‘Is this how it ends? So close to reunion, yet so far?’
‘... It doesn’t have to be.’
‘This is it.’
The Canterlot Castle throne room was ahead of me. The doors, still broken and hanging open, did not block the view. I could see her sitting on the throne, seemingly alone in the throne room.
‘Alone. That’s a risky assumption. One I’m going to have to make, unfortunately. Just walk in there, and get this over with. I have some time thanks to– no, stay focused! If I think about him, I won’t be… Focus!’
I crossed the threshold and entered the room. The sound of my muffled hoofsteps on the red carpet that stretched all the way across and to the throne was the only sound that I could hear outside of my own breathing.
The throne room somehow looked worse than when I first arrived. There was more open sky than ceiling at this point. No pillar stood higher than halfway up the room. Great sections of the walls were blown out. The throne was scorched, as if a beam from a massive magnifying glass burnt streaks across it.
Outside the missing sections of the walls, I could see what used to be two gardens on either side, bordered by glassless windows. The walls on the far sides of the courtyards seemed to have fared the battle just as well as the walls of the throne room.
A layer of ash now coated most of the floor of the throne room. My muffled hoofsteps turned into the crunching sound of walking on snow as I traversed into the grey covered sections, and out into the room proper.
Queen Chrysalis of the Fourth Hive sat on the throne’s ruins, looking bored.
Upon my arrival, she lifted her head off the hoof that was propping it up, and stared at me. I slowly closed the vast distance between us. She tracked my movement with those green slitted eyes of hers, so similar to my own. Chrysalis waited patiently as I crossed the overly-large room, eventually stopping short of her own throne.
We both knew how awkward it would have been if we started monologuing from across the room. Yelling takes away from the menacing undertone of a final confrontation.
We stared at each other for a bit. Her, atop her new ruined throne. Me, slowly accumulating a layer of ash on my back and the top of my head.
‘Course she made sure that the throne was still covered by the roof. That’s got to be on purpose.’
I gazed around the room and found a distinctive lack of pony princesses.
“No audience?” I looked back to her as I broke the silence.
She didn’t respond, instead tapping a hoof on the one remaining armrest of the throne.
“I was certain you would have paraded your prized trophies before everyone.”
“Oh I will. I will retrieve and secure said trophy before long. The sun princess is hanging around.”
“... You know why I’m here.”
“Yes.”
“To kill you.”
“Yes.”
I raised my eyebrows, “Do you have any objections to your immediate abdication and death?”
“Yes.”
I sighed.
“Are you going to be as obtuse as possible with your answers?”
“Why?”
She rose from her throne, continuing to stare down at me.
“Why all this… this… betrayal?”
I scoffed. “You know why. Because you had no intention of keeping me around after this day.”
Chrysalis shook her head.
“I had no intention of stopping with Equestria. With you by my side, we would conquer every throne, in every kingdom, on every continent.”
“With Equestria on lockdown, you would have ample time and resources to create a bigger army. You never needed me past today.”
“Why do you entwine your life so closely with this one duty? When a ling can no longer fulfill a role, they are reassigned.”
“Just like you reassigned my brothers and sisters?”
She froze for a moment before answering, “Your siblings?
“Ascension.”
“Ah. You found them?”
“It had a nymph’s puzzle lock on the entrance. Wasn’t that hard to get in.”
“The vault door is the deterrent against intruders. The lair’s lock is the deterrent against non-changelings. It is not complex simply because it does not need to be.”
“And the lab’s contents? Your own children?”
She shrugged, “They were dying. I gave them a purpose greater than what they could achieve in their lives.”
“Yeah. You made sure that they never passed that barrier, trapped forever.”
“They are dead. The Ascension ritual destroys the mind. Those are but empty husks, repurposed to create something wonderful.”
“No. The soul does not move on, not until the heart stops beating.”
“Oh, what do you know of such matters? You are but less than a year old.”
“I know more than you.”
“I should hardly think so, considering I have lived for centuries. Death is a common visitor to a perpetual.”
“And Death is an old friend of mine.”
The smile dropped from her face. She slowly lifted up a hoof, and set it down on the first step down from the throne. She spoke as she slowly, slowly walked down, putting one hoof in front of the other.
“You think because you have fought ponies that you know death?”
“You think dealing death makes you familiar with it? I’ve been to the other side and back. Death holds no surprises for me. In fact, I recommend you try it out.”
Once more she paused for the briefest of moments as she considered what I said.
“The other side and back? So, that’s how it is. I’ve always wondered where your intellect came from. Why did you keep this a secret from me…. Princess Prochoerodes?”
I blinked rapidly in confusion. She continued.
“I tried so hard. But with so little time left for the hive, my resources were limited. The ritual had failed. But now you finally come to say that this is not so? Why do you come with a dagger in hoof to greet your mother?”
“I am not Princess Procho.”
“Perhaps you lack your memory. Not all of it, it would seem. You still hold vestiges of what once was. They have been bleeding through your vision, into what you perceive as reality. Your old memories must still be in there, Princess Procho.”
“I was not a changeling when I died.”
That got Chrysalis to stop. She had descended half of the length of the stairs down to me when she paused.
“You retain memories of a previous life, and one that is not a changeling?”
“That’s right. A featherless biped with broad flat nails.”
“Not Princess Procho then.”
“No.”
“The ritual failed then. Or at least, most of it.”
“And just what is this ritual?”
“Chamberlain Eucharis aided me in your creation.” She tilted her head back and looked at the black and grey sky. “Both parts.”
“He won’t be aiding much of anything anymore.”
Chrysalis returned her stare back to me.
“Eucharis is dead. I killed him.”
“You killed him?”
“He refused to surrender…. Wasn’t much of a father, anyways…”
‘But he was my father, and he was the first person I’ve ever killed.’
“You knew he was your father?”
“No. He decided the best moment to reveal that was after I stabbed him in the neck.”
I changed the subject, both before I started to remember details and to keep things moving. Time was short, each second was paid for in blood.
“Why did you make a changeling royal just months before the hive ran out of food?”
“... I didn’t make just any changeling royal. I made a new vessel for Princess Procho. You are nothing but an accident. An amalgamation of her lifesource.”
“You made a vessel for a soul? How many of your children did you have to butcher to make one?”
She continued her descent down the stairs.
“A vessel created from an arcane ritual. The ritual to bring back my most loyal and powerful daughter…. it failed. Knowledge on such subjects is so hard to come by; these ponies have frowned upon the research into such Dark Magics. Yet out of that failure, the dregs spawned a spark of something new. I sheltered that spark and gave it the vessel.
“When your egg grew, I felt the almost-silent hum of your Weave. It was not Princess Procho’s, much to my disappointment. However, your cleverness brought opportunities I had not seen before. Your arrival was only possible due to the ritual and the ongoing… breaches of the veils between realms.”
“Nightmare Moon.”
“That demon must have been weakening the barriers, allowing the ritual to happen in the first place. From beyond the mortal realm, I plucked a soul. I had summoned Procho’s soul, yet you filled the void I left open.”
“And so you bring about your own downfall.”
Chrysalis reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped, ten paces ahead of me.
“I was never going to Ascend you, my Prince Phasma. That was not your fate, nor would it be the fate of any changeling anymore.”
“You expect me to believe that? You had an empty vat, and showed no signs of breaking tradition.”
She gave me a smile, showing off her fangs.
“That vat was never for you; no, that vat was intended for my Ascension. Mother dearest, Queen Sphecidae, deemed my Ascension a necessity. She wanted to Ascend as many royals as possible. Sphecidae had drifted so far from reality that she had begun to fear nymphs' tales...”
I sneered, “Even if it was first intended for you, it was still an empty vat. You could just as easily rip my mind out and put me in there.”
“I had tried my best to be tender with your raising. Such pursuits are not my forte. I trained you to be a leader, so that you may aid my conquest of this world. Why rule with one voice, one presence, when two can be twice as powerful? Or three? Four? I would spread our kind across the world, with hives in every kingdom, and a royal on each throne. I was never going to Ascend you. Such fates, honorable though they may be, are beneath us.”
“You expect me to believe that? You had my siblings alive and trapped within their own bodies, and you kept that hidden from everyone, including me!”
“No one was supposed to learn of the Ascension ritual.”
“Obviously! Do you really think you can just do those things, and expect me to be loyal?!”
“I did not anticipate their discovery. That was my mistake.”
“Their discovery, or the fact that you did those horrible things in the first place?”
“Perhaps both. Yet your rebellion did not start when you breached the inner sanctum of the vault. I know you were plotting this for a long while yet.”
'Every second we spend talking is a second Oestridae and the Nine have to hold. I have to wrap this up soon.’
“No. It started with the vault, though I breached that long before you left.”
“Impossible–”
“It’s never been done before? I know. I was the first.”
“I know you breached the vault already. What is impossible is the idea that you started this movement in just a few months. No, you had planned this long in advance. What turned you against me? When have I wronged you?”
“I never trusted you in the first place. Every act of kindness was measured. Any freedom, just slack in a leash. You hoarded information and control, so I prepared for the worst. I prepared to demand that you lessen your absolute control over our kind, but I found the truth about you to be so much worse than I had feared. You have outlived your own morals, and I must bring an end to your monstrous tyranny.”
“So I cannot regain your loyalty, as it never existed in the first place?”
‘–five corpses, suspended in green liquid–’
“I was willing to give you a chance. Then I found the skeletons in your closet.”
Chrysalis let out a sigh, “I have always been cold, even with my own nymphs. I had hoped to do better by you, but I suppose that I did not succeed. And there is nothing I can do to convince you that I speak the truth?”
'I'm not wasting time with this pointless argument.'
“There is no reason for me to ever believe you. Heaven sent and hell bent, I will kill you here and now, Chrysalis! We’re done talking! Now I shall bring the future I promised to the hive, starting with your skull being cleaved from your shoulders!”
“You’ll see the truth. I will make this right, even if I have to tear you down and rebuild you from the pieces.”
There was more I wanted to learn from her. Who the traitor was. What happened with Procho’s body, and how she stored it for so long. Why she waited so long to try to revive her supposed favorite daughter. Where the pony princesses were, if they were even podded. But I dared not waste a second more talking to the tyrant; I needed to get this over with sooner rather than later.
We both lowered closer to the ground, angling our heads– and by extension, our horns– towards each other. I pulled God-Splitter around, holding it in front of me. The ash fell from both our forms as we moved, slowly drifting to the covered ground.
We tensed, horns glowing, waiting for the other to make the first move. The calm before not just a storm, but a hurricane itself. Deep breaths. Horn still slightly stinging from overuse.
Anger.
Then, there was a spark between us. It was large and light orange, like my own coloring. It fizzled for just a second before vanishing just as suddenly as it appeared. Queen Chrysalis took this as the first move, and swung her head in a dramatic arc before firing a sickly green laser right at me.
I brought up a sloped shield and the green beam blasted off the orange surface, redirected into the clouded night sky. I dodged to the side, letting the shield drop so I could move my hammer again. I was not able to multicast spells, so every movement had to count.
Chrysalis saw me dashing towards her and finished her laser beam, instead lashing out with a whip of flame, tethered to her own horn. I angled God-Splitter to intercept the lashing, and continued my rapid advance.
The whip seemed to curve around the war weapon, instead reaching to wrap around my left foreleg. The whip constricted and pulled me forward, flinging me off my hooves and onto my side as it dragged me around. The leg being pulled hurt like hell, the chitin starting to char at my fetlock.
I yelled from the pain, and slammed God-Splitter down on the blazing tendril. Like a light, it went out. However, I was on the ground, close to Chrysalis, and now on the defensive. I rolled to the side as several arcs of lightning impacted where I was just a moment before, sending a tingling sensation through the fin on the back of my head.
A quick rounded shield stopped a paralyzing agent that Chrysalis sprayed towards me, conjured from her horn.
I dropped the shield. Using all my might, I conjured a concussive blast aimed at the Queen who was standing not five paces in front of me. The blast knocked her all the way into the throne, and sent me sliding through the ash. My impromptu escape was ended by a marble pillar, the accumulated pile of ash doing little to cushion the blow.
I started to rise, only to hear the crackle of fire. Instinctively, I brought God-Splitter before me, only to find it missing. I had lost my grip on it when I pushed myself back from the monster before me.
I saw the massive fireball launching towards me, flames spiraling around it like orbiting moons. Bringing forth a shield attuned to protect against fire, I continued to get up onto my hooves. I managed to finally raise from the ground before the fireball hit. However, it was not the first projectile to hit my shield. Piercing straight through the thrown fireball, a bolt of ice magically structured to break anti-fire protections impacted my shield, dissolving it entirely.
My mind flinched from the sudden and forceful dispelling, and I fell back to the floor engulfed in flames when the fireball hit me. My whole body was burning. I heard screaming. It took me a moment to realize that I was hearing myself scream.
Desperately, I started to spray water around me, my horn already starting to sting from overuse again. Through the smoke of the extinguished flames, I saw the vague outline of Chrysalis as she leisurely walked towards me.
I reached out with my magic, and found a grip on God-Splitter. It laid on the ground behind her, but I could not see where. I picked it up and flung it towards her as she approached me. The blow caught her by surprise and I could see the blur that made up her form fall to the side as a smaller, quicker blur met her.
Once more, I got to my hooves and brought God-Splitter close to me.
“That was clever, little nymph. I’ll give you that.”
I limped out of the smoke, my left fetlock in too much pain to put any weight on it. Smoke poured out from my partially charred body as I lumbered through the ash covered floor. Chrysalis was already back on her hooves, panting. Seeing her efforts to breath made me realize that I was panting just as heavily, if not moreso.
“What’s the matter… Chrysalis? Already… out of… breath?” I asked, out of breath.
Chrysalis snarled, “Oh please, I’m doing a lot better than you are, Phasma! In fact, you’re about to feel a whole lot worse!”
I decided to interrupt whatever she had planning by bringing God-Splitter back around for seconds. The solid mass of Adamantium flew through the room, a streak of green in the grey downpour. Chrysalis merely turned her head towards the hammer and stopped it with telekinesis.
“Fuck.”
“Mmmahahaha! Did you really think I didn’t include myself in the binding?”
She tossed it behind her, not even bothering to watch it go. The hammer soared through the air, out through one of the missing sections of the walls, and smashed into a fountain sitting in the middle of a courtyard outside.
“That’s... cheating!”
“If you thought that was unfair, then you’re really not going to like this part!”
I shielded myself as her horn glowed once more. Then, a green flash blinded me as she finished whatever spell she was casting. As I was blinking out the spots in my eyes, I saw her laughing again.
“Nnhehehe, I would have led with this, but… this was fun.”
I felt my chest start to heat up.
“This was truly a learning experience! Now, I must bring this to an end. This rebellion of your is at an end.”
I staggered as a piercing lance of pure pain shot straight through my chest and down into my barrel.
“Rest assured, you will find loyalty to me. I can be patient as you learn. We have all of eternity.”
I looked down at my chest and saw the blue sapphires of my Adamantium peytral were glowing bright red. The pain intensified, and I collapsed to the floor.
“Even the mightiest of fortresses have their weaknesses, little nymph. You just need to know where they are.”
“Nngh! You… planned…. planned…”
Chrysalis flew over to me. As she hovered above me, I squirmed to try to remove the peytral. The pain was making any movement an impossible task.
“I left a weakness or two. Now, surrender. You’ve gone far enough and it’s time to make things right once again.”
I gasped as the pain flared through my body, exacerbating my burn wounds and where my chitin was cracked from hitting the pillar.
“Never…”
Chrysalis glared at me, “One way or the other, you will return to the fold.”
I cried out in pain as I felt my chitin crack under an invisible pressure.
“Surrender and the pain will stop!”
I slowly moved my legs underneath me, and pushed up. My vision blackened and I almost fell over, and likely almost passed out. The pain was so intense that all I could do was breathe. If I was more aware, I would have heard a scraping sound as God-Splitter dragged itself towards me, leaving scratches on the tiles as it plowed through the ash.
“This effort is pointless. Your life belongs to me, Procho! You cannot win here!”
“A hero…. Dies… Sword in hoof!” I hissed with a voice not entirely my own.
God-Splitter flung to me, smashing into the ground right in front of my muzzle. I wrapped my right fetlock around the handle and used it to pull myself off the ground. My face went numb, and I tasted blood. The effort to rise lessened as I felt a force pulling me upwards. Slowly, a small trickle of power returned to me.
“You don’t realize you’ve lost, do you? Do you not know when to quit?!”
“Here in death, REMEMBER OUR STRENGTH!”
I floated an inch off the ground in an orange flow of my magic as God-Splitter flew out from under me. It went straight towards Chrysalis faster than I could track. She was, however, prepared for me to attack with the hammer, and she gripped it once more in her magic to halt its trajectory.
God-Splitter shuddered for a second before glowing in a purple aura and continued its swing towards her. Chrysalis only had time to gasp in disbelief before the hammer impacted her chest, sending her across the room and through a pillar. She came to a stop in the wall behind the broken pillar, leaving a Chrysalis-shaped indent in the stone wall.
‘Hell of a magic trick.’
I felt blood pool in my mouth as my horn seemed to almost be ripped out of my body. The glow around me faded, and I fell once again to the ground. I could not find the energy to rise once again. I coughed, spattering blood into the ground.
The strength that filled me drained out once more. Looking back to my chest, I saw all nine of the sapphires shattered. I peered back up to where I saw Chrysalis hit the wall. Already, she was peeling herself out of the vertical crater. Failing to get completely out from God-Splitter, she ripped apart the entire wall with a thunderous spell, sending a wave of ash across the room as the small shockwave made its way across.
I closed my eyes, unable to even brace. The wave sent me tumbling and rolling backwards before depositing me halfway to the entrance to the throne room and onto my back. I weakly coughed, trying to clear the ash from my lungs. More blood accompanied the painful contractions of my chest.
As I stared up and at the night sky, I saw a gap in the ash clouds. The stars were out. In the tiny open space, I could see dozens of pinpricks of white. For a moment, I thought one of them was purple. I blinked, and that star vanished entirely.
Then, Chrysalis’s muzzle came into view as she peered down at me.
She spoke, but sounded muffled. I realized I could only half hear her from my left ear.
“You’ve got nothing left now. I have to say…” Blood dribbled from her nose and onto my chest. “You put up a hell of a fight. Maybe even more than Celestia. You’d have made a fine warrior.”
‘No. It can’t end like this.’
I looked into her green, slitted eyes. In their shiny reflection, I saw a broken changeling covered in ash, bleeding from countless points.
‘I tried so hard. My friends sacrificed themselves for this. It can’t end like this!’
I felt around my body mentally, looking. I needed just enough for one spell. It was an expensive spell, though. There was not much mana left in me at all, but I did feel streams of the alien energy flowing out from the gemstones embedded on the armor on my chest. I latched onto those wisps of power and pulled them into me.
“So much fear. So much paranoia. Let go of it, Prince Phasma. Fear has blinded your vision of our future. We have brought forth a Golden Age for our kind…”
I started building the spell. It was complicated, with dozens of interlocking parts. The equations were difficult, and I barely remembered them. I never even casted this spell before.
“... And with it, an end to our hunger. I have pushed you too far, but I will fix that. You will be loyal once again, and we shall rule the world together. No more treachery. No more hiding. Only feasting!”
The pain was nauseating and debilitating. It took every bit of my concentration to focus on the spell. I wouldn’t have even tried it in the best of times when I was at peak strength. But now I didn’t have a choice.
“Drone! Yes you, Infiltrator! Fetch Captain Obturator, I will not lose such a valuable asset!”
I realized that Chrysalis was speaking and was probably speaking the entire time. I spared a moment's glance to see that she was directing a drone that had arrived. They weren’t alone; dozens of Praetorians had entered the room from the main hall. One of them looked like Pharynx.
‘Oestridae.’
The spell was complete. All I had to do was push every last drop of mana into the spell. There was only a large chance of death. But even that was preferable to eternal imprisonment.
I realized the changeling that Chrysalis spoke to had a scar over his right eye.
“Wait…” I croaked.
The distraction made me lose my concentration and hold on the spell. My horn suddenly felt like it was on fire, like I was back in the initial inferno that Chrysalis inflicted upon me. Then, the feeling spread to the rest of my body as the world around me was enveloped in orange.
The spell worked, as it turned out. However, in my negligence, I neglected to include a destination.
I screamed as I was ripped from reality.
The world was burning.
Smoldering would be more accurate, but that made little difference. From their spot in the crater, two slitted orange eyes gazed out at the city. From the vantage point so high above the glittering metropolis, the devastation of a millennial's work was witnessed.
‘This can’t be how it ends. I refuse to allow it!’
The headache had finally subsided, and so had the whispers. There was no room for doubt; it was clear what must be done.
Black specks were moving about the city. They looked like large pieces of charred wood, flying about. Some of them carried ponies in green, shiny pods that reflected the moonlight. The citizens were being taken and there was nothing stopping the invaders from getting away with this.
Bones snapped back into place as the changes finalized.
‘The sun still isn’t up. It’s way past… I must do my duty! Everypony is counting on me! Enough sitting around, hoping for a miracle. I shall be the miracle needed!’
She pulled herself out of the crater. Rocks cracked and fell behind her as she fell to the ground. It was halfway through her fall when she realized that she was thrown into a wall, not the ground at all.
Her mane and tail whipped around her like a blazing inferno. With a push of her wings, her fall was arrested. She set down onto the gleaming stone wall.
‘My little ponies are in danger. They are being hurt, and there’s nopony to help them. Nopony but me!’
The alicorn reached out and touched her sun. It rippled with strength and power and might. Slowly, the great burning body made its journey into the sky, dispelling the darkness. The moon lowered, pushed away by the incandescent sun.
She stood there, basking in its warmth. Strength returned to her as she warmed up. She took a deep breath before addressing the city before her with the Canterlot Royal Voice.
“Fear not the darkness, my little ponies! For I am the day itself!”
With one solid flap of her wings, Daybreaker soared into the air. She spun around and dived towards the ruins of what once was her throne room.
‘I will bring the dawn and save everypony, even if that means striking down everypony in my path!’
“He’s gone?”
Lying in the pile of ash before her, an Adamantium peytral sat, half submerged in the dry soot. The gemstones on its front had turned to dust as the Prince vaporized. In truth, Chrysalis could only assume that Prince Phasma had indeed vaporized. He did seem dead set on the whole not being captured alive thing.
She didn’t know how she felt about that.
“Bring Princess Cadence back up here… And fetch Princess Celestia, too. She should be where I left her; stuck halfway up a tower.”
Changelings saluted before carrying out her duties. She never stopped staring at the peytral.
‘There’s still so much to do. I’ll figure this out later, maybe using another ritual… Yes. This is not their end.’
“The traitors have fled the castle, My Queen!”
“... It doesn’t matter.”
Chrysalis steeled herself.
“My Queen, what are your orders?”
“We cannot have renegades within our ranks,” she turned to face the drone who was speaking. Consul Pharynx was standing before her. “Find Commander Scorpion, if he still lives. We will deal with these traitors at full strength–”
A massive gust of wind picked up the ash and debris that had accumulated in the room and sent it flying. Chrysalis summoned a shield to protect herself against the burnt dust.
“Aberrant Queen! We have business to settle!”
Chrysalis turned to see a blazing alicorn hovering above the ruins of the throne room.
“By Panar, there’s another one?”
She stifled a groan and immediately got to work.
“Praetorians, form up! Alicorn measures, be prepared with defensive fire shields!” She ordered entirely over the Weave.
“You have brought harm upon our subjects, and for that you must pay with everything you have!”
“Do you take checks?”
Around her, the Praetorians formed up, preparing layered shields to defend against the alicorn. Chrysalis was tired and low on energy, the stinging in her horn annoyingly ever-present. She would have to rely on her drones to do some of the heavy lifting here.
‘One army, one alicorn, one prince, then another alicorn. Today’s just a busy day!’
Now that she was staring at the alicorn, she started to notice some… similarities. The newcomer bore a resemblance in many aspects to…
“Have we met before?”
“Misbegotten vermin! You bested me once, but now I shall bring about your end!”
‘Princess Celestia just kinda powered herself up, then?’
“Hmmm, I’m a little busy now. How about we do this tomorrow instead?”
That was when the fiery alicorn made her first move. A solid stream of molten magma jettisoned forth from her horn, splashing against the green shield of the Praetorians. Immediately, Chrysalis noticed the Praetorians staggering. A few collapsed with moments of the spell hitting.
The ground in front of the shield was now covered in the molten rock, melting the uncovered tiles of the throne room.
Queen Chrysalis prepared to order a counter attack, but the angry pony princess immediately followed up with a focused will beam imbued with fire. The shield started failing against the alicorn-tier spell, unable to withstand the sheer firepower that was levied against them.
‘No! Not during my moment of victory!’
Chrysalis spied God-Splitter embedded in the ground beneath where she herself was pinned to the wall not too long ago. She reached out with her magic to bring it over, but the Adamantium hammer did not budge.
As the shield buckled, Chrysalis realized that this was not a battle she could win.
The blazing fireball had been traveling for a few hours now. During this relatively short amount of time, it had covered quite the distance from Canterlot. The phoenix had picked up speed as it soared out of Canterlot, passing the miles beneath at a speed few could match.
It beat its burning wings as it soared through the air. Philomena was searching for its kin that it sensed. Another phoenix, though this once was not similar in any sense to herself.
She found him in the city itself, but she knew she had to see if he would survive what was to come. So, she left. It wasn’t like her owner was going to miss her. The firebird banked as she realized where she was. Beneath her, a green forest and rolling hills. Far from the chaos of the city, this forest seemed almost peaceful.
Then, a bright flash of orange lit up the forest. Philomena flinched when she saw the one she was looking for materialize out of thin air. Not all of it had made the journey. A spray of red ichor and flying shards of bark and wood marked its translation into the physical realm and where space was already occupied.
Down the other phoenix went, tumbling off tree limbs, smacking trunks, and raking against branches as it fell. It landed on grass beneath the canopy with a thud, and Philomena circled for a few minutes.
Forces unknown called to her once more, and so she stopped circling the injured phoenix. Philomena beat her wings once more, and flew towards the rising sun.