Morning. A beautiful day, the sun rising over Canterlot, basking the ivory towers in a reddish glow. I grin. Luna is taking up where Celestia can’t, probably from exile in the Crystal Empire, just like I knew she would. And now, I bask in the glow of the sunlight, smiling as it warms my face.

Y’know what? I’ve always enjoyed the sunrise. It was pretty much the only thing that kept me sane during those years in that godforsaken cave. It was the signal that I’d survived another freezing night with nothing but my rags, and maybe something would go right that day. The sun always seemed to promise that, and maybe this time, it would keep that promise. It rarely did, of course, but maybe.

I breathe in the fresh morning air, giving a calm sigh as I stride out to the balcony. The only thing that makes this better is doing this after a night in Sunbutt’s bed. Hey, it’s not like she’ll be needing it anymore. She’s got a cage to serve time in.

In all honesty, shit like this is almost enough to let me forgive some ponies, especially Celestia. I know Luna’s trying her best, but the sky just doesn’t have quite that burnt-orange tint it had with Celestia’s mornings. It’s almost enough to make me forget that Sunbutt spent a thousand years building a nation on a foundation of pure hypocrisy, extolling love and harmony while trampling over the lesser races of this planet.

Almost.

“Such a beautiful morning,” I sigh as I retreat back into the room, pulling my work boots on from where I’d left them on the silk-lined couch. I smile serenely as I lace them up. “Time to completely fuck it up for some ponies.”

I stomp out of my room like a category-five hurricane hitting the Florida Keys, the guards posted outside my door falling in step behind me even as I button up my coat. A clerkling sidles up beside me, a stack of folders in his hoof.

“Ah, Histus, good to see you,” I smile even as I keep my gaze on the winding spiral staircase ahead, ensuring I don’t go tumbling head over heels. “How are things?”

“Well sir, the Crystal Empire backed down as expected,” the smaller changeling reports in such a nasally tone I’m disappointed he doesn’t have glasses to adjust while he speaks. “Their invasion forces stopped right at the border. Our screening forces are keeping an eye on them, making sure they don’t try to sneak in.”

“Excellent,” I hiss. Of course Shining Armor and Cadence backed down, they wouldn’t want anything to happen to their precious Twily, after all. I wonder, would they be so enthusiastic to protect her if they knew what she was guilty of? An interesting question, I think I’ll send them a director’s cut edition of my little broadcast from yesterday. Who knows? Maybe they’ll let up the pressure on our new borders. “Anything else? How goes public relations?”

“The city is entirely ours, sir,” the changeling reports. “No casualties since the last parts of the garrison surrendered, not even from any of the patrols in the further-flung suburbs at the base of the mountain, although…”

“Although?”

The changeling looks back at my guards conspiratorially, then motions for me to lean in. I drop to a knee real quick and he whispers into my ear: “I personally think that’s because you had the elite veterans carry out those patrols, with orders to stick to the well-lit roads.”

“Just demonstrating our power to the ponies in the surrounding areas that didn’t have the privilege of seeing our invasion first hand,” I shrug, rising back to my feet and picking my pace up right where I’d left it. “Risky in places that isolated, but I do believe having the more intimidating veterans carry them out balanced out the risk, don’t you?”

“Brilliantly so, sir,” the changeling enthuses.

“Kiss-ass,” one of the sentries snickers behind me. The changeling shoots them a glare while I pretend not to notice. My head is elsewhere, far away from little spats like this.

Still glaring, Histus continues. “Governess Chrysalis is also reporting that all is normal with the Badlands. No animal incursions from the Everfree to report, and the nurseries are ready to accept the first love shipments.”

I nod without a speck of interest, and then I go in for a metaphorical suckerpunch. “What about Ponyville? What are our reports from there?”

The snickering and heated glaring stops almost immediately. One of the guards stumbles, but keeps pace. Histus coughs, shuffling through his papers, his hooves quivering as they do so. Oh, the poor dearie, so nervous! He needs to learn to relax!

“Th-the advance parties report all clear, sir,” he says, speaking so low I almost can’t hear him. “One of the larger squads even carried out a patrol through the heart of town without encountering a pony. They apparently locked themselves in their homes upon hearing of our coming.”

“Excellent,” I enthuse, ignoring the shaking hoofsteps as I continue on through the hallways. “The citizens acted just as predicted, I’m sure we’ll have no trouble with our arrival.”

“Y-y-yes, sir,” the changeling sighs. I can almost hear his pulse from where I stand as we come to a halt at the darkened bottom of the stairs. “S-sir? Is it true what they’re saying about Ponyville?”

“That depends, Histus, what’re they saying about Ponyville?” I ask innocently.

“That…that you plan to destroy it, sir.”

I pause before the oaken door at the bottom of the stairs, my boots clacking to a stop as my gaze wanders around, as if I’ve just spotted the most interesting ceiling tile in the world. When I think the tension has risen enough, I chuckle. “No private, I don’t plan on destroying it.”

“Oh,” he and the sentries all heave a sigh of relief, one that lasts for barely two seconds.

“I plan on erasing it,” I finish, dropping to one knee to look Histus right in the eye. He hops back as a feral gleam creeps over my face. “Sounds much more permanent, doesn’t it? Erasing.”

His jaw quivers as he follows up with a couple more steps back. “Wh-whwh-wh-wha-what?”

“You see, ‘destroying’ makes it sound so impermanent. Rome was destroyed. Berlin was destroyed. Hell, San Francisco was destroyed by the big quake of '06. Yet they all managed to rebuild.” I can’t help the grin crossing my face, or the increasingly feral look crossing my face. “That won’t be happening here. Ponyville will be erased. It will become a no-pony’s land, where all will be forbidden. There will be no rebuilding, and those who remain won’t even be allowed to speak of it. It will be forgotten, as if it never was. The buildings will be burnt, the ruins left to rot, and the earth salted so nothing can grow there ever again.”

One of my sentries momentarily loses his grip on his spear. “B-b-b-but sir! Y-y-you can’t k-kill an entire ci-city!” He gasps.

“Watch me,” I snort as I step into the dungeon, leaving the changelings behind to gape after me, their bodies framed in the light. At the bottom of the moss-covered stairs, I don’t even break stride. Six cells, all crowded with the noises of their resting occupants. Just them and me. Just like I wanted all those years ago. Isn’t life grand?

“Rise and shine, my little ponies!” I announce, rattling the bars of the nearest cage. “It’s a beautiful day!”

I know I’m taking a lot of joy in this, but c’mon! I’ve won! I have everything I’ve ever wanted! Justice is finally being served!

Right?

The ponies stir slowly, groggily. A bit of hay over solid rock probably makes for a crappy bed. Then again, so does some leaves over a cave floor. I think they’ll survive if I can take that for three solid years. Yeah, it doesn’t feel so good, does it? Being forced to sleep on a cave floor…

My thoughts boil away beneath that simmering, boiling rage. They deserve this. They all do. This is a new dawn; a world set right! This is justice!

To really drive their failure home, I whip the tattered curtains away from the only window looking outside, allowing sunshine into the room.

The ponies all raise themselves onto shaking, chained hooves, their manes disheveled and filled with split ends. Of course, Twilight is the first to realize what’s going on, her pupils narrowing in the light. “But…Celestia...”

“Ding-ding-ding-ding! Give the mare a cigar!” I announce, spreading my hands out to the freshly-risen sun. “That’s right, girls, you all saw Celestia fall into captivity, and yet the sun still rises the very next day. Wow, not even twenty-four hours and the world is getting along fine without Canterlot.”

I grin at them as they look into the light with confused, bleary eyes. Of course, they don’t need to know this was likely the work of Luna, raising the sun from her exile in the Crystal Empire. In a way, it’s almost poetic that their own princess has become another tool I can use to crush them.

I go for the kill. “It’s almost like you weren’t needed at all. Almost as if everything you thought you did for harmony was just another tool used by a bigoted, hypocritical system to oppress the non-pony races of this world.” I say wistfully, still gazing out the window as if admiring the sunrise, as if the ponies aren’t really even there.

Fluttershy bursts into tears. Rainbow Dash snarls and throws herself against her restraints. Applejack and Twilight continue glaring at me quietly, and Rarity and Pinkie…just…sort of…lay there. Wow, broken already? That was quick. Pinkie doesn’t even have any of her signature poofiness in her mane. Shit, thought that would take longer.

“Liar,” Twilight hisses at me under her breath. My sharpened hearing still picks it up.

“Takes one to know one,” I reply, my gaze shifting from her to the hillbilly. “Isn’t that right, Applejack?”

AJ’s glare intensifies, her head lowering, her nostrils flaring, her massive eyes turning into smoldering emeralds in the dimness. I just grin while my soldiers file in behind me, changelings going from cell to cell, hurriedly pulling out ponies and shoving them along, up the stairs, out of the dungeon, herding them with spears and snarls.

Fluttershy is still a quivering, teary mess as fresh shackles are locked around her hooves, the ponies forced to move in a long train by my changelings, prodded along at spearpoint. I lead them down the once-pristine hallway and out of the palace, realizing it’s the perfect opportunity for a tour! If you look to your left, you can see where a statue to Celestia once stood, now a scenic pile of rubble. To your right, you’ll find the world-famous monument to the Elements, or that is, where the monument used to stand. Yes, these six statues commissioned just three months after my escape from Ponyville bore the cutie marks of each of the current Element Bearers, raised on high marble pedestals, up until their sudden demolishment just last night.

I think the columns will make a fine bathroom. A fancy, upper-class one, the kind with aftershave, toothbrushes, and breath mints, and maybe an attendant.

Of course, I don’t need to say anything during this tour. The gasps and sudden cries of despair from our little column are enough to let me know that the point is getting across. Every smashed window, every pile of disorganized rocks where a statue once stood, all driving the message home. Yes girls, the comfortable, consequence-free lives you knew are over. You’ve all dodged justice long enough.

My changelings keep us all at a brisk trot. I don’t mind the jog, and of course, most of the ponies don’t, though Twilight obviously has spent too long with her muzzle in a book if the way she’s huffing and puffing by the time we reach our destination is any indication. Don’t worry, Sparkle. We’re gonna work that fat right off of you. Our destination is an isolated square, under heavy guard, my changelings all glaring down upon us from the shingled rooftops. In the middle stands a small wagon train of cages, six in total. Rainbow Dash stops short of the sight, her lip curling up.

“Uh-uh,” she snorts. “You must be crazy if you think I’m going in…”

Before she can even finish her sentence, two of my largest changelings unhook her from the rest of the line and drag her, kicking and screaming, to her cage, throwing her in as if she were a sack of potatoes and slamming the barred door shut before she can scramble to her hooves.

The rest go without a fight, led to their little cells with hardly a whimper. The display with Rainbow Dash might have been rough, but it served its purpose. Seeing one of their strongest thrown around like a toy is enough for each of the other mares to climb into their cages, all on their own, albeit with some nasty looks thrown my way and with deliberate slowness. A flicker of a shadow catches in the corner of my eye, and I glance over, drinking in one of the few sculptures left intact in the city: a pegasus reared up on her hind hooves, glaring down at us, her eyes narrowed. In one upraised hoof, she holds a balance scale. It’s too far to make out what’s being balanced, but with that judgmental glare, I can guess this is the pony equivalent of “Lady Justice” back home. I squint up at it. This pony isn’t blindfolded…suppose justice here isn’t as blind here as it should be. Doesn’t surprise me, but the detail in that glare, the actual shimmer captured in stone; this couldn’t have been some random pony, she meant something, I’ll have to look her up...

“Applejack don’t!” I look up as Twilight’s voice pierces my thoughts. My gaze rolls wildly around, taking a few seconds to process the burnt-orange blur thundering towards me. Behind those furious, green eyes and that awful, heavy clomp, a pair of my changelings lay on the ground, cradling deep hoof marks in their chitin.

I freeze up.

Surely my guards will catch her. Surely, this isn’t happening again. Not today. Not now. Not after I’ve come so far. I can’t be back in that goddamned place again. Not again. With that hateful glare. Those hooves. Those awful, powerful hooves. My guards will catch her! Yes, yes they have to, they…

Applejack’s hoof connects with my stomach, just like it always had, just like she always did because she always aimed well, the little bitch, the little cunt, have to teach her, have to…

The old knot of anger blazes. I grasp her hoof and I flip her over using her leg as a lever, all without a sound out of my mouth. She hits the ground with a loud oof, but I follow up with a punch before she can scramble up again. Followed by another. And another, and another, how do you like it bitch, how the fuck do you like this pain, “How the fuck do you like feeling like this!? How does it feel whore!? How does it feel!? I hope it hurts! I hope it hurts even a fraction as bad as I…”

“STOOOPPPP!” Fluttershy screaming. Her high-pitched voice brings me back to my senses. I blink. I’ve been straddling Applejack, beating on her over and over. A bit of blood leaks out her muzzle as she gazes defiantly up at me. Her muzzle swells up, giving her a strange snarl. My knuckles hurt. She now sports a fresh black eye and a swollen lip.

This…this isn’t who I’m meant to be. This isn’t the calm, collected Jason Wright. This is the beaten, whipped dog Jason Wright. This isn’t the Changeling Emperor.

I stand up. She doesn’t even try to. I sneer and re-secure her leg irons, then I lean down real close by her ear.

“You’re already losing a lot today,” I hiss into her ear. “Do you want me to add more to that? One of your friends? A family member? Y’know, Big Macintosh doesn’t do a lot of talking, I wonder if he really needs his tongue…”

“Stop,” she gasps, and when I’m back up, I’m delighted to see tears in her eyes, that once-defiant glare now all wide and shimmering like a filly’s after the lights turn off and the monsters of her worst imagination come out and play in the darkness. “D-don’t…please…they didn’t do nothin’…”

“Nothing?” I ask, the rage boiling up inside again, my voice rising. “And what did I do to deserve whatcha did to me, huh!? The fuck did I ever do to you!?”

She’s just whimpering now, cowering, her eyes gleaming with tears. I scoff, utterly disgusted by the pathetic display before me. This was the bane of my existence? This was what I feared every moment I tried to grab something to eat? Still, I can’t help but twist the dagger…

“You know, in a way I think I should thank you.”

“Wh-what?”

“That day in the apple orchard, remember?” I smile at her, as if taken by a bit of nostalgia. “Of course, I was about seventy pounds lighter and had a rope around my neck, but yes, I am still that man. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

The smile turns into a grin, earning a shiver. “Honestly, that might have been where everything had ended. I might’ve crawled off to die in my cave if it wasn’t for you. That day was the worst day of my life, the moment where all the misery finally crowded down upon me and I was at my lowest. The only thing that made it all better was what you said to me, that simple little question: ‘why?’ As if you didn’t know.”

I dart to my hands and scoop her up by the scruff of her neck, delighting in the clinking of the manacles around her legs as she struggles in my grasp, her friends all begging, screaming for me to stop. They’re so much white noise in my ears. She looks up at me as if I were a timberwolf atop her, saliva dripping from its fangs. Good, that’s the right amount of fear, that right there. “As if you had no idea, as if you couldn’t comprehend how years of intolerable cruelty could break a man, destroy everything he once was until there was nothing left! As if the abuse and isolation was something normal for you to carry out!”

I drop her, letting her hit the ground like a ton of bricks. Her hat has fallen off. I allow her to crawl along the ground to retrieve it, tears still falling, her breath coming in short gasps. I’m not done. “That moment was when the sheer wickedness of everything you represent hit me. I think they call it ‘the banality of evil,’ where I come from: how anything that is true evil thinks nothing of the shit they do, whether it’s slicing up a little girl for kicks, or treating an abused animal like scum for years on end, beating him like a slave for no good reason. I knew then just how far from the picture of a perfect, loving Equestria I had known you really were, and I knew then that Equestria had to die.

“So thank you, Applejack,” I grin at her as she finally retrieves her hat. “Without you, I would probably have just scurried off to my cave to die a long and painful death. Without you, the idea of running off would never have occurred to me.”

I dip down almost right next to her face, teeth gritting, voice now just above a whisper. “Without you, I wouldn’t be on the verge of burning down everything you’ve ever loved!”

I grab her chains and drag her to her cage, throwing her in and locking the door in a single, fluid motion. She hits the bars on the far side and peers out at me from under her hat. That gleam still hasn’t left those big, sad eyes, that odd little flicker of something imperceptible. Could it be…regret?

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, so quietly I have to stay by the bars like a kid fascinated by some animal at the zoo. “I…I broke ya down and turned ya into…this…I didn’t mean…”

I scoff, waving her off as I leave. “The banality of evil,” I hiss, but ultimately I sigh, shaking my head sadly. “I know you didn’t mean it, Applejack. But you have to understand: that just makes it worse.”

“I’m sorry.”

My sigh turns into a sneer, my stomach twisting with the rage again. “Save your energy,” I grumble, leaving her as a few of the bigger guardlings descend upon the train, securing themselves to the front wagon and moving along with little instruction. I watch the train creak forward on rusting wheels, the guards having some trouble at first, but eventually pushing themselves ahead with some effort.

“You’re gonna need it,” I mumble as I watch them go, desperately ignoring the tightness in my chest, and the sudden driving urge to run across to the train, rip open one of those doors, and strangle the life out of one of those little ponies. It’s only after they’re out of sight that I realize I’ve been grasping my wrist in my free hand, and that I have done it so fiercely that my hand aches and blood is now pooling around my nails.

So this is what I’m reduced to. Can’t even look my tormentors in the eye without hurting myself. I sigh again, dabbing away at the blood with a kerchief stolen from Sunbutt’s personal stash. Today won’t even begin to repair this kind of damage, but it’s a damn good start.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most of the long ride out of the palace was silent. Mercifully, the streets were mostly empty. This was not a coincidence. Changelings guarded every street corner, standing in every doorway. The momentary glances from other ponies offered little in the way of comfort, mostly fearful peeks taken from under mostly-closed blinds. Those, at least, were better than the ponies that stood framed in their windows and glared down at the train, lips curled in obvious sneers of disgust, muzzles wrinkled. That these looks remained long after Jason was out of sight and only the back half of the train was visible was not lost on the prisoners.

"How?" Twilight whispered under her breath. "How could they all fall for his lies?"

"'Cause they weren't lies, Twi," Twilight turned, completely shocked, at the crestfallen pony beside her. Applejack laid at the bottom of her cage, still where Jason had thrown her, and when she looked up, Twilight saw a complete lack of light in her eyes, her once shining emeralds now just a dull green.

"Oh Applejack, not you too..." Twilight whimpered. "First Pinkie, then Rarity, now you? What's gotten into you girls!? We've been in worse..."

"I hate t'break it to ya Twi, but no, we haven't. Even when Tirek had us all caught up in those weirdo energy balls, that wasn't as bad as this," Applejack finally picked her muzzle up, and Twilight could see how it quivered. "At least then, I knew I was doin' my best and that I had a lot ridin' on me, now..." She turned over again, facing away.

"Applejack?" Twilight asked.

“I always thought I was a loving pony,” Applejack muttered, that tired gaze reflecting in the iron bars around her, just enough for Twilight to see the utter hopelessness in them. “Shoot, even now that I can remember, it’s like somepony else was usin’ my hooves. Like it wasn’t even me doin’ the buckin’…

"But that's just an excuse. It's 'cause my mind just can't wrap around me doin' it. I know that, I ain't stupid." She still faced away from Twilight, shaking her head until her hat drifted off and fell under the wheels of the train. She didn't even react at the squelching sound of the stiff leather wrinkling and cracking in the mud under them. "You wanna know why everypony believes Jason, Twilight? It's 'cause he ain't spoke a single lie since he showed up here. Not one. And folks know the truth when they hear it."

"A-Applejack..." Twilight reached through the bars to rest a hoof on her friend's shoulder, but AJ just pulled away. Something tightened in Twilight’s chest. "C-c'mon, we need to stick together if we're gonna save..."

"You wanna save somethin'!?" Applejack bolted upright and reared up, her once dull eyes suddenly blazing. "Why dontcha try savin' Jason from the hell we put 'im through!? Far as I can tell, he's the one who's needed savin' all these years, and nopony once lifted a hoof for it, he had to do it all by himself! He was right there! He was living just outside Ponyville, cryin' himself to sleep at night, and not one of us did a damn thing about it!"

A few cars down, Pinkie burst into tears. Twilight had to close her eyes to keep from following suit. When she opened them again, Applejack was curled up on the floor again, the rise and fall of her chest the only thing to indicate she was still alive, and not just an orange-colored rock in the neighboring cage. Twilight suppressed a sigh of relief. She wouldn't have been able to stare into those hard, judgmental eyes for much longer.

"Save Equestria, really darling, was that what you were about to say?"

Twilight had to turn to see it was Rarity doing the talking. It had sounded like her voice, but the words had been spoken with such venom as she had never heard from...well...most anypony's mouth. And the sarcastic way she'd said darling, Rarity didn't do sarcasm like that! It was uncouth! It was impossible for her! But lo, there she was, just a few cars down, glaring at Twilight with the same cold eyes Applejack had used.

"Y-yes...isn't that what we do?" Twilight asked, her voice without any of the conviction she had been hoping for.

"Wrong," Rarity said flatly, her gaze never breaking. "Don't you get it? We're the villains in this story. We have been all along, pretending we were heroes even as the blood of an innocent creature gathered around our hooves. We don't do the saving here, darling. Now, others get saved from us."

With that, she turned around in her cage, also facing away. Twilight's mouth opened, closed, her jaw working up and down. She reached through the bars of her cage, trying to find somepony...anypony… "Pinkie?"

The moment Pinkie's shattered, heartbroken eyes met Twilight's own, she realized what a mistake it'd been to call for her. Pinkie just shook her head, her flat strands of mane batting at her eyes, and turned back around to where she'd been laying.

Twilight sat on the floor of her cart, wishing she could wrap her wings around herself. Her eyes glimmered with tears, her chin quivered. She forced the urge to cry back with all her will, begged herself to remain brave and strong, searched somewhere for the strength that had defeated so many villains before now, because princesses didn’t cry when the pressure became too much. Even as the pressure built in her eyes and her lungs burned with the need to stutter and force a quivering gasp, princesses didn’t cry when things got tough, princesses kept…

A feather graced her hoof. Twilight’s head whipped around to the first cart behind her, and she locked eyes with Rainbow. Dash gave a half-hearted smile, and Twilight’s heart sank at the shimmer in her eyes. “Go ahead, poindexter, let it out,” she whispered. “But be quiet about it, okay? We don’t wanna give that bastard the satisfaction.”

Twilight nodded and curled up against the other mare’s hoof, offered up through the bars. She couldn’t let out the sobs building in her chest, but at least now the tears could come, and that’s just what they did. She cried for the destruction of everything she held dear. She cried for the burnt banners and the destroyed artwork and the hurt ponies, but most of all, she cried for her friends. For the decimated look in Pinkie’s eyes, for the way Applejack slumped in her cage, for the narrow-eyed look Rarity was still shooting at her, for Fluttershy’s terrified, quivering form, and of course, for Rainbow: that for even this little while, Rainbow needed to be strong enough for the both of them, and Twilight cried for being so weak.

When it was all cried out and the tears petered down to some whimpering sobs and gasps from her chest, Twilight leaned back and sighed, composing herself at last.

“Better?”

“Yes,” Twilight gave Rainbow the beginnings of a smile that she knew looked as fake as it felt, but it was something.

"Hey egghead, don't worry, alright?” Rainbow insisted, nudging one of Twi’s forelegs with a hoof. “You haven't given up on anything before, and it'd really suck for you to pick now to start.”

“I know, it’s just…” Twilight sighed and looked along the length of the train, trying very hard not to let her gaze wander through the bars of the other cages.

“Look, they’ll come around when this is all over,” Rainbow hissed. “They’re your friends! No stupid monkey-monster with an axe to grind is gonna change that, even Discord couldn’t swing that one!”

“Yes…” Twilight sighed, her brow furrowing. “Discord…do you suppose he’s alright?”

Rainbow shrugged. “He was a piece of statuary for over a thousand years before we were even born. He’s safer than most ponies right now!”

“I guess you’re right,” Twilight bit her lip, shaking her head, as if trying to shake loose a thought that just wouldn’t come out. “He’s safer than…”

It came to her all at once. She cocked her head back to absorb a little of Celestia’s sun, felt a little of its warmth on her face, and then a tree with gray bark studded in mold caught her eye. Her mouth dropped open. It wasn’t just that this was an odd-looking tree, of course, the shape of the scraggly branches as they reached up like fingers out of a sea of green combined with the oddly-linear path the moss took up its trunk were enough to catch anypony’s eye. What made this tree different was that it was distinct enough for Twilight to use it as a mile marker for one specific journey she’d taken countless times.

“Oh no,” she whispered, standing in her cage. She finally noticed the things she’d been too busy crying her emotions out to notice before: the distinctly rocky pattern of the ground, the sound their wheels made in every divot they rolled over, the distinct color of the dust kicking up behind them. Now that she was seeing it, she wondered how she could have missed it. After all, this was a trip she’d made more often than she could count.

“Twi?” Rainbow was now staring at her, also standing in her cage.

Twilight whirled on her friend, and the panic in her red, tear-streaked eyes was enough to make Rainbow’s pulse double, then quadruple once Twilight gathered her thoughts enough to form a single, coherent sentence:

“He’s taking us to Ponyville!”

The caravan made the final turn, and there it was: the clocktower that dominated the center of town, only recently dwarfed by the glimmering parapets of the Palace of Friendship. In a way, it was almost nice to see, since Twilight had almost believed she would never see it again during her time in the dungeons under Canterlot. Only now, her heart sank at the sight.

“Ohmygosh, ohmygosh,” Rainbow pranced on the tips of her hooves in her cage. She flexed her wings against their bindings. When that didn’t work, she leapt against the bars of her cage, rattling them frantically, panic clear in her eyes. “No, nonononono…”

“H-he wouldn’t…” Fluttershy whispered from under her wings, one tear-filled eye peeking from between her wings. “H-he couldn’t…”

“He would,” Rarity gasped, standing up in her cage, tears streaking from her eyes. “Oh, Celestia above, he would…”

“This is what he is now,” Applejack said under her breath, her hooves wrapping around herself as Pinkie broke into another choked-off sob. “This is what we turned him into…oh my dearest Stars an’ Bars…”

Twilight didn’t cry. She was beyond that now. In a way, she wished she could cry. Crying would help her work out some of the emotion threatening to boil over inside her. As it was, she felt like a volcano with a gigantic cork jammed into its throat, unable to release the horrible pressure inside, and feeling torn apart because of it.