back onto the path.

“Hey there, glad you could make it,” Zero Volt said cheerfully. The cyan Wisp squeaked fearfully and pleadingly to him. “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll get the others back and finish off Nightmare once and for all. I’m not sure how yet, but I’ll come up with something.” The hard light path led into another portal, and the three of them passed through it. Zero Volt’s hooves kicked up pink cake frosting as he found himself running through the saccharine environment from earlier that afternoon. “Aw, and I’d just gotten all that icing off of my hooves.”

Yellow streaks appeared over the heads on Nightmare’s arms, which she aimed at the ground. Moments later, Zero Volt’s two-second warning took effect, and he moved left to avoid a drill that rose from the ground. Several drills shot out of the ground, and Zero Volt sidestepped them as he galloped toward Nightmare. He was starting to close in on her again, but yellow light appeared over the ground in front of her.

“Whoa!” he shouted, sliding on his hooves as several rows of drills shot out of the ground, blocking his advance. ‘There’s no way I’m getting past all that on hoof,’ he thought. ‘Although…’ Still skidding on his hooves to decelerate, Zero Volt teleported past the drills and onto Nightmare’s left arm.

“What are you doing?!” Nightmare roared. Zero Volt had finally come to a stop on Nightmare’s arm. A circular beam of light moved across the ground toward him. “No! Get off! Get o-AGH” A drill rose out of the ground and pierced through Nightmare’s arm. Zero Volt was able to jump off before the drill reached him, and the yellow Wisp emerged from the smoldering wound on Nightmare’s arm.

Staring at the yellow Wisp in front of him, Zero Volt started to see a pattern. Throughout this entire day, he had been attacking Nightmare with these Wisps’ powers. Even now, when she had all of their abilities at her disposal, they still seemed to be damaging her. ‘If she wants their power so much, then maybe I can turn them against her,’ he thought.

“You little…” Nightmare growled. Another portal appeared behind them, and she passed through it. Zero Volt jumped as he entered the portal and found that his hooves had landed on a set of rails. He was grinding on the roller coaster tracks again, but the demolished factory wasn’t anywhere nearby. There were two more sets of tracks nearby, but he was already going at a decent speed and there were no roller coasters running, so he didn’t need to switch rails yet. Looking back at Nightmare, he noticed pink streaks on the smaller heads. Nightmare positioned the heads just above the tracks and launched spiked balls from them.

Zero Volt switched rails to dodge the oncoming spiked balls. Nightmare wasn’t launching them en masse, so there were gaps between them for him to pass through. Every once in a while he would jump over a spiked ball if it was more convenient. However, he soon realized that he wouldn’t catch up to Nightmare at the rate he was going. In fact, friction was starting to gain the advantage as he slowly decelerated along the track. ‘Maybe if I try to skate on the rails,’ he thought. ‘I could pick up speed and- wait, what am I doing?’ Zero Volt quickly teleported onto Nightmare’s right arm. Feeling the extra weight on her arm, Nightmare aimed her left head at him and launched several spiked balls at him in succession. Zero Volt galloped along Nightmare’s arm, avoiding each projectile as it shot past him. However, Nightmare didn’t take into account that he would be moving up while she aimed at him, and when he reached her shoulder, Nightmare’s last shot was too low and struck her instead.

Zero Volt leapt back onto the rails as Nightmare injured herself a third time. Nightmare now had three smoldering wounds on her transformed body, and the pink Wisp emerged from the third one and joined Zero Volt. Another portal appeared at the end of the roller coaster tracks. Zero Volt jumped into it and found himself galloping along a steel walkway. He was surrounded by steel, colored white and red, with only a hoofful of plants visible nearby.

“Whoa!” he shouted. His two-second warning had activated, and he moved left to avoid something shoot by him very quickly. He looked back at Nightmare, who now had orange streaks on her two smaller heads. Nightmare shot two orange rockets at Zero Volt, who managed to dodge both of them. However, the walkway that he ran along wasn’t complete, and there were several gaps in it. The walkway was wide enough that he could quickly step around any gaps, but Nightmare was still shooting at him, and her rockets traveled very quickly. Zero Volt stepped around a hole in the center of his path, but had to jump to the other side of the walkway to dodge a rocket.

At this point, Nightmare decided to get creative and aimed one of her heads at the walkway itself. With one head aiming at the platform and the other at Zero Volt, she destroyed parts of the walkway while shooting at him. With even less ground to run on and rockets being launched at him, Zero Volt had even less room to maneuver. Despite all this, he managed to close in on his enemy again. Noticing a wall along one side of the walkway, he hopped onto it, performed a wall run, and jumped onto Nightmare’s right arm. Nightmare aimed her left arm carefully at him and fired rockets at him as he ran along. Pink smoke still billowed from her wounded shoulder, and she was determined not to make the same mistake with him a second time. However, as soon as he got close enough, Zero Volt jumped from Nightmare’s arm and landed on her head, right in the center of her transformed body. He jumped off and did a back flip just as Nightmare fired one last rocket.

Zero Volt ran past Nightmare the moment him hooves landed on the ground. The orange Wisp appeared next to him after Nightmare fired a rocket at herself. “All of you stay close to me and don’t let go,” he said to the four Wisps. “Nightmare still has frenzy, and I am not letting you guys get captured again.” This time, there was no portal, but the walkway started to ascend up into the air. At the same time, Zero Volt found himself sidestepping around gaps in the platform less frequently. “What is this? Is this a… bridge?”

“Yes, but it’s not just any bridge.” Zero Volt looked up just as Nightmare passed above him. “Do you see the gateway up ahead? This bridge and that gateway lead back into Equestria, Canterlot to be more precise. What better way to begin my campaign of destruction than by crushing the heart of Equestria beneath my hoof?”

“Those don’t look much like hooves,” Zero Volt said with a cocky smirk. “And I can’t believe you built all this in the last few hours. I’ve got to say, I’m feeling a bit left out.”

“Oh don’t worry about it,” Nightmare said. “I can still toss your mangled body back into the world below before entering that gate. Cube!” Blue streaks appeared across all three of Nightmare’s heads. She brought her arms in front of her and gathered the blue Wisp’s energy using all three heads.

“All of you stay close to me!” Zero Volt said. The four Wisps huddled closer to him as Nightmare prepared her attack. She generated a single cube, almost as large as herself, and slammed it into the ground. Zero Volt teleported several feet above the platform before the cube landed. He continued his gallop as soon as he landed, but even though he avoided the attack, the cube’s shockwave spread cracks across the bridge. Zero Volt teleported again to avoid another giant cube, but the walkway started to crumble after the second attack. He noticed the damage to the bridge as soon as he landed again and tried to run faster, hoping the damage wasn’t too widespread.

Nightmare produced a third cube and slammed it into the walkway. As soon as the cube landed, the shockwave spread across the bridge, causing a mile-long section of it to crumble. Zero Volt managed to teleport further ahead and reached a stable section of the walkway. “Enough playing around!” Nightmare growled. “May you wander lost in the darkness of your desolation and demise for all eternity!”

Nightmare placed her arms just above the walkway and placed a multitude of smaller cubes in Zero Volt’s path in quick succession. The cubes surrounded Zero Volt as he started to run past them. As Nightmare floated further back, she placed more cubes along the bridge to block Zero Volt. The cubes did not completely block his path, and he could still run around them. However, they created a number of dead ends and sharp turns for him to navigate as their arrangement swallowed him up. He quickly stepped to either side whenever there was a cube in front of him. Since he could not see through the cubes, he had to depend on his two-second warning to find the right path.

Meanwhile, Nightmare had stopped generating small cubes and brought her arms together again. The blue Wisp’s energy gathered around her three heads as she prepared another, much larger cube. Zero Volt would still be lost among the smaller cubes by the time she dropped it, so she expected him to be caught by its shockwave. However, his two-second warning told him about her attack, so he teleported just as she dropped the cube. Zero Volt landed on Nightmare’s left arm and quickly jumped off, pushing Nightmare’s arm down and causing it to graze the walkway for just a second. At the same time, the shockwave spread to Nightmare’s body through her arm and damaged her left shoulder, freeing the blue Wisp. It also destroyed the rest of the bridge, causing it to fall apart and collapse.

Seconds later, Zero Volt teleported and landed on Nightmare’s face. Waiting for the Wisps to gather around him, he teleported all of them back to the aquarium and leapt onto the platforms above the water. As he galloped on the platforms, the blue Wisp floated in front of him and communicated with him. “No thanks,” Zero Volt said. “I’ve got it under control.” The yellow Wisp joined the conversation with his own squeaks and gestures. “I’ve already gotten five of you back on my own. Trust me, I’ll be fine. Besides, I’m not even trying that hard. If anything, Nightmare’s defeating herself.”

“Is that so?” Nightmare said as she flew over him. “You were lucky, you little colt. But luck can’t last forever. Hover!”

“She just called me a colt again,” Zero Volt said. “Just because she’s ridiculously old doesn’t mean…” Up ahead, Nightmare was tapping into the green Wisp’s energy to attack him. Her projectiles were in the shape of her smaller heads, and even though they moved slowly, she had already produced ten of them in the last five seconds. “Uh-oh.” Zero Volt galloped from platform to platform, swerving around or between each pair of floating heads. However, as he approached the projectiles, they seemed to deviate from their paths. ‘Are they gravitating toward me?’ he thought as he ran past them. Suddenly, a robotic fish leapt out of the water and lunged at him. He leapt to the side to dodge it as he jumped to the next platform. ‘Those things are still here?’ More robotic fish attacked Zero Volt as he jumped from platform to platform. He made sure to avoid them during his jumps while still running past the floating heads. Eventually, he noticed a green light shining behind him, and when he found an opportunity to look behind him, he couldn’t believe what he saw. The floating heads weren’t just gravitating toward him; they were changing course and chasing him. One robot jumped out of the water, only to be melted and incinerated when it leapt into the horde of floating heads. ‘She’s attacking me from the front, the back, from below, basically from every possible angle.’ His attention turned to the five Wisps who were following him, then at the projectiles that were fired at him. At this point, he wasn’t even sure if Nightmare was more interested in gaining the Wisps’ power or getting revenge.

Meanwhile, Nightmare stopped producing the green projectiles and brought her arms in front of her again. She had produced enough of them to at least keep him busy and was now gathering energy to create a much larger head to send at him; one too large for him to simply sidestep. Zero Volt ran past the last of the smaller floating heads and saw her send the massive one at him. Making sure that the Wisps were close enough, he teleported into the sky above Nightmare. He fell back down, bounded off Nightmare as he landed on her, and galloped ahead. Nightmare shook off the minor impact, only to notice her largest projectile turn around and face her, with a hundred or so smaller ones behind it.

Zero Volt noticed several things behind him as he galloped ahead: a bright green flash, the sound of flames crackling behind him, and Nightmare’s agonized cry as all of her attacks collided with her. Moments later, the flash died down and the green Wisp flew toward him. “You know, if Nightmare had been a bit less deserving of that, I might actually feel sorry of her.” Zero Volt found one last portal and galloped through it. After exiting through the other side of the portal, he was surrounded by tall grasses and lush vegetation; the same landscape that he found when he came to this world, but without anything built on it. The green Wisp waited a while and then gestured toward the portal they had all passed through. “Don’t worry about it,” Zero Volt said casually. “Nightmare wants all of you back, and I’ll bet she wants to kill me more than she’s ever wanted to kill any other creature in existence.”

“You, you, you, YOU! You horrid little colt!”

“See? She’s right behind us.”

“FRENZY!”

“Alright, everyone close to me and don’t let go!” Zero Volt ordered. “I just spent over twelve hours rescuing you twice, and I really don’t want to have to do it a third time.” The six Wisps huddled around him as Nightmare’s right head opened its mouth. The right head began sucking air in as it aimed at him, trying to swallow the Wisps again. Zero Volt’s hooves started to slip, but the Wisps held on as he tried to move out of range. Nightmare aimed her left arm at him and tried to pull them in with both heads. With both heads trying to pull him in, Zero Volt lost traction and was lifted off the ground.

Just as Nightmare was about to swallow him and the Wisps, Zero Volt teleported and landed on her right arm. Nightmare lifted her left head and tried to bite him with it, only for its jaws to clamp down on her arm when he teleported. She found him standing on her left arm and threw her right head at him. Zero Volt teleported again, causing her right head to bite into her left arm. Within seconds, each head bit through the other arm, and the purple Wisp emerged.

Zero Volt did a quick head count, and now that all seven Wisps were with them again, he turned back to the smoldering, disfigured monster in front of him. “Laser! Drill! Spikes! Rocket! Cube! Hover! Frenzy!” The Wisps circled around him and started glowing as his hooves lifted off the ground. When they all flew into him, his body glowed with a harsh white light. Two wings sprouted from his sides, along with a horn on his head. “It’s over, Nightmare,” he said. “Not for me, not for these Wisps, and not for Equestria, but for you and you alone!” Zero Volt flew right into Nightmare, shattering her transformed state and leaving behind only her original equine form. She writhed and twitched as the Wisps’ power seared her body, and within seconds, she exploded in a flash of bright white light and a purple fog.

Zero Volt flew across the landscape until his hooves touched down in a shallow stream. He tried to decelerate by sliding on his hooves, but one of them tripped on a rock and his body tumbled along the stream until he came to a stop. The glow around his body faded as he lied on his back in the middle of the stream. The horn and wings vanished from him, leaving behind a glowing outline of a horn on his forehead, an outline of a wing on each of his sides, and a few tufts of white hair in his mane. The outlines disappeared, leaving behind those white bangs and three white streaks along his sides. Looking at his flanks, he noticed one more detail that wasn’t there before. At some point in all of the fighting and chaos, his cutie mark appeared: a black set of pegasus wings and a unicorn horn with a green sword in the center. Zero Volt smiled a bit before noticing something else out of the corner of his eye. His battle with Nightmare had lasted all night, and when he looked at the horizon, he saw the sun beginning to rise. After an entire day and night of running around this world and fighting a god of darkness and destruction, Zero Volt succumbed to his exhaustion and fell asleep in the middle of the stream.

“So all of that happened in one night?” Twilight asked. “The Shinespark, the fight with Nightmare, your cutie mark?”

“We must have slept that night, and she was so close to reaching Equestria,” Fluttershy said. “I can’t believe you went through all that. I can’t believe you never told us about it.”

“If you didn’t believe me about that dragon, you would’ve never believed me about this,” Zero Volt said. “Besides, I could probably say the same thing about you. I’ve been around you for over a year, and the only time I ever heard anything about the Elements of Harmony is when you actually used them.”

“We don’t really talk about it much,” Applejack said. “Not even Rainbow Dash, and that’s sayin’ a lot.”

“Wake up, Zero Volt. This was only the beginning. You must keep going, Zero Volt. You must wake up now.”

Zero Volt slowly opened his eyes. Looking around, he saw some suspicious plant life and deformed trees. Above him, the forest canopy blocked out most, if not all sunlight. “The Everfree Forest?” he thought out loud. “Then that world… was it all a dream?” He stood up and brushed himself off before looking at himself. The cutie mark and the white parts of his mane and coat were all there. “So it wasn’t a dream. Then why am I out here? I remember passing out in their world.” His next realization upset him, and he frantically searched the forest around him, but saw no sign of the Wisps or a portal to their world. “They threw me out, didn’t they? I was just there to take out Nightmare, and then they got rid of me. They…” Tears started forming in his eyes and he looked down at the ground. “They used me.” Zero Volt closed his eyes and shook his head, tossing a few teardrops from his eyes. “No, I can’t think about that now. I have to… I have to keep moving.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Zero Volt spent the next hour trudging through the Everfree Forest. As soon as he reached the edge of the forest, a town started coming into view. “Ponyville,” he said under his breath, having found its location on the map. “I guess I could start here.”

“Hey, look!” Pinkie Pie said. “Fluttershy’s getting a cameo!”

The town itself was still far away, but a certain yellow pegasus was tending to a chicken coop. “Maybe I’ll get a decent welcome here. Or maybe they’ll turn on me too. Maybe they’ll try to use me, just like Silver Wind and those Wisps. Or maybe they’ll save time and just attack me as soon as I walk into town!” The yellow pegasus noticed Zero Volt walking from the forest and started backing away. As soon as she was close to her cottage, she rushed through the door and slammed it behind her. “Looks like we’re off to a great start already,” he said, having noticed the cottage’s door slam shut and shades closing over all of its windows.

“And that’s the end of the movie,” Celestia said as the picture turned off. “I hope it answered at least a few questions about Zero Volt’s past.”

“It sure does,” Pinkie said. “Who knew there was an entire land made out of candy and baked goods? Now that I know about it, I can’t wait to… wait a minute.” Pinkie popped up in front of Zero Volt almost immediately, now with an angry look on her face. “You knew about that place this whole time. You could’ve told me about it. You could’ve even teleported me there! What else do you know that you’re not telling me, huh?”

“Pinkie, we have bigger problems than that right now,” Twilight said. She used her magic to pull Pinkie back, but she also had a stern expression. “Nightmare is still alive.”

“Wait, she is?” Spike said.

“It’s so obvious to me now,” she said. “Volt has no other way of attacking Nightmare. Of course he would’ve used the Shinespark the first time he fought her, and if it didn’t destroy her then, it wouldn’t have finished her off when we used it. But you already knew that, didn’t you, Zero Volt?”

“That’s what Ah was meant before!” Applejack said as she confronted Zero Volt. “This is exactly the kind thing yah shoulda told us ‘bout, but instead yah kept it from us. Why aren’t yah tellin’ us stuff that we oughta know about? Why didn’t yah tell us ‘bout Nightmare when we all know what she’s capable of?”

If Zero Volt was taken aback by what Applejack said, he didn’t show it. Despite some banter and a few casual comments, he had been brooding throughout most of the movie, especially during the second half. He had been lying on his stomach before, but now he stood up and met Applejack’s glare with one of his own. “Because I didn’t want to.”

“What d’yah mean yah didn’t want to? That’s no-”

“I mean I don’t like talking about my past!” Zero Volt snapped. “I don’t even want to think about my past! But no, we had to watch an entire movie about it! What I don’t understand is why we had to spend the last two hours RUBBING SALT IN THE WOUND!” Everyone in the room was speechless. In particular, Applejack was completely taken aback by Zero Volt’s outburst. Zero Volt was normally an easygoing pony who rarely showed bitterness to anyone. This was the first time his friends had ever seen him enraged, and he was still fuming at Applejack.

“That’s not what this is about.” Everyone, including Zero Volt, turned in the direction of the voice they had heard. Fluttershy wore a disappointed expression on her face as she stared at the floor, unable to look back at him. “When you first came to Ponyville, I asked you if you could learn to trust us. I know you’ve been through a lot, but that doesn’t mean you can shut us out like this.” Now Zero Volt was taken aback. Fluttershy was the last pony he expected to stand up to him like this, and his expression softened as she spoke. “Why couldn’t you trust us, Zero? Now you’ve made it harder for us to trust you.”

“I trust him.” This time, it was Rainbow Dash who spoke up. “Applejack, remember when Pinkie Pie got caught in a snowstorm? Volt was scared to death of your dog, and he still went with the two of you to find her. And when we last fought Nightmare, he pulled our flanks out of the fire so many times. I’m starting to think his two-second warning is watching out for us too. Wait, is it watching out for us?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Zero Volt said.

“Oh. Look, maybe he doesn’t always tell us the truth, but I trust his actions, and that’s good enough for me.” The others silently thought about Rainbow’s words as she turned and walked toward Zero Volt. “Look, I get that you don’t want to think about your life before Ponyville. I’ve got a few things in my past that I don’t want to remember either, so if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. We just want you to at least tell us things on a need-to-know basis, okay?”

By now, Zero Volt had finally calmed down. “Yeah,” he said, “I can do that.”

“Okay then,” Rainbow said before turning to everyone else in the room. “Is that good enough for the rest of you?”

One by one, the other ponies in the room nodded. As soon as Applejack agreed, Fluttershy decided to speak up again. “I think we should all take a trip to the Wisps’ world, including Zero.”

“Fluttershy, no,” Zero Volt said, only for Pinkie Pie to jump right in front of him.

“Oh, absolutely!” she shouted. “I can’t wait to go there and try all those candies and doughnuts and take a swim in that chocolate river! I just have to remember to bring my own shovel for that giant cake! Wait, do I really need a shovel or…”

Zero Volt grew increasingly irritated by the hyperactive chatterbox in front of him. Pinkie Pie, seemingly oblivious to how annoyed he was getting, kept talking about what she wanted to do and what plans she was making. Before long, Zero Volt jammed his hoof into Pinkie’s mouth in midsentence. “Alright fine!” he said. “If it’ll shut you up, we’ll go next week.”

Pinkie Pie pulled her mouth off of Zero Volt’s hoof and wrapped her forelegs around him. “Aw, I knew we did the right thing by taking in this little stray.”

Zero Volt abruptly pulled out of Pinkie’s hug and held her back with his hooves. “Okay seriously, do you hear ‘bark, bark, bark’ whenever I talk?”

“No, but sometimes I hear ‘ruff, ruff, ruff.’”

Zero Volt was lost for words for the next few seconds. “I am not a puppy!”

“Of course not,” she said. “You’re a pony, silly.”

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

“Always do,” Pinkie Pie said before bouncing away, leaving Zero Volt dumbstruck.

“Hey, Volt,” Rainbow Dash said. “What does your cutie mark mean? We saw how you got it, but it still doesn’t make any sense.”

“Dash, no.”

“Volt.”

From the look on her face, Zero Volt could tell that she was adamant about this. “Need-to-know basis?” he asked with a sigh.

“Yeah.”

“It means that I can understand whatever the Wisps are trying to say with all their squeaks and gestures,” he said. “It also means that I can use their powers more effectively than anypony else.”

“That sounds kind of cool,” Rainbow said. “Why did you tell me that it was useless?”

“Because it doesn’t really do much when the Wisps are over there and I right here,” Zero Volt said. “Of course, that’s before I found out that I leeched some of their power during that final attack.”

“One other thing,” Twilight said. “Where did ‘Zero Volt’ come from, because I didn’t hear that name anywhere during the movie?”

“Before I woke up in the Everfree Forest, I thought I heard somepony calling out to me, telling me to wake up,” he said. “It kept calling me Zero Volt, and I guess the name got stuck in my head.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Twilight said. “Still, we’ve been calling you that for over a year now. It’s not like we can call you anything else. Now let’s find Pinkie Pie and go back home. Thanks for showing us all of that, Princess Celestia.”

“It was my pleasure, Twilight,” Celestia said, with Luna silently nodding.

* * * * * * * * * *

Celestia made her way down the steps into Canterlot’s dungeons. Twilight Sparkle and her friends had already teleported back to Ponyville, but she still had one other task today. Shortly after they had left, one of her messengers reported to her saying that a prisoner had requested her audience. The messenger had given her the prisoner’s number and profile, but she glossed over those details. After all, some prisoners were more memorable than others, and this was one of the more memorable ones. She turned a corner and found her prisoner, a black alicorn stallion. “You’ve finally decided to talk,” she said.

“I just needed a friend to talk to,” Blitzkrieg said. “After all, it does get lonely in here.”

“We’re not friends, Blitzkrieg,” Celestia said. “You would have attacked me and Luna and threatened the stability of Equestria over a selfish power grab.”

“Power grab?” he said. “You seem to have me confused with my parents. They wanted me to take the throne for the sake of power, but that was never my objective.

“Then why did you plan a coup d’état?”

“Celestia, do you know what a changeling is?” he asked. “A changeling is a lot like a mosquito; a small, insignificant parasite that feeds on others. At the same time, a changeling is a lot like an ant; exhibiting a hive mentality, but still a small, insignificant creature. If I remember correctly, Equestria almost fell to ruin a year and a half ago because you were defeated by what is essentially an overgrown ant queen.”

“That overgrown ant queen fed off of two ponies who were very much in love,” Celestia said. “Love is a very powerful emotion, and that swarm was ultimately defeated by the same power their queen used against me.”

“Oh I see now,” Blitzkrieg said. “All it takes to defeat the princess of the sun is the puppy love between two ponies. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

“It’s not that simple, Blitzkrieg.”

“Oh, but it is,” he sneered. “You see, I’ve done some research on you, and this isn’t the first time you failed to protect Equestria from a threat. The stories say that you first banished Nightmare Moon using the Elements of Harmony. It sounds like a victory, but I know the truth. You wouldn’t have used such magic unless you were out of options, which means that you were defeated by your kid sister throwing a temper tantrum. Twice. Then there’s Discord, one of the most powerful and malevolent beings in existence, but you should have been prepared for something that you had already defeated once before. But no, he overpowered you and Equestria was almost lost, again.”

“Unless you think you could do a better job against these beings, I don’t see the point you’re trying to make.”

“That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make, princess. You are a weak ruler, unfit to project your kingdom and its subjects. That’s why I tried to overpower you.”

“I don’t believe you for a second,” Celestia said. Blitzkrieg was getting under her skin more easily than she had expected, but her voice and demeanor remained calm. “You would only rule Equestria as a tyrant. Being a good ruler takes more than a philosophy of might makes right. If you really wanted to protect this kingdom, then you should have joined the royal guard.”

“Believe what you want to believe, not that it changes anything.”

“You should also know that those six young mares you saw that day are the bearers of the Elements of Harmony,” she said. “By attacking me, you endangered them and the kingdom.”

“Those ponies wield the Elements?” Blitzkrieg said. “I honestly didn’t know that. You’d think that they would be wearing them.”

“I keep the Elements under lock and magical key to prevent them from being stolen.”

“But then it takes that much longer to mobilize their bearers.”

“Nevertheless, it still doesn’t explain why you tried to kill Zero Volt,” Celestia said. “If your goal really is to protect this land, then why attack him?”

“Zero Volt? Oh right, the byproduct,” he said. “I attacked him because he was in my way, plain and simple. Although I will admit that I underestimated him. Maybe I can find a use for my little brother after all. But while we’re on the subject, I couldn’t help but notice those thunderclouds above the castle. You must realize that I am, for all intents and purposes, a demigod of lightning, so why would you put them so close by?”

“Your magic is supposed to be suppressed,” she said.

“Yes, I noticed that the food in here is laced with alicorn’s bane,” Blitzkrieg said. “You do know how the plant works, right? It inhibits a unicorn’s magic by blocking neurotransmitters at the base of the horn. That means that the equine body will eventually build up a tolerance when exposed to it long enough. Tell me, Celestia, how do you plan to keep me imprisoned if you have to keep increasing the dose just to weaken my magic?”

“I have my methods,” she said. “After all, you’re not the first pony that I’ve ever had to lock away. But I think I’m done here. You’ve told me what I needed to know.” Celestia turned and walked away from Blitzkrieg’s cell. She walked up the stairs and exited Canterlot’s dungeons.