Chapter the Possibly Only
Roasted Evil Amanitas (Septa’s Revenge by Citrus Recluse)
Recap: After her mushroom’s sampled spores (courtesy of Starlight) gestated into a clone of her, Septa and her clone proceeded to mushroomify every one of the ponies that knew of them and could stop them.
Septa and Septa’s musing was interrupted by the ground shaking under them, her servants flung away and forced onto crystalline crosses.
When they regained enough semblance of mind to ask what was going on, a letter appeared in front of them.
One of my cousins threatened to do this once. It’s a pleasure that I most likely saved the innocents here from suffering the same fate.
Tell me, Septa, do you like banana bread? Because you. Are. Baked.
Septa’s face fell as the sun began to scorch the extracted chunk of land.
Just then, the mares that were left on the crosses began to feel hot, the mushroom skin scorching away in sun fire to reveal unscathed normal mares.
As Twilight began to question what had just happened, a letter appeared in front of her.
Anyone for roasted... yeah that portobello joke was kind of insensitive.
You’re welcome.
The Fake-out (Seeing The Light by MightyShockwave)
Recap: Starlight has seen through Fluttershy’s deception and subtly, with the help of a spell in the equal mark, has goaded Fluttershy to see her point of view. With Fluttershy tired, it has all come to a head in a chair as Starlight trims away at Fluttershy’s mane...
However, just as Starlight was about to make the final cut, Fluttershy seemed to whisper, "...checkmate."
As Starlight pondered what that meant, she saw the pieces of Fluttershy's mane begin to smoke, then go up in green flames, coming out silken and blue.
While she processed that surprise, she noticed Fluttershy seemed much more invigorated suddenly.
"Of course," she said, being engulfed in the same green fire, "even a pawn can do great things at the other edge of the board."
A clawed hand reached through the flame and parted it, revealing not any form of Fluttershy, but a black figure wielding a sword, the very same near-trimmed mane in blue atop his head.
"And even a king can capture a piece," Elytra said.
While Fluttershy's friends processed this, they heard something very different coming from the propaganda speakers.
You're never gonna bring me down
You're never gonna break this part of me
The doors to the house swung open, revealing a very-much-not-trimmed Fluttershy.
My friends are here to bring me 'round
Not singing just for popularity
"Miss me?," she asked as the five of them hugged her tight.
We're here to let you know
That we won't let it go
Our music is a bomb and it's about to blow!
"It may have been hard to emulate every nuance of the spell to act as the decoy while Fluttershy rewired your propo speakers...," Elytra said to Starlight as he drew his sword and adopted his stance,
And you can try to fight
But we have got the light of
friendship on our side!
"...but it was worth it for my friends!"
Got the music in our hearts
We're here to blow this thing apart
"Friends?," Starlight asked in shock. "You aren't even the same species!"
And together,
We will never
Be afraid of the dark!
"And therein lies the problem with your own equality," Elytra quipped.
Here to sing our song out loud
Get you dancing with the cro-o-owd
"What do you mean? I give these ponies harmony!," Starlight ranted.
As the music of our friendship
Surviiives...
Surviiives!
Elytra waggled a finger. "But Sugar is still an Earth, Night is still a pegasus."
Got the music in our hearts
We're here to blow this thing apa-a-art!
Starlight yelled, "SO WHAT? THEY'RE STILL EQUALLY TALENTED... in...," before realizing Elytra had a point.
And together,
We will never
be afraid of the dark!
Elytra shook his head. "Unless everyone becomes an earth pony, or an alicorn, being equal is not possible. However..."
Here to sing our song out loud
Get you dancing with the cro-o-owd!
"...every bump is just a part of life and friendship. No one can be perfectly in sync with someone of a different talent..."
As the music
Of our friendship
Survives...
"...but if you really try to understand them..."
Survives...
"...and you both have common interests..."
Surviiiiiiiiiiiiiiives!
"THERE'S NO FRIEND YOU CANNOT MAKE! AQUATIJA!," he yelled as a torrent of water washed over Starlight, the Staff flying out of her hoof before being sliced into ten fragments.
At the same time, Starlight heard the wall crack, having been attacked by Elytra's forces while the battle had gone on.
Starlight woke up to see everyone gawking at her with their marks back, some with restrained rage, others with pitious sympathy.
She wondered why they would be mad at her, when she suddenly remembered.
Right. Huge torrent of water, must have washed off my fake mark. But why would they...
Then she noticed Elytra saying something. "...and that's when she began to hate cutie marks; because they separated her from her best friend Sunburst."
She was floored. How had Elytra known her story? When Elytra noticed she was up, he said, "Normally, I would say it's time to answer for your crimes, but you probably still have a time travel adventure to orchestrate in jealous hatred. Of course, since I told everyone about Sire's Hollow, I'm not sure if it's an option anymore, so just enjoy the happiness, and I'll handle the time travel adventure. Oh yeah, and I scattered the ten pieces of your old, not-at-all-magical staff across the dimensions my cousin Draco visits and enchanted them so that collecting them all gives him a really powerful skill."
Floored that Elytra had given her new friends, ones who wouldn't leave her because of a mark, she smiled.
Now she just had to worry about being forgiven for what she did.
Safe and Sound (My Little Human: Rule of the Dazzlings by Harms Way, mid ch. 5)
Recap: The Dazzlings have taken the school with their new pendants, and innocuous school pride rings that serve as the linchpin of their plan. Sunset, being Equestrian, has somehow evaded brainwashing, and planned to spirit the pony Twilight, who Adagio captured to harvest her magic, and Rainbow Dash, who came to rescue her, back across the portal. However, the plan is falling flat quick, as a bolt of magic from Adagio seeks to seal the way forevermore and keep Twilight in the Sirens’ clutches...
However, before the magic could hit the statue, a dense microcrystalline barrier surrounded it almost instantly and bounced away the waves.
Before Adagio could process this development, she felt something... tug at her magic from behind.
She turned around in confusion, and was shocked to see Twilight Sparkle, but with her hair done up in a tight bun, a pair of glasses, and a uniform denoting she went to Crystal Prep.
”The device is working, Elytra!,” she said. “It’s siphoning the energy from the Sirens!”
Sonata and Aria’s eyes widened, as they realized their magic was also being drained, and the students were beginning to wake up, especially Mac and Biceps, who weren’t pulling as hard and had loosened their grips.
The shocks continued as, without warning, Sonata’s pendant was seized by a black clawed hand, and she suddenly began to lose purchase on the mirror. “What the-? What’s happening?”
Elytra, who had donned the pendant himself, smirked. “I know you have a crush on the princess. So, I decided to barter you something. In exchange for your pendant, I hacked the mirror’s arcanic recognition files.”
Sonata’s eyes widened, a conflicted mix of elation and shock on her face. “Does... that mean...”
Elytra smirked. “Have a nice trip, and welcome back, Sonata,” he said as she fell through with Twilight and Sunset, Mac and Bulk having let go, and then he stepped through the barrier. “Sci-Twi, charge me.”
The human Twilight nodded, and instead of pulling from the pendant, the device began to funnel energy into Sonata’s pendant, a frantic beat beginning around him as his horn received blue accents, a set of ornate prismatic greaves, barding, and gauntlets forming as his crown and wings grew and his eyes changed, showing his full bipedal empowered changeling appearance as six rings appeared around him. (I think you see where it’s going.)
You thought that you’d wo-on
But you have had your fu-un
On that you can depend!
Behold, magic’s glory!
Now I’ll conclude this story!
Your reign is at its end!
The six rings began to resonate with powerful tones, his voice following suit and even bifurcating as his power seemed to grow over the trio’s pendants, Sonata’s taking on a blue hue while Adagio’s bled into yellow and Aria’s flowed into purple, and as the rings aligned, a power swept over the students, turning the very rings that controlled them into personalized foci for magical energy and forming three around the fingers (or in Sonata’s case, hoof) of the Dazzlings and one around Sci-Twi’s.
At the same time, the pony Twilight and Rainbow’s energy, which had been sapped from them, returned with interest as the song drew to its close and Elytra’s empowered state began to recede.
The victor is we-e
And now your slaves are fre-ee
And it might be absurd
But your reign had fla-aws
And that’s why you have lo-ost
But still, your voice is heard!
”Well,” Elytra said as he felt the energies of the world shift, “that was a rush. Seems I rushed this world’s development of magic wells and leylines too, and linked the rings to it.”
Doing it One Better (My Little Human: Mind Control Is Magic by Harms Way, with references to and mainly based on Friendship Trumps Mind Control by Ajustice90)
Recap: The Dazzlings have taken the school with the aid of their amulets’ new ability, to use jewellery to amplify their mind control. Princess Twilight Sparkle, discovering this, attempts to escape, but is overpowered. An inch from being defiled for her magic, all seems hopeless for our purple pony princess...
Before the five could lay a finger on the horrified Twilight, however, a figure began to float next to her, synchronizing its magic with her own sparks, and spoke.
”Good thing I brought some enchanted tunes.”
He then slipped a ring onto Twilight, in the shape of a starburst, and began to sing along with oddly... energized music from his MP3 player.
You're never gonna bring me down
You're never gonna break this part of me
Adagio, Aria, and Sonata’s faces became firm at the first few beats. They knew this song all too well, and they began to sing to counter it, but the music was louder, no matter how loud they sang.
My friends are here to bring me 'round
Not singing just for popularity
”It’s no use trying to drown it out. My enchanted MP3 is ALWAYS LOUDER THAN THE CHATTER!,” he gloated as Twilight took up very familiar, and to the Dazzlings, panic-inducing, colors.
We're here to let you know
That we won't let it go
Our music is a bomb and it's about to blow!
”Now then, let’s start this revolution right...,” he said as an orb of magic began to glow in his hands.
And you can try to fight
But we have got the light of
friendship on our side!
These orbs gave way to a simultaneous flurry of beams which lanced into the rings of Twilight’s friends, changing them as their wearers woke up.
Got the music in our hearts
We're here to blow this thing apart
After pondering why they were transformed and apologizing to Twilight, as well as learning that the rings had had their polarity reversed, the seven of them turned around on the Dazzlings.
And together,
We will never
Be afraid of the dark!
However, Adagio sneered. “We still have the rest of the school,” she said, and turned to the rest of the hypnotized students. “Get them!, she yelled, and the student body closed in on the circle.
Here to sing our song out loud
Get you dancing with the cro-o-owd
However, the figure smirked back, to Adagio’s surprise. “Time to do one better than FTMC...,” he said as a truly massive orb of harmonic magic formed above him,
As the music of our friendship
Surviiives...
Surviiives!
“... and give everyone their own magic! HAPPY HEARTH’S WARMING, CHS!,” he yelled as beams lanced to every remaining student, changing their rings to representations of their own cutie marks and breaking the spell they had been under.
Got the music in our hearts
We're here to blow this thing apa-a-art!
"Maybe we leave." Sonata said.
"Can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Sonata on this." Aria said.
"SHUT UP!" Adagio barked. "We are not backing down now, not after I spent so long remaking out amulets! Keeping singing, this time put all your magic into it!"
And together,
We will never
be afraid of the dark!
However, even as waves of red poured out and their eyes turned red, their magic fully turned on the eight people, they and the rest of the students remained utterly stalwart, the figure smirking. “People of this school, lend me your power. I’m about to show these sirens how I roll the dice.”
Here to sing our song out loud
Get you dancing with the cro-o-owd!
As the magic built up to a point once more and the orb built up, the sirens felt a twinge of fear as the figure looked at them..
As the music
Of our friendship
Survives...
pointed at their amulets with three of his fingers...
Survives...
...and said, “Inversos Sirenia Sustenax!”
Surviiiiiiiiives!
Immediately, three beams of pure white lanced into the amulets, but instead of shattering them, the amulets slowly turned yellow, blue, and purple, three rings in cutie-mark shapes appearing around their fingers as the magic finally dissipated.
Sunset was first to speak. “What did you do? Now they can still hypnotize us and make us-!”
The figure held his hand up and said, “-entirely amiable to each other. I inverted their magical sustenance method, as well as their magic. And it’s not so much ‘total control’ as ‘minor compulsion’ now.”
Sure enough, when the Dazzlings sang arrogantly, though their magic was felt, it was more like a gentle, understanding nudge to understand each other than a brutish push to fight. “As for the rings, while they were originally broken in the alternate ending I mentioned,” he continued, “I have now turned them into accessways to the recently-created and still developing magical energy wells and leylines that have been subtly kickstarted by the magical energy of the ‘she-demon’ incident. I even graciously gave a ring and some schematics to a promising scientist in the soon-to-be field of magitek and arcane studies!”
Sure enough, the energy was a pure, joyous pink instead of the sickly green, and the Dazzlings were shocked to be fed even more by it than they ever were by negative energy. Though that could be the subtle lacings of magic in the emotion, as Sonata noticed. “The amulets, however, are the sirens’ real main focus, the rings serving as a sort of ‘food preparation’ by interlacing magic into the positive energy. Right, that should be everything to cover. The name’s Elytra. See ya!”
Elytra then left, leaving multitudes of confused students, three of whom had only recently joined permanently due to the circumstances he had created.
Author's Note
Okay, first, credit where it is due.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/253656/my-little-human-rule-of-the-dazzlings
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/415831/septas-revenge
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/264852/seeing-the-light
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/251951/my-little-human-mind-control-is-magic
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/262753/friendship-trumps-mind-control
Next, you probably wondered where I got the inspiration for what Elytra did in Safe and Sound. Well, you can look no further than the Owl’s Magnum Opus from Songbird Symphony. The lyrics were an extension and a paraphrase off of the ones that start the third phase (The one where he gets super huge) and the closing lyrics (when he loses the Artifact’s power.)
As for why the end of Welcome to The Show crops up in two of them... I like that bit of the song in particular, okay? It sets the mood for a drastic turnabout quite well, too.
