“Lady Duskfall! Lady Duskfall! Wake up!” For the second time in two days, Duskfall was awoken by Lightning. Unfortunately, Duskfall could already guess why Lightning was so urgent.

“She escaped, didn’t she?” Duskfall asked, not even bothering to open her eyes.

“Yep,” Lightning replied.

“I told them on several occasions yesterday, didn’t I?” Duskfall groaned.

“And we both watched as Zecora fed her some potion that was supposed to keep her asleep even if she did start consuming your Sleeping Darkness,” Lightning reminded.

“I’m starting to think someone is actively making my life harder than it needs to be in retribution for what I did while I was crazy…er,” Duskfall finally pulled herself out of bed.

“It hasn’t stopped you thus far, m’lady,” Lightning pointed out.

“True, although the thought of breaking her legs when we find her is becoming more appealing,” Duskfall admitted.

“Would be easier and more affective to snap her horn,” Lightning suggested.

“We’re barbarians, not savages,” Duskfall snarked.

“I am glad to see you in such a good mood, despite us losing the object of your feud,” Zecora noted as she came into the tent Lightning and Duskfall has slept in.

“This is fine, isn’t it? Starlight finds Chrysalis sooner or later, somehow weasels her way into learning Changeling magic, the whole swarm shows up, and we ambush them. Sounds like a good plan to me,” Lightning said happily. Zecora gave them a look.

“Don’t look at me; I’m just the book smart one… also the dumb muscle. I’m a mare of many talents but strategy is not one of them,” Duskfall admitted, “If Lightning has a plan, I’d at least listen to her.”

“If you are sure of this plan I can only hope it does not shorten our lifespan,” Zecora murmured.

“Oh, don’t you worry, the only lifespan that’s gonna be shortened is Chrysalis’,” Lightning grinned sinisterly.

“Are you sure you’re not a villain? Should I tell the others to hide the wives and children?” Zecora said with such a straight face that neither Duskfall nor Lightning could tell if she was joking.

Lightning may not be able to use much active Changeling magic, but she had learned enough to be able to teach Duskfall how to throw up decoys that would trick the Changelings into thinking the base would be sleeping when they launched their attack.

Of course, this was all on the supposition Changeling military protocol was similar to what she knew. Changelings only attacked as a swarm at night due to their dark carapaces. That was just the logical thing to do whenever possible. If Chrysalis had destroyed Equestria, she at least deserved the benefit of the doubt.

So the next couple of days were spent with Lightning teaching the resistance and Duskfall what to expect, useful tactics against Changelings, and other useful things the resistance hadn’t yet learned through trial and error.

“So, what are the odds Starlight died in the Everfree, do you think?” Duskfall asked conversationally one afternoon, about 4 days after they arrived. Lightning snorted in amusement.

“Can you imagine? All the crap she’s put you through and she ends up Manticore crap herself,” Lightning shook her head in bemusement.

“We’d only get that lucky if the Manticore in question then took a dump on me,” Duskfall joked.

“Aw, don’t say that, m’lady. There’s being optimistic and then there’s just being silly,” Lightning smirked as Duskfall whapped the Pegasus upside the head with a wing.

“Duskfall! Lightning Dust! The Changelings are coming!” Fluttershy shouted as she burst into the encampment along with the 3 other ponies in her recon squad.

“ALRIGHT EVERYONE, YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!” Lightning roared with her best impression of the RCV.

The whole camp started scrambling, rushing about to do this and that in preparation for the fight. As Lightning had hoped, the invasion would arrive just as night truly fell.

An hour later, everyone was prepared and the advanced infiltration squad approached the gate. A few random looking ponies, but surprisingly there was a Changeling pretending to be Applejack as well. They were allowed in and soon thereafter Zecora and Fluttershy greeted them.

“Applejack, is that you..?” Fluttershy’s acting skills were nothing to scoff at.

“Howdy, Flutters. Been awhile, hasn’t it?” As an outside observer who knew the facts, this was quite an interesting conversation. Whoever was playing Applejack was doing an excellent job. It was the slight hesitation in her voice, the note of hopefulness, and a number of other quirks of voice and body language.

“How did you escape?” Fluttershy asked.

“They thought we were…all used up. Ah ain’t gonna lie, we got plum lucky,” ‘Applejack’ answered.

“Applejack, I’m so glad you’re OK!” Fluttershy cried with fake tears in her eyes. She rushed forward towards ‘Applejack’, who dropped the act just as it seemed too late for Fluttershy. Joke was on the Changeling, Fluttershy had a knife hidden in her wing that quickly found itself in the Changeling’s throat.

“Your reign of terror is over,” The Pegasus hissed as she removed her knife and the Changeling fell to the ground, disguise dropping and choking to death on his own blood. The other Changelings, shocked at this turn of events, stood stock still for several moments. Under other circumstances it would have been the perfect time to dispose of them, but they were still useful to Lightning’s plan while alive.

Eventually, they came back to their senses and fled back out through the still open gate, screaming for help. A mere minute later and the sky was darkened with the swarm. Or would have been darkened, had it not already been a new moon night. The only thing denoting the swarm was there at all were the ominous buzzing and the stars going out.

Duskfall very much wanted to start blasting the drones out of the sky, but Lightning’s plan didn’t call for that. The swarm fell upon the camp and realized too late it was one big trap. The drones ransacked tents in search of the ‘sleeping ponies’ and they were met with a host of death devices.

Once the swarm was in disarray, the resistance attacked, sweeping over the Changelings before they were able to get their feet back under them. With the help of Duskfall and the handful of Unicorns in the resistance, they were able to mask their emotions from the Changelings, nullifying a major advantage of the enemy.

With these advantages along with Lightning’s Rainbooms and Duskfall’s sheer firepower, everything looked like a done deal. That was, at least, until Starlight and Chrysalis took the field. The pair cut swaths through the resistance forces to announce their presence.

The big cheese spotted, Lightning banked hard and revved up for another Rainboom. Chrysalis was ready and fired off a bolt of magic to try and make Lightning abort her run, but Duskfall had been keeping an eye on her partner too and threw up a barrier to protect the Pegasus.

Starlight, with surprisingly quick thinking, created a defensive bubble and was able to bear the brunt of the Rainboom. Duskfall followed up with a shield breaker spell to pop the weakened spell. Starlight retaliated by firing off a fusion of Dark and Changeling Magic that Duskfall was able to match until Chrysalis started lending her own power to the struggle.

Duskfall disengaged with a teleport as Fluttershy came in on a bombing mission using explosive concoctions Zecora had made. Starlight and Chrysalis separated to avoid the attack, allowing Lightning to plow into Starlight, creating enough distance for Duskfall to corner Chrysalis.

“Who are you?!” Chrysalis spoke for the first time. Duskfall considered saying something overwrought and dramatic, but decided against it.

“Duskfall Sparkle, alternate reality version of Twilight Sparkle. You killed her, so I’m going to ruin you,” Duskfall snarled.

“Do you think I’m afraid of a little Alicorn? I defeated Celestia in one-on-one combat!” Chrysalis boasted, “Surely you know who I am, even if you are from an alternate dimension!”

“I don’t know you. I know a better version of you. Someone who came so close to breaking, but didn’t. The Chrysalis I know is a mother in the best way. Kind, caring, supportive, always there for you, my Chrysalis is an inspiration. She suffered for so long and came out the other side a better person, which is more than I can say for myself. You’re just a pathetic funhouse mirror that I won’t mind shattering,” Duskfall dosed out her strength and let loose with a bolt of Wild Darkness and Magic. Just as she hoped, Chrysalis met the attack with a blast of her own Changeling magic.

“Like teacher like student,” Chrysalis sneered, “This is how I defeated your precious Celestia!”

“Oh, poor deluded Chrysalis. Did it never occur to you that Celestia might’ve been holding back in a crowded room full of innocents?” Duskfall taunted.

“What?!” Chrysalis exclaimed. Apparently it hadn’t occurred to her.

“Now, I’m not sure about the local power level, but either your Celestia is close enough to my home’s Celestia that she might’ve accidentally incinerated the whole room if she went all out or I’m far enough ahead of the power curve that I can squish you like. A. Bug. Let’s find out, shall we?” Duskfall poured on the power, Magic, Darkness, and Insanity. Chrysalis, for her part, held on surprisingly well. Her Changeling magic doing its part to even the odds and because she had been glutting herself on the captured Equestrian populace she actually did stand something of a chance. If Lightning and Fluttershy hadn’t been checking Starlight, things could have gotten very messy very quickly.

“How. Is this. Possible?!” Chrysalis grunted out as Duskfall slowly overwhelmed her. Duskfall was sweating profusely as she answered.

“What can I say? If you had real love, you might’ve beaten me! But you’re a cruel, sadistic tyrant and your kind will always fall eventually!” With a final burst of effort, Duskfall ended the duel. Chrysalis fell backwards, unconscious, in a way fittingly similar to how Twilight’s memories of the wedding played out for Celestia.

With their leader defeated, the rest of the Changelings started to either flee or surrender. While the resistance started cleaning up, there was still the outstanding issue of Starlight to deal with and Duskfall didn’t have the juice to just outmuscle her like she had done to Chrysalis.

“You look like you could use some extra juice,” Zecora offered a potion to Duskfall, “Now get out there and pluck that annoying goose.” Duskfall gave Zecora a look for the questionable verse, but gladly drank the proffered refreshment. The potion was meant to work for Unicorns and thus only restored her Magic, but hopefully it would be enough with the help of the others to capture Starlight once more.

Duskfall joined the fight just as Fluttershy got a few primaries clipped by one of Starlight’s attacks. Duskfall blocked another shot that would’ve taken her whole wing off. Fluttershy landed next to the purple Alicorn.

“Thanks!” Fluttershy said.

“DAMN YOU!” Starlight screamed upon seeing Duskfall, unleashing a torrent of Dark Fire. Having to rely on a purely magical barrier meant both Duskfall and Fluttershy felt the infernal heat. Luckily, Lightning Dust was on the case and distracted Starlight with a hail of thrown weapons.

“Can you still fly?” Duskfall asked as the flames died down.

“She only got the tip of my pinions, I should be fine,” Fluttershy assured as she demonstrated by returning to the sky.

With a concussive blast, Starlight scattered the throwing weapons still in the air and on the ground, forcing her opponents to dodge lest they get hit by Lightning’s own weapons. By this point, everyone was running on fumes save for Duskfall, who was limited to only Magic and her physical fatigue was hampering that as well. Even in spite of that, Starlight was still dangerous enough that the rest of the resistance were still following Fluttershy’s orders to keep back.

“Starlight, it’s over! Stand down!” Duskfall tried to order.

“NO! Not again! I’LL DIE FIRST!” Starlight swore, her desperation fueling a renewed infusion of Darkness to feed her Dark Magic. Black crystals haphazardly erupted in a radius around her, one even managing to spear Duskfall in the gut.

“Lady Duskfall!” Lightning was instantly by her side.

“I’ll live long enough to finish the fight, nothing overly critical got hit,” Duskfall said through grit teeth, magically keeping her innards inside, “How much magic you got?”

“Not enough for another Rainboom, if that’s what you’re asking,” Lightning answered.

“I just need you and Flutters to have enough between you to catch Starlight in a little turbulence. Doesn’t have to be stronger than a dust devil, any amount of wind will do. Can you manage that?” Duskfall asked.

“I think I’ve got just about enough for that,” Lightning replied, mustering up every bit of confidence she possessed. She took to the air to inform Fluttershy of the plan while Duskfall slowly bled out.

Between the two Pegasai, they were able to muster up a decent whirlwind around Starlight. She was so feral at this point she didn’t even care about the minor meteorological event. That proved to be her downfall. Tapping into the Dark Magic pool she had gained from whatever it was she did to Sombra, she let loose, turning the whirlwind into a tornado of Dark Magic made stones. Like getting caught in a localized hail storm, Starlight was pelted with these stones until a particularly large one slammed into the back of her head, knocking her out.

With the Changelings and Starlight dealt with for the moment, Duskfall allowed herself to slip away.

Duskfall awoke in a tent with Fluttershy and Lightning waiting for her.

“I trust things didn’t go right back to hell during the hour or so I was out?” Duskfall asked.

“Holy shit, she’s alive!” Fluttershy gasped.

“Better than that, I convinced a number of the Changelings to go turncoat. Nice kid named Thorax helped. Don’t know why a worker drone like him was with the swarm, but it made things a lot easier for me,” Lightning shrugged.

“Pharynx probably dragged him along,” Duskfall remarked.

“Someone you know m’lady?” Lightning asked while Fluttershy was still trying to come to grips with the immortal pony.

“Yeah, I know my home’s version of Chrysalis, she’s ‘best friends’ with Luna. So I knew some of her kids too and among them are Thorax and Pharynx. Thorax is just a big old softy, very much a quiet philosophical type and Pharynx used to make it his life’s mission to toughen up his baby brother. Fortunately he’s learned to calm down and both of them were quite happy last I knew,” Duskfall explained.

“Sounds like Thorax could be a good ambassador, assuming we separate the Changelings and Chrysalis,” Lightning observed.

“Partner him up with Fluttershy,” Duskfall suggested.

“WHAT?!” Fluttershy shouted.

“Look, Fluttershy, you might be the last living Element. Of all the Elements, this world needs Kindness the most right now. The war is, hopefully, over and it’s time to rebuild. It is only through kindness and forgiveness that the embers of resentment do not reignite into war once more. Please, Fluttershy, find that part of yourself, buried for so long, and reclaim it,” Duskfall begged.

“I…I’ll try,” Fluttershy promised.

“That’s all we can ask of you,” Duskfall replied, biting down on a baser instinct to quote Yoda.

The rest of the day was spent making sure Starlight was secure until the next jump, checking up on the captured Changelings, and waiting for Chrysalis to wake up. During this time, Fluttershy met Thorax and thankfully the two hit it off quite well, not that Duskfall was worried, no sir, not worried at all. Duskfall was just thankful that even after years of war Fluttershy wasn’t the type to hold a grudge against a grunt.

“Lady Duskfall, what are we going to do about Starlight? If she picks up any more power, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to stop her next time,” Lightning said worriedly.

“If there was any justice, we’d be able to stick around long enough for me to pick up Changeling magic too. As we both know, justice got shanked in an alley the moment I decided fighting Starlight in the Chaos Dimension was a good idea,” Duskfall grumbled.

“The option to snap her horn might still be open?” Lightning tried to sound optimistic.

“We both know at this point she’s capable of either casting without a horn, putting her horn back on and repairing the damage, or flat out regrowing it. Fuck! How many times did we turn down learning Changeling magic because ‘our research took priority’?! Fuck, we were all so fucking stupid!” Duskfall snarled, Lightning losing the conversation half way.

“Lady Duskfall, when did you pick up dissociative identity disorder?” Lightning questioned. Duskfall paused in her ranting.

“Didn’t I-? No, I didn’t. Fuck. What was the lie I was telling again? Oh, right, the clone story. Lightning, I’m not actually Twilight’s clone. This body, at least, is Twilight Sparkle. Just after she ascended, she performed a summoning spell and wound up pulling someone else through the multiverse and into her body. His name was Tom and he was a human. Tom wound up with control of Twilight’s body and she was reduced to a voice in her own head. Over the course of a few months, they learned to coexist and were making plans to give Twilight her body back and making one for him as well,” Duskfall started to explain.

“So what went wrong?” Lightning asked.

“A monster by the name of Tirek went about stealing all the magic in the land. To protect the Alicorn magic, it was all put inside of Tom and Twilight. Thanks to that power, they were able to fight Tirek on more or less equal footing. But it also proved their undoing. When Tirek threatened their friends, they surged together, unified in purpose. That’s how I was born. The surge fused their Souls together into me. The only thing proving Tom ever existed at all is this eye of mine,” Duskfall placed a hoof under her green eye, “And that’s my story. I’m not a clone; I’m a fusion of the souls of Twilight Sparkle, Pony Princess and Tom, a regular Human, housed in the body of Twilight Sparkle.”

“And here I was thinking the eye was just a cloning glitch,” Lightning tried and failed to make light of the situation.

“That was really bad…but I appreciate it, Dusty,” Duskfall wrapped Lightning in a wing hug.

“Er, excuse me, but Chrysalis is waking up,” One of the messengers of the former resistance reported.

“She couldn’t have waited for a few more minutes?” Lightning and Duskfall complained together. Nevertheless, they headed to the cell the Changeling Queen was being kept in.

“Why haven’t you killed me?” Chrysalis asked.

“I could, very easily. It’s also very tempting to crush your carapace under my hoof for what you did to Twilight and Cadence. I don’t for two reasons. Firstly, I’m not the one you hurt, at least not directly. Once everyone is freed and recovered, I’m sure they’ll have you tried like a proper war criminal. Maybe they’ll execute you, maybe they won’t. I’m fine leaving it up to them. Secondly, you’re powerless now. I’ve dropped some Changeling detection spells off with the former resistance and your hive is turning against you as we speak. You have nothing and letting you go free with death as opposed to forcing you to live with your new weakness? Sorry, you’re going to have to suffer,” Duskfall answered.

“What kind of Equestria went into making you, I wonder,” Chrysalis said with a rueful chuckle.

“Doesn’t matter, but hey, if you survive your trial, maybe you’ll learn to change? If this world is lucky, you’ll be half as good as the Chrysalis I know. I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for what you’ve done, but it isn’t my choice what happens to you, so I guess it doesn’t matter,” Duskfall shrugged.

“We’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out,” Chrysalis agreed.

“Well, happy trails, bug bitch, by this time tomorrow, Lightning, Starlight, and I will likely be gone. Oh, and speaking of Starlight, how’d she get you to teach her Changeling magic?” Duskfall asked.

“It’s not every day a pony makes a point by almost killing a quarter of the swarm. Nor does one usually have such a burning, succulent hatred for a single mare. I was curious as to what she’d do if she had just that little bit more power to maybe defeat the object of her loathing. Looks like it wasn’t quite enough. Oh well,” Chrysalis shrugged.

“I suppose there are worse reasons than simple curiosity,” Duskfall couldn’t help but admit. Lightning and Duskfall took their leave of the Changeling Queen who almost succeeded.

The three displaced mares found themselves in the Everfree once more. Only this time, they didn’t have the luxury of waking up by their own accord. A powerful explosion rocked the area, instantly jolting Duskfall, Lightning, and Starlight awake.

“What the fuck was that?!” All three shouted. Their question was soon answered in the form of a hulking red and black centaur.

“TIREK!!!”

Author's Notes:

So wraps up the Changeling Timeline and I don't imagine the Tirek Timeline will be long for this world.

Sorry the chapters have been so slow recently. My insomnia has been 7 kinds of fucked recently and it's doing a number on my concentration. I've been flitting about typing a few sentences in way too many word documents that are likely never going to see life past the conception stage.

To try and combat this, I've been trying to pull my focus back in by playing some RTS games. Specifically I bought the Command and Conquer bundle on Origin that has most of the C&C games for 20 bucks. It's helped in the past when I've had these sorts of fits and I forced myself to play Darkest Dungeon, so I'm hoping it'll eventually work again. Of course, back then I wasn't worried about juggling 3 (4) stories, so my mileage may vary.

So, I think that's everything important. A chapter of Duskfall going apeshit on Tirek, a chapter in the Dead World, and then Duskfall's back home and I can start gearing up for the closing of Shattered Souls.