Chapter Six: Rainbow Dash
Rainbow Dash was beat. Most of her morning was dedicated to clearing the sky of clouds, allowing for one of the sunniest days Ponyville had seen all year. As nice as that was, it left her without anything she could use as an obstacle course for stunt practice, so most of her flight was through the open air. Not that that was dull in and of itself, flight could never be boring, but she had been in the mood for an obstacle course on a day when the forecast called for clear skies.
This did not dampen her mood, however, because of what awaited her when she arrived home. She’d recently picked up the latest installment of the Daring Do book series, and she was eager to sit down and read it. Yeah, she’d heard rumors about there being aliens in it and it killing the franchise and blah blah blah, but it was still Daring Do. There was no way it couldn’t be awesome, and there was no way she wasn’t still going to read it.
Excited about the promise of another thrilling adventure with her favorite treasure hunter, and mostly drained from her aerial acrobatics, she landed at the foot of the doorway of her expansive cloud home. When she opened it, she realized that what was waiting for her inside wasn’t the new book, but a very disheveled-looking lavender unicorn. “Finally! I’ve been here for hours!”
“Twilight!?” Rainbow shouted. “What are you doing in my house? How did you even get up here?”
“Easy!” Twilight replied, in a tone that seriously creeped Rainbow out. “I just used the cloud-walking spell from when we all went to Cloudsdale, then I teleported into your living room! It was foal’s play, really.”
“O...kay? But that doesn’t tell me why you’re here.”
“Because I desperately need your help!” Twilight exclaimed. “Equestria’s in serious danger, and I can’t trust anypony else but you!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rainbow stated. She was used to Twilight using a vocabulary that she hardly understood, but at least there were always plenty of context clues to let her know what she was saying. But this... she understood every word she said, but none of them made sense.
“The changeling queen!” Twilight explained. “That thing is in my library right now, and I’m positive that it’s trying to ruin my life more than it already did at the wedding! It’s making all of our friends help her, and you’re the only one left that hasn’t fallen for it!”
Alright, that did sound serious. But just looking at Twilight, with her normally-straight mane and tail poking out and bending in every direction but straight, made Rainbow skeptical. There was also the matter of Twilight breaking into her home while she was away, something that, as a unicorn, was impossible for her to do accidentally. Plus, she had a hard time believing that the changelings would come back to Equestria after the serious thrashing they got in Canterlot, and she absolutely refused to believe that any of her friends would listen to anything a changeling told them, let alone help one destroy Equestria.
At the same time, though... she’d noticed a trend of bad things happening whenever she and her friends failed to take Twilight’s concerns seriously. Granted, there was that whole time travel thing that she heard amounted to nothing, but she ended up being right about Princess Cadance not acting like herself. And that was even ignoring that one time when them not taking her seriously turned her into the problem. She really didn’t want to have to relive that whole thing, and she could tell with one glance at Twilight that she was one false step away from doing just that. Whether or not Twilight was actually right about the changeling queen, she knew better than to just not help her.
“Well, what do you want me to do about it? Whatever it is?”
“It’s simple,” Twilight answered. “We need to get to the library and take this thing down.”
As small as it was compared to her usual brand, Pinkie Pie’s party was nearly in full swing. There was only one pony on the guest list who had yet to appear, and much to Pinkie’s very vocal dismay, it was the one whose appearance mattered the most and whose home and bedroom it was currently being held in.
But Chrysalis couldn’t bring herself to care at the moment. She was surprising herself with how much enjoyment she derived from activities she would have seen fit for a five-year-old’s birthday party. She didn’t much care for “pin the tail on the pony,” however. It left her helpless and reliant on the ponies around her for guidance, which paralleled her situation much too closely for her comfort. But the music, the other games, the company of others who inexplicably cared about her... it made her feel legitimately happy for the first time since the wedding.
“Pinkie Pie, I cannot thank you enough,” Chrysalis stated after a pleasantly successful run at apple-bobbing. “With all that has happened recently... I needed my spirits lifted.”
“That’s what I’m here for!” Pinkie replied. “Nothing makes me happier than making ponies happy! Even if those ponies aren’t actually ponies. I’d do the same for any donkey, griffon, or changeling that came to town and needed to be cheered up! And I’m so glad it’s working, even though we don’t have everypony here that needs to lighten up!”
“She’ll come,” Spike reassured her. “It’s her house. She kind of has to.”
“I’m worried about her,” Fluttershy stated. “If she really ran off like that, this must be bothering her more than we thought. I’d hoped she would learn to get along with Chrysalis by now, but... it sounds worse than ever. What would she even do if she came?”
“I imagine it would be violent,” Rarity responded. “Her initial reaction to her presence... well, I need not explain, as you can still see the result. If she has unhinged further, I would not doubt she would attempt to finish what she started.”
“She wouldn’t!” Pinkie shouted. “I know she’s not like that! She’d never kill anypony!”
“But as you yourself have seen,” Chrysalis countered, “she does not view me as a pony.”
"Ah don't blame her for that," Applejack remarked, earning the shocked glances of her fellow party-goers. "What? She ain't technically a pony!"
"That was still very insensitive of you!" Fluttershy scolded. "She still has feelings! You could have just hurt them!"
"I'm assuming she meant nothing by it," Chrysalis assured her. "This is meant to be a time of joy, so I choose to be optimistic."
"You mean like about all the other changelings?" Pinkie interjected, apparently ignoring the previous point about insensitive comments.
"Yes, actually," Chrysalis answered. And it was true; perhaps it was just the good mood she had been put in, but her hope for her race's future felt reinvigorated. The whole party thing was giving her the feeling that everything just might yet turn out alright.
Then she saw a blue blur crash through the window, multicolored trail behind it, and charge right towards her.
Rainbow Dash saw the changeling queen through the library window. She didn't know what scared her more (not that she would admit to either): the fact that she was in there with all her other friends, or the fact that this meant that Twilight could be right about everything.
At any rate, this meant she needed to stick to the plan. The only thing she was asked to do was to burst in and tackle the queen, then try to get her friends out of there. It was odd, being asked to crash into the library this time, but it was obvious that it was going to be for the good of Equestria.
And she would get her friends out of there. It would kill her to leave them under changeling control.
One crash and tackle later, Rainbow loomed over the changeling, who was now being pinned to the ground. She turned to her friends, ready to tell them to get out of—
"Hi, Dashie! I'm so happy you finally showed up!"
"You invited Rainbow Dash!?" the changeling shouted. Rainbow looked down at her, and she looked... just as confused as she was starting to become.
"Not yet, but I was getting ready to go out and get her," Pinkie replied. "I couldn't leave her out! I wasn’t gonna tell her what it was for—"
"But she still did not know I was here!" the changeling yelled. "You have no idea how she will take this! You could have jeopardized everything!"
"Okay, everypony just stop for a second," Rainbow interrupted. She suddenly took better notice of her surroundings. The room was decked out with balloons and streamers, and there was a banner hanging from the ceiling that read "WELCOME TO PONYVILLE CHRYSALIS." She saw apple bobbing and pin the tail on the pony, and an assortment of drinks and sweets.
This wasn't an invasion. This was a party.
"What the heck is going on here?" she demanded. "And who's Chrysalis?"
"That would be me," the pinned monarch responded. "And would you mind releasing me? Your hind legs are digging into my chest wound, and I'm in a great amount of pain."
Rainbow looked down at her hooves, and sure enough, they were right on top of a section of the queen's body that was wrapped in gauze. She hesitantly released the changeling and climbed off of her, never taking her eyes off her. "There's definitely something going on here, and you're not off the hook until I find out what."
"It's a party that's going on!" Pinkie exclaimed. "I didn't think the balloons were that subtle!"
"It's nothing you're probably thinking it is," Fluttershy added. "Chrysalis actually came here in desperate need of help—"
"Help with what?" Rainbow spat. "Trying to take over Equestria again? And if you're not actually changelings yourselves, you're playing right into her hooves!"
"Given the circumstances, I doubt any of us could possibly be changelings," Rarity stated. "In fact, the reason she is here is to save the ones that are left."
Wait. She came to save something rather than take over? "I don't know. That's not what Twilight told me."
"Twilight's under a lot of stress right now," Applejack explained. "And rightly so. Chrysalis went way overboard in Canterlot, and a lot of what she did affected her."
"She's staying here to try to make it all up to her," Spike added. "She's actually been a pretty big help around here!"
Rainbow’s mind was trying to process several conflicting thoughts. What her friends were saying now didn’t come anywhere close to adding up with what Twilight had told her of the situation. Obviously, somepony was wrong, and she was having trouble figuring out who. If Twilight was right, and the changeling queen was really trying to take over, then she couldn’t trust what the rest of her friends were saying now. She could have brainwashed them all. Heck, they might even be changeling replacements themselves, and her real friends were somewhere far away.
But if they were right, and she was only here on some kind of rescue mission, then it was just another case of Twilight freaking out over a minor issue. She did look pretty messed-up when Rainbow encountered her, as if she wasn’t in her right mind. Plus, there was the whole matter of breaking and entering, which she was certain was a pretty un-Twilight thing to do. And Spike had said the queen had been staying in the library, which must have meant that she had been here for a while. If that was the case, then why would Twilight have waited so long to tell her about it?
Ultimately, Rainbow Dash just gave up trying to figure it all out and rested there on her haunches. “Well... Twilight’s probably going to show up soon. I’ll have to see what happens when she does before I decide whether or not I can believe anypony right now. But you, the changeling queen thing—”
“Please, call me Chrysalis,” the changeling insisted.
“Alright. Chrysalis, I guess. They’re saying you wanted to save something. It sounded like they meant the other changelings. What were they talking about?”
Chrysalis sighed. “I’m growing weary of telling this story. But, since you asked...”
Twilight sat outside the library, waiting eagerly by the front door. She saw Rainbow Dash burst in through her bedroom window, heard a thud as the giant bug hit the ground, but... nothing else. She thought she could make out voices, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying from the ground. All she knew that it was taking her an awful long time to grab the rest of her friends and get out of there. What was holding her up?
As if she needed to ask. That creature must have gotten to her too. It must have had more persuasive power than she first thought. And she, in her grand effort to rescue them all, only managed to make its plans complete. Rainbow had fallen, right alongside all the rest of her friends. All of them, her assistant included, in her home. Thanks to her attempts to bring it down, she ended up helping it take away everything in this town that she held dear.
Which obviously meant it was time to take it back.
Rainbow Dash sat there flabbergasted as Chrysalis finished her story. There was no denying that she was speaking the truth; the pain in her expression and the way her friends jumped in to comfort her as she spoke convinced her of that. It was heartbreaking to listen to, and had her pride not prevented it, she may even have wept with the queen. She wanted to reach to her as well, to tell her that she hoped she could get the help she needed soon...
...but before she could make a move, a flash of light disoriented her, and when she snapped out of it, she saw Twilight standing between her and Chrysalis, a look of mad determination plastered onto her face.
“You must feel so accomplished right now,” Twilight hissed, looking towards a very confused Chrysalis. “You’ve done it. You’ve suckered all of my friends into helping you with your little scheme. You’ve taken advantage of my hospitality and set up a base of operations in my own home. You probably think you’ve completely broken me down now that you took everything I love away from me, but—”
“Is that what you think I’ve been doing?” Chrysalis inquired, seemingly taking offense to the allegation.
“I know it is,” Twilight responded. “I’m wise to your tricks, changeling. Everything you’ve done up until now has been about me, hasn’t it? My brother, my teacher, my friends... it’s all centered around me! I have no idea why, but you’re clearly trying to target me and break my will. And when I think of that... all of a sudden, everything you’ve done makes sense.”
“Twilight, what in the wide world of Equestria are ya goin’ on about?” Applejack demanded.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Twilight replied, her eye twitching incessantly as she paced around the room. “It’s all mind games with that thing! It swapped places with Cadance and made me think she’d turned evil! It turned everypony against me when I called it out on it! Even Shining Armor and Princess Celestia! The invasion was just a distraction so I wouldn’t realize it was going for me the whole time! The fact that it’s here now, all of you standing around it... and you don’t even realize. It gained your trust, tried to gain mine, just so it could try to take it all away and turn you all against me again! How can you not see that!?”
“Because it’s nonsense!” Rarity answered. “She’s been on her best behavior ever since—”
“Why are you calling it ‘her?’” Twilight interrupted.
“Why are you calling her ‘it?’” Fluttershy countered. “Just because she’s a changeling doesn’t mean she’s not like us at all! She has feelings, emotions, things she loves and cares about—”
“And she likes parties!” Pinkie added out of nowhere. “Who can hate anypony that likes parties?”
“I—are you serious!?” Twilight spat. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing! It doesn’t care about anything but ruining my life! I don’t even think it cares about its oh-so-troubled subjects! They’re just its pawns, and it’s just antsy about losing so many of them. And I say good riddance to them.”
“That’s enough!” Chrysalis shouted, fresh tears streaming from her eyes. The pacing mare stopped dead in her tracks, and for a moment, all that could be heard were the changeling’s sobs.
“Twilight...” Spike said, resting a claw on Chrysalis’ shoulder. “I think you need to calm down and listen to yourself. You just said you don’t even know why she’d go after you, so what makes you think she’s going after you?”
“I-I... it... I thought...” Twilight stumbled over her words, unable to properly counter the young dragon’s point.
Rainbow Dash simply remained where she was and took the scene in. Well, she got what she wanted. She heard Chrysalis’ side of the story, and Twilight burst in to give hers. There was still so much she was failing to understand. She didn’t get why Chrysalis would ever come back to Equestria after what happened at the wedding, why she even thought it was the only place she could have gotten help. She barely got why she couldn’t just go to Princess Celestia to explain what was going on and had to go through Twilight. She really didn’t get how the thing that launched an all-out attack on the kingdom’s capital could have such a dramatic reversal of priorities.
But most of all, she had no idea why Twilight was acting the way she was. At least what Chrysalis had said could be believed; Twilight’s concerns sounded like overblown paranoia, like a crackpot conspiracy theory. It seemed like such a stretch to even link together all the events Twilight was claiming pointed right to her. It didn’t even sound like a finished theory, since she lacked any motive or end goal for the plan she dreamed up. The more she heard, the less she was convinced that her friend was acting with any rational thought.
“...you disgust me,” Twilight finally announced. “The changeling in particular, but I mean all of you. You’re all so willingly playing this creature’s game. I can tell you’re doing it of your own accord, and that just makes me sick. You’re all complete disgraces to the Elements of Harmony. I almost can’t even believe we’re friends!”
That was the last straw. Rainbow launched off of the floor and hovered in front of Twilight’s face. “How can you say something like that!? When have we not been the best of friends to you? We never did anything to hurt you, and we never would! How does that mean we’re putting our Elements to shame!?”
“Fluttershy. She’s supposed to be the Element of Kindness, but she’s actively and knowingly helping with this thing’s plot to destroy everything good in my life!”
“B-but...” Fluttershy began, tears flowing freely. “I’m not doing anything to hurt you! I’m just t-trying to comfort Chrysalis and help her through a tough time in her life! W-why would I ever be unkind to you?”
“Well... what about Rarity?” Twilight responded.
“Generosity has little to do with the situation,” Rarity stated. “If it is being employed at all, it is through my using my time to aid Chrysalis. I had to put off a rather important commission to attend this soiree, which I deemed far more important. And I am appalled that you would accuse me of such wrongdoing!”
“P...Pinkie Pie?”
“I just wanted to see her smile and laugh,” Pinkie spat, grimacing as her mane went straight and her coat’s colors dulled. “That’s all I ever want out of anypony. I threw this party for her so I could do that. And I meant it to be for you too, but you came in and ruined it instead!”
“But... surely Applejack was—”
“Goin’ for th’ honesty thing now?” Applejack retorted. “Ah heard what she had t’say, and she was tellin’ the truth about her subjects. Ah can tell when somepony’s lyin’, and she ain’t. But you... Ah don’t even think you’re convinced anything ya said was true at all. Looks to me like you’re makin’ up excuses to keep yer feelings for Chrysalis the same, and now you’re takin’ it out on yer friends.”
“Rainbow Dash...” Twilight looked to the cyan pegasus, pleading. “You’re the Element of Loyalty. I thought I could count on you to stay by my side when everypony else turned to that... monster!”
But Rainbow had heard enough. It was one thing to be distrustful of somepony who’d recently attacked their kingdom, but it was quite another to flat-out make things up about them just to justify her hatred. She might have let all of that slide and slept easy tonight knowing that Twilight was fussing over nothing and that her friends all knew it... but she had to make it about them too.
“You’re right. I am the Element of Loyalty. And I stick by my friends no matter what.” She paused, then left Twilight’s personal space and joined the rest of the group by Chrysalis’ side.
“And that’s just what I’m doing,” she continued. “Chrysalis is trying to keep her subjects from dying, and that’s dedication I can get behind. The others obviously see that too, or they wouldn’t want anything to do with her. You’re the only one here who doesn’t. In fact, it looks like you hate her more than you love us. You just crossed a line by insulting all of us like that, Twilight.”
Rainbow turned to the rest of her friends. “Come on, guys. She obviously doesn’t want us around.”
Twilight could only stare at the doorway of her bedroom with teary eyes, watching as her friends walked out and left her behind. She’d managed to upset and offend each and every one of them, and they wouldn’t even stick around to hear an apology from her. Even Spike followed them out, looking back once with pity and betrayal written all over his face before descending via the staircase.
At the rear of the pack was Chrysalis, whose physical stature and royal standing brought about a sense of déjà vu. It was just like at the wedding rehearsal, after she’d sent the imposter Cadance packing, yet they’d all taken her side. At that time, and now again, the last to depart was the ruler of a kingdom.
Before closing the door, however, Chrysalis turned back to Twilight and uttered a single sentence. A short, simple sentence, but one she’d heard once before, not long ago, and it shook her to her very core.
“You have a lot to think about.”
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I love the story but hate this point in it, because I do not like the two "normal" solutions that are
OOOhhh... that's going to break Twilight like a twig.
Crazylight will be a bigger threat than the changelings ever were.
OOOHHHH THAT HAS GOTTA BUURRRNNNNN!!!!!!
Ok, I do not know what to tink about it.
On the wedding her friends betrayed her, puting aside everythink they learned, and they broke Twilights heart.
Now they are doing the same but because Twilight betrayed tham.
I do not like this crossing, on the wedding I was totaly on Twilight side for how everypony treated her, how they had no trust for her, and in here Twilight is actinglike she would never act in the show, and everythink is repeated as it was on the wedding.
I realy do not like it, I hope next chapter will make it up for it, because Twilight character is realy ruined in here, the same way as mane 5 and Celestia characters were ruined on the wedding when they turned again Twilight.
Princess Celestia: Nurse tell me, will Twilight be alright?
Nurse Redheart: She's stable. Apparently she suffered a third degree BUUUUURN!
Three words ring in my head almost from the very beginning.
"Conflict of Interest"
"a situation in which a public official's decisions are influenced by the official's personal interests."
In which this case, Twilight is acting in the position of a public official in regards to diplomatic actions between ponies and changelings.
The biggest mistake of dealing with Sparkle here is that they keep trying to appeal to emotion when Twilight is obviously emotionally compromised and her personal interest is to exact retribution or vengeance on the changeling that wronged her. With every moment she delays literally costing lives, the decision to help should have been removed from her as soon as physically possible. With that point noted, Spike should have had a letter sent to Celestia the moment Twilight was out the door to the market.
The letter should have included the situation, a request by Chrysalis to negotiate peace and/or immediate unconditional surrender of the changelings, and a plea for aid. The final signature being the Queen's own hoof-writing. The State (which Celestia is head of) is not an emotional entity, but a pragmatic one. Making the request through an official channel in this manner stands a much better chance of having a positive outcome for all parties involved than trying to win over the emotions of a single individual.
Conquest is a political thing. And as much as it can get personal, a former invader can and does turn into a glorious ally if the victor's cards are played right. And The State has always been aware of this.
I read on through the rest of the story now, hoping that Celestia shows a strong reprisentation as Head of State rather than being emotionally vindictive over a mere headache. (Getting bested in single combat.) Actions to this point can easily be marked as 'parties involved not exactly profesional diplomats'. Celestia's performance will make or break this story.
Ouch. I mean really that.....thats a diffent burn.
That Last Sentence
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Hmn, not sure what I think of this story after this chapter. I was enjoying it up until now, but the rejection of Twilight by her friends and the actions of the characters before and after really irritate me.
Well.... if anything was going to set off Twilight, I think that would be it. I don't really buy into the whole 'paranoid theory' thing here with Twilight. I honestly think that Twilight has perfectly legitimate reasons to be against anything that Chrysalis says, but none of them are used here. Twilight ends up sounding like a complete nutcase because despite the fact that she should be worried, the REASONS she's worried don't fit. It's like being worried about eating too much sugar if you have diabetes, but the real reason you're worried is because you think that sugar is a secret mind control drug. Despite the fact that the end result is good, i.e. you don't go into a diabetic coma, the reason for not eating sugar is all wrong.
this has got to be the worse part of the story. Repeating what happened to her at the wedding. I wish you did this differently. Twilight was fully justified in the wedding and she got snubbed. and that could have ended worse. but here. uuuggghhhh. This was one thing you shouldn't have repeated over it.
Ah
You / Ya
You're [Your] / Yer.
[Consistency is the key to writing in dialects.]
_________________
5566940
I agree with you and 3445711. Both in that of all the things to bring up, that bit from the wedding was the worst one to use. And Twilight has tons of legitimate reasons to want to end Chrysalis / hate her. But the way she's going about it are even more wrong than when she accused "Cadance" of being evil.
Well, a few chapters later and still reading.
Still a good story.
And Twilight is still pissing me off.
I fell conflicted....
2080410 I totally agree with what you just said.