//------------------------------//
// Stage 9: Assimilation 
// Story: Hybrids 
// by Blarghalt 
//------------------------------//

Zecora and Apple Bloom waited for several hours for the princesses (and Gold Plum) to wake up. Luckily, Celestia came to before her sister could do the same and deliver another assault onto Gold Plum. She was still too weak to stand, and looked over to the dazed guard with the large knot on his forehead.

"Gold Plum? Is that you?"

The changeling immediately recovered to sit up and waved his legs to accent his apologies. "I had nothin' to do with this! Nothin' in the slightest!'

Celestia drearily smiled. "Of course you didn't, but that doesn't explain how you found us. And who gave you that nasty bump?"

"Princess Luna did!" Apple Bloom stated "Gold Plum woke her up and POW!."

Celestia moved her head towards her sibling and sighed. "Yes, she would do that. But I'm the one to blame; I told her about your condition, Gold Plum. I suspect she believed you had betrayed us when she saw you."

"Obviously."  Gold Plum grumbled while he rubbed the knot on his head.

The princess looked up at the sky. "How long have I been away, Gold Plum?"

"Your majesty? A few days."

Celestia gritted her teeth and struggled to get up, despite her guard's protests. Still too weak, she only managed to right herself and sit while she waited for her strength to return. "Chrysalis is desperate."

Zecora pointed upwards. "When we freed you from your prison, the changeling queen seemed quite driven."

Celestia nodded. "She would. I believe all her setbacks have finally driven her into the abyss."

"Speaking of which," Gold Plum cut in, "we came into to rescue you not too long after Chrysalis skittered off. I really don't want her coming back and finishing whatever it is she was doing when we found you."

"Indeed." Celestia replied. She struggled to lift herself. She made a valiant effort, but her knees could not yet support her weight, and she collapsed back to the ground.

"Insane for revenge!" a wild voice boomed over them. The entire group looked up to see Chrysalis. She hovered a good distance above them, with eyes that burned with the spark of hatred and just a twinge of instability.

All of them remained silent, which prompted Chrysalis to drop several meters and throw out her limbs. "I've ambushed you! Aren't you dreading your inescapable doom?"

"I think," Apple Bloom stated, "but what did ya mean by insane for revenge?"

Chrysalis stared at Apple Bloom like she was idiot. "When Celestia said I'd been driven insane? My reply was gold!"

"I said that a minute ago, after everyone else had spoken." Celestia said with one eyebrow arched. "Did you hear that and scramble here to say something witty?"

The changeling queen folded her front limbs. "No!" she shouted, but nothing other than chagrined stares greeted her. The queen's eyes darted to the left, then right before she sighed. "Well, maybe. And I was kind of hoping a few of my drones would still be conscious to hear it. But that's not the point! You're at my mercy now, you little ponies!"

Chrysalis charged with a roar. Celestia summoned all that was left of her energy to coat herself in a magical shield and stand her ground. The distance between the two closed, and a shockwave sent everyone else to the ground when the queen headbutted Celestia's shield. Chrysalis continued to smash herself against the princess' shield, and by the time the others stood up, it had already begun to form cracks.

The changeling queen ceased her physical attack and jumped back. Green magic began to stream from Chrysalis' horn, and the cracks on the shield spread even farther. Celestia had already begun to buckle under the strain as the evil changeling began monologuing.

"What will the score be when I'm through with you this time, Celestia? Three to nothing? Without your elements or bratty niece, you're worthless!"

Parts of the pink shield began to shatter, and Celestia was sent to her knees.

"Canterlot? Mine! Your power? Mine! Your "faithful student" Twilight? Mine, soon enough!"

Chrysalis felt a tap on her shoulder. She stopped her attack for a moment to look over, and saw nothing. She almost went back to finish off Celestia when she heard the distinct beat of heavy wings, and looked up to see an enraged Luna. The princess of the night's eyes glowed white with rage, and she held a very large tree branch above her head with her hooves.

The changeling queen could only make out the beginning of a dramatic statement of shock before the limb was smashed against her face. The force hurled the screaming changeling deep into the forest. She continued to scream until it sounded like she hit something very solid, followed by a loud "ow!"

The princess of the night landed and dropped her club, her gaze still fixated where Chryalis had been sent in a straight, painful line. "I am vengeance."

"Luna!" Celestia gasped. The shield around her collapsed, and her sister ran up to embrace her.

"I am vengeance?" Apple Bloom repeated, "You should have said something cool! Like, 'thou should STICK around!' or 'Sorry to BUG you!' or somethin'!"

Zecora just shook her head and the rest ignored the filly while the two regal sisters attempted to regain their bearings. 

Several times Celestia pointed at Gold Plum, and Luna would look over to him and raise her voice. Her complaints grew softer each time, and at the end of their conversation they both nodded.

Luna walked over to Gold Plum rather regretfully. "We...apologize for our previous assault."

"It's okay, your majesty. I probably woulda done the same thing."

The silent forest suddenly erupted into an enraged scream. Chrysalis' entire being pulsed with energy when she shot up from the forest canopy.

"NO MORE GAMES!" she bellowed, and dove at them.

Celestia was still much too weak to stand and resist her; Luna had exhausted all of her reserves into the sneak attack. They both could only begin to ready a defensive spell before the queen was upon them.

Chrysalis' screaming attack was cut short when another shape caught her by the sides and sent her off-course. She tumbled in the dirt, and suddenly righted herself to face the pony dumb enough to defy her. She instead caught view of a dust-coated Gold Plum, who blocked her way to the princesses and the interlopers.

"You!" she choked out. Her entire body twitched with anger as the soldier stared her down. "Get out of my way you insect!"

Gold Plum spit on the ground and braced himself. "Try and squash me, then!" Before Chrysalis was upon him, the changeling looked back to the two weakened princesses. “Get going!”

With that, he was set upon by his former queen, who crashed into the muscular changeling at full speed, digging his body down into the dirt as he struggled to hold her off.

"You guys go on ahead! I'm fine!" he screamed.

"No you're not!" bellowed Chrysalis.

"Wait! We need you for the cure, Mr. Plum!" Apple Bloom called out before she was muffled by Zecora.

"Gold Plum knows where the ingredients are in his head, but I cannot make the cure if we are dead!" the zebra quickly rhymed, and lifted the filly onto her back. She darted off in the opposite direct of the duel, but not before snatching up one of the required flowers for the stew on her way out, which left only Celestia and Luna to withdraw.

Chrysalis was a being of incredible power even without being augmented with the love of a spouse, and could easily overpower the princesses in their weakened states.

Gold Plum had circumvented that problem by bringing the fight within extremely close range of Chrysalis, where she could not reliably hit him with magic. After a few hits to the queen's face, Chrysalis simply forgot she could use magic at all and a vulgar brawl proceeded, with neither side able to gain dominance.

Celestia weighed her options. She could intervene in the fight and inflict a surprise blow on Chrysalis. However, that would likely only anger her, and her attention would be re-directed to the two princesses; Gold Plum's act of courage would have been for naught. Alternatively, she could flee. She had no doubts that no matter how valiant or strong Gold Plum was, Chrysalis would eventually overpower him or remember that she could use magic. When that happened, Gold Plum would be in trouble.

Luna had already made up her mind when she looked up to her indecisive sibling. "Sister? We must go!"

A closer look into the sun princess' eyes revealed something Luna was very familiar with in her sister: moral impasse. She had seen that very same look when the darkness that transformed her into Nightmare Moon took hold. Their time was limited, and ran in front of her sister.

"We! Must! Go! NOW!"

Celestia looked through her sister before she shook her head and her thousand yard stare subsided. She looked over to the brawl sorrowfully one last time before she turned to her sister and nodded. "Right."

Luna led the way as the two monarchs fled in the same direction Zecora and Apple Bloom had gone. Chrysalis' howls of rage and Gold Plum's grunts of pain trailed down the forest behind them.





Mirror Mirror patrolled the streets of Canterlot with several lower-ranking guards in tow; ever since Gold Plum's little escapade, the entire city had been on high alert, ready to root out any more changelings that had infiltrated their great capital city.

Sure, Mirror Mirror thought, they had been utterly routed the first time the changelings attacked, but that was a fluke. This time they had ample time to prepare!

One of the nearby shop's roofs exploded. Wood chips and marble were sent in every direction as the lieutenant flinched from the noise. Several more objects rocketed down from the skies, either landing in the streets or into nearby buildings. One of the meteors had crashed right in front of her, and she ran over to the small crater it had created to find one of the pegasus guards at the bottom, his armor dented and his skin covered in bruises.

She didn't want to look up, but she had to. Many changelings wrestled for control over the skies of Canterlot. The insects would occasionally lose one of their own and would drop out of the fight into the streets below, but the sheer numbers guaranteed their victory when they would double or triple-team one of the guards to disable them.

"Orders, lieutenant?" one of her subordinates asked her while it continued to rain ponies.

"Market district! It's too cramped to fly there!" she shouted, and ran off with her lackeys in tow. She ordered every ground guard she passed to follow her, and many civilians followed suit for protection. When they made it to the halfway mark of one of Canterlot's ornate fountain plazas, they found themselves blocked by a wall of hovering changelings.

Mirror Mirror went over her plan. Steel Sword and Cross had almost certainly had the same idea as her, and were probably headed to the market to set up a perimeter. That meant that if she could stall the changelings, Cross and Steel Sword's squads could come up behind them and...

Her hopes were dashed when Steel Sword and Cross were dropped on the white tile, tied together. Down Low had been in charge of patrols outside of Canterlot, and promptly hit the ground next to the two other commands in his own rope bindings.

"Looking for these idiots?" one of the larger changelings spoke in a haughty, imperial tone.

Mirror Mirror could only responded with a dropped jaw. "Chrysalis?"

"No," the changeling replied in his queen's voice, "but I am one of her best infiltrators. Our great leader sadly cannot be here for the sacking of Canterlot, as she has other pressing matters. So, she chose me to deliver her glorious speech!"

Steel Sword temporarily awoke from his battered state and weakly called out to Mirror Mirror. "It's not glorious! So much ham!" he groaned before he passed out entirely.

The changeling produced a stack of parchment and some reading glasses. The drone shuffled them, and began his speech with all the mannerisms and inflections of the insectoid leader.


Soon to be slaves of the Great Queen Chrysalis,

Greetings, salutations, and for my ever-loyal drones, hsssssssssssssssss. It pains me beyond all belief that I cannot be here to personally oversee the destruction of your beloved capital, as I have other pressing issues. Princesses to capture, Elements of Harmony to enslave, and general invasion plans for the rest of your dear love-soaked country have been keeping me very, very busy! This detachment has been sent in my stead to be the instrument of your absolute and total obliteration, and the some of the strongest and fiercest of my warriors float above you! Be assured, there is—

The changeling noticed one of the civilian ponies had raised his hoof. "Yes? What does the future slave wish to ask us?"

"Uh, I'm sure this is a real scary speech, but half of us don't know what you're talking about. You did what with the princesses?"

The changeling tilted his head back and sounded with exasperation, and began to shuffle through the stack until he stuck his hoof on one of the pages.

Ah yes! The FAQ! I foresaw that there might be questions, and prepared a lovely Q&A. Knowing the general intelligence of ponies, my proxy has probably already been forced to skip ahead to this part—

"Hey!"

—And will answer your questions accordingly. Let's see...here we go! "Why did you capture Princess Celestia and Princess Luna?

One of the guards in the back jumped. "You captured the princesses!?"

Yes, probably should have broadcasted that to make you all panic. No matter! You see, I took the princesses by surprise when nobody was around, and in one fell swoop, made them my prisoners! I well aware that would mean the sun and moon would cease moving within the month, but I anticipated that as well! I prepared an concoction using ingredients only known to changelings to absorb—

Another pony raised her hoof.

"What is it?" the drone sighed.

"Uh, the Elements of Harmony are—"

Chrysalis' cursive is terrib—here we are! A few days ago, the ones you know as Twilight and Rarity has something happen to them; something most interesting. One third of those who saved Equestria from eternal night and chaos, found themselves victim to a most fortunate accident. That is, fortunate for the changeling swarm. Through some method that I can only guess was an experiment gone wrong, your two precious defenders are finding themselves to be a more sympathetic to my cause.

The changeling expected more questions, and impatiently looked down upon the ponies in the plaza.

"We get it!" a random voice in the mob answered.

Indeed. Anyway, I learned that the two were transforming into changelings. Not only that, but one of them was even beginning transformation into a queen! While I would normally crush such opposition, I knew that it would be more useful to capture her and bring her over to my side for the explicit purpose of conquering Equestria, only to be immediately discarded and destroyed once she had served her purpose. They've eluded my idiot drones so far, but not for much longer.

When Twilight and Rarity left Ponyville, I sprung into action! Without the princesses or the Elements to stop me, I’m unstoppable! There's absolutely nothing that can impede my plans!

Mirror Mirror stepped forward. "What about that heart thing Cadence and Shining Armor did?"





Two drones had gone ahead of the large swarm designated to attack the Crystal Empire. As expected, both Cadence and Shining Armor put up an near-impenetrable barrier, and prepared the same blast of love that routed the changelings the first time.

Two hog-tied guards cried out for help in one of the closest of the ornate palace, but it was of no use; two fake ponies had already begun make their way up to the highest floor in the building.

In a tactic that had quickly become Chrysalis' favorite, the two changelings hit the couple both over the head with two of the luxury castle chairs as they stepped onto the balcony. The barrier dropped before they did, and the cloud of drones screeched. The invasion had begun.





...I defeated them in combat. It was very glorious. Now that that's out of the way, I do believe my swarm has some harvesting to do around here. I won't lie, it will be painful. For you.

The guards could only begin to raise their spears and ready their magic before the swarm was upon them. 





"I'm sorry dear," Rarity explained, "I must have had something in my e—well, you know what I mean. Could you repeat that?"

"It's so great!" Twilight cheered. "They've decided that Queen Chrysalis is an idiot, and they'd rather follow me!"

Spike attempted to stop the crazy bus before it had time to gain speed. "Twilight! This has nothing to do with going to the Crystal Empire to get a cure! Nothing!"

Twilight startled Spike when she teleported next to him and patted him. "Oh, Spike. I knew you'd say that. That's why I prepared a list!"

Rarity put one hoof to her head. "Oh Celestia, she has a list..."

Twilight summoned a large scroll, which unfurled and rolled to the other end of the room.

"It's a 500-part plan. I don't know why, but being an insect queen has been great for my multitasking! You see, first we take over this town, drain the population for everything they're worth, and then have enough energy to travel to the next five times and repeat the process. For step two..."





"Step 350's going to be a little tricky, since it'll involve a lot of time tra—" Twilight rolled on, before she looked up from her scroll. Spike and Rarity were gone, and the other changelings in the library had nodded off from their queen's lecture.

"Huh. They must have gone to the bathroom." she said, and continued down the scroll.

Elsewhere, Spike and a re-disguised Rarity thanked their lucky stars that Twilight had a penchant for lists. In the time it had taken her to read her own plan, the two had quietly convinced the town that there was a changeling queen poised to take over their humble village. They didn't believe them at first, until Rarity led the mayor of the town to the library and told him to look into the window. There, she saw Twilight reading out the 108th part of her plan, and by that time her mini-swarm had already fallen asleep.

The mayor suggested they burn down the library, and Spike hastily explained that the sight of burning books would send the already unstable Twilight into a direction that would end in a crater where the town used to be.

The entire town's population had gathered in the town hall as a temporary shelter when Spike suggested they evacuate the town to a safer location while Rarity attempted to talk Twilight out of her insane scheme.

"You know, there's a forest ranger barracks not too far from here." the mayor countered. "If that list was as long as it looked, we could have them here swinging their axes before that crazy bug finishes."

"She's not a bug!" Rarity shot back.

"Yeah! She wouldn't hurt a fly! And she sort of is one right now, so that goes double!" Spike agreed.

"Caw!" Peewee reaffirmed.

"Why are you defending her? You're the ones that told us where she was!"

Rarity shuffled nervously. "She's not normally like this. There was an accident, and she's been very confused."

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but I heard what that changeling was planning."

"Wait!" Rarity shrilled. "At least give me a chance to talk to her first!"

The mayor paused to look at the ticking clock that hung above them. "She was pretty far into that list when we saw her. You've got ten minutes, and then we're coming with the blowtorches."

"Thank y—wait, blowtorches?"

"We're not hicks."





Rarity, Spike and Peewee expertly took their previous places in front of the distracted Twilight as she finished off her list.

"And Step 500, create a list for steps 501-629. Any questions?" she asked. She looked up to see Rarity had dropped her disguise, and both her and Spike were smiling suspiciously. The rest of the drones were still asleep. Twilight stomped her hoof on the floor, and they all awoke and saluted their queen.

"None at all, dear!" Rarity answered. "Well, one. Um, the part where we take over this town..."

"Yeah, steps 1-139. I'm really thinking they could use some revision. I might write a letter to the Princess and ask her to proofread it. I mean, changelings are helpful, but they aren't the best ones for peer review, if you get what I'm saying."

Spike raised his claw. "Twilight? Celestia didn't a—" he said before Rarity stuck her hoof over his mouth.

"Not now, Spike..." she mumbled through her teeth. "So, Twilight! I had a thought."

Twilight smiled. "Ooh! Did you want to add a foreword? Some notes? Wait, this list could really use an addendum!"

"Actually, I was thinking that maybe we didn't need to suck this town for all it's worth and enslave their minds. It doesn't seem very proper."

"But Rarity, didn't you pay attention at all? The energy we get from this town is the springboard to conquering Equestria!"

"That's sounds nice, but could we...not do that? We're trying to get to the Crystal Empire to look for a cure, after all."

Twilight looked back to her list. "Oh, that? I already figured that out."

Spike and Rarity said nothing. Peewee sounded out a caw that sounded distinctly like "you what!?"

"Uh huh," Twilight continued, "changeling queen brain lets me micromanage thoughts like crazy. I thought it up while I was writing the list. By the way, did you know the last digit of pi was nine? I couldn't believe it either!"

Rarity took a risk and stepped forward. "So, for curiosity’s sake, where is the cure? Please?"

The queen looked up from the list. "Now why would you want that? We've got a country to conquer!"

"Don't you remember? Getting the cure was your idea in the first place!"

Twilight put her list down and rubbed her head. "Hmmm. I guess I did say that. That's old news, though. Changeling rule will be the best thing to happen to Equestria! But if it's for curiosity's sake..." She cleared her throat and summoned a large piece of chalk. She looked around for something to draw on, and chose the black shell of an unlucky drone to illustrate her discovery.

"I thought it up while flying over here. It's actually really simple." she stated, and began to scribble dozens of extremely complex calculations over the changeling's hide. "Using Star Swirl's Third Law of Exchange, I discovered that there are only two possible solutions to genetic takeover: a special kind of potion made from former changelings nests, or temporal displacement with Alpha genetic material."

Spike scratched his head. "Temporal wh—"

"Teleportation. If an entity with foreign material teleported themselves with another entity with a close or exact match of the invading genes, then there would be a kind of purge. It's really interesting; I might write a book on it when we take over Canterlot."

Rarity decided to ignore Twilight's comment on the capital city. "And what about that potion?"

"Oh, it's a theoretical blend that could forcefully expel foreign genetics. If someone were to try that on us, it wouldn't work as it could only be applied on the very early stages."

"So no cure?"

"Why would we want one?"

Rarity took a deep breath. Spike tried to stop her as she stomped over to her friend, her true friend, and grabbed her face. Every changeling in the room tensed and hissed at her as she attempted to communicate to the leader of the swarm.

"Twilight, I know it's been very exhausting. I know that it seems like there's no way out and...you might have given up. But you need to listen to me: we can't do this. This is not the Twilight I know. My friend would never hurt innocent strangers, and she'd never break her friend's heart by acting like a monster. Twilight, I know you're in there. Answer me."

Twilight's gaze softened, and in the hunger in her pupils seemed to fade away.

"I...I think you can stop smushing my face now." she answered in a much more normal voice.

Rarity hugged her friend tightly; Spike and Peewee joined in too. The changelings around them were simply stumped, and looked to each other and could only shrugged at what had unfolded in front of them.

"What happened to you, Twilight?" Spike asked. "I've never seen you that crazy, and that's saying something."

Twilight looked slightly ashamed when she answered. "Well, I wasn't lying about there only being two ways to cure this. The first was useless, and I could only do the second if I could teleport close to a genetic match of that wing. And the only changeling I know that could be that match was Chrysalis. I thought if I let myself think like a changeling queen for a while, I could get enough strength to challenge her. I think the desperation got the better of me."

"Well, thank goodness you're back to normal. Relatively speaking." Rarity answered. "You said we could cure this if you teleported near Chrysalis. How would that even work?"

"Well, we'd have to find her first. And that's not even the tough part. We'd then have to get close enough to her to teleport both of us, without getting vaporized in the process."

Spike started a suggestion that they start a search for Chrysalis before Twilight got distracted and crazy again, but his cheeks puffed and he belched out a large leaf. It floated to the floor, and a bewildered Twilight looked at Spike with admonishment. 

"Spike? What have you been eating?"

The dragon picked up the leaf and held it in front of him. "Nothing! I don't belch up anything like that unless it's from—" he said and suddenly cut himself off when he flipped the leaf around to the lighter backside. "Oh."

Twilight lifted the leaf out of Spike's claws and read it herself.



I write this in the middle of a forest, while fleeing from a power-crazed changeling queen. 

Twilight, I understand what's happening, and what you might have done. I...understand. Just please, please tell us where you are. 

- Princess Celestia