Equestria Girls: Cataclysm

Rarity was a popular girl in school. She knew her way around the circles of kids with social connections, money, and a desire to burn it all on an impulsive night of spectacle. She'd seen her fair share of parties, and she'd take plenty of the mornings after said parties in favor of what she was currently experiencing.

The word "headache" simply did not lend itself well enough to the sensation Rarity felt, because nothing about the word "ache" did justice to the ice pick that she felt embedded in the underside of her face that pulsated like a second heartbeat. She'd had strep throat before, and the burn in her throat and neck blew it clean out of the water. Just trying to turn her head made Rarity want to scream, which she probably would have, if she could get much more than a hoarse croak to pass through her windpipe. She tried to shift where she lay, and was rewarded with embers in her left flank flaring to life, from her hip all the way up to just beneath her armpit. Eyes turning to her right side, she saw her right arm bandaged up tight in what looked like a sheet or cloth with a stick tied up in it. So far everything else had hurt horribly to move, and she wasn’t about to try her luck there.

For a while, Rarity simply sat there in a dull haze. She was sore, she was dizzy, this room felt ice cold, and her head was killing her. She didn't move, trying to process her surroundings.

This looked like a bedroom, and it was dark. She appeared to be on a bed, and across from her was a large dresser beside a window, which had its curtains closed at the moment, only allowing in a sliver of yellow-tinted light to the floor just beneath the window, which provided barely enough light to make out anything else in this room. A large red carpet sat in the center of the floor, and she could just barely make out a desk against the adjacent wall, though she could not turn her head to see it, so it simply hung there ill-defined in the edge of her peripheral vision.

Something else was here, though. It was very close to her, directly beside her shoulder. It was firm, and the mattress sank a little bit beneath its presence. It was curled up beside her, and while Rarity had a hard time turning her eyes far enough to be able to look at it, it looked a bit gray to her, and judging by its size, it appeared to be a large dog. So friendly to strangers...

Rarity's lips curled in a small smile. Someone must have found her and taken her into their home. That was very kind of them. I'll have to find a way to thank them somehow. Without thinking, Rarity raised her left hand and brought it to rest on the flank of the animal curled up beside her. She felt something very strange when she did, something that did not feel at all like the fur she was expecting. Her fingers moved of their own accord, inquisitively inspecting whatever it was they felt, and she distinctly felt the quills of feathers.

Dogs don't have feathers.

The creature stirred, and Rarity's hand snapped away from it. Its head lift, sluggishly, and as it blearily blinked its large, round eyes, Rarity took one look at the six-inch spiraling horn coming out of its forehead and confirmed that it was absolutely not a dog. It had a mane that rolled down the back of its head like a head of hair, with tall triangular ears that popped up to attention quickly, shortly before its big eyes, now alert, found her. By the mane and the shape of its face, it looked almost like a horse, but a particularly small one. A pony, maybe. A winged unicorn pony.

"Rarity?"

Rarity blinked, very slowly. Yes, she had indeed seen its mouth move at the precise same time as she heard that. Logically speaking, it would be reasonable to conclude that it had, in fact, just spoken to her. Except there was nothing fucking logical about that, because a horse was talking to her, and Rarity could only stare. Oh, also, it knew her name. Casually.

Why can't my life ever be simple?

The creature didn't seem to be aggressive at all, at least. Quite the opposite: it sat up from where it was laying beside her, flapping its wings once - they turned out to be deceptively large wings, giving it a wingspan of about as long as Rarity was tall, despite how compactly they curled up at its sides - and then sat forward, concern apparent in its curiously expressive face. It brought up one hoof towards her and, softly, pressed the side of the limb to her forehead, like one might check for a fever, if one also coincidentally lacked hands.

"You feel really cold," it said, in a feminine voice that sounded tauntingly familiar. It brought the side of its hoof to her arm closest to it, frowned, and its horn flared a bright pink glow. As Rarity watched, a blanket at the foot of the bed took on an identical glow, and it lifted itself up into the air, unfurled itself, and then laid itself neatly across Rarity where she lay. "There you go...I'm sorry, I didn't realize how cold you were. I hope you weren't like that for too long."

Rarity opened her mouth, and a tongue of flame that lashed at her from inside her throat reminded her that it would be best not to speak. She had to fight the impulse to shake her head, instead mouthing, 'Just woke up.'

The creature, whatever she was, seemed to understand this and nodded. "How are you feeling?"

I feel like death, everything is pain, and I'm being interrogated by a winged unicorn. Ugh, what do they call those...I didn't think to study up on mystical creatures before the zombie apocalypse hit, apparently I should have. Trying to express that sounded like far more work than it was worth, and also a bit rude, so instead all Rarity mouthed at her was, 'Pain.'

"I figured as much..." Remorse flashed across the creature's expression, though it was replaced by what Rarity guessed was a thoughtful look. A few seconds passed, and it declared, "I'll be right back," before hopping off the end of the bed and trotting to the door. The knob and its horn flashed pink in unison, and as the door swung itself open for it, the creature left the room down what sounded like a hall, though Rarity could not turn her head to see.

She sounds so familiar, Rarity thought. It might have been easier to figure it out were it not for the pain that felt like her skull was being pried open where it was split down the middle, but alas. I hope my skull isn't actually split open. Whatever that thing did to m-

Flashes of flesh-colored limbs and massive claws hurtling towards her sent ice through Rarity's veins, and her thoughts stopped dead in their tracks. She barely felt how she was trembling.

The unicorn-thing returned moments later (or hours later, for how well Rarity could tell time's passage), a series of glowing bottles and plastic containers held out in front of her, suspended in the air with a field of energy like that of the one wreathing the horn in the center of her forehead. "Okay, so, uh, I found a bunch of these in what I'm guessing was a medical cabinet, maybe you know them a bit better than me. Are any of these human medicines for pain relief?"

Rarity squinted in the dark, but the glow of the bottles illuminated the labels that swiveled at her. It was hard to think, harder still to recognize the exotic-sounding terms that were medicine names, and even harder yet to recognize any of them, but Rarity saw one she did know. She sluggishly lifted her splint-up arm, and one finger pointed at a bottle that said "tramadol."

The creature was delighted by this, and as the rest of the bottles were tucked aside against the wall, the bottle of tramadol popped open, and a few capsules, now also illuminated, extracted themselves from within. The creature glanced at the pills, then Rarity, and glanced back and forth repeatedly, the pleased smile steadily being replaced by a small frown. "Are you able to swallow like this?"

Rarity tried. The look on her face must have spoken volumes of the agony that the effort wrought. She wouldn't be trying again.

"Well...crap." The capsules tossed themselves back into the bottle, which got set aside, and the unicorn-creature emitted a haggard sigh. "Sorry Rarity, I tried. I don't know how to help right now."

A silence fell over the room. Rarity continued to stare at the face of this being, with her strangely human expressions and her infuriatingly familiar voice. It was hard to make out color in the dark, but the eyes that blinked at her curiously seemed to be a shade of blue, or purple. Beautiful eyes.

"Do you...recognize me, Rarity?"

No, she didn't, right up until that moment. Maybe it was the intonation combined with the recognition of those eyes, or the...no, no she remembered now. She had looked into those eyes looking for signs of sincerity, on the day that a certain girl had explained she was actually a pony princess. That was merely a day before they banded together and defeated the demon that Sunset Shimmer had turned into...and as destiny would have it, here she was again, having just rescued her from another monster, months later. You utterly magnificent specimen, Twilight.

Rarity's lips curled of their own accord as she mouthed, 'Twilight Sparkle.'

Twilight flashed a big smile of her own as she nodded. "This is how I normally look, back in Equestria." She looked down at herself, turning her hooves over slightly where they rested against the floor, as one might look at their hands. "Something happened to me when I entered this world, and now I look like an alicorn, instead of a human. I was worried that it would make humans freak out, what with some of the um...other stuff that seems to exist out here now."

Twilight paused for several seconds and seemed to wrestle with something before she took a breath, then asked: "What happened to this world, Rarity?"

What a question.

The events of all that had lead up to this point in Rarity's life slowly returned to her, playing itself out before her eyes, scene by scene.

The news reports. The tension. The changes. They way they pretended everything was normal. The way they forgot they were pretending. The dreamlike sequence. The nightmare. The riots. The violence. The screaming. The gunshots. The lack of screaming. The sirens. The blood. The bodies. The chaos. The running. The driving. More running. The first time she took a life. The dark place she slipped into. The smiling little face that kept her going. The weeks spent making ends meet. The evac shelter. The instructions to a refugee center. The hope. The monster...

Even if she could speak, Rarity wasn't sure what she would say to make her understand. Or what she could say. Maybe it’s just as well that she couldn’t speak.

Whatever it is Twilight saw in Rarity’s expression, it wounded her. Moisture clung to the surface of her eyes, making them glisten. She didn't need to speak them verbally for Rarity to hear the words on her lips. She knew the expression of someone who was not being very generous to themselves, and Twilight did not deserve that. She could not vocalize what she wanted to say, though, so failing that, Rarity did the next best thing she could think of.

Rarity lifted her left arm. It slipped from the blanket that had been put over her, reaching over and patting the space beside her a few times.

It took Twilight a few moments to recognize the invitation for what it was, and a few more to accept. She stepped around the bed, her hooves quietly clopping against the wood when she stepped off the carpet, then hopped up over the end of the mattress. She stepped carefully over to Rarity's side, sinking slowly down and pushing herself up into the space under Rarity's arm, who closed it around her as Twilight's head came to a rest on Rarity's shoulder, tucked up snugly into the crook of her neck; the horn felt a little close for comfort, but considering she couldn't move her head whatsoever, the odds of getting impaled were slim, wherever it was. One of Twilight's front legs (arms?) reached past Rarity's right shoulder, returning the embrace.

Slowly, softly, Rarity's hand ran up and down along Twilight's back and side. The fur was very soft, feeling almost plush, and it felt good to touch it. Twilight's cheek gently nuzzled into her shoulder, and with a flash of the horn, the blanket between them lifted up and re-oriented itself so that Twilight could scoot up more against her, then dropped back down over the two of them. The warmth of the fur of her underbelly where it pressed up against her side cut through the chill that permeated Rarity's body. It felt nice. She felt nice.

There was so much to say. A lot needed to be explained still, too - by both of them, Rarity was sure, and her own share of explaining was going to be...fun. That didn't matter, though. Right now, all Rarity wanted to was cuddle with a friend that she never thought she would see again. Between that and the splitting headache, there would be no thought of much else for a while yet.

Something wet delicately came in contact with Rarity's neck. "I missed you," Twilight murmured.

Rarity would have given a lot to tell her the same.

The moment Princess Celestia found out that the leader of the representatives from the Ministry of Arcane was an artificer, she knew that they had already failed.

There were eight of them in total, each from different specialties, but all with broad skillsets that set them up with a nigh-all-encompassing angle of approach for any number of eventualities, both foreseen and unforeseen. Each pony that made their way into the currently locked down wing of the palace did so with practiced swiftness, and by the time Celestia knew that they had arrived, they were already on-site and doing their work. By the time she made her way from her throne to the treasury to oversee them, they had already finished their diagnostics, performed a few tests, and had given her what would otherwise be an extremely optimistic 24 hour estimate before the ancient relic housing a portal that predated most of Equestria was recalibrated and brought back online. It was 22 hours into that 24 hour estimate, and from what she understood, it would only be minutes longer.

The Ministry of the Arcane was nothing if not industrious. Sadly, they were many things other than that, and the list of adjectives Celestia would draw from was not nearly so flattering. On said list included terms such as "overambitious," "presumptuous," "wheedling," and - though she would never use such a word where there was any chance of it being repeated - "dangerous."

The Ministry and the Crown had always had a complicated relationship, though it was not always as confrontational as ponies today tended to assume it was. There was a time where the Ministry operated very closely with the Crown as a committee of talented ponies whom Celestia had tutored personally, and her opinion of them had understandably been quite high. Following the events of Nightmare Moon, a schism had been created within the existing loyalist party, namely between those who remained faithful to Celestia despite her failings, and those who'd had their confidence shaken after going through a world-threatening crisis that, ultimately, could have been prevented. Disillusionment resulted in a divergence in philosophy, and the Ministry of the Arcane was among those whose ideologies had begun to drift. In their case, they began making compromises in ethics and standards for the sake of more efficiently achieving their goals.

Many budget disputes, verbal spats, and burned bridges later, the Ministry survived, though only by the grace of Princess Celestia who was, ultimately, not in a place to be dismantling such an organization at the time, what with juggling the instability of her realm and her own personal traumas from the loss of her sister. Their spot under her was later replaced by her own personal academy aimed at teaching young unicorns the fundamentals of responsible exploration into magic, though it had never grown to anything vaguely as successful as the Ministry turned out to be.

There had been some High Ministers following their departure from her good graces that Celestia was genuinely fond of, and a few had even seen discreet support from the crown under the table, though the current acting High Minister was not one such pony. If he had been previously, that would currently have been brought into question, as he had apparently seen fit to send the most insufferably smug and condescending representative that he could find and appointed them as head of the restoration project she had "commissioned." Were she a less enlightened ruler, Celestia might have assumed that they had done so purely to spite her. Fortunately, she was enlightened, and she knew that they did this to spite her.

"You're looking rather dour, Your Highness," a navy-blue stallion with a white mane remarked. Between the brown robes, the taunting quality to their smile, and the confidence in their tone that tipped well past the point of conceit, Celestia didn't need to ask to know that this was minister Prim Prosper, project lead. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't aware of the reunion we were about to facilitate here tonight."

Princess Celestia looked at them with eyes only, sacrificing not one inch of her regal posture to address him. "I do not yet see cause for celebration," she informed him levelly, "nor will I, until Twilight Sparkle stands before me. You would be wise to temper your own expectations of success until it has presented itself."

"Ahh, that saddens me to hear...I was warned that your confidence in the Ministry is not what it could be." Prim smiled, not one speck of sincerity present in that smile or between any of his too-shiny teeth. "Not to worry. After tonight, I'm sure that much progress will be made to mend that."

Princess Celestia looked down at the robed minister with a gaze precisely as expressive and warm as the stone beneath their hooves, and with a silence to match.

Prim Prosper didn't seem overly bothered by it as he cheerfully excused himself from the Princess's presence. As he did, he called back, "An offering of the finest champagne has been brought to commemorate the occasion, courtesy of the Ministry. It will be presented as soon as we have this portal back up and running again!"

Princess Celestia did not externally sigh.

The ritual to re-engage the portals was beginning, and Prim Prosper did not waste any further time, nor did his peers, though he did see fit to prepare a small speech for those in attendance, which was almost certainly directed at her. Physically Princess Celestia stood by, looking on imperiously, and almost surely not listening.

The story was very different metaphysically, as Celestia's consciousness drew away from the physical and she slipped into the in-between behind the veil. Blues and whites flooded in from all angles, painting the world with the colors of creation as Celestia stepped away, yet also closer. Her awareness flooded the entire room, flowing into and filling it like water, viewing simultaneously every angle of the room that she never would have been able to see with her worldly eyes. Regardless of where her attention fell, every movement and sound of every pony in her focus was all perceived with utter clarity, and if she felt so inclined, she could have listened to each of the feelings in their hearts, too. Nothing escaped her notice.

Except for Prim Prosper's speech, which she still ignored. That hadn’t changed.

The situation in the place where the portal used to be had not improved since Celestia had looked at it the previous day. The spacial fault had once been a hair-fine split - a surgical incision applied to reality back when the portal to the human realm had first been erected. That previously tiny fissure now caused the whole room and everything in it to ripple and shudder like a mirage from where Celestia observed it. Otherworldly colors occasionally flashed from within the area of the distortion, looking to Celestia like delicate crackles of lightning in a distant storm.

The Princess of the Sun was not alone here. Luna came up "beside her," where she joined her co-monarch in observation. 'I confess that my enthusiasm is regrettably low for this...'

'Worry not, sister,' Celestia replied coolly. 'In that, we are in agreement.'

As they watched, Prim Proper's speech concluded, and on cue, magical designs began to dance and draw themselves across the floors and through the air. The shapes of the magic appeared in the aether as well, like it was being drawn onto a mirror that they gazed through the other side of, identical yet different in ways that scholars of magic such as this could only approximate an understanding of. As she expected, the diagram they were trying to make was out of alignment. Thus it was confirmed: they did not know that the hair-line fracture had become a scar.

Celestia observed herself physically watching on, attentive yet inexpressive. She also saw herself subtly adjust her mane, now that she had a view of how it looked from the back. 'If they continue building that there, it will collapse on itself.'

Luna frowned. She "leaned in closer," though from Celestia's perspective, she remained directly by her side, right where it would be most convenient to speak to her. Strictly speaking, both were correct. 'I have not seen a rift deform like this before, sister. Are you certain that it was wise to allow this to proceed?'

'I didn't have much choice in the matter,’ Celestia said, with a tinge of remorse. ’I needed to keep quiet, allow for plausible deniability about what I knew. At least we can force the Ministry to keep silent about this on the grounds of keeping the public from panicking about Twilight, but I worry that this has already gotten away from us. There will surely be questions about this portal and the world beyond it; all I could do was ensure they lacked sufficient motivation to ask them in open court.’

Luna nodded gravely, but could think of nothing to say on this matter that would make it better. ’Have you ever seen something like this before? This…effect that we’re seeing.’

’A few times. Never to this extent.' Celestia watched as the intricate diagram finally began to fall in on itself, as the casters were all trying to build atop something that was not there. The minister and his wizards continued on, unaware of the issue until it was too late to stop. 'This is what happens when a portal bridging two planes is disrupted and the bond broken with non-magical force. Were magic used, the aether would have folded in on itself and sealed up neatly.'

'And that did not occur here.'

Celestia shook her head. 'Our world and the aether pulled apart for a moment and created a trauma, which is what we see here. We have the humans and their ingenuity to thank for how massive this one is. I can only imagine how big the one on the other side must be...'

The fears returned again. Celestia could not hide them from her sister so well as she could everypony else, but she also didn't feel the need to. For a moment, Celestia let her anxiety be laid bare to the one she trusted deeply enough to see it. The sympathy she felt coming from Luna lifted her spirits a little.

Down on the material level, Prim Prosper looked at the dissolving shards where they had collapsed into a pile out of what should have been a flawless disc in the center of the mirror frame. Though he did not scowl, Celestia could see his frustration building while his peers looked on with confused vexation of their own.

Celestia allowed herself to smirk. 'I guess that champagne will have to wait after all.'

Luna was not at all concerned with the display going on in the treasury, more intent on observing the distortion. The magic failing had caused a faint ripple to dance across the anomaly like disturbances on the surface of a lake, though it did not seem to grow any weaker each time the ripples bounced off the farthest sides. Her discomfort was palpable. 'Will this fix itself, or must we repair it?'

'In time, yes, it will fix itself. We can repair it as well, though I don’t know how.’

’If it’s attention we wish to avoid, perhaps it would be best to let it heal on its own. We can let this all this blow over and keep our hooves clean in the meantime.’

Celestia nodded in agreement. ’We may want to relocate the treasury for the next few decades. It would be better to not have so many magical artifacts in one place that could potentially aggravate...' Celestia's voice trailed off as she watched what was unfolding in that room.

Prim Prosper had been angry, but no longer. Rather than make a scene of this failing, he pulled forth scrolls from his robes, then started to issue out new instructions to his peers, which they took to with practiced motions. New designs were being drawn across the floor and painted in the air, and as the princesses watched, a veritable forest of tiny magical anchor points erected themselves, each linking together with the other as they grew in number. This pattern grew exponentially in comparison to what was being drawn out physically, and the design they formed began to fold inward. The tree of these points became a grid, and then a web, and as they folded in on themselves completely, a cage. The distortion was completely encapsulated. It would seem deliberate if Prim Prosper hadn’t already demonstrated he had no idea what was actually here.

'He is more creative than I thought,' Luna muttered, becoming more impressed and concerned in equal amounts as she watched.

'The ministry was never incapable.' As the cage sealed itself, the distortion reacted with a shudder, causing another wave of lightning-like disturbances to course through it. This energy appeared to get conducted by the lattice of supports and started to bounce around between its innumerable connections, which caused it to draw more energy more quickly. A positive feedback loop had formed, building charge increasingly swiftly. 'If anything, I would say them being good at what they do is precisely the issue.'

'What is going to happen when they...?' Luna didn't finish - she could already tell that Celestia did not know. 'Should we stop them?'

'I think it's too late for that.’ Celestia "rose" from where she "sat," wings flaring as one would prepare for a swift ascent to the sky. ’I’m going back down there. Be ready to run damage control if this gets out of hoof.'

’This is already out of hoof!‘

Celestia dropped from the between-space, letting her senses be limited to what her body had been experiencing up until now.

The treasury was a wind tunnel, and Princess Celestia sat in the middle of it. The place in the portal that should have been glass was a burning red light in the center of a roaring vortex, illuminating the room like someone had opened a furnace in a steel forge. Blue arcs of something superficially resembling lightning danced wildly from the centermost point of the anomaly, and she could barely hear the yelling of the ponies around it over the gale that had manifested, swirling and howling like a hurricane.

All throughout the process, Prim Prosper was grinning. He did not pay heed to the chaos that filled the room, all attention on a purple and green series of numbers and text on a panel of magic he monitored intently beside him, waiting for something very specific. Evidently, he saw what he wanted to see, as he barked in a voice that somehow cut through the maelstrom: "CUT IT NOW!"

There was a sound of something ripping, and the winds in the treasury began to slow, and then fall still entirely. A few stray arcs of pseudo-electricity danced periodically around the portal, but they did not stray any further than its frame, much to the relief of the haggard-looking unicorns surrounding it, who dared to relax. Beyond the crackle and pop of a random blue arc and pitter-patter of the last bits of debris finding its way to the floor, all was silent.

The entire room was illuminated by a baleful cherry glow, which originated from the centermost point of what used to be a mirror. It hurt to look past the glaring white eye that shone there, though vague shapes could be seen rippling beyond the shuddering surface. It was like staring into a blood-red floodlight positioned behind the horseshoe-shaped portal frame, within which hung a film of translucent oil.

Princess Celestia could only stare at this clearly malformed portal that leered back at her, recognizing nothing in the sight from what it was meant to be. "What," she breathed, tone low and dangerous, "did you do?"

"Improvised!" came the too-cheerful response from Prim Prosper, his display blinking out. "Plan A didn't work, so I initiated a contingency. This will take a bit longer than the intended method, as we'll have to do this backwards now, but all we need to do is a little extra calibration, and we're more than equipped for that." He gestured sharply with a hoof, and the attendants around the portal began to draw displays of their own and make minute adjustments to the portal's innards. "It looks like we're a bit off on our initial projections...not to worry though, I'm confident that we'll have this done within the estimate provided. This won’t take but a minute!”

The sources of fury in Princess Celestia were many, and they all vied with one another to be the first in her outburst. The dismay at what had been done to an ancient piece of history, the loathing at how much was being focused on meeting a deadline and how they were willing to defile an artifact for it, the disgust of how this fool had absolutely no idea what he was tapping into and was putting everypony in the room at risk for it, the outrage at how lightly he was taking this with the fate of Twilight Sparkle on the line, Princess and hero of the realm…there were a lot of things to be angry about.

None of them mattered when a shape emerged through the portal and stepped into the room.

It was tall, nearly as tall as Celestia was if she stood up to her fullest, and clad in a pink carapace that gave it a vaguely crustacean appearance. Its two massive claws gave it a hulking stature, when in reality it was quite scrawny, its guts opening up like the world’s most compact Swiss Army knife, filled with dozens of tinier sets of bladed graspers. A pair of wings came into view as it fully stepped out of the portal, filled with holes and consisting mainly of fleshy strands, and its head was like some amalgamation of sea flora and the guts of a fish.

A deafening silence filled the room. Princess’s Celestia’s ears began to ring, and her pupils shrunk to the size of pinheads. She felt its gaze in spite of its lack of eyes, both in the physical and from a level beyond it, and as the horror that its presence imposed upon her sank deep into her mind, so too did an additional layer of fear rise up from within it.

They can’t be here.

“NOPONY CAST ANYTHING!” Prim Prosper’s barked, splitting the silence like a knife- the motions his subordinates were making stopped, though not one of them dared to remain as close to the creature as they were, clear signs of fight-or-flight in their expressions. “Nopony do anything, I’m prepared for this! Stay where you are!”

He sounded so in control, so confident. In the shock and confusion of the moment, even Princess Celestia hesitated, letting him take the lead. It was a mistake, and it felt so right to make it.

Glyphs appeared around Prim Prosper - a pre-installed translation spell flaring to life - as the blue stallion opened his mouth, and a sound that never should have been emitted from any pony spilled from his throat. It was like nails on a chalkboard, but the sound itself was screaming, and the screams were trying to tell you something, some desperate message it had to convey to you no matter what. It sounded like the world was crying, the cries curdling the air like sour milk, informing any who heard of what needed to be done in grizzly detail.

Two of the onlooking ponies fainted on the spot. Celestia’s mind turned inside-out slightly, and the notion of confiscating her own eyes from their sockets sounded disquietingly reasonable. Morally imperative, even.

It took a good while to realize that she was being spoken to, and that Prim Prosper was the one doing it. He smiled at her, like nothing was wrong. “Satisfied, Princess? I’ve just secured a peaceful trade between our two peoples.”

“Trade?” Celestia sounded absentminded, and physically she was. In reality, she was carefully tracking the dozens of guards deployed by Luna descending on this position, and watching every hall like a hawk to ensure that they were empty.

“Of course!” There was that smile again, though the teeth were redder than last time, but equally shiny. Blood dribbled down Prim Prosper's chin from where the tip of his tongue had been bitten off without him realizing. The creature’s claws came softly to Prim Prosper’s back, just behind his neck. His eyes were glazed over, and he didn’t react to it. “It’s customary in their culture to partake in an exchange of knowledge and resources, I am told, to help foster a better understanding of whom they are interacting with, so I’ve agreed to it a token swap of knowledge, just to start things off. Pardon my overstepping here, I realize this is outside my authority, but I figured that a small courtesy now would go a long way towards-“

The motion of the alien was as simple as it was swift: it swept the claw on Prim Prosper's back all the way down its length as the second claw found the center. There was a loud noise of a wet zipper being opened, and Prim Prosper collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap like a puppet with its strings cut. In the creature’s claws, hovering in their original position, was Prim’s entire spinal column, from which hung hundreds of dangling blood-slick nerve strands like feelers.

The door exploded open, and two dozen Solar and Lunar guards flooded the room. There was very little that the creature could do besides what it did: turn around and sprint for the portal it had just emerged from. A split second after it did, the portal shone with a brilliant golden light, and then abruptly collapsed into nothingness, leaving only an empty horseshoe-shaped purple frame of the mirror behind.

A blue-black torpedo named Princess Luna arced through the air and struck the creature in the back, horn-first. The two cleared the length of the room with incredible speed, the portal frame being cast aside with loud clattering, and both bodies impacted the far wall with a loud crunch.

Luna’s fury was fathomless, for one of her subjects had just been murdered in cold blood. She yanked up her head and tore her horn free, carving a rift a foot deep into the center of the creature’s back with a spray of shattered exoskeleton and lime gore. She brought her head back down as swiftly as she’d raised it, teeth latching onto the right creature’s arm, which still clutched the spine of Prim, and pulled it from its socket like a weed from a garden. The creature threw back an arm to try and strike at its attacker, still face-first to the wall, but its own severed limb crashed into its forearm hard enough to snap it at a 45 degree angle, throwing it back aside. With that same limb, Luna struck the creature’s wounded arm, once, twice, and then thrice, the shattered and pulped limb breaking free from its shoulder after the final blow. Pale green ichor sprayed every which way, splattering her and her target in equal measure.

As she cast the ruined stump in her mouth aside like an expended cudgel, Luna kicked the creature hard in its middle - it crashed to the floor onto its back, skidding several centimeters from the force of the blow. Immediately Luna was atop it, a hoof to what passed for the armless creature’s throat and pressing down hard, a wild and vengeful star blazing in each eye as the essence of night boiled on the tip of her horn.

By this point, what remained of the Ministry’s unicorns had been rushed out of the room, replaced with rows of royal guards that fanned out. They had every inch of the room blocked and covered, denying any potential teleportation or avenue for escape, assuming the creature could possibly escape the Princess of Dreams. Judging by how it writhed and squirmed under her hoof, such an assumption was a bold one.

Princess Celestia made her way over slowly, her tri-colored mane and tail flowing behind her in an unfelt wind. Her gold-clad hooves clicked quietly against the dusted stone floor with measured strides, heedless of the pale green blood she stepped through. The very image of royalty towered over the dismembered alien where it lay pinned, her expression one of steel and a judgement most severe.

“If it is knowledge you seek,” she told it with all the warmth of the depth of space, “then allow me to bestow you with all you and yours will ever need to know about Equus: from this moment on, for every drop of blood spilled, mind bent, or life touched on this world by the Mi-go, a planet of your empire will tumble into its sun, along with every record, sample, and development on it. If you are to ever learn anything, learn that, and learn it well, for there will be no reminders.”

The Mi-go’s head tentacles contorted and writhed with purpose. For a moment it almost seemed it was trying to gesture something, but then it spoke, not in its own voice, but in the perfectly identical, smug voice of Prim Prosper when he had said the very same thing her: ”Satisfied, Princess?”

Princess Celestia did not react to this physically. Her head turned to the guards around her as her sister’s horn went off, followed immediately after by the sound of splashing and pottery shattering. Lime green speckled across her left cheek as everypony watched, and she did not so much as blink. “Lock down the castle. I want a psychic deafening field up as soon as possible. Detain any who display signs of being mentally compromised so that they can be processed and treated. Any entities similar to this one are designated as kill-on-sight.”

”ON ME, MY SENTINELS!” Luna thundered, already halfway out of the room. Despite the short notice, every thestral here was in hot pursuit and right behind her. ”SWEEP THE HALLS! LEAVE NO CORNER OF OUR HOME UNCHECKED!”

There was much for Princess Celestia to think on after this - the Mi-go’s presence and all that entailed, the gross negligence of the Ministry that had cost a pony his life, the state of the portal itself after it had been opened and in fact successfully connected with the human world, the fact that there was no possibility for Twilight Sparkle to return home during this lunar phase - but there was one thought that dominated the others in that moment.

Princess Celestia stopped one Solar Guard as they passed, and issued her command in a deathly firm voice: “Bring me Discord.”