-The Monster Under the Bed, Part I-

Coalback grunted as the strap around his leg tightened with a jerky pull, pain lancing up his leg and into the base of his spine. It was newly wrapped in a cooling sensation from the gauze tightly wound and pinned over the break, metal supports keeping the bone from shifting again.

“Toughen up, man,” Clean Cut muttered angrily, giving one last pull on the thick straps attaching it to his leg. “I can’t believe you two! Not only did you ruin the last supports around your leg, you-” his eyes shifted to give a glare in Rainbow’s direction “-slept with it like that,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes at the idea. He was thoroughly pissed off, as far as anypony could tell.

“Just go over the plan, one more time,” Coalback growled impatiently, trying to keep himself from throwing the doctor across the room. He wasn’t angry, per se, but he was treading on thin ice with his temper ready to fall through it for him.

He sat on top of a metal reinforced table, the cold polished wood surface pressed against his still bare back. He’d found a bath robe to cover himself with after the rather sudden departure of his pants, wrapped around his waist as the pony designed garb was far too small to fit normally. The table creaked under him as he shifted in discomfort.

The room around them was neat, though covered in various scientific tools and devices. It was also dim, but compared to the rest of the Lunar wing it was much brighter. The floor was clean, interrupted by several tables covered with the tools and materials that Clean Cut needed to basically run his own pharmaceutical laboratory without the hassle of dealing with other doctors.

Rainbow stood beside the table, leaning against it while trying to stay out of the way of the doctor. The other girls sat about the room, faces downcast as they went over their hastily concocted plan again. Luna spoke first, taking the floor.

“The Elements will approach my sister first, and attempt to convince her to release the Elements of Harmony over to them. If she surrenders them to you, you must use them on her immediately, it may be just enough to stun her so that we can detain her,” Luna said quickly, nodding toward the mares and Coalback respectively. “If you are not able to stun her, then it may devolve into violence between the two of us,” she said reluctantly, bowing her head slightly. “The point though, is to get Coalback close enough to … do whatever it is that he will be doing,” she said, pausing reluctantly to aim her gaze at Coalback with concern.

He’d never explained how he’d be able to fix the problem with Celestia. All he’d asked was for them to get him close, and seemed hesitant to say that he would act at all. He was reluctant to go anywhere near what could possibly be the big brother to what he’d seen before, more so than that.

“So that’s it then, just use the Elements and let you two take over … right,” Twilight said in a daze, her mind reeling with the simple fact that they were about to attack the Princess, her teacher. “And if nothing is really wrong, she won’t be hurt?” Twilight asked carefully, turning a questioning glance between Coalback and Luna.

“Although my knowledge of the Elements is more limited than my sister’s, no; If there is nothing wrong with her, then the Elements will have as little effect as they did the first time you attempted to use them on Discord. She’ll barely notice it,” Luna said, nodding sadly toward her. They had hope, but too much evidence pointed toward foul play at this point.

“If it comes down to what I’m going to do, she won’t be the same afterwards,” Coalback rumbled, his voice low as he tried to keep himself from growling. He didn’t want to talk at all, but they all deserved at least a clue in on what he was going to do. “You remember what happened to that stallion in the woods?” he asked, the faces of the mares around him instantly paling at the mention.

Dumb-Bell, the stallion that had made it his mission to drive Coalback, and anypony supporting him, out of the town. He’d caused more disaster than the attack that had come before him, but he still almost hadn’t deserved what Coalback had done to him. Somehow, his gaze had been enough to drive the stallion mad, and they still didn’t know if he had made it through the walk here.

“You’re going to do … that, to Princess Celestia?” Rainbow asked, her eyes widening from where she leaned against the table that Coalback remained seated on.

“It worked on me,” he replied, swinging his legs out to attempt to stand again. “We’re not getting anywhere sitting here. Go ahead and get started. Lost Shadow, stay here please. I may need to have a word with you before all of this,” he finished, waving a hand toward the form of Mayor Mare standing in a corner. The changeling bristled at the mention of her name.

“He’s right, girls. If we’re going to do this, it should be now, before we get second thoughts,” Twilight said, turning reluctantly toward the door. The other four followed, pausing only to let themselves out the door in an orderly fashion.

Rainbow held back longer, leaning up on the table with her forelegs so she could be closer to eye level with Coalback. “Be careful,” she told him, bumping her forehead against his shoulder.

“I should be telling you that,” he replied quietly, rubbing her ear and kissing her forehead. He pushed her down from the table gently, moving his legs under him as he started to stand.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him. Just get those Elements,” Clean Cut said, his magic bringing a long metal pole over for Coalback. He took it in his hand, leaning into it as he stood. They’d not been able to find an actual crutch for him, and the pole was the best they could do for him at the moment.

Rainbow trotted to the door, quickly catching up to the others as they made their way down the dim hallway. They almost made it to a corner before Coalback’s voice called them to a stop. “One last warning!” he yelled, drawing them all to pause and look back toward the door. They could see Coalback standing in the door, a grim expression on his face and in his voice. “Whatever you do, don’t look into her eyes.”

---

“Princess!” Twilight greeted cheerily, any sign of her own insecurities about their plan hidden expertly. Rainbow had had no idea that Twilight was such a good actress.

They entered the brightly lit throne hall just as they would have any other time they’d been summoned by the Princess, happily and rushing to meet her. The Princess stood from her throne with a relieved sigh at seeing them, but it didn’t seem to ever reach her eyes.

The halls were bright, but no amount of light could have made the atmosphere of the room any less electric. Rainbow’s wings were buzzing so much with static that she couldn’t even stay in the air, and she could barely hold her face in a calm expression. She didn’t want to say it, but now that she was looking for it, she could see what Luna had been talking about.

“Hello, my little ponies,” the Princess greeted, leaning down to embrace Twilight. “How good it is to see you, and how terrible it is that you are here,” she continued, pulling away from Twilight to look over the rest of them. Her entire demeanor seemed off as she looked at them, even the colors in her radiant mane seemed just ever so slightly dulled.

“Princess, Discord’s army is coming,” Twilight voiced, a proper amount of distress in her voice to catch her teacher’s attention. It was just enough that there was still room to think that Twilight trusted the Princess to be able to fix everything. “We should get the Elements of Harmony, shouldn’t we?” she asked, just a student seeking refuge in her mentor’s wisdom.

“Of course, Twilight, the guards have already informed me,” the Princess replied, concern painted on her face like thick make-up. It was fake, and Rainbow forced herself to remain silent and hoped that the others would do the same. “This way, quickly,” she instructed, turning away from Twilight to walk around the thrones at the top of the steps.

They fell into step behind her, walking around the throne to where the Elements used to be held. But, while the frame of the door remained with its golden swirls and inset insignias on the rear wall of the hall, the vault had been replaced with a simply decorated door. It opened inward with the Princess’s magic, revealing the changes the Princess had made to storing the Elements of Harmony.

A spherical room opened up to them as they entered. The ceiling curved away high above their heads, smooth and expertly crafted with a swirling cage of golden murals that crawled along its surface like ivy. But it was the centerpiece of the room that truly drew a breath from the six mares.

It was a huge brass box, inlaid with runes that overlapped and swirled around each other. And that was only the corner that they could see, the rest had been sunk into the wall so that only the smallest amount of the box actually penetrated the room. Layer upon layer of decorated brass stared back at them, a single hole was presented forward at an angle on the very corner of the box in a way that would allow the Princess to insert her horn into it easily. The floor was flattened into a large circle around the “keyhole” to the monolithic construction, its only interruption being where the door opened to let them enter.

“This is where I put the Elements of Harmony after Discord’s first escape, I did not want another repeat of his maze fiasco,” the Princess explained, her voice bouncing off the walls and making the golden ivy sculptures ring ever so subtly. It made Rainbow wonder what their purpose really was; if they were meant to drop down like a cage and catch them.

“What is it?” Pinkie asked in awe, her eyes wide as she stared up at the brass behemoth.

“It is an ancient technology, it absorbs and deflects all but a specific tone of magic that shifts and changes every moment. In its own way, this box is alive, and its singular purpose is to protect the Elements of Harmony,” the Princess replied, motioning with a wing in a sweeping motion toward the box. Her voice held a distant tone, one that felt blank and wrong coming from her.

“Wow, I had no idea the castle had something like this in it,” Twilight mused, her eyes alight with wonder as she looked over the box. Rainbow knew it must have been an even more impressive sight to the unicorn than it was to her, but the idea of a cage was still present in her mind. She wondered if the box’s purpose held more than what the Princess was telling them; for all she knew it was meant to trap them and keep them out of the way while Canterlot was sieged.

“It didn’t, I made this only weeks after Discord’s first escape,” Celestia replied, taking a step toward the corner and lowering her horn in preparation for opening it. But she stopped, and her eyes turned to Twilight with a question. “Tell me, Twilight, what are your thoughts on all of these recent events?” she asked, pausing just before placing her horn within the box. Her royal purple eyes turning to look at Twilight, patiently waiting for her to speak.

“I think that nothing will be the same once all of this is over,” Twilight answered respectively, an edge of nervousness creeping into her voice.

Rainbow’s breath caught in her throat. Did the Princess know what they were planning? Could she know? If she did, what would she do? Horrible situations flitted through Rainbow’s mind: Burning in the sun, a magic blast that turned them into dust in an instant.

“How so, Twilight?” the Princess asked flatly, her voice low and careful. It had the sound to it that made Rainbow wonder if the Princess could use her own voice as a weapon, like when Luna’s voice had been so loud that it blew ponies off of their hooves, only worse. Could the Princess’s lungs be powerful enough to blast them away? She was a Princess after all, it seemed like anything was possible.

Twilight swallowed, a nervous bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face. “W-w-well, Equestria hasn’t seen war in over a thousand years. N-not since Nightmare Moon was b-b-banished,” she stuttered, a shake in her hooves starting to make its way to her spine.

What is the Princess waiting for? Just get the Elements already! Rainbow screamed in her head, her jaw locked tight to keep herself from jumping to Twilight’s aid. She wanted put herself between the Princess and her friend, as strange a thought as it was to have to defend her friends from the Princess.

For a moment her mind blanched at the idea. This was the Princess she was thinking about, and her friends too. But she stopped that line of thought immediately. This might not actually be the Princess anymore, she could be sick with that thing that had infected Coalback and his family. All she had to do was get the Elements.

“That’s quite right, Twilight,” the Princess said, nodding with an approving smile that only moved her lips. “Nightmare Moon was the last battle ever fought on Equestrian soil. And before that King Sombra was banished, and the Crystal Empire disappeared. But before any of that, there were many wars in Equestria’s youngest days,” the Princess said, and her story was starting to sound eerily familiar.

“Before everything, the humans roamed these lands, and war was their end. I endeavored to halt that pattern of destruction, and finally, after much struggle, I achieved a thousand years of peace once all the threats of the world had been locked away,” she said, her voice seeming to dim as she spoke. The room suddenly felt darker, smaller. “Nightmare Moon, King Sombra, and even Di-”

“You would do well not to speak his name a third time, Princess,” a deep voice said loudly, bouncing through the room with a metallic hum and cutting off the Princess.

They all turned sharply to the door, a tall figure blocking the light from coming through. The bathrobe was still wrapped tightly around his waist, the tall metal pole acting as a crutch for him even though he stood tall. His face was grimly set, deep lines framing his mouth and eyes. Just the edge of a growl scraped through the air, his eyes narrowing at the Princess’s shocked reaction.

“What are you doing here, this place is meant for only the Elements and myself to enter,” Celestia demanded, a frown donning her face as she looked over Coalback. She turned fully toward him from her place opposite the room, horn lowered and eyes boring into him.

“I am doing what you asked me to, Princess,” Coalback growled, hissing out her title as if it stung his tongue to say it. “I am protecting the Elements of Harmony in this moment of danger,” he said, an eyebrow cocking up into the air with the ferocity of a knife blade being drawn. “Or were you counting on something happening to the Elements before then?” he asked darkly, his brow lowering back down to join the rest of his face in a scowl.

“What are you implying?” the diarch demanded, one of her hooves lifting to scrape at the floor once before returning to a squared stance. A dark edge had entered her voice, suspicion narrowing her eyes.

“You know what I am, you knew from the very beginning,” Coalback grunted, readjusting his stance against the metal pole. “You knew that I was a creature meant to kill ponies, and for whatever reason, you let me live. Yet you sent me with them, as if you expected me to kill them too!” he yelled, raising an accusing finger and pointing it directly at the Princess.

“That is absurd!” the Princess argued, anger walking the rim of her voice. “I trusted that my sister had tested you properly, and was proven right when you protected them on arrival to Ponyville. I would never put the Elements’ bearers in harm’s way so carelessly!” she denied, an angry flick of her eyes landing back on Rainbow and her friends.

“But you did, didn’t you?!” Coalback shot back relentlessly, his finger still aimed angrily in her direction. “You said it yourself! I was different from the rest. You knew that I was a killer. For all I know, you set those ponies up to attack us the moment we got there!” he accused again, drawing a gasp from the Princess. But her surprise at his accusation quickly faded into an angry glare.

“I can see how a brute such as yourself could twist the truth like this,” the Princess said, her voice starting to shake with anger. “I fought that monster all those years ago, and now you accuse me of working to advance him? You see how ridiculous this is, do you not?” she asked, suddenly rounding on Twilight. Her eyes bored into the rest of the mares like hot coals into snow, waiting for them to answer.

“It is ridiculous, Princess,” Twilight agreed, a glint of confidence flashing across Celestia’s face. “But we think you might be sick. You’re not thinking for yourself anymore,” Twilight finished quickly, and the spark in the Princess’s eye turned to one of anger.

“You’ve even twisted their own thoughts as well!” she bellowed in frustration, turning back to Coalback with a rage that they’d never seen on the Princess before. It was more frightening than anything Discord could ever have pulled off before, the sight of the embodiment of the sun as angry as she was was one that drove fear like a dagger through each of them. “I should have killed you when I had a chance!” she screamed, her horn exploding into light and blinding them as she cast a spell toward Coalback in fury.

An echoing boom shook the floor as it acted, the metal ivy shaking against the walls. Rainbow’s vision cleared just in time to see the Princess leap through a hole where the doorway had once been. Clean edged and smoking from the blast, the Princess’s regal wings eddied the smoke as she spread them in her leap. Rainbow wiped at her eyes to clear the last of spots left from the flash of light and leapt into the air after them.

She burst through the smoke into the main hall, quickly taking in the situation. Luna had poised herself in the middle of the throne room while they’d argued, her horn alight in a dark magic to create shields that covered both herself, the windows, and the door that prevented any attempt at escape. Celestia stood at the base of the thrones seething with rage that was aimed directly at the man slumped against the shield around Luna.

Luna couldn’t move from her place without dropping all of the shields, and if she did that, then Celestia could simply flee and they’d never be able to catch up to her. Rainbow was a fast flier, but no pony alive could keep up with one of the Princesses. And Coalback couldn’t move with his leg braced as it was.

With a shout, Celestia’s horn crackled and a bolt of lightning as bright as the sun itself leapt toward Coalback. He gave a cry as it struck him, his hand leaping forward to catch the lightning as if it were no more than a snake writhing in his fingers. The lightning wrapped around him, writhing and crackling as it tried to squeeze the life from him. But with a loud, defiant roar, his other hand shot forward and the lightning leapt along the metal pole clutched in his fingers and out into the air.

It crashed into the floor before the Princess in an explosion of marble dust, the floor vaporizing where the lightning touched. Celestia reared back, shocked that her own strike had been used against her so directly. And Rainbow saw her opening.

She raced forward, legs locked straight as she spun around and felt her hooves meet fur and bone. Her rear hooves connected solidly with the back of Celestia’s neck, knocking her already off balance stance away and dropping her to the floor. But before she could strike the ground, her horn flashed and her regal frame simply disappeared.

A clop of hooves on marble was her only announcement as she appeared behind Rainbow, her hooves now firmly planted on the ground. With a growl most unbefitting of a member of royalty, the Princess’s wing smacked into Rainbow’s body, knocking her from the air and driving the wind from her lungs. The alicorn’s wings were strong, huge muscle underneath the downy white feathers that were more than enough to throw Rainbow across the room to slam into one of the magically reinforced windows.

“Traitor!” Celestia yelled. Her voice drove icicles into Rainbow’s heart as she slumped onto the ground and tried to catch her breath. “All of you!” she snarled, aiming a glare at the other mares as they clambered out of the hole Celestia had blasted out of the wall. “And you!” she wailed, turning back to Coalback and Luna. “I should never have let you live when I found you bleeding and bruised in that crater!” she snarled, another lance of magic blasting toward him.

With a yell, Coalback’s arm swung in front of him again, connecting with the magic and deflecting it off at an angle from himself to crash into the wall next to one of the windows. A black scorch mark spread across his chest from it, soot smearing across him as he tried to catch his breath as well. The magic he was using to defend himself was draining him, and he couldn’t even get up to dodge her attacks anymore.

“Stop it!” Rainbow yelled, jumping up and standing between Coalback and the Princess. “Princess, you’re sick! Let us help you!” she yelled, seeing the rage build up in Celestia’s face again. But she didn’t back down, not even under that withering gaze. Rainbow braced herself as she saw Celestia’s horn start to glow again.

A wordless shout exploded behind her, and like a lightning bolt of his own, Coalback’s metal bar flew over Rainbow’s shoulder. It struck Celestia with a resounding crack, the tip bouncing off her horn and knocking the magic away in a blast of light that burned strange lines into Rainbow’s vision.

“Yeehaw!” Applejack’s voice rang out in a challenge, a rope flying around Celestia’s horn before she could recover from the blow to her horn and tugging her head sharply to the the side. Celestia grunted at the sudden interference of another one of the Elements, resisting Applejack’s pulling as she was forced to face her. A loud pop filled the air, a thick ball of confetti slamming into Celestia’s face with a loud cheer from Pinkie.

Celestia recoiled, pulling Applejack off her hooves and dragging her in a wide arc across the floor. But Applejack’s jaw was locked tightly around the rope in her mouth, and she kept the Princess in a harsh game of tug of war. Celestia’s wing shot out just fast as she turned, blowing a gust of wind over Pinkie and sending her stumbling away from her randomly procured party cannon.

“Now, Fluttershy!” Rarity shouted, directing her voice toward the roof. Nopony had noticed Rarity encouraging Fluttershy to fly up to the ceiling of the throne room, and now she floated directly above Celestia’s splayed wings. With a squeak, Fluttershy’s wings tucked in, and she landed with all of her weight onto Celestia’s back, expertly digging her hooves into a pressure point between the alicorn’s shoulder blades.

Celestia grunted as her wings suddenly stiffened, now paralyzed and hanging uselessly at her sides. Celestia shouted wordlessly, bucking against Applejack’s redoubled pulling to try and knock Fluttershy off her back. The butter yellow pegasus gave a quiet “Meep!” as she was thrown free, barely recovering enough to run and hide back behind Rarity.

“Hurry up, Twilight! They can’t hold her for long!” Rarity yelled back into the room desperately, a purple flash from the safe’s room being her only answer.

“What?!” Celestia yelled, a panicked strength returning to her just long enough to pull Applejack off her hooves again. But a pair of pink legs connected with the hock of her left back leg, making it collapse under the sun alicorn. Magic sparked up her horn, singing the rope and making it snap as she pulled away. “Enough!” she shouted loudly, the wave of air from her voice knocking down everypony in the room and shattering Luna’s shields.

With a grunt, Celestia jumped back to her hooves, favouring one back leg. Her horn glowed, a spray of sparks escaping from the tiny chip where Coalback’s crutch had hit her. And as if the ground itself had been its sheath, an ethereal broadsword pulled itself up to Celestia, glowing bright yellow like the sun as she brought it up to bear. Only the meter long blade floated before her, an alicorn had no need for a hilt.

Celestia snorted loudly as she eyed the reactions of the ponies around her, her mane billowing wildly. It was as if she was framed in a rainbow fire, her mane dancing and licking at her as if it were alive and no longer idly swaying in a magical wind. The earth pony pair simply watched on in fear as Pinkie tried to help Applejack back up to her hooves. But Celestia’s eyes, wild with rage that had not burned inside her for thousands of years, landed firmly on Coalback and Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow was attempting to help him to his feet, pressing up under one of his arms and struggling to support his weight. Celestia didn’t wait to give out a warning, and raised her sword high above her head. She would cleave their treacherous heads from their shoulders. She took a step toward them and her sword fell faster than a mortal’s eye could blink.

With a rushing smash, the sword hit. But it did not meet with flesh and bone as Celestia had predicted, but instead with another magical shield. It was denser and darker than the ones Luna had cast earlier, taking the shape of a large circular disk, a band of starlight running across it in a cross pattern.

The shield twisted under Celestia’s sword, knocking it to the side as Luna slammed forward with her shoulder. She connected hard with Celestia’s chest, driving out her breath and making her stumble back a single step. But a mass of steely dark magic quickly followed the strike, a dully spiked mace made from the same dark magic that had made Luna’s shield slammed into Celestia’s barrel with its own satisfying thud.

The older sister stumbled, faltering under Luna’s ferocious initial strike. But Luna was at a weight disadvantage, and her strikes were not as effective as Celestia’s would be. She recovered quickly, her broadsword deflecting another strike from Luna’s mace as it swung around its less necessary handle.

“I shall hold her off! Just get Coalback to his feet!” Luna grunted, pressing her magical weight against the mace to hold Celestia’s sword at bay for a moment. It seemed that she wished to say something else, but Celestia’s resistance fell away and Luna was pinned as she faltered. A white hoof wrapped around Luna’s neck, pinning her sister to herself with the edge of her sword held off only by the handle of Luna’s mace and the back of her shield preventing the sword from pulling away.

“Come on, Coalback,” Rainbow grunted, flapping her wings to gain more force to lift him up. Adrenaline buzzed through her, numbing the ache in her side where she’d hit the window. Her forelegs trembled against him and her jaw was locked, her mind only able to fix on two things. His smell, and trying to push him up onto his feet.

She couldn’t help it, her nose was pressed against his side. His sweat, salty and musky. She could feel his muscles tightening under her touch and it sent a shiver down her spine, and a warm twitch into her nethers. But the situation demanded that she not act on the wants stemming from her hormone-drunk mind. She had to get Coalback back in action, not pin him to the floor and-

“I won’t go so easy on you this time!” Celestia’s voice screamed, stressing as she lifted something. Luna cried out as she hit the ground hard, Celestia’s sword clashing loudly with Luna’s shield in the same instant.

And with that, Coalback put one final shove down to put himself solidly on his feet. Rainbow dropped back to her own hooves once he was standing, forcing herself to hold back as she saw his stomach flex to keep him standing. The braces on his leg creaked, no longer caring about keeping weight off the break. He didn’t even seem to notice it anymore, a grim determination set sternly on his face.

“Celestia!” he barked, the sounds of the struggle instantly fading at the sound of his voice. Celestia turned her head from where she had been bearing down on the younger alicorn, her sword’s blade wedged just above the night Princess’s throat only by the handle of her mace. A rabid look dominated Celestia’s eyes, feral and alien on her radiant features. Both Princesses’ manes billowing against each other as if they meant to smother their opposite.

“You picked a fight with me, you glorified breeding stock, not her,” Coalback growled, tilting his head to the side with a loud symphony of pops. A snarl decorating his face, silently daring the Princess to make a move. His fingers clenched into a fist, each knuckle popping as he watched Celestia’s reaction.

Celestia let out snarl of anger, her face shaking with rage. Her mane exploded into motion, there was no longer a question as to whether it looked like fire now. It glowed red around her, burning just as bright as the hate in her eyes. With a kick that knocked Luna across the floor and out from under her, Celestia turned face Coalback and brandished her sword.

Coalback made the first step, the bathrobe falling free from around his waist. The brace cracked and snapped as he strode toward her, breaking apart as concern for the broken limb was completely disregarded. He was naked now, like a Roman wrestler in the coliseum. And this would be life or death, just as it was there. When he was three paces from Celestia, she struck.

Her sword whistled through the air, its arc burning patterns into the ponies visions. Coalback dove inside the strike, falling to his knee and rolling under it. The Princess’s hooves shot out as he entered the inside of her swing, attempting to kick him back out into the range of her sword. Her front leg hit hard with his chest, but his muscled arms wrapped around it, pinning them both chest to chest as he lifted her up.

With a twist of his shoulders Celestia was levered up into the air, her wings windmilling uselessly from the ache in the pressure point between her shoulders. But rather than struggle as he’d expected, her hind legs lifted from the floor and she dragged them both down to the ground with her hooves planted firmly on his abdomen. With a strong buck, Celestia launched him into the air and away from her.

“I’ve fought in hundreds of battles with foes far more powerful than an injured dog. If you think you can best me in a fight you’ll have quite the struggle!” Celestia barked as she stood, watching him land in the middle of the hall again. He hit the marble hard, all the wind knocked from him as he writhed to try and get back to his feet, back to fighting ground. Celestia leapt toward him with a screeching cry, her sword tip aimed at his neck.

Coalback twisted at the last moment, the ethereal sword impaling itself into the marble just next to his ear as she landed on top of him. And his hands were on her in an instant, one wrapping around her horn and gripping hard to stem her magic, the other wrapped around her neck to dig his fingernails into the base of the opposite wing. Celestia cried out, the sword bursting into a fireworks display of broken magic.

“Rainbow!” Twilight’s voice yelled, shocking the pegasus out of her hypnotized stare. She hadn’t been able to stop watching them, her legs clenched behind her in the vainest attempt to stem her own libido. Cold metal slid over her neck, a familiar weight pressing against her chest. “We have to do this now, Rainbow!” Twilight called again, dragging Rainbow’s attention to her for the briefest moment.

Twilight was covered in soot, a deep gash under her left eye bleeding profusely. Her tiara sat snugly on her head, the other mares already having donned their respective Elements and gathered around her. Somehow, Twilight had gotten the Elements from Celestia’s safe.

“Fuck!” Coalback yelled, a sickening crack echoing back out through the hall past the sounds of their struggle that continued uninterrupted. One of Celestia’s back legs had stepped onto Coalback’s broken leg, breaking the bone for another innumerable time. “You ass-licking whore!” he bellowed, a twist of his hand around her wing drawing a grunt of pain from the Princess.

His uninjured knee drove into her barrel, lifting her slightly as she tried to buck away from him again. But his grip held firm, fingers locked in death vice that would not let her shake him. His knee found her barrell again, and again. He drove his knee into her stomach until her hooves fell out from under her, the hand around her horn drove her head to the ground and twisted him onto the dominant position in their deadly grapple.

“Now!” Twilight yelled, a warmth in Rainbow’s chest the only warning she had before she felt the Element of Loyalty activate. An explosion of intense emotion flooded her from where the charm sat on her chest, the warmth spreading like wildfire through her in an instant. She felt her connection to her friends, stronger now than any time without the Elements. She felt her loyalty to them, the place in her heart where she knew they belonged singing in her ears. And she felt her love for Coalback, her unending need to simply be with him.

Rainbow yelled out. In anger, and in joy, and utter ecstasy as the Elements connected. She felt her friends for just an instant, all of them fighting to save the Princess, even if it was from herself. And to save Coalback, her Coalback, from Celestia’s rage. It flowed through her, back out of her, and into Twilight before bursting forth in a ray of prismatic light that bleached out any colors around it. It struck the struggling pair of bodies with a crash of force, the room shaking with the impact.

“LOOK AT ME!” Coalback’s voice yelled out as the light covered them, driving out all other sound in a roar that demanded attention. Rainbow could just see him through the light, limbs tangled with the Princess’s.

And then Celestia screamed.

Just as the beam began to die away, a bloodcurdling scream filled the air. It shook the ground, and pierced through the haze of Rainbow’s mind to the very center of her soul. A window shattered, and then another, and another. Her voice kept climbing, a pitch that threatened to move outside of what pony ears could hear. Rainbow felt something warm and wet run down the side of her face.

Rainbow felt the scream in her bones, and suddenly felt very sick. She could practically feel the Princess’s pain, her fear, her utter agony as she looked into Coalback’s eyes. She felt it shake the foundations of her own sanity, literally feeling herself slipping away from reality just from hearing the Princess’s wail.

And then, just as quickly, it ended. Celestia’s scream suddenly died to a choking gasp, retching onto the ground as Coalback finally released his relentless hold. They both fell to the floor, Celestia’s coughs and heaves the only sound past the ringing in Rainbow’s ears. It was a sickening sound, enough to turn the stomach of anypony who heard the alicorn’s motherly voice twisted in the pained sounds of a stomach trying to empty itself.

Her mane had instantly paled to a dull pink in the wake of the Element’s beam, falling around her in tangled strands instead of the ethereal cloud of light that it had seemed to be before. Her face screwed tight as her stomach clenched, her throat twisting as it tried to force something back up in the wrong direction. She writhed on the floor, her hooves scrambling at the marble as if she could run away from whatever was trying to be expelled from her.

Celestia’s throat suddenly bulged, the retching ending with a final choke. Black slime filled her mouth, sputtering out past her breath and splattering onto the floor in front of her. The bulge in her throat crawled forward, a ball of the black bile flying from her lips. It bounced off the floor twice, slapping against the wall below one of still intact windows and sliding to the floor with a sickening squelch. Wherever the slime had touched, a greasy stain remained as it slowly evaporated.

Rainbow put a hoof to her mouth, fighting the clenching in her own midsection to stop herself from vomiting. She flinched at the sound of one of her other friends unable to keep the contents of their stomachs in check. Rainbow had to fight to bring her mind back to a standstill, finally daring to open her eyes again.

They landed on Coalback instantly, taking in the scene with such clarity that for a moment she actually thought that it wasn’t real. Coalback crawled away from the Princess on his uninjured side, using his hands to drag himself away from the coughing diarch. His broken leg twisted in the wrong direction, the joint swollen and stained black from the inside. Rainbow could see his muscles clenching underneath his skin, writhing like snakes as it tried to pull his bones back together.

Rainbow’s legs made the decision to move for her, running across the floor to Coalback’s side. She grabbed onto his shoulder with her hooves and helped him crawl away from the slimy stains on the floor around the Princess.

 “Oh shit,” Rainbow muttered, setting him down on the floor as he stopped trying to crawl anymore. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” she kept saying, not sure what else she would be able to say or do to help him. His hand wrapped around one of her hooves, firmly grasping despite the hard edged grimace on his face from the pain in his leg. “Oh damnit. Coalback? Coalback, tell me what to do. I want to help you,” she pleaded, bringing herself close to him and pressing her nose into his shoulder. He smelt like dust and blood, and his skin was cold against her muzzle.

His only answer was a grunt, a twist of his body accompanied by a crumpled snap of his leg as the bone’s shattered ends found each other again. She could feel his blood rushing under her nose, fast and thick to carry the black ink of his blood to the injury, to start healing it. “Give me space,” he grunted, his hand moving up to push her away from him.

She relented, shuffling away from him and flinching as his fingernails scraped against her chest. Black claws sat just underneath them, trying to push their tips through. Blackness filled the scleras of his eyes, a yellow shine decorated the irises as if they were made from metal. He stiffened suddenly, his ribs popping and shifting slightly under his skin before settling back into place again.

A groan drew Rainbow’s attention to the other side of the hall, where Luna was picking herself up off the floor. Her mane had returned to its calm drift, hanging around her as if to try and comfort her from her injuries. Her mace and shield faded, drifting apart in the same ethereal wind that moved her mane.

Applejack pulled herself to the Princess, taking some of the night diarch’s weight onto her shoulders. Luna thanked her with a breath, taking weight off of her front right leg. “Not quite so bad, it is all superficial. I’ll be fit to fight again by nightfall,” she announced, letting Applejack hobble them over to Celestia.

Her coughing had abated, and now she simply sat curled in on her midsection. The sickly slime around her and on her lips was slowly evaporating and leaving behind greasy stains wherever it had touched. Twilight was the first to try and approach her.

“Princess?” she asked carefully, taking a careful step to stand next to her. The Princess shied away from her voice, her ears pressed flatly to her dull pink mane. Twilight turned a mortified look back at them, a stone dropped heavily into everypony’s stomachs. “Can you talk to us, Princess?” she tried, reaching forward to try and lay a comforting hoof on the mussed white coat shivering before her.

"DON'T!" Celestia shouted, flinching away from Twilight and scrunching her face tightly. "Please, don't touch me," she whimpered, pulling herself into a tight ball with a shaky breath. "I- ... I can't," she whispered, ending with a choking sound in the back of her throat.

"Well, that's a relief," a mocking voice echoed, coming from all around them at once. They froze at the interruption, wide eyes searching for the source. "I almost thought it hadn't worked," Discord teased. Twilight jumped to attention, turning a frantic eye around the room in an attempt to find where the voice was coming from.

"Where are you!?" Luna shouted, her voice shaking the room as her own fury flared. "What did you do to her!?" Luna demanded, gazing toward the ceiling as if expecting the chimera to drop through it at any moment.

"I didn't do much, really," he tittered, his voice slowly gravitating to one side of the room as he spoke, getting closer to Celestia. "All I did was have a bit of wind blow a little grain of sand into Celly's afternoon tea," he suppressed a laugh, making Celestia flinch again at the sound of his voice. "And look! Talk about stressful work, Princess," he snickered, the ball of slime lifting into the air from where it had landed.

The slime fell away like peeling rubber, revealing a smooth pearl the size of a pony's eye. It floated toward the center of the room, a whirlwind of broken glass, dust and bits of marble following it. The debris from their battle collected into a column, slowly fitting itself together into a vaguely familiar mismatched shape holding aloft the pearl like a trophy.

"What are you doing here!?" Rainbow demanded, stepping back over to Coalback and placing herself between them. Her side pressed against his, her resolve bolstered by his warmth. "You're supposed to be stuck with your army, and they're still days from here!" she said defiantly, giving a loud huff out of her nose and pawing at the floor with a hoof.

"Indeed!" Discord's messy form agreed, turning his broken glass and marble head in her direction. "It seems that Douglass James Colebeck, has friends in high places," he hissed, saying the man's human name slowly. The hunched form flinched against Rainbow as it was spoken, suddenly stiff and cold. "I am locked in this-" his dusty doppelgänger looked down at itself with disgust, "-single form. But there are other ways to be everywhere at once, my little Cloudsdale protector," he needled, referring to the trick he'd used to make her think a cloud had been her hometown. He knew that she still was angry for letting herself fall for it.

"What do you want, Discord?" Luna spat, her legs finding strength in her hatred of the creature speaking to them. "What's the point to all this? What do you gain from fighting us?!" she demanded, drawing a shattered scowl from the loosely shaped cloud of debris.

“What do I get?” he repeated, as if he thought the question itself was ridiculous. “What do I get? Power. That’s what I get!” he snarled, his glass claws clutching around the pearl and giving off piercing scraping sounds. “I get what you and your sisters stole from me centuries ago! I get to drive the world into chaos and war again! I get to grow while you fade away!” he bellowed, his claw swiping the air as if to swat away an annoying fly. Slowly a smile started to creep onto his face. “And once I am strong enough, not even your precious mother will be able to stop me,” he hissed, leaning forward with his snakelike body and glaring at Luna with a mad smile.

“And I’ll be starting by moving my pawn to the other end of the board,” he continued, turning toward Coalback with a grin. “Are you aware of that rule, Rainbow Dash?” he teased, his fingers scraping across the pearl again as he took a floating step closer to her. “When a pawn makes its way to the end of the board, the player may bring a piece back to the board to replace it,” he said, his voice dropping to a low hum that made the glass in his body ring quietly.

Rainbow reacted again, spreading her wings to make herself look bigger. She didn’t care what Discord planned to do, but she wouldn’t let him get away with it without a fight. The only thing stopping her from jumping at the cloud of broken glass and marble dust was Coalback’s hand, gripping hard on her hoof to keep her still. Discord floated another step closer. He drifted through the air so that he had a line of sight around Rainbow to Coalback, skating a foot above the floor as if he were in an ice rink made of molasses.

“You,” he pointed with his free claw directly at the hunched form behind Rainbow, a piece of marble with jagged edges leaning out of his paw, “whom I plucked from the sky so you could once more hunt these abominations. Douglass. James. Colebeck.” The man flinched again, his hand tightening painfully around Rainbow’s hoof. “Douglass! James! Colebeck!” he yelled, a manic laugh bursting out of his lips. Coalback let out a choking gasp.

“What are you doing to him?” Rainbow yelled, wincing as Coalback’s fingernails pressed into her hoof hard, nearly enough to draw blood. She wouldn’t stop him, if he needed to hold onto her she would let him. Even if it meant he would pull her hoof off. “Stop it!” she yelled at Discord, watching in horror as the grin on Discord’s broken face widened to a sickly degree.

“It was good of you to so willingly give me all of your names, daemon. I, Discord, command thee by the power of your Name, Douglass James Colebeck, to submit,” he hissed, his glass claw scraping over the pearl again as a light slowly grew from within it. He came closer, another step toward them. “I command you to let your inner nature overcome you, and kill again. Kill these ponies, tear them apart and feast. Kill, like how you killed your precious family. Kill, like you did to get out of jail. Kill, like you did in your ‘desert of the world,’’” he hummed, a confident smirk mixing into the open-mouthed smile on his face.

The pearl glowed as Discord completed his command, a rainbow light bursting forth from it suddenly. Celestia flinched, a breathless scream leaving her. As the light faded Coalback screamed, freezing the blood in Rainbow’s viens. His hand moved, pulled Rainbow from her hooves and throwing her toward Luna. She hit the floor hard, head smacking against the unforgiving marble and knocking her vision away from her. She felt herself slide across the floor, her back stopping against a large pair of gilded hooves.

“Rainbow!” Applejack cried, a hoof grabbing onto her shoulder. She didn’t have to look at Applejack to hear the concern for her in her voice, but that didn’t matter so much to her at the moment either. Rainbow shook the ringing in her ears and tried to blink away the fuzziness that the world and looked back across the room.

Coalback let loose with another yell, struggling up to his feet with his hands pressed against his face. He wobbled on his feet, stumbling back a few steps before managing to regain his balance. He hunched over, his fingers clawing at his face. When his hands came away they had red and black blood smeared across them, black claws splitting his fingernails into splinters. His face had long, deep gashes across his eyes and cheeks. And a feral scream tore its way out of his rage twisted expression.

Discord let loose with another laugh, wailing his mirth toward the ceiling and grasping at his sides. He did a twirling somersault in the air as he guffawed, finally twisting around to face them upside down with a smile still plastered across his face. “Oh, and Celestia, thank you for the help. I’ll have to owe you a favour. Ta-ta!” he snickered, his paw waving toward them with an up and down motion.

The cloud of debris that had made up his body suddenly dropped, whatever forces keeping it in the air disappearing. The glass marble pieces pattered back to the floor, the pearl dropping with a much louder clack. And just as fast as he’d come, his presence was gone.

Coalback snarled, black colored scleras glaring toward Celestia. His skin was tight around him, every muscle, vein, and bone pronounced. He turned fully toward her, his feet slamming against the ground with enough force to send shockwaves up his legs and through the floor. He wrenched back in pain with another wail, his ribs jumping forward a full inch from the center of his chest.

A dark blue shield quickly sprung into existence around him, a loud thrum of magic sounding from above Rainbow’s head. Luna leaned forward above her, horn alight with the same magic. She winced when Coalback jumped up and put his hands onto the shield, the wall of dark light becoming slightly more opaque where he touched it. He growled against the shield, his face twisting in pain and anger as he glowered out at them.

“What did he do to him?!” Fluttershy wailed in panic, having curled into a quivering ball in the farthest corner of the room from them.

“He’s still trying to keep himself from changing,” Luna said darkly, her voice strained as Coalback began to hit his fists against the shield. “Discord has used Celestia’s power to trigger a change, a curse! I am extremely surprised that he has resisted for even this long, but it is a losing battle!” she grunted, wincing as Coalback’s claws scraped across the shield for a fleeting moment. “He will change, and he will kill somepony if we cannot contain him.”

“Then we gotta get ‘im away from everypony!” Applejack said determinedly, pointing at Coalback as he writhed in pain again.

He crouched over behind the shield, his heels leaving the floor as his legs twitched wildly. Rainbow watched in horror as his fingers pulled themselves out from their sockets and twisted in unnatural directions. His throaty wails of pain echoed inside the shield, barely muffled at all.

“What about the wolves?” Rainbow asked desperately, turning her eyes up desperately toward Luna. “They were heading North, nothing is up there! If you teleported us far enough away, there wouldn’t be anypony around for him to hurt! Plus, the wolves might know how to help him!” she explained.

Applejack aimed a panicked look at Rainbow. “US?!” she barked, looking toward Rainbow as if she’d just suggested a walk on the surface of the sun. “Ah ain’t goin’ anywhere near him while he’s doin’ that!” she yelled, lifting a hoof to motion toward Coalback to accentuate her point. Coalback’s yells dropped several octaves, but Rainbow refused to back down; she knew this would work.

“Not all of us,” she said, pulling herself to her hooves so that she could look Applejack in the eye. “Just me.”

“That’s crazier than all o’ us goin’!” Applejack protested, swinging her hoof over Rainbow’s head to desperately try to show Rainbow her view. Applejack’s breath came in short gulps, a mortified look overtaking her as she imagined what sort of horrible things that could happen to one of her friends. “What’re we supposed tah do if’n ya’ll get hurt?!” she demanded, fighting back tears of frustration.

“I’ll fly high up,” Rainbow said confidently, her mouth setting itself in a tight frown. “While he’s a wolf he’s fast on the ground, but I can outrun him in the air any day!” And she knew it too. Even when he had wings he was slower than her, and if he was grounded there was no way he could catch her. “Please, Luna! I can get him to the wolves and be back in a day!” she pleaded, turning to the Princess now.

“Rainbow Dash is right,” Celestia’s voice croaked from the other side of the room, Twilight’s gasp quickly following as the Princess tried to rise to her hooves. “Best chance … Can’t risk our ponies … Teleport them …” she breathed out, her barrel shivering with the simple effort of keeping herself sitting upright even with Twilight’s help.

Celestia’s mane no longer held the luster it had before, hanging down in long, dull pink strands. Celestia wobbled as she stood, her legs weak underneath her shockingly smaller body. Where before her shoulders had been far above her student’s, almost higher than Twilight’s horn could reach, now her shoulders were barely two hoof lengths above the purple unicorn’s as the Princess leaned against her.

All the gathered ponies stared in shock at the Princess of the Sun, brought so low. Celestia looked sadly at Coalback, before turning to Luna and whispering:

“Do it.”