The Mare Who Loved Me (Boncord II)

Twilight Sparkle swooped down and landed beside the three other princesses, delivered an affirming nod and the four of them took off and began firing magical blasts at the giant mechanical unicorn as they circled around it. Their attacks were completely ineffective and it simply shrugged them off as though they were swarming gnats.

"Princess Luna!" Bon Bon called out as she beckoned with a wave.

Princess Luna landed in front of Bon Bon and Discord. "Report." She ordered.

"You're wasting your strength. That thing is completely impervious to our magic." Discord explained.

"And it will be ready to fire again any minute now." Bon Bon warned.

Princess Luna nodded and took off, returning to Celestia's side. "Sister! You and the others must retreat!" She warned.

"I am not going to flee and leave our kingdom to be destroyed!" Celestia snarled.

"If you fall this kingdom has no future." Luna pleaded.

Energy began to crackle in the air as the unicorn began tracking its horn at Princess Cadence.

"Cadence!" Luna warned. In a blink of magic she teleported to Cadence's side and nudged her out of the way of the blast from the horn. A searing red beam of energy passed between them and struck a row of businesses nearby, disintegrating them. Cadence and Luna struggled briefly to maintain their orientation in the air as it became turbulent in the wake of the beam.

"You're right." Celestia said with a sigh as she caught back up to Luna. "But I won't sit idle. Cadence, Twilight and I will evacuate Ponyville. You and the agents find a way to stop that thing!" Celestia ordered.

"You can't hide from me forever!" Candy-Gram's voice boomed through a loudspeaker on the head of the mechanical unicorn.

"Any ideas?" Luna asked as she landed back beside Bon Bon and Discord.

"You're hurt!" Bon Bon said with concern, noting some seared feathers on Luna's wings.

"I'll be fine." Luna insisted.

"Well that bought us another five minutes." Discord said as he looked down at a wristwatch on his arm.

"This is hopeless!" Bon Bon lamented.

"I have an idea..." Octavia chimed in as she and Lyra rejoined the group. She whispered something to Lyra.

"I'll go get my lyre!" Lyra said enthusiastically as she ran off and started digging through the debris from the town hall.

Octavia ran over to the crowd and pulled Vinyl Scratch aside, who was rendered otherwise oblivious to the situation by the heavy monitoring headphones over her ears which were attached to a portable mixing board.

Vinyl Scratch looked up at her and shrugged.

Octavia pulled one of the headphone cups away from Vinyl's ear and whispered something to her.

Vinyl nodded and then pressed a button on the mixing board and a small performance stage unfolded. Octavia stepped up with her Cello. Lyra caught up with her lyre and joined Octavia up on the stage. A scintillating, blue stream of magic flowed out of Vinyl's horn as she began channeling a spell into the mixing board. A crowd of curious onlookers began to gather around.

"What are they doing?" Discord pondered loudly to Luna and Bon Bon- who looked at each other and shrugged.

The mechanical unicorn leveled its horn toward Bon Bon, Luna and Discord and energy began to crackle as it prepared to fire.

Octavia and Lyra began playing a dramatic orchestral melody. The music notes began, visually, rippling through the air and interacting with the spell Vinyl Scratch was channeling. The music began to shape into a brilliant, translucent unicorn made of enchanted music, matching the size of the mechanical unicorn. Vinyl Scratch's makeshift studio, along with the three musicians, rose up as the unicorn's head formed around it.

Bon Bon, Luna and Discord all scattered as the mechanical unicorn fired on them. The musical unicorn fired a beam of its own. The two beams met, midair and exploded into a blinding, deafening shock-wave which knocked ponies over and shattered the windows of buildings in its wake.

"What!?" Candy-Gram screamed in disbelief through the loudspeaker.

"Of course." Discord pondered as Bon Bon and Luna rejoined his side. "Impervious to nearly all forms of magic."

"I guess this one is out of our hooves now." Bon Bon sighed.

"That one, final, moment of glory seems to always go to somepony else." Discord commiserated.

The mechanical unicorn lunged toward the musical unicorn- which turned around and delivered a swift buck to the chest. The ground quaked as the mechanical unicorn fell and slid back, leveling several buildings in its path. As the mechanical unicorn rose back to its hooves it fired a salvo of blasts toward the musical unicorn. The crowd scattered as several of the blasts exploded and left craters in the ground. One blast struck the musical unicorn which fell backwards onto a building, crushing it.

"We're too evenly matched!" Lyra shouted to her counterparts as her music broke into a crescendo. "We need something to give us an edge."

Octavia leaned over and lifted one of Vinyl's headphone cups and whispered something to her. Vinyl nodded and produced a pair of microphones.

The musical unicorn rose back to its hooves and stomped over to the trio of Luna, Discord and Bon Bon.

"We need vocals!" Lyra pleaded.

"Why does it have to be us!?" Bon Bon complained.

"Are you crazy? Nopony can improvise both vocals and instrumentation at the same time." Lyra retorted.

"I'm not a singer!" Bon Bon shouted.

"But I've seen you doing background vocals in musical numbers before!" Lyra levitated the microphones toward Bon Bon.

"I just lip-synced and copied what everypony else was doing!" Bon Bon hung her head in shame.

"I've done a musical number before." Discord sighed as he reached for the microphones. "Just follow my lead." he passed one to Bon Bon.

The mechanical unicorn turned its head toward the group so Candy-Gram could watch the development.

"You take over!" Candy-Gram ordered as she passed off the controls to one of her cohorts.

"Where are you going, boss?" The cohort asked.

"I have some other business to attend to." Candy-Gram explained.

The group watched as Candy-Gram dropped from the hatch on the underbelly of the mechanical unicorn and galloped off toward the horizon.

"I'll take care of her. You two- bring the house down. " Luna ordered with a wink before taking to the sky and soaring in the direction Candy-Gram went.

"Ahem." Feedback squealed in the air as Discord cleared his throat into his microphone as he climbed up on the stage with Bon Bon.

The crowd grew silent as all eyes were on Discord, waiting for him to begin; only the sound of the mechanical unicorn stomping toward them and the energetic crackle of its horn preparing to fire could now be heard. He materialized a scrap of paper containing some lyrics and stared at it and sighed.

"He's nervous!" A random stallion in the crowd heckled.

"He looks calm and ready to me." The mare beside him replied.

"But he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down!"

"Any time now!" Lyra urged as she and Octavia began playing a melancholy melody.

Discord started off with a slow, melancholy ballad. He sounded out of practice as all eyes turned in dread on the mechanical unicorn as it fired off a shot.

Jaws dropped as Bon Bon piped in with a beautiful and operatic chorus. Vinyl moved a slider on her mixing board, adding an upbeat brass accompaniment to the sound. Lyra and Octavia switched their tone to match.

As the crowd started feeling the music, energy crackled all throughout the structure of the musical unicorn. With a flash of magic a shield formed in front of it and deflected the shot from the mechanical unicorn off course, where it vaporized one of the spires of the distant School of Friendship.

"These lyrics!" The heckling stallion swooned to his companion with a beaming smile. "I've never felt so inspired before!"

"I really feel like a better pony for hearing them." The mare agreed.

"I feel sorry for anypony who doesn't hear these words. They've really missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity."

The horn of the musical unicorn charged and crackled with magical energy as crowds gathered tightly around in the street and began to sing along to the chorus. The operator of the mechanical unicorn trembled in fear as the musical unicorn leveled its horn and unleashed a powerful torrent of magical energy. The mechanical unicorn disintegrated and the torrent of energy carried on, leaving a long trench in the ground where many buildings used to stand. As the dust settled the crowd of bystanders began to cheer.

"We did it!" Lyra cheered.

"Not yet. Let's go help Princess Luna!" Bon Bon ordered.

Princess Luna's pursuit ended on a narrow cliff-side which overlooked Ponyville. As she caught up to Candy-Gram they both saw the spectacle in Ponyville conclude from a distance. Princess Luna quietly swooped down onto her hooves and began trotting toward Candy-Gram who stood with her back to Luna and stared over the edge.

"It's over now." Luna said calmly.

Candy-Gram remained silent.

"At least answer me one question. Did any of it mean anything to you? Do you not feel anything real for any pony at all?" Luna asked tearfully.

"Still sore about that, are you?" Candy-Gram chuckled. "At first I loved you too. I feel that same fleeting joy anypony else does. But when its over I get back to the task at hoof."

"You mistake lust for love." Luna hung her head and sighed. "Love is a commitment that goes beyond fleeting joy. Sometimes it means making difficult choices."

"I understand that better than you think." Candy-Gram turned around. She was holding a pulsating red crystal.

"What's that?" Luna asked with dread.

"It's the substance that fueled my weapon. Pure arcane energy- refined and crystallized. This is all that I could carry with me. Not enough to salvage my master plan." Candy-Gram explained. "But when I smash this crystal the sky will light up, brighter than the sun, all the way to Cloudsdale. And when ponies come to investigate; all they will find is our charred and broken bodies."

"What good would dying be to you?" Luna asked as she stepped closer.

"I will become the martyr The Sleepless Dusk needs. Your death will spark animosity toward the crystal ponies who will have no choice but to fall into our ranks. It will spark a civil war that will last generations!" Candy-Gram's voice seethed with demented ambition as she held the crystal up high.

"Stop!" Luna cried out as she jumped at Candy-Gram. She fell short in the middle of a rune that had been hastily etched into the loose soil and began wincing in pain.

"You Equestrian ponies." Candy-Gram chuckled. "Always falling into obvious traps."

Luna strained as energy began to glow in her horn.

"If you fire at me you will set this off and the result will be the same." Candy-Gram chided.

Dramatic orchestral music began to sound as the musical unicorn, now with a pair of beating wings, floated up into view from below the precipice and hovered at eye-level. A gust from one of its wing flaps sent the crystal flying out of Candy-Gram's hoof and onto the ground nearby. The gust also scrambled the rune that had ensnared Princess Luna.

"No!" Candy-Gram screamed. She and Luna both scrambled for the crystal. Luna kicked it away toward the edge of the cliff with her hoof as the four agents watched the struggle from the air nearby.

Luna cast a beam of magic at Candy-Gram; sending her stumbling over the edge of the cliff near the crystal. Candy-Gram now hung over the edge by her front hooves.

"Give me your hoof!" Luna ordered as she approached Candy-Gram. "It doesn't have to end this way." Luna held her hoof out.

"Why would you save me, after all that I have done?" Candy-Gram snarled.

"Love is all about making difficult choices." Luna explained as she reached lower.

Candy-Gram reached up with one hoof and Luna grabbed hold. As Luna pulled her up Candy-Gram reached the other hoof for the crystal.

"Why?" Luna whispered as a tear started to form in her eye. Luna let go- sending Candy-Gram tumbling over the edge with the crystal. As the crystal struck the ground below the ground shook and the sky turned bright-red. The tear slid off her face as a searing fireball reached all the way back up to the cliff-side.

Without a word Princess Luna climbed aboard the musical unicorn and the team returned to Ponyville, landing near what used to be the town hall. As the musicians stopped playing and Vinyl stopped channeling the spell the unicorn faded, and the performance stage folded back in- leaving just the mixing board.

"That was amazing!" Lyra cheered.

"Without you we never could have stopped Ponyville from being destr-" Bon Bon interrupted herself as she looked around, making note of the collateral devastation.

"Beaten the bad guy." Discord corrected on her behalf.

"I'm really sorry your new marefriend turned out to be a horrible villain that preferred death over being captured." Bon Bon said with awkward shuffle.

"Are you kidding!?" Lyra chimed in cheerfully. "If it wasn't for all this craziness I never would have met these two incredible mares!" Lyra cheered as she shared a group hug with Octavia and Vinyl.

The crowd regathered around the group and started to cheer "Encore!"

"They mean you, too." Lyra said with a smile as she looked at Bon Bon and Discord.

"Thanks for the offer." Bon Bon said as she raised her hoof in a gesture of polite dismissal. "But I'm perfectly happy with the life I have." Bon Bon said with a smile as she exchanged a lengthy hug with Discord.

"Sister!" Luna called out as she saw the other three princesses return and land a small distance away. She quickly rejoined then and began conversing in the distance.

"You know." Bon Bon said as she broke out of the hug. "Without any walls left to block your view- this would be a perfect time to see who Fluttershy is with."

"Fluttershy can take care of herself." Discord said as he brought Bon Bon back into an embrace. "I need to focus on what is important to me." The two exchanged a passionate kiss.

"I feel like we're forgetting something." Bon Bon said with a sigh as the kiss ended.

"Discord! Bon Bon!" Twilight Sparkle interrupted as she trotted over to the duo.

"Oh, right." Discord hung his head in defeat.

"I just want you to know that I'm sorry." Twilight Sparkle said as she trailed off with an apologetic frown.

"You are?- I mean you are." Discord flashed a stern, but confused, expression.

"It was wrong of me to go around pointing hooves the way I did. Cozy Glow confessed to her exclusive involvement in the GammaWyvern attack on Manehattan. Though I'm still not sure how she pulled it off."

"She's a cunning little rat, that one." Discord added.

"Well. I'll leave you two lovebirds alone." Twilight laughed nervously before flying off.

"A cold comfort." Bon Bon said in a grim tone as her heart sank.

"I can't say I'm hot about being on a quid pro quo basis with that little psychopath either." Discord gave a heavy sigh as he watched the sun begin to set. "I know this probably isn't the Hearts and Hooves Day you had in mind."

"No." Bon Bon said. "It was better." She said with a smile as she embraced Discord. The two kissed passionately as the sun crept below the horizon.

All the while Rarity stared vacantly and speechlessly across the devastation that was once the fundraiser she had worked so hard to plan, discernible from a statue only by the occasional twitching of her eye.