Incarnate: Book Two of the Nexus

Princess Twilight Sparkle stood on a rocky hill overlooking the changeling hive below.

The hive was built of dark stone, and had the rough shape of a castle. A multitude of caverns led inside. While it stood out like an artificial construct, it bore more resemblance to a natural formation.

Dry, sandy desert air ruffled Twilight's bedraggled fur and feathers. The mild breeze could whip into a sandstorm at a moment's notice. She had magic enough not to be concerned by mere weather, and she gave it no thought.

For now, the desert winds were only a nuisance. They caused the many cuts and abrasions on her body to sting.

She extended her wings, but stayed on the ground. Her unicorn horn glimmered purple with a spell of detect magic. It did not return a thing.

Still standing with her wings outstretched, feeling out the hot air currents, Twilight scanned the horizon. Her eyesight had become greatly enhanced when she was made into an alicorn, and she could see that no one was keeping watch.

Flight still did not come. Rather, she tucked her wings close against her body. As she sat down in the sand, numerous charms and magic artifacts jangled where they were attached to her saddlebags.

Stretching back, she pulled a canteen from a pouch and had a cautious drink of water. Every minute of flight and every magic spell cast took a toll upon her stamina and thirst in this dry region where water was a luxury.

Some may call it a wasteland. Maybe they were right. Situated in a forgotten corner of Southwest Equestria, nopony bothered to venture far into this desert. The last vestiges of civilization were a week behind her even as fast as she could fly.

Twilight stared at the endless expanse of dry nothing. Maybe this wasn't even Equestria. The boundary line between her nation and the Desert South was out here somewhere.

Only two sapient races lived in this barren desert. Leonines, the bipedal cat-like race of desert nomads who seldom ever made contact with the ponies. Changelings, the half-bug half-pony creatures which could transform into various things.

Neither race could easily be considered civilized. The few Leonines who did not keep to themselves were pirates and bandits, while the changelings were on the same blurry line as Dragons in whether or not they could be classified as a monster.

Dragons had once been considered monsters. It was over a century before Twilight was born, but the Princesses had declared war and evicted the lot of them from Equestria. The Changelings, however, had heretofore never been a threat.

This had changed only a few years ago, during the marriage of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence. Without warning or provocation, the changeling queen Chrysalis had brought an army to assault the capital city of Canterlot, in an attempt to overthrow Equestria.

It had been a futile effort. Twilight and her friends, who harnessed an ancient magic called the Elements of Harmony and a far more powerful magic called friendship, had seen through the guise, identified the changelings for what they were, and driven them from Canterlot.

This event had inspired Twilight to regard the changelings as the next potential threat to their kingdom. Queen Chrysalis doubtless wanted revenge, and to claim Equestria as her own.

While Twilight wasn't proud of the ancient magic she had used in her investigation, it had been effective. It took focus for a possible changeling to maintain their deception. Pain and misery could easily break this focus, as changelings fed on happiness.

The exact mechanism of this vampirism was now known to Twilight through her research. It was a magic siphon, which targeted empathy and happiness. Truly dangerous, as the magic of her world relied upon willpower, imagination, purpose, focus, and a basic memorized knowledge of written incantations in the case of more powerful spells.

Any extreme emotional state of the caster would have a dramatic effect on the magic.

Absolute happiness, calm, and inner peace could bring creative and healing spells to their fullest power.

A place of deep calm with concentrated anger could allow destructive and negative spells to be more effective.

The strength of friendship and empathy seemed to give power to artifacts and ancient magic, the strongest of all magic in history.

However, a place of apathy, carelessness, deep depression and self doubt could make even the simplest magic spell fizzle out. And a changeling, which siphoned away joy to feed itself, could easily cause this to happen.

Twilight grimaced, remembering the time many years before when that exact state of being had caused the Elements of Harmony themselves to become useless. Discord, a being which was chaos incarnate, had broken free of his imprisonment and decided to have some fun with their kingdom.

When Twilight's friends had been left in an apathetic and despondent state, the elements had failed them. It took a monumental effort to restore their friendship and fight Discord.

The same thing could so easily happen here and now. No, this was not the time nor place to make use of the Elements of Harmony. Besides, if it were, the friendship map would have called all of them out here to the desert before this next threat could attack.

Magic was a fundamental force which could be controlled through a life of study and discipline. Whatever weirdness was at work with the Elements and the Map was an anomaly, a fluke of some manner.

If magic was simply a form of energy, it couldn't have a will of its own. That would not be logical. The ancient magic of the elements couldn't “know better” than Twilight. Tartarus would have to freeze over first.

With all of this in mind, Twilight opened her eyes and gave an angry glare at the hive down below. She grit her teeth and braced for flight. One thing now held her back, a tiny voice in the back of her mind.

What would Princess Celestia or Luna say? Didn't they always work for the end of conflict, only fighting with monsters and beings that could absolutely not be reasoned with? Could a changeling be reasonable? Granted, they were sapient. So were some dragons, which still behaved like wild animals and ate ponies just for trespassing.

These changelings were the same. Twilight decided they belonged across the line, as monsters. Intelligent ones, perhaps, but certainly not civilized. Rather, a threat to all peaceful civility.

If they planned to overthrow and conquer Equestria, and could not be reasoned with, then that meant war. That meant injured ponies, maybe even casualties. Damaged cities. Even more loss and hardship.

No, Celestia and Luna would agree that there was no alternative. Twilight ran forward and took off into flight. She glided down to the hot sands and scrub brush at the base of the hill.

An intricate rune was slowly drawn into the rocky sand. Each stroke was copied from a ragged book with yellowed pages until a matching rune was drawn.

On the next page of the book were several paragraphs of smaller runic writing. An incantation in Old Ponish from ages past.

Forbidden magic. Even for an alicorn like Twilight, ambassador of peace between the ponies of Equestria and all other races, magic such as this was not authorized for normal use. A special signet of Canterlot, quietly borrowed from the royal castle, would keep the use of it from being tracked.

As Twilight read, the rune in the sand began to glow. Now, she placed several charms and artifacts at points around the rune. The glow became intense, and the spell grew greatly in raw power.

Her horn glowed as purple magic poured into the rune. After several minutes she stood back, breathing heavily.

Suddenly, a fiery burst of purple magic carved a ring around the rune. The entire rune lifted from the desert sands, glowing fierce purple. It rose and grew and size, and began moving until it hovered over the changeling hive.

How had it come to this? It felt like only yesterday that Twilight was at the grand galloping gala with her friends, enjoying herself. Now, all magic faltered with each passing day. Powerful beings were escaping and terrorizing Equestria.

The purple rune began to vibrate and hum with a deep and powerful rumble. It shot down towards the hive, and Twilight put her ears down in misery. Why couldn't they reason with the changeling Queen? Why did it have to come to this point?

She turned her back, both to shield her eyes from the glare and to avoid watching the destruction. There was no sound whatsoever from behind her. The steady desert wind continued blustering through the sands, and that was all.

Looking back, she saw the vicious ancient rune begin to spark and fade. Suddenly, it fizzled out into smoke.

All around her in the desert could now be seen dark gray flashes of magic energy. Rocks, cacti and scraggly trees glowed and turned into changelings. Twilight was completely surrounded.

The queen of the changelings shot out from near the top of their hive. She flew towards Twilight, and landed right in front of her. Hundreds more changelings encircled Twilight on every side. Some were equipped with crude weapons. Others had taken the form of various monsters.

Twilight instinctively attempted a teleportation spell. All she managed to conjure was a puff of smoke.

She sat down, put her head down, and stared at the rocky texture of the sand.

When she spoke, it was in a quiet, impossibly weary whisper that she said, “I surrender.”