There was nothing quite like waking up in somepony else’s arms.
Starlight stretched a hoof into Jackpot’s face, who grunted and turned away, forcing Starlight to tumble off the couch. She landed hard on the ground in a slump, groaning as she picked herself up. The sun was out, rays of sunshine climbing over the tall towers of Saddleopolis into Elodea’s humble downtown apartment. Jackpot was still snoring, his face buried in the worn-out green cushions of the couch. For some reason, Starlight found the way he was sprawled across the couch to be humorously cute. She wandered into another room, the kitchen, which seemed to be sparsely populated by any food.
“Hungry?”
Starlight spun around to see Elodea, perched on a stool near the window, huffing on her morning cigarette.
“I didn’t mean to barge in, sorry,” Starlight said, embarrassed.
“Don’t be, take what you like. Haven’t got much though, I’m afraid,” Elodea said, yawning. She pointed to a nearby pantry with the butt of her cigarette.
Starlight followed Elodea’s gesture to the pantry, where she spotted a lone yellow apple in a small wicker basket on the second-highest shelf. She grabbed it and immediately began eating, desperate for some source of energy.
“You and Dust go way back, huh?”
“Way back. Grew up together. Though I...can’t say I remember you in town,” Elodea said, as if she was suspicious of Starlight’s true identity.
“I’m uh...I just recently moved there,” Starlight said.
“Dust told me you knew Twilight Sparkle?”
“Um...yes,” Starlight said, her eyes falling to the floor, wanting to talk about anything else. Elodea quickly understood it wasn’t a desirable topic for conversation.
“Dust always wanted to go on adventures, you know. When we were kids, she’d always make up these crazy plans, to go find some missing treasure or something. Stuff only a kid could come up with. She’d go too crazy sometimes though, and we’d get in trouble, and I’d always end up taking the fall for whatever she did. Her folks thought I was a bad influence on her.”
“Why'd you come here?” Starlight said, mid-chew of her apple.
“I didn’t have enough money to go farther, that’s why. Then I got stuck here. Dust really graduated?”
“Yep.”
“Good for her. I knew she’d do it,” Elodea said, trailing off, considering what she herself could have achieved for herself had she stayed behind. She stared out the window at the city morning, thinking about her choices in life. Catching Starlight off guard, Elodea jumped off the stool to her hooves, after noticing something outside.
“What?” Starlight asked, slightly concerned over Elodea’s terrified expression.
“Um...that doesn’t have to do with you guys, does it?” Elodea said, pointing out the window.
Starlight stepped closer to the window and followed Elodea’s hoof, down to the streets below. She dropped her apple to the floor in shock, at the sight of at least sixteen royal guards exiting a parked carriage, rushing into the apartment complex.
“Wake up the others,” Starlight said, trying to stay calm. The soldiers had already entered the building, and would likely be upon them in a matter of moments.
“No one said anything about the police!” Elodea yelled, rushing into the living room to retrieve some bags of illegal belongings, and then running back to the kitchen to hide them away in a cabinet.
“Everypony wake up!” Starlight yelled from the kitchen, panicking.
Dust had just finished getting her hair ready in the bathroom, exiting just as Starlight started yelling.
“What? What’s going on?” she said, concerned over Starlight’s frantic behavior.
“We need to leave! Right now!” Starlight said, rushing into the living room, gathering what few belongings she had.
Jackpot lifted his head in response to the commotion.
“Now?”
“Right now!!!” Starlight yelled. A large thud at the front door made everypony’s head turn in surprise.
“They’re here…” Starlight muttered, petrified. Jackpot leaped to his hooves, grabbing his bag and stuffing not only his own record, but also Elodea’s record player, inside.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Elodea yelled, entering the room. Her eyes widened in horror at the second thud.
“They’re trying to get inside!” Starlight said.
“Uh...shit! Put something in front of the door!” Elodea said, not psychologically prepared for this situation.
“Put what?” Starlight asked, hesitant to possibly damage Elodea’s few pieces of furniture.
“Anything!!!” Elodea yelled, desperately.
Without hesitation, Starlight’s horn glowed bright blue, and she instantly picked up the couch, a table, and a leather chair, the only furniture in the room, and stacked it all in front of the door.
Elodea rushed to pack a bag of the essentials, which mostly constituted cigarettes, drugs, and candy bars.
When the four ponies were ready to leave, they found themselves frozen in space, realizing that their only exit was blocked.
“Um...ideas?” Dust said, her whole body quaking with fright. She wasn’t even sure who the ponies pounding on their door were, which added to her anxiety.
Jackpot rushed back to the window, and saw there were four soldiers positioned outside, each brandishing large pointed spears.
“There’s four outside waiting for us,” he said, hopelessly.
They all jumped again in fright at the sound of the door bursting open, though thankfully the furniture was still blocking the soldiers from entering.
“Starlight Glimmer! Come out right now!” one of the soldiers yelled. Starlight turned away from the door, ignoring him.
“I can teleport us out of here, everypony grab my hoof,” Starlight said, determined to get all of them out of this alive.
“Teleport?! Is that safe?” Dust asked, very inexperienced with magic.
“Well I haven’t done it in a while….but yes, it’s very safe, do we really have time to argue about it?” Starlight said, more aggressively than Dust was used to.
Suddenly, they were all thrown back by a large explosion, the entire front door of Elodea’s apartment being torn apart in a bright flash of light. The stacked furniture too had been thrown about, the couch nearly squashing Jackpot on the ground. The pack of soldiers filed into the room, stepping over small flames that lingered on the floor. Their leader, who was responsible for the blast, grimaced at the sight of Starlight.
Starlight had been thrown headfirst into a wall, barely able to think straight as she mustered as much strength as possible to regain her sense of surroundings. Before she could get a grasp of reality, she suddenly felt herself be lifted to her hooves by a stallion’s arms, who bared his teeth at her. Panicking, she blasted him with a non-lethal burst of magic, sending his entire body flying right through the drywall into Elodea’s bedroom.
Starlight stood up straight and shook her head, ignoring the pain of the bloody bruise on her head she had sustained. She was literally in a corner, her three friends groaning in pain on the floor around her. At least ten soldier ponies were in a semic-circle, slowly closing in around them. All of them were unicorns, and all of them were ready to attack.
“It’s over, Glimmer! You’re not hurting anypony else ever again, you hear me?” yelled the leader.
“W-What?” Starlight said, lowering her guard, confused. One of the soldiers took advantage of this, attempting to paralyze her with a beam of magic. Starlight deflected it right back at him, reducing her set of pursuers down to nine. The soldier collapsed to the ground, completely immobilized.
“I don’t want to hurt any of you! But you’ve got to let us go! We haven’t done anything wrong!” Starlight yelled, extremely worried she would lose control and really hurt somepony. She recalled telling Jackpot and Dust that she would fight in order to protect them, but now, when that obligation was actually upon her, she found herself freezing up in fear. If she did accidentally hurt somepony, she could never forgive herself.
The guards seemed slightly perplexed by Starlight’s seemingly good-hearted defiance.
“Give up,” commanded the leader, “You’ve got nowhere to run.”
Starlight looked at him as if he was a moron, and sighed, deciding she had to end this. In a flash of light, she teleported out of sight. The soldiers remained where they were, staring at the spot where she had been standing, unsure what to do.
“She can do that?”
Then one noticed exactly where she had teleported to—right behind them, her horn glowing a terrifying blue.
“Sorry,” she said, honestly, before blasting all nine of them with a tumultuous wave of blue magic that instantly knocked them all unconscious. Out of breath from the intensity, Starlight rushed over to the other three, who had just recovered from the front door blast.
“Okay! Everypony, grab my hoof! Let’s go!” Starlight yelled, trying to help them all to their hooves.
The other three all slowly put themselves back together and followed her instruction. Then, in another flash of light, they disappeared from the room.
In the rundown café Paprika’s, Brown Barley, the owner of the restaurant, was scowling at an unfavorable opinion article in the local newspaper. His attention was then grabbed by a few faint sparks of blue magic, popping randomly out of thin air. Successively, four ponies all fell from a few feet up in the air to the floor. For a few moments, they were all just lying on the hard floor, groaning in agony from the high fall.
“Sorry...Haven’t done that in a while,” Starlight said, referring to her miscalculation of the height, as she held her bleeding head in exhaustion.
After making it to their hooves, Elodea realized just where they were.
“Starlight, why are we here?” she whispered, angrily.
“This was the first place I could think of, we’re safe now,” Starlight said, smiling, a great sense of triumphant relief descending upon her.
“Well well, if it isn’t El! You’re just in time to make up the shift you missed yesterday!” Barley said, smirking.
“Fuck off, Barley. Did you not just see us teleport out of the thin fucking air? I’m going through a lot right now!”
Barley rolled his eyes. Elodea turned away from him, and then realized something.
“Hold it, Barley...Did you tell anypony where I live?”
“What kind of question is that? I don’t even know where you live, you dumb bitch.”
“Then how the hell did they find us?” Elodea said.
“Does it matter? They’ll find us again soon enough,” Jackpot grunted.
“Soon enough indeed.”
Before Starlight could even turn around, she felt a massive blow to the chest, sending her and the other four ponies flying backwards, landing hard into the left side wall of Paprika’s. Jackpot landed atop a table, splitting it in half. Starlight got hit the hardest, her bones rattling as she slammed into the stone wall. She fell to the floor as dust cascaded down from the wall atop her head. She rose to her hooves as fast as possible, dusting herself off and wiping some blood from her cheek. Dust made it to her hooves second, and nearly passed out when she saw who it was who had just nearly killed them. Jackpot was lying on top of one half of a table, and weakly lifted his head to get a glimpse. He then dropped his head back down, breaking into a disheartened laughter.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. Starlight stood as tall as she could, though she couldn’t deny she was absolutely terrified.
Princess Luna was standing near the booth Starlight had sat in just yesterday, a miserable frown on her face.
“You’ve proved quite elusive, Starlight Glimmer. I expected my guards to be able to handle you,” Luna said, slightly condescendingly.
Starlight’s eye twitched, tired of having to put up with so many constant obstacles. She remained in her defensive posture, while Dust cowered behind her in terror.
“St-Starlight, that’s-”
“I know, Dust.” Starlight said, wondering how they were going to get out of this one. Barley stared in horror, and then scurried off out the door, limping from his injuries. Nopony paid him any notice as he left. Luna was clearly only fixated on one pony, and that was Starlight.
“I expected you to come here, if you managed to escape. I’ve been watching you all since you’ve arrived here, mind you.”
Luna began pacing around them, as Starlight tried to stay calm. Luna smirked at the sight of Starlight trying to act as impressive as possible.
“Starlight, you can’t possibly think you can contest me.”
“M-maybe not...but I’m not going to stand here and let you hurt my friends,” Starlight said, trying her best to be brave in the face of impossible odds. She was staring down death in the face, and she knew it.
Luna smiled and nodded, finding Starlight’s stubbornness to be humorous.
“Let’s say you get away, then what? You’re wanted by every pony with any sort of jurisdiction over anything. Across Equestria, they know your face. You can’t outrun us forever.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong! You can’t treat me like I’m a villain!” Starlight yelled.
“But you’ve always been one, haven’t you? Since Twilight found you! Being Twilight’s student was just a cover, wasn’t it? To get on our good side. And look at how you’ve defiled our trust,” Luna said, truthfully feeling betrayed.
Starlight, however, wasn’t sure exactly what she was talking about.
“I see your mind. You’re afraid, aren’t you? Actions have consequences, Starlight Glimmer. And my, the consequences we’ve got planned for you are just terrible already. No need to worsen them by continuing to run away.”
Luna saw Starlight was undeterred, unaware it was because she had absolutely no idea what she was alluding to. Chrysalis’ atrocities in the south had yet to reach her ears, meanwhile to Luna, it was all she could think about. The deaths of nearly a thousand ponies had to be avenged. Luna considered Starlight to have promising potential under Twilight’s tutelage. However, all respect and love she had once had for the unicorn had completely dissipated, in wake of Chrysalis’ reign of terror in Starlight’s name.
“And your friends there, they’ll be executed, surely. Or at the very least, be sent to Tartarus for the remainder of their years. For helping a monster like you evade the law.”
Starlight breathed deeply through her nose, furious.
“I’m not a monster, and you can’t treat me like one!” Starlight said.
Luna opened her mouth to respond, giving Starlight an opportunity to catch her off guard, using every ounce of energy she had to fire a beam of magic into the ceiling above them, which immediately came crashing down. Luna raised her head up in surprise, and formed a magical bubble around her, which shielded her from the impending carnage of the falling rubble. While Luna was forming her bubble-shield, Starlight concentrated on teleporting herself and the other three. Once Luna had blasted her way out of the rubble, she immediately fired a beam at Starlight, just as they were teleporting out of the room.
Luna sighed in bitterness, Starlight and her accomplices having escaped. She picked herself out of the rubble and flicked some dust from her shoulder, exiting the restaurant as it continued to fall apart. Despite a small loss, Luna was still determined. Although she escaped, Luna knew Starlight couldn’t run forever.
Along the streets of Saddleopolis, four ponies spontaneously arrived in a flash of light, all covered in dust and bruises. They fell to the sidewalk, pony pedestrians taking a moment to check if they were alive, and then continuing along, ignoring them.
The ponies were all barely hanging in there. Elodea helped Dust to her hooves, as Jackpot leaned up against a street lamp, rubbing a dust-covered patch of torn-off skin on his leg.
“We need to get out of the open…” Elodea said.
“Starlight!”
Dust fell to her knees beside Starlight, who was lying motionless on the floor. She shook her back and forth, Starlight completely unresponsive.
“Oh Celestia...is she okay?!” Jackpot asked in despair.
Dust examined the heavy burns that covered her chest and right arm, realizing Luna’s blast apparently didn’t miss after all. Dust looked up from Starlight’s maimed, limp body, to a horrified Jackpot, both unsure what to do.
Chrysalis awoke suddenly, in an unfamiliar place. All she could remember was the terror of the jungle, a million voices calling out to her at once. She reeled in disgust at the sight of her still in her Starlight Glimmer disguise, her pink fur stained with dirt.
Instinctively, she attempted to cast a spell, yet the metal ring those ponies had stuck on her remained on her horn, prohibiting her from using her magic. She grunted in frustration, tied up in chains for the second time in two days. However, she had a feeling her imprisonment this time wasn’t the work of those drunken townsponies from that village.
Getting a look at her surroundings, she found herself in some kind of tent, pitched right upon the jungle floor. Her arms were tied behind a large pole that rose up to the top of the tent.
She was facing away from the door, and the tightness of the chains restricted her from turning her head too far around, as she tried to find something to help her escape. She then jumped in surprise, when she noticed there were two other ponies lying near her, also in chains, leaning against the tent wall. One was a stallion, muscular with a combed head of dark brown hair. He was keeled over, his head facing his stomach. Chrysalis believed he had to be either unconscious or dead, though she hardly cared which. The other pony, a bright pink unicorn with magenta-colored wavy long hair and sad eyes, was tied right beside the stallion, and was awake, to Chrysalis’ relief. The unicorn hadn’t said a word since Chrysalis had woken up.
“You! Where are we?” Chrysalis asked, as if she was interrogating her.
The pony ignored her, pretending not to have heard.
“Hey! I’m talking to you!”
“Talk to somepony else then,” the unicorn muttered. Chrysalis saw the mare had a ring around her horn to prevent her from using her magic, just as with Chrysalis, except the pony’s ring seemed to be far more crudely made. Soon enough, Chrysalis gave up with the mare and continued searching for an escape. She had located the exit, though as long as she was stuck in those chains, her situation was hopeless. Chrysalis rustled with the chains, to no avail, before eventually getting tired, slouching down to the ground. She heard the distant chatter of voices outside, and fear began to take a hold of her. Being unable to use her magic made her helpless, in what had to be one of the most hostile places in Equestria. Her ears perked up, at the sound of two ponies approaching the hut, talking to one another. They entered, though Chrysalis couldn’t get a glimpse of them, as she was tied facing the opposite direction.
“That one,” said one of the ponies, his dark, foreboding tone sending shivers down Chrysalis’ spine. To her despair, it just so happened that “that one” meant her. A stallion untied her from the post, and pulled her to her hooves, using the chain like a leash,
Chrysalis stared into the stallion’s face with a mix of disgust and hatred. He had a shaved head, and his face was covered in strange white markings. The other stallion, who was waiting by the door, had a similar appearance.
“Let go of me! You’ve made enemies with the wrong-”
The stallion slapped her in the face, knocking her to the floor. The bound unicorn on the floor burst into a fit of laughter, as Chrysalis picked herself up, scowling at the unicorn as she wiped dirt from her face.
The stallions grabbed a hold of her again and dragged her out of the hut, as she continued struggling and protesting.
Once outside, Chrysalis got quiet, and her mouth hung agape in shock. She was actually quite high up from the ground, in a civilization of small, primitive-style huts and buildings, where hundreds of ponies were traversing about. The community was right along a green-colored river that ran through the center of the jungle. The sky was a faint orange that morning, and the jungle air was especially humid.
Chrysalis was dragged up several slopes, cliffs, and hills, passing houses, shops, and the judgemental stares of the pony natives. They all bore the same white markings on their face, and all had their heads shaven. There were far too many ponies for Chrysalis to fight on her own, and she knew it.
At the highest point of the settlement, Chrysalis saw a large building, made out of wood and straw like all the others. Chrysalis was mildly impressed with the decapitated heads on spikes that decorated the out entrance to the house.
She was brought inside the building, where a small crowd of ponies was already waiting. The room was dark, practically pitch-black once the guards closed the door behind them and the sunlight disappeared. Through the crowd, she made out the dull glow of a candle, the lone source of light in a world of darkness. She stepped through the crowd at the guard’s insistence, hesitantly, nervous about what she was brought here for. When she made it to the front of the crowd, she saw him.
He was a short earth pony, middle-aged, greying hair and a worn-out tan coat. A side of his face and most of his body was hidden in the shadows, while the rest of him was illuminated by the subtle orange glow of the candle. He was staring at it, watching it bend back and forth to his breath.
“Starlight Glimmer.”
At first, Chrysalis was confused as to what her sworn enemy had to do with anything, and then remembered that she was currently disguised.
“Who are you?” she asked, without any hint of respect. The stallion hadn’t even looked over at her yet, his eyes stuck on the small flame of the candle in the corner. He waited to respond, taking his time to finish appreciating the light of the candle.
“Comrade,” he said, turning his head slowly to face her.
Chrysalis was beginning to get impatient with him, glancing back nervously at the crowd, who were all stone-faced and silent.
“Why have you taken me here?” she asked.
“You weren’t taken. You were brought,” the stallion corrected.
“The colt tricked me!”
“You’re here now,” he said, as if she was already dead. He bit his lip as his eyes stayed on the fire, beckoning it to show him what he had yet to understand. He raised his head to face Chrysalis again, even slower.
“I take it you’re not one for any sort of introduction, Miss Glimmer. That’s quite alright. I already know much about you. In my time here I’ve been able to learn a great deal about what happens out there. And now you’re here. We so rarely bring ponies here, er...still breathing. Ponies...they are the takers. All they do is take what shouldn’t be theirs. But you, Miss Glimmer, you’re quite different. I’ve heard so much about you, it’s really quite strange to be meeting you in the flesh…”
Chrysalis felt something odd about the way Comrade conducted himself. As if he could see right through her.
“The forest is nature at its finest. It is a far away place, and, to me, not meant to be inhabited by ponies. It’s wild, and untamable, and cannot be conquered. And yet we insist on doing just that. Conquering the unconquerable. Defiling the sacred. Because it gives us power. You are such an example. A great defiler...of life. The most sacred, basic element of nature. How many ponies have you murdered in all this time?”
“Hundreds. The second I get free, you and your ponies will join them,” she said, after hesitating with such a question.
Comrade said nothing, unphased by her threat.
“Do you know what this is?”
“What?”
“This place…” he said, waving a hoof across the air.
“No.”
“It’s a haven….in a world of despair. An oasis in a desert. Where justice is uncorrupted, and ponies are in control of their lives. Out there, ponies tear each other apart. They do it everywhere they can, and when they find some place that has yet to be taken, they waste no time doing so…They’re hungry. For power, and wealth, and control. You, Miss Glimmer, you like power and death, the same way a child likes his favorite toy. I suppose you have the right to kill me. I’m just another face in a crowd of corpses to you. You’ve taken so much from so many, you can’t even recall the exact number. You have the right, certainly. But you are a novice, a chaotic wind high on the thrill of destruction and pain. A freak occurrence in a world of greater evil. It’s impossible for me to describe, even, the truth behind what evil the world has concocted. It festers, and bleeds. Endlessly. Like a sore that never dies. It cannot be stopped, and it only grows. As long as ponies rule the world, so will evil corrupt it, slowly, but surely. Just like in this forest. Inch by inch, day by day, it will disappear, and be made into another soulless city or a wasteful depot. Which is why, by my persistence, evil must be mastered. Configured, to serve a purpose. You, Starlight Glimmer, are the antithesis to that design. You are a menace, who kills blindly and without discrimination. You do it for attention, oblivious to the deep-rooted evil , which you distract from. There is no purpose to your actions, other than to achieve some sadistic glory. And maybe in that, you have succeeded.”
Chrysalis was frozen in space. She watched this pony carefully, whose face was still partly hidden in the cold shadow of the room, as the manifestation of her fears. A thought-to-be morality, or a conscience, returning with a vengeance after years of subjugation. The small crowd of natives behind them was listening intently, silently. Comrade let his head fall back against the wood, as he began to reminisce.
“I remember, long ago...when I served in the royal guard. Feels like a lifetime ago. I came from nothing, though most of us came from nothing. In the south, there was a village, fraught with a bizarre plague. It was a truly mad disease...that killed hope as much as it took lives. We were the providers of a supposed vaccine, given to us by Equestria’s top scientists. The disease has killed most of the older ponies. In fact, the village was mostly children. Large families. By then, large families of orphans. We gave them the vaccine, and administered it. And then, as we began to leave, one of the children ran out, and was crying. He had gone blind. So we went back, and we took off the arm of every pony we gave the vaccine to. Those were the orders. I thought it was horrendous, to live with one arm missing, but I suppose they ended up lucky after all, since most of them didn’t have to live with it at all. The village was black and empty when we came back the next spring. And all I could do was stand and look at the aftermath. That’s all we could do. Deal with it. And when I watched the ashes of charred bodies blow into empty stores that used to be run by happy families with everything to live for, I felt myself fall backwards, into a dream. Another world, where things began to make sense. And I saw myself, not as I wanted to, but as I was. A killer. Bred for war with an endless list of interchangeable enemies. Championed as a protector of ponies, responsible for the greatest tragedy I had ever witnessed. And I realized...that those who tell us where to go, and what to do, and how to act, and what to believe, they are stronger than we. That there are fundamental differences between those who speak and those who listen. They could stand us, what we had done. There was no reprimand, or punishment. They accepted what we had done as something benign. An unavoidable casualty. They could stand that we were monsters, ponies trained to take. Take life, take food, take innocence, take joy...Wars are fought to take. Take land, or validation, or just all for selfishness...It’s all so arbitrary. This world is so temporary. This forest, here, right now, is temporary. We ponies are the takers. The real monsters. And those at the top, they can stand us. They can stand that we have families, and friends, and love, and joy, but could still commit atrocities nonetheless. They excuse it. These ponies here have gathered by the hundreds, from far and wide, because they have seen the paradox that I have. Death, and misery, they are natural parts of life. They are to be controlled. And I am the one to control it. So I came here, to a place untouched and uncorrupted by the sinister exploits of ponies. I defy those ponies who excuse such immorality. We live in simplicity, because that is all we need to thrive. We search for those who are guilty, and we do what we must. All of us, everypony, is guilty of some evil. Yet there is order in evil. A process, by which anypony can learn through. My process is effective, and not only effective, but justified. To root out the evil that destroys society, and morality, and nature, and eradicate it, for the betterment of all. And so you’ve been taken here. As a prop, an example of the chaotic evil that the world has spewn out. You must atone, Miss Glimmer, and you will never leave this place alive.”
Chrysalis was led back outside of Comrade’s hut, consumed by an unexpected terror. It dominated her thoughts, and refused to release her. Outside, the sky had become a darker shade of red, and the pony population of the settlement had gathered down below, around some sort of religious altar. It was too far to make out exactly what was happening.
Comrade joined her and the guards outside, smiling as he breathed in the air of the forest.
“The air is so clean today. Truly, today is a blessed day.”
Comrade raised a hoof in the air, and, to Chrysalis’ confusion, the crowd below began cheering. She watched as a pony was dragged out through the crowd to the altar in the center. Her eyes widened, when she saw it was the unconscious muscular stallion she had been imprisoned with, now very much awake, yelling and flailing about. He was tied down to the altar, screaming and fighting without success. Then a native pony stepped towards the altar, brandishing a large, ornate weapon, with a large bladed edge on one side. The crowd began chanting, something that Chrysalis couldn’t quite make out.
“That stallion works for the bureaucracy. He’s a thief, and looks down on those he considers beneath him,” Comrade explained.
Chrysalis could predict what was coming, but was more concerned about her own future here. Trapped with a psychopath, outnumbered by the hundreds and unable to use her magic, she was waiting for a miracle. Below, the crowd continued chanting together, ecstatically raising their hooves in anticipation.
“It’s so simple to bring ponies together. All you have to do is give them a cause, an enemy, and a fanaticism to do something about it,” Comrade said, as they watched the scene unfold below.
The crowd’s chanting grew more intense every step the pony made towards the restrained stallion on the altar. The pony was wearing a strange headdress, and was muttering something in a strange language.
“That is my method. A legitimate, effective method.”
The pony with the headdress finally made it to the altar, as the stallion whimpered and pleaded, buckling in his restraints back and forth. The crowd was practically screaming in excitement, yelling a thousand cries of simultaneous pleasure and anguish.
Then they were silenced, after the pony’s axe came down through the restrained pony’s neck, separating his head from his body, blood jetting out in every possible direction. Chrysalis flinched, which she found odd of herself to do, given how well-acquainted she was with death. But something about the nature of that stallion’s death just didn’t sit right with her.
The crowd waited for some ponies to collect the sacrifice pony’s head and body, carrying his remains to another location. Then they began to disperse, as if it was just a normal, everyday occurrence. Chrysalis glanced at Comrade, who seemed neither proud nor disappointed. Truly, this was just a normal day.
“And they call me mad,” he said aloud, staring off into nothing. He seemed to neither love nor hate what he had brought about. Merely, he was weeding out the evil of Equestria he so despised. To him, it was a natural obligation.
He nodded for Chrysalis to be taken away, as he returned to his hut at the top of the hill, to find his candle still waiting for him.
Outside of the Forbidden Forest, Twilight Sparkle and her band of ponies stopped their carriage at the riverbank, unable to cross. Twilight spotted a worn-out shack along the grassy coast, whose old wooden boards shook and buckled in the wind. Twilight trotted towards the shack, accompanied by Fluttershy and Shining Armor. The trio investigated the shack, though it seems abandoned.
“And just who the hell are you?”
Behind them was a yellow, pot-bellied pony, who was chewing on a moldy fruit and reeked of the river moss. Twilight gave a slight smile as a menial form of endearment.
“We would like to cross, please.”
“Uh-uh. No way, fancy folk.”
Twilight’s smile dropped. She glanced back at Fluttershy and Shining Armor, though they had no ideas as to how to handle this either. Twilight cleared her throat, while the stallion stood his ground, the disgusting sound of his chewing filling the awkward silence.
“We are well-prepared to compensate you, if you-”
“It don’t matter whether you’re the queen of Equestria. Ain’t nopony riding on my boat, because ain’t no strangers allowed on my boat no more. Not after last time.”
“What happened last time?” Twilight asked.
“Another fancy-talking unicorn showed up, I brought her across, turned out she was a crazy no-good bitch. They locked her up for a day, but she escaped, I hear. That’s the story.”
“Mister, that pony, is extremely dangerous. Me and my friends here, see, we’re trying to find her, and capture her. I am a Princess, I’ll have you know. Now if she was here, we need to find out as much as we can.”
The stallion grumbled to himself and kicked at the dirt.
“I ‘spose I won’t hear the end of it if I bar a princess, huh. Fine then. Still full price. I don’t discriminate.”
Twilight nodded and paid the pony, who transported the group of ponies who couldn’t just fly across the river, taking multiple trips.
“The carriage will have to stay there,” said Twilight.
“I’ll have some of the boys stay with it,” Shining Armor said, right after reaching the other side of the river. He assigned the job to two of the soldiers, while the other ponies all continued into the town.
Immediately, the townsponies began to fret over the arrival of Twilight and Cadance. A crowd began to form, most of them asking questions regarding their recent trouble with a certain pink unicorn. One horse, who had a light blue coat and red hair, stepped out of the crowd to formally welcome the ponies.
“Your highnesses...welcome to our little village. I’m Backwoods,” he said, enthusiastically shaking their hooves.
“I take it you’ve heard about our recent trouble…” he said.
“You apprehended her?”
“Temporarily. Somepony set her loose, and went off into the jungle.”
Twilight glanced over his shoulder at the aforementioned jungle, which towered high and stretched north and south as far as the eye could see. The town was situated in a carved-out section of the jungle, which hugged against the river on either side of its borders.
“Then we’re heading into that jungle,” Twilight said, conclusively.
“Uh, your highness. You can’t just go into the jungle. It’s way dense, and impossible for any newcomer to navigate.”
Twilight was about to answer, until she spotted something strange in the crowd. A colt, who had joined the crowd to see what was happening, was staring at her, eyes wide with fear. He was backing up slowly, praying she hadn’t noticed him. She turned towards him, and the colt immediately sprang away, shoving past the crowd with all his strength. Until, he found himself hovering in the air, in a magical bubble of Twilight’s creation. She brought him to the center of the crowd, right before her hooves. The townsponies mumbled in confusion. The colt struggled with all his might, yet was rendered completely helpless. He had light green fur and a darker green mane, and a hateful expression.
“Let me go!”
“Who are you?” Twilight stammered. Behind her, her friends began to grow concerned, believing her to be hassling an innocent minor.
“I said, let me go! I haven’t done anything!” the colt yelled.
“You tried to run! Who are you?” she yelled, trying to frighten him into talking. She had a gut feeling he was involved somehow. After tightening her grip around him, he gave in.
“Savoy!” he spat, sputtering as he struggled against Twilight’s hold.
“You know what happened last night?”
“Of course I do! Everypony knows!”
“Where were you when it happened?!”
Savoy didn’t answer for a while, giving the crowd a reason to find him suspicious. Their suspicions increased, when nopony could recollect exactly where he was that night.
“Yeah, kid, you weren’t around,” said one pony, and the others soon joined in. Twilight rode her power trip as her doubts were confirmed by the crowd.
“You helped her, didn’t you?”
“No! I-I…” he sputtered as Twilight’s magical restraint began to choke him by the throat. He sputtered, his face turning red.
“Yes! Okay?! Let go!” he yelled, desperate for air.
Twilight relented, dropping him to the ground as the crowd hissed and jeered at him. Savoy glared at Twilight, enraged. Twilight remained unimpressed.
“You can take me to her?”
Savoy hung his head facing the crowd, and then got a new idea.
“Of course I can take you...in the jungle, I know it well.”
Twilight stared at him, still suspecting he had ulterior motives. She glanced at her friends, who were more than a little frightened by her blatant demonstration of uncontrolled temper. Twilight lifted her head to address the crowd.
“Everypony! Listen to me! I promise you, that I’ll find that pony, and bring her to justice! No more innocent ponies will be harmed!” she said, emphatically, and was met by thunderous applause and cheers. She helped the colt to his hooves. The colt clearly didn’t want to help them, but given she had the power to kill him in an instant, he knew he didn’t really have a choice.
While the crowd dispersed, Twilight convened with the others, who were all a little nervous about heading into the jungle with a colt as their guide.
“Twilight, we can’t trust that kid,” Rainbow said.
“We’re not trusting him. We’re using him.”
“Twilight, darling, have you heard what the locals said? They said that the pony was a pink unicorn, the whole time! Even when she was caught!” Rarity said.
“What about it?” Twilight asked, confused as to what her point was.
“So don’t you find it strange? If this is really Chrysalis in a disguise, why wouldn’t she give up her disguise at some point? Even when she was discovered?”
Twilight did admit that was odd, but refused to give the theory that Starlight was the culprit any ground.
“What matters is catching her, then we’ll figure out who’s who,” Twilight said.
The other ponies prepared for their journey into the jungle, fearing the assortment of dangers that lie ahead.
In the city streets of Saddleopolis, Dust Bunny was kneeling beside Starlight Glimmer, tears streaming down her face. She slowly bent down and pressed her head down against Starlight’s chest, and smiled, still highly emotional from their near death experience.
“She’s breathing…” Dust said, relieved, “El’s right, we need to get inside...Princess Luna will find us.”
“Here, there’s a bar over there,” Elodea said, pointing off down the street.
“Jackpot and Dust picked up Starlight’s unconscious body, and followed Elodea along the sidewalk, before turning and entering the bar. Once the other three were inside, Elodea stuck her head out the door, looking up into the sky, making sure Luna wasn’t anywhere near.
“I don’t care! This ain’t a hospital, pal.”
Elodea re-entered the bar, which was filled to the brim with ponies, and walked in on an argument between Jackpot and the host of the bar.
“Look here you son of a -” Jackpot began.
“Please! We won’t be long,” Elodea said, intervening. The host pony’s face loosened as he took a closer look at the beaten and bruised ponies.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes,” he said, reluctantly.
“Thank you!”
They shuffled over to a booth in the back, laying Starlight’s loose body down on the bench. The other three remained standing, unsure what to do next.
“What now?” Dust asked, trying not to cry.
“We can’t outrun a princess,” Jackpot said.
“What about her? She needs a doctor,” Elodea said, glancing over at Starlight, whose mouth was hanging was open and eyes closed.
“Don’t you know some of that stuff?” Dust asked.
Elodea glanced back again at Starlight’s condition, and shook her head.
“That’s some serious burns. She needs like, a real doctor.”
“She’s a unicorn, can’t she heal herself?” Jackpot said.
“Maybe, do I look like a magic expert to you? And even if she could, she has to wake up first!” Dust said.
“We can’t stay in this city. They’ll be searching for us,” said Jackpot, determined to get Starlight to safety.
Elodea stared at them, trying to collect herself.
“First off, mind telling me why the fucking police, and an alicorn wants your friend, and apparently all of us too- dead?” Elodea asked.
“I told you, a lot of ponies have it out for her,” Dust said, defensively.
“You never told me Princess Luna was after her! Or all of Equestria! Isn’t that what she said? Everypony everywhere wants her dead? Just who the hell is this pony?!” Elodea yelled, beginning to draw attention to the group.
“Keep your voice down...Look, she’s a good pony, and she’s our friend. Now you’re my friend too, El, so I’d hope you’d stick by us. You can either come with us, or stay here, and they’ll probably find you, and arrest you.”
Elodea stared at Dust, mildly impressed, not used to Dust being so assertive.
“Well where the hell are we supposed to go?”
“Vanhoover,” Jackpot said, immediately.
“Starlight said no, remember?” Dust said.
“She said no because she thought the cops would find her. Well the cops have already found us. What we need right now, is to get far away from the fucking Princess of the Night, and get to some place we can lay low...we need friends right now, since we’re apparently a bunch of Celestia-damned fugitives.”
Elodea shook her head in disbelief, and caught Dust’s longing stare.
“Please El, we need you…” she said, near-tears.
Elodea sighed, knowing she had to do the right thing.
“I’ll come,” she said, though Dust wasn’t sure if she really meant it.
“I’ll send a letter to my friend in Vanhoover, so we’ll have somepony to house us as soon as we get there,” Jackpot said.
“How the hell do you plan on doing that? We can’t be out in the open,” Dust said.
“Pigeon,” Elodea said.
The other two stared at her blankly.
“What?” Dust asked, trying not to laugh.
“Back in the circuit, we’d use pigeons to carry messages across Equestria without having to use the post office.”
“That’s stupid. How will the pigeon know where to go?” Jackpot said.
“Yeah, and where do you keep your pigeons?” Dust said.
“You let me worry about the fucking pigeon, you worry about your friend, ok?” Elodea said, “Now, where exactly does your friend in Vanhoover live?”
Jackpot took a moment to recall.
“Dixie Avenue, 476.”
“‘K. I’ll go sort that out, I’ll meet you back here in twenty.”
“They’re kicking us out in like, ten minutes, you know,” Dust reminded Elodea, as she picked up her belongings to leave.
“Then I guess you’ll have to talk your way out of it,” Elodea said, smiling. She stepped away from the group and began walking off.
“El! Good luck,” Dust said. Elodea turned, and by her look of fearful guilt, Dust wondered if she was planning on leaving them, that the pigeon was just an elaborate alibi. El simply nodded and left.
Dust and Jackpot sat beside each other opposite to Starlight, who was still unconscious.
“Execute us? Really?” Jackpot said, struck by the threat.
“That’s what the princess said,” Dust confirmed, having been thinking about the same thing.
“There’s no way she’s really as bad as Luna said, right? I mean, look what she did! What do you have to do to piss off a princess that bad?” Dust said.
“We said we’d stick by her, and we are. She saved us at least twice today,” Jackpot pointed out.
Dust nodded, thankful they were all alive.
“Hey uh, are you guys gonna buy something, or just sit there?” said a passing waiter.
“Oh, um, I’ll have a water, thank you,” Dust said, politely.
Jackpot ignored the waiter, who bitterly walked away.
“I always wanted to meet Luna, but not like that.”
Dust nodded, stifling a laugh.
“How are we getting to Vanhoover?”
“Merchant caravan. They pass up and down towns. We get in a disguise, we won’t be recognized.”
Dust lit up at the prospect of waltzing around in a disguise, struck by the wonder of going on an adventure. Then her thoughts came back to their grim reality.
“What about her? She can’t walk, can she?”
“We’ll figure something out. We’re not leaving her.”
Dust noticed the way he looked at her, and suspected his feelings for her ran deeper than a simple amicable respect. Jackpot noticed her skeptical look, and smiled.
“What?”
“Are you two-”
“What?”
“You know…”
Jackpot gave a small smile and glanced at the floor.
“It certainly seems so,” he said aloud. Dust’s eyes widened.
“Oh, well, uh, good for you guys,” Dust said, slightly resentful of two of her only friends forming a relationship that went deeper than anything she had with either of them. She had considered the prospect of being with Jackpot, but only rarely, and never acted on it unless by accident. Of course she wanted both of them to be happy, but still felt the slight tinge of jealousy.
“We’re all gonna get through this.” Dust said, mostly to console herself.
“And to think, it all depends on your crack whore friend’s carrier pigeon scheme,” Jackpot said.
Dust smiled and shook her head, equally astonished by what had to be the strangest time in her life.
Chrysalis had been brought back to the hut she woke up in, finding herself beside the pink unicorn with the magenta hair yet again. Chrysalis, now understanding their situation was dire, knew that collaboration was the only key to success. As soon as the guards left, Chrysalis started talking.
“You know what they did to that pony?”
The mare stared at Chrysalis, and then shook her head.
“I saw. They brought him out, and they chopped his head off. Clean off. Dead right away. Then they threw his body in the river, for the crocodiles to eat,” Chrysalis said, making up the last part. The mare, still, was completely disinterested.
“What is wrong with you? They’re going to kill us!”
“And what are we going to do about it? I saw the camp, there’s hundreds of them.”
“I can handle them.”
“Okay, pal, sure,” the unicorn said, scoffing.
“I can, and when I get out of here and burn this place to the ground, maybe I’ll leave you to die with it. Or, we could help each other.”
“Why should I trust you? You’re just another low-life unicorn with nothing to live for.”
“Low-life? I’m Starlight Glimmer.”
The mare stared at her, trying to recall the name.
“The Scourge of the-?”
“Yes!”
“Oh.”
Chrysalis waited for the mare to bend to her will, and yet, she still seemed unimpressed.
“So?”
“So?! I could level this place in an instant if I had my magic.”
“But you don’t have your magic. Right now, we’re equal. In fact, I’ve got a better chance of escape than you do. One of those guards left a box of shit over by the door, and I’m closer to it.”
Chrysalis tried to see what she was talking about, but couldn’t turn her head that far back.
“Then what the hell are you waiting for?”
“Even if I escape, they’ll catch me, and kill me anyway.”
“Not if we destroy this place, and everypony in it.”
“Wow. I guess I should expect that to be the Scourge of the South’s plan. You know they have mares and children here, right?”
“You may prefer to die on the moral high ground, I’d rather live.”
“Moral high ground? I don’t know who you think you’re talking to. I’m Violet. Violet Heirloom. I work for a smuggling ring on the east coast. And just because you have a sick hard-on for killing innocent ponies, doesn’t make you anything special. Just an attention whore, if you ask me.”
“You’re exactly right. All that was just a distraction, so I could have time to find what I’m really after.”
“Do tell.”
“There’s a great treasure, and somewhere in this jungle is the key to finding it. That’s why I’m here, then these psychotic fanatics apprehended me.”
“Going on a treasure hunt? I thought you were supposed to be a mass-murdering supervillain, not an amateur.”
“Amateur!?”
“You heard me. You’re sloppy.”
They stared at each other for a few hate-filled moments, before mutually coming to terms with the possible benefits of collaboration.
“Work together?”
“Just until we get out of here,” Violet said, deciding they might have a chance together after all. She turned her body and stuck her leg as far out as possible. After three tries, she finally managed to get a hold of the handle of the box near the door, dragging it towards her.
“Well? What’s in it?”
“I’m looking...matches...cards...a hammer!” Violet said, after emptying out the contents of the box in front of her.
“We can break the chains?”
“We can try,” said Violet, again turning her body 180 degrees to grab the hammer. She whacked against her chains repeatedly, until, after the 26th strike, finally broke herself loose. She took the hammer and smashed the ring around her horn, regaining her magic. The strike to the ring gave her some mild horn damage and a massive headache that she soon overcame.
“Well? Untie me!”
Violet hesitated, considering her chances alone, before deciding she did need the help after all. In one quick spell, Chrysalis was free of her chains, and the ring around her horn, proving Violet’s magical capabilities and even impressing Chrysalis.
“What now?”
“Follow me,” Chrysalis said, eager to have some revenge.
“Hey!” cried one of the guards, before being incinerated by Chrysalis’ spell. She blasted every building, pony, and tree in sight, setting fire to the entire village. While the village was thrown into a panic, Violet assumed they would make a run for it while they had the chance. Yet Chrysalis just continued on through the town, up the cliffs towards the top of the hill, destroying everything in her path.
“Shouldn’t we be going?” Violet asked, fed up with Chrysalis’ persistence.
“They’ll come after us. Nopony survives,” Chrysalis said, as she burned ponies to ashes, their screams being abruptly cut off.
Violet too joined in on the warpath, though resolved only to kill the ponies who tried to attack her. In every direction, there were charred corpses and collapsed buildings, fodder for the enormous fire that was sweeping the village. The screams of the native ponies could probably be heard for miles, though were slowly being drowned out by the raging crackling of the fire.
Chrysalis and Violet made it to the top of the cliff, while the entirety of the settlement burned a furious orange beneath them, lighting up the entire jungle beneath the black night sky. Chrysalis killed both of the guards without blinking an eye, before she entered Comrade’s hut. Violet decided to wait outside, leaving Chrysalis to find the last piece of her vengeance.
Again, the house was extremely dark, Chrysalis barely able to make out her own hoof in front of her. She cautiously walked forward, her horn glowing to light her way through the dark.
“You have the right to kill me.”
Chrysalis smirked and turned around to see Comrade a few yards away by the wall, his candle now lit, painting the underside of his head in a fiery orange.
“But, Miss Glimmer...you will never be free…” he cracked a smile, the first time she had ever seen him smile, and for some reason it made her terrified.
“We blame everything and everypony we can. We make enemies with as much as we can. But still we know...that we are each our own worst enemy. We will never be free.”
Chrysalis trembled as her horn glowed brighter, and then screamed as she fired a blast through Comrade’s chest. The stallion collapsed to the ground, dead. Chrysalis’s head was in a whirl. For the first time in what felt like forever, she hesitated to kill another pony. She felt no relief in his death. She felt as though the stallion was still very much alive, only inside her mind. .
Chrysalis exited the hut after catching her breath, and was half-surprised to find Violet still waiting for me.
“I thought you’d leave,” Chrysalis said, clearing her throat, trying to appear intimidating again after her recent struggles with morality.
“I thought it’d make more sense to stick together. The forest is dangerous. It’s better to be two than one,” Violet said.
“Not for me.”
“Well, it is for me. I’m sticking with you until we get out of here, got it?”
Chrysalis relented, only because she owed her for the escape.
“Let’s not waste any time sticking around here then,” Chrysalis muttered, walking down the hill, Violet following, the two of them high above the unfathomable fiery chaos they had wretched.