//------------------------------// // NMoO 2: The Madness of Flamespyre // Story: Nightmares of Oblivion // by Scarheart //------------------------------// Her defeat would not have happened if it were not for than little silver sphere. She had the child of Flamespyre easily within her grasp and on the brink of defeat. Wearing him down with her magic, she was about to deliver the finishing blow and have herself a prisoner she felt she could use as a bargaining chip. Despite her lack of use in her hind legs, she was still the Princess of the Sun. She was still as powerful as any Alicorn ever was. Only her sister Luna was the better pure fighter in combat and more precise with her battle magic. The monster produced a simple little sphere even as the two armies watched the battle from their respective trenches. The monster who was Blood Assault produced that horrible little thing, spoke a single word and Celestia suddenly found herself filled with a vast void as her magic failed and fled from her. Her ethereal mane flickered, faded, and became a simple mane of rosey pink. Yet she fought on, using her thousands of years of experience and wisdom combating a dragon more familiar with battling large armies. He was never meant to be capable of taking on the Princess of the Sun, even without her power. She was an Alicorn and the loss of her magic made her fight like a wounded tigress. But, he wore her down, being larger and better able to withstand each slash and every thrust of her deadly horn. Celestia weaved and dodged on her wings with skill enough to make Rainbow Dash think herself slow in comparison. After putting up a tremendous battle, the exhausted princess was battered down in an odd switch of being the giant bested by a mouse. Had she her magic, should would have easily won the battle and quickly returned home to stem the tide against the invasion. A simple, damnable sphere changed all of that. Celestia would normally have been amused. Despite being in chains and having her magic constantly nullified, she would have found this amusing. In all her years she had never known something so twisted as Flamespyre to correct the ailment which had left her unable to walk for fifteen years. Nanotechnology, he called it, lording over his captive gleefully. The silver sphere clutched delicately in his clawed grasp was waved before her like a trophy, the cackling glee in his triumph mocking her. Yet he insisted she be tended to properly. She was an invaluable prisoner for now. It had been three days since her capture and already her wounds had been healed through both her Alicorn blood combined with the odd machines so tiny no mortal eye could make them out. The golden links of chain about her neck and legs shimmered with something she was not familiar with. It could not be magic, but it prevented her from using her Alicorn strength to snap her bonds. Flamespyre called it something called titanium. Though her hind legs had atrophied over the decade and a half she had no use of them, the princess determined to exercise her withered limbs every moment she had. If she had her mind on her pending execution, she paid no heed to it. The solar eclipse was not for another forty-one days. By then, the first snows of winter should be falling, if the Pegasi were still maintaining the weather. She imagined with Cloudsdale more than likely under siege, this was highly unlikely. Sadly she imagined the city of clouds already in the hands of these strange changelings, the Topaz. They were a leaner breed of changeling, she noted from observing her jailors. They chittered to each other in their language, avoiding eye contact with the captive princess when they brought her meals and changed out her chamber pot. She was treated well, even luxuriously. If it were not for the chains binding her to her cell, Celestia might have imagined herself as being a pampered guest in a foreign land. The males distinctly avoided speaking to her, keeping their heads down and doing all the work while their commander, a young changeling female with impeccable politeness initiated all the conversations. Her cell was in fact her private quarters in Canterlot. The irony was not lost on her as her magnificent eyes flickered around a room that had been her respite from the stresses of court for hundreds of years. She sighed, letting slip a moment of her inner melancholy. She could no longer feel her sister Luna, whom she feared badly injured or worse. Chrysalis certainly felt a loss in her heart the day the horizon bore a second sunrise, the rippling magic wakes thumping into her heart like the last heartbeats of a dying titan. Celestia couldn’t even begin to imagine the anguish the queen must be feeling. She had been banished to the perpetual darkness of the caves deep beneath Canterlot, where the crystals muted her magic and denied her access to love so she might recharge her mana reserves. Her daughter was in the clutches of the Topaz Queens, Tappis and Tappaz. They were, for all intents and purposes insane in the eyes of the alabaster princess. They carried about them a frenzied and desperate hunger for affection making Chrysalis seem a saint compared to them. They were powerful, these pair. Yet from what Celestia understood, her reluctant ally had trounced them soundly through her rage. Flamespyre had even informed her pointedly the twin queens had the audacity to feed upon the daughter of the Emerald Queen. Chrysalis must still be insane with rage. If there was one thing Celestia understood perfectly, it was how she doted over her little filly. Princess Atalanta seemed such a sweet little thing! So polite and full of life! Always positive in her outlook from what little Celestia was able to deduce. Chrysalis was wary when it came to leaving her daughter alone with either Celestia or Luna. It was a silly thing to worry about, but Celestia fully understood the changeling queen’s concerns. She was not exactly keen on having Equestria helping her, but had bore the personal humiliation well enough. It was nearing midday. Shifting from her bed from where she lay, Celestia fell her gaze upon the great open balcony she had spent many an hour resting with her favorite tea. She could still smell the smoke in the air from the buildings that had burned down in the attack. Why did wars always involve fire? How many of her little ponies no longer enjoyed the warmth of the sun? How many colts and fillies were now without parents? Celestia wept for them, but had not more tears to shed. She had mourned for three days and there was nothing left within her. Smelling the remains of her once grand capitol also made her very angry. Celestia was helpless to do anything about it. She could feel no magic in the air. It was as though a great void had opened, sucking all of it from all things, living or inanimate. Oblivion spheres made Canterlot a dead zone to magic. Already the splendor of the great castle and the city it loomed over crumbled. The Solar Guard was now replaced by Topaz soldiers who marched stoically through the halls of the Alicorn’s home. She wondered if any of her ponies had managed to escape as she gazed into a smoke-hazed sky. Naturally they would be driven away from the fighting. This left them with two paths; through the Everfree or north along the rail line leading to the Crystal Empire. The Everfree was closer, but extremely dangerous. Civilians would be hard pressed to go through that evil, untamed wilderness. The way to Cadance’s protectorate was an arduous journey, frought with the endless northern snow storms plaguing the land. It was know as the Curse of Sombra and was reputed to be the cold blast from his frozen, dead heart. She prayed her niece would send a party to greet the poor fleeing refugees and guide them to safety. The Crystal Ponies would not deny them! They could not deny them! Her chains clinked against each other when she turned upon hearing her door open. In walked the familiar and hated form of her captor bearing his alicorn form. For some reason, the Oblivion Spheres did not prevent him access to magic. His lone crimson eye sought out and found her. He grinned. “Feeling better, Princess?” he asked cordially. “I do apologize for the bindings upon you, but you are a rather powerful creature, even if your magic is nullified. The strength and stamina of Alicorns is legendary, after all. So resilient! So able to recover from injuries that would fell a lesser mortal!” “Why bother curing me?” she asked him, matching his politeness. Just because Celestia was at all pleased with her situation didn’t mean she had ceased being an icon to her nation. “You plan on killing me in six weeks, why return the use of my legs to me? Why let me be whole?” She was certain there had to be something behind this. Flamespyre approached slowly, looking her up and down appreciatively. Celestia no longer had the aura about her mane and tail giving it those famous waving colors. Instead, she bore the rosey pink of her youthful years before her full power manifested itself. “You are a very beautiful mare, even though your power has been stripped from you.” He came up to her and leaned in, inhaling the fragrance of her mane. “Too bad it would be folly on my part to keep you alive. You’re too dangerous. I should kill you where you stand, but there’s just something magical about killing you at the height of a perfect solar eclipse.” Celestia recoiled from the monster in disgust. “You won’t have me!” she hissed at him, her ears laying flat against her skull. His damnable grin remained in place as he tilted his head to one side. “Have you? No, I think not. Your mind is too prepared for my stare to be effective upon you. You are too aged, too wary, too prepared to defend your mind.” Flamespyre hummed to himself a tune as he turned his back to the Alicorn and pondered her furnishings. “Such opulence. I suppose the advantage of living for a few thousand years can give you a sense you deserve such nice things. A girl needs to be pampered, after all.” Celestia shifted from where she lay on her bed, refusing to meet his eyes when he spun slowly on her, his eyes searching about until they fell upon her. His grin widened further, revealing teeth no pony could ever claim to have. “Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of years I’ve worked, to reach this point, only to be thwarted?” he growled, his smile dropping to a sinister snarl. “Do you know how many failures I have endured because I am mad and I cannot do anything about it? Do you know I pine for my old masters and lament the deaths upon my head? Have you any idea of the billions of lives I have laid waste simply because I thought I could do better?” Flamespyre raged, slamming a hoof repeatedly into the floor until it began to crack and fissure with each strike. Celestia tried to drag herself from him. A hoof reached out from the evil thing and caught one of the links of chain shackled to one of Celestia’s forelegs. With a jerk of power even an Alicorn could not resist, she found herself yanked towards him, yelping from shock and sudden pain. Her wide eyes shifted to a glare as she met his single eye with spite. “You ponies and your peace and harmony. Holding the wold at bay through manipulation of the sun and moon through deceit and lies. You try to be like them, but your precious little ponies do not have the savagry necessary to survive. Chaos is the true way to live, to face life.” Flamespyre brought his muzzle to within inches of Celestia’s, his hot breath covering her snout and cheeks. “I found Chaos, a powerful spirit. Almost a god, if you think about it. Such a random thing; neither good nor evil. I took it as it drifted over the world, doing chaotic little things. I cobbled a body for it and gave unto it life and a name. I created a god, Celestia! A living, breathing god! The first and only one the world would need! Or so I thought.” Celestia said nothing, but stared in shock. “Yes! Discord! My second eldest son! The most powerful of them all, even greater than myself! This world needed a god and I tasked him with ruling. He did not want it. Pranks. Jokes. Useless little trysts with other races aimed at driving me further into my insanity! He could be a god, yet he merely chooses to use his power for pointless amusements.” “Chaos was never meant to rule!” said Celestia heavily, narrowing her eyes at this monster. “Order and harmony and respecting life is what makes the other challenges of life bearable! If we cannot learn to live together as a society, then there will always be strife. There will always be hate. I want my ponies to be an example for the other races to follow!” Flamespyre shoved himself from her violently, smirking. “Well, look where that got you, my pretty little mare. Your sister is fallen. Your country is mine. This world is mine. I intend to finish what I started, Celestia. No matter how many times I fail, I will continue to come and come and come again until this world is broken and subservient beneath my claws!” “To what end?” cried the princess with both fear and anger. “What purpose is there to all of this?” She strained at her chains as she found herself lunging weakly at him. He stared at her, heaving ragged gasps as his wings ruffled. The tail swished behind him with a wicked sureness. Flamespyre purred from the base of his throat, “It needs to be done. The world must be purged and everything begun anew. I must prepare the way, Celestia. I must bring them back.” A casual yank of the chain again and Celestia was again face-to-face with madness. “You’re a fine guardian, Celestia, but I’m afraid we are at the sunset of your reign.” He grinned broadly at his own joke. “You will be healed. You will be whole. Your ponies will be gathered as you are taken to your execution. I imagine you would fancy the guillotine.” Celestia glared back at him. “You’ll be stopped!” “How?” he asked. “Your precious Twilight Sparkle is mine. Her element is mine. Your precious Elements of Harmony are in my grasp. Would you like me to tell you what I intend to do with them? Hmm? Shall I tell you?” She really wasn’t interested. The slight shake of her head told him so. Magic suddenly gripped her, holding her in place through his telekinesis. Flamespyre brought his mouth very close to her ear so his breath tickled the fur within it. His tongue flicked out and teased the tip of her ear. “I shall break them, one by one. I shall have your precious bearers beholden to me, calling me master and fawning before my presence. Twilight shall be my concubine and bear me more children. I had thought of bringing Luna into my fold, but I’m afraid I have no knowledge of her whereabouts. It would appear in the process of slaying my son Tantibus, she and my youngest son were reduced to atoms.” His eye flickered to stare into the horrified mare’s field of vision, making sure she could see it. Through that terrible eye, he showed his contempt, his sadness, his insanity, and his rage. Celestia’s visage contorted in reopened wounds, but she fiercely blinked her hot tears away. She would not, could not give him the satisfaction! “You underestimate my sister, monster!” He laughed at her uproariously. “I hope so!” he cried unexpectedly as he withdrew from her. “If my little boy managed somehow to survive a pure ball of explosive magic, I would be pleased indeed. I may be a monster, but I’m still a father.” The stare he received was flat and unbelieving. “It’s true!” he insisted. “I am hard, but I am fair. I expect my children to grow, to learn how to survive. They must be ruthless and cunning. I want them all to surpass me, for isn’t that what all fathers want? To see their children surpass them?” Celestia narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re cruel.” “I am cruel,” he agreed with a shrug. “I am also kind. I allow you this,” Flamespyre said, sweeping a hoof grandly about her room. “I could have you sitting in a cold cell, fed bread and water. But I don’t want that. I want you to enjoy the last few weeks of your life. Your fate was sealed the moment we clashed fifteen years ago. I respect you, Celestia. I respect you far too much to allow you to live. However, I am kind. I will allow you to say goodbye to your ponies. I want them to see you in your glory one last time before I take your life.” “You can stop this war,” Celestia blurted suddenly, her neck straining. “Please, spare my ponies. You have what you want. I do not care what happens to me, Flamespyre. I beg you!” He studied her for a moment, his expression unreadable. “No,” Flamespyre hissed after a waging a test of wills with Celestia. “There is one bastion remaining. Your niece, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza is the last of the Alicorns. She must be brought to heel.” “Let her be!” shouted Celestia, her anger boiling. “She can do nothing to you!” “Physically and magically, no she cannot,” he admitted. “She’s a symbol, Celestia. She’s a dangerous symbol. Her little empire is protected by the eternal blizzard. How ironic a product of evil is a barrier defending a bastion of love.” “Please don’t do this.” “I am sorry, Celestia. I won’t stop my work for the sake of any Alicorn. Your kind are dangerous.” He inclined his head towards her, half apologetic and half mocking. “This was a pleasant little chat, my dear. I shall leave you to exercising your legs. I should like to see you standing when you meet your fate.” With that, he turned with a flourish, flaring his wings out as he headed for the door. Celestia stared after him, seething. “Ah, one more thing,” he chirped as he peered over his shoulder at her, “If your sister is still alive, my children are waiting for her. We’ll bring you the body. What say you?” Grinning madly, he slid through the door, an evil chuckle following his wake. “And what of your son?” Celestia called after him. The door slammed shut without an answer. The force in which it closed left Celestia wondering. There was a great deal of rage in Flamespyre concerning Silent Wing. The very air crackled even with the monster gone. She suddenly found herself smiling. “Interesting. You don’t know, do you?” Celestia whispered. Queen Chrysalis seethed in the darkness. Bits of light reflected here and there, hinting a fraction of the expansive caves beneath Canterlot. She sat, alone and in the middle of this darkness, completely cut off from all contact. She seethed. She raged in silence, her heart and mind in turmoil. She worried for her children, her changelings. Despite being still young young for a queen, she had always felt a loyalty to her subjects. The loyalty became a dagger in her back as her nobles first began to undermine her. First it began with the folly at Canterlot, which nearly backfired. Thinking back to the years before Canterlot, Chrysalis came to realize a dark truth. Draccaria had been undermining her kingdom’s stability for a long time. Five of the greatest houses had schemed with her and worked to whittle away the queen’s power on the throne while an accursed magic foiled the thoughts of Chrysalis from her responsibilities. Members of her staff came from the houses of those matriarchs and they kept her from uncovering the truth. Such an elaborate hoax ensured her power base crumbled until her throne was nothing more than a gilded cage. The only reason she was never targeted for assassination was due to the unwavering and even fanatical love and devotion the common changeling had for his or her queen. Queen Chrysalis was the everyling’s queen. Even when her staff and Royal Guards found ways to keep her in her castle, she was loved beyond the gates of her capitol. It was all gone now. Sitting in the darkness beneath the very castle she once tried to take, Chrysalis felt very, very alone. “I’ll kill her,” she hissed at the nothingness around her. “I’ll kill that rotten bitch.” Her eyes glowed sickly green before fading to faint slitted orbs. “Enjoying your new accommodations?” asked a disembodied voice in the darkness. Snarling, Chrysalis rose to her hooves, her wings buzzing madly and stirring the air around her. Her mane caught up in the draft created by their rapid, circular motions, billowing up around her head and neck. Her harlequin eyes flared with frightful purpose as she spun to face the direction the voice came from. “Who dares?” she cried. The inhibitor ring at the base of her horn crackled, causing her magic to sputter from the tip of her horn uselessly. Flamespyre appeared beneath a fae ball of light that suddenly burst to life. Chrysalis shied from the brightness, hissing as the air about her died away. As her mane cascaded about her eyes, she squinted at the grinning black Alicorn. “Give me back my daughter, Flamespyre,” the queen demanded. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” replied the dragon-turned-Alicorn amiably. “I need the Crown Princess as a pawn for a game I’m holding on the other side of the world. If she survives the ordeal, I doubt you’ll be in the forefront of her mind.” Furious, Chrysalis shook her mane from her eyes and charged at the Dragonking. “You slew your own son, a half-wit! One you made to be so!” She lowered her horn as if to gore Flamespyre and fully intended to do just that. That damned eye flared and held her in place, bringing her hooves skidding over the rough stone floor. The chitinous mare hissed again, frustrated as the tip of her horn served to bury just into the furred chest of the Dragonking. A hoof turned, its edge catching her chin and gently lifting her until she was looking up like an adoring lover. “Ah, yes. Scarheart. His part in the game ended. He really was just one half one one whole, so I actually did him a favor. Besides, having a scrambled brain makes it difficult to realize how disastrous life really is.” His nostrils flared, inhaling the queen’s fragrance as though she were a fine wine. “I hate you,” Chrysalis spat at him through a trembling throat. “I felt everything there was to him before you took his life. He was your son!” “He was a broken tool, my dear,” he reminded her. Flamespyre leaned in and Chrysalis found she had no will to pull away from his presence. How he turned her stomach! “As are you. If you had done what you had been told fifteen years ago, none of this would have been necessary. You would still have your throne—as my puppet, of course. You would have your blood an inheritance of a part of a greater plan. I would not have to worry about my greatest failure and Luna would already be in my grasp.” Chrysalis wanted to kill him. Her body would not move. All she could do was moan her hatred at him as hot tears began to spill down her cheeks. Caressing her cheek tenderly, he gently turned her to face him head-on. “Alas, I suppose it would be wrong of me to blame it all on you. After all, I had no idea his mother would have a lingering bit of her magic within that little amber prison I put him in so long ago. When he awakened, her magic fell upon you and compelled you to protect him as though he was your own. It broke my spell and you heard a voice from the past speak within your mind. Then again, Dalesong was always a devious little minx.” Flamespyre darted in with his tongue and followed her tears to one of the sources. The eye closed shut and the changeling shuddered in revulsion. “He won’t be the one to end me, my dear Queen Chrysalis,” he went on, taking a step back from her and regarding her as one might examine an exquisite piece of art. “No, my flesh and blood and your adopted son will not be the one to finally end my torment that is life. I have been shown my death. I have seen it as it will come to be. I work towards my legacy and who will take up my shadow.” Chrysalis tried to breath normally. It was very hard to do so. That baleful eye of the dragon tyrant leered at her. Her wings buzzed weakly. “As for Scarheart, he was a weak link no matter how I tried to correct him.” “A weak link?” Chrysalis found her voice with renewed rage. “How can you discard a child so?” Flamespyre sneered, “Why don’t you ask the same question of those so-called matriarchs and their houses? Do you not think their behavior not enough to chastise them? Is not the pool of adopted children at your hooves grown? Have you only realized thousands of years of nothing changing, changeling? Are you not aware the regards of the poor value of life among your own kind, Chrysalis? Who do you think awakened such a notion within that black heart of yours? Who do you think has altered your own daughter to think like a pony?” “Changelings need to change,” she said reluctantly. “If we cannot progress, then we will be left behind in the world.” “Even if they’re helping me win this world?” suggested Flamespyre wryly. “Why fix what is not broken?” Chrysalis shook her head. “Changelings must adapt. They must learn to evolve. There is more to us than being emotional vampires.” “Ah,” the false Alicorn chortled, “but why change? You already have done splendidly as a race. I could never have dreamed you would mostly be ready to do my bidding without hesitation.” “We should have always been a part of this world, not against it.” “I made the first queens,” said Flamespyre. “They obeyed me. Changelings are tools, nothing more. They are a means to an end, nothing less. They are the chains through which I shall enslave all the races and it is from them I shall have the fears of the world at the tips of my claws. You are the most powerful queen to ever live since the days of old, Chrysalis, my dear. You would have made a fine empress.” He glowered at her in profound disappointment. “ Alas, you made your choice. This sentence is but the beginning of the rest of your life suffering for your failure to understand where your allegiance should have been without question!” He was suddenly behind her, causing Chrysalis to jump with a start when he hissed into her other ear, “But you aren’t concerned about that, are you? You demanded your daughter. I have decided you will no longer be her mother. Difficult to be one with her being told you are dead. You might as well be dead, considering you’re in the very caves you placed Princess Mi Amore Cadenza some years ago. You know the poor dear has yet to foal since her marriage? Poor thing. I should pay her a visit and offer my sympathies. Perhaps she has yet to find the right stallion? What ever did you do to that husband of hers? Did you make him impotent, Chrysalis? No matter. As I was saying, your daughter won’t have you on her mind. I’ve allowed Tappis and Tappaz to use a spell I have taught them to make Atalanta forget all about you as her mother and think of them as her mothers.” The Queen’s face fell as he spoke, finding his smug look enraging, his voice maddening. As he explained her daughter’s life away to those two… hags, Chrysalis’ contorted with rage. As it billowed up within her, the hold Flamespyre held over her cracked. He flinched from her, his eye lifting up and down her quivering body. “Oh my!” he breathed with a small smile. Words dribbled from her fanged mouth beneath the disguise of a hiss. Flamespyre tilted his head to one side. “Say again?” he asked in amusement. “Kill you….” “Would you mind repeating that?” The Dragonking brought a hoof to an ear and cocked it towards her. She lifted her head, her eyes ablaze with emerald fury. Her fangs gleamed wickedly in the light of the glow the faux Alicorn supplied. Struggling against his mental hold over her, Chrysalis allowed her anger to take hold. “I’ll kill you!” “Kill me?” Flamespyre shook his head and laughed. “No, ‘tis not your crooked horn that will pierce my heart, my lovely dear.” Oh, yes, she would love nothing more than to do just that! A crack appeared in her inhibitor. With a strangled cry, she lunged at him again, straining with her battered body against his mental bonds upon her. Her vision had blurred, focusing only on his smug expression, the crimson eye mocking her openly. Wings tore at the air mercilessly, their droning sounds growing until it revved like one of the giant engines of a passenger airship. The queen strained to get at Flamespyre, her eyes filled with nothing but pure hate. There was a snap somewhere within as if something gave way. A leg lurched forward. It was followed by another. Sweat beaded and was soon flowing down her chitin. “I’ll kill you,” she swore through her clenched fangs. “I will have your eyeball in a chain around my neck. I’ll use your own intestines to strangle you.” Her magic tried to flare up. She found she was not inhibited down here. With a surging hope, she summoned forth from deep within her reserves as much power as she could. There could only be one possible target. “You would destroy all of Canterlot just to hurl a spell of pure hatred upon me?” Flamespyre asked her, bemused. “I’m touched.” She snarled, forcing herself into another step towards her antagonist. There was another popping sound in the back of her mind. More importantly, there was a sudden pop at the base of her horn. The inhibitor fell away in two pieces. Her magic continued to grow and focus on the tip of her horn. A hind leg kicked, slammed into the floor and drove her forward. Flamespyre narrowed his eye. “No, you’re not doing that, are you? You’re using your magic to augment your muscles, aren’t you? I can hold your body, but your magic is your way around it, isn’t it?” He flared his wings out, presenting himself to her. “Come, then, Chrysalis! I release you!” She exploded forward, her body suddenly encased in an aura of her magic. Her horn crossed with his. They were eye-to-eye, their magic intersecting with each other in a crackling battle of visual wills. The walls of the cavern reverberated. Debris fell around the two dark forms; one flared his wings while the other buzzed madly. They pushed against each other, their back legs straining as they began a macabre dance of death. She snorted and spat at him. Flamespyre grinned at her, though sweat began to form in his fur. Chrysalis was indeed powerful when fueled by rage. Nor was she thinking clearly. “Are we to dance then, the dance of the dead?” crooned the Dragonking. “Oh, you have no idea how much pleasure I find basking in your fury, Queen Chrysalis! It’s heavenly.” He shoved her back with a toss of his neck. “You would have made a fine bride.” “Bride?” she sputtered, her eyes going wide for a moment. “Yours? Never!” “There’s always room for another, my dear. What say you? I’ll return your daughter to you. Raise her as you please. All you have to do is produce children for me. I would be a fool to let genes like yours go to waste.” If there was one thing Chrysalis took notice in about Flamespyre was the instability in his choices. His mind changed like a pendulum, never settling on anything for very long. It was very chaotic. Flamespyre’s only obsession lay within something so ancient and ingrained in his mind, it could only have served to destabilize the madness of his intelligence. There could only ever be one answer for him. “Never. I’ll die first!” “I suppose dangling your daughter’s life would serve no purpose,” he observed as she charged at him again. Instead of meeting her attack, he reared and kicked with a forehoof, knocking the tip of her horn roughly. Chrysalis cried and fell in a heap. Her hooves went to her horn as it had winked out from the rude interruption. Tears rolled down her cheeks again, this time from the throbbing pain. “Ah, my dear,” Flamespyre said over her, “if only you would not let your anger cloud your judgement, you might actually be a threat to me. As it is, that inhibitor was a poor substitute to contain your power.” Something was placed over her horn and snapped into place, somehow sliding over the irregular angles in her crooked horn. “This is something of a modification to my Oblivion Sphere,” he lectured. “Designed for powerful adversaries such as yourself. It should keep you from getting into too much mischief. Does it feel comfortable?” She did not respond. “Rude to the end. Pity. At least Celestia remembers her rank and has the soul of a diplomat. You, on the other hand, are a barbarian, Chrysalis. Still, after a few years, we’ll see how much you’ll change. You’ll be fed and given something to keep you warm in the cold caves down here. I’ll send your regards to you daughter. I’m sure she’ll have forgotten all about you by then. Ta!” Flamesypre was gone. Chrysalis stared into the sudden darkness, her rage having fled her. Instead she was filled with a profound sense of loss. All of her emotions welled up within and spilled out in the form of a great sob. Her keening wail of anguish echoed around her ears and she didn’t care.