Emerald Mark gave a deep sigh as she walked down the moonstone sidewalk of the streets of the Crystal Empire. She turned her head to stare at her reflection in the windows of the towering crystal skyscrapers that now made up the empire. She tried to ignore the clanking and rattling of the dozens of carts behind her, but this close to the center of the city, that was a fools effort.

A deep green Crystal Pony, that's what she was. That's where her name came from anyway. Deep green was not a good color in her opinion. She found herself wishing she was.... cerulean or something. Yeah. That was a good color.

Stopping at one of the skyscrapers, an even deeper sigh escaped her lips. She was really not looking forward to going home today. She hung her head in shame as she entered the lobby of the apartment building that housed her family. Ignoring the cheery greetings of the valet she simply stepped onto the elevator and sat down on a bench inside, dropping her knapsack off besides her.

"What floor ma'am?" A pegasus attendant in a red uniform asked. Emerald once again sighed, stood up and walked past him, pushing the button herself.

The sixteenth floor was where she lived. The worst floor actually. Right below the penthouse where all the idiots with money went to waste it having loud parties. At least there was no one occupied that penthouse now. Maybe she might be able to sleep tonight.

Another disadvantage to living on the sixteenth floor? Long elevator rides, and everyone wanted to talk to you on long elevator rides. Emerald wished she had some earplugs or something, but nope, the attendant kept blabbing on and on to her about stupid stuff. Why should she care that his son who she will never meet just got into high school?

She reached into her knapsack besides her and pulled out a notebook. The front of the notebook was emblazoned with her cutie mark, an emerald with a landscape inside of it. It wasn’t really all that original. Just like her name to be honest.

She flipped through the dozens of pictures she had drawn inside of it, all of them of her on some great adventure, like robbing an ancient temple, or sneaking into an impregnable fortress or something. All of the pictures included her in a different color. When she finally reached an unused page the elevator had already dinged and started to open.

Emerald mentally face hoofed for not getting the book out sooner, or opening from the back or something. She didn't thank the attendant as she gathered her stuff and left the elevator. Walking past the dozens of doors in the hallway, she finally arrived at her apartment.

She loudly pushed the door to the room open to announce her arrival to her parents and slammed the door behind her.

Emerald wasted no time in walking to the fridge and opening it.

"Hey honey! How was your day?" Asked her mother, a little awkwardly.

Emerald grunted in reply as she fished out a soda and walked away, closing the fridge behind her with a back hoof. She opened the soda as she started to make her way to her room, down a hall past an arch which lead to the family room.

"Sweetie, before you go hiding away in your cave again, someone here wants to see you," Her dad said causing her to sigh yet again as she glared into the family room at whoever it was here to see her.

Her mother and father were sitting on the rooms couch, wearing strained smiles on their faces.

Her mother was a deep yellow in color, with a light blue mane, and her father was light blue in color with a deep yellow mane. Honestly the two looked like they were meant for each other.

She gave the pony sitting adjacent to her parents a cursory, careless glance, taking a sip of her soda. However, it didn't take long for what she just saw to register, and she spewed the fizzy drink from her maw as he locked eyes with the familiar stranger.

"Hello, Emerald. Nice to meet you," greeted the mare, her coat pink, mane long and elegant, her back sporting a pair of large feathered wings and her head a long spiraled horn.

It was Princess Cadance.

Cinder found herself sitting at the head of a large dining table in Dactylus's house. Across the table, a veritable feast of weird foods were set out for her and the rest of the changeling's family.

There were roasted plants, a big roasted fish (although unlike the cave fish back home, this one had eyes?) and some kind of mushroom looking thing. A pie, Magenta had called it.

She had never tasted any of this stuff before, but it honestly smelled so good that she couldn't wait to dig in. Before she could grab anything Dactylus and Pupa had to do some kinda prayer thing.

Cinder would have listened in to try and learn something, but they were talking in some completely different language involving chitters and buzzes. Butterfly tried to join in, but she didn't have the vocabulary. Magenta and Berry looked kinda annoyed the entire time.

By the time they could finally eat, Cinder noticed that the ponies were only going after the green stuff while the changelings only went for the fish. It caused her to raise an eyebrow as she went and grabbed a little of both. Butterfly did the same, of course, she was a hybrid.

Cinder decided to chalk it up to ponies being plant eaters and changelings being meat eaters. Or well... Fish eaters in this case.

Cinder grabbed one of the fish with her hand, earning a couple mutters from Magenta about bad manners before several knocks came from the front door.

Magenta raised an eyebrow as Pupa cleared his throat and stood up.

"I didn't think she'd be here this quickly." Pupa said, earning a nervous gulp from Cinder.

Pupa walked over to the door and opened it. What was on the other side cause Cinder to nearly scream in shock. It was Princess Twilight Sparkle and several Equestrian Guards in purple armor.

Cinder scrambled from her chair before being caught in a, surprisingly comfortable, purple aura. The tiny drake clawed at the ground as she was dragged towards the Princess. She had heard the stories of her. How she had the ability to level mountains with her magic. How she had killed thousands of dragons during the ancient war.

As she was brought before Twilight the dragon couldn't help but whimper and cover her face. "Shh shh shh. It's alright."

Twilight said consolingly, which caused Cinder to blink in confusion.

"W-what?" She asked.

"No no please! Mercy!" A black changeling cried before being silenced as a halberd blade dug into their chest.

The Pharates wielding said halberd grinned under his helmet before violently twisting it, ripping the blade out of the changeling. "Hmph. You'd of thought these insects would have learnt after all these centuries of genocide." He said in a cold, unfeeling metallic voice.

"Yeah, you'd think they'd learn to just roll over and die by now, right?" His brother said as he swung his halberd behind him and decapitated a lunging brave, but foolish changeling.

The two of them were in the middle of a rather large cave, standing atop a pile of Chrysalasi corpses, mercilessly finishing off the stragglers that still remained.

The first Pharates was alerted to the sound of buzzing to his right. Good thing he didn't swing, because it was just a mere Pharynxi Ecotes in a suit of full cyan armor, which included a visor like the Pharates' own.

"A message for the High Marshall, my lord." The Changeling said with a deep bow as he presented a scroll with the mark of the Equestrian royalty.

The Pharates gave a cold glare as he took it in a hoof.

"Message for you Dad!" The second Pharates idly said as he snapped another changeling in half over his knee.

The scroll was grabbed from the first Pharates in a cyan aura and dragged towards a Changeling in a black great coat which was coated in dripping cyan blood. Said Changeling was standing atop a pile of ash that had once been the army of this cave.

The changeling opened the message a read it idly, a single glowing amythest eye was all that the two Pharates could see of their father.

A laugh echoed through the dark cave soon after.

"Change of plan, my sons. We have a meeting in Equestria to tend to."

Author's Note

Ok so, Season 9s and the shows ending is out and honestly, it has made me unbeliveably depressed that the show is over, and all that jazz.

Just making it known because everyone has probably already asked this question. This is a thousand years after Season 8 not 9. Season 9 doesn't exist in this story. Guess that means I gotta add the AU tag huh?