"Well?" Erika asked impatiently. "Are you going to give me an answer? Or am I going to have to beat one out of you?"

Celestia and the five Elements of Harmony simply stood silently, struck dumb by what they were hearing. The Twilight they knew would never threaten Celestia with death, yet the impossibility in front of them would not go away. Eventually one of them broke out her shock.

"Twilight!" Rainbow Dash yelled. "What the hay is your problem?"

Erika moved. She was so fast, one moment she was in front of Celestia, the next she was practically muzzle to muzzle with Dash.

"My name is not Twilight." Erika growled, glaring into Dash's eyes. "And my problem is that a slave of some inbred noble thinks she can pretend to know me!"

Celestia could plainly see that 'Twilight' was very agitated at this point and was ready to attack. She looked around and saw that the armored giants were clutching their swords expectantly, while the floating ones began to glow with deadly magic. Things were getting out of hoof. She needed to diffuse the situation before somepony did something they would not live to regret.

"Please stop." Erika turned sharply to face Celestia. "We do not mean any harm and don't know where we are. We surrender, just do not hurt anypony."

Erika narrowed her eyes at Celestia suspiciously, trying to figure out her game. Her eyes glowed purple for a brief moment, then she snorted disdainfully. She turned her back on Celestia and walked back to the circle her Warmages had formed around the ponies, swishing her tail dismissively as she went.

"Hmph, a noble with some common sense… how rare." Erika muttered under her breath before calling back. "This is what is going to happen. You are going to drop all that frivolous jewelry and then my squad is going to restrain all of you. ANY attempt to resist will be met with force."

Celestia nodded and began to remove her jewelry. As her horn started to glow, the surrounding Warmages grew extremely tense.

"I cannot remove my accessories easily without my magic." Celestia explained.

Erika glared at her for a few moments, then grunted. Suddenly half a dozen sparking purple orbs flew at Celestia. The ponies screamed as the orbs seemed to hit the princess. For a few breathless moments nothing seemed to happen, then with a click Celestia's jewelry fell to the ground in pieces.

"You will be restrained now." Erika said and walked away.

The floating armored Warmages landed and joined the circle around the ponies. The giant Warmages then went through the same changes Erika had, and before long they were the same size as the flying Warmages. One of them began making odd hand gestures before a large flaming orange circle appeared in the air before him. He reached in and began to pull out things that looked like the front half of a chest plate with a white gem in the center. He handed them around and the mages began to place them on the ponies.

A short distance away sat Erika. One of her formally giant mages approached her. It was her unofficial second in command Jacobs.

"Captain?" He called and got no answer.

"Sparkly?" He tried again this time using her call sign.

"Erika?" Erika turned to look at Jacobs out of the corner of her eye.

"Is there something wrong Erika?" Jacobs asked his superior. "Normally you'd have had the noble executed on the spot."

Erika simply looked at him before turning away to stare ahead. Jacobs decided not to pursue the matter any further; if his captain wanted to share her feelings, she would have done so.

'Seeing another member of her species for the first time must really be bothering her.' Jacobs thought to himself as he walked back to the group.

Erika sat for a moment longer before sighing and placing a hoof against the side of her head.

"This is command squad Gamma to the Sadistic Melody, do you read?" Erika said into her communicator.

"This is the Sadistic Melody; we read you loud and clear Gamma." The operator on the other end replied.

"I am requesting a transport at my position for my squad and some prisoners."

"One moment… request approved Gamma." The operator replied. "Transport inbound, ETA five minutes."

"Copy that, Gamma out." Erika said.

"This is command squad Gamma to all squads in the Quicksilver region, my squad is returning back to base, transferring battlefield command to Zeta."

"Copy that Gamma." Replied Zeta and the other squads. "See you back on the Melody."

Erika lowered her hoof back to the ground and sat watching the expanse of destruction and slowly dissipating dust clouds. She gave one more sigh and on an unseen command, her helmet reformed and covered her head once more. Once this was finished, she then turned and walked back to her squad.

Princess Celestia and the five Elements of Harmony now stood uncomfortably in their 'restraints'. In truth they weren't actually restrained because the metal chest plates, once put in place, simply extended several chains around the ponies' bodies, over their shoulders and fastened themselves. If anything, the chest plates would protect them rather than do their jobs, until one of the mages made a small wave.

The power of the chest plates activated just as Pinkie raised a hoof to wave back. All six of the ponies' eyes became comically huge as they felt themselves become weak in different ways. For the Earth Ponies like Pinkie Pie and Applejack, they felt the energy and strength that Earth ponies were famed for disappear; Applejack felt her strong legs weaken to the point where she felt like a helpless filly again and Pinkie felt the nigh infinite energy she was known for fade. The Pegasi, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash felt like their wings were practically withering from how weak they had suddenly become; Fluttershy whimpered as her wings hung limply at her sides and Rainbow Dash simply stood there, horror struck as the thing she took pride in most in her life was taken away. Rarity was the least affected as she simply lost her ability to channel magic through her horn but, was still distressed by it. As shocking as these effects were to the five, they were trivial compared to what was happening to their princess.

Celestia was an Alicorn, a goddess of the sun made flesh, and her restraints were built for something far more mortal in mind. Atlantean engineering was not something to take lightly though, as was made apparent when Celestia's chest plate began to hum with ever growing effort. The sun goddess was shocked as she felt her power slowly, but surely, locked away. In the end it came down to two simple facts; Celestia was flesh and, blood and her restraints were mechanical. One eventually tires and the other keeps going as long as it has power.

With one last shudder, the princess fell onto her side into unconsciousness. Immediately, the ponies around her broke out of their shock and rushed to her side.

"Princess!" Fluttershy shouted. "Wake up! Oh, please wake up!"

"Relax." Erika said contemptuously. "She's unconscious. Probably used magic all her life for everything, typical for a useless noble…"

"How dare you…" Fluttershy interrupted quietly.

"Hmmm?"

"How dare you!" She spun around and stared into Erika's optics. "We spent all this time worrying about you! We risk our lives just trying to find you and get you back! And what do you do when we find you? You threaten to KILL the princess, you pretend you don't know us, you put us in these… things and you put down the princess when she could be HURT!"

As Fluttershy ranted, Erika's optics put on a bit of a light show. Her normally black visors began to glow green and strange symbols began to appear rapidly on them and flash red. They quickly cluttered up her visor and overlapped each other until eventually the armor around her eyes released a single solitary spark. Immediately, Erika's visor turned back to their usual inky black.

"Well?" Fluttershy shouted, somehow up in the air despite her wings not having the strength anymore, glaring at Erika. "What do you have to say yourself?"

"…How did you do that?" Erika asked.

"Do what?" The angry Pegasus shouted.

"You overloaded my optics without magic." Erika replied quietly. "I couldn't see on the light spectrum until they reboot now and… wait, get me back?"

"Yes, we…" Fluttershy started.

"You abandoned me." That threw Fluttershy for a loop and caused her to settle back down onto the ground. "Forty five years ago I was found in a small cardboard box. My father found me and adopted me into his family, but despite the Empire's best efforts, they could never find how I was abandoned there without anyone noticing. They searched far and wide for others of my kind, but always came up empty handed."

'Forty five years?' Fluttershy repeated, so surprised that she was no longer using her stare.

"So what changed?" Erika asked; her helmet shifted away again revealing her face and her angry violet eyes. "After abandoning me for over four decades what could have possibly warranted a search for me now? Let me guess, it was something utterly moronic like some prophecy wasn't it?"

"W-what?" Fluttershy stuttered.

"Did it go something like 'the lost daughter shall bear our salvation'?" Erika asked mockingly. "Because you can go screw yourselves! DEAD GODS BE DAMNED, I don't even know why I want to find my race anymore! Since obviously they don't bother looking for one of their own until they need something from them!"

"But, but Twilight…" Fluttershy tried to get a word in but…

"THAT! IS! NOT! MY! NAME!" Erika roared into Fluttershy's frightened, tearing face. "My name is Erika Gefallen, daughter of Ezekiel Gefallen Gott Morder!"

Fluttershy and the other four conscious ponies were stunned into silence. Erika's form was now incandescent and sparking dangerously with her violet magic. The air was filled with the sound of her heavy breathing and an odd hum that seemed to be coming from above them.

"Captain, the transport is here." Jacobs's voice cut into the tension in the air.

Erika's slightly glowing eyes looked up and saw the boxy orbital troopship above them. She then took several deep breaths, and slowly her magic receded as the transport set down beside them.

"Be quiet and get on board the ship." She ordered calmly and walked away from the five mares. "Emily, carry the noble."

"Yes ma'am." Replied one of the winged mages.

The ponies were escorted into the ship spartan interior of the ship by the War Mages. There were two rows of ten seats running along the side of the interior walls. The five mares hesitantly took to the seats as it was immediately obviously they weren't designed for quadrupeds. However, the seats were surprisingly comfortable once they were settled in. Emily walked in a moment later with an unconscious Celestia on her shoulder. She settled the unconscious princess into a seat right next to Applejack, who immediately struggled to hold up the princess as she flopped over onto her.

Erika was up in the cockpit taking the co-pilots seat. Settling into the extra stuffed seat with a sigh, she turned to the pilot.

"Get us out of here." She said to him.

The pilot nodded and turned to large mass of holograms that was his console.

"Alright everyone get settled, we are off in ten." He said aloud after pressing a holographic button.

Ten seconds later on the mark, the drop ship was off and quickly began to climb into the sky.

"Mind if I ask what kind of prisoners we have Cap'?" He asked Erika as he manipulated the controls.

"An unconscious noble and her small entourage of slaves." Erika answered with a sigh, she could imagine the surprise on the pilots face behind his visor. It was no secret that Erika did not like nobility. Granted neither did most other people who lived in the Atlantean Empire, but she was more extreme in expressing her hatred. Abruptly the pilots console began beeping.

"We got a bogey on the sensors." He stated.

He was about to bring up a holo-image of said bogey, but it showed itself. A large pile of rubble began to bubble up strangely on the ground far below before bursting outwards in an explosion of concrete, metal and glass. Rising from the newly created hole in the ground was a sixty foot long ship that could have been once described as sleek and beautiful. But the damage caused from the Ground Sweeper and its own raising through the rubble had covered it in tears, dents and covered the chassis in a layer of dust. Erika recognized it as a 'pleasure yacht' that the rich of this world often owned.

"Open a com channel with it." Erika ordered a pilot.

"Attention civilian ship, this is Captain Sparkly of the Atlantean Empire." Erika said once the channel was open. "Identify yourself immediately or be fired upon."

"Don't shoot, we surrender!" A panicked voice immediately replied. "This is the pleasure yacht of the Lord Governor Tarble! He and his entire family are onboard!"

Erika knew Lord Governor Tarble from several Intel reports of the planet. He was a real blue-blooded type who took pride in his heritage as a descendent of an old ruling family. His race had long since been a republic but, Tarble liked to play up his noble blood, and use his family's still overflowing coffers to run his political campaigns for Lord Governor. The fool should have gotten a better pilot who could recognize Erika's call sign.

"Civilian ship, stay your course." Erika ordered with a sadistic smile on her face then turned the com channel off. "Put us in front their ship and open the boarding ramp."

The pilot nodded and began steering them into position. Erika got out of her seat and strode into the hold of the ship. Her squad was securely and comfortably strapped into place, The ponies however… not so much. Normally the safety harnesses would adjust themselves for the anatomy of different species, but it seemed it did not activate and remained on human biped. It didn't take much imagination to realize that the system was sabotaged, or who did it. It appeared Erika's squad did not take kindly to how her race was treating her.

Walking past and purposefully ignoring the ponies, specifically Applejack as she still struggled with Celestia's unconscious form leaning on her, Erika strode towards the end of the hold. She sat in front of the closed boarding ramp for about ten seconds until a spinning red light turned on in front of the door warning, it was opening. The ramp lowered and small amounts of dust began blowing into the hold. As the hum of the engines was replaced by the wind rushing past, Erika sat and stared at the torn and dirty form of Lord Governor Tarble's pleasure yacht for a few moments.

Erika stood up and violet sparks began to dance along her armored body, a few leaping away and orbiting above her, each quickly growing larger than her head. Before long, Erika had six blindingly bright and large sparks, and her eyes began to glow.

'This is what I think of your surrender.' Erika projected her thoughts for all to hear, especially those aboard the pleasure yacht.

All six sparks orbiting Erika flew through the air towards the yacht, crackling with electricity as they went. The yacht began to bank as its pilot desperately tried to save himself and those on board the ship he was flying. His efforts were futile however, as the sparks closed in and began orbiting it much like how multiple moons would orbit a planet. The sparks continued to orbit tauntingly for a few moments, before suddenly shooting away and rapidly flying back, spearing right through the ship so fast they left afterimages, making the yacht look like it was impaled by shafts of violet light for a brief second.

The yacht continued to fly seemingly unbothered by the holes torn through it, before a dull boom sounded from within it. The yacht immediately began listing and losing altitude, until a louder boom was heard and the ship went into a nosedive. Plowing into the ground at well over three hundred miles an hour would turn any civilian ship of that size into a crumpled mess with very little possibility of survival, but Erika wanted to be sure. The still flying sparks aimed themselves at the twisted heap of metal that was the remains of the pleasure yacht and flew at it from over a mile up. A split second later they impacted and exploded, vaporizing a smooth bowl into the ground.

Erika snorted disdainfully as the boarding ramp closed. She turned with a dismissive swish of her tail and strode back to the cockpit, ignoring the horrified looks the ponies were giving her.

'Dear Celestia…' Rarity thought to herself. 'Twilight what in the world happened to you?'