“Midnight Alert! Midnight Alert!” General Applejack shouts while a random pony shakes the alarm bell frantically, “Everypony to the surface now! This is not a drill! I repeat, this is NOT a drill!” Hundreds of ponies begin flooding the stairway; even more than before, quickly hustling up the steps. “Aaron, Daniel, get the armour!” The two unicorns follow orders as the peel from the crowd and head into the armoury, coming back out levitating hundreds of suits of purple plates of metal armour. Outside the hospital, Borris and the gang look upon the rush and he turns to Raindrop and talks to her,

“Stay in the hospital and help the nurses. Midnight is a true force to be reckoned with.”

“Yes sir.” Raindrop proudly replies and goes back into the hospital with the two Fluttershies.”

“Rainbow, Lieutenant, and Pinkie, join the front liners and defend the entrance, I’ll join you guys later.”

“On it!” Rainbow exclaims and the three hop into the crowd and head up.

“Go! Go! Go!”

“Major Borris,” Marshal Rarity says.

“Marshal?”

“You are doing quite an excellent job, I might consider giving you a promotion.”

“Thanks,”

“Tell the others that I’m going to go check on Rarity and help defend the amulet.”

“I’ll communicate your orders to above.”

“Good job.” The two parts ways as Borris flies above the river of mares and the marshal enters her chamber. But instead of finding Rarity relaxing on her bed, she finds Applejack at her desk. “Applejack? Where’s Rarity?”

“She put me in the runner-up of here while she goes up to fight,” the Earth Pony responds, “something about me being more responsible.”

“What? Why would my other me not want to get the highest position in the RAEM?”

“I saw the meeting a few minutes ago, you seemed pretty stressed. Maybe Rarity doesn’t want that.”

“She’d get used to it.”

“Do you like it, having to make the hard decision with the fate of Equestria in your hooves?”

“Are you saying I’m not suitable for this position?”

“I’m just saying that there might be other ponies that could carry the burden without tipping it over.”

“Like who? General Apple? She didn’t even attend the meeting,”

“Because she was watching over the foals, both your and my Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and many others since the caretaker was in the hospital. She had me represent for her.”

“Do you really think that she of all ponies could hold this power?”

“Yes, quite frankly I do.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“No, I’m trying to be a mature adult and not using my power for just manicures and servants.”

“It’s called presentably.”

“It’s called abuse of power.”

“So what if I use a bit of it here or there, I deserve it for putting up with lip like yours and Applejack.”

“You can be so immature Rarity,”

“You can be so full of yourself Applejack,” A loud explosion booms from above, rattling candlesticks and torches off of the walls, bathing the now empty base in darkness.

“Do you want to take this outside?”

“Yes, the surviving pony will prove that all her world versions are better than the other’s.”

“Challenge accepted.” The two storm out of the room and race each other up to the surface, immediately being blinded by balls of fire and light racing across the sky.  Unicorns are firing from every angle from inside and outside the old born, pegasi are creating tornadoes and firing lightning from clouds, creating a massive downpour on the battlefield where Earth Ponies are bashing and fighting their way through hundreds of Morks.

Inside the red skies that glow of crimson, Borris and Rainbow Dash are flying over the chaos, looking for the empress. They are however caught off guard when a humongous metal dragon and a black armoured alicorn fly right below them. “Spike! Midnight!” Borris exclaims, “Rainbow Dash, if we can get a sneak attack on Midnight from behind, we might be able to find a weakness.”

“Roger that buddy!” Rainbow replies as they turn around and slowly catch up on the unsuspecting empress. Upon being with a meter of her target, Rainbow gives a mighty shove of her wings and tackles Midnight, causing the two to crash onto the beast’s back. “Gotcha!” Midnight pulls the pegasus off her back and tosses her to the metal floor. Dash gets to her hooves as they stand high in the clouds, staring each other down.

“Well, well,” Midnight replies with a villainous cackle, “if it isn’t Captain Dash, back from the grave.”

“You know who I am.”

“And does everypony else? Or are you lying to them to ‘save their spirits’?”

“What’s it matter to you?”

“Not much, either way you’re going down. How about we make this interesting, no flying and no magic per say?”

“It’s your loss, without your cheats, anypony can beat you.”

“You’ll be even easier to beat than your dead other.” Midnight’s horn glows as Rainbow begins to feel heavier than usual. “Now, that you can’t fly,” Empress Midnight deactivates her wing flaps before screaming, “NOW LET’S END THIS!” Rainbow and Midnight then charge at each other, eyes dead set on each other. Midnight delivers the first blow, moving her body to cause a lifeless claw to smack Rainbow in the side and sending her flying off the dragon’s back, plummeting into the battle below. The pegasus tries to open her wings, but she realizes that they’re stiff as stone against her body, causing her to scream in terror.

“Rainbow!” Borris hollers as he dives out of the clouds, blowing his cover.

“Spike, take care of him.” Midnight then jumps from her minion’s back and dives towards Dash as the metal Spike turns to Borris and hovers. The beast blasts molten metal fireballs from his mouth and Borris avoids each one, with each ball nearly clipping him in the wins. Borris then flies high into the clouds and stays hidden for a while. The dragon reacts by fires a ray of flames into the clouds, only to have the pegasus dive from the clouds straight towards him with electricity crackling in his wing plates. Borris then slams his body right between Spike’s eyes, causing electricity to surge through its body. The massive beast roars in pain and flies away with his tail between his hind legs as his metallic body droops down from the wings. Borris then dives down and finds Midnight and Rainbow fighting on the ground amongst the others. He sees Rainbow Dash sidestepping, ducking, and jumping over Midnight’s rapid horn slices and jabs. Dash then manages to run around the empress’ body, punching, kicking, and bucking at her sides, her behind, and even her face. Soon, Rainbow delivers a buck at her rival’s face so hard, it tears off a chunk of her helmet, revealing a pair of round glowing red eyes. “Impossible! Even with the power of the Alicorn Amulet, I’m losing to a mere hoof fight…”

“You got this Rainbow!”

“If I can only get a hold of that second amulet still in the RAEM…”

“Don’t even think about it,” Rainbow replies, speeding circles around the empress, “I guess I’m too good for you.”

“Playtime’s over!” Midnight’s horn flashes as her arms come to life once more and she grabs Rainbow Dash.

“No fair! Let me go!”

“You’re coming with me…”

“Not if my lightning wings have anything to say about it!” Borris screams as he dives onto Midnight, electrifying her with the leftover electricity in his wing plates. The empress’ limbs go limp as Borris grabs Rainbow as they make their way to the barn.

“Sneaky little pegasus, you always were a powerful asset…”

“Take this you ruffians!” A mare’s voice carries over the fighting and into Midnight’s ear, she turns to see Rarity, clothed in armour, rapidly firing magic in every direction. “This is for ruining my boutique!” Rarity tries to levitate the Morks closing in on her, she is instead hit with a shock.

“Ha ha,” Rarity hears the empress’ laugh and looks around and sees the towering mare. “You didn’t think I thought of that did you other Rarity? My Morks and I are immune to telekinesis, outside teleportation, and any other forms of direct magic.”

“You don’t frighten me you miscreation of a mule.”

“This will, my friend.” Midnight’s horn glows as Rarity freezes in place, staring blankly in front of her.  “You rash pony, falling for my illusions a second time. You may not be Rainbow Dash, but you’ll work for what I got planned.”

“Rarity!” The marshal screams. She jumps onto Midnight’s back and fires a stream of magic energy into the back of her helmet. Midnight tries to reach her back with her claws, but she finds that they can’t bend in such a way to grab the pony.

“It’s like that one itch on your back you can’t reach…” The empress rolls over, squishing Marshal Rarity to the dirt floor. Midnight gets back to her hooves and grabs the marshal in her right claw. “This will work even better,” The green wing flaps activate and the metal pony take off with her hostage, screaming and kicking with all her might. “Morks, we got what we came for, let’s take off!” In that moment of command, hundreds of Morks retreat from the barn and run into the forest. Twilight runs out from behind the barn chasing a trio of unicorn minions, yelling,

“Get back here!” She sees Empress Midnight holding the marshal and concentrates on her wings.

“Don’t!” General Applejack shouts at her, “You can’t perform direct magic on Midnight, you’ll be electrocuted!” However, instead of what the general warned Twilight, the alicorn freezes Midnight in midair, holding her wings in a magic grip.

“Gotcha!”

“How the?!”

“Not, letting you, get away!” Twilight walks backwards, pulling the floating pony closer and closer to the barn. Midnight lowers her head under her body and fires a powerful beam of magic, obliterating the ground around Twilight. This catches her off guard and she lets go of concentration, letting Midnight escape into the clouds with her Morks already long gone.

“How’d you do that?” Gruncle Boris exclaims, “No pony has been able to use direct magic on Midnight, not even the princesses were able to hold her in place!”

“I don’t know.”

“It might be because you and her have a similar magic frequency…”

“What?”

“Your horn in which you project magic from has a set frequency, all unicorns and alicorns have their own unique frequency, with some being more similar than others. From my studies, I theorize that ponies can overcome another’s magic if they are more powerful in magic capabilities or having a similar magic frequency.”

“Why me and Midnight though? How are we so similar is that we have similar frequencies?”

“It’s just a theory, might not be completely correct.”

“That’s not important though,” General Applejack argues, “that blast of magic was too big and powerful to be one of Midnight’s normal blasts. Do you know what that means?”

“Uh… She needs to go use the bathroom?”

“It means she has the Alicorn Amulet.”

“How? None of her minions made it even close to the inside of the RAEM. Unless,”

“She got it from Twilight’s world.”

“I see, so the only reason she didn’t destroy us then and there,”

“Is because she thinks we might use ours against hers,” Twilight adds.

“That’s probably what she’s thinking.”

“The more important thing now is that Marshal Rarity’s been captured,” Borris interjects, “we need to rescue her before anything bad happens to her.”

“Right,” Twilight nudges Rarity with her horn, causing her to snap out of Midnight’s hallucination.

“Miss Rarity, the marshal’s been kidnapped, and she has left you in charge. What is your first order?” The unicorn takes a minute to collect herself and replies,

“Well, since I’m now in command… uh… I’m going to put General Applejack in charge of the RAEM.”

“Oh, okay,” the general replies in surprise, but quickly recollects herself and turns her voice stern, “First order of business, take everypony to the hospital to be checked out.”

“Yes ma’am,” Twilight and the others reply in unison.

“Then we are going to construct and execute a rescue mission, am I clear?”

“Yes.”

“I just hope Rarity isn’t in too much trouble, I can barely imagine what torture she’s going through at this moment.”