The Pearl and the Princess

~3 days earlier

Shining Armor knelt in the darkness of an alleyway; his daughter cradled in his magic. He watched as a platoon of the invaders herded Canterlot locals into cages. When a mare attempted to break free of the group, one of the invaders simply reached out and grabbed her. Shining Armor pulled Flurry Heart close to cover her eyes, as the monster dangled the mare above her friends and neighbors and then flung her into the cage, causing a sickening crunch which echoed through the street.

He dared to watch the mare, thankful that her chest continued to rise and fall, even though labored now by pain. Sobbing broke out in the crowds and a few of the adults dared to try to protect the younger ponies. The invaders had not spared children in their raid. They seemed intent on shackling or caging every creature they could lay their mitts on.

He was about to turn away, when he noticed one of the creatures snarling at the sobbing colt to stay quiet. This had the reverse effect as intended, instead causing greater distress across the entire group. The creature let out a bellowing roar and the colt, a barely weaned unicorn with a butterscotch hide fell to the ground, covering his head with his hooves. The Storm Creatures shared a disgruntled look and then the angriest among them began pushing through his prisoners to get to the colt.

The group of ponies began to resist, all sensing that what had just happened to the mare was about to befall the young colt as well. A heavy-set unicorn with a mustache, who Shining recognized from one of Cadence's favorite local restaurants, stepped in the way of the Storm Creature, his horn glowing with purple light. Shining watched in horror as the Storm Creature, not used to its authority being challenged by creatures one sixth its size lifted a paw. He knew then he was about to witness a blood bath, a massacre of helpless ponies caused by cruel caprice.

And that he had to leave. He couldn't defeat all those Storm Creatures. They had gone through his best guards like they were paper. And he couldn't be captured, because then Flurry Heart would have no one to look after. He had to get out of here, to get back to the Crystal Empire, where Flurry Heart would be safe, and he could rally a counterattack. For the good of his daughter, and his wife, he had to let his subjects, the creatures he'd sworn to protect, die.

That was when he heard it. A familiar whistling sound, although not one he'd expected to interrupt the scene in front of him. The Storm Creatures all looked up, as a red firework spiraled into the graying sky and exploded, in a series of pink explosions. The invaders began looking around, for any sign of the responsible party. Which was all the distraction that the ponies who had assembled on the roof above needed. In an instant, the entire street was coated in smoke, occasionally lit up by the glows of unicorn magic.

Realizing that an ambush was a fleeting thing, no matter how perfectly planned, Shining quickly constructed a magical ward over his daughter and turned to face her.

"Stay here." He said, even as she pressed her hooves to the side of the force field. Then he rushed into the melee, his horn glowing brightly.

It was a hectic mess, ponies scrambling to take advantage of the chance to escape. Meanwhile, the rebels were locked in combat with massive Storm Creatures, using every trick they had to stun, stagger and daze their opponents. Shining's eyes, trained to protect nobility, found his opening. A gray unicorn with goggles and a cloak on had used her telekinesis to rescue the mare who'd been thrown into the cage and was now trying to dodge blows from two of the creatures while concentrating on the spell.

Shining punctured the leg of the left Storm Creature and pointed a hoof. "This way!" He cried as he brought the Storm Creature down on its partner and yanked his horn free, using a blast of magic to send the two fallen invaders flying into their compatriots.

The unicorn nodded, dragging her passenger behind her as she dove in the direction of the alley.

Shining turned to see three of the Storm Creatures charging toward him, recognizing him as a member of the royalty they'd been tasked with abducting. He dodged beneath the legs of the first one and kicked the knee of the second, sending him toppling into the third. But the first had turned with surprising speed and grabbed him by the tail. He lashed out with a kick, but the Storm Creatures' bodies were all muscle and bone. His assaulter lifted him up by his tail, eliciting a groan of pain from him and chuckling as he dangled in front of its eyes. The things took pleasure in assaulting those smaller than them, that was without doubt.

He blasted the thing in its eye, causing it to loosen its grip long enough for him to drop to the cobblestones, only to be grabbed and pinned by two more of the brutes. It was useless trying to buck them off. They must have weighed over a ton each, and he could feel his ribs beginning to creak under their weight.

"Get off of him!" Cried a familiar voice. Then the creatures which had pinned him lifted their heads and their eyes gleamed with green glow.

The creatures each let out a strangled moan and scrambled off his body, racing down the street and turning over the cage in their haste to escape. Shining lifted his gaze to see a pink mare pull off her goggles. It was Starlight Glimmer, his sister's greatest student. Her eyes glowed with the same sickly green glow as the spell she'd cast on the creatures.

"C'mon!" She yelled to him, her eye twitching at the pain of concentrating on a spell so potent. "The illusion won't last forever."

Shining jumped to his feet and joined the ponies, who, following the gray one, were all racing down the alleyway he'd come from. Releasing the spell protecting his daughter, he scooped up Flurry Heart, who was, by this time, wailing at the intensity of her surroundings. He kept her above him as he wove through the stampeding mass, all following the gray skinned pony down into what had once been a donut shop.

"What are we doing in here?"

"Oh god, they're going to find us?"

Without the rush of adrenaline, the recently freed ponies began to panic, and Shining could tell they were all less than a minute away from the Storm Creatures catching up with them. Their retreat hadn't been stealthy by any means.

Then the gray unicorn pulled off her goggles and cloak.

It...it was his mother. Twilight Velvet. Her purple and white mane was stained with ash and her horn crackled with cerise energy, more intense than he'd witnessed ever before, as she slowly set the bloodied mare down.

"Trixie, take care of this one. Starlight, can you teleport this many?"

Starlight had brought up the rear, covering their retreat with a few blasts of magic the likes of which Shining hadn't seen from his best guards. She glanced over the huddled mass and shook her head.

"I'll help!" Shining yelled and his mother met his eyes and smiled, briefly, before she nodded. Then she began to concentrate in unison with Starlight Glimmer and as he joined them the entire, already somewhat ramshackled establishment shook. Then there was a burst of light.

Shining had never teleported so many ponies before at once. But he was a good enough student of magic to know that they couldn't have gone very far. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he and all the others were now in the front hall of the School of Gifted Students. He felt a rush of nostalgia, being back in these hallowed halls, but was quickly pulled out of it by the severity of the situation.

They had saved a dozen ponies, but who knew how long they were safe.

Velvet noticed his concern and galloped over to him. "Relax dear, you're not the only one who can keep up a level 5 shield spell. Thanks to your father and the school faculty, for now, we are safe."

Shining let out a sigh of relief. "I...I don't know what I would have done..." He felt strange, admitting how helpless he'd felt after the invasion to his mother, but she gave him that same patient smile which reminded him that it was alright to be scared.

"Well, we couldn't just stand by and let Canterlot get taken over by monsters..." Starlight said, approaching the two of them as a couple of colts, probably employees of the school, began to lead the rescued ponies to the dormitories. "By the way, how come you and Twilight never introduced me and Sunburst to your mom? She's way cooler than you."

Shining chuckled but any humor in the situation quickly drained away, as he floated Flurry Heart close and gently nuzzled her in hopes of calming her.

"Shiny...may I try?" Velvet asked.

Shining looked up at her and nodded, using his telekinesis to pass his child into her grandmother's hooves.

"She wants her mother." He admitted, as Velvet began to rock Flurry gently and sing to her a lullabye that was not unfamiliar to his own childhood.

"We heard what happened..." Starlight began.

"Is it true?" Velvet asked, looking up from Flurry's tear-stained face. "Did Twilight make it out?"

Shining swallowed hard. "I'm not sure...I wasn't there...when it happened. But I know that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were turned to statues...just like Cadence."

Velvet nodded. "She'll have made it out...she has her friends to look after her."

Shining moved closer to her. "We'll find her. We'll get everyone back. The creatures who did this aren't going to get away with it."

Velvet's face darkened. "The Storm King. For decades he's scourged the lands beyond ours...we just never thought he'd have the audacity to attack us."

"He wouldn't have gotten this far, if it wasn't for that unicorn." Starlight said. "She's the one who started turning ponies to stone."

Shining frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Trixie, who had just finished handing off the insouciant mare to one of the school staff members, walked up, rubbing the soot from her goggles. "Oh, you didn't see? There was a unicorn with a messed-up horn, she's the one who started the whole invasion..."

"She must have told the Storm King to strike during the Friendship Festival...when all the princesses would be in the same place." Velvet said.

"But why?" Starlight asked. "Why turn them to stone?"

Velvet glanced at Shining. "Perhaps you three can find out. If anyone in the world knows why this happened and how we can get our princesses back, it'll be someone in this school."

She turned away, continuing to cradle the now softly slumbering Flurry with her magic. "I need to tell your father we've found you and make sure that this one is someplace safe." She looked down at Flurry and then back up at Shining. "You did the right thing, Shiny. You protected your child."

Shining wished he could find more reassurance in those words, but he said nothing as she trotted off in the direction of the staircase.

"Ugh, we don't really have to go around, asking teachers if they know anything about the petrification, do we?" Trixie asked.

Starlight raised an eyebrow at her.

Trixie wilted a little and suddenly became very interested in her hoof. "It's just...I dropped out of this school...I'm sure a lot of them still remember me...and what a terrible student I was."

"Trixie, you helped save everyone from Changelings. And now you're helping us save Canterlot." Starlight reassured. "If anyone looks down their nose at you, it's because they aren't paying attention to the right things."

Trixie perked up a little. "Okay, okay, fine...just as long as we don't have to pay for any damages we might have caused in the past."

She and Starlight began to trot away but stopped when they noticed that Shining Armor was not following them.

"Now that Flurry Heart is safe...I need to get back to the Crystal Empire." He said. "I have to make sure that everyone there is safe. If we haven't been invaded, I can even send troops to come help out here."

"Dude, how are you going to get there? It's not like the train service is working." Trixie said.

Starlight rolled her eyes. "I think, what Trixie means, Shining Armor, is that by the time you get there it might be too late. If we want to stop this invasion we have to stick together."

"I appreciate you saving my life." Shining Armor said. "And everything you've done for me and Cadence...and Flurry. But I have a responsibility to the ponies back there."

"Besides, the crystal ponies are all Earth ponies, aren't they?" Trixie asked, refusing to be deterred from the logistics of his plan. "They can't fly or teleport...it would take them ages to get here and help fight the Storm King."

"Look, I don't know much about the Crystal Empire." Starlight admitted. "But they have the Crystal Heart to protect them. And...you're one of the strongest magic users in the kingdom. We need you. Your mom needs you and so will Twilight."

Shining stared at her for a moment. He was reminded of the fact that she had run a cult at one point. She knew how to get people to do things. It was a good thing she was on their side.

"Alright...I'll see what I can do." Shining answered. "Under one condition..."

Trixie and Starlight raised their eyebrows.

"If we can't figure out how to get Cadence out of the petrification...you have to help me steal one of those airships." He said.

~Present

Twilight stared at the page, the squiggly text dancing across her bleary vision. She hadn't slept well since they left Equestria and the amount of magic she'd used in the past 24 hours alone had really taken it out of her.

She couldn't go to sleep though. Who knew how long she had, before the petrification became permanent? She couldn't arrive at Canterlot with no plan, not after everything she'd done to get here. No, she had to push through. Sleep would be an option when the lives of the princesses weren't on the line.

It was obvious from Tempest's research that the petrification could be reversed with the use of Alicorn magic, but the amount required would involve close to all the Alicorn magic in Equestria. She remembered the spell which Celestia and the others had used to give her their power, but she had no way to replicate the spell, especially since the other alicorns were encased in stone. Power like theirs could only be given, it would take infernal magics, like the ones used by Tirek, to take it by force. And even then, the target would have to be in a more conscious state.

She briefly wondered if she could have used the Pearl to turn herself into a centaur and use its powers to drain the magic from the other princesses. But even if she could change herself so completely (a proposition which disconcerted her, based on how different Tirek's physiology was from her own), she doubted that she'd be able to draw magic from the petrified forms of her friends. For a start, the substance which Tempest had used to implement her coup ('Miserable Malachite' according to the notes) overrode all but the most powerful magic, not only imprisoning its target, but containing their magic and shielding it from all but the most powerful outside effects. Secondly, and more importantly, Tirek had only been able to absorb the Alicorn magic because he'd already absorbed the magic of thousands of others. She would have to do likewise if she wanted to forcibly remove the magic of the other princesses (which she didn't really want to do either, not that her own desires felt relevant at the moment).

She thought about her friends, as she leaned her head against the desk, trying for the fifth time to comprehend the meaning behind Tempest's obscure references. If they were here, she would have found the answer by now. Dash would have thrown a book in frustration, which just happened to have the answer in it. Or Pinkie would have been reading the right passage for the past half hour without knowing it.

She felt the familiar surge of frustration which had only gotten worse since the invasion. But at the same time, she wished they were here with her now. She hadn't wanted to leave them behind. She'd had no choice. It was better for all of them. She couldn't stand it if anything happened to any of them, because she wasn't...strong enough, smart enough, quick enough.

Especially Spike. He was intelligent for his age. But he was still so small and had nearly come to harm too many times already.

She was so tired. Maybe if she just rested her eyes, the truth would come to her...

She was jolted awake, from the black realm of dreamless sleep, by a jolt across the entire airship. Realizing she'd nodded off standing up, she wiggled feeling back into her hooves and trotted out of the cabin, prepared to have been immediately betrayed by her less than scrupulous pilot.

She found Grubber at the wheel, with that same aggravating smile. How long had he been out here? She realized then that he probably hadn't believed he was allowed to stop piloting the ship until they reached their destination and sighed. She shouldn't have pity on him, when he'd so eagerly participated in Tempest's horrible plan. But she had a hard time forcing someone who was clearly harmless to perform a task when they were as exhausted as he looked.

"What was that?" She asked, deciding to assess the situation before she offered him any kind of respite.

Grubber shifted nervously. "I uh...I've been eating sponge cake all day...I kinda passed out. Heh, heh, sorry..."

She glared at him and then rolled her eyes. Using her telekinesis, she levitated one of Tempest's journals out onto the deck. "What's your name again?" She asked.

He looked at the statue of Tempest. "Grubber."

"Great. Look, Grubber. Tempest's notes keep referencing something called the SoS. Do you have any idea what that is?"

Grubber wilted slightly and she could tell he was trying very hard not to lie.

"Tell me the truth and I'll let you take a break from steering the ship." She said, in as kind as a voice she could muster going on less than a hour of sleep after 72 hours of fearing for her life.

"Umm, that would be the Staff of Sarcanas. I helped her uhh...procure it, from the Stormfeather Griffons."

Twilight frowned, having never heard of that particular group. The past few days were forcing her to realize how limited her understanding of the world had been. She took a step toward Grubber, still trying to use her most honeyed tone. "How exactly, does it work?"

He shrugged. "She uh, never really told me."

Twilight ran a hoof across her face, wishing for not the first time that she'd been able to think of a better way to deflect the potion Tempest had thrown at her. Being stuck on an airship with an evil military commander had to be better than being stuck on it with someone like Grubber.

"But I know she told the Storm King that once he had it, he'd be able to take the magic of the four princesses." Grubber revealed.

Twilight's eyes lit up. "What?"

"That's what she said, she told the Storm King that she'd capture the princesses and then he could use the staff to take the magic. It's uh, kinda why we were going after you." He admitted, with a sheepish grin.

Twilight grabbed the rotund creature and gave him a hefty squeeze. "That's it! That's the missing key! I just have to get that staff and I'll be able to fix everything!" She smiled down at him. "Where is it?"

Grubber deflated. "Uh, the Storm King has it."

Twilight removed her hooves from him and stared at the clouds they were passing beneath. "Oh."

They were both silent for a moment.

"Okay, Grubber?"

"Uh, yes...princess?" He seemed to instinctively be trying to make her happy. Not that she could blame him much, after what she'd done.

"I need you to tell me everything you know about the Storm King."

The Storm King sat in his throne, a massive heap of burnished scrap-metal and the bones of several large creatures. You didn't get a title like the Storm King from making friends. You got it by killing everyone else who could have laid claim to it.

He drank from a straw and a coconut, as his airship, several times larger than those used by his chief lieutenant and her subordinates, approached the city of Canterlot. Honestly, he didn't see much in it. He had spent years subduing Abyssinia, taking the lands of the Hippogriffs and their allies. He'd fought dragons, griffons, gargoyles, even those annoying striped ponies whose war-cries always rhymed. He'd never invaded Equestria (or Pony Land as it was colloquially known in the south), not because he'd believed that it would be too difficult (he remembered Tempest talking for hours about how powerful the Alicorns were and why it was good idea to let her take care of them first).

He hadn't invaded because the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. Ponies made lousy slaves. Well, that wasn't entirely true. The ones without horns or wings were good for plowing and mining. They seemed to last longer than the others, at least according to the reports he'd been getting from his captains in the city. But they were all so...tiny, that they didn't serve much of a purpose. He could find bigger, hardier creatures almost anywhere else on the planet. Not to mention, their whole aesthetic was so mouth-vomitingly cute, that they just didn't fit in with the brand he'd cultivated. He'd spent so long establishing himself as dark and powerful. The lands he'd conquered had not been won easily. But this addition to his empire made the rest of it seem comical by comparison. A bunch of wimpy ponies, who couldn't have put up a good fight even if they'd known what it was.

Tempest had better be right about this whole, "princess magic" thing, or he was seriously considering tossing her into the Endless Maelstrom from whence he'd emerged.

He groaned and stood up, grabbing the staff that Tempest had retrieved for him. She had assured him it was incredibly powerful, which was good, because it didn't really fit with his aesthetic either. He would have preferred something made of metal, preferably with bits of blue stone embedded in it. Instead, he was forced to lug around this...twig, with a pretty crystal on the end of it.

Still, he hadn't gotten where he was by leaving possibly powerful magical items lying around. He knew his own men too well to give them an opportunity like that.

He stepped out onto the deck, wrapping one claw around the railing, as he peered down at his recently obtained lands. Huh. Funny. He'd always heard that Pony Land was all sunny and warm. But for whatever reason, it was a little bit...chillier than expected. Not that he minded. His kind had dwelled in the most perilous of peaks, fighting Yetis and Glacier Bears for fun. There was a reason why yetis were known for enjoying a drink or two. The wine was good for keeping warm in the season of the blizzards.

He glanced up at the clouds which circled above Canterlot. They didn't look like they bore snow and he knew he had not willed them to bear snow for his arrival. Still, there was a nippiness in the air which made him eager to get this over with, so he could head back down south.

This whole place was starting to give him the creeps.