"Your Highness! We've just received word-- the towns of Cirrus and Hilltop....

"They're gone."

I... was thorough.

The towns of Hilltop and Cirrus were... well named, I suppose. The earth pony town was, literally, situated on a hilltop, in the middle of rolling plains covered in snow. The town of Cirrus floated directly overhead, sunshine peeking down between the buildings and cloudways. It was charming and picturesque and (unlike Ponyville, crossroads to Monstertown) peaceful.

Was. So very much was.

It was a bright sunny Saturday that week. At high noon I sent one of my pre-packaged messages zipping into the center of Hilltop. It unfolded into a gigantic ghostly hologram of myself, so tall its feet straddled the hill and its head and shoulders poked up through the clouds. Screams, panic, various rook-out-its-godzirra style proclamations, the usual.

"PEOPLE OF CIRRUS AND HILLTOP," my alter ego boomed. "YOU HAVE DRAWN MY ATTENTION, TO YOUR WOE.

"SOME FEW DAYS OVER FIVE YEARS AGO, A ROGUE CYCLONE THREATENED TO DESTROY BOTH YOUR TOWNS. THANKS TO THE HEROIC EFFORTS OF A HANDFUL OF YOUR OWN, YOUR VILLAGES WERE SPARED. BUT THEIR EFFORTS ON YOUR BEHALF WERE RECEIVED.... POORLY.

THEIR REWARD FOR SAVING YOUR HOMES, YOUR BUSINESSES, AND EVEN YOUR VERY LIVES WAS TO BE THROWN IN CHAINS BY THE SPOILED, POWER-ABUSING BRATLINGS IN YOUR CITY HALL, SUBJECTED TO SPURIOUS ACCUSATIONS, AND CONVICTED OF A HOST OF IMAGINARY CRIMES BY YOUR COZENING, CORRUPT LEGAL SYSTEM. THEY SPENT FIVE YEARS AT MENIAL LABOR AND BRUTE TREATMENT. LOST THEIR HOMES, THEIR NAMES, THEIR FREEDOM, THEIR CHILDHOODS, AND EVEN IN ONE CASE, THEIR MATE AND CHILD. AND IN THE END, EVEN THE PROMISE TO SPONGE THEIR RECORDS CLEAN WAS BROKEN. YOUR VENGEANCE AGAINST THEM FOR THEIR GOOD DEED WAS INDEED COMPREHENSIVE.

IN THE LIGHT OF THEIR WRETCHED TREATMENT AT YOUR HOOVES, I HAVE COME TO THE OBVIOUS CONCLUSION: YOU DID NOT WANT YOUR TOWN TO BE SAVED.

SO I HAVE COME TO CORRECT THEIR MISTAKE.

LET THE TOWNS OF CIRRUS AND HILLTOP BE NO MORE, AND LET ALL THOSE WHO SPEAK OF THEM DO SO IN SHAME.

Then the mayhem started.

Pegasi buildings are not made of ordinary cloud. The laborers add certain magical essences to the cloudstuff to make it stronger, more stable, and to make it hold its shape. Add enough and it will even support non-pegasi... and non-cloudstuff belongings. The moment the illusion spell finished, it burst, activating a time released spell... a slow-moving wave of magic that leached that special magical essence from every cloud in the city.  Buildings slumped like warm whipped cream; arches and cloudways broke into drifting clumps. Furniture, private possessions, and more than a handful of unalert pegasi began raining from the belly of the city.

Hilltop had its own problems, above and beyond the raining furniture that is. No ponies were struck, as it so happens, because every Hilltop villager was evacuating as fast the hell as they could. One does that when buildings start disappearing down sinkholes one by one. It had been impressive when the diamond dogs had undermined houses in Ponyville, but with Heart Root leading the work it was a lot faster-- and a lot more dramatic.

There was no resistance. Probably due to the fact that the wave of destruction had been preceded by a wave of angry wasps, bees and hornets spreading through the town. Controlling insects? After controlling carnivorous trees and timber wolves, easy peasy. Purple clouds full of angry stinging insects drove the Hilltop ponies ahead of them, and swept the sky clean of any pegasi with delusions of heroics.

Once I'd driven every pony a good mile out of town, I left the clouds of bugs patrolling the perimeter. Then I sent the troops in. They looted and burned, smoke rising up to the ruins of Cirrus as more loot-- pegasi money and valuables-- rained from the sky. My orders were that not a single stone was to be left atop another; not a single stick of wood or tuft of thatch was to be left unburned. Pony or changeling, minotaur or diamond dog, they were happy to oblige.

Only a few select buildings were left standing, surrounded by swarm clouds. Three of them were being carefully emptied of their precious cargo, smuggled down dark undergound tunnels to a safe redoubt.

The last one I left to Artful Dodger.

Sundae Sprinkles waited in his darkened living room, his old spear at the ready. A fine Saturday morning napping on the sofa with a good book had turned into a complete cluster-buck. The first indication he'd had that anything had gone wrong was when he'd been woken by the rumbling of the ground, followed by the shouting and screaming outside. He'd tried to go outside and see what was happening-- only to find the way blocked by a cloud of stinging insects. All the other doors and windows were blocked the same way. He'd kept his head and stuffed wet towels in all the door and window cracks, hopefully keeping the nasty buggers out, doused all his lights, and retrieved his old service helmet and spear from the closet. It'd been years since he'd seen combat, but he knew enemy action when he saw it. Rhythmic ground-shaking? Glowing purple insects that flew in formation? Take a guess, soldier.

The shaking and shouting (but not, unfortunately, the furious buzzing at the windows) had finally stopped. All he could hear otherwise was the sound of his own breathing as he waited for the other horseshoe to drop. The bright day outside had gotten dark; he could smell smoke. Something, several somethings, hit the shingle roof with a crack. Some idiots in Cirrus drop something?

It was getting darker...

The windows went stormfront dark. The shadows in the room deepened, stretched across the floor. Something emerged from one of them. "'Ello, mate," it said, tipping a top hat to him. "Sundae Sprinkles, is it?"

Sprinkles jerked his head back as the Canterlot cockney unicorn appeared from the shadows. "That's MISTER Sprinkles to you, colt," he barked. "Who are you and how did you get into my house?"

"Oh, MISTER Sundae Sprinkles," the colt said with a leer. "I am so VERY pleased to make your acquaintance. So very, very pleased indeed." He sketched a bow and popped his hat back onto his head. "After all I'd hate to think I found the wrong fellow." His teeth glistened.

"Who are you?" Sprinkles said again, prickles crawling up his spine as he scowled at the colt. His glare had made grown stallions cringe; this snotnose just smirked like he thought it was funny.

"Oh, Artful Dodger's me name, guv," he said. "You wouldn'tve heard of me. But we do have a mutual acquaintance." He held up a hoof. "Yea tall, pale blue, blonde, fluffiest wings you ever saw?" His smirk was cold as if it had been born with a fin atop it. He chuckled when Sprinkles' eyes went wide. "Oh yes... she sent me. Personal favor, from my Boss."

Sprinkles proceeded to call Eiderdown a very nasty name. Dodger tut-tutted. "And you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"I knew one of those little shits would turn," Sprinkles said, snarling. "I figured the older ones would end up sticking ponies with a shiv in a back alley someplace-- figures it'd be the little rabble rouser who got them together in the first place instead..."

Dodger cocked his head and pursed his lips. "Wot? No regrets? No second thoughts about wrecking six ponies' lives? Sending one off to military? Another off to the poorhouse? No guilt over shafting them out of their clean slate after it all was said and done?" The house grew darker.

Sprinkles' eyes were full of disdain. "They were a bunch of brats out of Remedial," he sneered. "They wouldn't have been tossed there if they weren't already a bunch of worthless delinquents."

There was a long silence. "They were a class full of cripples, you twat," Dodger's voice said from the dark. "They were in Remedial because they could barely fly-- something that wasn't their fault. You stupid shit. I'm a frickin' unicorn and even I know that."

"Then they shoulda stayed with the groundpounders and out of the way," Sprinkle snorted dismissively. "First opportunity, first time in Cloudsdale, and the bad breeding showed."

The silence stretched out even further. "You know, I wanted to bring her," Dodger said casually. "I wanted to let her watch. After all you did to her and her friends, she deserved to see what happened to you. I'm glad I didn't though." His voice shook.

Sprinkles' sneer grew and he hefted his spear, aiming the point for the black blot that looked like the unicorn. Big talk from a scrawny little horn-head. He blinked, trying to focus; the shadows on the wall looked like they were crawling. "And why didn't you, tough guy?" he taunted. Listen to his voice shaking with fear... he thought, amused.

He was wrong. So very wrong. It wasn't fear.

"Because," Dodger said. His eyes suddenly blazed green, two nightmarish pits in the dark. The ex-guard's soul shrivelled in dawning fear. "She might have forgiven you." The shadows lunged.

The screaming went on. Long. Loud. And far shriller than any stallion had any right to make.