BREAKING MY ENEMIES

It’s invigorating, being able to raise the sun all by myself. To send the first rays of light into thousands of homes and let everypony know that it’s time to wake up to another glorious day.

Not that any of that light makes its way down to me here. The only thing that cuts through the gloom are the various lamps I’ve placed around the room. I finish raising the sun and roll out of bed, stopping to lean over and give Luna a gentle kiss on the cheek. She doesn’t respond, still out of it after last night. I wish I still dreamed. I could pull her into my own fantasies and we’d never have to be apart from one another. The closest thing I have left as a changeling queen is the hazy thoughts of the swarm, still under my control even when I slip into the half-alert state that passes for rest these days. At least I’m well informed when I rise every morning. My drones routed another cell of the resistance overnight.

Over the last few days, I’ve been experimenting with my own biology, learning all the neat new tricks I have at my disposal. I also discovered that, properly refrigerated, my mind-control venom can be pumped and retain its potency for up to a week. That really freed up the time I had to spend being physically present at the interrogations. Seen one psychological breakdown as a pony’s will is subordinated by mine, and you’ve seen ‘em all. The horrible, slanderous lies they screamed at me right before they broke had nothing to do with it.

The infiltrators, armed with the information volunteered by those ponies who suddenly rediscover their proper loyalty to the rightful ruler of Canterlot Hive, head straight for the next hideout. I have the luxury of rotating in fresh changelings for each assault. Sometimes, after an especially successful raid with lots of prisoners, I don’t even bother to send any. I just tell the envenomed troops to go kill their former friends. After all, the stuff wears off in a few hours and then they’re going to die anyway, at least this way they do some good first. They’re always so happy when I give their meaningless little lives a final purpose.

When my drones are injured, I know just where to send them. They need care and compassion to heal, so each changeling feeds off of the most resilient, inexhaustible source of it that I can imagine. I push open the door to the converted infirmary, leaning to one side to avoid the dollop of mucus-like ichor that drips from the ceiling. The walls are covered in dark ooze with just a hint of the room’s original sterile-white wallpaper peeking through here and there. All sorts or disinfectants and coagulants flow from the suspended pods. A drone rubs its gashed side up against one of the glands, and I feel its pain recede away as the released opiates take effect.

Chained up in one corner, unwillingly fueling this entire enterprise, is Fluttershy. Her mane is stuck out every which way, and patches of her coat are missing where they’ve been shed away. She look over to me and it takes a few moments for her to register that I’m standing there.

“Hello, Fluttershy. How are you feeling today?”

She only moans in response, just barely strong enough to tilt her head towards me. A drone whose wing was reduced to tatters by a rebel’s lucky strike limps in from behind me. Fluttershy notices it, and I catch just the faintest whiff of sympathy and compassion rising off of her, pity and love for the hurt creature to feed on.

“You still haven’t learned?” I ask. If she hadn’t been so useful these last few days I’d be really upset at how stubborn she’s being. “Every time you do that, feel sorry for one of them, you get weaker. They’re literally killing you with kindness, but you love them for it. Why?”

“It’s not that I like... feeling this way,” says Fluttershy, “but nothing... should have to hurt that much. Especially not you, Twilight. You’re hurting the most. I’m sorry that I can’t love you enough... to make you better.”

Is that what she thinks I want from her? Her worthless pity? “You think I’m just some broken little minion who needs or wants your help? I am the Queen of this hive, and the only pony who’s broken here is you. Are you even thinking at all? When the rest of the swarm’s finished feeding off of you, and you’re dead, nopony’s going to take care of all of your animals back in Ponyville. What about them? Do you want them to suffer because you gave up your life for a bunch of changeling drones that don’t even care about you?”

“Of course not,” she whimpers. “But I can’t help the way I feel.”

“Yes you can, Fluttershy,” I say as I kneel down beside her. She winces as green flames spring up inches from her face. I take my old shape again and run a gentle, calming hoof along her back as I hold out the necklace I’ve brought along. “The Elements just don’t understand that sometimes cruelty is the greater kindness. Come on, I’ll even help you break it.”

She doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t fight me as I lift her hoof from the floor and place it on the butterfly jewel set in the necklaces center. “Twilight... I don’t know...”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do all the work. You just need to want it to break, then everything can go back to the way it was. No, better than it was. All these changelings can be your friends, and play with your animals. They can even turn into animals if you want them too. But only if you help me.”

Fluttershy shuts her eyes and tries to say something, but all that escapes her lips are her final whispered hopes. Almost imperceptibly, she gives the tiniest of nods. Not waiting to see if she’ll change her mind, I immediately yank her hoof up off the ground and slam it back down into the necklace. She looks like she trying to cry out in pain, but just can’t manage it. She tries to pull away, but I’m so much stronger than she is now. That’s why I have to help her do this.

Over and over I smash her hoof down on the gem, but it just refuses to crack. At some point the underside of her hoof splits open, and the pink butterfly is stained red with the blood dripping from it. Why won’t it work?

“You’re doing it wrong.” I have to restrain myself from screaming the words because, after all, Fluttershy is one of my closest friends.

“Twilight... you’re crying,” says Fluttershy, her voice resigned and distant.

“No I’m not,” I insist. There is something wet on my cheek though. Some of Fluttershy’s blood must have spattered onto my face. I wipe it away with a hoof and don’t bother to see what color comes away. “Just a few more hits, then it’ll be over. Stay strong, Fluttershy.”

It takes more than a few more hits, and Fluttershy’s hoof looks like it’s going to be permanently mangled before all this is over if I don’t do something. Why does she have to be so... so Fluttershy? If she’s even willing to forgive the changelings that are killing her, what can’t she forgive?

Well, I can think of one thing. Or more accurately, one pony.

I look down at her whimpering there. Other ponies, ponies who don’t know her as well I do, might see something weak. I know better. “Is... is it over?” she asks, her eyes still squeezed shut as she weakly tries to pull her bloody hoof away from me.

“Never,” I reply. “Fluttershy, do you think I like this? That I enjoy doing this to you?”

“Of course not, Twilight. I know you don’t. I know you wouldn’t do this if you didn’t have to.”

She looks up at me, and I plaster a sick smile on my face even as doing so makes my stomach twist. “You’re wrong. I do like it, Fluttershy. I’m enjoying this right now.”

Her eyes snap open. “What? But... Twilight, why? We’re friends.”

“We were. A long time ago, we used to be. Then this loop happened and I taught myself to hate you. All five of you.”

“We didn’t do anything, though,” she whispers. Then, infuriatingly, she smiles. “I see now. This is all just a misunderstanding. I knew it. You just made a silly little mistake, now we can help you make things—”

“THIS ISN’T A MISTAKE!” I bellow at her. “Mistakes are what happen when you don’t know any better. I know exactly what I’m doing to you, and I’m choosing to do it anyway. Because I’ll never forgive you. So if this isn’t enough to break you, then next loop I’ll think of something worse and then I’ll do that. And then something worse than that. And then something even worse than all of those put together. And the entire time, I’ll smile.”

She looks up at me like she doesn’t even recognize me anymore, which is exactly what I was hoping for. “Why?”

“Because I hate you,” I say. “In every single loop you’re there, you’re always too damn stubborn to change. To realize that everything’s different now, and that hope is supposed to be gone. You’ll never just give up. You lie to me, every time I wake up you lie and you tell me there’s hope. That if I do things differently this time things might change and I shouldn’t let myself quit no matter how many loops its been. You lie to me and lie to me and lie to me until I almost start to believe you. I believe you and I start to hope that you’re right, but you never are and nothing changes and it all starts all over again. I hate you. I hate you I hate you I hate you I HATE YOU!”

Fluttershy just stares up at me. “Twilight... what are you even talking about?”

“Never mind,” I say, shaking my head. I might have gone off on a bit of a tangent there. “I didn’t expect you to understand. My point is that you can forgive me if you want to, but you’re only making it worse for yourself next time. It was either learn to like watching myself do this to you, or go mad. I made my choice, and I’m not sorry. So are you a good enough pony to forgive me for all of that? All the times I ripped you apart and laughed while I was doing it? Are you willing to forgive me for everything I’ve already done and everything I’m going to do, knowing that I’ve never for a single second felt the tiniest bit of remorse, or thought about showing mercy when you begged me to stop?”

“I’m sure if we talk about it and you make me understand why you did it, I’ll—”

“That wasn’t my question. Now, yes or no, do you forgive me right here and right now for what I’ve done.”

Fluttershy opens her mouth and for a single awful second I think she’s going to say yes. But then she looks up into my eyes. Even though it isn’t her usual stare, the crushed innocence there is just as devastating. She looks down at her hoof, dripping blood on the marble floor.

“No.”

I grin, and grab her broken foreleg. This time when I slam it into the Element of Kindness, it shatters like glass. I quickly back away as the unleashed energies overwhelm her and she screams. Pink hairs are torn out of her mane and mix with the equally-pink vortex of power swirling around her. The drones and I watch eagerly, lapping up compassion from the edge of the torrent without getting close enough to be swallowed up.

When the energies die away, Fluttershy is laying there unmoving. It’s a pity I had to say all of those things, all those untruths that aren’t who I am at all. After all, if I’m not a good friend then what’s left of me?

Speaking of lies, it’s time to move down my checklist and work on the next most stubborn Bearer. I run the flat of my tongue along the roof of my mouth, willing the new venom sac I’ve been experimenting with to shift into place. The first dozen or so ponies I experimented on with this new cocktail had various seizures and died, but I’m up to a reasonable survival rate. Besides, Applejack is made of stronger stuff than most.

I swing by the vault to pick up the next Element, glaring at the three that still remain there as I lift Honesty off its pedestal. It and Generosity are still gleaming, if a bit less brightly than before. My crown, though, is another matter altogether. The starburst-shaped amethyst has faded to a dark grey, almost black. I narrow my eyes and just stare into the gemstone for a few minutes, unable to shake the sensation that it’s looking right back at me. When I reach out and touch it, a nasty jolt of magical energy lances right through my foreleg, and I nearly collapse from the pain. It’s gotten stronger than the last time I tried a few days ago. “You go ahead and keep on kidding yourself. I have all the time in the world to figure you out, and I will end you one way or another. I promise.”

Unsurprisingly, the magical jewelry elects not to say anything in response. Instead I take Applejack’s necklace up to the fairly nice suite I’ve been keeping her in. Physical discomfort was never a part of my plan to get her to go along with destroying the Element, and if anything I think leaving her in material comfort while she knows her friends are going through worse gnaws at her more than a prison cell would.

I open the door to her bedroom, but don’t see her anywhere. With a small sigh I throw up a shield the instant before her diving kick hits me, and she bounces roughly to the floor. At least she’s creative about coming up with new angles to attack me from. “Really, Applejack? Do we have to go through this every single day? I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind, finally,” I ask. We both have our futile routines to go through, week after week.

“Buck you,” she snarls. “Why ya’ doing this, Twilight? You said it’s to keep the Elements from blowin’ us all up, but if they were going to they’d’ve done it by now.”

That does give me pause. “I’m just being extra cautious. They’re dangerous, even now. They need to go.”

“So you’re just gonna keep comin’ in here, day after day, no matter how many times ah tell ya ah’ve made up my mind?”

“Oh, don’t worry. Today’s the last day I’ll be asking,” I say with a grin that shows off both my confidence and copious amounts of fang. “If you won’t change your mind, well, I’m happy to change it for you.”

Applejack’s legs tremble a bit, but she remains defiant. “That mind control stuff again? Didn’t work last time, not gonna work this time.”

I shrug. While that would have been a convenient loophole that would have saved us all a lot of trouble, the connection of a Bearer and their Element is a good deal more metaphysical in nature. My job would be a whole lot simpler without all that pesky free will getting in my way. “Let’s just say I whipped up something a little different, especially for this occasion.”

I dart forward with snake-like agility and chomp down on her back. Applejack cries out in pain as she falls to the floor, clutching her head. I watch her rolling around with concern; I don’t want her to die, at least now just yet. After a minute or so her thrashing about starts to slow down until she’s lying on the floor panting for breath. “What... what was that?”

“You know, the pony mind really is an amazing thing.” She stares up, confused, as I go on. “Did you know that your sensory input makes up only a small fraction of everything you perceive? Everything else that you think you’re seeing or feeling is just your brain making up the details as it goes along. It’s really interesting, when you really dig into some of the neurology of it. The upshot of it is that what you believe is the ‘honest truth?’ That’s just your brain telling you a convincing lie every second of every day.”

“Only liar here is you, tryin’ to fill my head with all that nonsense about not knowin’ what’s real and what isn’t.”

I sigh. This would have been a more productive discussion if I’d had time to give her a full rundown on introductory psychology, but much as I’d have liked to I’ve had a rebellion to put down and a city to raise up. “I’ll just have to give you a demonstration. Then you can decide for yourself if you want to keep pretending that the truth is going to set you free.” I toss the necklace onto the floor in front of her. “That venom? It makes you... let’s just say suggestible. But instead of changing the way you act, we’re going to turn all those nifty little neurological quirks in your brain on their heads. Doesn’t that sound like a fun experiment?” I should probably be all somber and threatening, but the prospect of seeing if the last month of reformulating and transforming my venom will work the way I hope it will makes me more than a little giddy.

Applejack, though, just shakes her head. “Won’t work. You just told me that nothing I’m about to remember is true.”

“But it’ll feel true, in every way that matters. Because in the end, true or false doesn’t matter. Just what we believe.”

“Ah don’t believe you. A mare can tell herself over and over that things are a way that they ain’t, but sooner or later the truth catches up with her. And the longer she runs, the uglier it’ll get when it does.”

I snarl. My patience with her and her ridiculous ideas about truths and lies is rapidly running out. Like anything is that black and white. Sometimes, all anypony can do is just try to find the lightest shade of grey that she can, and anypony who says otherwise is just a naive little foal. “Alright then, Applejack,” I say through clenched teeth. “Let’s talk about the night your parents died.”

Applejack jumps up to her hooves, ignoring what must be tremendous pain from those envenomed bites, and leans towards me like she’d going to try to attack again. “You don’t deserve to even speak about them. Besides, I told you what happened. There was a fire, weren’t nopony’s fault, and ah made my peace with that a long time ago.”

“Well,” I say, lazily examining the back of my hoof, “that’s how you remember it right now. And hey, if knowing that’s what really happened is enough then nothing else I say’s going to make a difference no matter how real the memories feel.” The pupil of her eyes have started to dilate, which means the venom’s kicking in. “Allow me to present an alternative narrative, though. One where you were more personally involved.”

She’s starting to tremble. “Don’t you dare. Ah loved them, still do.”

“Sure, let’s run with that,” I say. Like I just told her, the brain is so wonderful at filling in missing details, building a narrative out just a few little scraps of information. All I need to do is plant the seeds. “Maybe... How about you were jealous of how your parents weren’t paying attention to you as much as they had been once there was a new foal for them to look after. Seems like as good a motive as any. If you couldn’t have them, then nopony could.”

She falls to her knees and pulls her hat over her ears. “Stop it. That’s not what happened. Stop it.”

“So one night,” I continue, raising my voice so she can’t block it out so easily, “you decided that you’d had enough. A fire seems awfully impersonal though, why don’t we make these new memories a little bit more hooves on? Isn’t it funny, the little details that stick in your head? The creaking floorboards as you snuck down the stairs. Banging a shin against the counter in the dark and hoping nopony would wake up. The moonlight glinting off the edge of the knife. I bet by now you’re remembering them like it was only yesterday.”

Applejack stares off into the middle distance, her eyes wide as images only she could see play out in front of them. She mumbles some plea, or prayer, but she’ll find no relief in me. She should have broken the necklace instead of forcing me to do this to her.

“So you took the knife and, well, how is it you usually go about preparing apples for a cobbler, or maybe a pie? Take a knife and peel away the skin? Gouge out chunks of the flesh and let the juices dribble all over your hooves? Nice, familiar motions you’ve been through hundreds of times. Well, I’m sure your mind can do a better job of filling in exactly how it felt. Not to mention the looks on their faces when they saw who was doing it to them.” Judging by the way she’s whimpering and trembling on the floor, it’s doing exactly that. She stares at her front hooves and starts to vigorously rub them on the carpet, trying to wipe away the stains that are only there in her head.

“Not...” she tries to speak but her voice trails off into nothingness a few times. “Not what happened.”

“Nope!” I proclaim entirely too cheerfully. “All just a profound, terrible lie. One you’ll never, ever get out of your head, no matter how many times you tell yourself it didn’t really happen. Oh, and one more little detail before those thoughts settle in permanently.” I lean down to whisper to her, and despite herself her ears perk up. “You loved every second of it.” She starts to cry, silently, with only the sound of her gasping for a shallow breath filling the quiet bedroom. “Break the necklace, and it goes away.”

With that, I simply turn and walk out of the room. She deserves to be alone with her thoughts.

That just leaves one Element to go, and not the one I would have pinned as the longest holdout. I’m still mulling over just how to polish off the set when I get a message that means my day is about to get even better than it’s already been. A pair of ponies who I expected to come see me weeks ago. I don’t even bother to fly down to the train station, I just teleport straight there as the train pulls up. There’s only one passenger car, and several drones are on it along with the ponies I’m waiting for, so I sit right in front of the door they’ll be stepping out of any second, bouncing up and down on my hooves willing the train to slow down a little faster. After a minute that seems to drag on for at least fifteen, the train’s engine gives a final hiss and the door swings open.

“Cadance! Shiny!” I call out as I lunge towards them.

Instead of being excited to see me, they both scream, and Shining throws up a shield that I run into with a painful thump. I collapse to the ground and rub my shoulder where I hit it, my excitement tempered a little. I realize just what shape I’m in, and that those two might not have great memories associated with a changeling queen lunging at them.

“Sorry! My bad!” I say as I change back into my old shape. Every time I shift back into this form it feels tighter, itchier, more inappropriate than the time before. I’m not sure why my mind would be rejecting the shape, though, it’s only my old normal which you would think would be the easiest to keep up.

“Twilight? That’s... is that really you?” asks Cadance, still holding tight to Shining Armor.

I grin. “It sure is! Sunshine, sunshine—”

Cadance holds up her free hoof to interrupt me. “Let’s... let’s just skip that this time, okay?”

My smile slips a little bit, but I force myself to brighten right up again. She’s probably just tired after the long trip. “Sure. Glad you could finally come see my city.”

“Sorry it took us so long,” says Shining cautiously. “The Empire’s been getting a pretty major influx of, well...” he glances down at Cadance, who nods back at him “we’ve been getting a lot of refugees.”

“Really? From where?” I ask, tilting my head. “You should send some of them here. The stupid rebellion’s been spreading all these nasty lies and we’ve got a lot of vacant properties that have opened up. Great locations.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” says Shining. “Twiley, is it true that Mom and Dad...”

I rush in to hug him again, and this time he doesn’t push me away. For just an instant I feel like the little filly who fell down the library steps and bumped her head until her big brother found her and made it all better. I sniffle and let out a few tears, but quickly enough I realize I can’t afford a public breakdown, not now. So I force those feelings back down and compose myself. “You should have been here for the funeral. I needed you.”

“I’m sorry, Twilight. I wish I could have been.”

“And you missed my wedding too, you dumb jerk.”

I feel him stiffen up in my forelegs. “Right, your wedding,” he says with a note of caution in his voice. “You just kinda... married a Princess randomly out of the blue.”

I glance at Cadance, then back to him. “Oh, like you’re one to talk.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, but I knew her for most of my life. Even if you got to know Luna in the time loop, which I’m still not entirely clear on, by the way, isn’t it still really sudden for her?”

Cadance nudges him in the side. “Dear, I’m sure once we talk to Luna it will make more sense. I thought perhaps we could all have dinner together tonight?”

I shuffle nervously, trying to find a spot to look that’s anywhere but at them. “She’s been sort of under the weather for the last... month. I doubt she’ll be up for that.”

“Sorry to hear that. I’ll have to bring her a bowl of soup when I look in on her.”

I gulp and start to sweat. “She’s... contagious?”

Cadance narrows her eyes at me, but says nothing. Shining Armor diplomatically clears his throat to break the ensuing silence. “So your letter said that there was something wrong with the Elements of Harmony? I’m sure we can take them back to the Empire with us and have the archmagi there take a look at them.”

“Oh, I took care of that. Already destroyed three of them.” Shining’s eyes go wide with alarm, but before he can ask a follow-up question we all feel a surge of magical energy from the direction of the castle. It billows around us as it rushes past, and then it’s gone as quickly as it came. “Actually, make that four.”

Cadance looks sick to her stomach, more nauseous than she should from just a little magic surge. I lean in to examine her more closely even as she pulls back from my gaze. I take a couple of deep whiffs. Something about her smells off to my enhanced changeling senses. There’s something she isn’t telling me. Before I can ask about it a loud keening wail fills the city, and she goes pale. “What was that?”

“Oh, that,” I struggle to find the vaguest way to answer that question without actually answering it. “There’s somepony who just found out she isn’t going to be able to forget something she was hoping to. Are you alright? You look a little out of it.”

Her foreleg wraps around her abdomen and she grunts. “I just... this city doesn’t feel like it used to. I’d heard rumors, but I thought they were just exaggerations.”

“I know! Isn’t it great?” I frown. That’s not all that it is. “What aren’t you two telling me?” I shift back into my changeling queen shape, which feels so much sharper and with it than when I’m a unicorn. I take a deeper whiff and she recoils even further from me, eyes squeezed shut. Mine, on the other hoof, snap open. “Wait, are you pregnant?”

Cadance and Shining Armor both stare down at me. “You can tell?”

I gape at them for a long moment while my mind catches up with the new information, then I break into a huge grin. I had no idea how badly I needed a piece of news like that until I heard it. “Ohmigosh, that’s amazing! Congratulations, you two! I’m gonna have a niece? Or a nephew? Oh, I bet he’s going to be just adorable, aren’t you little one?” I get down on my belly and talk directly into Cadance’s side, not caring if I look ridiculous. “Won’t you? Won’t you be just so cute I could eat you right up?” I glance up and catch the look of horror my brother and sister-in-law are giving me. “Uh, figuratively speaking. Do you know when you’re due yet?”

Shining coughs and looks away. “Nope. Too soon to say.”

I’m instantly suspicious. Shining Armor’s never been a great liar, and even from here I can hear the way his heart’s started to beat a bit faster. “Are you sure? You should at least have a guess.” They say nothing, and look away from me. “I mean, the more notice you could give me the better. I know it’s hardly an exact science but I want to make sure that I’m there when—”

“No.”

Cadance’s command is almost a whisper, but it carries an unmistakable tinge of authority with it. “What... what do you mean ‘no?’” I ask. My excitement is slowly fading into confusion, with disappointment not far behind.

“Look,” says Shining Armor, “I’m sure once we talk a bit more we’ll find some sort of compromise.”

“No,” says Cadance again. “Shining, look around you. Does this look or feel like the Canterlot you remember? Ponies are fleeing the place in droves, Celestia’s dead, Luna might as well be for all we know, and you think I’m just going to invite the pony, sorry, ex-pony, who made it happen to cuddle up next to us in the delivery room and pretend everything’s just fine? I might as well be asking Chrysalis to my baby shower.”

I step back like I’ve just been struck. “But... but Cadance, it’s me. It’s Twilight.”

Cadance just scoffs. “Not anymore. All I see is a changeling queen looking for an easy meal. We should never have come back here.”

“Hey, Cadance, come on,” says Shining Armor. Still he stays by her side while she glares at me.

“Well at least I was here!” I scream at her. “Where were you two? In your nice, safe palace up north while I was fighting and dying and suffering to save as much of this place as I could? I needed you! I needed somepony! My foalsitter or my big brother or somepony who would protect me from the monsters, but you weren’t here and now you have the gall to judge me for what I did to beat them?”

Cadance looks at me with contempt and maybe a tiny shred of pity. I’m not sure which I hate more. “It looks to me like the monster won.”

I scream, more of a roar really, and my fangs snap out as I lunge for the two of them. How dare they. How dare they question my choices? They’ll learn respect. They’ll learn obedience if I have to pump them each so full of venom that they—

For the second time in ten minutes, I slam into one of Shining Armor’s shields. This time it hurts a lot more. I scramble up onto my hooves and see that he’s put himself between the two of us. “So, you too, huh BBBFF? Siding with her over me?”

“It’s not about sides, but if you try something like that again I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you from hurting her,” he replies. He motions for Cadance to get back onto the train they just left. I could have some of the drones inside jump them, but on further consideration I pull them back. I want to look him in the eyes when I tear out his throat with my own teeth.

“Fine. I don’t need you. I don’t need either of you. I’m strong. Stronger than you, stronger than the Princesses, even stronger than the Elements. I’ll prove it, too. You’re going to regret abandoning me and Equestria when I... when we needed you the most. Run back to your precious Crystal Empire and pretend you’re safe there.” Cadance’s horn glows, and the train engine starts to stutter forward. Shining Armor casts one last pleading look back at me, and all I see reflected in his eyes is the image of the monster who’s screaming threats at him. But it’s his own fault. I didn’t want things to be this way. “Don’t get too comfortable up there, because I’m going to prove to you that I’m stronger than ever. I’ll break your city apart piece by piece until there’s nowhere left to hide. Then you’ll suffer like I did. You’ll suffer until you’re nothing but a withered, hate-ridden shell of what you used to be. Is that what you want? To be me?”

I blink and realize that at some point while I’ve been standing there ranting, the train has disappeared over the horizon. The sun seems lower in the sky than I remember it being a minute ago, too. I squeeze my eyes shut, and try to remember what I was just screaming at them, but all I can remember is little pieces and fragments, all soaked in rage and hatred.

I throw my head back and let out a shrill cry, one that drones all throughout the city echo. The Swarm is going to war.