Chapter 22: The Incredibly Dark Machinations of Spike the Dragon and an Evil Insect Overlord

Okay so, Shining Armor, Flash Sentry, Spike and me walk into a cave with Twilight, Sunset and Cadence, along with the captain of the crystal guard.

No, it’s not the beginning of a joke, it’s my life. It just sounds like a joke. Especially when the captain of the crystal guard was that same ass of a crystal pony that was standing behind me and barking orders all during brunch turned out to be named Twinkling Guardian. But…when your life sounds like the beginning of a joke, and a bad one at that, you tend to get very pissed off angry sad depressed irritable.

And yes, that’s an emotion.

I mean hell. Can you blame me? I had just put up with a week of dealing with Twilight’s obsessive compulsiveness that even managed to overpower her alicorn-sized nymphomania. Then got stuck in the middle of the worst room in Equestria while she just trotted off to play with her Big-Sister-in-law-Best-Friend-Forever. On top of which, the freaking pony goddess of love that had kind of forced me into a relationship with Twilight in the first place after the purple pony princess kind of um…dragged me into her bed at the end of our third time together despite it being only our first official date and did what came naturally…to ponies that walked around naked all the time, was constantly giving me this knowing look that was way to Tia for my taste.

Anyway, after flipping this switch in some obscure room, the guy named Twinkling and Shiny led us down into what was apparently some maze of hidden caverns beneath the Crystal Palace. I let Captain Red Shirt go first, but pulled Shining Armor aside and slowed my pace down to talk with him and make sure Twilight’s big brother didn’t get caught in whatever trap the wannabe background pony would hopefully trigger. Plus, I actually did have some legitimate questions to ask when the unicorn next to me gave a kind of complaint that I had been missing.

“You know, if Twily wanted some family bonding, we could have just gone to the hoofball game they were holding today in the stadium.”

Ignoring my need to ask about the games ponies played since Rainbow had kind of filled me in on pegasus sports, I focused more on the tunnels we were being forced to walk down thanks to the well-meaning but still pretty annoying alicorn. “So um…how exactly did you guys find all this in the first place?” I asked.

Shining looked over to me and smiled. “Well…Twilight came to visit me a few months ago when Cadence was away on business,” he began. “There were some missing books and reports of a ghost, so the two of us went to check it out and found that the books were being stolen by a creature called a crystal bard, which everypony thought was a ghost.”

A slight continuity error crept up in my head. “Uh Shiny? The guy for yesterday didn’t look so…ghostly, or creature-ish.”

“Oh no, the bard left weeks ago to take a look around Equestria,” Shining explained. “But he was pretty popular so, we have ponies that are good at telling stories still do recitals and book readings. The Crystal Empire is still kind of traditional like that.”

Then the only other real guy of the group besides myself, since Flash Sentry didn’t count and anything that sparkles when exposed to sunlight like a crystal pony didn’t deserve the title of man, cleared his throat. “Um look…Cadence said you were a little upset with how everything happened yesterday.”

I groaned at the reminder. Still, I really didn’t want to get on the nerves of the only other guy in the room. Cadence would probably have probably jump me the second I was clear of her husband, and not in the good way with the hot and passionate sex. So I choked down my indignation and told him, “It’s fine,” as evenly as I could.

“No, it’s not,” he replied softly. “You have given my sister real happiness, and saved her life and…I’m sorry that I let a bunch of…politics dictate how I should have treated a friend.”

God damnit, I thought to myself as my feelings of rigorous indignation started to slide further away from the right side of the feelings scale, and to the more petty ones. At least when it came to Shining and Cadence. I was still plenty pissed at Twilight thanks to the week of nothing and Spike.

“But Twilight! Just look at it! It’s not even a real pony!” the dragon’s voice carried through the cavern. “How can you possibly think you belong together?”

At that point, the entire group just turned around and looked back at Spike. The dragon just blinked at all the attention and sudden loss of motion. But it was Twilight that said that was probably on all our minds. “Seriously?”

Spike just blinked. “What?”

“Great Spike! The changeling must be controlling them!” Flash Sentry said as he crouched down. “Just give the word mighty one. I’m ready to run away at any time!”

A groan came from Twilight and she trotted ahead to catch up with me and Shiny while Cadence stepped in to start trying her luck with talking with the boy. “So Spike, ummm…how’re your friends in Canterlot doing?” the goddess of love that obviously had no idea what to ask the dragon…well, asked.

“They’re okay.”

I stumbled at hearing that, and looked over to the whiney dragon expert of the group, my abandonment issues forgotten for the moment. “Spike has friends in Canterlot?” Took me a lot to say those last two words.

Hell, I was surprised to hear Spike had friends, Period!

The look Twilight gave me spoke tons about how surprised she was at the question. “You didn’t know that?” she asked with wide eyes. “He goes up to visit them about once every week or so and get some business in Canterlot done for me.”

And yet, when someone new moved into Twilight’s life, he still got all bratty little brother. I wondered if it was some dragon thing and he was trying to horde Twilight. I hadn’t exactly seen a stallion around any of the girls either aside from Blueblood at the Gala. Sure there was the whole female-centric population thing, but considering how amazing the girls looked and were, I would have thought there was at least one stallion who chased after a Mane 6 filly.

Then I remember just who I was talking to and that I was supposed to be mad at her, and looked on ahead into the cavern. The Crystal Caverns beneath the Crystal Palace were…well…full of crystals. So much so that there were times when I had trouble not thinking I’d wandered into Superman’s fortress of solitude. Sure, there was plenty of normal things like rocks and dirt, but the crystal content of the caves never dropped below forty-percent, and in some places the unicorns had to turn down the horns in order to keep the light from getting to blinding levels.

As for the path, it was pretty straight forward. Well, there were a few twists and turns, but it was extremely obvious that the way we went was the only way to go. Other pathways had ground that was way too uneven to be used by a pony, were too small, or were actually closed off by ancient-looking boards that made the place look a little too much like a mine.

Which, considering the makeup of the Crystal Palace, it probably was.

So, surrounded by the junk and next to an encyclopedia with four legs, I couldn’t help but ask. “What is up with all the crystals anyway? We have a castle of crystals above us, tons of them down here… I know Equestria is full of gems to the point of ridiculousness, but I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to use them for the main building material in a castle.”

“Actually the majority of the Crystal Empire’s capital city is made of crystal,” Twilight told me as she became a little brighter. “It’s not just the palace, but most of the roads too.”

That rather useless bit of information that didn’t answer my question at all helped me grab some more anger and reminded me I was still supposed to be mad at the ex-unicorn. “You mean they walk on the stuff? That’s stupid.” Not to mentioning inane, insane, and overly costly. I knew asphalt and horse hooves didn’t mix too well, but they could have used something that wouldn’t shatter.

Shining Armor looked back at me for a second, and then to Twilight, who slumped a little before he answered my question. “Not really. The whole city is a giant magical amplification matrix tied to the Crystal Heart at the base of the palace. Without it, the heart wouldn’t have the reach it does to keep the weather at bay over the outlying farms.”

And with that explanation, our little conversation died a quick death. I was glad of it to.

At least until Twilight opened her mouth again as she turned back to look at the dragon. “You know Spike, I bet Fae would love to hear about your life in Canterlot.”

“Feh, so it can send one of its changelings to replace me,” Spike told her.

I growled at the several things wrong with that statement. “It doesn’t work that way you idiot.”

Twilight shot me a glare. “Fairy!”

You know those times when you say something you don’t really mean to because of a bunch of raging emotions that just won’t clear out so you can think properly and your mouth just moves faster than your brain can think? I walked right into one of those situations.

“What?” I demanded loud enough to make the cave ask that question itself a few times. “I haven’t done anything to him, and give you a bag of gems every night to take home for his dinner because I don’t know what else to do other than sell the things! I have barely said ten words to him a day since I got to Ponyville, and never harmed a hair on his head, and yet I’m the bad guy after he sics a whole bucking city on me! I’m the one that has to make the effort to be friends or something when, to be quite honest, I don’t give much of a buck about it! And you know what else? I told you and Spike that message the other night because-Gah!”

I stumbled forward when something impacted one of my back legs at the joint and sent me sliding to the ground.

“Sunset!” Twilight yelled.

“My foot slipped,” the human replied before I started to pick myself up, and felt the only fingers in Equestria grab my horn while I was trying to get up.

A frown crossed my face. “You really shouldn’t do that.”

Sunset let out a snort. “No way I’m letting you get off a spell to pants me in revenge or something,” the teenager told me. “Now-OW!”

The teen quickly removed her hand, and I let out a sigh before elaborating a bit too late. “No, it’s because the crookedness of my horn is all kinds of sharp and you might cut your hand.”

I took a look around to see our entire dungeon party had stopped and were looking at me with some nervous expressions while Sunset inspected her palm. Then my soft-spot for the teenager kicked in and I let out a sight before doing my best to check over her injury. It was pretty impossible seeing as how she topped me by the better part of two feet though. “You okay?”

“It’s just a scratch,” she replied.

Cadence came trotting over a second later. “Let me take a look at it,” she said before looking at the rest of the group. “You all go on ahead. We’ll catch up as soon as I heal Sunset.”

Once again, Twilight gave me one of her hurt and kind of guilty looks that threw some water on the fires of anger burning inside of me, and I grimaced. Why me? I asked myself. I mean, was it too much to ask that the pony I was mad at remain in a state that allowed me to stay mad at her?

“Cadence,” Sunset spoke. “I was never an alicorn, but I was around Princess Celestia enough to know that you need to have a good working knowledge of the creature you're trying to heal for that magic to work, or something to go off of like traces of previous healings. And I don’t think you’ve run into too many humans.”

The alicorn nodded. “You’re right, but now we’ve got Fae alone where she isn’t going to be just teleporting away from our conversation thanks to crystal interference.”

I frowned at the damn alicorn. Ponies may have sucked when it came to deviousness, but they sure as hell were an opportunistic bunch of bastards. “I hate you both so much right now.”

“You can ignore that,” the human told Cadence before she looked down at me with a frown. “And you! You can’t seriously want to break up with Twilight because of…what the hell is it that she did again?”

I frowned back Sunset, my anger unable to rise because I kept looking back to her injured hand and how it was actually dripping blood. “You sure you don’t need to get that looked at? At least bandage the stupid thing.”

A snort from the human told me what she thought of that idea. “What with? My shirt?” she asked with a frown. “Now answer the question.”

“Oh come on, you were there for most of it…at the end of the day I mean,” I grumbled at the end. “Celestia put in her stupid request, and Twilight just jumped at the chance to be useful to her again. She shoved everything else to the side for a pat on the head. And you know, I might actually be able to understand that, except for when Rainbow needed support, she threw it all out the window!”

Cadence let out a little snicker, and then managed a laugh. “And you’re complaining about that, why exactly?”

I rolled my eyes at the alicorn’s words. “That’s not a problem at all! Hay, I’m glad she went! But as soon as we got back I was out in the cold and then she just throws everything aside again to go visit you!”

“Like you told her to do?” Sunset asked with a much too smarmy smirk.

The question made me opened my mouth…and…that was as far as I could get. “Uh…well…”

Cadence let out another chuckle. “And you wouldn’t believe how many times I basically heard Twilight tell me how thankful she is that you were willing to sacrifice your time together so she could come here.”

My ears heard the word of the pony…

“I…wait…what?”

…and got all confused.

Especially when she let out another laugh. “Well, from what Twilight says, this entire trip was your idea,” Cadence told me. “As was having her spend the whole day with me…even though Shiny tagged along.”

Then the goddess of love let out a long sigh. “What happened to you yesterday was a tragedy, and shameful to me but…did Twilight have anything to do with it?”

As my mind went over the events of the previous day, I…couldn’t really find something to put any real blame on her for. Even the whole hour-long wait was more Cadence’s fault than anyone else’s and she had already apologized for that so much that I kind of had a hard time being mad at her for it. She hadn’t known I was locked in a damn room after all.

Not to mention I knew about Twilight’s single-mindedness when there was a task placed in front of her. She tended to ignore everything else unless someone came and got her, and even then, they needed to grab her attention first.

But I wasn’t about to just lose an argument with a freaking pink pony princess. “Yeah, well…um…she could have…done something…with me…at least once during the week.”

Sunset snorted. “Oh quit being a little bitch and man up,” she grumbled. “If you want to spend some time with your girlfriend, then actually put some effort into spending some time with her instead of just bitching when she makes time for someone else. Like you fucking told her to!”

To that argument, I could back down. It wasn’t fair arguing with Sunset anyway. She didn’t have any magical powers or four legs so…I needed to let her win.

I sighed in defeat and hung my head. “It’s not your fault for the guards Cadence,” I admitted slowly. “You didn’t make them all hate me.” For that, I blamed Spike.

In fact, everything that had happened since the trip had started was Spike’s fault. The guards, the rather annoying crowd, the getting locked in a room for most of the day instead of having time to study the crystal mirror and bond with Twilight, hell even the fight on the train was due to the dragon’s hypocrisy in blaming Sunset for what she did while transformed.

Twilight was just…in the wrong place at the wrong time. A poor, innocent pony that had been lured into my crosshairs by chance while the real villain of the story sat in the background, using me as a tool to break her heart. Hell, doing so would have even played right into his hands!

His little clawed hands.

Hell, Spike wanted me to breakup with Twilight! And if I did that then…

I couldn’t even finish the thought.

In fact, the more I thought about it, all the problems in the relationship between me and Twilight went back to Spike.

He apparently badmouthed me when I wasn’t around to anyone who would listen.

He made Twilight come home every night so we couldn’t sleep together.

He refused to live in the castle with me and the other changelings.

As the three strikes added up, I slowly turned my vengeful sights away from the poor purple pony princess that was just an innocent tool, and focused them towards the dark serpent that had attempted to manipulate me into doing something foolish. For that, he would pay. Pay dearly!

“Uh oh,” I heard Sunset mumble, which brought me out of images that had the little dragon roasting on a spit and made me look up at her. “You got that…sinister look in your eyes again.”

I curved my lips upwards in a smile. “Oh don’t worry. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Now you just look even scarier,” the human continued.

Cadence let out a nervous laugh. “Oh it’s the fangs. And well…she or…he…what are you anyway? Twilight and Auntie mentioned some sort of gender confusion, but they seemed pretty confused about a lot of things themselves when it came down to it.”

The question lot a long groan out of me. “Technically, I’m neither…or both, depending on how you want to look at it,” I told her. “And to be honest…I’ve kind of gotten used to being called a girl.” It only bothered me half the time.

“That just makes it more confusing,” the alicorn grumbled.

Then I put on my brightest face and trotted forward. “Well come on girls, we gotta hurry and catch-up to Twilight and the others.”

Of course the two girls kept talking to me for the ten whole minutes it took for us to find the main group. As it turned out, they hadn’t really gotten all that further ahead of us. This was probably because of the giant arch of obsidian in front of a rather large opening that led to well…

Imagine the Temple of Doom, or at least that one scene where Indy is hiding up on a ledge and sees the big room with the demonic statue and giant human skull between its legs. Now imagine that whole place redesigned by the pony version of Hitler, that apparently knew what demonic beings really looked like and decorated to suit the tastes of monsters that took joy out of causing pain and suffering by putting some 3D art on the walls.

Like the entrance, the entire cavern was just a mass of black crystalline rock with murals along the walls depicting various creatures that looked so inhuman I didn’t even know what to call them, or if they could even move around at all since most of them didn’t seem to even have legs. Although what was really creepy were the pictures that looked vaguely familiar, monsters from various religions, fantasy novels, and a bunch of other crap that just shouldn’t be.

The big monsters that just looked icky were one thing…but the crap that my mind could make a connection to from some old horror story? That actually sent a chill down my spine because of the possibility of them being real in one form or another. I couldn’t really argue with the possibility of their existence either. I had been reborn into My Little Pony after all, so all the dark monsters from my childhood’s imagination could have very well been waiting out there in the winds somewhere in one form or another.

Then, just to add to the creepiness, the unicorn part of me got that faint tingle that just screamed out the entire fucking cave was one giant, magical artifact that was just waiting to be used. On top of which, there was also a bit more ominous feeling coming from a bright red gem on top of the entrance that just screamed ‘DANGER’ and ‘FUCK OFF’.

“Okay so…big spooky cave great find guys, perfect bonding experience Twilight,” I told the purple alicorn as I walked up to her and put a foreleg across her back. “I feel closer to you than ever. Now let’s get the buck out of here.”

Spike let out a snort. “What’s a matter, you scared?”

I frowned at the dragon that was currently cowering behind a pair of royal guards, then made sure Twilight wasn’t looking at me when I shot him a sneer.

Beside me, Shining Armor took a step forward. “This place feels even worse than Sombra’s black magic library. We still haven’t mapped out the tunnels and entrances, so somepony could find another one and wander down here and disrupt something.”

The sheer impossibly of that made me roll my eyes. I had actually skimmed Sombra’s book on demonic magic and knew all the rules involved with the damn things, and it was a pretty complicated process that no one could just stumble into unless they had the worst luck possible. “Okay, what kind of pony could possibly…” I managed to say before my own imagination rebelled against me.

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER CTHULHU CALLERS, YAY!” three little fillies cheered as the dark god rose from the deeps to devour us all.

“…never mind,” I mumbled before I cleared that rather disturbing thought from my head. “Okay so…how exactly are we going to do this?”

Shining gave me an odd look, then turned his attention back to the arch. “Well, first we need to get past that.” He pointed up to the glowing red gem. “It looks a bit more dangerous than Sombra’s usual security measures. After that, we just go in and smash the arcane symbols carved into the dark crystals. That should disable any hope of it being used to...do whatever its supposed to.”

I sighed at the overly dangerous plan. “Can’t we just collapse the tunnel with our magic. I mean, we got you, me and two alicorns with us. I’m pretty sure we can handle a bunch of rocks.”

“The entire cavern is lined with unfocused magic amplification and transmission crystals Fae,” Twilight explained as she cut in. “If we use destructive magic around it…well, I don’t want to think what would happen to all the ponies above us. Even moving things with our magic could be dangerous.”

Of course Spike took that opportunity to get in his jab too. “See Twilight! That changeling doesn’t care about anypony! It’s probably going to come back here when we’re and blow us all up!”

My hoof shook as I restrained myself from just knocking the hell out of the little bastard. I had dealt with brats before plenty of times in my former life after all, I just had to get used to it again.

Twinkle let out a grunt from behind me, and I turned around to glare at him while Shiny went to get a closer look at the arch. “Don’t worry Sir Spike, I’ll have guards posted at all the known entrances to make sure the creature doesn’t try anything.”

I groaned and looked over to Cadence. “How exactly did this idiot get the job of guard captain anyway?”

The idiot in question stomped his hoof on the ground. “I was the leader of the Crystal Resistance when King Sombra held power over the Empire!”

“So, you were the leader of the Loser Brigade,” I surmised before my nastiness reared it’s head. “Tell me, how did it feel when my mother came here and took you all down in, what? Three seconds? Hay, the Hive operated in the Empire for weeks, right under your nose, walked right up to the Crystal Heart multiple times as tourists and everything.”

As I watched the other pony practically seethe with anger, Twilight poked me in the shoulder. “Fairy, stop it.”

I looked over to Twilight with a glare. “I get locked in a room while Sunset starves for a day, and I’m supposed to just drop it?” I snarled. “Why the hay should I?”

Twilight’s ears wilted, and that whole guilt thing kicked me in the gut, which took the wind out of my sails for a moment. “Sorry,” I managed before the fucking dragon cut in and kept me from going on.

“No you’re not!” Spike yelled. “See Twilight, that’s what its really like!”

“EVERYPONY JUST BE QUIET!” Twilight shouted before I felt a bit of magic clamp down on my mouth.

Then she glared at me. “Just because somepony is being mean to you doesn’t mean you can be mean back to them!”

And then Twilight turned to Spike. “And I’m tired of hearing this from you! I invited the two of you along so you could learn to get along! Not so you could antagonize her!”

“And you!” Twilight exclaimed as she looked over to the guard. “How dare you talk to my friend that way!”

A burst of magic from my own horn dispelled Twilight’s magic, and I glared at the purple pony. “So, now I can’t even defend myself when-”

“Wait a second,” Shining’s voice cut in. “Omnifarious, use your magic again.”

I poked my head out of the fatal-four way of an argument that was about to build into an all-out brawl, and just charged my horn with magic while Captain Douchebag tried to get in the last word.

“You do not give orders to me little filly. I was commanding the battle against darkness before your great-grandfather was even born!”

Cadence’s voice rang out. “But I do Captain! And if you ever speak to my little sister like that again, they’ll be calling you Private Twinkling Guardian!”

“Feh, the ponies of the Crystal Empire would never allow such a thing!” the guard’s voice rang out. “I fought against both Sombra and the bugs while all you did was hold up the crystal heart that our hero delivered, and ran away when we were in true danger from the changelings.”

My mood soured even more at hearing that news. “Why in the hay did you give that idiot such authority anyway?” I asked the white stallion.

Shining let out a tired sigh. “It’s complicated,” he mumbled while I just gave him a look that said he needed to uncomplicated it. “Look, although the Crystal Empire is part of Equestria, after Sombra took over, a lot of the crystal ponies felt betrayed by the Princesses when Celestia and Luna didn’t immediately come to their rescue. In fact, Sombra was in control for years before they did. Then there was the whole thousand years of banishment and…there’s a lot of resentment towards the alicorns, especially since the royal family had always been unicorns.”

That peeked my interest. “So, the Crystal Empire was always ruled by unicorns?” I asked. “I thought Sombra just showed up and took the place over or something.”

“No,” Shining Armor replied. “Sombra really was the rightful ruler by inheritance. But then he turned to black magic and…I’m sure you know the rest of that story. But with everything that happened, a lot of the nobles are grumbling about how the rest of Equestria has abandoned them because we didn’t do anything to try and bring the Empire back sooner, and now they’ve got a new alicorn princess that’s...um... Look, there’s some uproar about how a crystal pony should be in charge of crystal ponies despite them being a millennia out of date with everything.” He let out a disgruntled sigh. “Seriously, we just got plumbing installed in the city last month…it really helped with Cadence’s popularity too.”

I nodded, then looked back at the guard captain with a frown for a minute. “And I can take a guess at who would be taking control of the Empire if a crystal pony was put in charge.”

Shiney moved his head in confirmation before he looked back at the arch. “So, going by some of Sombra’s previous enchantments…I think I’ve figured this one out. It’s designed to only let ponies like Sombra come and go as they please. If not…” The unicorn levitated a bit of non magical rock up from the ground and threw it into the archway.

There was a bright red flash as dozens of beams of red light shot from the arch. Dust landed on the other side.

“Well that’s just great,” I grumbled. “If it only let’s Sombra through and flash fries everything else, how in the hay are we supposed to get in? I take it teleportation isn’t an option?” I remembered it didn’t work to well when Twilight tried it on Sombra’s last security system.

Shining shook his head. “I said ponies like Sombra. As in male unicorns powered by dark magic.”

It took about three seconds for me to catch on to what Shiny-hiney was talking about. “Oh…okay then.”

I looked the unicorn over for a bit and sampled his aura. A few seconds later, and I was the spitting image of Shining Armor. After I gave myself a quick once-over, noticing how handsome I looked now with my righteous physique and…quickly realized I was kind of checking out Twilight’s brother with a bit of revulsion. Oh…damn you Celestia.

Pony girls were bad enough. I did NOT need to know what was hot, and what was not when it came to the stallions.

And then I felt the other thing I had been lacking for the past long while, other three things really. Having a manhood again was…comforting, awkward, and a little alien all at the same time. I mean, yeah they were guy parts, but they were pony guy parts. Years and years of experience and nightly reinforcement as a guy actually made me feel a little awkward about having pony junk again.

Oh God…did I just think it was weird to have a freaking penis? I asked myself with a shudder. If it wasn’t for the fact that the hive would have killed me if I went and did the permanent male transformation mess-up thing Twilight had created out of fear of me never being able to lay eggs, I would have gone female alicorn and demanded Twilight use her gender-bender magic on me right then and there.

“Um, you okay?” Shining asked.

I coughed. “Sorry, it’s been awhile since I’ve been a stallion. Trying to enjoy it a little.”

Shining laughed. “That’s right, you two don’t…” He looked back to the other group that was still arguing, albeit softly.

“But Twilight, Flash Sentry! You liked him just fine months ago, and now you don’t! That’s proof that you’re being controlled!” Spike went on.

Once again, I felt the need to just bitch slap the dragon across the face and repressed it. If the little bastard kept going on like that, I might just find myself actually mind raping the girl when her guard was down, and then ordering her to throw Spike out on the street and forget about him.

Oh how tempting it was.

Twilight groaned. “I never liked Flash Sentry, Spike,” she said before glancing over to the pegasus for a second. “No offense Flash.”

“Yes you did!” Spike countered.

“No I didn’t!”

As the battle between brother and sister degenerated, I looked back to the elder of Twilight’s siblings. “Hey you know Spike. Any idea of how I’m suppose to get him off my back about this whole thing?”

Shining frowned. “I thought that’s what this was supposed to do. Make you two friends or something.”

“For that to happen, I actually have to want to be friends with him,” I grumbled while I looked back at the serpent. “Considering he hasn’t been all that inviting with me, and this little stunt he’s pulled with the guard. It’s not really helping up my want to be friends all that much either.” Hell, I had killed a dragon for less than what Spike was doing and mounted its damn head on my wall.

Can you two please just get this over with so we can get the hell out of here?”

Sunset’s request that came from the girl as she walked up to the two of us put my mind back on track and I groaned and walked forward. A small tingle of magic in the air had me a little nervous…but since I didn’t feel any mystical pressure building around me that would have signaled a trap, I kept going until I was in the center of the arch.

A wave of magic hit me, and I tense before I realized what was going on. The doorway’s magic read my own, and after a second, linked with me to ask for instructions. About two seconds after the whole process started, the arch shut down from my mental commands, and I walked into Sombra’s Temple of Doom remake to take a real look around while dropping my unicorn disguise.

Apart from the murals and statue at the back that I had caught sight of before, I noticed the whole place was covered with faint indentations that were too perfectly sunken to be natural. A closer inspection showed me a few of the markings were alike and I put two and two together. “So the whole floor is covered with some kind of writing. Doesn’t look Equestrian though.”

Ponies wrote in some kind of horse-language cursive. What I was looking at was a standalone letter system, or some type of runes. Which was odd considering Twilight never mentioned any kind of magic like that in all our talks on the matter during my first few weeks in Ponyville when I practically grilled her on it.

“Let me take a look,” Sunset said as she stepped forward.

“NO! YOU MUST NOT LET THE DEMON INTO THE CHAMBER! STOP HER!”

“Do something Flash!” Spike cried out.

I looked up just in time to see Captain Edward Cullen break away from his argument with Cadence to give his stupid order, and Flash Sentry leapt to obey the dragon on his back while Twilight let out a surprised squawk when Spike landed on her and they both went while tumbling out of the way before Flash Sentry heroically rammed into a teenage girl as she turned around and put her arms up in defense fast enough to send her flying a good seven to ten feet further into the room, slam onto the floor, and slide all the way to the altar while leaving a trail of blood behind her.

The sight made me freeze.

“Alright Flash you did it!” Spike cheered. “See Twilight! All they wanted was to get to Sombra’s magic and…” Spike said some other crap to Twilight about how he was right and kept his mistrust, and followed his instincts just like she did during the wedding, and some other shit. I really didn’t give a damn at that moment.

All my attention was on the redhead laying on the ground with her mouth open trying to breathe while she clutched at herself, and the trail of blood that sliding across unforgiving rock had left behind.

In my life, I had seen people get hurt before. Really hurt. Even experienced such pain myself a few times back when I worked with horses and got kicked hard enough to break bone. It’s not like stubbing your toe where there’s this rush of pain and you hop around for a bit until its gone.

Getting really hurt, doesn’t really hurt that much. Not at first anyway. The human body just kind of freezes up as the brain gets all these sensations and blinked before muttering ‘Holy shit, am I really that fucked up?’ double checks everything, and then nods to itself before sending over to the conscious parts of the mind to let you know just how bad things are.

For Sunset, there was no cries of pain or anything, not at first. The blow from the pegasus, which had to have been close to a car going fifty if that lighting bolt on the soon to be crippled pegasus’s butt was any indication, had knocked the wind out of her. So she was both trying to scream and drag in breath at the same time, which made it sound more like she was half-choking on something.

“OH BE QUIET SPIKE!” Twilight roared at her little brother. “This! You’re saying that you’re happy about THIS?”

I was by Sunset’s side in an instant. The sight of the numerous cuts and blood running down her back made me wince, but I did my best to hide in and looked into the girl’s eyes while trying to sound as reassuring as I could. “It’s okay Sunset. It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

The girl let out a tiny whine and curled up into a ball. As much as I hated to admit it, I was glad for it. Being hit with a flying pegasus and landing on her back could have easily done some serious damage of the paralyzing kind. But I wasn’t stupid enough to think she had gotten away without some major damage of some sort.

“It hurts,” she managed to get out in another tiny cry of pain.

“What the buck do you think you’re doing Captain?” Shining demanded.

“Finishing the job! I won’t see the Crystal Empire fall to the monsters, NOT AGAIN!” the crystal pony shouted.

The words of the crystal pony made me look up in time to see him leap at Shining Armor, and then I remembered the presence of the other member of the crystal guard that was in the room with me. The pony that had hurt Sunset in the first place.

I looked upon the pegasus’s paling face, a target for all my rage and hatred that had been building up for the past several days. He must have felt it, because Flash Sentry immediately went to cowering when I focused my attention on him. I wanted to kill him. I even knew how I was going to do it. I would rip off his wings, gouge out his eyes with his own feathers, and snap his other limbs with telekinesis before I drained him as dry as I could then left him on the ground while I wanted to see what would kill him first: the loss of his wings, some kind of internal damage, or if he would make it all the way to starvation while I laughed at his suffering.

But…none of that would have helped Sunset.

And there was a much bigger pony than me who had an even greater claim on Flash Sentry’s hide than I did for his assault on her daughter. Revenge would be her job.

Mine was to make sure Sunset lasted that long. And for that I needed help.

I looked up as Shining Armor wrapped the guard captain in an almost opaque amount of magical energy that seemed closer to his shield spell than normal unicorn telekinesis. “You aren’t laying a single hoof on anypony!”

“TWILIGHT! CADENCE! SUNSET NEEDS HELP!” I called out to the two alicorns that came running as soon as I uttered her name, leaving the dragon in the dust.

Twilight winced when she came in and looked around. “Is that…blood?”

I glanced over to Cadence. “Is there anything you can do?”

“I told you healing magic doesn’t just work like that. She needs a doctor,” the alicorn said before she looked down at the girl. “Or a…vet. I’m sorry, it’s just, I doubt a normal doctor has much experience treating monkeys.”

Twilight gulped down her shock a second later and looked down at the girl. “Sunset, I’m going to use a full body paralysis field. It will keep you from moving and being jostled just, please straighten out. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay curled up like that.”

“SENTRY, FINISH THE MONSTER OFF!” Twinkling shouted from inside Shining’s magical hold.

I glared at the pegasus as he backed up all the way to the end of the room. “Please try it, please just give me an excuse to rip something off.”

“Fairy we have to go now!” Twilight ordered rather loudly in my ear.

The demand go a frown from me. “What? Why me?”

“Because you’re the only one of us who knows anything about human anatomy!” Twilight exclaimed.

A second later I was following her out the door while Shining tossed the captain of his guard into the obsidian room with the pegasus a second before entrance was surrounded by one of his shields. “Since I can’t risk carrying either of you through the caverns with all the crystals, I’ll be back with a detail of guards to escort the two of you to a cell. Until then, enjoy your accommodations.”

The three of us didn’t get very far past the stallion before Spike jumped out to bar our way with his tearful eyes. “Twilight wait-”

I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. “WHAT? Are you still going go on about how evil we are NOW THAT YOU GOT EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED?” I demanded to the cowering child’s face.

“Fairy-”

At my name, I turned to glare at the purple alicorn. “If you dare try and defend him after this-”

“No, but Sunset needs help now! We don’t have time for this,” she told me before getting past me.

I let out a growl of a sigh, and followed.

Judging by the sounds coming from behind us on the way out, Shining picked up the boy.

Two hours after we exited the crystal caverns, I found myself looking over Sunset while she was laying in a quick mishmash of three pony hospital beds that provided for her extra size and height. By the random chance fate thing of Equestria, she had managed to avoid getting any actual broken bones from being hit with a flying pegasus. Although, her back was a mass of scrapes and cuts that was covered by one gigantic bandage. Of course her front wasn’t much better. Some of Sunset’s ribs had been cracked by the impact and one of her arms had begun to show a very purple bruise where Flash had hit her.

But according to the vet, Sunset life wasn’t in any real danger. Although we turned down the offering of her shots, a flee bath, and spaying before I threw the idiot out the nearest door. Thankfully, he had already doped Sunset up and put her to sleep.

“This is all my fault.”

I reached over with my darkly colored and once again feathered wing of pseudo-alicorn disguise-ness to wrap it around the purple pony sitting next to me along with a foreleg and pulled Twilight close. After bringing her head in underneath my own, I stroked her hair using my fetlock and gently hushed her.

It kind of hit me that even after all the crap that had happened, I still couldn’t stand to see her sad. “Oh no Twilight no. It’s not your fault,” I told the little pony princes before I took off the kid gloves of the family VS relationship conflict. “It’s Spike’s.”

As far as Spike was concerned, he had lost that whole right of me not putting myself between Twilight and her family. After this, I was going to take Twilight away from him, and laugh in his face as I did.

Me and Twilight would work through this whole…dead relationship time…thing, and grow closer and more loving and all that.

And every step closer together would take us further away from him.

Twilight flinched in my pony-arms. “Fae…he…”

When the girl couldn’t bring up a counter-argument, I pushed her away slightly, and switched to holding her by the shoulders and looked into the alicorn’s big purple eyes. “Don’t you dare say he didn’t mean for this to happen, because this is the only way his little…whatever the buck he’s planning could have gone, if not worse. Humans are extremely fragile compared to ponies, and we got lucky!”

“I just don’t understand what’s wrong with him,” Twilight said as she looked at the ground. “This...this isn’t the Spike I know and love.”

I grit my teeth and forced myself not to shout. “The same thing that was wrong with the whole of Ponyville on Nightmare Night. Only this time, it’s not a reformed goddess that can defend herself from pretty much anything, but a frightened little girl that is getting guilt-tripped enough by her own conscience.”

Twilight sunk down even more, and I pulled her in for another hug.

It lasted for about a minute before the door to Sunset’s hospital room banged open and Cadence ran in with a slightly worried look on her face. That broke our little embrace, and kind of made me a little worried. “Twilight, um…Auntie Celestia is here with Princess Luna and your friends.”

The news pulled the two of us apart, and Twilight looked over to Cadence with a frown. “They’re what?” Twilight asked before she let out a groan. “Oh right, tonight’s our weekly meet-up for dinner. I can’t believe I forgot about that.”

Cadence frowned at us, and I could Smell her confusion mouth. “Dinner? But she said-”

“Yes,” Twilight replied with a sigh. “Princess Celestia wants us all to meet up for a meal once a week. The first one was actually…well, it kind of fell through when Rarity ended up needing help with her work. But then the princess brought us over to help with the sewing and everything ended up being pretty…fun, actually.”

The stomp of a hoof on the floor cut into Twilight’s giggling before it really began. “Twilight! Celestia says she’s here for a princess summit and mentioned some project the two of you were working on.”

“WHAT?” Twilight shouted right next to my ear, getting a wince out of me while she went on. “T-That can’t be right! I’m not finished, nowhere near finished reviewing all the data! It’s going to take me months to go over all the records from the major cities! How could she possibly think I’m ready now?”

Before the alicorn could really get into her hyperventilation, I cleared my throat. “Um…right about that,” I cut in before telling her what was going on. I left out the part where I had only done it to show Twilight up in front of Celestia thanks to an angry rage being locked in a little room by the crystal guard had put me in. Instead I just went with, “I’m sorry if you're angry or something but…I just got so tired of being shoved aside every day for a bunch of stupid papers and your bucking project for Princess Celestia.”

Cadence frowned at me. “You managed to do in a single evening what would have taken Twilight months?” she asked. “How?”

I opened my mouth, but managed to stop myself from saying ‘Shadow Clone jutsu’ and just went with, “I have thousands of changelings under my command, and we all have a shared memory. Simple mare power allows me to have several changelings read and memorize reports, then store the information in the hive-mind for my personal access. Where she could put in one hour of work, I could put in hundreds.”

“Are you telling me you could have had this stupid thing done weeks ago?” Twilight grumbled.

The anger in Twilight’s voice put me off balance. “Um…what?” I asked. I had expected her to be upset, but…not angry upset. “Twilight? What’s wrong?”

The alicorn glared at me. “I have been having to put time with my friends aside, time with you aside for a week to make up for the backlog of hours that the Equestria Games qualifying round and this trip to the Crystal Empire is going to cost me all week just to keep on my projected schedule,” she growled. “AND YOU COULD HAVE HAD IT DONE IN A DAY?”

I winced. “I-I thought you…um…would have been mad?”

“Why the buck would I have been mad about being able to spend time with all my friends again?” she demanded in a much lower voice that still managed to convey that angry emotion just as well.

“Um…because I…outshined you in front of Tia…or something?” I managed.

Which got a half-lidded stare from the alicorn. “That is the stupidest reasoning I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.”

I slumped, Twilight sighed, and Cadence smirked at us. The kind that reminded me of Tia way too much, or how an older sister that looks at her younger sibling. “So, you did this…yesterday?” she asked. “When you were angry at her and everything?”

“Oh be quiet,” I mumbled. “And where the hay is Tia? Shouldn’t she be here to check up on her-Sunset?” I knew the sun goddess would be kind of pissed if I let it slide about the whole idea that she wanted to pretty much adopt the unicorn-turned-human before she could ease Sunset into the idea.

The question successfully killed Cadence’s smirk, and she cleared her throat. “Um, yes…when I told her what happened…Auntie Celestia may have…melted a few things…after bursting into flames,” the alicorn said reluctantly. “Luna told her it was a good idea to take few minutes and calm down.”

“And now that I am, I have come to see her.”

The voice coming from the door wasn’t loud, but…it still had an air of power to it that made my bones vibrate. Tia looked…slightly different. Her white coat had turned slightly golden, and I could feel the heat coming off of her front the doorway. She looked to be in a halfway state between what I had seen during her fight with Grogar, and what she normally looked like.

Well, speak of the God Empress of Pony-kind, and She shall appear, I thought to myself before Tia spoke again. “What. Happened. To. Sunset?”

Twilight cringed. “P-Princess, he didn’t mean to…” she got out before the Goddess’s gaze fell on Twilight, and she stopped talking.

“This is calm?” I asked no one in particular with a raised eyebrow.

Tia fixed me with a steady gaze, and I had to lock my joints to keep from looking away. Finding my voice was a bit easier though. “Oh please Tia,” I grumbled. “I spend every night with you, so tone it down. And do you think it’s really smart to give Sunset a twenty degree increase in temperature when she’s been hurt?”

The giant alicorn let out a long breath that I’m pretty sure had steam in it, and after a few more seconds of obvious concentration and breathing, her coat was back to normal. “Now tell me what happened.”

I did.

I didn’t leave anything out, not even my misplaced anger towards Twilight.

Going over everything again helped me get a little perspective on a few things, like the week of crap I had to go through. I was still pretty angry about Twilight blowing me off and spending less and less time and energy on us, but…I also figured I could have made a much bigger fuss about it at the time and…there was no way the little alicorn wouldn’t have listened. Twilight knew plenty about friends, but full-on ‘adult’ relationships were something a bit different, and she apparently needed a few lessons on the dos and don’ts.

Calling it quits after a single mistake, especially after all the ones I had made, it just wasn’t worth getting rid of all the possible future happiness that could exist.

“And where is the dragon now?” Celestia asked evenly as she looked over to Twilight.

The smaller alicorn slumped. “In my room. He’s back to being grounded,” she explained. “Shiny brought him back and locked him there before he went to go find a few guards that wouldn’t turn on him while he was escorting Twinkling Guardian to a real cell.”

After a minute of silence, Twilight spoke again. “Princess…Spike…this was all an accident. He-”

“Leave Us,” Celestia ordered.

Twilight cringed at the words, and slunk out the door, followed by Cadence, and-

“Not you,” the goddess commanded as I made it halfway to the door to find it shutting on me with an aura of golden magic.

I gulped, and slowly turned around while Celestia made her way to Sunset’s bedside. “Um…yeah?” I asked cautiously while wishing I could be out there comforting Twilight.

Tia just…deflated. She let out a long breath and just slumped down over the slumbering teenager. “I know nothing about humans except what you’ve shown me in my dreams,” she mumbled before looking up at me. “How bad is it?”

“Honestly?” I asked the mother standing over her child as she visibly braced herself. “She got off lucky, very lucky. I know how fast a pegasus can fly and… If Sunset hadn’t of rolled with the impact, or gotten her hands up, or turned around in time…she would have died, or been crippled, or…a dozen other things.”

Despite her preparations, Tia shook and gasped for breath like I had punched her in the gut. “It’s…strange,” the goddess mumbled weakly as she fought to get herself under control. “I have seen countless ponies pass from this life. I have mourned the loss of students, of guardsponies, and others. I lost my sister to madness for a thousand years. But this…the sight of her laying there…of what you said…it fills me with dreadful terror I have never known before.”

I let out my own depressed sigh. “I’m sorry,” I told her as I lowered my head. “You trusted me to keep her safe and…I didn’t.” A dozen different scenarios played out in my mind. If I had just been a bit more forceful and demanding, brought the changelings I had with me on our little excursion, raised a fuss about Spike’s stupid little escort, if I had done…something different, none of this would have happened.

“No,” Tia told me with a shake of her head. “Do not blame yourself for the actions of others. You restrained yourself. You…did everything right. Well, dropping your disguise was something I can’t agree with, but…we never really agreed what would happen if you did and…it’s not like everypony can’t spot a changeling from a mile away when they see an adult pony without a cutie mark.”

A moan from the bed stopped our conversation, and we turned away from each other and the alicorn’s eyes widened as Sunset began to shift around before mumbling something in her sleep. “M-Momma?”

Not even a second later, Celestia’s muzzle was inches from her face. “I’m here. I’m here Sunset.”

For a second I just stared at the sight, and then felt like sighing. Right, I taught her English. “Um look, maybe I should um…go.”

Sunset opened her eyes, and took in sharp intake of breath. “P-Princess! I…um…” She cleared her throat and breathed deep, then winced before letting out a little cry of pain.

“What’s wrong with her?” Celestia demanded.

Oh, so that’s why I’m here…humanity expert, I told myself before trotting over to the girl. “Sunset, your ribs are cracked. You shouldn’t take deep breaths…or laugh…or do much of anything that might aggravate them.”

Sunset blinked a few times to get the sleepiness out of her eyes, or maybe tears. “M-My back…hurts.”

“Your back was scraped up pretty bad,” I told her. “I had the vet put some disinfectant on it before we put the bandages on-”

“A VET?” Celestia roared. “YOU HAD MY-”

A tiny moan from Sunset silenced the raging goddess, and brought Celestia’s attentions back to her. “Good idea. I’m…not exactly a pony…anymore.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, then looked back to her. “When we get back, we can have Zecora take a look at you.” I’d trust the zebra over any Equestrian doctor when it came to exobiology any day of the week. “Prescribe some things. She’ll probably have some potions or something to fix you right up. Until then, you should really take it easy.”

Celestia cleared her throat, and for a few seconds I saw Tia become slightly uneasy. “Your friends are worried about you,” she said before looking over to the pile of clothes we had to cut and peel off the girl. “Um…I know they won’t be able to understand you… I’ve been working on a translation charm so you can talk to them using a necklace instead but…I’m still working on the diction.”

“Yeah, English is pretty stupid,” Sunset agreed. “P-Princess.”

The addition of her title made the goddess slump a little. “This is not a royal audience, nor are we in public, and my name is Celestia,” she said before bending down to kiss the girl on the forehead and whisper in her ear. “And while there is another title I would love to hear from you, I find myself unworthy to ask for it yet.”

Sunset’s eyes widened. “W-What?”

Celestia cleared her throat again and looked away. “Yes well…your friends will be wanting to see you, and I think Pinkie Pie will soon be at her limit of sitting still. We will…we will speak of things…later,” Tia finished quickly trotted to the door and opened it.

I don’t know why I was surprised to find Fluttershy in the seat closest to the door. “P-Princes. Is Sunset…going to be okay?”

Once again in control of herself, Celestia took in a deep breath and looked around. “Sunset is injured, but she will recover. You can all go in to see her. However,” she added before raising a hoof. “She is still very tired, and very hurt. Her ribs have been damaged. Do not force her to talk too loudly, or laugh.”

All the girl’s looked pretty downcast at the news, but Pinkie Pie took it worst of all. “WHAT? Not allowed to laugh? WHEN I GET MY HOOVES ON THAT FLASH SENTRY AND SUNLIGHT SPARKLING PONY!”

“And keep the shouting to a minimum,” the goddess added in an even tone before she looked over to Twilight.

The purple alicorn lowered her head. “I told them what happened.”

And how its not really Spike’s fault and so on, I mentally asked her. And here I was hoping to turn the whole group against the purple iguana. Well, I still had the more altruistic-seeming option that I had come up with while watching Sunset bleed her way through a cave and intensive care.

One way or another, that stupid little dragon wasn’t getting off on this with a basic apology and crocodile tears. I intended to bring that little twerp’s world crashing down around him. I was going to make his worst fear a reality, and laugh at the look on his face when it happened.

Over the past month and a half or two of living in Ponyville, I had grown complacent. All the ponies with their love and tolerance crap had turned me into a fucking doormat for anyone to walk on, and smile as they fucked me up the ass.

And now one of the people I cared about the most in the whole fucking world was laying in a hospital bed because I didn’t do what I needed to make sure no one was stupid enough to try anything against her.

“Twilight, has your brother retrieved the perpetrators?” Celestia asked, the last word practically a growl.

Twilight raised her head, then shook it. “No. Not yet. He only wanted to use non-crystal ponies because of Twinkling’s history to escort them-”

“I will be taking them to Canterlot myself,” Celestia said, cutting Twilight off. “And return tomorrow morning for the Princess Summit. Omnifarious, consider your class for tomorrow canceled.”

I nodded before Celestia looked back to Twilight’s friends. “Now, the three of us will be going to find Shining Armor. Please be gentle with Sunset. She isn’t wearing her translator at the moment, but…I’m sure you’ll all be able to work something out. Luna will be by in an hour to ensure she gets back to sleep.”

But before they could all go in, I turned to the pony who was last in line. “Hey Applejack. I got a question. Has Spike ever told you anything weird about me, like how I’m mind controlling Twilight and all of Ponyville or something?” I asked while making rolling crazy eyes to pass it off as a joke.

AJ chuckled. “Aw shoot, he did mention somethin’ like that a couple weeks ago,” the farmer told me. “Why’d ya ask?”

It took us all of five minutes to find Shining Armor. Celestia just went right to him. She either had some finely tuned magical senses, a tracking spell on her nephew-in-law, or was just very lucky. Whatever the reason, we were nearing Sombra’s Temple of Doom within half an hour of leaving Sunset.

But that was long enough for me to talk with Twilight as we trailed behind the brighter ponies.

“This isn’t something you can’t just ignore,” I told her as we walked along.

The alicorn looked away. “I know that! Don’t you think I know that?”

I sighed and put my wing over her back. “Twilight…I’m not saying this to be mean or anything, but…” I went over everything in my head to make sure it came out perfect. “Think about it. What does Spike want to be when he gets older? What does he want to do now?”

“He-he just wants to be my assistant,” Twilight whined.

“And what does he want to do for himself?” I continued to ask. “He’s not a pony and he doesn’t have a cutie mark, but…even human children have a basic idea of what they want by the time their his age.”

Twilight leaned into me. “I know.”

“You didn’t see what he was like when he was doing all those favors for Applejack,” I went on. “It was like he couldn’t not do things for other ponies. Just go and ask Rainbow and AJ. That kind of behavior…it’s not healthy Twilight.”

The alicorn looked back up into my eyes. “How is just wanting to help your friends not healthy?”

I let out a tired sigh. “It’s one thing to want to help your friends, but Spike…it’s like he only finds value in himself when other ponies are making him do things. And now Sunset’s helping you with your project, and the two of us are spending so much time together…and he just lashed out at us. Like…remember when you got your pet owl?”

“But…but Owlowiscious wasn’t a replacement, he just helps me when I have late night projects,” Twilight protested. “I don’t love Spike any less because of him, or you, or Sunset! He just thinks you're…evil!”

It took some work to keep my tone neutral. “I’m not saying you don’t love him. But he needs to learn that…well…usefulness and love do not go hoof and hoof,” I told her. “And you need to also start thinking about the best way to…solve this problem, and what’s best for him.”

Twilight’s face turned to one of confusion, but before she could ask any more questions, we got to Sombra’s ritual chamber where Shiny’s prisoners were waiting.

The two ponies Armor had locked up there were waiting for us behind his pink bubble, but I noticed a disturbing difference on the ground that caught my eye. There was a trail of glowing runes on the black floor that led from the entrance, all the way to Sombra’s alter in the center of the room that Sunset had run up against after Flash Sentry had crashed into her. “Hey Shiny, did we leave the lights on when we left?”

Before the other guy of our group, or only guy at the moment, could answer me, Captain Twinkie sneered. “Well if it isn’t the fat alicorn herself. I see the monster brought his biggest puppet to do his dirty work and clean up the mess.”

Celestia frowned down at the little pony. “If you honestly believe me in the thrall of changelings, I would glad submit myself to examination to prove you wrong,” she replied without a touch of emotion in her voice. “And then I will throw you down into a deep, dark hole in which you will never again see the light of day for what you have done to one of my most precious of ponies.”

“HOW DARE YOU JUDGE ME YOU OVERGROWN SOW!” the crystal pony shouted with a rage showing on his face. “You come here after thousand years and place a puppet upon our throne! You become the plaything of the monster that tried to turn us into food! You have no right! You have no right to do ANYTHING within the Empire! The tribes of flesh may have been stupid enough to name you and your lunatic of a sister their leader, but the ponies of crystal never gave you such authority!”

The giant alicorn sighed and shook her head. “Nor did I ever claim such dominion. Luna and I were given our positions to protect and help unite Equestria, the power we now hold was only given to us after centuries of life. Given willingly. Princess Amore and her line understood this, as does her descendent that rules over you now.”

I frowned and looked over to Armor. “Uh…hey Shiny, Cadence is related to Imperial royalty? But, wouldn’t that mean that she and Sombra…”

“Yeah,” the unicorn replied with a wince. “Um, she’s kind of from a…cousin of Sombra’s that got kicked out of the Crystal Empire when he took power. So they’re distantly related. Very distantly.”

I took the hint and put my curiosity back in its box.

Twinkie stomped his hoof on the ground. “And now she is nothing but your puppet, an ascended pegasus! Nothing more than a dressed up cloud farmer! The Empire still reeks of the stink of their droppings when they served the bugs!”

“Hey!” Flash Sentry whined from his place next to the crystal pony before looking over to the rest of us. “Can I just say I’m not with him and was only following orders?”

Of course, Twinkie didn’t seem to hear the pegasus standing next to him. He had gone full tilt zealot rant mode. “But I won’t let them! I won’t let them have the Empire again! NOT THEM, OR YOU!” he shouted before reaching over to his side and drawing a dagger that looked like part of his armor.

“Shining Armor dispel the field!” Celestia ordered as she looked to the shorter pony.

And then, Twinkie jammed the dagger into the top of Flash Sentry’s throat, where it was unprotected by his armor before opening it all the way. Flash let out a gurgle that caused the blood running out of his throat to bubble. “I will save my people from your tyranny!” the crystal pony yelled before he took Flash’s dying body and slammed it onto the sacrificial altar. “And rule over them as the CRYSTAL EMPEROR!”

“You know, in hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to leave the xenophobic zealot alone in the demonic room of black magic with a pony to sacrifice,” I commented while Flash’s blood ran down into the altar, and then out its base in a web pattern to touch all the runes in the room that hadn’t been lit up.

The ground around us began to rumble, and Celestia leapt back before covering the three of us with her wings and a golden field of energy while the murals on the wall in the room ahead of us stretched out with dark tentacles to flow into the mouth of demonic statue at the center of the rear wall.

“Gee, ya think?” Twilight grumbled as the statue that was three times the size of a pony took on a dark continence and began to move. She just looked up to the tallest pony of the group. “Princess Celestia, what’ll we do now?”

Celestia took a look back at the hallways full of explosive crystals behind us that responded to too much magic, and then to the monster summoning room in front of us as the ground continued to shake. “Come with me and hold on!” she shouted before I felt her wings touch my butt and nudge us all forward as the goddess leapt into the chamber in front of us, half dragging us all along.

A second later, the ground went from slightly trembling to full on Star Trek space battle camera shake where actors go flying across the room after the Enterprise takes a torpedo up its ass. The tunnel behind us just fucking disappeared, and I found that hooves were the worse then to expect traction from when it came to dark crystal.

Celestia grunted and Twilight shrieked while me and Shining let out cries of manly terror. The telltale pressure of a moving elevator overcame me, and I slumped down to the ground as everything continued shaking.

Then I heard a rather loud explosion and the trembling came to a stop as we hit…daylight?

I blinked my eyes and looked up at the sky. For a second my mind was preoccupied with the question of where the roof had gone before the telltale sign of crackling energy made me look down and around to see the walls had also dropped away and begun to spread across the grass of what kind of looked like a football stadium. A stadium that had a full compliment of ponies watching from the stands and…judging by the bands that were currently on the field, was in the middle of halftime.

“Well,” I began as I looked around at the stunned crowd. “Looks like we got to the hoofball game after all Shiny.”

Tia sighed. “While your movies exploits have shown me the human penchant for witty banter before combat, I do not believe this is the most opportune time.”

I looked back to the giant white pony. “It’s right before combat,” I replied. “You said it yourself. How is this not the perfect time for witty pre-battle banter?”

“As interesting as your debate is Princess,” Twilight spoke up rather loudly. “Can we please focus on the demonic monster giving animation to its corporal shell?”

At Twilight’s shout, the confused ponies all around us let out a scream of terror and turned around to run away from what was soon to be the battlefield. Although strangely, the ones in the stands just sat around on their collective asses.

“CITIZENS OF THE EMPIRE! DO NOT FLEE!” Captain Is Going To Go Crunch When I Break His Bones said as he held up his hooves. “I have come to liberate you from the tyranny of the alicorns!”

I looked over to my girlfriend and let out a whine. “How come he gets to say his silly stuff but I can’t go on about mine with Tia?”

Twilight shot me a glare. “Fairy! Are you even taking this seriously?” she shouted.

“Oh please.” I rolled of my eyes. “We’ve got four alicorns, me, your brother, and all our friends,” I said before pointing over to the bad guy. “He’s got a walking statue full of black Gak and a stupid belief that won’t let him endanger bystanders because then he won’t be saving his precious Empire.”

I looked back to the demonic statue thing as it seemed to swell, taking on a different shape as it lower jaw changed to something like you would have seen on a cartoonish bulldog, and its lower body just became a mass of dark mist as the skies overhead darkened and the wind kicked up with the classic lighting spewing forth from the black clouds. By the time the transformation was over, I felt like I was looking at a fit version of Jabba the Hutt with horns and made of nothing but condensed dark smoke.

“WHO DARES CALL UPON ARABUS? LORD OF STORM AND SHADOW?” the dark that looked like little more like a mass of thunderclouds with arms a slightly doglike head, and a pair of horns.

“Okay, introductions done.” And with a lack of name recognition from what I could remember from the original MLP, I reared up on my hind legs and balanced myself with my wings before bringing my hooves together. “Now let’s love and tolerate the shit out of him.”

Twilight looked over to me with a frown on her face. “That statement makes absolutely makes no sense in our current situation.”

Author's Notes:

Next up, the Incredibly Rocking Battle for the Fate of the Crystal Empire!