Scarlet opened her eyes slowly, her vision blurry at first. The floor underneath her was creaking and rattling slightly, giving her the idea that she was travelling in a cart. The roof above her was covered in a cloth stained with what appeared to be blood, Where was she? The last she remembered Capo and Magikasta had tied her to a tree... where were they now? What had happened? Damn other personality... Always taking over at the worst times. She attempted to sit up, only to be constrained by ropes. At this point she began to panic. She had left tied up and woken up tied up, but in different circumstances. She took the time to examine her surroundings. The cart was mostly empty, save a few seemingly empty sacks and the pegs that held the ropes down. It was comprised of rotting wood. The cart was not in good condition, and seemed to have been hastily repaired in several places. Scarlet took note of all these things, but nothing she noticed could help her escape.
She turned her attention back to the cloth above her. The light shining through gave the impression that it was midday outside. This thought comforted her somehow. The changelings didn't seem like the type to travel in broad daylight with a cart. She relaxed slightly. Perhaps she could gain a clue by listening. Scarlet closed her eyes and focused on listening to the world around her. At first she heard nothing but the sounds she had heard before: the creaking of her own cart. However, she began to discern slightly different creaks both behind and in front of her. So she wasn't the only one. Suddenly a voice tore through the air.
"Faster! Or you won't feed for a week!"
Scarlet tensed up. The voice that she had just heard belonged to... Chrysalis. This drove all hopes of safety out of her mind. She was captured, but how? She would never let herself get captured, and was fairly certain that the other Scarlet wouldn't either. The only way that she would go with them is if they had-
Scarlet stopped herself. If they had what? What was she about to think? The words seemed to form in her mind, but melt away before she managed to realize what they were. What could the changelings have that could mean so much to her that she would willingly give herself up to them? She could think of nothing that they could have... She grimaced. If only she could remember more! The details of her life before her original capture were a blur to her, and she was sure there was something more to it.
Her attention was jerked upward as the canvas above her went dark. The sunlight was gone. Scarlet began to panic slightly. She knew that changelings lived in the caves at the edge of Equestria's lands. The remaining light began to fade, and the cart grew darker. Soon it was pitch black. Scarlet couldn't see anything. Her breathing quickened as she felt a strange sense of familiarity creep over her. The air, the darkness, the noise, it seemed all to familiar. She had been here before.
"Light the torches!" A sickly green light flickered into life, shining through the cloth into the cart. Scarlet realized that she was glistening with sweat and she was breathing rapidly. Her eyes darted from side to side and her breathing quickened even more as the air grew more and more stale. The green torchlight gave the cart a ghostly appearance that seemed to sicken her. She felt dizzy and nauseous. And still the carts continued on, now on a noticeable downhill slope as they descended deeper into the earth. The heavy breathing of the changelings were now audible as well as they shuffled along, pulling the cart. Scarlet's senses seemed to heighten. Time had no meaning; she didn't know if she had been traveling for minutes or hours. The only way of telling time was the slow, steady drip of water echoing through the cave. Her mind focused on the drip. How long she seemed to wait between them! The sound seemed the only thing that was real to her. Everything else seemed far away and unimportant. She listened for the next drop, her mind racing as she longed to hear it, her emotions mounting until she heard it hit the ground... but it was only a temporary relief, as the wait for the next drop seemed even longer...
She was violently thrown from her thoughts as the cart jerked to a sudden halt, sending her head forward slightly and then back down onto the wood, sending waves of pain through her brain and making her vision flash. She groaned audibly as voices in an unknown tongue sounded through the air. The cloth over the cart was thrown back and a pair of dark hooves roughly tied a rope around her neck, while another undid the shackles around her hooves. She was pulled from the cart and made to stand, shaking, while her eyes adjusted to the gloom and her mind struggled to comprehend the scene in front of her.
She was standing on the edge on a rocky cliff, overlooking a massive underground cavern. Changelings buzzed around the ceiling, each finding its own little crevice in which it lived. The floor of the cavern was filled with structures, ranging from massive cathedral-type buildings to small shacks. The cavern was lit by the same sickly green glow, which seemed to radiate from the rock itself. Scarlet felt a growing horror as she recognized the place. It was her prison. No, it was her home.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Chrysalis had come up beside her. Together they gazed out at the city. "Its name is Specus Umbrarum, or Cave of Shadows. The changeling capital of Equestria."
"Why have you brought me here?" Scarlet seemed to hear her own voice, faint and tired. It amazed her to hear how old she sounded, in comparison to the happy and gleeful tone of the queen standing next to her.
"All will be explained in due time... we have someone you miss, but you don't know it yet." Scarlet looked puzzled. "The other you knows it. A hostage, of sorts. Someone dear to you." Scarlet's eyes widened.
"T...Topsy?" She shuddered a little at the name, as though his very mention sent chills to her core. Chrysalis, however, let out a long laugh.
"No! He's dead remember! You killed him!" She chuckled gleefully as Scarlet looked down. "I remember the day too! Dragging you to the chamber, making you release the hounds! And you loved it Scarlet, you laughed with me, we had a wonderful time, even though we were covered in his blood! Haha!"
Scarlet felt the tears begin to well in her eyes as the Queen's words stung. All that she said was true, and Scarlet knew it. She began to sob helplessly, her knees giving way as she sank to the ground.
"Oh Scarlet... stop crying. That's no way to act. My leader wants to meet you." Scarlet looked up at this.
"Your... leader? But aren't you queen?"
"Yes my dear, but there is one higher than me. I am taking you... to meet the Empress." She cackled with delight. She has been dying to see you again. Now move." She gestured toward a walkway to their right, which led down into the city. A company of changelings moved behind her, one clutching the rope that was tied around her neck, preventing her escape. And so they slowly progressed through the city, changelings jeering on the sidewalks, some throwing bits of rocks at her. The tears fell thick and fast onto the ground, leaving a salty trail as she neared the center. In due time she found herself in front of a giant domed building, guarded by a pair of steel gates and several changeling guards wearing green colored armor.
"Halt!" The company ground to a stop as Chrysalis stepped up to the guards. "I, Queen Chrysalis, have come to see the empress on grounds that we have captured the elusive Scarlet!"
The guard motioned to the others, and they slowly pushed the gates open with a earsplitting creak. They trooped inside, passing under a massive archway into a front room of the main building. There they stopped, and Chrysalis went through a side door. Scarlet waited impatiently as distant voices echoed from the doorway.
"Let go of me, you fucker!" Scarlet looked around in alarm as Capo was shoved through the door with a similar rope around her neck, with Magikasta following close behind. Scarlet let out a shriek of joy and started to run to them, only to be harshly pulled back by the rope. She grunted a little.
"Capo! Magik! You're alright!" The couple noticed her.
"Scarlet! Thank goodness you're alive! We were ambushed at the inn! We managed to fight them off for some time, but they outnumbered us too much!" Capo rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, and the fact that you don't know how to fight, Magik..."
"Hey, I got one!"
"And then you got kicked in the di-"
"Silence you two! You bicker more than any married couple, I swear!" Chrysalis came striding out of the hallway. "The Empress is ready to see you three." She grinned widely. "Good luck." She crossed to another set of door and opened them with magic. The changelings and the 3 ponies filed through into a grand throne room.
"Behold," Chrysalis said, "The Empress of the changelings."
In the center of the room sat an empty throne. Scarlet looked around, confused. Who-
"Welcome!" A voice rang out, not a changeling voice as Scarlet had expected but rather, a pony voice. The tone struck deep into her. She knew the voice very, very well... but from where?
"Welcome to my castle! Won't you have some tea?" At that moment an earth pony jumped out from behind the chair with a tea kettle. "I love tea, don't you? Thousands of varieties-though we don't get many down here, what with no sunlight and all..."
The three stared at the new pony incredulously. She had a black and red tousled mane and a light yellow coat. Several black and red studs were set into her ears, and her blood red eyes looked at them playfully. Her cutie mark was a raven perched on a rock.
"My name is Raven, Empress of the Changelings!" She giggled maniacally as if she had just told a hilarious joke. "And you!" She pointed a hoof at Scarlet. "You are very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard to capture! I mean 3 years! I am proud of you, Scarlet!"
"Wait... why would you be proud?" Scarlet cocked her head to one side as Raven fell over backwards laughing.
"Haha! She doesn't know! Oh you were right Crissy, she really doesn't remember anything!"
Chrysalis looked slightly annoyed. "Yes, we need to fix it, remember, that's why we're here..."
"Right of course!" Raven jumped to her feet and sprinted full force at Scarlet, coming to a seemingly impossible sudden stop right in front of her. "You can't even remember me?"
"No... why would I?"
Raven giggled again. "I'm your mother, silly Scarly! You can't remember your own mother!"
These words seemed to echo in Scarlet's brain. Her... mother? How was that... no... Scarlet gasped and fell to the floor as the memories began to return again. This time there were no specific flashbacks, but rather scenes from her entire life. Being raised by her mother for a while, being given up for adoption, being beaten and sexually abused by her foster parents, running away from home, working as an escort and being raped, meeting Topsy at a karaoke bar, that night together at the fair, the beginning of their life together... Melody being born- Melody! Scarlet gasped in amazement. Her precious gem, her only daughter... how could she have fogotten.. again? For now she remembered the house, and the trek back through the house, and the memories that were missing. She felt her emotions returning to her, her anger mixing with her wits as her personalities merged back into who she was.... but with that was pain, the clear, vivid memories of her capture and torture, her escape, her life of running from her captors...
Scarlet looked up slowly. She felt reborn. Her mind was whole again, and she stared at her laughing mother with a combination of hatred and curiosity. Raven jumped around the room, giggling gleefully as Capo and Magikasta stared, shocked. Scarlet spoke again, her voice no longer sounding frail and tired, but rather more full and deep than it had sounded in a very long time.
"Where is she?" She glared at Raven, who stopped bouncing.
"Oh, you mean my precious granddaughter? Why, you can see her right away, She cackled evilly. "All you have to do is... look up."
Scarlet's eyes slowly moved upwards towards the ceiling. There, hanging from a rafter, was a small, pink figure with bits of cyan. A makeshift rope out of filthy bedsheets suspended her by her neck from the rafter. The flesh on her body was rotting and peeling, and any meat that she had once had was long gone. She was skin and bones.
"She lost a bit of weight! I don't think you need to put her on a diet!" She fell over laughing again, kicking her hooves in the air. "Man, that sure was a cliff hanger!" She laughed even harder, clutching her chest. Scarlet kept staring at her dead daughter, Raven's bad puns echoing through her mind. She couldn't be dead. It wasn't possible. She just couldn't...
"Now thats what I call a mood killer-"
"Empress! I think that is enough with the jokes!" Chrysalis looked disapprovingly at Raven.
"One more?" She looked pleadingly.
Chrysalis sighed. "Fine..."
"You know she's drop-dead gorgeous."
Scarlet lowered her gaze to her psychopathic mother. She did not cry. In fact, she really didn't feel any emotion at all. Her newfound sense of fullness had evaporated, leaving her a full, yet empty shell.
"And we still haven't progressed to step two!" She laughed continuously. "Right this way, my lovely daughter, lets have a second go at that mind of yours."