Could You Be An Alicorn?
by MasterThief
[Daring Greenery]
Alicorns are the best of Equestria. They can use magic like Unicorns. They can fly through the air like Pegasi. And they can make life around them grow like Earth Ponies. Alicorns must be strong, and smart, and very brave. They must love all the beings of this world, and they must dare to protect us all from the Demons, no matter what.
Could you be an Alicorn?
Big MacIntosh is an Alicorn. He is preparing for a difficult mission. He is with his two best Alicorn friends, Soarin and Shining Armor. His friends call him Big Mac, or just Mac. Everyone calls Shining Armor just Shiny.
They have been friends for many, many years.
Do you have best friends? What are their names? What makes them good friends to you?
Mac and Shiny and Soarin are putting on special armor. The armor is made from threads of crystal. Woven together, they are like light like cloth, but strong like steel.
The three of them help each other put on their armor. They have to check, and re-check, and check again. All three of them check each other’s armor, three times each. This is because if there’s any gaps in the armor, the Demons can get through, and they can hurt even an Alicorn with their dark magic.
How many times do Mac, Shiny, and Soarin check armor? (Hint: what is 3 x 3?)
Finally, they are ready in their armor. There are no gaps.
Mac and Shiny and Soarin each get their weapons, blades from their hooves and attached to their wings that they can use to fight the demons. But Alicorns can also use their magic, and use their flying, as weapons, too! They are fast. They can jump high. They can even walk on walls and ceilings with their magic if they have to! They have to be fast, and think fast, and work fast. This is becomes Demons are slow… at first. But when Demons sense Alicorns, they become afraid. Fear makes them work faster. So Alicorns have to be even faster.
Do you like to go fast? What’s the fastest you’ve ever run, or flew if you’re a Pegasi?
Mac and Shiny and Soarin have been living in a fortress in the mountains, in the very far north of Equestria. It is very cold here. Today it is snowing. But their armor keeps them warm.
Soarin takes off first. Mac and Shiny follow close behind. It is a long flight. But soon they see what they’ve worked so hard for so many years to reach. It looks like a mountain, but it is not. It is called Behemoth[/], after a demon of the ancient world. It is actually a meteor that was sent down to our planet by the demons from their home up above, in a Second Moon. That second moon is named after another very ancient demon: [i]Leviathan.
As he flies, Mac thinks. I can’t let the Demons hurt anyone else. We will stop them. Me and all my alicorn brothers. Every alicorn is my brother. Every life is precious.
Mac wears a pendant to remember where he came from. Inside that pendant is an apple seed, from Mac’s old home.
Mac and Shiny and Soarin, working together, carry a huge magic Ward. It is like a giant barrel, filled with enchanted crystal shards that repel demons.
What do you know about the Demons?
Have you ever flown very high? On your wings? In a hot air balloon? Or even on an airship? In a lot of places, you can see green, green as far as your eyes can see! You can see green fields where farmer ponies grow wheat and rice and oats. You can see green forests where lots of animals and plants live. You can see green in swampy lands, filled with lots of water, where birds and fish and even more kinds of plants live in and on the water.
What other kinds of land have green? What kinds of land have different colors?
Before Leviathan and the Demons, Equestria, our country, had lots and lots of green, from one ocean to the other. But where Demons landed, the land is now grey. Sometimes it has grey with spots of purple. Purple means demons live there now. But if it’s just gray? That’s where Demons used to live, until Royal Guards and Alicorns fought the Demons and won.
The mountains below Mac are gray with flashes of purple. Demons are all around, looking up at the sky. He and Soarin and Shiny must be careful.
Mac thinks back to a happier time and a happier place. He used to live in a town called Ponyville. He remembers his parents, how happy they were! He was named after his father, Bright Mac. Big Mac lived on a farm with his parents, and his younger sisters, and grandmother. They grew lots and lots of apples. Every summer they would press the apples in a giant crushing machine and make apple cider. They would drink it cold on hot summer days, or warmed with cinnamon during winter nights.
But they couldn’t press the apples too hard. Bright Mac told his Little Mac that’s because if you press the apples too hard, you will break the apple seeds inside of them. Apple seeds contain a poison called cyanide. There’s not very much, but enough to make a pony very sick if he or she ate too many seeds or drank too much of their pressings.
Bright Mac was a very smart pony. Mac misses him.
What do your parents do for a living? Or if, your parents are dead or missing, what did they do for a living?
Mac remembers the day the Demons came. One of their rocks landed near Ponyville, and soon the whole town had to flee the Demons, and leave their homes behind.
Mac’s parents died when the Demons came. That was a very hard day.
A lot of ponies, and a lot of other beings, died in those days too. Mothers and fathers and grandparents died. Mares and Stallions died. Fillies and Colts, big and little sisters and brothers died. A lot of pets died. A lot of plants died. Nothing green could grow. This meant there was no food, either grown in fields, or found in the forests. And the Demons had made the water dirty with their magic. So a lot of ponies went hungry and thirsty.
Even now the memory makes Mac want to cry.
But there is no time to cry now.
I will cry later, Mac says to himself. After the Demons are gone.
At first, nobody knew what the Demons wanted, or why they came to our planet. But then something happened.
Do you know about the Princesses?
Many, many years before the Demons came, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were sisters. They used to rule this land together. But then something happened to Princess Luna. She became a bad Princess. And Celestia had to banish Luna to the First Moon.
And that was where Luna stayed. Until the Second Moon, Leviathan, came.
It was right after the Demons appeared that Luna returned. She had tried to fight the demons, too! She knew what they were, and what they wanted.
Demons don’t want ponies to think. Ponies and many other beings are sentient, meaning we can think, and reason, and love, and work together.
Demons don’t want anyone other than Demons to be sentient. They want all of us to stop thinking, or growing food, or mining, or making steel, or building with stone.
But wouldn’t that make ponies die? No, Luna said! The Demons can force ponies and living beings to think like them… or rather, to think like Demons, not ponies.
And that’s where NotPonies come from. NotPonies may be Unicorns, or Pegasi, or Earth Ponies, or even Alicorns. But they spent too long around Demons, and eating the same goo that Demons eat. And the more they eat, the more they change to look like Demons.
Have you ever seen a NotPony?
NotPonies are very dangerous. Any pony, any sentient being, can fall under their influence, and refuse to think.
If you think, or know, that someone is a NotPony, you must tell at least five adults. You could tell your Mother and Father, your next-door or next-tent neighbor, your teacher, and an Investigator. (Investigators are Unicorns who have special training and magic powers to detect Demons and foil their plans.) Even your parent might be secretly NotPonies.
That is why you must tell at least five adults.
Mac and Shiny and Soarin carry their Magic Ward towards Behemoth. They sense NotPonies and Demons wandering around on the ground, ready to stop any Alicorn, or any pony, from getting close to Behemoth.
This is because inside Behemoth is a portal. It’s a magic portal that leads to Leviathan, the big Moon that is the Demon’s home.
Luna explained to Celestia, when she returned, that the Demons could throw special rocks called asteroids to our planet. Wherever those rocks landed, a portal would be created.
Luna could fight the Demons, because she was an Alicorn. So could her sister, Celestia, who was also an alicorn. But two alicorns couldn’t fight all the demons on their own.
They would need many, many more Alicorns to fight the Demons.
Can you think of how Celestia and Luna decided this? Do you know how many ponies they would need to ask for help?
Mac, his grandmother, and his sisters now lived in Appaloosa in a refugee camp. A refugee is a being who had to leave their home and couldn’t go back, and they may have to move again. This is why refugees live in tents, and not houses. The demons made many, many colts and fillies refugees.
But it wasn’t long before Mac found friends among the refugees. He met two Pegasi, Soarin and Flash Sentry. Both of them were orphans from a city called Cloudsdale, a floating city in the sky that the Demons attacked. They had lost their mother and father like he did, but they didn’t have anyone to take care of them. Mac said, nope, that’s not gonna work. So he asked his Grandmother, Granny Smith, if Soarin and Flash Sentry could move into the tent next door.
Granny was kind, and she said yes.
Mac’s other next-tent neighbor was a Unicorn named Shining Armor. Shiny lived with his parents and his younger sister. Whenever Granny Smith had to go stand in line for food or water or medicine, Shiny’s parents would watch Mac, his sisters, and Soarin and Flash Sentry. Granny would do the same when Shiny’s parents had to go stand in line.
What do you do when you have to stand in line? It can be very boring.
One day, while they were at school together, a grey unicorn in a military uniform came to their school tent. He was very strict, but he was kind. He asked a lot of questions.
What is 673 plus 328?
Mac knew the answer and blurted it out. One thousand and one!
The grey Unicorn wrote something down.
Flash said, hey Mac, why didn’t you raise your hoof?
Mac shrugged. I dunnom he said, I think he wants to test us.
So Mac and Shiny and Flash and Soarin turned it into a game. Before long, they were the only colts answering all the questions. Not just math, but reading and writing, and science, and a lot of questions about what to do, say, if you find a box of rice from a food drop that someone left behind.
What would you say if you were asked that?
The unicorn was very impressed with the four of them. He knew that they could be Alicorns.
Flash Sentry and Soarin jumped at the change. Mac and Shiny hesitated. They didn’t want to leave their families.
But their families told them it was a great honor to be an alicorn.
Granny gave Mac his pendant, and said, remember where you came from.
Flash died during training. Becoming an Alicorn was dangerous.
Mac is fighting inside Behemoth. He feels the Demons in his head. Oh no, Mac thinks. I must have torn my armor.
The Demons don’t speak, but they do make him want to do things. They want him to take off his armor. They want him to stop fighting. They want him to stop making things green. If he does that, Mac might even be able to see his parents and his grandmother again. They can all be alive again and happy.
Mac just says, NOPE. It’s a single word, but it is powerful. Mac knows the Demons are liars. Mac hasn’t given up yet.
Mac looks up at the Demons flying around the portal, blocking any of the alicorns from getting through. Shiny and Soarin are doing their best to keep the biggest weapon of all safe from the Demons so they can send it through the portal, but there are many Demons, and the Alicorns are outnumbered more and more.
Mac thinks and thinks as he fights off demons with his blades.
And then he remembers the apple seed he carries.
He remembers his father saying, don’t press the seeds, and don’t eat or drink what comes out of them, or you’ll get very sick.
Mac gets an idea.
The biggest weapon the alicorns are carrying are full of raw magical power. Magic can be used to destroy big things.
If you have magic, have you every had to use it to destroy something? A rock? A tree? A Notpony? Even a Demon?
But magic can also make things grow, especially plants. That is the magic power of Earth Ponies.
Through the hole in his armor, Mac can just barely get to the pendant, the one with an apple seed in it. It was from a green apple, Mac remembers. Green apples were tart and sweet.
No, no, no, think the Demons into Mac’s head through the gap in his armor. You don’t want to eat apples! Apples are disgusting! Demons can feed you with purple. Eat more purple. If you eat lots of purple every day, you can live a very, very, long time.
NOPE, Mac thinks. More lies.
Mac takes the pendant. Here, he tells Shiny. Put that in the weapon. Then put all of your magic in it?
Shiny is confused, but Mac is his friend. Shiny can sense how hard Mac is fighting off the Demons in his head. Shiny nods, and takes the pendant.
Soarin! Shiny says. Cover us, keep the Demons away from us! Soarin does, tearing a Demon apart with his magic, and sending down a rain of purple goo.
Why do you think Demons are filled with goo, and not blood like animals, or wood or fiber like plants?
Shiny teleports Mac’s pendant inside the weapon. Amplify me, Mac says! Make my power stronger!
Mac uses his magic, the magic he knows best, the magic to make things grow and grow. Even green apples. Especially green apples.
Especially green apples with lots of seeds in them. Especially green apple seeds with lots of cyanide.
It works! Soon the weapon glows all green. It looks like a giant apple, but it’s an apple filled with magic seeds. Shiny adds his magic to the weapon, and the apple grows so big it starts pulling away the steel straps holding it together.
Do you know how a bomb works?
Now help me, Mac says! We need to get this into the portal! I need you to help me throw it.
Mac is very tired. Soarin and Shiny are tired too. But they are Alicorns. Alicorns never give up.
The three of them lift up the very heavy weapon, now a big apple bomb. They don’t have a lot of time. It’s a very heavy lift. But between the three of them, they can fly with it.
The demons know something is wrong. They must know what Mac and Shiny and Soarin are trying to do. No no no no no, they shriek into the heads of all the Alicorns. Don’t do this! We just want to be your friends. We want to be one. Friends want to be one.
Mac doesn’t listen. Shiny doesn’t listen. Soarin doesn’t listen.
But it takes a lot of strength not to listen to a Demon while carrying something heavy. The Demons know this. They attack Soarin first. Soarin is hurt! He has to drop the bomb.
Mac feels the bomb growing heavier. I can still do this, he thinks.
Then a Demon runs into Shiny, and knocks him away from the bomb. Shiny falls a long way to the ground. There’s a crunch. Shiny is hurt bad, he’s broken a wing!
The bomb grows heavier. Mac is now the only one carrying it.
He can no longer throw it.
But he can still carry it through the portal. Through the heart of Behemoth, to Celestia-knows where on the Leviathan moon.
Oh, Demons? Mac asks, a smile on his face. Ya like green apples? How do you like these here apples? Right… about… now!
Mac closes his eyes. It’s fun to be an alicorn, he thought. Now Demons won’t hurt anyone else. He flies through the portal.
Shiny and Soarin watch Mac fly through the portal. A second later, the portal stops glowing. All the demons start shrieking! They are scared now, as scared as they made ponies all these years. But with the last of their portals destroyed, they start exploding into purple goo, like if you tossed grapes into a fire.
About the same time, Unicorn mages watching through a telescope see a huge blast of magic on the Leviathan moon. That moon is still grey, but one by one, purple splotches start going out. Not all of them, but enough.
Shiny and Soarin lie on the bottom of the cave. Behemoth has stopped glowing purple. A lot of their Alicorn friends are dead. A lot of them, like Shiny, are badly hurt. But they dared, and they did it.
But Mac? Nobody knows what happened to Mac. He may have died in the explosion. Or… something else may have happened to him.
What do you think happened to Mac?
If you go to any town where an Alicorn is from, they get a statue. Even if they died while becoming Alicorns, like Flash Sentry, they get a statute. But Mac’s statue, in the town of New Ponyville, is the biggest of all. And, unlike every other statue, Mac’s statue is placed in a field of green, green, grass, under three big apple trees, the same green apples his family grew.
Have you seen this statue, or any of the other Alicorn statues? They are called “memorials.” This means it’s a place where we remember special ponies. We especially remember those ponies who dared to fight the Demons, to dare to save living things, to dare to save all of us.
There’s still a need for Alicorns today. Lots of ponies your age can sign up for the same long training that Shiny and Soarin and Mac went through. Then the princesses will give you wings to fly, and horns to use magic, and hooves that can make green plants grow. And now, Alicorns are training to fly even higher, on rockets, up to the Leviathan Moon.
And if there are any more Demons up there, they will make sure Demons don’t hurt any being ever again.
Will you be brave and smart and strong and loyal? Will you dare to defend every living thing?
Could you be an Alicorn too?
Alicorns are the best of Equestria. They can use magic like Unicorns. They can fly through the air like Pegasi. And they can make life around them grow like Earth Ponies. Alicorns must be strong, and smart, and very brave. They must love all the beings of this world, and they must dare to protect us all from the Demons, no matter what.
Could you be an Alicorn?
Big MacIntosh is an Alicorn. He is preparing for a difficult mission. He is with his two best Alicorn friends, Soarin and Shining Armor. His friends call him Big Mac, or just Mac. Everyone calls Shining Armor just Shiny.
They have been friends for many, many years.
Do you have best friends? What are their names? What makes them good friends to you?
Mac and Shiny and Soarin are putting on special armor. The armor is made from threads of crystal. Woven together, they are like light like cloth, but strong like steel.
The three of them help each other put on their armor. They have to check, and re-check, and check again. All three of them check each other’s armor, three times each. This is because if there’s any gaps in the armor, the Demons can get through, and they can hurt even an Alicorn with their dark magic.
How many times do Mac, Shiny, and Soarin check armor? (Hint: what is 3 x 3?)
Finally, they are ready in their armor. There are no gaps.
Mac and Shiny and Soarin each get their weapons, blades from their hooves and attached to their wings that they can use to fight the demons. But Alicorns can also use their magic, and use their flying, as weapons, too! They are fast. They can jump high. They can even walk on walls and ceilings with their magic if they have to! They have to be fast, and think fast, and work fast. This is becomes Demons are slow… at first. But when Demons sense Alicorns, they become afraid. Fear makes them work faster. So Alicorns have to be even faster.
Do you like to go fast? What’s the fastest you’ve ever run, or flew if you’re a Pegasi?
Mac and Shiny and Soarin have been living in a fortress in the mountains, in the very far north of Equestria. It is very cold here. Today it is snowing. But their armor keeps them warm.
Soarin takes off first. Mac and Shiny follow close behind. It is a long flight. But soon they see what they’ve worked so hard for so many years to reach. It looks like a mountain, but it is not. It is called Behemoth[/], after a demon of the ancient world. It is actually a meteor that was sent down to our planet by the demons from their home up above, in a Second Moon. That second moon is named after another very ancient demon: [i]Leviathan.
As he flies, Mac thinks. I can’t let the Demons hurt anyone else. We will stop them. Me and all my alicorn brothers. Every alicorn is my brother. Every life is precious.
Mac wears a pendant to remember where he came from. Inside that pendant is an apple seed, from Mac’s old home.
Mac and Shiny and Soarin, working together, carry a huge magic Ward. It is like a giant barrel, filled with enchanted crystal shards that repel demons.
What do you know about the Demons?
Have you ever flown very high? On your wings? In a hot air balloon? Or even on an airship? In a lot of places, you can see green, green as far as your eyes can see! You can see green fields where farmer ponies grow wheat and rice and oats. You can see green forests where lots of animals and plants live. You can see green in swampy lands, filled with lots of water, where birds and fish and even more kinds of plants live in and on the water.
What other kinds of land have green? What kinds of land have different colors?
Before Leviathan and the Demons, Equestria, our country, had lots and lots of green, from one ocean to the other. But where Demons landed, the land is now grey. Sometimes it has grey with spots of purple. Purple means demons live there now. But if it’s just gray? That’s where Demons used to live, until Royal Guards and Alicorns fought the Demons and won.
The mountains below Mac are gray with flashes of purple. Demons are all around, looking up at the sky. He and Soarin and Shiny must be careful.
Mac thinks back to a happier time and a happier place. He used to live in a town called Ponyville. He remembers his parents, how happy they were! He was named after his father, Bright Mac. Big Mac lived on a farm with his parents, and his younger sisters, and grandmother. They grew lots and lots of apples. Every summer they would press the apples in a giant crushing machine and make apple cider. They would drink it cold on hot summer days, or warmed with cinnamon during winter nights.
But they couldn’t press the apples too hard. Bright Mac told his Little Mac that’s because if you press the apples too hard, you will break the apple seeds inside of them. Apple seeds contain a poison called cyanide. There’s not very much, but enough to make a pony very sick if he or she ate too many seeds or drank too much of their pressings.
Bright Mac was a very smart pony. Mac misses him.
What do your parents do for a living? Or if, your parents are dead or missing, what did they do for a living?
Mac remembers the day the Demons came. One of their rocks landed near Ponyville, and soon the whole town had to flee the Demons, and leave their homes behind.
Mac’s parents died when the Demons came. That was a very hard day.
A lot of ponies, and a lot of other beings, died in those days too. Mothers and fathers and grandparents died. Mares and Stallions died. Fillies and Colts, big and little sisters and brothers died. A lot of pets died. A lot of plants died. Nothing green could grow. This meant there was no food, either grown in fields, or found in the forests. And the Demons had made the water dirty with their magic. So a lot of ponies went hungry and thirsty.
Even now the memory makes Mac want to cry.
But there is no time to cry now.
I will cry later, Mac says to himself. After the Demons are gone.
At first, nobody knew what the Demons wanted, or why they came to our planet. But then something happened.
Do you know about the Princesses?
Many, many years before the Demons came, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were sisters. They used to rule this land together. But then something happened to Princess Luna. She became a bad Princess. And Celestia had to banish Luna to the First Moon.
And that was where Luna stayed. Until the Second Moon, Leviathan, came.
It was right after the Demons appeared that Luna returned. She had tried to fight the demons, too! She knew what they were, and what they wanted.
Demons don’t want ponies to think. Ponies and many other beings are sentient, meaning we can think, and reason, and love, and work together.
Demons don’t want anyone other than Demons to be sentient. They want all of us to stop thinking, or growing food, or mining, or making steel, or building with stone.
But wouldn’t that make ponies die? No, Luna said! The Demons can force ponies and living beings to think like them… or rather, to think like Demons, not ponies.
And that’s where NotPonies come from. NotPonies may be Unicorns, or Pegasi, or Earth Ponies, or even Alicorns. But they spent too long around Demons, and eating the same goo that Demons eat. And the more they eat, the more they change to look like Demons.
Have you ever seen a NotPony?
NotPonies are very dangerous. Any pony, any sentient being, can fall under their influence, and refuse to think.
If you think, or know, that someone is a NotPony, you must tell at least five adults. You could tell your Mother and Father, your next-door or next-tent neighbor, your teacher, and an Investigator. (Investigators are Unicorns who have special training and magic powers to detect Demons and foil their plans.) Even your parent might be secretly NotPonies.
That is why you must tell at least five adults.
Mac and Shiny and Soarin carry their Magic Ward towards Behemoth. They sense NotPonies and Demons wandering around on the ground, ready to stop any Alicorn, or any pony, from getting close to Behemoth.
This is because inside Behemoth is a portal. It’s a magic portal that leads to Leviathan, the big Moon that is the Demon’s home.
Luna explained to Celestia, when she returned, that the Demons could throw special rocks called asteroids to our planet. Wherever those rocks landed, a portal would be created.
Luna could fight the Demons, because she was an Alicorn. So could her sister, Celestia, who was also an alicorn. But two alicorns couldn’t fight all the demons on their own.
They would need many, many more Alicorns to fight the Demons.
Can you think of how Celestia and Luna decided this? Do you know how many ponies they would need to ask for help?
Mac, his grandmother, and his sisters now lived in Appaloosa in a refugee camp. A refugee is a being who had to leave their home and couldn’t go back, and they may have to move again. This is why refugees live in tents, and not houses. The demons made many, many colts and fillies refugees.
But it wasn’t long before Mac found friends among the refugees. He met two Pegasi, Soarin and Flash Sentry. Both of them were orphans from a city called Cloudsdale, a floating city in the sky that the Demons attacked. They had lost their mother and father like he did, but they didn’t have anyone to take care of them. Mac said, nope, that’s not gonna work. So he asked his Grandmother, Granny Smith, if Soarin and Flash Sentry could move into the tent next door.
Granny was kind, and she said yes.
Mac’s other next-tent neighbor was a Unicorn named Shining Armor. Shiny lived with his parents and his younger sister. Whenever Granny Smith had to go stand in line for food or water or medicine, Shiny’s parents would watch Mac, his sisters, and Soarin and Flash Sentry. Granny would do the same when Shiny’s parents had to go stand in line.
What do you do when you have to stand in line? It can be very boring.
One day, while they were at school together, a grey unicorn in a military uniform came to their school tent. He was very strict, but he was kind. He asked a lot of questions.
What is 673 plus 328?
Mac knew the answer and blurted it out. One thousand and one!
The grey Unicorn wrote something down.
Flash said, hey Mac, why didn’t you raise your hoof?
Mac shrugged. I dunnom he said, I think he wants to test us.
So Mac and Shiny and Flash and Soarin turned it into a game. Before long, they were the only colts answering all the questions. Not just math, but reading and writing, and science, and a lot of questions about what to do, say, if you find a box of rice from a food drop that someone left behind.
What would you say if you were asked that?
The unicorn was very impressed with the four of them. He knew that they could be Alicorns.
Flash Sentry and Soarin jumped at the change. Mac and Shiny hesitated. They didn’t want to leave their families.
But their families told them it was a great honor to be an alicorn.
Granny gave Mac his pendant, and said, remember where you came from.
Flash died during training. Becoming an Alicorn was dangerous.
Mac is fighting inside Behemoth. He feels the Demons in his head. Oh no, Mac thinks. I must have torn my armor.
The Demons don’t speak, but they do make him want to do things. They want him to take off his armor. They want him to stop fighting. They want him to stop making things green. If he does that, Mac might even be able to see his parents and his grandmother again. They can all be alive again and happy.
Mac just says, NOPE. It’s a single word, but it is powerful. Mac knows the Demons are liars. Mac hasn’t given up yet.
Mac looks up at the Demons flying around the portal, blocking any of the alicorns from getting through. Shiny and Soarin are doing their best to keep the biggest weapon of all safe from the Demons so they can send it through the portal, but there are many Demons, and the Alicorns are outnumbered more and more.
Mac thinks and thinks as he fights off demons with his blades.
And then he remembers the apple seed he carries.
He remembers his father saying, don’t press the seeds, and don’t eat or drink what comes out of them, or you’ll get very sick.
Mac gets an idea.
The biggest weapon the alicorns are carrying are full of raw magical power. Magic can be used to destroy big things.
If you have magic, have you every had to use it to destroy something? A rock? A tree? A Notpony? Even a Demon?
But magic can also make things grow, especially plants. That is the magic power of Earth Ponies.
Through the hole in his armor, Mac can just barely get to the pendant, the one with an apple seed in it. It was from a green apple, Mac remembers. Green apples were tart and sweet.
No, no, no, think the Demons into Mac’s head through the gap in his armor. You don’t want to eat apples! Apples are disgusting! Demons can feed you with purple. Eat more purple. If you eat lots of purple every day, you can live a very, very, long time.
NOPE, Mac thinks. More lies.
Mac takes the pendant. Here, he tells Shiny. Put that in the weapon. Then put all of your magic in it?
Shiny is confused, but Mac is his friend. Shiny can sense how hard Mac is fighting off the Demons in his head. Shiny nods, and takes the pendant.
Soarin! Shiny says. Cover us, keep the Demons away from us! Soarin does, tearing a Demon apart with his magic, and sending down a rain of purple goo.
Why do you think Demons are filled with goo, and not blood like animals, or wood or fiber like plants?
Shiny teleports Mac’s pendant inside the weapon. Amplify me, Mac says! Make my power stronger!
Mac uses his magic, the magic he knows best, the magic to make things grow and grow. Even green apples. Especially green apples.
Especially green apples with lots of seeds in them. Especially green apple seeds with lots of cyanide.
It works! Soon the weapon glows all green. It looks like a giant apple, but it’s an apple filled with magic seeds. Shiny adds his magic to the weapon, and the apple grows so big it starts pulling away the steel straps holding it together.
Do you know how a bomb works?
Now help me, Mac says! We need to get this into the portal! I need you to help me throw it.
Mac is very tired. Soarin and Shiny are tired too. But they are Alicorns. Alicorns never give up.
The three of them lift up the very heavy weapon, now a big apple bomb. They don’t have a lot of time. It’s a very heavy lift. But between the three of them, they can fly with it.
The demons know something is wrong. They must know what Mac and Shiny and Soarin are trying to do. No no no no no, they shriek into the heads of all the Alicorns. Don’t do this! We just want to be your friends. We want to be one. Friends want to be one.
Mac doesn’t listen. Shiny doesn’t listen. Soarin doesn’t listen.
But it takes a lot of strength not to listen to a Demon while carrying something heavy. The Demons know this. They attack Soarin first. Soarin is hurt! He has to drop the bomb.
Mac feels the bomb growing heavier. I can still do this, he thinks.
Then a Demon runs into Shiny, and knocks him away from the bomb. Shiny falls a long way to the ground. There’s a crunch. Shiny is hurt bad, he’s broken a wing!
The bomb grows heavier. Mac is now the only one carrying it.
He can no longer throw it.
But he can still carry it through the portal. Through the heart of Behemoth, to Celestia-knows where on the Leviathan moon.
Oh, Demons? Mac asks, a smile on his face. Ya like green apples? How do you like these here apples? Right… about… now!
Mac closes his eyes. It’s fun to be an alicorn, he thought. Now Demons won’t hurt anyone else. He flies through the portal.
Shiny and Soarin watch Mac fly through the portal. A second later, the portal stops glowing. All the demons start shrieking! They are scared now, as scared as they made ponies all these years. But with the last of their portals destroyed, they start exploding into purple goo, like if you tossed grapes into a fire.
About the same time, Unicorn mages watching through a telescope see a huge blast of magic on the Leviathan moon. That moon is still grey, but one by one, purple splotches start going out. Not all of them, but enough.
Shiny and Soarin lie on the bottom of the cave. Behemoth has stopped glowing purple. A lot of their Alicorn friends are dead. A lot of them, like Shiny, are badly hurt. But they dared, and they did it.
But Mac? Nobody knows what happened to Mac. He may have died in the explosion. Or… something else may have happened to him.
What do you think happened to Mac?
If you go to any town where an Alicorn is from, they get a statue. Even if they died while becoming Alicorns, like Flash Sentry, they get a statute. But Mac’s statue, in the town of New Ponyville, is the biggest of all. And, unlike every other statue, Mac’s statue is placed in a field of green, green, grass, under three big apple trees, the same green apples his family grew.
Have you seen this statue, or any of the other Alicorn statues? They are called “memorials.” This means it’s a place where we remember special ponies. We especially remember those ponies who dared to fight the Demons, to dare to save living things, to dare to save all of us.
There’s still a need for Alicorns today. Lots of ponies your age can sign up for the same long training that Shiny and Soarin and Mac went through. Then the princesses will give you wings to fly, and horns to use magic, and hooves that can make green plants grow. And now, Alicorns are training to fly even higher, on rockets, up to the Leviathan Moon.
And if there are any more Demons up there, they will make sure Demons don’t hurt any being ever again.
Will you be brave and smart and strong and loyal? Will you dare to defend every living thing?
Could you be an Alicorn too?