The Princess of the Streets

Chapters

Chapter 1: Falling Stars (Rewritten)
Chapter 2: Chrome Pony
Chapter 3: Linguistics
Interlude: A Dream of Fire

Chapter 1: Falling Stars (Rewritten)

It had started out as small disappearances, a pony or two going missing in the night… Soon, their bodies would be recovered, drained of their magic and missing their cutie marks. Later ponies would disappear and never be found again… Rumors spread, whispers of timberwolves, changelings, or some new chimeric monster found deep within the woods, but the number of attacks would continue to rise regardless of how many monsters were slain by the guards. The whispers reached Canterlot Castle, and soon the guard came out in force to find the nest of monsters harming the diarchy’s ponies… All that happened, in the end, were entire teams of guards going missing, occasionally a survivor would crawl out of the forests and swamps, driven insane by something unknown. Now, Canterlot was burning. The horde of creatures, once pony now something else, mutants made of both the natural and unnatural, chimera composed of countless animals, even griffon, hippogriff, and changeling, rock or wood made animate.

Atop a shambling mountain of flesh and bone was a caprine figure, dressed in deep and dark blue robes, bearing a bell across his neck mounted like a brooch that held his cape to his back. “Celestia!” He shouted, “I know you are up there, are you, at last, going to face me, or do you want to send more of your so-called guardians to their deaths!” The horde of mutants, chimera, and golems charged around their leader’s living tower, rushing to break down the gates to the castle courtyard…

KROOHNG! KROOHNG! KROOHNG! That sound, like some off-tune bell, rang through Canterlot as the legions of monsters bashed themselves against the gate, some slapping themselves against the heavy golden doors until they sprayed their own blood across it, the creatures mindlessly following the command of their king.

The guards rushed to the gate, pressing their bodies against it in the hope that they can lessen the damage the wave of impacts was causing. Obviously to no avail… Row upon row of soldiers, clad in armor, carrying spears, halberds, and poleaxes in their mouths trembled with each blow. “We’re going to die, you know that?” Asked a guard commander to his subordinate.

“If it is to protect the Princesses, and delay that monster’s advance, so be it”

“I’m impressed everyone is keeping their cool in a time like this…” The captain replied, “You all were so damn lazy, just trotting around the castle like that, I was sure the first time some tiny disaster came around you would all go running.”

“There was never any threat to Equestria back then, not really, but now we must do what we can, and if my life can save another then I will give it.”

“I see we’re on the same page…”

The gate warped, the gold buckling under the strain, sending a few of the guards, those who had their bodies against the metal, flying. One more hit and the gate would fall. Grogar sent that last hit in himself, as a wave of telekinetic force shattered the hinges and sent the gate falling down, crushing a few unfortunate ponies standing too close, but at least their deaths were relatively painless.

The horde came through into the courtyard. Claws, fangs, stingers, hooves, pincers, tongues, limbs, horns, and anything the creatures had that could be used as a weapon rammed into the wall of shields just beyond. A few of the more logical guards ran, the devoted ones stood their ground and faced their deaths. Grogar marched down from his tower, his horns sending out waves of malignant magic that turned flesh to stone, blood to ice, bone to mud, and brain to wood. Many were caught in the blast, the lucky ones being petrified, turned to statues of rock or metal… The unlucky screamed in pain as their body twisted and changed in unnatural ways, most dying from the shock, or the daggers of their own comrades to be granted release from the dark magic, the others rising to join the horde of monsters.

Up in the castle, the doors to the throne room were opened as a unicorn, wounded, having been hit by a magical blade earlier in the battle, ran to address the diarchs standing over their thrones. “Princesses!” She shouted, “Grogar has breached the courtyard, your guard is holding him but not for long.”

Luna was fuming with barely contained fury while Celestia kept a mask of professional calm. “I see… Have all the civilians been evacuated?”

“As many as we could save, yes,” The guard mare said, the wound on her side, even behind the magical bandages, was growing worse, the color of rusted iron starting to stain her fur, the mare wincing as bits of powdered metal fell from her side. She was dying, but she could still deliver her report before she fell.

Luna could keep her quite only so long, “I should have been out there from the start, then we could have saved everypony!”

“Luna,” Celestia replied, “The guards would have joined you anyway, and we had not yet known the strength of Grogar’s legion,” the solar princess turned back to her guard, “Very well, now that as much of the peasantry that could be saved have been saved, send word to all remaining Canterlot guards, both Day and Night, to retreat to the north.

“It is going to be my last order,” The guard mare said bitterly, “I hope this last command of mine is not in vain,” She finished, bowing with visible pain before being helped up the stairs by a unicorn comrade of her’s, to the balcony to deliver her orders across the city.

Celestia, alone next to her sister in the throne room, sighed and allowed her expression to turn dour. “If we had the elements of harmony…”

“The Crystal Empire will hold out, I am certain.”

“Sister, we do not know if the Element Bearers have reached it yet, Cadence should have sent word…”

“We must hope that they have made it safely to the Empire, if we lose that hope then Equestria, and quite possibly the world is doomed.”

The two were silent for a moment, “I wonder how Grogar became so powerful, did he steal the magic of Discord?”

“I doubt this is it,” Celestia said, “Grogar is a master of biomancy, and Discord is a master of transmutation… But not even Discord could mutate creatures in this way, furthermore, neither Discord nor Grogar’s magic can kill a pony outright by turning flesh to stone or sand, this must be some new kind of spellcraft, made with the magic of the Changeling and Cockatrice I would guess.”

“There are myths of Zebra who were skilled in all kinds of dark arts, but while I would not be surprised to hear that they have powerful necromancers or mind-controllers in their lands, I have never heard of a zebra potion that could permanently alter a creature in such horrifying and destructive ways…”

“It matters not where his power came from, what matters is that we stop him… And this time, I have no intent of banishment or petrification for this monster, he will receive a far worse fate for his crimes!” Celestia’s voice had turned angry, her face twisted into a snarl, something Luna had only seen from her once before, a small part of the dark blue alicorn was scared, both for her sister and for herself.

As instructed, the guards started to fall back, but many still stood their ground in the courtyard, they were quickly killed. Once there were no more ponies to harm, save for the dead, dying, and those who would be better off dead than alive, the Princesses opened the castle doors. “Grogar!” Celestia shouted from the precipice of the castle, she stood before the horde, Luna at her side.

“Ah, Princess, come out to face me have you, how many of your soldiers have I had to murder to get your attent-” He was not able to finish his sentence before Celestia’s mouth opened, she did not shout, or roar, or even say a word, the only sound came from the howling wind as she let loose a torrent of flame, hotter than a volcano’s magma. The monsters were turned to ash in an instant, explosively vaporizing. The golden gate of the courtyard flashed to liquid, the stonework began to drip and run like muddy water. The flame was so bright it drowned out the world beyond in shadow, and any wood or paint burst into acrid smoke casting the sky momentarily in blackness.

Celestia closed her mouth before the castle itself could feel the heat, the courtyard was now more reminiscent of a volcanic caldera, lava flowing from the stairs and down into the city below. Grogar was still standing atop a small pillar of ice, the beast he rode having dissolved into steam and smoke. His horns glowed, keeping up the field of magic that turned the steam rising around him into cold mist. “I see, let us begin then.”

Black shafts of magic raced from Luna as she took to the air, each striking the ground and causing an explosion as the blasts sprayed hot magma into the air. Each strike would have torn a normal creature to shreds, but a shield of radiant spellwork guarded Grogar against each arcane lance. Luna’s spell strikes continued, and to some effect, as the magic ripped small holes in Grogar’s shield, but as quickly as they were produced they were sealed.

Celestia let lose a burst of golden magic, the beam of heat making the air around it flash with incandescence, yet it just fractured upon impact with the intricate magical shield Grogar had erected, the beam wasn’t deflected but rather broken into smaller streams that went around the goat. A dozen small explosions followed as the beam fragments hit the ground or some distant building. “So straightforward, you realize I have enough power to rival both of you at this point…” Grogar taunted.

Luna rushed in with unexpected speed, a pop of silvery blue light teleporting in a long silver sword, the blade, moving with enough force to cut clean through an adult dragon, managed to puncture Grogar’s shield, but only barely, the tip of the sword still a hooffull of centimeters away from his neck. For a moment the goat paused, then the magic tightened and Luna’s sword was cleaved in two, the mare dodging out of the way as the goat summoned forth a large stone spike from the molten pool below.

A half dozen orbs of lava were levitated up from the pool below and Grogar sent them flying, the ponies moving out of the way to leave the magma to harden mid-air and shatter against the castle walls, making cracked dents in the stonework. Celestia returned fire with a fusillade of fireballs, Grogar dodged, knowing his shield wasn’t completely invincible after Luna’s attack. A fireball splashed off the goat’s magical barrier, causing the arcane runes moving around its surface to seemingly dissolve, but they were quickly recast before the shield could fall. Luna moved in, lancing out with more midnight-black magical strikes, obviously to no real effect, but every strike deprived the goat of a portion of his magical ability.

A slash of black magic missed and continued onward, Luna pausing for a moment to dispel it before the magic could hit a nearby tower, almost causing it to collapse. “Be careful princesses, you wouldn’t want to harm your own subjects, you can leave that to me.”

Luna lunged forward and started striking the goat’s shield with her hooves, each strike making a short-lived distortion in the magic. The goat showed some signs of actual strain at this but quickly retaliated with a bolt of twisted energy. Luna was struck in the chest and the magic began turning her fur and skin to hard silver. While she had never had the time to study the spell beforehand, a spell was still a spell, and with a pulse of obscenely powerful spellcraft, the magic was reversed, although the brute-force method took more energy than Luna cared to admit, however.

Celestia, enraged by the attempt at her sister’s life, lunged downward, her mane and tail turning slightly orange and starting to whip around like flame as she poured her magical power into a physical strike, slamming into Grogar’s shield from above with way more than enough force to shatter the point of a diamond across every square millimeter of her hooves. The goat was flung deep into the magma crater and into the rock below, the mountain shaking beneath the onslaught of power. The splash of molten stone that flew up into the sky from such a strike could be seen even from Ponyville, as if Canterlot had become a volcano, the magma cooling as it entered the air and forming a dust cloud that settled over the city. Celestia rose from the crater and with her magic caused the courtyard to flash once again into incandescence, liquifying to fill back up the hole in the earth that she had caused, Grogar’s shield shattered. But before he could be buried under the flow of molten liquid, with his remaining strength, the goat teleported from the pit and landed atop Celestia as she hovered in the air, sending the two spiraling down into the courtyard. Luna lunged forward and caught her sister, and with a buck sent the goat flying over the side of Canterlot Mountain, the sound of bones breaking under hoof echoing from the city’s heights.

The two flew down to one of Canterlot’s terraces, the lava fall from the courtyard above had created a few odd-looking mounds of mixed gold and marble. Grogar lay on the ground, still alive, but wounded. Celestia could barely fly, having exhausted most of her magic with that final assault, Luna held her, wobbly but still in a state to fight if Grogar showed more stamina than was expected of the old goat.

“What should we do with him, sister?’ Luna asked, already knowing the answer, and it was the answer she wanted to hear.

Grogar struggled to his hooves, making some uneasy movements, bloody hooves going around in circles on the ground first before he staggered upright. “What, going to banish me, I will just come back someday, perhaps you won’t even be around then.”

“Luna,” Celestia replied, tone colder than normal, “Kill him.”

Grogar was taken aback, “You wouldn’t.”

“You killed many, many ponies, it is a shame I can only kill you once,” Luna replied. Luna stepped forward, horn glowing, “I want to break every bone in your body and have you die of shock, but my sister would not appreciate that, so I’ll be merciful, and make your death so quick you will not have time to feel pain… It is far better than you deserve.”

Luna’s horn glowed, a shadowy spear forming in the air next to her, “If you have any last words then say them, you have to the count of three…One… Two… Thre-”

Luna’s spear slashed outward, right at that moment the goat stepped to the side, the spear only slashing his neck rather than cutting it clean through, below the goat, where he had tried to get his hooves up, was an intricate mesh of magical runes. Celestia’s eyes went wide, “Luna!” She shouted and rushed forward to pull her sister out of the way. The moment a drop of Grogar’s blood touched the runes, they lit up with crimson magic… And in a flash, all three of them vanished, with that final pop the city was silent, save for the crackle of fire.

It was cold, wind was rushing across Celestia’s face, burying her eyes under her mane, it was quite dark, but she was still alive, she was sure of that. Even a foal quickly develops that sense of gravity that lets them know when they’re falling from the sky. Her wings folded out reflexively, and the rush of air as she slowed pulled her mane back, allowing her to see where she was…

Color, lots of color, a giant scatter of many colors of lights across a dark landscape, like a billion unicorns casting spells at once. The lights came from giant dark towers that rose from the ground like trees in a forest. She looked around and found Luna falling next to her, she too had her wings out but had been entranced by the sight of the glowing forest of rectangular structures below them. Grogar was falling, blood pouring from his neck… Seems he wasn’t as fast in that last dodge as he would have liked to imagine.

Celestia woke up from the impressive sight and folded her wings back, picking up speed and flying next to Luna, the rushing wind almost drowned out all other sounds, so Celestia prodded her sister with a jab of telekinesis, catching her attention. They both folded their wings out, slowing down enough to talk while gliding to the ground. “Where are we, what was that spell?”

“Teleportation of some kind I imagine, either trying to escape or banish us, regardless it seems we all got caught in it,” Celestia replied.

“Where is Grogar?”

“It would be cruel to just let him fall, but between all the magic we exhausted we can barely fly, and I think he is already dead anyway, he tried to evade your strike at the last moment but the goat wasn’t as nimble as he thought, or perhaps he didn’t care if he lived or died as long as he got us, regardless, we cannot worry about that now… We need to find somewhere to land, Luna, your eyes are better than mine in the dark.”

“We could land in the glittering towers?”

“We do not yet know what they are, we should land out in the wilderness and rest first, if they are dangerous then we will require our magic, or at least working wings…”

“I see your point… I see deserts, as well as an ocean, with the glittering towers to… The north I think, I would use magic or the stars to find out, but I can see no stars in this sky with all the light from the towers.”

They continued gliding for several minutes, Luna leading the way, as they approached a flat stretch of wilderness. They landed on gravely ground covered in sand that made their coats itch, but at least they could rest their wings. “The ground is hard, and there are some kind of spines in the dirt which hurt my hooves, but all in all it is better than a lot of other places we could have ended up, such as deep underground or near an active volcano,” Luna said, “I will take first watch, you should rest…”

Celestia clearly wanted to protest but simply laid down on the dirt. Luna turned her head upward, the stars were barely visible, but the moon clearly was… They were not on Equus, that much was clear, the moon was different, it looked smaller and despite being a crescent she could see small lights she at first thought were stars on its dark parts. She felt a magical connection with it… It wasn’t strong, she couldn’t even move the moon a meter just yet, but she still felt its weight in her mind, it was physically smaller than Equus’ moon, but not by much, the size difference was clearly due to distance. As an astronomer she stared long into the night sky, entranced by such a familiar yet alien sight, as the stars were dim and the moon alien.

Author's Note

Just finished my first playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, and honestly, much better than all the negative press it got at launch made me suspect it was going to be... Felt a bit like Fallout 4, as in a kina lowsy RPG, but a good shooter and decently fun game overall, plus while the ending was somewhat obvious in hindsight, in the moment it hit me like a truck. Regardless, give it a solid 7 or 8 out of 10.
I also kinda got bored of the other fandoms I was in, so I'm back in the MLP fandom, at least for now, until I find something else to get invested in.

(Edit, 22/9/2022): I'm back in writing fanfics, and I wanted to continue this one after watching the Cyberpunk anime. Note that as of the time of writing this the other chapters are not yet rewritten and so there will be some major differences in the story that will be ironed out later.

Chapter 2: Chrome Pony

“What’s so important that you needed to call me out to Arasaka Tower at this hour, Yoshiya?”

“Thank you for coming Zach, there was an… Incident… Yesterday.”

“What kind are we talking about?”

The two suited men walked down the corridor toward the laboratory, accompanied by the standard corp guards, “An unidentified object appeared on radar, about half a kilometer up.”

“Anything flying in toward the tower should have been spotted long before it got that close.”

“Correct, but this was not at the tower itself, but rather by the corporation’s private waterfront area, west-north-west of the tower. Still, you are correct that it should have been spotted earlier… At first, we assumed it to be either a stealth aircraft or ballistic missile, it was not responding to attempts to contact it on radio or hack it, however, quick scanning indicated it biological in nature, so a team was sent to inspect its landing point on the coast.”

“I see, did it survive?”

“Yes, but it is… Odd…”

“How so?”

“You should see for yourself, it looks something like one of those westerner fairy tales, ‘Unicorns’, however it also has a set of wings. And strangest of all, none of the telltale signs of genetic modification.”

“Wait, what?”

They passed into the lab, inside a room, transparent from the outside but stark white inside, was the mare. She was asleep on the hard polymer-coated metal flooring. “This is the creature, possibly a hybrid of swan, white rhinoceros, and shetland pony, tailored to look like one of these magical unicorns… On the outside, at least that was our first assumption.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Yoshiya drew a tablet and loaded a series of data, “Gene-scans, observe… Very low resemblance to all known animal species on Earth, mutant strains included. Less than five percent.”

“Where do you think it came from then?”

“Possibly a fully synthetic organism, however… This field of research among both corporations and independent research teams is very primitive at best, no one from Arasaka to Biotechnica has the technology to produce a fully functional living synthetic organism like this one… Here, let me show you something else,” The suit then pulled up another image on the tablet, “Brain scan, particularly of the neural tissue around the base of its horn and frontal lobe.”

“Holy shit.”

“You see what I mean, these bundles of nerves are too complex to artificially produce, either from synthetic growth or gene-modding, I had our best biologists look at it, they can’t begin to explain what some of these tissues do… This organ right here, in the base of the horn, seems to bend the quantum foam around it. I contacted Misaki Roka in Tokyo, the best physicist Arasaka has to offer, he said it was impossible for any machine to do that let alone a biological organism!”

“So, what are we going to do, start cutting it apart?”

“No, too risky, there is a lot of potential for the company right here, we can’t afford to lose or damage the subject in any way right now, imagine what scientific advances will be rolling out of the company’s HQ when we learn how to control this!”

“Well, what are we going to do with it then?”

“Listen.” With that, the suit pulled up an audio file, strangely beautiful but alien melodic sounds came out.

“What is that?”

“The creature speaking… But, these aren’t the same kind of sounds dogs or horses or other creatures make… There are repeating sounds, syntax, patterns that seem almost like a form of grammar, it’s trying to speak, like actually speak, like a human! With a language!”

“T-That, isn’t that illegal?”

“Illegal to give an animal human speech yes, and also extremely difficult, nearly impossible… We need to find this creature’s creator, whoever or whatever synthesized it, they will be an invaluable asset to the corporation, until then we make do with the one subject we have… During its fall, the creature suffered severe damage to its spine and wing bones, likely would have died had it not been for our discovery of it… As it stands now the creature is paralysed from the middle of the back down to tail-bones, and its wings will never heal naturally…”

“Gives us the chance to kill two birds with one stone?”

“Yes, yes it does, we can replace the spine and wings with cybernetic versions, will give us a convenient connection to the animal’s central nervous system to help monitor brain activity and give us insight into how it works, perhaps we can figure out how to translate the language it is speaking in.”

“Can also take the chance to fit security systems, just in case the animal turns aggressive.”

“Precisely.”

“Are you sure the prosthetics will function properly, this thing isn’t human…”

“You saw the brain scans, despite being a genetic anomaly, the brain structure seems nearly identical to a human’s, aside from the horn nerves and frontal lobe, but none of our biotech we plan to implant will interact with those segments until we know exactly how they work.”

“What about the markings on the creature’s posterior?”

“We assume them to be brand markings, most likely an addition by whoever produced this creature… We’re replacing them with our own markings, but they seem oddly resistant to our techniques… Tattoos don’t show up underneath the fur and tend to fade rapidly, dying the fur has the same problem with rapid fading, almost as if the fur itself is resisting the chemicals.”

“Physically burn-off the old markings?”

“No, when we do the augmentation we’ll simply remove those pieces of flesh and put synthetic replacements on its flanks, I checked the net, that particular sun-symbol isn’t used by any corporation or independent group, so once we add our branding and finish some paperwork the animal will officially be our property, meaning we can copyright the licenses to the technology we produce by reverse-engineering the animal’s brain.”

“Have you told our higher-ups and investors?”

“Not yet, I intend to tell Saburo once the required paperwork is done to license the creature.”

“Smart… I assume the reason you called me in was for this cyberware implantation job?”

“Correct, you’re one of the few I can trust to not kill the creature and keep the information discussed here between ourselves.”

“Yoshiya, we should do this as soon as possible.”

“Agreed, get yourself ready, I can direct you to the required facilities in the tower, I also have the cyberware of choice on hand, I will flood the creature’s chamber with sedatives to keep it unconscious for the duration of the procedure. Do this right and by the end of the year we’ll both be richer than we’ve ever dreamed.”

“Of course.”

Luna trotted angrily through the desert, the plants here tasted like she had expected, prairie-garbage, too dry and sugarless. And there wasn’t a drop of fresh water in sight… The mare had found a puddle earlier but it reeked of all kinds of scents, some familiar and very much toxic, others she had never smelled before but were most likely unhealthy in the extreme.

The creatures she had met were odd… She remembered them talking in some language, she had lived for over three thousand years now but had never heard that language. They looked like some kind of hairless abyssinian or diamond dog, but they sounded nothing like them… And their weapons… Strange things, like the one in her teeth right now… It was heavy and metal, but she had seen how they worked from watching that one with the Appleloosan hat, pull back the metal bit, and it produces a blast of sound and hole where you point it, not too unlike a crossbow… Useful, but loud, not good for keeping herself hidden…

Celestia… “Tia, where are you!” Luna called out, knowing already that she wasn’t close enough to hear her… She was going to find her, somehow… Just needed to know where to start looking, where would her sister be in this deserted mess… She had seen towers, huge black things on the horizon, covered in lights that seemed to shine even during the day, but she dare not go there, too many of those creatures, undoubtedly, and she would rather not be surrounded by potential enemies… But, if Tia was there…

Luna sat by the grass, chewing it, even if it tasted awful, thinking over what she knows… Grogar, dark flesh-weaver of the Hayseed Swamps, he was ruling over Equestria now, possibly the world… Her ponies, her thestrals, they would resist, they would rather fight to the last mare and stallion if it came down to it… But, that was the problem… She needed to get back to Equestria, to save her ponies, but she couldn’t go without Celestia, even if she knew how to get back, even if she had her magic…

She sat, for what felt like hours of being paralyzed by indecision, but was most likely a mere few minutes. Then stood back on her legs. There was something coming, a roaring sound, she could hear it, coming from the north, from the direction she had came, from the towers…

The mare ducked behind a rock, hoping that whatever this was would not notice her… A cloud of dust coming over the hills signalled the thing's arrival, a beast of iron, some kind of large wagon but it was not pulled by strong ponies, or any other creature for that matter, rather it just drove across the rough terrain with nothing pulling it. Luna withdrew the weapon, she had no idea how to use it without her horn, so, she held it in her mouth and tried to work her tongue through the small hole around where the lever was to activate it, being careful not to use it and reveal herself.

A thing stepped out from within the ponyless carriage, tall, looking like a hairless and skinny diamond dog with a flat face and a nose bent into their flesh, holes on the sides of their head, perhaps their ears? Luna recognized the creature from the bloodied bandage around its shoulder. The thing withdrew a weapon, but then dropped it on the ground, saying something in a language she could not understand “I know you’re here, I don’t want to hurt you”, while the words did not make sense, the tone was clearly one of nonaggression.

Luna stepped out from behind her cover, weapon still in her mouth, she dropped it as well so she may speak “I do not understand you, do you understand me?” However, it was clear that the creature did not, as it simply looked at her confused.

Luna then tried a different approach, crouching down, wincing at the pain, still cut and bruised from her crash-landing last night, and put a hoof on the sand, tracing symbols in the dirt, drawing the crude shapes of two ponies. The creature looked at them, pointing a claw at one of the two, and then pointing to Luna. Luna nodded, pointing to the other one and then shaking her head.

“So, are there two of you?” The creature said, but Luna still could not understand the words. So she merely started drawing more figures in the sand.

Celestia was inside the box, pointing her horn toward the wall… Still nothing but sparks… Grogar had not gotten rid of all her magic, but what little she had left inside her soul was not enough to do anything with, not yet, but she was sure she could gather strength with what she still had… Perhaps… She started to feel tired, odd, she hadn’t been moving or exerting herself since she arrived in this box, impossible to, seeing as she could barely drag herself around. No… Someone was trying to put her to sleep, it didn’t feel like sleep magic, but this exhaustion was not natural… She got up, tried to drag herself to the wall, planted a hoof against it… Then collapsed.

She awoke, pain burning through her flanks and back, she was strapped down, she couldn’t see, a light shone in her eyes and everything else was shadowy and dark, her head held down and unable to move. She felt pricks of pain along her sides and something crawling down her spine. It felt as if there was a hole in the back of her head and sweat built on her chest. She pulled at the straps and tried to break free, but it was to no avail. There were strange shapes moving all around and stranger voices that she could not understand, then she felt something stab her in the side, and everything went black once again.

Author's Note

For those wondering, this takes place before the events of Cyberpunk 2077, and V does not exist in this universe.

Chapter 3: Linguistics

The first thing Celestia noticed when waking up was the pain… Her entire back and flanks ached… Wait, her flanks ached… She turned, kicking out with her hind legs, her hind legs! She could feel them again! She got to her hooves and tried to prance around for the first time in what felt like, and may have been, days. It was impossible to tell time in this stark white box, she couldn’t even feel the movement of her sun in here. She barely managed a stumble, her legs felt… Weird, not quite right, there was a feeling but it was oddly dull, like she was still somewhat asleep. She turned, looking at her flanks… What?

Her hind legs and wings, they weren’t covered in fur, down, and feathers, nor was there the pale pink skin that would have been expected beneath the coat, instead, smooth white, black, and red material, almost like porcelain or bone, covered her flanks down to her hooves, and her wings were now significantly larger, she was stunned she didn’t realize earlier, but her entire hindbody felt heavier, and her wings were now coated in metal, as if she had armor on, but this wasn’t the same as a pegasus legionnaire's wing-plates, these were taking the place of her old feathers, long blades of silvery metal that were seemingly woven into… No, outright replacing her old feathers, and her wings, there were small ropes made of metal and some black and white material, connected to strange hinges and gears nestled between articulated plates of silver.

None of that was anything compared to a single thing that shocked her most of all… Her flanks… Her cutie mark, it was gone! Replaced by that same three-pronged symbol. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe… Her mark, it was… Replaced! Who would dare do that to her! She felt rage building up inside, had she the power, she would have melted a hole in the box and escaped to find whoever defiled her body in this way, ripping off what made her, what defined her, her destiny as the solar princess!

She got to her hooves, and marched to the wall, the one with the large three-pronged symbol and alien words that she couldn’t understand and slammed her hooves against it with all her might, there was a bang of metal and some small cracks in the wall. She reared up and smacked down again! And again! She turned and bucked with her limbs, it sent a painful shock up her legs but it also left a much bigger dent in the wall, the black and white paint chipping away, and whatever that bone-like material that covered the wall splintering apart, revealing dull metal underneath, covered in small glowing lines in intricate and confusing geometric patterns connected to glowing points and circles all red and blue.

Then, there was another shock, but not one in her legs… A sudden searing pain in the back of her head caused her to collapse and shout in pain, it vanished for a second, long enough for her to get her breath back, and then returned with double the intensity. She squirmed in pain which seemed to last an eternity before vanishing once again. She reared herself back up and prepared to strike the wall once again, but another shock to the head caused her to fall back down again, worse than before.

Once the pain vanished, she stood still and looked around the room… If she had her magic she could detect an invisibility spell, but no… She was sure there was nothing in this room with her, she never saw an opening, nor felt the telltale flash of light and wave of energy that followed a teleportation… Whatever was causing her this pain was outside the room, outside of this box prison! “Where are you!” She shouted “I know you’re out there, watching and listening, aren’t you! Are you a servant of Grogar! Your dark spells and biomancy cannot avail you forever!”

There was no reply, not even an echo. Then, a few moments later, there was an odd pop from the wall, Celestia turned and noticed something had protruded from a hatch that the mare had failed to notice, some kind of device, made of the same metal and bone-like matter that the rest of the walls, and now part of herself, were made of. The mechanism moved toward her on some kind of arm, Celestia braced herself, pointing her horn at it, she still didn’t have the power for even basic telekinesis, but she hoped whoever enchanted the machine did not know that.

An image, much like the magical holograms unicorns could produce, but somewhat cruder, being projected by some metal device on the armature, displayed an image of an apple. “An, apple?” Celestia responded.

“Apple” A voice came through the device, speaking in perfect ponish, yet sounding nothing like any pony.

“Yes, that’s what I said! What trick is this?”

Another image appeared, projected by the machine, this one an image of Celestia herself… She did not respond, but the machine did it for her, following a beeping sound that came from the back of her head, followed by the same beeping on the machine, “Celestia.”

“Yes, I am Celestia, to whom am I speaking?”

There came another beep from the back of her head, and then another beep from the machine… There was a strange pause, and another image was projected from the machine, this time an image of a strange two-legged creature similar in build to a diamond dog or abyssinian, the mare stared at the image confused, then another twin-beep sounded and the machine spoke before Celestia could “Human”

“Human?”

Then another image was projected, this one of a blank outline of a pony, “Why are you showing me this pony?”

“Pony,” The arm device responded.

Then another image was projected, it wasn’t anything Celestia recognized, something made of metal and the same bone-like material, “What is this?” she thought to herself, not speaking out loud. Two more beeps and it responded.

“Gun”

That was when Celestia realized what it was doing, either through some spell cast upon her by it, or by some enchantment either within the metal arm or within the metal planted inside her, it was reading her mind, pairing words to thoughts and intent, comparing them with the images… In other words, interrogating her. She tried to clear her mind, she knew how to stop magical mind-reading, but it didn’t seem to help, the metal arm would always successfully pair her thoughts, even subconscious ones, to the images.

She needed to know why…

It was dark… The moon was red in the sky, slowly drifting through Celestia and Luna’s heavens. The ponies were in the shadows, waiting for the chimeras to pass, each one searching… But they would not let themselves be found by those monsters.

Quickly and silently, the thestrals flew into every building, picking the locks with ease, using spells cast by crystals on the end of pendants and wands to silence the voices of scared and crying foals, making sure that their voices did not summon the monsters. A mother drew a knife she had stashed away, “Stop, we do not want to hurt you,” The thestral said in a whisper, “We are Luna’s Night Guard, we are here to evacuate the town.”

“We can’t go, the monsters-”

“Will not spot you, we are not unicorns, but we know magic ourselves… Now, if you wish to survive this night, we must move quickly… Grogar’s army is already marching east as we speak, we have orders to get every pony still alive in Equestria safely to the land of Griffons.”

“The pony-eaters?”

“The Griffons do not eat ponies, but the chimera do…”

The same scene was repeated across the village as the patrol of Night Guards evacuated everyone they could convince to leave… By morning, the Chimera would find nothing but a few old fools who refused to trust the guard, and not the haul of young slaves and test subjects Grogar had order them to take.

By morning, the caravan was already in the northern tundra, the first snow of autumn beginning to fall as they passed into the Crystal Empire, and from there, they would take a ship to the Griffons’ land. As they began the trek up the Crystal Mountains, somewhere in the caravan, a foal, a young stallion, asked his mother “Do the guards know if Celestia will save us?”

“We do not know, young Stygian,” The foal’s mother replied, “But she must, without the Alicorns, I do not know if the Crystal Empire, or Griffonstone, can hold back the Goat King’s horde…”

Author's Note

Sorry that this chapter's shorter than normal, this marks the end of the chapters that I've written ahead of time, finished this right as I uploaded the fic itself. From now on expect chapters a little less frequent.

Interlude: A Dream of Fire

Misty sat on the roof… It was dark… The lights of Night City had all gone out only a few minutes ago… This wasn’t a local blackout, like had happened before, the entire city had just suddenly lost power. And at that moment, there was a wave of warm air… It seemed to flow throughout the city, through every dark and shadowy alley, through every tunnel, flowing through the spires of the megabuildings, and even down into the homeless shelters deep within the sewers.

The moon was shining high above, brilliant, pale blue tonight… She felt as if the moon was some giant eye, staring down upon her, upon the entire city, watching…

She was unsure how, but suddenly Misty found herself standing on a cliff, overlooking the city, from the deserts to the south-east… But the mass of dead black metal and glass was not what drew her attention, as strange as it was to see the city without a single light. There, right above the biggest microwave power receiver in the middle of the Jackson Plains, there was a point of light, like a small sun… It rose from the top of the power plant receiver tower into the sky, as beams of light started to form, appearing first like heatwaves accompanied by pale golden light, nearly invisible at first but growing in intensity, from all across the sky they rained down upon that point right above the tower… The waves of warm air, tasting strong of ash and smelling of ozone, washed across the cliff and throughout the badlands, kicking up small dust storms.

It was getting hotter and hotter. Misty found it hard to keep her eyes open, her skin started to sting where the air and light touched it, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the display, nor could she bring herself to move from where she stood… The microwave antenna, it was raked by small explosions, blue-white bursts where electrical equipment failed under the growing heat, the top of the tower was starting to turn a deep and angry red and the blue explosions were joined by fiery orange ones.

As she watched, aircraft and hovercraft started to swarm toward the point of light, bearing logos of various corps, Arasaka, Biotechnica, Militech, Kang Tao, Trauma Team, and of course the NCPD too… Bullets filled the air, cannons roared, missiles flew out on streams of smoke and fire that were washed away by the pulses of air… There were explosions all around the point of light, but none seemed to actually strike, she knew somehow that the bullets were melting into slag before they hit, and the missiles were detonating from the searing heat before striking a target.

The aircraft began vanishing… One by one their lights flicked out. A hovercraft bearing the Arasaka logo flew right past her, mere meters away, and right before her eyes something flew right through it, feeling cold. The hovercraft fell to shattered and torn pieces, torn bodies being thrown from the vehicle as it was seemingly torn to shreds by invisible and unspeakably fast blades.

She now found herself staring down into the middle of the city, right into Corporate Plaza… It was in ruins, some of the buildings looked as if they had been half-melted, while others were shattered and torn like some great claw had torn chunks out of them, while there were merely craters where others had stood. Down below, marching out of one of the buildings, Arasaka Tower, which was now half its original height and looked as if it had melted from the inside-out, bits of rapidly cooling slag dripping from runny windows, came a small but majestic horse, not much taller than a human, but whose dark mane flowed in an unfelt wind and sparkled with starlight, floating next to her in a field of pale blue energy was a staff of twisted metal studded with various bits of tech and crowned by a large jagged crystal which had several strange red chips melted into it.

As the horse marched into the plaza, hundreds of guards and police officers raised their weapons and opened fire, but a shimmering shield of blue light caused the bullets to fly back at those who fired them. The majestic horse raised her staff, there was a flash of light, and-

Misty was now in a street, she could feel the bullets flying past her or even right through her, but there was no pain, no feeling of lead tearing at her flesh, it was as if she was merely smoke in the air. The police were on the retreat, some were sprinting as fast as their legs could carry them, while others were backing away while firing every last round their guns had. Misty turned, and saw it… A brilliant white horse, mane burning as if someone had doused it in oil and lit it, but the horse did not seem at all disturbed by this, her eyes were deep and dark but glowed a brilliant fiery orange at the same time… Around her were the poor, the homeless, the starving, who she guarded against the hail of bullets with her wings, made of glistening ruby and which caused the air around them to shimmer as if they were as hot as a furnace.

She was now sitting atop a mountain, overlooking the deserts around Night City, it was day, but the day was brighter than normal… Lit by a growing cloud of angry red and orange smoke that was quickly billowing outward.

She was standing on the ruin of a Militech panzer, its hull ripped open as if some angry god-like wolf or bear had smelled food within… It wasn’t the only ruined hulk lining the old Californian desert… The corp’s army lay broken upon the gates to Night City, tens of thousands of bodies lay scattered among the piles of ash and still glowing craters where tanks and mechs had once stood.

She was sitting in a forest… She had never seen the forest before, but despite all the new sights and sounds, something else drew Misty’s attention, it should have been the middle of the night, but a second sun was passing overhead… It flew with speed that even hypersonic aircraft couldn’t match, shining golden light down upon the world, and where that light touched, plants quickly withered and burst into flames, the mouldy mulch upon the forest floor was turned to ash and cinder, while the trees quickly became mere firewood for the onrushing inferno… The light overhead continued to fly… It was going to circle the whole world, Misty knew… There would be nothing left untouched by the coming flame…

With that, Misty woke up, sweating… She pulled herself out of her bed, outside her window the lights of Night City were still bright, the holographic billboards still felt streams of color into the sky, neon tubes buzzing and humming away, advertising stores, diners, brothels, and corps of all kinds… But there was still a lingering air of fear and awe in the wind, although that may still have been the last of her dream still clinging to her mind… There was the scent of something burning though, a few wisps of smoke were floating in from the door.

She walked out to investigate, walking toward the front desk of her shop, Misty’s Esoterica, and there was the source of the burning scent… Her deck of tarot cards, now a pile of ash. How did that happen? She thought to herself, lamenting the loss of the deck, old and worn as it was… There was one card left intact she discovered as she swiped the remains of the deck into a trash bin… The Sun and The Moon… An odd feeling crept up her spine, she suddenly drew her hand back, as if afraid to touch them… She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t bring herself to lay a finger on them, shivering, she walked slowly back toward the bed, hoping that this was still part of her dream…