Fluttershy watched Trixie's head fall, as if in slow motion, to the red carpeted floor. She could see the exact moment that the unicorn's life winked out of her eyes, just before her face contacted the soft scarlet fibers. The shade of the royal carpet complimented the puddle that spread from the stump of Trixie's neck as her body slumped to the floor. Fluttershy's breath came in panicked gasps. What was going on? Why would the guards just kill her like that? Was it because she was wearing the Alicorn Amulet? She had mentioned that the artifact had been responsible for enhancing her abilities to the highest level a unicorn could obtain, but did that really make her enough of a threat to warrant such swift and blood chilling execution?
Princess Celestia threw back her head and laughed. The sound reminded Fluttershy of the buzzing of frying locusts on a hot summer day. Before her eyes the Princess burst into green flames. All around her the guards became engulfed in fires of the same verdant hue. In mere moments, bodies as black and shiny as an oil slick emerged from the boiling flames. Each bore a twisted horn upon their forehead and a set of buzzing wings beneath a chitinous shell. Where their bodies weren't shiny black they were the blues and greens of beetles. Their faceted eyes and sharp fangs completed the insectile look. The most bizarre feature had to be their legs, each one studded with holes that Fluttershy could see all the way through. Though this might've meant these creatures were fragile, they instead radiated a menacing, bestial strength that made Fluttershy want to sink into the floor. Pity it was already slick with Trixie's blood.
Celestia, or rather the monster that had been pretending to be her, towered over the other insectile ponies with a long flowing gossamer mane in the same sickly blue-green beetle hues. A tiny black crown perched on the top of her head. "Did you see the look on her face when she finally realized?" she giggled. "Oh I almost regret having to have her killed. But no power in this land can be allowed to threaten mine. Even that of this little trinket of hers." Said the monster as she kicked the pendant that was still attached to Trixie's throat. "Ooh, I'm the Great and Powerful Trixie, look at me! There's a terrible curse and an evil candy pony!" The monster mocked to her minions chittering laughter. "Hah...Celestia should thank me for eliminating this one. With a wild story like that she was clearly a fraud!"
"How could you?" whispered Fluttershy. "What are you?"
"Oh, as if knowing that would do you any good, Fluttershy," she sneered. "Your Princess is our prisoner. Your royal guard, decimated! This city is under our complete control! All that remains is the seizure or elimination of your greatest weapons. Such as the Elements of Harmony. Tell me, where are the other bearers? My Changeling's and I will not suffer their threat in our new Queendom."
"Changelings? Is that what you all are." Fluttershy remembered something about them from a bestiary that included rare and mythical animals of Equestria she had once borrowed from Twilight Sparkle. "I thought Changeling's just fed on love."
That made the gangly monster laugh again, her dripping fangs inches from Fluttershy's face. "Indeed! And as Queen of the Changelings, it is my responsibility to seek out food for my subjects. Canterlot will make the ideal site for a new hive. The love you ponies feel for one another is possibly the most potent I've come across. Once my minions have taken their fill, we'll be an unstoppable force the likes of which Equestria has never seen! My brood will spread across the face of Equestria, draining all the love and kindness from you pitiful ponies. Then I, Queen Chrysalis, shall expand my rule across this world!" she cried throatily, an aura of green power flashing from her crooked, misshapen horn. She narrowed her glowing eyes on Fluttershy. "But a Queen mustn't act rashly. We've waited years for this moment. That nuisance Shining Armor pushed me away in my guise of his fiancé. Had we been wed on schedule we would already have taken Canterlot. Unfortunately his sister had to go and disappear, and even my powers of suggestion couldn't force him to go ahead with our matrimony without her to be his "Best Mare". But I am nothing if not patient. Siphoning off what remained of his love, all I had to do was bide my time until his duty called him away from the palace. Now, even should he return, his vaunted protective spells will be no match for our power!"
"What did you do with his real fiancé?" asked Fluttershy, her eyes wide with horror.
"Oh, I'm sure she still somewhere underfoot," giggled Queen Chrysalis. "Not that knowing her fate will help you or her white knight betrothed."
"He's dead…” whispered Fluttershy, staring at the thick muscles in the stump of Trixie's slender neck. She felt something shifting inside her and, for once, she didn't resist. "Rainbow Dash was supposed t-to tell his fiancé that he regretted postponing the wedding."
"What? Really? Haha, even better! With the capture of Princess Celestia and the enslavement of her subjects, our conquest is complete. Now little pegasus, tell your Queen where the other wielders of the Elements of Harmony are! I know well that they have been missing for some time now, but with your reappearance, I have to assume that the other bearers still live as well. Tell me of them, Fluttershy, and I might be lenient with you. Perhaps I can pair you with one of my minions who is more skilled at mimicry than the others. Would you like to have your love drained by a lost loved one? A friend, maybe? A lover? A fantasy? Talk and your demise need not be so onerous. You might even find the experience pleasurable," crooned the Queen sensuously.
"My friends are all dead except for Rainbow Dash. Well, mostly dead anyways." said Fluttershy, her eyes remaining locked on Trixie's corpse. She had to choose her words carefully as she felt blood start to trickle from between her teeth. It was getting harder and harder to focus on what was being said. The room was starting to go dark around the edges of her vision. "I doubt we could wield the Elements as we are now, anyways."
"Then there truly is no threat to the hive! Go my subjects, feed as you see fit!" she said to the Changeling guards whom had been surrounding Fluttershy. As they flew off, Chrysalis turned to her and grinned. "I'm sorry to say that you should've held out a little longer. There's no reason to waste one of my more powerful minions on you now. I think the caverns beneath this palace are a more appropriate destination for you. You can keep Princes Mi Amori Cadenza's corpse company! It took her a long time to starve to death. I wonder how long you'll last? How does being buried alive sound?"
"Funny," said Fluttershy through a mouthful of bloody gristle, "I've felt like I was dead for a long time now." As the Queen had been ranting, Fluttershy had buried her face in the gory stump of Trixie's throat. She chewed a thick wad of muscle between her teeth, each rainbow colored fang cutting easily through the flesh as her tongue slurped up the blood that dribbled down her chin. She moved in for another bite, her long tongue darting down the corpses exposed esophagus. A burning crimson light had entered Fluttershy's normally gentle eyes. Apparently some residual magic from the Alicorn Amulet remained in Trixie's body, transferred now into the yellow pegasus. As Fluttershy smiled a wide sharp grin that popped and split her cheeks, all the extra teeth jutting out at odd angles, Queen Chrysalis took an instinctive step back. Fluttershy found this incredibly amusing. Not but a moment ago the Changelings were looking down on ponies as nothing but food. As she looked at their Queen now, she didn't see a monster, but an afternoon snack. The only consolation to the last fading bit of her former self was that at least she wouldn't be eating somepony who didn't deserve it. Not yet anyways.
Flames burst and swept through the castle halls. Entering the candy coated castle hadn't been the hard part. There had been no guards, gates, or any kind of moat to speak of. The hard part had been keeping it together as faces leered at them from the walls and hooves reached out to grab them. Big Mac used a long handled tree pruning tool, which Dash thought looked a lot like a spear with scissors on the end, to lop off the offending appendages that would otherwise have barred their path. Zecora and Rainbow Dash would then sweep them with burning liquid from the tanks strapped to their backs. They all wore masks across their noses and mouths to block out the fumes, but even so the scent of cooking flesh and burnt sugar was thick in the air. Big Mac was careful to stand clear while they did this, which made Dash a little nervous about the contents of the barrels he was carrying. The kegs sloshed ominously with every step the stallion took.
The going had been much easier than Rainbow Dash had expected, even with the bizarre living architecture and grasping hooves. Here and there they even ran across remnants of the old ruins that hadn't been candy coated, dusty tapestry's and crumbling masonry thick with dust in the perpetual gloom. Oddly it was in those moments that Dash felt the most apprehension. When you were surrounded by enemies at least you knew where they were. Indeed, much of the melted mish-mash of candy ponies seemed to be on the exterior walls, forming a protective shell around the otherwise unchanged interior. The sounds of laughing, singing, and crying ponies faded the further that the trio ventured into the dark. An unsettling fog grew thicker as they ventured down a set of old stairs, flame throwers at the ready for anything that might suddenly appear from the obscuring mist. But nothing came. Empty suits of armor, extinguished wall sconces, and silence were all that surrounded them now.
"Ah've gotta bad feelin' about this y'all," whispered Big Macintosh, coming up the rear with his bypass pruner at the ready.
"You just had to say that, didn't you Big Mac? It's not like apprehension is something we lack." said Zecora, her cloak whirling as she turned to make sure an alcove they passed was unoccupied.
"Hey, you started rhyming again," Rainbow Dash observed. "Does that mean your oath or whatever is back on?"
"That was just a momentary lapse," said Zecora. "Old habits die hard."
"That's not all that has a hard time dying in this place," said Rainbow Dash with a shiver. "I swear I saw some of those limbs we charred back there still trying to wriggle after us. Even if we take care of the Candy Mare and make it out of here alive, I think my dreams won't be improving anytime soon after seeing that."
"But we ain't really bumped into anythin' we couldn't handle. Them mindless ones in the walls still gotta be actin' like the Candy Mare's eyes an' ears. So where is she?" queried Big Mac, asking the question that Rainbow Dash had been struggling with since they got inside. "Ah know Zecora's potions are potent, but that monster ain't noponies fool. She's bound to have noticed us burning bits of her subjects at least. So what, does she not see us as any kinda threat? Is she just asleep? Or does she know we're comin' and this is all just some kinda trap?"
"Let us hope for the moment that this is not a trap Big Macintosh," said Zecora, heading down another flight of stairs. "Though it does pay to be cautious. Just remember the Candy Mare isn't our only target in here...and the walls literally have ears. We were supposed to remain as silent as possible in these halls, remember?"
"I guess so Zecora, but we seem to be alone right now. I'm even starting to miss those freaky things singing 'Nightmare Night, what a fright" at us," said Rainbow Dash, adjusting the straps for the tank on her back. "It's way too quiet," just as she said this, her pilot light snuffed out at the end of her flame baton. Zecora's followed swiftly after hers. Dash could've sworn that she had seen the fog itself reach out to extinguish the flame between two tiny wisps. They tried to reignite their weapons with a bit of flint and tender, but the flames stubbornly refused to light. They were left with nothing but the soft green radiance of the glow sticks that hung from around their necks. A sigh of stale air, putrid and weighted with the passage of long epochs, gusted up from below as a pair of massive doors slowly creaked open at the end of the long hall. The scent that swept forth from within threatened to overwhelm them, the wet earthy stench of rotting pumpkin mixed with the acrid reek of decomposing flesh assaulted their nostrils, making them cough and gag. A fitful light rose from the doorway, causing the fog to come to life with dancing shadows. Zecora and Big Mac backed away, but Rainbow Dash stood her ground. There was something inside that was calling to her. No, somepony was calling to her. A voice she heard every night drifted on the stale air, but she hadn't heard it while awake in a long, long time.
"Help me..." the voice whispered, just at the edge of Dash's hearing. Trap or not, Zecora was right, it was time she dealt with her tormentor once and for all. Without hesitation, the rainbow maned pony bounded over the threshold. What waited inside made her eyes almost bulge out of their sockets. It was a pile, like unto a mountain from her point of view, of pumpkin shells rising up so that they actually extended through a massive hole in the ceiling. Faces, some mad, some crying, flickered at her from the carved orange rinds. At the top of the pile she could just make out what appeared to be a pair of elaborate thrones jutting up from the pumpkins at odd angles. She realized that the cavern she was in must be directly below the throne room, the floor above having crumbled away. If this was by accident or the Candy Mare's design it was difficult to tell. That's not what arrested Dash's attention though.
The thrones were occupied.
High above her sat a creature she hadn't yet laid eyes on before this moment, yet she recognized her instantly. Her body was a chaotic candy collection of cacophonous colors clashing with one another, draped by a long red liquorice whip mane and tail. Eyes that were a kaleidoscopic swirl of madness and malice gazed malignantly upon her. As arresting as this grinning ghoul's gaze was, it was the pony who was in the other throne that drew Rainbow Dash's eyes. "Luna..." she whispered brokenly. The Princess of the Night seemed to have fused with the throne she had ruled from long ago, thick spools of what looked to be black liquorice bound around her limbs. No, rather the dark candy seemed to be growing from inside her, writhing in and out of her flesh in a steady, pulsing rhythm as it wrapped around the throne and spread into the dark vaulted ceiling above. Her skin hung loosely over her emaciated frame, save for over her stomach which was horribly distended. Whatever was inside her appeared to stretch and wriggle inside her guts, distorting the already taught flesh. Dried blood and mucus slathered Luna from her chin down between her legs and over her swollen gut, the thick black ichor long since dried into a grotesque crust. More of the thick, sticky mess seemed to have sealed over Luna's eyes and her mouth, leaving only her nostrils free, though this did nothing to hide the tears that steadily dripped down her face. Both her mane and her wings drooped limp and dull, but her horn still glowed gently, a bright beacon against her broken crown.
"Celestia never suspected the immense power her little sister possessed," spoke the Candy Mare, as she reached out one shapeless hoof to stroke the side of Luna's face. "Of course, I didn't realize it either until she trapped me both day and night in waking nightmares. I was banished into the earth, while only a few hundred years later she was banished to the moon." A wistfulness crept into the monsters words as the chorus of voices faded one by one to a single, harsh childlike whisper. "It's almost ironic, but only if you didn't have a grasp of just how much terrifying power she possessed. Compared to her, I was just a weak filly crying in the dark."
"A twisted and sick creature skulking through shadows more like!" cried Zecora from behind Rainbow Dash, Big Mac beside her. "What have you done to the Princess, foul one?"
That brought a fiendish candy corn grin to the Candy Mare's twisted visage, the chorus of voices erupting from her throat once more as she replied, "So the forest witch finally leaves her cottage!? I was beginning to worry I wouldn't get the chance to meet you before Nightmare Night." This caused the Candy Mare to giggle, little mouths opening and closing all over her body to join her in her amusement. She reached again for Luna, smoothing down her captives lifeless mane. "Don't worry about your precious Princess. I've gone to great lengths in the name of her care. Do you hear her complaining? Does she struggle against her bonds? Don't you see how her belly has swollen from all that I've fed her during her time in my company?"
"You stinking monster! Ya've force fed her yer cursed candy!" accused Big Mac through clenched teeth.
"Oh no, no! Not just any 'cursed candy'," said the Candy Mare, stripping away the black mess around Luna's mouth with a tear jerking rip. The Mare of the Moon's lips had apparently long ago been removed by similar gestures, her rotted teeth and blackened gums lay exposed beneath. She drew in a ragged breath, as though she were about to scream. She never got the chance. To the trio's horror, they watched as the Candy Mare forced her foreleg between the gaps in Luna's teeth. The sound of the alicorn gagging was only marginally as sickening as the sound of her trying to chew and swallow down the sticky filth coated limb. "I've been feeding her a little bit of myself. It keeps her calm, docile, and completely under my control! Oh she still tries to resist from time to time, but it's made siphoning off her power so much easier. Tell me, forest witch, do you understand what that means?"
"I do!" yelled Rainbow Dash with an angry retort, before Zecora could answer. "Your planning to use her power so you can make Equestria one big twenty four hour feed bag for you and your monsters!"
"But there's something I don't understand," said the zebra, genuinely perplexed. "If you've had Luna at your mercy all along, why wait to use her power? Why wait a full year to try to spread your curse over this world when you could bring night eternal at your whim?"
The Candy Mare laughed anew, her eyes rolling in their sockets as she withdrew her limb from Luna's jaws and gave the sticky hoof a lick with a long striped tongue. "Do you really think I'm only interested in this world?"