For the first time in months, Imani Abboud prayed. She didn’t know who she might be praying to; just anybody who might be listening, really. It started at the back of her mind without her realizing it was happening, right after the first explosion rocked the north wall of Little Equestria. The little voice crying for help from the back of her mind only grew in volume as she spotted the men with machine guns and rocket launchers storming the front door of the hospital, shooting through the paltry defense force stationed up front and killing the soldiers and local militia that hadn’t simply fled. One militiaman even embraced one of the invaders like a brother-in-arms before joining their ranks.

Her prayers grew more desperate as the screams and gunshots grew closer. Her hands closed tight together, the whispering on her lips growing louder and hoarser. And still, the silence in her head was deafening. But this was all she had.

Something hard fell on her shoulder, and she sprang up in fear, whirling around, but the soft, pink eyes of her mother’s nurse only smiled back.

“Redheart,” Imani gasped with relief, hugging the fuzzy body close to her own. “What are you still doing here!?”

“Somepony had to watch the patients,” the ivory mare chuckled, returning the hug. “Especially with Nurse Abdella out with the flu. Without her, we’re left with Baranek, and that bitch couldn’t draw blood from a hemophiliac!”

Imani chuckled at Little Equestria’s most well-known nursemare, but then her eyes widened. “No, Redheart! It’s the HLF!” She gasped. “They’ll kill you!”

“Probably,” the mare shrugged. “The way I see it, they likely have the whole hospital surrounded. I can die in here, helping my patients, or I can be gunned down in the streets.”

Imani’s breath caught in her throat. “Don’t talk like that…please…” she whispered.

Redheart smiled sadly and nuzzled under her chin. “It’s alright, kid, really. I saw enough death in Tokyo to last a thousand lifetimes. This is just payment coming due for us ponies, is all.”

Imani wiped at her face, nodding as the tears started to flow unbidden.

“Hey, none of that now, alright?” Redheart added her hooves to help wipe the tears away. “Look, I’m gonna get more blankets for your mother, you close the door when I leave, alright?”

Imani could only nod, afraid that her quivering voice would only betray her. Redheart left out the door with a last little smile cast over her shoulder, trotting off down the hallway. Hurrying, Imani circled her mother’s bed and closed the door, cursing the lack of a lock or a deadbolt, anything to delay the men outside a little bit longer. She thought about moving the bedside table to block the door, but took one look at the cheap plywood in both and realized the noise of moving the thing would do more harm than good. Besides, the door opened outward, and - oh God help her, there was nothing she could do. Nothing at all.

Standing near the closed door, her head bowing, Imani slowly walked to the bedside, closer to the large-eyed, cyan-colored cretin that used to be her mother. Down the hall, another door crashed in. A few seconds later, more gunshots. But no screams. Okay, that one didn’t have family visiting, at least they wouldn’t have to see a loved one die right in front of them.

A tear rolled down Imani’s immaculately scrubbed cheek as she clenched the creature’s hoof. She always scrubbed herself clean before visiting mother, not that she was usually dirty, but mother always was so picky about her children being clean and not looking “like they just walked off the set of one of those commercials Western corporations use to trick gullible white people out of their money.” Imani smiled at the memory of her mother using those exact words as her sisters and brother scrubbed away at their faces. She wiped at the tear, her grip tightening on the creature’s hoof. For the eighth time that day, she searched its eyes for some trace of the woman that had disappeared one night after going out to get groceries and returned as this thing. For the eighth time, she saw nothing but a dumb animal that would do nothing but sing the occasional praise of the evil bitch that had done this to her. Imani bit her lip. Down the hall, screams preceded another volley of gunshots. That room had had family visiting.

She didn’t fear for herself. She knew who these men were here for. Anything on two legs was perfectly safe, but her mother…those men would likely throw themselves into a fire if they’d been tied to her, just so they could die knowing they took one more Newfoal out of the world. So was this goodbye? At long last? Or did she say goodbye all those years ago when mother had walked out for a late night grocery run? Who knew? Who could say? The question was, what now? What could she say or do that hadn’t already been said or done?

Nobody here deserved this. Nopony here deserved this.

Her thoughts came to a crashing halt at somepony’s scream. Imani bolted upright, staring at the door. She stumbled towards it on shaking legs. Was that Redheart? She’d heard Redheart scream once, during a blood drawing on a Newfoal, when the little prick had shifted right as Redheart had been leaning in with the needle and the sharpened tip had traced a line down her leg. It had healed, but Imani never forgot that scream. Or, she thought she hadn’t. Was it the same? Could she tell? Yes, yes it was definitely her, oh God, oh…

The scream was cut short by another volley of automatic fire. She stopped, her fingers still a few inches from the door. Her hand dropped. The tears flowed more freely.

Redheart hadn’t deserved that. Nopony here did. They were just…empty shells now, why did this have to happen to them? They were all gone, why couldn’t these big men leave their guns at home and just let the families mourn in peace!? Why couldn’t anybody just let her mourn her mother in peace!?

Wait.

Mourn?

That word echoed in her mind. Mourn. As if she was gone already. Like a cancer patient delirious with pain and unable to understand what was happening to them. The image of retrieving the pillow from beneath her mother’s head popped into Imani’s mind, that image followed by one of pressing it to the creature’s muzzle and adding weight. Odds were, she wouldn’t even fight back. Newfoals had almost no sense of self-preservation, so it would be like watching her mother go to sleep, only this time, instead of slowing down and evening out, her mother’s breathing would just sort of…taper off.

…

No.

No, she couldn’t do that. Not to her own mother. Sure, the thought might have occurred to her once or twice, end the desperation once and for all, but she couldn’t! It was her mother!

But was it? Was it really?

And, another question, did it matter if she did it now, rather than wait for the men with rifles to break down the door and do it for her? Wouldn’t it actually be better like this, with her own flesh and blood committing the act, and not some random maniac with a gun?

A few rooms down, the door crashed in. No gunshots this time. Empty room.

She had no time.

“Mama…” she squeezed the hoof in her hand, but already her free hand was reaching around behind the pony’s head, going for the pillow. The Newfoal hardly even moved, letting its head hit the bare mattress as Imani pulled it free. It didn’t even blink. Imani’s chin trembled as she raised the pillow, clenching it in her hands. She held it over the Newfoal’s blank, grinning face. Could she really do this? Would she?

Two doors down, the door crashed in. Gunfire. Screams. No time.

“I’m so sorry, mama,” she whispered, her voice not even making it to her own ears as she slowly lowered the pillow over the Newfoal’s muzzle. At least now, that damned blank start was gone, but this was just covering her mother’s face. To finish the job, she would need to press. She would actually need to use her strength to kill her mother.

With tears dribbling onto the pillow, Imani straightened her elbows and put her weight on her arms. The pillow straightened under her, the plain, white surface smoothing out in her grip. Her shoulders ached with the effort, and her elbows shook. The Newfoal did not react. The Newfoal did not move. The Newfoal…her mother…

With a gasp and a sob, Imani threw the pillow to the side and embraced her mother. Her cries reverberated through the tiny room. She knew the gunmen would hear her now, but she didn’t care. This was her mother, no matter what a bunch of crazy people with guns said. She wasn’t a monster, she just needed help, if they could only understand that…maybe she could talk to them! Maybe she could still save her mother’s life! Yes, maybe, just maybe…

A loud thump sounded over her head. Her neck craned as she looked up, confused, until the familiar sound of hoofbeats cracked against the roof. Her heart dropped. She knew that sound all too well, during the brief yet violent incursion New Equestria had made into the rest of the city. The pegasi made that sound when they landed on the roofs of houses. Her remaining family had only survived because they hid in the closet and left their mother in the living room, watching the emergency broadcast warnings on the TV with that awful, blank stare. Now, all that fear and helplessness came roaring back as she realized that a pony had just landed on the roof.

Without even thinking about it, Imani ducked under the bed, squeezing in as low as she could. It didn’t occur to her that she had been ready to try and talk to a bunch of maniacs with guns and was now hiding under a bed from a little pony with a color pallet that was an insult to the eyes. It did occur to her, insanely enough, that seven years ago she would excitedly be screaming to her mother that Santa Claus was here, regardless of the time of year, and she had to bite her hand to stifle a giggle that she somehow knew would grow in volume until she wouldn’t be able to control it.

For a few more terrible moments, the hoofsteps sounded above her, easing towards the wall…the one with the window…oh, God no. Dear God in Heaven no…

Next door, the shooting stopped. The men had heard the hoofbeats too, and now they were hiding, waiting. A ridiculous scenario of four men wielding scimitars bursting into the room and chasing off the manic creature now at the window faded from her mind. She was alone.

Four ivory legs landed with practiced grace at the edge of the bed, the window opening and shutting behind them. Once again, Imani prayed to someone she didn’t really think was listening.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Celestia stared down at the little Newfoal, trying to keep her muzzle from twisting in distaste. How anypony could prefer this shallow, mindless, and downright creepy form over the normal human form was utterly beyond her, but then, that would be trying to understand why this ‘Xenolestia’ went to such lengths in the first place. In the end, she knew she probably didn’t want to know, as the answers would likely be enough to keep her up at night.

After a few moments, however, the Newfoal frowned, then its eyes widened. “The impos-“ it started, its muzzle twisting with rage, until lavender bands of pure magic locked around its muzzle, followed by several more that secured it tightly to the bed. The Newfoal’s horn sparked, only to also be restrained in a final band, followed by several lavender padlocks, lavender leather restraints, lavender ropes, and lavender manacles.

Celestia arched an eyebrow, then turned to Twilight, standing at her side with her horn revved up to the max and cords standing out on her neck. “Twilight, don’t you think this might be overdoing it? It is still just one pony,” Celestia asked.

“No chances this time, princess,” Twilight insisted, her eye twitching.

Celestia sighed, but knew better than to question Twilight when she saw that eye twitch. She’d have better luck debating the finer points of Chianti versus Chardonnay with a brick. So, she strode up to the bed, frowning down at the smaller creature lying there.

“Too long,” she frowned.

“Princess?” Twilight asked, her eyebrows hunching. “What are you doing? Change it back so we can move on!”

“That’s the thing, Twilight, it takes too long.” Celestia frowned. “It takes too long and every case must be personalized to reach every individual human. At that rate, it would take years to change every affected human back to what they once were.”

“But…what else can we do?”

The door thudded open, and Twilight and Celestia looked up just in time to find a familiar face. Or flank, in this case, but it helped that this particular pony had a fairly distinctive cutie mark. Redheart backed into the room, peering out at the hallway with a look of terror on her face and a pile of blankets balanced on her back. She said something in the local language that flew right past the other ponies’ ears, though the distinctive pronunciation of something that sounded like Imani stood out to them.

Celestia started to back towards the window, relieved as the draft whispering through her feathers reassured her that she and Twilight had left it open. They’d never get out without the nurse - who so resembled the Ponyville resident it was actually scary - knowing if they’d closed it. Now, all she needed was for Twilight to follow her lead, but she was smart, she’d know enough to glance over and…

“Redheart!?” Twilight gasped. “Nurse Redheart!?”

A curse came within moments of passing Celestia’s lips as the pony turned around, eyes widening even further. Redheart’s jaw dropped, her breath catching in her throat, then her gaze narrowed as rage clouded her vision. The fear swapped itself out with anger so quickly anyone watching it would have thought a switch had been thrown in her head.

“My little pony,” Celestia said, backing up, her wings folding to shrink her body. “Please, I beg of you to remain calm…”

Redheart’s nostrils flared in a way Twilight had never seen before. To her, it appeared as though nothing existed but the princess standing before her. Twilight, the Newfoal, the bed, all faded away into the background. “My. Little. Pony.” Redheart hissed, the blankets falling away from her back as heavily-accented English spat through her clenched teeth. “You dare. You dare say that again, after everything you did to us. After you betrayed everything we were meant to stand for, everything you extolled for the last millennium, after you left us at the mercy of a foe infinitely more powerful than us to go on a suicide run out of pure spite, you dare!?”

Celestia cringed, her memory of an article on the last days of the Collision Wars coming back in full swing. She’d never even imagined it from the pony point of view: watching their Princess sail off at the fall of the Barrier, thinking she was going to do something that would protect them, some new bit of magic that would save them from the human weapons that were now free to rain down upon them, only to learn she’d gone off to make a hateful, last-moment attack that would do nothing but add to the death count on the other side, leaving Equestria open to the nuclear hellfire just minutes away.

“My…Redheart, are you still called that?” Celestia stepped forward, offering her hoof. “I am not…”

Suddenly, a spark ignited in the smaller pony’s eyes, a realization. “Redheart, you fool,” she muttered, but now her eyes narrowed even further, locking in on Celestia’s visage. “You can’t have her.”

Celestia blinked, then cast a glance at the Newfoal, still struggling in its lavender bonds. “Redheart, understand please, we mean no harm. We’re only trying to help…”

“You took her family already!” Redheart screamed, her head lowering, her nostrils flaring. Celestia recognized the earth pony charge immediately, the pony’s instincts taking over in a clumsy, but driven, attempt at a familiar battle stance. “She’s so young and you took everything from her! Well no more!”

Redheart launched herself. Her voice reached a screeching fever pitch: “Not one more, you bitch! You fucking cunt!” She screamed. She threw herself at the Princess. Her hooves lashed out. “Not one more!”

Celestia raised her hooves instinctively. A spell readied itself in her horn, but it was the wrong spell. Oh Maker above, it was a kill spell. No time to switch it. Had to use her hooves. Twilight might help!? No, no time, her magic was exhausted holding down the…

A set of purple hooves launched themselves at Redheart, a powerful midair buck slamming into the nurse’s jaw with the strength of an earth pony. Redheart went sailing into the far wall, crashing into a medicine cabinet and bouncing off, hitting the floor with a loud thump. She was still.

Celestia turned, awestruck, as Twilight settled back on all fours, her horn still glowing with the magic required to hold down the Newfoal, who at least had paused in its struggles to watch in awe as Twilight settled with a long sigh. “Thank goodness I started doing those Tae Bo cardio classes with Rarity,” she muttered.

“Twilight,” Celestia gasped, and Twilight turned to her with a little smile.

“Well, my magic was used up, but my body is hardly useless,” she said, smiling pridefully. “I did place fourth in the Ponyville ‘Running of the Leaves,’ if you’ll recall. I still have the trophy.”

Celestia kept staring, and then she knelt in for a nuzzle. Twilight darted back in surprise, then quickly returned the nuzzle, a contented hum rising from her throat. The restraints on the Newfoal loosened just a bit, but clamped down instantly the moment it tried to move.

“I was not aware it was possible for me to feel more pride towards you, my most faithful student,” Celestia whispered as their faces met. “But you just keep finding new ways to surprise me.”

“I-it was nothing,” Twilight said, pulling herself back to keep the heat rising on her cheeks from betraying her embarrassment to the Princess. “Really, I just had decent enough reaction times, and I knew I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing, even with my magic occupied.”

“Still, that your first reaction was to leap to my defense against an enraged pony speaks volumes of your selflessness,” Celestia said, a contented smile on her muzzle. “I know I’ve said it before, but I wish to reiterate: I’ve always been honored to call you my fellow princess.”

The blush spread to Twilight’s neck. “W-we should hurry things up here,” she said hurriedly. “We’ve stayed in one place too long now.”

Celestia smiled, nodded, then turned to frown at the little pony before her, her mind racing. There had to be something common to work off of, to control and move with. What did they have in common? Well, each human mind was still alive down there, somehow. Dormant, but still thrumming away deep within each Newfoal’s consciousness. So how? Surely, that evil thing wearing her face would have wanted the human destroyed completely, never to be recovered by any feat of magic or science. So why didn’t she? Because she couldn’t, simple as that, and that was because…because…

She thought about a man with tinted skin, leaping after her even though he knew it was far too late to stop her, and impossible to believe he stood a chance.

She thought about a little old mare…no, lady…from England, trotting back and forth to the hospital to visit the man she loved, even though everybody around her said it was pointless, even though every scientific study and every human around her screamed that the man she loved was no longer in there.

She thought about a little boy in a dirty robe, walking up to his world’s version of Sombra, Nightmare Moon, and Chrysalis all rolled-up in one, because he was concerned for his sister.

And she thought about the sort of drive it would take for a species to not lay back and die, to refuse to step forth into the darkness and embrace oblivion, despite encountering all-powerful forces far beyond any they had ever encountered before.

“Will,” she whispered. “An iron will, that is a human. To refuse to accept defeat…of course. Of course!”

“Princess?” Twilight asked, having just dispelled a couple sets of manacles around the Newfoal before them, which allowed it the barest extra inch of wiggle room.

“That was the problem, Twilight!” Celestia gasped, bouncing from side to side on her tip-hooves like a filly who just discovered a new swear word and was itching to try it out. “I was trying to appeal to their good will as ponies, when I should have been appealing to their iron will as humans!”

“Wh-what?”

“I will explain later, just…let me get a good grip…” Celestia trailed off as she eagerly leapt to the Newfoal’s bedside, almost resembling a dog about to play fetch. Her horn ignited as she dug into the creature’s mind, making it go limp almost immediately. Only this time, she wasn’t gentle: she pierced deep into the mind, following the telltale path forged by her doppelganger’s magic, only allowing the sheer, overwhelming power behind it fill her with dread as far as it wouldn’t interfere. That she would turn such power to this… she started, but crushed the thought as she journeyed down so she could focus on the task at hoof.

And just like that, there was a reaction. Something pressed back against her, the mind defending itself, an automated sentry standing guard. Oh, but the power behind that! Yes, this was what she was looking for! The near-invisible tendrils of the human’s mind reached up to her, but instead of recoiling, she grabbed them and flung herself back with all her strength, like a fisherman reeling in the big one. The Newfoal gasped, its back arched where it laid, its eyes widening as it screamed against the gag.

Twilight recoiled, but her magic remained strong, just as she’d been taught. “Princess, what…”

“It’s nothing, Twilight,” Celestia replied, her horn extinguishing as a little smile touched her lips. “Just a mind filling up a body again.” Already, her mind worked, the gears turning, tweaking the spell, making improvements. Yes…this could work…this could make it as easy as…

“Umm…Princess?” Twilight prodded Celestia. Her magic had been extinguished, not that it would be needed for the near-comatose pony on the bed anymore. “We’re here to stop the HLF soldiers, remember?”

“Ah, yes,” Celestia grinned at her. “Terribly sorry, Twilight. It’s been so long since I personally participated in magical research that I forgot how wonderful the rush of discovery can be.”

Twilight smiled sympathetically. “I completely understand, Princess,” she said. A few moments later, gunshots sounded from the lobby below, followed by shouting, as if to punctuate their need to move. Nodding, Celestia joined her student, and they floated down to join in the chaos unfolding under their hooves.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few minutes after the ponies left, Imani pulled herself out from under the bed. Her cheeks were wet with tears and covered in dust, her light burqa was now more of a gray (why did she have to wear the tan one today!?) and her hands were blackened with the dirt off the concrete floor. But she was alive. That’s what mattered at this point, staying alive.

First, she rushed to Redheart’s side. She bit her lip, leaned in close, and let out a sigh of relief as a rush of breath reached her ear. Redheart was still alive, though in pain. Ironically, the only one who might help Redheart now was Redheart herself. Imani didn’t find this little bit of irony very funny.

She turned to look at the Newfoal in the bed, and the catatonic way it stared up into space. “Mama?” She asked, reaching for it, but then pausing. What if the ponies had done something to her? The Newfoals had been driven to violence by ponies before; what if the moment she reached over, those glazed eyes locked on her and the Newfoal snapped its teeth around her hand?

After a moment of indecision, she sighed and just knelt at the bedside. She hadn’t been able to make out what the ponies were talking about, but maybe they could be a blessing in disguise. Maybe the HLF would be so distracted by the ponies they would forget about the Newfoals. Looking subconsciously at her mother’s blank face, she whispered: “If those…those…assholes want to kill each other, then good.”

The Newfoal’s pupils narrowed. Its lips moved. Imani studied its lips. What was it doing? Was it…was it mouthing something? L-language?

Imani’s eyes widened. “M-mama?” She asked, clenching the hoof again without a second thought. Was that…did that just happen? Or was that a hallucination from a desperate mind? No, this was her last chance; her mother had to be in there!

“Mama, you have to wake up,” Imani hissed, taking the creature by its shoulders. Two massive, blank, saucer-plate-like eyes stared back at her. “Mama…mama, please, I don’t wanna lose you, mama…”

“Your mama is gone, little girl,” a deep voice rasped from the door. Imani bolted up, her eyes widening in terror. She turned around slowly, her gaze gradually lifting, taking in the dusty, torn camo, the hairy, calloused hands, the long, raggedy beard, and finally, the rusty machine gun in the hands of the man standing in the doorway.

She sniffled, her eyes blurring with tears. The moment was here, and she wasn’t as ready as she thought she was. “Please…” she whispered.

“Nothing for it, miss,” the man said, his eyes surprisingly gentle. He kept that gentle gaze on her as he stepped into the room, followed by two more armed men in balaclavas. “They’re just not human anymore.” He stepped around her, standing at the Newfoal’s bedside, the machine gun coming out of its crude sling around his shoulder. One of the balaclava-clad men clamped a hard hand on Imani’s shoulder, his gaze boring into the back of her head. She didn’t even look at him, her tear-filled eyes remaining on the Newfoal looking up at the men with stupid curiosity.

“Please,” she asked again.

“It won’t hurt,” the first man said, the rifle rising to his shoulder. “She won’t even feel a thing, I promise.”

The tears flowed freely now, dribbling down her cheeks. She looked at the bed, sniffled as one of the men pulled a pistol from his belt. “Mama...”

A scream filled the room. Imani whipped around in time to discover that Nurse Redheart had woken up, with a vengeance. The pony's teeth were locked around one of the terrorists' hands. Her hat had fallen off and her bun had come undone, her mane cascading around her shoulders and giving her an almost feral look as she glared hatefully into the gunman's face, muzzle scrunching up as her teeth clenched.

The gunman's wails filled the air as he fell back against the wall, shaking his arm violently, trying to just shake her off, but Redheart was locked on like a piranha. Finally, gaining some presence of mind, the man at her mother's bedside strode over, pressed the barrel of his revolver against Redheart's head, and pulled the trigger.

A scream of horror replaced the cries of pain from the gunman. It took a second for Imani to realize the cries were coming from herself. A bit of Redheart's blood spattered against the far wall. Her head bucked to the side with the bullet, but not as violently as Imani thought it would. It could have been a muscle spasm for how violent it was. The pony's eyes went blank and her jaw loosened, her blood coating the tile as her body landed on the ground like a limp sack of potatoes. Her blood blanketed the front of the first terrorist's clothes, his jeans soaked in it as he held up his hand, Redheart's bitemarks obvious in it. And still, were it not for the blood, she would have looked like she'd fallen asleep, as if the gunshot had only scared her.

Somehow, the bloody bitemarks were what made it all real for Imani. Her eyes went back to the bed. All at once, the fear melted away to sheer panic. That was her mother sitting there, the last hope she might ever have of embracing the woman who changed her diapers and wiped away her tears and scrubbed her face clean every night was sitting right there, with a gun being pressed to her head and a finger with a gnarled, yellowing nail squeezing around the trigger.

All thought flew out of her head. She screamed. She struggled against the hand on her shoulder. She clenched at the wrist, not sure what she was trying to do. All of a sudden, the man’s thumb was in her mouth and she was biting down. Hard.

The man’s howls of pain joined her own feral cries, then something collided with the back of her skull, and the panic disappeared under a rush of pain and darkness. She dropped to her knees, her vision rolling in and out of focus, spots gathering in her eyes. Somewhere far away, there was more yelling and screaming. It took a few minutes of listening to half-muffled cries and semi-coherent grunts, but she managed to stumble back from the edge of consciousness and come around without fainting entirely.

“What the fuck, Mo!?” The first man screamed at one of the men in the balaclava. He obviously wasn’t the man who’d been holding her, as the other balaclava-man was in the corner, clenching at his hand and cursing up a storm. “What the actual fuck!? You just hit a little girl!”

“She was assaulting Jaul!” The other man screamed, levelling a finger at his partner who still cradled his hand, blood running through his fingers.

“Oh yeah, great defense! Assaulting a little girl because she, an unarmed prepubescent, attacked a heavily-armed veteran for the cause!”

“Kids can still be dangerous!”

“She was unarmed, damn you! Just like the pony, you trigger-happy fuckhead!”

“You little cunt!” A new voice rose over the other two, and all three human sets of eyes turned on the man cradling his hand, tears standing in his eyes as he stormed up to where Imani laid. Before anybody could react, she saw the way his shoulder twisted, his hip pivoted, one heavily-booted foot rearing back for a kick aimed at her head. She held her hands up on instinct, a cry locked in her throat before it could even make it out. Once again, she prayed to her old God for deliverance, less a coherent set of words in her mind than an impulse: a desperate cry for help that she was growing too weary to even hope that might be heard.

As the steel-toed boot reared back, the man was knocked to the side by a powder-blue blast of energy that sent him sprawling head-first against the far wall. The other humans in the room stood in shocked silence, then turned to the Newfoal in the bed. Gone was the blank look, the stained bedsheet draped over her waist. In its place was a pony rearing up on its hind hooves, her face a mask of pure rage. With a cry, she turned her horn on the remaining pair of men, sending them flying back in short order, both too stunned to even raise the weapons in their hands.

With all three dispatched, the pony still stood there, panting heavily, her teeth clenching, her shoulders rising and falling. “Don’t you dare touch my children, you filthy bastards,” it hissed.

Imani slowly climbed to her feet, her eyes almost as wide as the pony’s. Instantly, the Newfoal’s gaze softened, looking the girl over. “Habibi, are you hurt? Did they hurt you anywhere?”

Shaking her head, Imani slowly stepped towards the creature. “M-mama?”

With tears growing in her eyes, the Newfoal smiled. “I’m right here, baby. I’m right here.”

More certainly happened after that, between the military men retaking the building and the discovery that the Newfoals weren’t quite so Newfoalish anymore and Imani going home that night to tell her brother and sisters that their mother…their real mother…was well and truly back, but Imani would never be bothered to recall any of it later. She'd just know that, thanks to Redheart's sacrifice, her mother was back, and she was never letting her go again.

Author's Notes:

Just a quick reminder that dialogue in italics is in a language other than English.