Effiela Claire effortlessly dodged the magical attacks of the unicorn guards which were attacking her, now able to anticipate movements and currents of magical energy. She killed the guard who was fighting her, teleporting closer now to Celestia's castle, only to run into a bombard of pegasi guards, all led by Flash Sentry, who had a look of fierceness and determination in his eyes.

"You can't win!" Flash Sentry shouted at Effiela, who used a magical shield to push the pegasi away. Flash managed to evade the barrier, and he kicked Effiela away. "I will not let you attack Princess Celestia and Princess Luna!"

"You're so blunt and straight forward, aren't you?" Effiela said to him, smiling. "Of all the guards I've fought, none have really talked to me directly like you have. Maybe you guards are more than background ponies afterall! I must know your name!"

Flash Sentry created around Effiela a tornado of wind, and his golden armor reflected the light of the sun onto the tornado, making it burst into golden flames. "Ha! I bet you didn't see that coming!" He exclaimed loudy, but Effiela teleported out of the tornado and double-axed Flash Sentry into a nearby building.

"I see that Celestia has made that armor of yours highly useful in the presence of the sun," Effiela sighed as she walked up to Flash, who jumped down from where he was to face her again.

"Useful, that's what it has to be to beat you!" Flash shouted, dashing towards Effiela once again. He clashed hooves with her, pushing her back so more unicorn guards could attack her. Effiela's guard stayed up, and now she had an opportunity to get away from these clowns, as they were not her targets, rather, Celestia and Luna were. But their energies remained in the castle, not moving at all. The princesses were not trying to escape!

"What the hell is going on?!" Effiela yelled, stomping her hooves down and sending down from the clouds many bolts of lightning to strike her assailants. All but Flash were hit, due to Flash's speed. None were killed, but many were severely injured. "Do they even see me as a threat? Do they not know what I did to get here?! I killed thousands of ponies on my way here, and they don't try to escape? What the buck..."

"Of course they're not trying to escape, because I'm here," Flash told her, getting her attention quickly. She looked at him as if she were confused with him, and his statement.

"Oh yeah? What's so special about you?" She questioned him, stepping up once, and cutting out the noise and cries in the background for once. "You're nothing but a guard... I've probably killed one of you about a hundred times, so what makes you so different? "

Flash whipped his mane back all cool like, trying to look tough in front of the powerful Witch Pegasus. "As all the other stallions working with Celestia have lost their personality, I have kept mine," he told her with dignity. "I am Flash Sentry! The best guard a queen could have! Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are so proud of me and my progress, that they made me the Captain of the Celestial Royal Guard, equipped with the golden armor of the highest quality--"

"You know that's just regular armor, right?" Effiela asked him comically.

Flash got angry with her, as she was mocking his relevance to the series. "It is so not! I'm specifically appointed to lead the Royal guard--"

"That's not true either, is it?" Effiela asked him.

"You shut up! I am relevant! And Princess Celestia herself told me that I was special, and that my armor was made to make me stronger!--

"She tells all of her servants that, doesn't she?" Effiela asked him. "I mean, you don't seriously think out of like a thousand guards clad in the same gold armor, that she was stupid enough to give special armor to one all because he was different? I mean... come on! I couldn't laugh harder at your epic fail! Wouldn't she have given this special armor to everypony, if it were truly special?"

Flash blushed and stamped on the ground. "Look, I don't care what you say! Princess Celestia meant something when she told me that--"

"Or are you lying about such events just to get my spirits down?" Effiela asked him. "It's not nice to lie, especially to a little ol' pony like me." She blew a couple of seductive kisses at him, and he made quite a comedic effort to dodge them. "Look, because I feel sorry for you, I won't go so hard on you... as a matter of fact, I won't even use my front hooves."

"You're kidding, right?"

"I was actually planning on asking you the same exact thing," Effiela said, crossing her front hooves.

Flash ran towards her, and she jumped over him and kicked him back to where he was; he struggled to stay on his hooves, but failed to balance, falling over. He jumped back up and tried to fly, but Effiela teleported in front of him and kicked him multiple times with her back hooves. As he was stunned, she unfolded her front hooves.

"You said you wouldn't use your fronts!" He cried. "That's like, totally unfair!"

Effiela grabbed his front hooves with her own, using his hooves to hit himself. "But I'm not!" She giggled, making Flash's nose bleed from the repetitive hits and her cute, irresistible seductiveness. She used a Silver Cannon with her back hooves to blow off all of Flash's armor, then kicking him back with the same hooves. He didn't have any more strength to get back up. "You're a funny pony, quite a color to my grey day!" Effiela exclaimed, preparing to teleport to Celestia's room, which was right before her, above all the rest of Canterlot. "But in all seriousness, I must get back on task. I've wasted too much time with you, Flash Sentry."

Making her way up to the castle's staircase, now feeling the full pressure of both Celestia's and Luna's energy, Effiela could now stand against it. She had her confidence again, but she knew she had used way too much energy and power for one day, and could feel herself burning low. She forced herself to produce, maintain, and control the energy which she had. The walk up the stairs was surely going to be one to savor, and she hoped the regal sisters felt the same way as she did.

Within Celestia's room, Luna was waiting for her older sister to say something in reply to what she had asked. "Why won't you just call Twilight Sparkle and her friends? Or Discord?"

Celestia was anticipating Effiela's imminent intrusion at any second, and figured she may as well tell her sister why she decided not to bring Twilight and her friends into the chaos of the situation at hoof. "You know as well as I do that even the Elements of Harmony do not possess infinite energy, and Twilight Sparkle and her friends do not as well... if they use the Elements too much, they may lose control of them, as the Elements can read intentions and decide when and when not to work. These Elements can actually reject the users completely if used at random excessively, and must rest for long periods of time before being used again," Celestia explained to Luna. She turned to her sister with a defiant expression on her face. "As Twilight Sparkle and her friends have been handling our problems for us, it is time for us to repay them. They've used their maximum power multiple times to save Equestria from beings like you, as Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Tirek. Each time the power of the Elements was used, it did strengthen the power of Friendship between the girls, but as the enemies grow ever so more powerful, so does the power needed to defeat them. If the Elements had not rested the thousand years which they had before they were used to stop you and Discord, they would not have worked at all."

"But sister! Surely the magic of the Elements corresponds with the personalities of the girls, so as long as they live, so does the power, right?" Luna asked her sister.

Celestia replied, "I honestly can't say for sure... but it may have something to do with the division and distribution of powers among the six of them rather than just the two of us how it was a thousand years ago. And they're so young and inexperienced, that the Elements must work ten times as hard to work with them than what they had to have done for us, since we were already Alicorns powerful enough to raise and set the sun and moon, so we had much more controlled magic to stabilize and empower, as Twilight and her friends have barely scratched the surface of their abilities, despite being good and experts at it, and knowing their cutie marks all at the same time."

"I see..." Luna said lowly. "So, that leaves us to defend Equestria until the ponies who survived find refuge in a safe place to live..."

"We live not to live for ourselves anymore, Luna," Celestia said, trying to cheer her sister up, "we are the two who give life to the world, we raise the sun and the moon, give warmth and sweet dreams, and our very prescence is enough to quell chaos itself. We have nothing to fear as long as the ponies we look after are safe. What's the price of our lives over the thousands which live within Equestria?"

The door suddenly blew to bits, and fire and smoke engulfed its remains. Celestia and Luna prepared their horns for anypony that set hoof onto the floor, and upon seeing a black cloak fly in, they let loose and set fire to their supposed assailant. Finally ceasing after their horns incinerated the target, they found that it was only a black cloak and nothing more. Effiela ran through, shooting Silver Cannons at both the sisters, who protected one another with barriers. They manipulated the barriers to shoot spikes of magic at Effiela, who dodged by teleporting, but was struck in her thigh by one of the spikes, which exploded on contact, severely burning the area which was in contact.

"Dammit!" Effiela cried, as Luna used her magic to make a bright light which blinded Effiela, and she then used chains of dark magic to try to ensnare her. The pegasus pony escaped the chains, but still had Celestia to deal with. She ducked and dodged the supreme alicorn's solar flares of magic blasts, until Luna made a barrier wall to stop her from moving. Effiela erected her own wall to block Celestia's magic, but Celestia's horn sliced through the wall and pierced Effiela's chest, nearly bursting her heart.

"Why have you attacked my land?" Celestia questioned the pony before her. "Is it not well enough that you have a balanced day and night, and protection from your worst fears? Are you that foolish to take our rule for granted?"

Effiela coughed up blood, surely at her limit now, but she still forced herself to move on. "I don't like the way you two run this government," she said flatly. She tried to use magic to push Celestia away, but the mare overpowered her and drove her into the wall, slowly crushing her. "Go ahead... try to kill me, you can't!"

Celestia stared into Effiela's eyes, using dark magic to read her mind to interpret her feelings, and Luna did the same. The three ponies ended up within a dark world upon a white platform, surrounded by multicolored lights rising upwards. Effiela quickly recalled the illusion that Celestia used on her to attack her psychologically earlier, but began to realize that this realm was the three mares' minds intertwined as one.

"You are full of doubt," Luna said to Effiela, managing to bring her down to her knees with magic. "Your magic is dangerously low, and at this point, you aren't fit to go against us at all. You're better off giving up."

"No, Luna..." Celestia growled, kicking Effiela back and stomping her chest with great force. "This pony is due for a hellish amount of punishment for her abuse to our ponies." Celestia cast Effiela into an illusion of black and blue flames, making her perception of time much slower to make the pain seem eternal.

Effiela began screaming and trying to get the flames off of herself, thinking they were real, as she imaging her fur and flesh being burned together, becoming maggots which ate away at her skin. "What the hell is this? !" Effiela cried out. "Wh-what... are... you doing to me?!"

"Feel the pain you caused my ponies, you never stopped for their pleas of mercy, did you?" Celestia questioned her. "Now, I will ask you once again... why are you trying to do something as stupid as what you're doing now? Do you not appreciate all that we've done for you?"

Effiela stopped screaming, looking down to the Alicorn Amulet around her neck, she sighed deeply and closed her eyes, still twitching from the intense pain and burning from her real and illusionary injuries. The Alicorn Amulet began to respond to her desperation, filling her body with its gigantic magic reserves, and the changeling DNA within her body responded to her hatred. "No," she finally said, breaking out of the illusion and pushing Celestia onto her back, watching her get back up. "I don't appreciate anything you've done ever. Not one thing."

"You imbecile! You will pay for your insolence!" Celestia shouted at Effiela, who used the red magic completely, as her silver magic reserves were too low to use, to grab Celestia by her neck using an appendage resembling a skeletal arm.

"No, it is you who is the imbecile, who will pay for your insolence..." Effiela said very softly and calmly, "no... you will pay for your sins. Your sins of sloth, wrath, and pride."

"What are you blabbering about?" Celestia choked.

"I know that nopony's perfect," Effiela said, "but I am not anypony... I am God!"

Luna used her magical energy to blast Effiela out of the castle's walls to the outside. She ran to her sister's side to help her stand. "Sister, are you alright?" She questioned her, checking her body for any wounds, but found none.

"I can't get through to her at all," Celestia told her sister, who did not seem surprised at all to hear this. "We have no choice, but we must use our full abilities to stop her, regardless of who's left in Canterlot. I know that many of the ponies have escaped to safety, though many others have perished..."

"Sister, are you sure you're okay?"

Celestia looked solemnly at her little sister. "I'm fine... it's just that we haven't run into anypony this demented since Discord, and even he changed his ways... but I guess our problems are truly becoming more serious..."

Luna ran and flew outside to where Effiela was and welcomed for her sister to follow her, which she did. "I can't sense much feelings from her now, as if she completely turned off her mind from us..." Luna said.

"That is why we can't fight like we were, we have to use offense!" Celestia urged Luna, who did not want to hurt and kill Effiela, but surely it may have to come to that.

"If you will not bow to me, then I'll be willing to show you true despair," Effiela sighed, using her green changeling magic to completely heal herself with the aid of the Alicorn Amulet. "Can you truly stand against it?"

"We do not wish to kill you," Luna tried to negotiate with her. "Please, turn away from your path of destruction! We hate to see such a young pony fall under false beliefs of evil!"

"Do you know my pain?" Effiela groaned, beginning to cry softly. She closed her eyes tightly as the Alicorn Amulet fed her despair with its red magic. "Completely rejected by others and myself, I was left with only my own bare hooves to defend myself... only my inner strength and my intellect... My emotions have been tugged back and forth today, and I came close to death... After all of this, I truly believed my cause so I can accomplish it to stop the pain inside. It's really all I can do, and it's all I want to do! And I will accomplish that by taking you two down, no matter what it takes... I will not die here!"

Celestia looked down, seemingly to think, then back up to Effiela. "I will not spare blows to show you how flawed your plans are... even if you are a millennium younger than I! I will not let you cause anymore destruction!"

Effiela began laughing uncontrollably and maniacally, looking up as she laughed to watch the storm clouds rolling in, and it began raining heavily. The thunder and lightning boomed and flashed, symbolizing the battle for Equestria. The pony who won this won Equestria. The one ruling Equestria was the one ruling the world. This was the thread which the world hung on for hope, or for despair.

"What have you done, Celestia?" Effiela asked with a slight attitude, now her entire personality had changed. It was for the better of the worse. The worse of the better. Celestia and Luna could only wonder about this pony, desperately wishing to help her, but not oblivious on what they had to do to protect Equestria. They had no choice but to fight Effiela now... it's just that all they had to do was start. Next Chapter: Act 1. CHAPTER 7: The Clear Sky Estimated time remaining: 53 Minutes