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The imperial soldiers led by general Chere herded us along the path. They were surprisingly accommodating to us, taking into consideration the limitations of our imp forms, and the bipedality this form had forced on the ponies with me. One seemed to be doing better on two legs - and from her behavior, I guessed she was Pinkie Pie.

General Chere fell back to me and asked, "I see you're human, unlike these kirin 'ponies'. Where are you from? Doma?"

I shook my head, wondering how much I could possibly keep secret. I couldn't maintain the illusion of being from her world if she got at all serious asking me questions.

"Western half of the world?"

I held out my hand and wavered it. She was of course speaking of the wrong world. I decided that when the time came, I could semi-truthfully indicate that my path here had been extremely long and irreproducible, with the false implication that my world wasn't about thirty miles from where we stood - so it was safe to be clear that I wasn't from her world.

"So, central-ish. Figaro?"

I looked to her in pure confusion, and shook my head.

Apparently my expression managed to convey my ignorance, as she said "Interesting" and dropped the subject.

She then called a halt and turned to the other imps. "Which of you is the purple one?"

Ater a moment, one stepped forward.

The general said, "You have something of ours - a piece of magicite. I'm going to transform you back to recover it, and ask some questions. I understand if you don't answer, but if you lie, we will eventually be able to tell, and you will be very very sorry you did. If you try to fight me, I cannot guarantee the safety of your friends. Am I clear?" To accent the point, some of the soldiers around us held their swords to our backs.

The Twilight Sparkle-imp nodded.

The general passed an oddly-shaped bone on a necklace off to one of her soldiers. Just as he cast a spell - "Imp" - and Twilight Sparkle unfolded into herself, the general raised her sword in the air and kept it there. The soldier took Terra from Twilight Sparkle's neck. The general added, "Take the crown too, for the time being. It looked like a relic. But don't lose it. I was serious about their possibly becoming auxiliaries." The soldier took the tiara.

The general lowered her sword, and relaxed. Then she asked, surprisingly kindly: "You were chasing someone - Nightmare Moon. Does she have any other name?"

Twilight thought for a moment. "Yes, but I don't know what it is."

"In particular, does she look like this?" She reached for her pocket and pulled out a coin.

Twilight Sparkle looked at it. "No. Defintiely not. She's a pony. Night 'Mare' Moon."

That set the general severely off-balance. "What? Umm. Okay... Could Nightmare Moon shift forms?"

"Not that I know of. Well, she can travel as a mist."

The general considered for a few seconds, then noticed that the soldier who'd taken Terra seemed agitated. She asked him, "What is it?"

"Ma'am, you should see for yourself." He offered her the magicite.

She accepted the gem and immediately gasped. "Terra?" Then her eyes widened further, murmuring, "Merton? Ultima? With no training period?" She was silent for five long seconds.

"Where did you get this?" she demanded, furious.

Twilight Sparkle hemmed a bit, then replied, "From one of the agents of Nightmare Moon. We fought, and she dropped it before fleeing."

The general frowned, then asked her soldiers, "When the empress ordered Kefka terminated, did the body go on display?" - none of them knew - "Disappeared... and then his life's work turns up super-powered and dead." She took off her cape and boots and ordered, "Sprint shoes!"

Momentarily, a pair of shoes was provided. She put them on, issuing orders too quietly for us to hear. The soldier with the bone thing restored Twilight Sparkle to imphood, then offered the thing to the general. She declined, leaving it with him - and then left us behind, running forward at about twenty meters a second - really ridiculously fast.

We continued on our way for a few minutes without further incident.

One of the soldiers called an alarm - "In the air!"

We looked up, and saw a flight of pegasi, some pulling chariots. More were behind - hundreds. They stretched into the distance. It seemed some were herding clouds.

The soldier with the bone thing said, "They're headed for the base! Vicks! Pull a few of 'em down!" He rushed to one of the other soldiers and handed it off.

"Sir?"

"The general's out there alone. We need to distract them to let her get to the camp safely and organize the defenses."

The soldier swallowed, accepted the bone, and began casting: "Gravity One Hundred!" A deep breath, then again, and again... and each time, a pony was pulled down from the sky. He kept going, but he couldn't pull down more than one at once, and there were many.

The pegasi he pulled down landed around us, mostly unharmed - momentarily. The soldiers surrounding and outnumbering the surprised pegasi beat them unconscious - and but for their armor, it would have been worse. However, this imperial advantage was short-lived as dozens of pegasi swooped down and attacked.

The officer took the bone from Vicks and began casting spell after spell, repeatedly healing them all from near-death injuries. The imperial forces regained the advantage as the pegasi were unable to keep them down. A few of the other soldiers cast a single spell each, momentarily calling strange beasts to their aid, much like the 'slimer' spell we had been initially imp-ed with, though not as effective: a giant mouse made several of them glow with a yellow light, and a heron bathed others in purple.

Two of the pony-imps were trying to attack the imperial soldiers and barely succeeding in even approaching them. For myself, I knew I'd be useless in this body - it felt more like I was a barely-walking not-quite-talking gummi bear than anything else.

We'd drawn the attention of the full armada, and down swooped a flight of chariots.

One soldier summoned a glowing bearded man. The chariot-riding unicorns focused their energy, enclosing him in a sphere. He released a wild array of lightning which bounced around inside the sphere - and then vanished.

More unicorns landed outright, and, now stable, were able to act more precisely. They bound up the officer who'd been healing, and he stopped casting. Others protected the pegasus soldiers and tripped up the imperials. In short order, the ponies held the field.

One of the imps galloped towards the landed chariot, calling, "IMP! Imp Imp Imp!" - but a pegasus kicked her aside, saying, "Down, boy."

I recognized one of the unicorns from when I was ferrying messages - he was a ranking royal guard, and Twilight Sparkle's brother.

I tried to write a message in the gravel, but it wasn't terribly clear, and no one was looking anyway. I heard snatches of what they were saying - "...the empress..." -- "... tend the wounded ..." -- "... rescue her quick, even so!" -- and then, finally, I got a clear one: "It may be sudden, it may be very unexpected, but you heard the command. No mutiny. She knows the prophecy, and this is the best way she could find. Ignes - they're your family. For Celestia's sake - and I mean that literally - just do it! Please!"

When I looked up, I saw that that princess who'd been the stand-in for Celestia, Ignes, was in a staring match with Twilight Sparkle's brother. "I will do it. But I will not acknowledge Nightmare Moon as the empress of Equestria!" She gathered her magic, levitating all of the wounded. Then she took to the air and headed off the way they'd come, taking them with her.

The rest of the force took off again and headed on. The soldiers had been left gagged with iron bits, tied up and unconscious.

"Immmmmp!" ("Well, shit.")

One of the other imps found a writing pad on one of the soldiers, and managed to write: "Now what? - R"

Another took it and wrote, "Follow Macidexia's trail? - AJ" She pointed out how we were still on it.

"Cure curse first - TS - can't use magic."

"Ungag one soldier, make him do it? - RD"

Twilight Sparkle took the pad back, adding "RISKY"

"If I could talk, I'd get them on our side in a few minutes - R". After a moment, she added, "probably."

Another pony underlined the first phrase of what she had just written.

I grabbed the pad. "I heard Nightmare Moon is empress of Equestria - O"

Apparently, most hadn't.

"Then where's Spike off to?" (I'm not sure who that was)

Rarity interrupted our contemplation of our situation by saying, "Problem solved!"

She was wearing the white cape the general had dropped. And she was a pony.

We passed it around and in short order were all restored to our proper selves.

Momentarily, Twilight had recovered the element of magic; I'd grabbed the bone thing they kept passing around; Rainbow Dash had liberated one of the pieces of magicite that had been used in the skirmish from its previous bearer.

She commented, "'Indigo.' Meh. Fewer, weaker spells. Can't cast 'em. Want a look, Twi?"

Twilight Sparkle caught the green gem and examined it. "I can still summon the bird... completely unsustainable expenditure, though."

I fished another piece of magicite - Ramuh - out of the shirt of the soldier who'd summoned the lightning guy. Even I could summon this one, so it must be pretty cheap! "Hey, take a look! Looks like a much better deal."

She accepted it, and looked at me oddly. "Not particularly. Almost as much as the life spell! Just for a bit of lightning?"

"No way. I couldn't come anywhere near the life spell. I could summon this guy."

"Give me that bone thing... aha! That's it! This makes their magic much cheaper. Still a bit pricey, but not insane." She looked me over. "If you can use them with this economizer thing, then take 'em. It's not like you're using your magic for anything else."

I accepted the gems; Pinkie had found a third, 'Ratatosk'. Having acquired all of the powerful items we knew of, we continued retracing Macidexia's (and general Chere's) footsteps with renewed energy.