Effiela looked up to the sky, then to her regenerating wounds. She saw the blood on her hooves from the wound on her head, she licked the blood, greatly disgusting Celestia, who charged at Effiela to attack her with a magical beam of solar energy. The pegasus pony teleported out of the way and onto a cloud, using it to shoot lightning down at Celestia, who took the hits. The lightning's energy exploded, releasing the pent up energy inside, but Celestia was unharmed, still looking defiant. She flew towards Effiela, her body cloaked in energy similar in color to her mane, but much lighter.

"Luna! Back me up!" Celestia ordered her sister, who flew behind Effiela swiftly and destroyed the cloud she stood on by kicking it. Effiela dodged the hit she thought to be for her, but was still in the way of Celestia's incoming blow. She teleported above Celestia, who appeared on the ground below them, then back in front of Effiela to punch her in the face, launching her down to one of the tall towers. Luna created a dark space with white platforms for herself and Celestia to stand on.

Effiela attacked again, landing on the platform as the sisters jumped off. The platform zapped Effiela and exploded from overloading its energy. But, Effiela still flew out of the explosion, and managed to kick Luna away from Celestia.  Luna did not fall, but she did stumble, and using this as an advantage, Effiela used a vine of the changeling's skin to stretch under the ground and grab Luna by her neck. "There's no escape for you!" Effiela exclaimed, using the vine to collect a little of Luna's energy to stabilize her own.

Celestia moved at the speed of light to cut the vine, and grabbed her sister so they both could evade Effiela's next attack, which was a barrage of black vines from underground. "Simple tricks like that won't work! Do you think you're the only pony who can sense magic? !" Celestia shouted at Effiela.

"Of course not, but it's not magic you should be concerned about," Effiela said playfully.

Celestia and Luna looked behind themselves, watching as three tall buildings were hauled at them from afar. They dodged, but found that many changelings had multiplied by using the unicorns' and royal guards' bodies, and were using the buildings as a place to hide. The two sisters fought off the changelings, but were attacked from behind by a magic wall from Effiela, pushing them forward to be ambushed by the others attacking them.

"Are we being handled by such elementary tactics? " Celestia growled, shooting magic lasers in all directions, scattering the changelings for now.

"Sister, stay calm, she's trying to get you to doubt yourself," Luna urged her sister, who calmed herself.

"I do not understand your reasoning, little pony," Celestia said to Effiela.

"My name is Witch Pegasus Effiela Claire! And I will not stand to be considered a 'little pony', especially by you," Effiela replied. "You can take another shot at me, but I have prepared for anything you can do! And I heard what you were saying about the Elements of Harmony earlier... You depend on those feelings of friendship more than your own power, and that's why you can't trust youself to use the Elements anymore."

"I have the power to kill you, whether you like it or not," Celestia said. "The Elements of Harmony have no say in what they would do to enhance my power now because I don't need them! I know that becoming an Alicorn means you understand a meaning on the word 'magic', and I came to realize that magic was a form of power! My power in magic is unmatched and can only be overpowered by the efforts of the Elements of Harmony! You seem to underestimate your queen, Effiela Claire... you are much too young to understand, and I am far too impatient to explain such means to a thorn in my side like you!"

"Whoa! Who are you to decide what's patient! You locked up your sister in the bucking moon with no second thought!"

"Who are you to judge my methods of punishment? You've killed half of the population of Equestria! When I get my hooves on you, I'll do way worse than lock you on the moon! You'll be burning and suffering in the depths of Tartarus when I'm done with you!"

"Oh yeah, yeah... You did nothing more to stop me than what you're doing now. Surely somepony alerted you about the attack I had made on the Crystal Empire, but by the time I got to Cloudsdale, it was as if nopony knew a thing!"

"Surely the news had not spread fast enough for them to be alerted, so by the time you finished Cloudsdale, I was alerting the rest of Equestria! I had no time to prepare since you were acting so quickly."

"But you put so much faith in that filly, Twilight Sparkle. That bitch and her friends all rush to your aid once they know something is wrong, so why not test their trust and love for you, their leader, by asking them to locate and take me down?"

"Twilight's officially a princess now, and her reign is in Ponyville. Does it make sense for her and her friends to leave their kingdom to protect mine? I think not! And why do you speak as if I use them like rags? I'm sure I've only called them for situations much more dire than this."

"Are you saying that half of Equestria dying and becoming food for my Changelings is less dire than an attack from a minotaur that didn't kill a single pony? You must have your head on backwards!"

Celestia shouted in a booming voice. "Then don't judge me on my decisions if thou can't grasp my authority!"

Effiela stepped back a little, wincing from Celestia's uprise in energy. Taking this as a provocation, Celestia's body burst into white and blue flames, and Celestia moved at the speed of light once again to appear in front of Effiela so she could blast her with magic and flames. The magic and dark magic of Celestia's body had fused and synchronized at 100%.

"Don't judge my authority when you don't even have the power to stand under it! You little filly!"

"Sister, don't kill her!" Luna cried, putting a protective barrier over Effiela's body.

Celestia turned to Luna, with the flames of the sun burning in her eyes, and even Luna dared not to stare directly into them. "Why are you protecting her, Luna? ! Whose side are you even on?!"

"We don't have to kill her, look at how much you're hurting her already!" Luna cried, pointing to Effiela, who had dropped on her belly to brace herself for the worse. "If we just kill her, then what example would we be setting for the ponies?"

"Will turning her into stone do us any good?" Celestia questioned her sister with a growl. "Because even Discord can escape stone! Will locking her in Tartarus do us any good? Or did you learn nothing from Tirek? Oh, or, of course, jailing her for a millennium on the moon and not checking on her will allow us all to sleep at night, won't it? 'Oh, I think she existed, but that's just an old mare's tale, right?' Would it bring back all of the dead ponies? Will it really set a bad example to the other ponies to show them that if you turn my Empire into hell, then hell is where I shall send you!"

Luna's head hung low, she did not want to let up the barrier, but she also did not want to upset her sister further. Protection was her magic, she was the pacifier of Celestia's hunger of power and authority. That was what their cutie marks represented, and it was how they discovered that magic was the key to becoming Alicorns. Twilight had the magic of friendship, Cadance had the magic of love, Luna had the magic of protection, and Celestia had the magic of power. She could never pacify her sister's pride, but Celestia could never overpower her little sister's will. They were perfectly balanced like Yin and Yang. Luna tried to tell Celestia how she truly felt, but her sister shattered through her barrier and bisected Effiela Claire with her flaming horn.

There was silence for at least a minute, as Effiela coughed up blood and struggled just to breathe, but she gave up on life and soon died. The changeling queen's magic still glowed around her massive gash of a wound, but all of Effiela's voluntary and involuntary movements had completely stopped. Luna dropped to her knees before the dead pegasus and began to cry softly, mourning for another lost soul she could do nothing to save.

Celestia turned away from the carnage an upon the destruction of her city and empire. She sighed before finally saying to her younger sibling, "Since you tried to protect her, I will leave you to handle the body and retrieve the Alicorn Amulet. We must destroy it completely this time. It's the least I can do to cheer you up. You can hate me if you want, but if you dare try to overthrow me because you don't agree with me, you'll end up exactly like that pony over there. Nopony can deny the authority of the sun."

One of the changelings snatched Effiela's body and flew up into the air with it, where all of the other alicorn changelings were gathered around to seemingly mourn the death of their master, their queen, their god. Celestia, still clad in her flames, flashed before the alicorn changelings to attack them, but her feelings and magic were absorbed, turned into food by the alicorn changelings. She was pushed back by a barrier from the alicorn changelings, and landed beside Luna.

"What the hay is happening up there?" Celestia questioned herself. "I can't sense any real magic up there, and yet, they managed to use it against me? Is it the silent magic?"

"Sister, we have to do something--" Luna tried to say, but a sharp screeching pierced their eardrums as a bright light blinded them for a short while.

"I told you I couldn't die," Effiela's voice said in the minds of the alicorns. "As long as my Changelings live, so shall I!"

"How are you doing this?" Celestia shouted at Effiela. "How is magic like that even possible?!"

"My body holds the DNA of the queen of the Changelings," Effiela replied, "if changelings eat the body of a pony, a changeling made of the pony's DNA will be reborn. So if I die, my Changelings can devour my body to resurrect me as myself, due to my body and blood being intertwined with the Queen Changeling's. So, this is my body, my subjects... take and eat it, as through it, all shall be reborn. And this is my blood, take and drink it, as this is the life which will bring to you true happiness!" Effiela used her own illusion to make the sisters relive her entire day, so they could see for themselves her determination to keep on going no matter what. "As our time is running short, I only have this to say to you two... I really was about to give up against you, Celestia. You truly are a powerful mare, and I mean it! You've not got a single bruise on you, and even though I have done all of this and showed you the highlights of my day, you still stay unwavering in your power. But, I realized, if I am to be God of Equestria, I can't be less brave than you. And that, I had failed, just so I could let myself be killed so I could have a second chance. A god of war and a god of prosperity is what I am. I am both the light and the dark, the good and the evil, the sun and the moon! I am the clear sky which is space and chaos itself, determining the order of the cycle of life! I am bigger than the sun, I am the personification of all that is and all that will be... I was weak and powerless. I let them all crawl over me as if I were their punching bags, but that is no more... tell me I'm overreacting, but that last day I saw my little sister was the day I realized that no amount of happiness could fill the gap that she left in my heart. I never wanted anypony to feel that same pain, but at the same time, I wanted everypony to feel that same pain, and the madness drove me insane... but I reached perfection through my madness, and through that I became more than a pony, I became God! My father always wanted me to be a police-mare, but I became the next best thing..."

Celestia was sickened by Effiela, she tried again and again to break through the shield which protected Effiela's body and her changelings from the two sisters, but was unsuccessful. "Damn you! You know nothing of what you're getting yourself into! There's no way a mortal being like you can obtain that much power through such filthy means!"

Effiela appeared in front of the barrier, which was absorbed into her body, with a dark smile on her face. "But my little pony, I already have!"

Celestia turned to Luna and looked intensely into her eyes. "Luna... you must be the one to rule alongside Cadance and Twilight. I will stay here and fight Effiela Claire. You'd only get in the way...

"But sister!" Luna cried, stepping forward a little.

"You're too much of a pacifist to fight, and I wouldn't want to force you to do something you don't want to do," Celestia replied, flying up to fight against Effiela, but Luna followed her.

"I, I will fight with you, so we can use our Yin and Yang Magic together," Luna urged her sister, looking to Effiela as her sister was doing. "Our magic keeps one another balanced, and nopony with out the other can stand unbalanced."

Effiela rubbed where she was bisected with her right hoof. "You two really are as persistent as cockroaches... and the frustration boiling with you two is making it awfully hard for me to not kill you."

"Same to you," Celestia said.

"If I am forced to do it for the sake of Equestria, then so I shall kill you," Luna said, as she allowed her magic to flow out completely, showing it to be on an equal level with Celestia's.

Celestia stopped using her dark magic and released her white solar energy Yang magic, as Luna's dark bluish-black lunar energy Yin did the same and came together with one another, making a Yin-Yang circle behind the two sisters. Luna transformed into Nightmare Moon, as the form was her complete Yin taking over, while Celestia stayed as she was, since she never changed.

"Yin-Yang Magic? I've never heard of such a thing," Effiela said, tilting her head to the right.

"It's the ancient magic used by the unicorns in the olden days to rise and set the sun and the moon," Celestia explained, "Luna and I figured out all of its secrets and perfected it to our favor. Now we can use the Celestial beings as magical items in of themselves!"

Celestia and Luna both shot magical beams at Effiela, who only dodged them and began flying high into the air, prompting the two to follow her. "Don't run away now!" Luna yelled. "You're only making this worse on yourself! Just give up and turn in the Alicorn Amulet, or we will have to kill you!"

"Are you implying that you can kill me at anytime?" Effiela shouted at them as she teleported behind them to turn around and flee the other direction.

Celestia, using the speed of light again, appeared before Effiela once again. "Were you implying the same?" she asked, using her magic to blast Effiela down into the inner city of Canterlot, where all the inhabitants had left from. Luna brung darkness to make Effiela's sight useless, though she could still sense magic flowing around her.

Luna used illusions to infiltrate her mind and get her body to stop working from the inside out, but in reality, as Effiela was paying too much attention to getting Luna out of her head, Celestia had already blasted her with Yang Magic. Effiela continued to stay standing, and she teleported out of Luna's dark Yin energy cloak and back into the sunlight, where Celestia was gaining power from the sun itself to shoot at Effiela. She cleared the rain clouds from in front of the sun, making a rainbow arc over the land of Equestria, while Luna was under her sister and made the moon come in front of the sun, creating a solar eclipse. However, as the sun turned black, in Effiela's mind, the moon turned blood red. She saw upside down that she was in the realm of her imagination, and that Luna was controlling it. She tried to break from the illusion, but could not. The rainbow gathered around the sisters as their black and white energies collided and created a single ball of Yin and Yang, haloed by the sun, moon, and the rainbow.

Effiela remembered how Giselle had left her. How she cared not enough for her sister to stay with her and show her that she loved her. She saw how easy Celestia and Luna were getting along, and envied their sisterly chemistry. She only wanted that, but it was true that some ponies never get what they want.

She bit her front leg to wake herself from the illusion and get out of the way of the magic attack the sisters had collaborated to birth. Teleporting up farther into the sky, Effiela was still pushed by the blast and it's force, but she used her changeling DNA to partially absorb the Yin Yang Magic which the sisters used against her, and she quickly made a counter-attack that could not miss. She descended with a Silver Nuke, possibly the last one she could perform for a long time, since this one was only powered by the little magical power she had reserved to take on Canterlot. Though this one did destroy half of Canterlot, it was still full powered like the last ones were, and it was no joke.

The blast nearly incinerated the sisters, but their magic covers were protective enough to reduce lethal damage by 50%, though they were still blown away by this attack and injured to the point where they could not stand up.

"Sister! Sister! Wake up, please! Wake up!" Luna cried as she crawled to her sister's side, taking notice that the severe drain in magic left them in their younger states, such as when Luna was defeated by the Mane 6. Celestia's mane reverted back to its original pink color, and both of the sisters shrunk down to where they were just a bit under Effiela's size.

Celestia opened her eyes and coughed up blood, something which she never thought she would have ever done. "Wh-what? Were we really beat by her? Did she really trample over us and make us into this?"

Effiela walked up to them, with black energy on one side of her body and white energy on the other. She was sweating oceans and panting as if she had forgotten how to breathe, her legs were shaking as she walked, and once she made it to Celestia and Luna, she fell to her knees and began laughing, despite coughing violently afterwards. She tried to absorb the magic of the Yin Yang into herself, but could not, and the energy was scattered all throughout the air. A small portion of it seeped into the Alicorn Amulet. "I win, Celestia," she wheezed, using her magic to gather the remains of the Crystal Castle, the weather factory of Cloudsdale, and Celestia and Luna's castle to create from the earth a tower for herself. "I will not kill you two, well, at least not until I gain those other two Alicorns. Twilight and her sister, Cadance. I can't say for sure... that this battle hasn't taught me anything other than the full extent of Equestria's power, but I am the power and authority of Equestria now. And now that I have your knowledge of all the magic and history, I can get my army of changelings together in even denser numbers and study greater forms of magic. My title of God has already been achieved, but my power is not even on par with you two's... so you are going to be of great use to me for now..."

Effiela looked on to all the destruction she had caused, and saw that it was good. "I am God now... I am God now!" She giggled lightly, until the black vines of her changeling DNA came out of the ground leading to the basement of her new palace, dragging Celestia and Luna down, despite their screams and pleas for her to stop, for her to show them mercy. She could not use anymore magic for the time being, as her reserves were empty and she had to wait until her stamina came back, so until then, Ponyville would be safe from her wrath. As for the rest of Equestria, it was under her control. She truly had become God. Next Chapter: ACT 1. CHAPTER 8: Ponyville's Struggle Estimated time remaining: 38 Minutes