The Pearl and the Princess

Her body was on fire. The tendrils which protected the pearl were covered in tiny hooks, which dug into her hide and filled her veins with neurotoxin. It was almost enough to prevent her from triggering a spell.

But she was the Princess of Friendship. And her element was magic.

Even as the sirens rang out through the underwater kingdom, alerting the Queen of her treachery, she released a blast powerful enough to knock the tendrils away from her prize. The pearl began to drift to the ocean floor, and she tugged herself free of the stunned security system, diving deep enough to wrap her hooves around it, just as Queen Novo and Princess Skystar returned.

And behind them were her friends, still in Hippocamp form. They looked just as shocked as the princess. As if they had completely forgotten that their home had been taken, as if they didn't care that the princesses were stone and their families had been enslaved.

She felt a pulse of magic through her hooves. The Pearl was alive in some way. Like many magical artifacts, it had a mind of its own and it seemed...excited, to be used as intended once more. The jolt was numbing in some ways but comforting in others. It soothed the agony across her body.

In that moment of clarity, she realized what she should said when Pinkie made her little announcement in Klugetown. The others...they had not been mentored by Celestia. They were not royalty. They would never understand the pressures which came with it. And she realized as well, she didn't want them to. She never wanted Applejack to have to lie to a crowd of subjects. She never wanted Rainbow Dash to have her boundless confidence beaten out of her.

This was her responsibility. They would be safer without her, anyway. It was her that Tempest wanted.

She gave one last look at her friends, whose shock was turning slowly to anger and horror. And then she jerked upward. Even as she teleported herself closer to the surface of the water, she heard the Queen scream something and a crackling spell, likely meant to incapacitate her, bounced off the Pearl. It was too late to stop her though. She was returning to her normal form, her feathered wings carving through the water with Earth Pony strength.

In less than a minute, she'd broken the surface and could feel the saltiness of the air in her lungs. She wasn't focused on that though; she was focused on the power radiating between her hooves at the moment.

Capper sat on the only remaining piece of the airship, trying to wring the salt-water out of his lucky coat. The parrot crew, whom he'd just exchanged pleasantries with (as pleasant as things could be, when you'd just fallen out of an airship into the ocean), were kicking their long legs into the water, paddling toward Mount Eris as best as they could. He could tell from Celaeno's expression she was less than impressed with his reluctance to assist. But it wasn't his fault.

No Abyssian liked water. Besides, his paws really weren't designed for that kind of thing.

He was just stretching out a leg to test the coolness of the water (as if it had gotten warmer in the past couple of hours). That was when he saw it. A streak of purple and pink energy, not incomparable to the Sonic Rainboom which had drawn the Storm King's ire. But...brighter, somehow. For a moment he thought he saw something inside of it, a wriggling black silhouette. But then his eyes began to complain at the intensity of the light, and he looked away.

Boyle looked up from the kicking of his legs and frowned. "Cap'n, ya ever see weather like that before?"

Celaeno shook her head, her own efforts slowing as she shielded her face with a claw. "No...I can't say I have."

Tempest squinted at the cliffsides of Mount Eris as she leaned on the railing of her personal ship. She'd wasted too much time already. Dragging along that obviously lying feline. Interrogating those parrots. If she'd just blown the ship out of the sky as soon as they got within range, she wouldn't be flying around a mountain right now, looking for any sign of her prey.

She had been so close. Everything had gone according to plan. The element of surprise was all she'd needed to get the better of the princesses. She rolled her eyes at how easily they'd been taken down. Phenomenal cosmic power, wasted on pampered elites, who wouldn't understand ambition if it smacked them in the face.

Well, it was time for Equestria to grow up. The world was not all sunshine and rainbows and if the only way to make ponies understand that was to take away their precious princesses, who had spent the last thousand years coddling them, then so be it.

She wouldn't petrify Twilight when she caught up with her. That mare had given her too much trouble. She wanted to see the look on her face as she revealed to her how deeply misplaced her hope had been. It would balm the irritation of the past three days nicely.

Just as she was contemplating how she would rub the younger ponies face in her defeat, she heard it. The incessant munching of Grubber on that stupid cake.

She growled and turned toward him, her expression, as well as the fizzling electricity in her horn was enough to make him drop his last piece of sponge cake. She turned away, shaking her head. When she had her horn back, when the Storm King's rule was absolute, and she was his right hoof...she'd never have to suffer the results of his incompetence again.

She'd begun envisioning the kinds of hardcore monsters she'd be able to take under her wing, when there was a flash of light and her prized airship lurched to one side. She staggered across the deck, even as she slid toward the edge but managed to wrap her hooves around a freed piece of rigging and dangled above the deadly drop, watching her storm creatures topple past her and fall plummeting toward the rocky landscape of Basalt Beach below.

She lifted her eyes to the bright light above and stared in disbelief.

It was Twilight Sparkle. The Princess of Friendship. But it was also...not her. For a start, she was twice as large as she had been the last time Tempest had seen her. Her whole body in fact seemed bulkier, more muscular. But those were merely the most cosmetic of changes. Her feathered wings had been replaced with scaled ones, like that of a dragon. Pieces of chitinous armor now encased her throat and forehead. And her horn...it curved like that of a minotaur. In one hoof, she held a glowing orb of constantly shifting color.

"Hello, Tempest." Twilight said, even as her telekinesis encircled her and tied her up in the rigging which had saved her life. Then she lowered herself to the floor of the sideways airship and with a jerk of her head, the whole ship shifted back into a horizontal position, sending Tempest rolling across the deck, her hooves now wrapped in sturdy hemp.

"You're going to tell me how to free the other princesses." Twilight said, stepping closer and leaning down. "Now."

Tempest glared up at her and then glanced at the glowing orb. It must have been the key to Twilight's boost in power. She just had to get it free of her and she'd turn back into the quivering, defenseless creature who had fleed from Tempest twice now.

"Of course, princess..." Tempest let loose a blast of magic from her horn, sending Twilight sliding across the deck and burning away Tempest's meager restraints. The orb fell from Twilight's grasp and Tempest leaped to wrap her hooves around it.

Twilight had already recovered. She jerked over to the orb with the speed only a pegasus could muster and her shoulder connected with Tempest's sternum, sending her flying back into the mast. Using her telekinesis, she picked up the orb and swung it penduously above her horn as she trotted back up to Tempest's limp form.

"Ready to tell me now?" Twilight asked, her eyes burning with unused magic.

Tempest staggered to her feet, ignoring the very real ache in her side. From the hitch in her breathing, she could tell that she had at the very least, bruised a rib.

She played up the limp for a moment and then released the last of her petrification potions, smacking it towards her newly recovered foe. Twilight reacted without thinking, swinging the glowing orb into the glass projectile and causing green gas to flood across the deck of the ship.

When the cloud had cleared, Twilight opened her eyes to watch as Tempest writhed against the quickly encasing malachite which was growing over her entire form.

"No! Please...help!" Tempest managed to get out, before the malachite encased her mouth.

Twilight watched as her one hope of freeing the princesses, turned to stone before her eyes, helpless to stall the transformation.

"I don't understand...why would Twilight stoop to such means?" Rarity asked.

They were currently in a cell beneath the Hippogriff palace, with a couple of sturdy looking guards just outside. In spite of their attempts to explain that they had been unaware of Twilight's intentions, Nova had ordered they be imprisoned until Twilight returned the Pearl (not that they could leave in their aquatic forms anyway).

"Yeah! Not only did she steal, she left us behind! We're supposed to be a team!" Dash said, striking the side of the wall of the cell with her hoof.

"She probably thinks she's doin' what's best for Equestria." Applejack reasoned.

"She lied to us." Pinkie said, her usual cheer completely gone.

"She must have had a good reason..." Spike said, looking between them all and seeing the hurt expressions on their faces.

"She doesn't trust us." Fluttershy said, her fin-hoof pawing at the loose sand on the floor of the cell. "We kept telling her that we were in this together...but she didn't listen. Even after everything we've been through, she still doesn't listen to us."

They all turned, some more shocked than others at Fluttershy's verboseness. Any creature who'd known the pony long enough, came to know that her brand of honesty could be harsh under the best of circumstances. But rarely were things dire enough to provoke a full-blown speech from her.

As she lay her face down in the sand she'd been pawing, her eyes shimmered despite the water surrounding them. "I guess she never will."

Rarity shared a look with Applejack, while Pinkie slumped against the boulder, she had already begun drawing hashmarks on. Dash stared at Fluttershy and then shook her head.

"No! No way! We-we're not going to just give up! Twilight still needs us...everyone in Equestria does!" With that she began swimming up to the bars and slamming headfirst into them. The guards paused in their stoic vigil to regard her, but quickly turned back around, comfortable in the sturdiness of the cage.

"We. Have. To. Get. Out of here!" Dash insisted, as her attacks slowed and died.

Applejack walked over and put a hoof on her shoulder. "Dash, it ain't workin'."

Rainbow Dash rested her fins on the floor of the cell and then looked back at Applejack. "B-but...we've got to do something!"

Applejack nodded and wrapped her fins around Rainbow's neck. "We will...give it time. We'll figure out how to get out of here...we just need to make a plan first."

Rainbow shuddered and then simply gave in to despair, allowing herself to be comforted.

"You!"

Grubber had just scurried out from his hiding place when the pony saw him. In an instant, she was on top of him, her hoof on his pudgy stomach, the weight of her new form pressing his quills into the deck of the ship.

"Tell me how to fix the petrification! You were Tempest's lieutenant, you must know!" She demanded.

He gulped and shook his head, playing with his claws, the same way he always did when he got nervous. "See, the thing about that is...I don't really help with the whole chemistry thing...I'm mainly just here to pilot the ship and order the troops around...I don't know anything about that..."

She pressed her hoof harder, forcing a belch out of him, and pushing most of the air out of his lungs.

"Okay, okay...I know where she made the potions...I can take you there, I can show you!" He rasped.

She removed her leg and he rolled onto his paws, giving her a nervous smile and rubbing a claw across his abdomen. Then he took a few steps and almost ran straight into the statue that had once been Tempest. He sidestepped her horrified expression and scurried across the deck, to the door to Tempest's personal chambers.

Punching in a code, he watched as the sheet metal doors ground open, revealing a dimly lit, sterile interior. It was a mixture of a soldier's quarters and a military laboratory, with pages sketching out defensive structures in Canterlot, along with the floorplan of the Royal Palace. There were also books. Books on unicorns. Books on Alicorn magic. And books on chemistry.

At the back of the room was a once sturdy oak table, now stained with various acid burns, atop which lay a set of vials, test-tubes, beakers and a couple of unused glass containers.

"Normally, I'm not allowed in here, because I get food everywhere..." Grubber admitted.

The princess ignored him, striding inside and surveying the contents of the room. Then she swiveled back towards him. "You are going to fly this thing to Canterlot." She took a step closer. "If I find out that you're taking me anywhere else, I throw you overboard, understood?"

Grubber swallowed hard and then nodded, his whole body wobbling with the motion.

The doors closed behind him, but they were not thick enough to stop him from hearing what came next. It sounded like...like his captor was crying. That was comforting in a way. Reassuring. She was still just a pony. Not that he would try to overpower her. That was a quick way to turning into a hedgehog shaped pancake.

No, but it meant she wasn't like Tempest. Which meant she probably wasn't going to throw him off the ship unless forced to do so.

His normal defense mechanism, sycophantism, returned in full force, the adrenaline of any kind of flight or fight response quickly diminished. Everything would be fine. They'd get back to Canterlot and he could disappear into the wilds of Equestria and never have to deal with half-crazed ponies, or the Storm King ever again. All he had to do was do what he was told.

Twilight cried for a long time. Longer than she wanted to admit. She hadn't gotten a chance to process all that had happened at the capital over the past three days. She'd been too busy running for her life and trying to keep her friends alive at the same time.

She thought back to their faces, when they'd seen her with The Pearl. They would understand, when the Storm King was defeated and Equestria was saved, she'd gladly bring the Pearl back and face whatever punishment Novo demanded. But she couldn't let anything get in the way of saving her family. Tempest's petrification was just a minor set-back. Once she figured out what these messy notes meant, she'd be able to free the princesses. Then they would know what to do. The Storm King's forces would be easier to defeat without Tempest anyway.

She picked up one of Tempest's blueprints and squinted at the squiggly writing. Without her horn, she must have been forced to use her mouth to write, which explained why everything in here was so messy. Pegasus and Earth Ponies learned how to use their mouths and hooves for minute work as fillies, but most unicorns never had to.

Briefly, she felt bad for Tempest, denied access to proper magic, something which was not merely a convenience for unicorns, but an integral part of the way they expressed themselves. She shook her head. Tempest had smiled, as she turned Cadence and Celestia to stone.

Twilight would not waste her sympathy on the likes of her. She was too exhausted and there was too much work that needed doing. Slowly, she began to assemble all of Tempest's lab notes and diary entries, searching through the vast pile of research for the one, single key. The information was here somewhere. She just had to find it.