Wearing The Inside Out

Twilight sat uncomfortably on the street, staring at the mass of deer. "What?"

Aspen politely smiled and bowed his head. "We only come in peace, mostly. My dear brother took a precautionary measure with Luna here." Aspen nodded at Luna who groaned in pain as deer pulled delicately on each arrow. "I mean we have to be careful. What with there only being two races of deer. Halved right down the middle because of some rather bad expectations of fairness expounded on by ponies such as your princesses." Aspen sighed, knowing far too well the tales he had been told about by his father, his grandfather, and all the spirits of Helvyr that had a say in the matter. A lot did. "So we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Twilight cocked his head. "If this is a treaty or an amendment process, by the standards of Equestrian Treaty Law, subsection 2, rule 3, sub-subsection F, I have to ask exactly what those two choices are- in full- and then choose the path forward given to me as a representative of the Equestrian Crown, and as a fellow princess. . ."

Blackthorn scoffed. "Is princess a royal title because you sure don't look-"

Twilight rolled his eyes and sighed, letting the magic holding his male form together drop away. Twilight stretched and let the new, yet familiar height of herself become normal once again. Twilight smiled, only briefly as she saw the brash deer, mentally cataloging his name as 'Blackthorn' for later reference, sputter quietly as she sauntered up to the large white deer that had been talking directly to her. "As I was saying, by my title as a Princess, I have to know exactly what you plan to do with these ponies you are searching for."

Aspen stared coldly at Twilight, his bells tinkling softly in the light breeze as he spoke. "Death by fatal walk."

Luna gasped in pain as an arrow was pulled out by a small deer. She grimaced at Twilight and tried to smile as she tried to think of ways to deal with this problem. She could think of none so far- except talk at a disadvantage. She stared at the mass of deer, faces painted with red, blue, and black. Eyes staring not at Twilight, but at her. She hated knowing that they knew of her, probably through stories of her past exploits. The destroyer, she guessed. "Twilight, that is a death sentence. A very painful, long winded death sentence."

Aspen sighed. "I shall not lie to you. Pulling out the intestines and then forcing them to walk around a tree until death is gruesome to some, but it's a fair trade. We felt the death of our culture twice over. Once when Sunbringer burned it to a desert, and again when it was sundered. It's painful, you know, hearing the dead blink out of existence. Screaming bloody murder as their ectoplasm gets ripped to shreds thanks to the last bits of their magic goes up in smoke." Aspen shivered as he had walked the quiet halls of Helvyr after that, rows of longhouses empty and alone, the wind in the dead trees not welcoming, but cutting and biting at his hooves like glass.

Twilight calmly stared up at the deer and ran calculations in her head. Putting on a facsimile of the Royal Canterlot Voice, barring the royal proclivity to break every window in a mile radius, she thought of what Celestia herself would say and tried to mold some of her mannerisms that way. Act the part of a sure princess, not let the real worries of being in Ponyville, near ninety percent of her friends and staring down an unknown, angry group of deer holding rather fair criticism. "I cannot let you do that. Under. . .royal. . .sense. . .of duty. . ." Twilight stumbled over her words for a moment as she tried to cobble together the most obscene abomination of haphazard, barely used laws in the Equestrian Legal Code just so she could continue this farce. "Yes, under royal duties, subsection 9, paragraph 3, I cannot let any of my. . .subjects be subjected to a foreign power- since we have given you treaties before, that gives you the sense of a past ally/ enemy/ neutral state- so therefore in cases that this happens, I can step forward and take their place as the defendant in this. . .by trial of combat."

Luna stared at Twilight and hissed at her. "Twilight, what in the nine levels of Tartarus are you doing?"

Twilight smiled and winked at Luna, carefully mouthing, "I know what I'm doing."

Aspen pulled over his brother and deliberated for a few minutes, the air taut with worry as deer paced back and forth, and the town of Ponyville grew restless as ponies started noticing a few too many odd newcomers for their tastes. The two deer huddled together and whispered cautiously to one another, each glancing at Twilight before coming back to their talk. Finally, after what felt like ten minutes, they broke apart and walked towards the two alicorns.

Aspen bent his head and stared directly into Twilight's eyes, his blue eyes gleaming green as he spoke, like two deep pools of water. "We accept. We have one additional thing to add though. My brother wants to fight as well. To make it not an unfair fight, we'll let you heal the dark one."

Twilight stared at Luna for a moment, unsure of what to do. She hadn't expected them to even take the ridiculous bet. "Uh, sure."

***

Dash carried Shy over the Everfree, quietly wondering what to do next. He hadn't expected, well, that. He blushed, carefully cataloging each and every moment between the two of them, their bodies intertwined in pleasure as-

"Dashie, you're kind of holding onto me a bit tightly."

Dash blushed. "Sorry, sorry. Just thinking. Lot of things on my mind."

Fluttershy looked up, saying nothing for a moment. "I mean it Dash. Whatever happens, I'm here for you."

Dash smiled. "Thanks-" Rainbow caressed his stallion, a weird thought, with a yellow hoof and would have said anything if he didn't see something odd. "Uh, Shy?"

Fluttershy cocked his head. "What?"

"As the resident weird tree expert, are trees supposed to move?"

Fluttershy laughed. "Of course not, there's no known ways for trees to move. I mean besides magic. Though maybe Discord had forgot a patch of plunder vines. . ." Shy shivered as he thought of that possibility, the mindless crawling of the vines, their continuing march towards a complete and total destruction of natural ecosystems due to a rather messy combination of chaos magic influencing an invasive species. Some of his animals still talked about how they had nightmares of that day, reliving memories of their young being consumed before they knew what was upon them. "If that's the case, I'd say we'd have to tell the. . .well, Twilight? And Luna? Cause I'm not reliving that."

Dash carefully caressed the shock of rainbow hair, feeling Shy slightly tremble with anger. "No, no, I'd know that. I mean the trees are moving." Dash pointed at a nearby tree, leaves twitching in spasms as they looked, parts of the wood creaking and groaning as the pair watched.

Suddenly a flash of light blinded them for a second, the action throwing Dash off balance and letting her grip on Shy almost falter. The world was a bright blank as her eyes refocused, head spinning in agony as she tried to get back her normal vision. Blinking, Dash looked again and saw a mass of animals marching towards Ponyville. Horses, but not, antlered horses. Chanting low and slow, almost speaking Equestrian, but not; long, guttural consonants, short vowels. All gibberish to Dash, though Twilight would say that the pegasus had a basic, if tenuous, grasp of Equestrian herself.

"What in the name of Tartarus is going on?"

"I don't know."

Dash frowned. "Not a good enough answer. I'm going to find out cause this is Ponyville. We can't just have a random series of animals just living right nearby. That's impossible. The Everfree's big, but not 'Daring Do finds an ancient civilization big'." Dash angled his way towards the heart of Ponyville and sped off as fast as his borrowed wings would let him.

***

Moondancer dragged Sunburst down a side street, her cape trailing behind her as she ran away. She cursed her luck as she passed ponies that looked dumbfounded at this random situation. Most would. Having a random patrol of what she assumed was deer walk straight into the midst of town would make most ponies quiver in fear as their happy go lucky lives shatter into unknowable questions and worse answers. She yanked Sunburst to the side as a patrol of deer popped out of the shadows and walked past them, their painted faces glowing in the Nightmare Night lights. "Drat, drat, drat."

Sunburst heaved a major sigh as air was forced back into his lungs- he rubbed gingerly at his throat, slight bruising from Moondancer's quick thinking faintly apparent. He coughed and sputtered as he brought his eyes towards the black unicorn. "You know you could have said something. Cause while I have prepared for most eventualities, I definitely don't have a streak of whatever that was."

Moon rolled her eyes at him. "Shut it, if I didn't think quickly we'd probably be captured by pissed off deer and may I remind you. I blew up a town they liked. It can't be just sheer coincidence that the largest band of deer I've heard of in five hundred years showed up the moment we walked in here. Also I've tied you up before, or have you forgotten our first meeting? I mean you seemed into it."

Sunburst blushed. "I have tried to forget that in every single sense of the word and I said I was sorry about that." He shook his head and looked away as he threw up a few spells just in case some nosy deer walked near them. "And I was going to say that we have been here all day. I doubt they even knew you, or I for that matter, were even here."

Moondancer grimaced. "Yeah, but with how big this party is, I bet they took all day to get here."

***

"What in the name of the Elements were you thinking?" Luna sighed as she looked down at Twilight who was pacing back and forth in worry. "While I commend your wiles in bureaucratic obfuscation and legalese, may I remind you that the last time I've seen a fight to the death, it didn't end well for either party?"

Twilight stared up at Luna, her wings fluttering in reflex as she wanted to fly away and never come back. "I've read some of Starswirl's journals."

Luna sighed. "Well, I've lived them. Flash Magnus would be so proud that somepony, especially a non pegasi, would dare to take up his example of foolhardy behavior. Or should I try to quote Starswirl directly? "And so, with a heavy heart, and a worse disposition, Flash Magnus took revenge on the deer that slaughtered his brethren of the Royal Canterlot Battalion. He won, but sustained nearly grievous wounds that took the combined efforts of all of us to revert. I do not recommend any creature to resort to something as boneheaded as this without consulting reason. . ." Luna carefully walked up to Twilight and bent down to her level and ran her wing across the smaller alicorn's back. "But you already ran every possibility through your mind, didn't you?"

Twilight sighed. "I can't just let them kill Moondancer. Even if I think they might be justified."

"For the loss of their origins, you mean?"

Twilight nodded, her breath quiet and stilted. "I mean we beat Starlight, for now, but lost Ironhoof, and now we have deer in Ponyville because of that. I can't even imagine what might come up next. I can't just let them kill her. She's my friend and she's also a good archmage, and I'm-"

Luna laid her head quietly on Twilight's shoulder. "An alicorn's job is never easy. And your wavering in your conviction, the gray areas in your logic, the just injustice that you are grappling with- that's what a ruler has to deal with every single day. The hard questions of right and wrong. Have a friend die because of something she did in the heat of a moment that impacted future events, or keep her alive due to friendship and later use? A conundrum that I've grappled with myself." Luna sighed. "I don't know what to do about this, but I support your foolhardy decision. Because that's what I have done so many times before." Luna looked up at the moon and sighed. "Just don't let your emotions run your decisions too much, that can be disastrous for anypony."

Twilight nodded. "So what do we even do?"

Luna shrugged. "Well I will fight with you, though I doubt I will even be useful in this." Luna runned her shoulder with a hoof, carefully avoiding the large gashes of torn flesh that were slowly, almost imperceptibly knitting back together. "I hate it so much when mistletoe's involved. I can never heal exactly right when it counts." Luna fluttered her wings, huge holes in the muscle between her bones open and exposed to air. She cringed in pain as a particularly broken piece of bone shifted in the healing process. "But I have one good hit left in me before I'm completely useless." Luna smiled through the pain as she tried to reassure Twilight."

"So you'll die if you get hit again?" Twilight's eyes went wide as she worried about that possibility. The fear of losing Luna and having to explain in gruesome detail to a livid and disconsolate Celestia exactly how her sister died ran through her head. For a moment, Twilight felt bile tickle the back of her throat as she wondered was was worse than retaking Magical Kindergarten again. Possibly sent to the moon or turned to stone as Celestia dealt with a student that killed her sister because she had a stupid decision. Twilight fer herself begin to hyperventilate in fear as her world closed in.

"I'd just become smaller again, not perish. I just hate how everypony treats me when I'm shrunken into a regressive state. You have no idea how humiliating it was to adjust to modern life when every aristocrat treated me like a foal."

"That's. . .reassuring. . ." Twilight sighed as she tried to relax.

"It does still hurt. A lot."

***

Aspen carefully took off his headwear, letting the pristine bones and bells float carefully down to the ground. He could name each and every one of his ancestors on that headdress, their bones showing the exact weight of leadership, of following tradition. Of his duties. He carefully levitated over the box of paints and stared at it. He rarely wore paint due to his abnormal white coat that stained whenever a harsh dye touched it, but staring down at the black and red of battle, he carefully dipped a hoof into the paint and swept it over his cheeks and snout, letting drops fall like blood over his lips.

Ritual battles were carefully prescribed affairs and he was quietly surprised that that alicorn ever dared to touch this sacred ceremony. Ponies rarely did- he had to trawl through the memories of Helvyr to even find one 'recent' example, and that was ancient.

He turned to his brother and nodded as he took the ritual blade from him, carefully pricking his side with it. He felt the blood on his coat drip down into the earth and hummed as he ran through his prayer cycle to Cerunninos, the Horned One, he whispered quietly, letting his voice travel on the wind as he spoke. He could hear the leaves rustling in the trees and the myriad mass of life that surrounded him. He looked up at the stars and prayed to each and every one of his tribal ancestors- the Mule Deer, the White Tails. the ancient Moose, the Reindeer from up North. He stretched his neck out and bellowed as loud as he could, letting his deer know that the time of the ritual was begun. A chorus of honks and bellows rocked the town in echo as he walked forward, blood staining his coat, blue eyes straight ahead as he took stock of the rather interesting alicorn, the immortal who felt not, and the Mare of the Moon.

He bowed as he reached them, his smile welcoming but not entirely so. "Let us begin."

***

Rockville

Igneous sighed as he led his daughters and the odd stallion into his parlor, carefully avoiding the squeaky floorboards as he went, his story beginning as he walked. "I've been rather foolish these last few years." He stared back at his daughters, each impacted by his own actions, each dealing with them in their own ways. "And its all because I, unlike your grandmare, took some solace in these old books." He stopped and groaned as he flipped carefully through the old book he kept in his coat, the worn, tattered pages like an old friend as he skimmed through them. "'Woe unto Tambelon, the haven of monsters, as they performed the abominable rite of sundering. They fell beneath the waves of the Eastern Sea for their meddling in the affairs of nature and the perfect age of immortals passed into the fallible age of mortality. . .'" Igneous stretched his hoof out in a final motion and laid it down. "My mother was far less. . .apocalyptic."

Cheese nodded. "While I think this is interesting and all, I mean this is a bit awkward. Can we get to the point, I always was rather bad with attention spans."

Igneous turned his eye to the yellow stallion. "I'm getting to the point, son. What I was saying was that my mother Honey Pie, Celestia rest her restless soul, thought most of that was absolute hooey. Going on about how fate is both important and mostly immutable, how action was better than isolation. She was better than I, though I think I got my stubborn streak from my father Obsidian, a rather quiet stallion. Black as night and moody as sin." Igneous sardonically laughed. "Their marriage was. . .difficult. She was a ray of sunshine and he was her opposite. Balanced, yet chaotic. He never. . .well. . .it never got bad, but she left a lot. She would often laugh about it. Say it was her duty to bring happiness as a Seer, to spread the word of balanced harmony, a tad bit of chaos, and order in equal measure." He stared up at a tiny black and white photo- a family portrait of the three of them, a tiny foal and his parents. "She probably never realized that she should have just stayed."

Pinkie carefully let her sisters down and walked firmly to her father. "I think she probably knew what she was doing. I mean I feel. . ." Pinkie twinged as she felt Twilight. And Luna. Her heart hurt for a moment and she moved on, letting the bad feelings down into a place she didn't have to think about and she took a quick breath. "I feel a lot of things from all over. She probably knew."

Her father took off his hat. "I know, but she always came back with stories. Her travels always amazed me, and yet she never took me with her away to see the circus she created. I just stayed here while she got to ride the sky with her circus and not have to deal with- things. So it festered into a rather bad case of throwing away anything she believed in and doing what I thought was right. The ends justify the means if the end of the world was happening ever so slowly. Even if some of my methods were. . . extreme."

Pinkie stared at her father, her eyes focusing on his dumping shoulders and overly quiet tone. "What exactly did you do?"

Igneous stared into Pinkie's eyes. "You always were too much like your Grandmare Honey. I kept trying to beat that streak out of you, kept trying to drill obedience to the Seer code of objectivity, of just not feeling. And then, just like she did, you ran away. I had read about how during the Tambelonian Era, there was more magic in the air, some more refined mana, so Seers were all over the place and I took that and ran with it."

Pinkie blanched as she connected enough of the dots. She had wondered why her sisters were different than she remembered. Why their Sense was odd to her. "You didn't. . ."

Limestone coughed. "Daddy had to do it Pinkie. You left and we can't just let the end of the world happen while you dance around and do fuck all."

Igneous sighed and picked up a small bottle of whisky, draining it in a gulp. "Growing rocks is harder now, what with the magic so much worse out here. But four Seers is much better than one powerful, if headstrong one. Though focusing the nascent magic of the land into my daughters was exceedingly risky. I took years off my own life just to do that."

Pinkie shivered. "That's. . ." She tried to come up with some response, landing on a memory of Twilight explaining the ages before modern Equestria. Before magic was a scientific series of boring, if important, rules. And number one was to not just mess with ponies in testing. Magic was weird like that. Twilight turned her parents into plants, she wouldn't just . . . "That breaks like seven different rules for the Canterlotian Convention of Magical Ethics, as one of my best friends would say. That's horrible."

Igneous nodded. "It was necessary."

Pinkie snapped, her eye twitching as she tried to see her father's point. "No. It. Wasn't. You could have just sent something to me. Its not just like I cut myself entirely off from you- I could feel you all the way in Ponyville, all the while wondering what my sisters were doing while I was trying to make something of myself. If I knew. . ."

Limestone laughed. "If you knew what? That Daddy was forcing magic into us? We weren't even supposed to be like you. How do you think we felt, you. . .we felt you the same way, except while we were here, we felt your joy and your excitement for life while we had to bust rocks to even survive and run an inn in the midst of fuck all Equestria cause somepony ran off to be a whiny bitch."

Cheese cautiously walked in between the two mares to dissolve the situation. "I think this place is amazing, I mean sure it's quiet, but you three spent all your lives in an earth pony paradise. It's amazing if you take out the slightly depressing bits of it." He tried to smile as he held back Pinkie. "Though I think I would look terrible in black. But plain and simple living is nice? I think? Ah, I just got an idea for a song. . ."

Pinkie glanced at Cheese and smiled. "Tell me later, but fine. I'll take the criticism my sisters have."

Igneous firmly glared at Limestone. "Lime, please keep your thoughts about your wayward sister to yourself for the moment. Cause I was wrong to do what I did. Perhaps it will be needed, but I think keeping you all here won't keep you safe."

Limestone turned to her father. "Daddy, what are you-"

Igneous raised a firm, if shaky hoof. "Everything's planned out in this little book." He flipped through the little text and sighed as he reached the final few pages. "'The storm shall fall upon the few and it will tear them all to shreds without a passing thought.' I felt Manehattan just now." He hesitated. "It's here. And I'm forcing you three to leave and try to change it. For a old stallion that maybe was wrong. . ."

Limestone's eye twitched in barely concealed rage as what her father said hit her.

***

Twilight ducked, quickly sidestepping both of the deer's blades, the flashes of metal glinting from the crowd's magical auras. Antlers and horns alike were flashing as ponies and deer tried to figure out exactly what was going on. Twilight pulled up quickly, running through non lethal possibilities of defense. Quickly pulling up a shield, she deflected one blade and let the other miss her wing by inches. Breathing heavily, she teleported to the edge of the arena, its area delineated perfectly by a network of spell matrices woven by the deer shamans. It was something she would have loved to actually study if she wasn't hanging on by a thread. "Luna, please help me."

Luna grunted, wiggling out slowly from a tangle of vines that Aspen grew in a brief couple of seconds. "You try being tied up and see how you like it. Hold out for a bit longer, I almost have this spell deciphered."

The purple alicorn shivered as she looked at the two deer. "Fine." She tried to psyche herself up. Shining had told her once that that tactic sometimes worked. "You got this Sparkle, it's just two deer. Two very competent deer." Twilight's wings shot out in fear as she realized that while she had some knowledge of magical duels- Trixie, Starlight, Moondancer even- she was far better in theory than practice. And she was woefully out of shape. "No pressure." Twilight focused her magic and felt a quick heat envelop her as she aimed a quick fire spell towards Luna.

The vines surrounding her friend in hooves were disintegrated and Luna appeared out of a cloud of smoke, coughing heavily. "Twilight, may I remind you that I almost had that. And I understand about performance anxiety, but next time you almost put too much magic into a spell too quickly, please warn me." Luna let a quick smile reassure the smaller alicorn. "Though I suspect Celestia might be slightly proud that her best student is so adept in causing widespread property damage."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Funny." Twilight breathed out, letting her mana form the air into a sharp, hard point. She flexed a tentative wing towards the hard air construct and pricked the spear, letting a faint drop of blood stain the spear a light pink. "I hate making these."

Luna whistled, slightly impressed at the complexity of the spell. "You shouldn't, weapon creation is a rather impressive talent. I haven't seen one of those since Mistmane. Though I did miss a thousand years of magical theory, so I have to say my personal-" Luna ducked under Blackthorn's axe, letting the blade swing harmlessly around her swirling mass of hair. "One moment." Luna blasted the axe away with a quick beam of energy. She hadn't felt this alive in ages. The modern era had so little time for duel etiquette.

Twilight let her spear catch Aspen's blade, the strike causing sparks to fly between the two of them. She breathed slowly as she slid under, letting her weapon fall. She grimaced as she punched into the white deer's leg with her hoof, letting her strength out. She could feel a crack as the deer fell on top of her, his unbroken limbs hitting her face and back as he tried to gain balance on three limbs. Twilight rolled, feeling her face swell with bruises as she shakily rose to her hooves, she spat out a tooth that had come loose from the barrage of Aspen's hooves. "I'm going to have to praise Dash for teaching me how to fight dirty."

***

Manehattan

"Run!" Lightning Dust screamed as she dodged a mass of Changelings. She could barely see in the murky blackness ahead, quietly praying to something as she dodged by reflex pillars and the charred bodies of ponies. She saw a huge rent in the earth and pointed at it, carefully trying to let Rara know that she had found a way out. She zoomed through the tunnel, her lightning trail faintly lighting the writhing mass of chitinous carnage that trailed behind her. She felt the air shift and roil as the cool air of night hit the edge of the smoldering ruin of Manehattan. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." she cursed as she felt her grasp on the air current slip due to her tired body reaching its limit. Her wing buckled and as she watched, in what felt like slow motion, the world spun. With a loud slam, she hit the ground and bounced on the hard, broken concrete.

Lightning Dust coughed up blood as she rose, her teeth red with the stuff, and she looked up.

A dragon fell near her, ragdolling through the air as the mess of air currents hit it. It arced, hit a nearby building and slid down the jagged window, impaling itself on broken glass. Another cartwheeled through the air, plowing into the mass of Changelings as it fell. She glanced back to see it begin to be ripped apart by the feasting horde of bugs, the flesh audibly being torn as she watched. She would have felt sick if she wasn't just so tired.

As she watched more and more dragons hit the earth.

Gallus stared out at the devastation of Manehattan and was speechless. He felt older than his age as he looked at the mess of bodies, their eyes glassy and distant, yet imperceptibly staring at him. Through him. He retched as he felt a pulse of magic that felt wrong echo through Manehattan. It dizzied him as he swung through a neighborhood of Hooflyn, broken, burned out rows of tenement houses silent and dead, He let his wings lead him to nowhere, alighting on a nearby burned out church and he sat down on the one remaining wall, a stained glass window depicting some pony victory staring back at him. Clean, concise, not messy. He ran a claw through his blue plumage and plucked out the feathers stained with blood. He twitched as he thought of that pony he disemboweled. He couldn't tell mother.

She had told him of every single battle she had ever had, every being she had killed. He was supposed to feel joy in revenging the ponies for what happened to Galahad, to the whole Gryphon race. And yet as he stared out at the burned out husk of Manehattan, he felt hollow.

He levitated out his potion and charged the blue liquid. As he waited for the Storm Lands to pick up his call, he scratched his name into the granite of the church. A buzzing sound told him that he had the line and he turned to see the Storm King carefully perched upon his throne.

"It's done."

The Storm King straightened up, his face full of glee as he twitched slowly, his body like the storm itself, full of energy and purpose, the lanky satyr smiling as he took a drink of his tea. "That's absolutely fantastic. Now let's see, who are you?" The Storm King riddled off connections off his paws. "Not Gigi, not Gilda, not Gallant, Gallus? Yes. So hard to keep you gryphons in my head. What with you all looking the same. You should really try to stand out more. I mean look at me, a real salessatyr of a creature, able to stand out as much as I need in the moment. But no matter, how is our little foray into a hostile takeover going?"

Gallus shrugged. "It's done."

The satyr laughed. "My dear bird, the Manehattan project is not done. Have you ever heard of a project like conquering done once the battle is over? No, that's preposterous. And if you dare suggest that again, I'll come and roast you alive while discussing the finer points of my business model." The Storm King smiled. "Now we go into phase two. Cause I think my stormfront property here in my castle is oh so swanky, but the logistics of running a battle across the sea is so hard. Landing troops on a hostile shore is so terrible. And even though I've got word from my other agents, it seems like Manehattan's the best place to anchor us."

"So what?"

The Storm King laughed. "That just means that you have the task of pacifying any and all resistance in Manehattan and hold our hold on this little town cause I have a real hard time seeing that little Equestria as anything but a career goal of mine. Tirek and Grogar laughed at me when I bet them that I would conquer the world and look where that got them. . ."

***

Twilight huffed, her wings full of shallow cuts. She shook the mane out of her eyes, the last ten minutes of this causing her to work up a sweat and it distracted her. Trying to breathe through a mass of worry, she aimed her spear at the pair of deer- both panting as they stared at her, waiting for the best opportunity to strike. Aspen's leg bent at an angle and he favored his left side as he swayed about, letting Twilight see the dried blood on his side as he stumbled towards her.

Blackthorn wiped a shallow cut on his brow, letting blood smear over his cheeks. He smiled, not like his brother's serene smile, but of a warrior who had finally met his match and wanted to overcome a daunting challenge. He swung his axes in sweeping arcs as he walked forward. Twilight eyed him carefully- she had seen Aspen's skill with magic outlined as she had dodged a multitude of vines and creatures that he summoned in the battle. She had little intel on this deer. Besides his skill with a blade, she had zero idea of what he had behind his armor.

She twitched, ready for anything. The mana around the field was running out, causing her to pull too much out of her own stores of mana, and she had either deal with this fight in her own way- a draw- or figure out a better option. She blinked, and as she did that, she felt a massive shock of mana near her and as she opened her eyes, she stared at Blackthorn, his armor discarded in haste and she could see the crisscross pattern of scars that covered his body under the armor. Large rents and tears patched up and healed and as she blinked to take in that new information, she barely dodged an axe that was aimed directly at her face.

Twilight skidded, unsure of where that came from, since she had Blackthorn in her sights the entire time.

A deep chortle came from her left and as she looked she saw Blackthorn teleport away in a blink of an eye. "I rarely have to use the trickery of magic to beat something, but it is so much fun to have a real challenge." Blackthorn tossed another few axes, aiming them at her in arcs that overlapped in sequence, making Twilight's analytical mind get confused for a moment as she tried to run through possibilities.

Twilight blocked one and briefly dodged the other, letting it nick her leg in passing. Pain shot up her leg as she tried to think of less painful activities- reading a book. Taking a vacation. Really anything. She turned away in reflex and directly into the path of Blackthorn's feint, his hoof connecting with her jaw. The world became a mass of stars as she flopped on the ground.

The world was a mess as Twilight tried to get on her hooves, scrambling to get any kind of shield up. She lamely couldn't as she felt her mind blank for a moment, unable to focus as she had reached her limit. She would have laughed, if it wasn't so sad. Celestia's best student unable to last in a mage contest of any real merit. She looked up to see Luna.

Luna looked like her salvation, carefully dancing around the deer.

Then Twilight saw Blackthorn appear behind the blue alicorn. She would have screamed something, anything, to warn Luna. But her mind was foggy and voice was hoarse from overexertion. She could only watch as Luna was nearly beheaded as Blackthorn's axe was forcibly lodged in the alicorn's neck, blood spurting in rainbow arcs in reddish black.

***

Equestrian Skies- Outside Ponyville

Windy carefully tied down the cargo as the descent towards land was rather imminent, with the lights of Ponyville carefully twinkling in the distance. The Dasher was a rather quick ship, but temperamental, with her descent sometimes bumpy if she hit a bad squall or there were unforeseen circumstances. Windy shivered as she remembered a few close calls. She shook her head as she had better things to worry about than past mistakes and gaffes, but she still felt odd about this. Especially since the pair of ponies in the bottom of the ship were hard to read. Sour Sweet was all emotion and drive, while Sugarcoat was silent and dour. Though Windy expected that. It would take a whole lot out of a pony to survive an acid attack that blinded them. Reptiles were some real scum sometimes and she knew firsthoof since they were such good smugglers. She stretched her wings and got up, quietly whistling a shanty to herself as she passed the quarters for the two odd ducks. Shrugging, since it really didn't affect her in any way, she took the ladder two rungs at a time and bounced onto deck, her no good husband hunched over the wheel, cradling a mug of ale in his hooves and staring into the night.

"How you doing, Bow?"

"Fine. Cold, tired, and kind of hungry, but fine. How's our passengers?"

Windy shrugged, her mane falling into her eyes as she did so. "They aren't complaining. So either they are both dead, or they just are being sad sacks about the journey."

Bow smiled. "Probably cause the gray one has no eyes, you mean? I saw what that can do to ponies. The Buffalo Wars really did a number on some of the Cloudsdale veterans when I was little. Saw the old Wonderbolt legions come back without limbs, or wings, or sometimes they came back fine, but just rattled. War is like that. And here we are on the fringes taking advantage of that."

Windy slapped him on the back. "You old dolt, you're twenty years too old to do anything but carry me off to bed. Though I'd pay real good money to see you fill out a uniform."

Bow shot his wife a glance and rolled his eyes. "You'd just be beside yourself with laughter." The stallion glanced at the angle and descent gauges and spun the wheel to better the descent into Ponyville. "We'll continue our bickering over this later. Tell the pair we are in the final descent."

***

Twilight didn't know exactly what was happening. One moment she was staring at Luna's body. The next minute she was all rage and pure emotion as she just rushed over to the alicorn, her body not caring about the pain as she had better things to worry about. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She just cursed herself for doing something like this, trying to make a third option when that caused harm like this. She was not even reacting when she kicked Blackthorn in the chest, feeling her leg snap and twist as she put all the force she could into the strike. She felt some quick shields he put up break underneath her rage as she let out a scream of emotion she had been holding in for a long time. She had been okay. Just letting it fester through the weeks, letting only a portion out with Moondancer's loss and retrieval, fucking up Rainbow and Shy enough that she honestly didn't know what to do, Starlight, and Canterlot, and just everything out. The final straw was her being a complete and utter moron to have Luna get hurt again. She should have just let it go, or maybe had a two on one fight. Anything.

She stared up at the sky cursing silently as she tried to pump magic into the blue alicorn, not even caring about the fight as she threw up wards and spells as fast as she could to assuage some of the bleeding, stitch up some of the wounds, anything. She struck the earth in anger as she thought of any spells she knew of Meadowbrook's or Starswirl's, running through medical charts that she memorized in haste, or stitching together a basic map of a theoretical inside of an alicorn. Medical magic was based on the three races. Alicorn biology was just a theoretical aspect. Nopony expected the princesses to get grievously wounded, hurt or killed even. They were immortal beings tied to the aspects of the world, a thing that should not die, and if they did- it said more about the health of the world then the health of the alicorn. Or that was what Mannus wrote in his treatises. Twilight checked Luna's breathing.

Finding nothing at the moment, she started panicking, trying to count to 100 as she performed CPR, pressing carefully down on Luna's chest and breathing her own breath into Luna's lungs. Her horn glowed deep purple as she connected her magic to the blue alicorn, trying to shock her. Twilight stared down at the hole where the heart should be, seeing blood pool around her as the body cavity lost fluid and she sat there silent feeling tears run down her snout as she tried to push the pieces of Luna back together. Laying on her side, watching Aspen shake his head and Blackthorn slamming his hooves against her barrier. . .Twilight just felt empty.

"You should see how I feel."

Twilight turned her head slowly, imagining that she was slightly hallucinating Luna's voice. Through the slight tears that were clouding her vision, she saw a small, blue hoof in her periphery. Wiping her face, the purple alicorn sniffled and tried to focus on things, and as she did she saw Luna.

A smaller Luna.

Luna stretched her wings and turned, carefully preening and straightening out new feathers that had grown in again. Her mane didn't shine with the light of a thousand stars- it just sat limply on her head like so many other normal manes, it's blue coloration the only real hint of something else with it shifting from light to dark blue as she moved. The blue alicorn popped her neck, the crack jolting Twilight to reality. This was odd, real, but odd. Luna cupped her hooves and breathed out a quiet, if forceful version of her Canterlot Voice. "With how both of you look, I verily call this a draw, else my compatriot here might get rather unstable. So let us have bygones be relative bygones. While I cannot bring the dead back to life, I can say that thine enemy is not us. Else you'd be totally dead."

Twilight cocked her head. "Luna, I doubt this is the time for boasting. Cause I don't think you've seen yourself, but you are a head shorter than me. . ."

Luna shrugged. "Twas worth a shot. Especially since the rainbow one's bravado is a right majesty to behold. All that spunk and grandiosity in her abilities and yet she is deficient in what was seen as a lucrative asset in the past."

Twilight facehoofed. "This is not the time to debate the merits of modern health and Dash isn't spunky cause she's short. It's cause that's who she is. That's a personality trait. We've talked about this. . ."

Luna rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, be nice to thine friends. Though I was attempting to modify my behavior by the slight reflection of one of your friend's attributes. It is what Celestia would term a compliment of the highest order."

Twilight's eye twitched. "We will talk about this. Later." Twilight carefully let her magic drop, the shimmering brilliance of her shield dissipating like smoke as she walked forward, carefully avoiding direct eye contact with Blackthorn who was currently climbing up her list of annoyances, stopping ever so slightly in front of Aspen who stared blankly up at the sky. Twilight waited for a response, lightly tapping her hoof, and whistled as she just stood there. She waved her hoof in Aspen's face, careful to not step on his hoof, and spoke loud enough to be heard. "Huh, guess they weren't expecting-"

She turned to see what everypony was looking at, glancing up as a ship hit the deer's shield full on.

***

Sour Sweet's legs gave out as the ship hit something huge and unexpected, the glancing blow rocking the ship as it tried to stay together. She never was one for ships, rather liking the freedom of her own wings than a coffin with aerodynamic capabilities. She cringed as Sugarcoat glanced around in a haze, her senses dulled without her eyes.

"What's going-"

The ship rocked, chairs clattering on their sides as they bounced and rattled from another grinding strike.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Be back as soon as I can." Sour Sweet hoped she would. She carefully opened her wings and glided through the air since she trusted her own power than this rickety ship and gingerly opened the door. She gasped as she watched what she assumed to be the ship's own anchor drag through the ship's floor. Large gashes and bowing in the planks told her all she needed to know about the problem- that it was probably rather bad. A hatch nearby opened and Windy walked out covered in soot and grime, coughing as she pulled herself up the ladder. Sour Sweet touched down briefly and helped her up, dusting the middle aged pegasus off. "What's going on?"

Windy sputtered. "Damned if I know. But I'm going to be giving a piece of my mind to Bow about watching where he's going next time."

The ship rumbled and shook all of a sudden from below.

"Oh Tartarus." Windy spat as she looked down, "that had to be the engines. Tried to turn them off before they became too overloaded, but I guess I was a little too late."

Sour cursed being in a mechanical deathtrap and tried not to think of all the horror stories she heard in the Guard, of ponies sitting in the bottom of a ship while a magical overload occurred, pure mana burning like fire as themagic grew out of control, untamed spellwork causing unknown effects and killing some ponies outright as their lungs turned to jelly from the chaotic nature of a overflow. "I'll get Sugarcoat."

The older pegasus nodded. "I'll get my idiot husband. Cause all he's probably doing is making this worse."

Sour Sweet dashed to the room she left her second in command in, the floor tilting dangerously as the engines gave out. Opening the door, she saw Sugarcoat huddled in the far end of the room, the bed and chairs scattered around her as she had felt the blast from below and acted on instinct, her horn reacting with a shield as she felt the world tilt sideways. Sour let her hooves touch the floor carefully and rushed to her friend's side. "Sugar, drop the shield."

"Rather not. Can't see what's going on."

Sour frowned. "I get it, but the ship's going to be a fireball soon so unless you'd want to reenact a bonfire, I'd rather we both get out of here. I think your family would want you in a relatively complete set than a pile of ashes."

"Fine." The shield dropped and shattered furniture hit the deck around the pair. Sugarcoat held out a shaky hoof and the pegasus took it, opening her wings as she did and zoomed out of the lower level, keeping both of them low so the billowing smoke didn't affect them as much. The pair shot out into the cool, crisp air of the top deck and tumbled as they tried to refocus.

"Fuck, Bow, just turn the ship towards water fast cause she's gonna blow up soon."

Bow grimaced as he held onto the wheel, his fur wet with sweat as he felt the pressure rise. "Don't I know it. Now can you get a reading on a good place to crash land cause I wanted off this ride yesterday."

Windy huffed and stomped away from her husband, careful to dodge the new holes that were popping up all over the ship. She noticed Sour Sweet from the edge of her peripheral vision and shouted quickly at her to get her attention. "Hey, which one's the Ponyville native cause I need a place to drop this else we'll do major damage to a town and I don't think the princesses will look favorably on that even if I was dropping you two off as a favor."

Sugarcoat spoke up, unsteady on her hooves and unable to pinpoint exactly where Windy was due to her recent blindness. "That was me. I think there's a lake outside of town, due east. Give or take a bit. Gray Pond? Something like that. I only went to it a few times when I was pulled there due to some of the more rambunctious foals in my class when I was little. Probably big enough to contain any messes without annihilating the environment."

Windy shrugged. "You heard the mare, Bow, east and aim for the lake. Double time it cause time is of the essence."

Bow saluted his wife and pulled the wheel as hard as he could, the ship protesting with screams as it angled due east. Sour Sweet watched the world below change from the middle of town to the outskirts, and then to the barely civilized wood paths that crisscrossed the forests around Ponyville. She could have stared at that for hours, the world passing her by as she hurdled towards a destination that she barely knew. Ponyville was just a barely there backwater propped up by Canterlot's outskirts and the new princess. It used to be quaint and backwards. Old. She shook her thoughts away as she saw the lake come up as if in a dream, shimmering, calm waters in the nighttime gloom beckoning their landing like a beacon as they zommed towards their final destination.

"Everypony get ready to jump out." Bow bellowed over the dying engines and angled the ship downwards towards the shore.

***

Rainbow grimaced as the resounding crash echoed through miles of the countryside. He hadn't seen the crash, but judging by the sound alone it had been substantial enough. Any crash was a bad one- Rainbow shivered at memories of taking turns too quick and plowing headfirst into hills, waking up at the hospital days later. He grumbled as Shy awkwardly held him in a bridal carry, the small form of his original body wholly inadequate to do so, but time was not at their side. Most of Ponyville was shock right now. Twilight and Luna. Deer. It looked like one of the Diamond Dogs was carrying a bundle of something or another. They would have figured out what that was about, but Twilight had yelled at them to be the first responders there. Most pegasi didn't match Dash's speed- even if Shy was not fantastic at replicating it. "Come on, Shy. Almost there. Just drop me down near the lake and we'll be good."

"Y-you aren't doing a-all the work." Shy huffed, his wings taxed and tired from carrying Dash.

"Well, I'll make it up to you later. Whatever you want to do, no questions and we'll call it even."

Shy nodded and sped up faster, his blue wings like a hummingbird's as he zipped towards the lake, dropping Dash off at the water's edge. "Deal, and I'll hold you to that."

"-you idiot. We just lost our ship. Which I have to remind you was plumb full of some good wares for the Storm Lands. And they hate losing out on cargo. So while I love being a bleeding heart nice pony, we can't go back to the South. Probably have that black general everything's talking about searching for us. Shut it, Bow. You-"

Dash's wings stiffened as he recognized the voice. It was older, more gruff, and slightly angrier than she remembered. But as she watched the four ponies wade out of the lake by the light of the exploded and burning husk of their ship, he could see the rainbow shock of hair that looked so familiar to him when he woke up every morning. He was staring at his parents.

"Mom? Dad?"

Bow and Windy looked up at Dash, confused at the yellow stallion that spoke to them. "Who are you?"

Dash shook his head, forgetting about Twilight's spell for a moment. "I mean. . .he's. . ." Dash pointed at Shy for emphasis. "Your son. Er, daughter. Long story."

Windy and Bow stared at one another. Bow spoke up first as he glanced up and down at the unexpected pony. He had never thought he would see his daughter again in all the years he would be alive. He stepped forward and hugged Dash. "Finally."

Dash stood there, mouth agape as he watched his parents break down in tears as they hugged his body. Shy looked wholly uncomfortable due to the contact and Dash's mind boggled since he had spent years running through scenarios about how this moment would go. How he would tell them off about all the years of everything and here they were. Crying. It didn't feel real or right. He stared down at his hooves and contemplated the moments that he had crystallized in his memory. The circus, the years of loneliness. . .and he couldn't come up with anything.

"Can you help us?"

Dash turned and recoiled back as he took in the bloody eyesockets of the pony who asked the question. He felt his feathers ruffle in defense and breathed out, attempting not to focus on the oozing, black eye holes. "Hospital's that way. You won't miss it."

The pair of what Dash suspected were guards nodded and started walking towards town. Dash felt unsure on what to do. He just laid back on the shoreline, ears ringing with the blubbering tears of his parents who were doting over Shy, and watched the ship burn in the distance, the waves lapping at the vortex of magic that used to be the engine, swirling electric sparks dancing on the water.

He felt oddly hollow.