Effiela crashed through the window of the Crystal Castle and shot a Silver Cannon throughout the entirety of the room she had landed in, and saw that Cadance and Shining Armor had already left the room and were running down the hall to an escape route. She would not stand to be out run, so she teleported in front of the two, who had already made it to the second to last floor of the castle. "Oh, there are my targets, I thought I had lost you for a second... how are you doing this fine evening?" Effiela said fairly politely. She stepped up to Cadance, but Shining Armor quickly stepped in front of her, protecting her from Effiela. "Oh, and if it isn't the overprotective captain of the royal guard himself, Shining Armor?"

"First of all, who are you? !" Shining Armor demanded to know. "Step ANY closer and I will kill you!"

"Okay then, Mr. Angrypony. I am the Witch Pegasus, Effiela Claire, and I am here to take the magic of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza," the pegasus pony introduced herself, bowing. "This is actually my first time directly meeting a princess. I'm quite nervous actually. I couldn't laugh harder!"

"You want my magic?" Cadance questioned the pony before her. "You do realize that a pegasus like you has no way of using magic like an alicorn can." She prepared a spell to use in conjunction with Shining Armor, but Effiela teleported closer to them and bucked Shining Armor out of the way, putting over him a barrier of magic.

"Cadance, NO!" Shining Armor cried, trying to break through the walls.

"That amulet you have, is it...?" Cadance began to ask, before Effiela finished for her.

"Yes, this is the Alicorn Amulet," Effiela said with a smile. She tilted her head just slightly. "But surely it wouldn't effect me much, due to me being a pegasus, but I have been born  with a 50% unicorn gene from my mother."

"Even then, it should be impossible for you to use magic as powerful as mine!"

Effiela screamed back, "Let me finish, you bitch!"

This silenced both Cadance and Shining Armor, they had never heard such vulgar language used against them before. They knew now that Effiela had been prepared for this moment, and that she eagerly awaited it. Effiela continued,

"The Queen of the Changelings, I found her dead body and used her DNA and blood to splice with mine, which enhanced my magical capabilities to an even higher level. This Amulet allows me to use my inner magic and amplifies it so I can use magic so powerful to do what I did to the outside of the castle! Isn't it great?" Effiela then laughed maniacally, as Cadance relived the entire situation between herself and Queen Chrysalis.

"You... killed my people, mock my power, and then you laugh at me," Cadance growled, walking up to Effiela.

"Don't do anything you'll regret," Effiela said, teleporting behind Cadance, who used her own magic to use the sharpened crystals from chandeliers to throw at Effiela, who effortlessly dodged and evaded them all, getting close to Cadance again.

Cadance flew back, but Effiela drove herself into Cadance's abdomen, pushing her into a wall. The alicorn pushed the pegasus off of her and kicked her down, where she landed on her hooves. While in the air, Cadance used a magic beam to shoot at Effiela, who dodged again. The pegasus then looked to Shining Armor and jumped to where he was as he was trapped within her barrier. "Nuh uh uh, I will torture this one if you don't hand over your magic," Effiela said laughing loudly.

"You wouldn't dare!" Cadance screamed at her, dropping down on her hooves with a great, shaking force.

"I've already done it to your entire empire, now who's to say that one more pony is out of my league?"

Cadance began breathing heavily in rage, but took deep breaths and calmed down. She lowered her head and began to slowly step forward to Effiela Claire, who accepted her supposed victory. "Deal..." she said melancholically.

"I knew you had some sense in you," Effiela replied, letting up the barrier from Shining Armor and looking back.

Cadance teleported herself to Shining Armor and prepared to do it again, but Effiela released a current of magic to halt them.

"Now that you're together again, I can trap both of you!" Effiela exclaimed.

Cadance did not stand to be outsmarted by the pegasus, so she made like lightning and teleported both herself and Shining Armor outside to the outskirts of the kingdom, where all of the surviving ponies were retreating, not looking back at the chaos. Seeing the pain and crying of the children as they ran, as some had lost their parents, and some were being trampled by the others who were careless and only thought of their own lives. The horrible sight drove her to tears, and she cried out to her people, and yet, they still did not look back. She had never seen such despair in her life at one point, and these victims were mostly innocent children. They had been forced to go into a mode of survival which no pony ever had to endure, not as long as somepony were there to protect them. Even though Cadance tried her best to give her ponies perfect and blameless lives, it had still come to this.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Effiela said, walking up to them once again.

Cadance looked back to Effiela, staring at her intensely through her tears. Now filled with an uncontrollable rage, Cadance used her magic again to shoot a highly concentrated laser of magic, and given to her mood, the magic was dark magic, and was colored differently and darker. Effiela used her bare hooves to push the laser out of the way, absorbing it mostly, but the rest simply killed all of the ponies in the way. Now feeling even more helpless, Cadance could only cry, and Shining Armor was forced to watch this.

"Why?! Why would you do this?!" Cadance screamed in question and pure despair, as her eyes were drowning in tears. "What did we do to you to make you do this?!"

Effiela looked to the chaos and the pain, the blood, screams, and all of the fire and smoke. "I will not tell you, but I'm willing to show you," she said, looking Cadance directly into her eyes and casting a spell on her to relive every day of Effiela's life up until this point, and the pain caused Cadance to scream loudly, now crying for help, anypony to help her. Shining Armor immediately ran to her aid, asking Cadance repeatedly and rapidly what had happened and if she were alright. Cadance merely looked into Shining Armor's eyes to reflect the feelings which she now harbored.

"Now, you know my past pains, and only future pains remain," Effiela told the two as the final ponies had finally left the kingdom. "It only started with the Crystal Empire, but next will be Cloudsdale, then Ponyville, then finally, Canterlot. I have alot of pain to deliver to Equestria... and once the Queen falls, they all shall fall...I will be their fears, and I will become their god, and once they accept me as the being who delivers pain, they will pray and beg me for happiness, and I will give it to them. I will be better than Luna, I will be better than Celestia, I will be better than Twilight! I will be GOD!"

"YOU'RE CRAZY!" Shining Armor yelled, stomping his hooves down. "Ponies don't need a god like that, and that's why we have princesses. They show us the magic of power, of protection, of love, of friendship! That's why they are alicorns, because they understand that more than anypony! They are the ones who deliver happiness, NOT YOU!"

Effiela yelled back, "I COULD NOT LAUGH HARDER!"

She silenced Shining Armor once again.

"You two," she began, "you two know nothing. This world depends too much on happiness, and happiness alone. These ponies are so afraid of pain that they begin to lose sight of what happiness is. They lose sight of what pain is, and they even lose sight of its existence. How can one be truly happy if they know not what they are happy with?"

"You're right," Cadance said, "but our ponies are better than they were! We know what despair is, we don't need anymore of it! And plus, I don't care if my ponies don't know why they're happy, I only care that they are!"

"How empty are words running off of wind alone?" Effiela said sternly. "I only hear foolishness within your voice, and desperation and fear. I could just laugh!" She used another blast of magic to push Cadance and Shining Armor back, but upon rushing to them to counter-attack, she saw Cadance use light magic to temporarily blind Effiela to make a quick escape with Shining Armor.

"Cheap tricks won't save you now!" She shouted, but then a massive amount of pegasus drawn chariots of unicorns aiming bows and arrows of magic at her appeared. "Oh... well, I guess I have more bugs to squash..."

Effiela zoomed past them again, and she came back down, as to test her Silver Nuke once again, and surely enough, it worked. She did not put much force and power into it, as to not tire herself for when she would really need to use it again, but it did get the job done and killed the rest of the guards. "How Pitiful, I couldn't laugh harder at your epic failures," she scoffed as she now made her way to Cloudsdale. "The footstep of my revolution is complete... and fairly easily too. I actually expected that to be more difficult than it was! But I do hope Cloudsdale will be more of a challenge."

She made one mistake, she saw, she forgot to test the powers of the Crystal Heart, so she approached the Heart and placed her hooves onto it. It did not boast the power which she speculated it would have, but it should give her Crystal magic now, so she used the Alicorn Amulet and Queen Chrysalis' DNA to absorb it completely. She then felt a harder, sharper magic pierce through her veins, and getting used to it would take a while, but as for now, she really wanted to spare no time just sitting there. She had to continue.

The flight to Cloudsdale took no longer than she expected,  however, and she landed in the deep inner city of the main cloud of Cloudsdale. It brought back memories, painfully pleasant memories. But the past was the past, and now, she only wanted to look forward to the future. Suddenly, a great pride filled her heart, a fire to show off her power to Cloudsdale, which was really her only reason to return. To get revenge on the town that started it all, to show them clearly the power of Effiela Claire. The past did effect the future, so no matter what she did, it was due to her past. She put her front hooves down in front of her and made massive crystals of red color bloom up like flowers, and in the form of flowers. The ponies watched again in awe, wondering how such magic was possible, and instead of fear, the pegasi disposed a happy mood, throwing money at Effiela to do more tricks, even bringing their children to watch. They all cheered for her, again, letting pride grow in her heart.

"Do you guys want to see more?" Effiela asked them, as they happily replied that they did. "Hold back your bits, I do this not for money, but for pleasure! My name is Witch Pegasus Effiela Claire! And I am here to spread pleasure upon the ponies of Equestria! You're going to love me!" She used magic to make a cloud above them rain down birds of water and lightning, now earning even more highly exalted praise for herself.

A group of skeptics approached her, however. The leader looked up to Effiela and looked at her as if he were an eagle spotting its prey. "It's all fake!" He shouted loudly, standing up and pointing at her. "It's just simple crystal plant botany and pegasus tricks! I bet she's got somepony making it rain for her! We all know that pegasi can't use magic!"

Effiela smiled at the young colt and simply giggled. "It takes magic to believe in magic, doesn't it?" She asked him, but before he could answer, she used a very small Silver Cannon to shoot into the sky and make a storm of fireworks go off, granting the pegasi to clap and cheer for her again.

"I don't care what you say! Pegasus ponies can't use magic and I'm standing on that!" The little colt shouted.

"I used to know alot of ponies like you," she told him as she pat his head with her hoof, "they would look down on me and tell me I'm nothing, and I would believe them... but when I told everypony that I would become something great, they laughed at me and told me that it was impossible, just like you did. One of those ponies was my father..."

The colt looked sad now, he saw Effiela's sad face with her puppy-dog eye and wobbly lip. He looked away, blushing heavily. "D-don't look at me like that!" He shouted.

"But you're making little ol' me sad," she whined, lightening up and jumping into the air. "But I'm happy you don't believe me! The fact that you cause me pain is the reason why I'll get back up, because if I don't, then you win. And I don't really like losing!"

The pegasi cheered once again, now chanting Effiela's name in zeal and excitement. The pride grew larger and larger, but so did the bloodlust within her heart. The cheers motivated her to kill them all even worse than what she did to all of the Crystal ponies. These ponies felt more organic. More prone to bleeding. This gave birth to madness; first pride, second bloodlust, now for third was madness. She was so driven to destroy them now, the ponies that made her life how it is now. These ponies who mocked her, bullied her, told her she was nothing, now cheering for her and giving her praises. They had never thought to see today a pegasus using magic. Especially not magic THIS powerful. Something so absurd was a secret book of wonders to them. She would not make an announcement to them, she would just zoom down like she had done and used her magical sword to bisect the entire crowd, leaving none alive, not even one. A simple motion, moving as smooth as butter, cutting through them like a hot knife through butter. She wondered if it would be better for her to be the butter, or for the ponies of Cloudsdale to be the butter. Their blood rained on her and she gathered a hooveful of it and drank it like water just for the hell of it. The destruction of Equestria, to her, was imminent, but as for Cloudsdale...

Just for the hell of it.

Next Chapter: Act 1. CHAPTER 4: Speech is Silver, Silence is Gold Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes