A Broken Sea of Ice

It’s finally time. I finally managed to become one being again. I was finally strong enough to break free.

With a shout of exertion that echoed throughout the surrounding waters and made the walls of the crevice shake, I broke the chains of magic that I had imposed upon myself to keep from hurting anyone in my maddened state. I then crouched low before launching myself towards the surface, creating a small, but powerful current to speed myself up. When I breached the surface, I soared through the air before crashing down on top of a nearby high rock.

From here, I could see for miles. Miles that were filled with nothing but empty sea. Sighing, I stepped down and fell to stand on the water. My natural sense of nautical direction kicked in and told me to head east. After all, that was the way home. It didn’t help that I had a really bad feeling that something was happening.

With that in mind, I surrounded myself with water...And flew.

Celestia watched in despair as Chrysalis’s army invaded Canterlot on a magical screen the changeling queen had conjured. There was nothing she could do to stop it, being trapped in a cocoon along with her sister, her student, and her student’s friends and brother. She started to shed tears as the changelings forcibly drained the love from her subjects, leaving them to pass out before being cocooned just like her.

Chrysalis opened her mouth, seemingly getting ready to boast about her imminent victory when something happened. A literal blue streak soared across the sky on the screen, before starting to circle above Canterlot. Within the circle, a cloud started to form. Small and white at first, the cloud quickly expanded and darkened into a massive storm that covered the entirety of the royal city.

Lightning streaked and thunder roared as the rain came down in a nearly solid stream, flooding the streets and washing away several changelings that failed to get to higher ground but strangely gathering the cocoons in the central plaza after knocking them loose from the ground and walls.

“What is this?! What is happening?!” The insectoid queen screeched as the rain lightened and the floods subsided, for the most part, leaving streams in the streets at least an inch or two deep.

The navy blue streak that had been circling the storm the entire time finally dived towards the ground, crashing down in front of the castle gates. The resulting plume of water was as tall as, if not taller than the said gates. It created a silhouette of a pony-like figure who stood from his crouching position. Even after the plume settled, the rain was still too thick to make out any true details about the figure.

The figure was quickly surrounded by changelings, and so they held out a hand. To the astonishment of everyone in the throne room, the rain coalesced and froze into the shape of a trident which the figure grasped before charging at his foes.

While most of the others were wondering who this was, Celestia had her suspicions. However, she quickly dismissed those thoughts.

‘It can’t be him. He passed away long ago.’ She reasoned mournfully.

A horizontal swing of the changeling’s sword was ducked under before a jab of my weapon pierced his stomach. As he gave a last, rattling gasp, I had already formed a shield from the rainwater and blocked a spell that his comrade sent my way, deflecting it to another of my foes. It blew his head off as I decapitated the caster by throwing the sharpened shield.

Another rushed in with a spear, which I sidestepped, before forming a dagger and lodging it firmly in the warrior’s back. A sweep of my leg tripped the next attacker, and I formed a spike from the water underneath him that pierced his heart. I grabbed the arrow that one of them launched at me and crushed it, making the rest back up in fear.

The water underneath the figure was now glowing from the pooling changeling blood, allowing the figure to be identified as male. The rest of the warriors that surrounded the lone fighter started to back away, to which Chrysalis snarled.

“Cowards! Don’t you dare run away! Fight to the last changeling!” The queen ordered. The soldiers looked at each other... and charged. The lone warrior stood for a moment, briefly shaking his head before going down into a three-point position. He slowly brought his other hand up before slamming it down into the water, freezing it solid around him and trapping the soldiers by their feet.

With that done, he wrenched the hand that had been frozen free and flung it up, making spikes form from the ice and pierce all of the soldiers through places such as the stomach, the heart, and the head.

The ponies and the changeling queen stared in shock. In a few moments, this warrior had dealt with most of the changeling army. Shaking his head in the neon green light of the frozen blood, he freed his feet and walked toward the gates.

Rearing back his fist, he punched the said gates, sending them slamming open. The sound echoed throughout the entirety of the castle. As he stepped inside, the lights of the castle illuminated his features, revealing his face at last. Pale skin was covered by a simple blue t-shirt and tan cargo pants. Black hair hung bedraggled and soaked from the storm outside, the bangs covering one of his sea green eyes, yet seemingly not impairing his vision as he made his way through the halls.

Chrysalis gave another snarl as she stared at the screen, which showed the figure approaching the throne room as water slowly flooded the first few inches of the hallway in front of him as he walked.

“If you want something done right…” She grumbled as she turned to face the doors, doors which soon slammed open and revealed the very figure that they had been watching as the magic screen dispersed.

“...YOU HAVE TO DO IT YOURSELF!” The woman who I could only assume was the changeling queen shouted as she fired a large spell at me. I formed a shield from the water and sent it back, Knocking her flat on her back as the water finally finished reaching the desired depth throughout the room. I froze her in place before walking up and kneeling next to her.

“You know…” I said, speaking for the first time since I had broken the chains, “...I just don’t get it. You could have had all the love you ever needed by simply continuing as you were. Instead, you got greedy and tried to take all the love from a race who has said force as a fundamental value of their society. Why?”

“Because I was sick of being seen as a freak! We, changelings, deserve to rule, we have far superior abilities than ponies!” She exclaimed, spitting the last word as if it were the vilest curse in the world. I shook my head in response, unable to believe what I was hearing.

“So you’re saying that, rather than be content with what you had and taking your subjects into account, you would use them as pawns just so you could get more power?” I asked, “I swear, there are shitty rulers, then there are people like you. I think you need to chill and think about what you’ve done because now your entire hive has been all but wiped out because of your greed.”

And thus, I started to retract the water, forming a dome around the changeling queen before freezing her within a large block of solid ice. With the enemies eliminated, I turned to the cocoons containing the ponies who had been in the throne room. I held out my hand once more, a knife forming within my grip. Then I approached the first cocoon.

A wild swing of my arm split the membrane of the front, allowing the goop inside to rush out and dump the lone white stallion inside onto the floor. I walked to the next, this one contained a blue mare with a rainbow mane and repeated the process. 6 more times did I repeat these actions, each one releasing a mare I did not know. The 7th cocoon in all I sliced into more carefully, gently setting Luna, who had been inside, down.

It was the 8th that brought a sad smile to my face. Starting at the top I slowly dragged the knife down the frontal membrane in as straight of a line as I could. As soon as it burst forth, I dismissed the knife and caught her in my arms. The mare I had sacrificed everything for was as beautiful as ever, even with her white coat slickened and matted by a thin layer of slime. Her aurora-like mane hung limply, yet its colors only seemed to be brighter than before from this ordeal.

There was a groan, and I held her in front of me so that we could see each other properly. When her gorgeous pink eyes fluttered open, they widened at the sight of my face.

“Percy?” Her melodic voice was tinged with hope and confusion.

“Hello, Celestia, how is my Dawning Dream doing?” My sad smile as I gently moved a stray hair from her face seemed to be the final straw that convinced her, as she practically tackled me to the floor with a hug using a surprising amount of force from such a short distance.

“Percy! You’re alive!” Her gleeful shout drew the attention of everyone in the room, and while Luna snapped awake at her words, the others did so at the sight of their ruler hugging an unknown male.

“Perseus? Is that truly you? I thought you were dead?” Luna said with understandable suspicion.

“Heh, yeah...About that…”I began as I managed to get Celestia to let go of one of my arms so I could rub nervously at the back of my head, “That’s kind of a long story, one best told after everything is cleared up from whatever the hell that psycho in the ice cube did.”