//------------------------------// // Twelve - Hit and Run (3) // Story: The Infestation of Canterlot High School // by Bonster //------------------------------// Twelve - Hit and Run (3) Agent Chrysalis stared. “The fuck are you supposed to be?” “Queen Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings. You must be my”—she shuddered—“counterpart in this world.” The agent took a step forward. Sweetie had briefly mentioned something about interdimensional duplicates; Chrysalis had found it difficult to believe her at first, but now… Now she found it difficult to dispute. “Look, I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here, but whether you’ve got my face or not, if you’re behind all this, then I suggest you pack your things and take a hike in some other world. You’re not welcome here.” The Queen sneered. “Oh, don’t be like that, me. I know you’re a reasonable… person. I’m sure we could work something out.” The agent snarled. “I don’t make deals with monsters.” Queen Chrysalis’s face screwed up. “Excuse me! I’m the monster? Look around you!” She made a sweeping gesture of the corpse-littered cafeteria. “You slaughtered my children! I haven’t killed a single damn one of your kind!” Celestia piped up, “And why should we believe you?” The Queen shot her a nasty look. “They’re kept comatose until they die naturally. Not killed. Now stay out of this, sun-ass, and let the big girls talk.” Chrysalis turned back to Chrysalis. “As I was saying. You’ve committed much more grievous crimes than I have.” Agent Chrysalis looked unperturbed, and took another step forward. “Maybe things are nicer over in sunshine unicorn land, but here, we don’t exactly hold much sympathy for creatures who invade our lands and kidnap our children. You threaten our world, you die.” “You’d be surprised how nasty ponies can be towards creatures that aren’t ponies,” Queen Chrysalis grumbled. “But that’s neither here nor there. I’m not the monster you think I am, Chrysalis. I don’t want power, I don’t want blood; I’m just doing what’s best for my species, and I don’t particularly care who gets hurt along the way.” Chrysalis stared down Chrysalis. “Yeah.” She raised her pistol. “Same.” And then everything happened impossibly fast. The gun triggered with a thunderous pop, but Chrysalis had her horn ready; the speeding bullet expanded into a beach ball mid flight, losing its momentum and dropping harmlessly to the ground at the Queen’s feet. The agent re-cocked and aimed to take another shot— “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” goaded the changeling, nodding her head to behind her counterpart’s back. Chrysalis stole a glance over her shoulder; the vice-principal’s katana was surrounded in a green glow, and held against her throat. So the copycat was playing hostages. She clearly didn’t know herself very well. Agent Chrysalis made to pull the trigger. And her finger froze as she saw the second hostage: Sweetie Drops, her briefcase forgotten by her feet, and her hands struggling to pull her Devil’s Tongue away from her throat. This was exactly why developing attachment was a weakness in the field. She decided to go for intimidation. “Release them or I’ll shoot.” “Shoot, and you won’t need them released.” The Queen cocked her head and smiled devilishly. “Actually…” The Chief Agent of the Supernatural Intelligence Department let out a rather comprehensive stream of the foulest vulgarities she could think of as her gun burst into flame, singeing her hand. Smoking, it clattered to the floor. The changeling that had her face and her name but was not her started to cackle. “Oh, this is just too easy! I’d finish you all off, but I’m having so much fun, and to be honest, my morning was incredibly shitty. Besides, I’ve got the love to spare.” The fire-haired girl stepped forward. Demon girl one, if Chrysalis was correct. Sunset, was it? She looked the changeling queen right in the eye, and any normal creature’s will would have crumbled from her glare alone. “You may have thought you’ve won, Chrysalis—” The Queen nodded emphatically. “Mmhmm!” “—but you haven’t. Not when we have the magic of friendship on our side!” And the magic of distractions, Agent Chrysalis thought as she watched demon girl two inch around the edge of the cafeteria, behind the changeling-her. Some sort of flashing disc lay in her hands; she’d have to investigate it when this was all over. “Yeah! Friendship always wins!” cheered the gay blue girl enthusiastically. “Please,” Queen Chrysalis droned, “as if I haven’t heard that one a thousand times. Spare me your stupid rhetoric; let’s do something much more fun.” Despite the amount of spells she was holding, the queen found it in her to let some inky smoke creep out of her jagged horn and into the bodies of several fallen changelings. They started to convulse in a way that Chrysalis could barely stomach even with her field experience, and, slowly, they shuffled onto their hooves, lumbering towards the group of humans. “Zombies?!” shrieked the pink girl. “Of all the days to leave my chainsaw at home! I’ve been waiting for this for so long!” “Necromancy?” observed Sunset incredulously. “You’ve been practicing dark magic? Even I didn’t stoop that low! It’ll destroy you!” “Not if I’m careful,” Chrysalis teased. “You know, for what it’s worth,” Luna said, “you haven’t been too terribly careful so far.” Twilight took that as her cue. She set the locket to ‘absorption’ and opened it, the thirsty mana core at its center glowing with its usual vibrancy. Chrysalis turned a second too late, and her icky green-and-black-speckled magic seeped into the device. The zombie changelings froze where they stood like half-finished taxidermy projects, except with intestines instead of stuffing. Chrysalis was moving erratically, fighting against the sedative effects of mana drainage, and was futily swinging her hooves at Twilight, who kept as large a distance between them as she could without breaking off the magical connection. Across the room, Sweetie Drops unlatched her briefcase skillfully with her foot and kicked it hard, sending it spiraling to a rest in front of Sunset. Agent Chrysalis smiled; Sweetie always kept her final blow in that suitcase. The fight was practically over already. Sunset inspected the super secret agent luggage Bon Bon had delivered her; when she saw what it contained, her face brightened considerably. She didn’t have time to consider how Sweetie Drops had managed to fit all of it inside such a small briefcase, but wasted no time passing the contents to her friends—two electric guitars, a bass guitar, a keytar, and a tambourine. Wait, isn’t something missing? Sunset turned to see Pinkie with what looked to be an entire drumset strapped to her front. She was tapping her drumsticks together with a wide smile. “One, two, three, four!” Twilight was still busy absorbing Chrysalis’s magic. It had taken maybe five seconds to fully contain her friends’ magic during the Friendship Games; just how much magic did Chrysalis possess? She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she was toying with them. Twilight was just glad she suffered from Stupid Supervillain Syndrome. (It seemed like a disproportionate amount of their foes did.) Twilight was wrenched from her thoughts as Chrysalis lunged forward in a burst of will and self-preservation instinct, slapping the locket out of her hands. It rolled across the floor, out of reach; Twilight scrambled after it, but she wasn’t fast enough. Chrysalis roared, crackling green magic sparking up and down her horn. She needed to get away from that girl and her strange sorcery right now. In a blinding flash of green light, she vanished. And reappeared a few feet to the left a second later. “That really should’ve gone further,” she lamented, frowning at her dwindling love stores. The sound of wannabe pop music filled her ears, and she turned to see the six girls that had caused her countless problems (across multiple dimensions) hovering towards her, pony ears protruding from their heads and wings from their backs. They were aggressively playing musical instruments and singing about the wonders of friendship as they closed in on her with murderous looks on their faces. Chrysalis shot a bolt of energy at them, but it was thin as a pencil, and fizzled out of existence as it collided with their glowing magical auras. What had that girl done? A zealous guitar riff by Sunset sent a shower of tiny, cartoony flames rocketing towards Chrysalis. They didn’t so much as notice the shield spell Chrysalis put up, and she only barely managed to roll out of their way. The uncomfortable pain at the base of her horn from the busted shield spell reignited her headache from that morning. Chrysalis groaned and dragged a hoof slowly down her face. Today was just not her day. To top it all off, the magical high schoolers hadn’t stopped their gravity-defying approach, and were almost upon her. Time to run. “After her, don’t-you-don’t-you let her get away-hay-hay!” Rainbow Dash sang, instead of the lyrics that were supposed to go in that verse. The six of them charged out of the cafeteria and after the changeling queen. Twilight, having secured the locket back around her neck, dashed after them, and Velvet followed right behind her daughter, begging her to escape to somewhere safe. Agents Chrysalis and Sweetie Drops had taken off, too, as soon as the changeling had staged her retreat; the principals shared a quick glance, and, with no better options, took up the rear. The lot of them burst out of the front gates not a minute later. Queen Chrysalis was still in the lead, running like a hydra out of Tartarus, and the Rainbooms were close behind, fueled by magical energy. The rest of the gang lagged—Celestia, Luna, and Velvet’s muscles were screaming at them to stop, and even the more athletic Chrysalis and Sweetie Drops couldn’t keep up with the magically-assisted girls. And pony and changeling. Queen Chrysalis sped across the courtyard and galloped straight into the surface of the portal without a single backwards glance, vanishing into ripples. The ponied-up students were not dissuaded, and followed without hesitation. Chrysalis, Bon Bon, Velvet, Celestia, and Luna looked on in shock and wonder as they disappeared; Twilight pounded across the courtyard. She had planned on running through the portal with her friends, and so was understandably shocked when she crashed into the base of the statue, face first. Twilight looked up in surprise, fear, confusion, and anger, rubbing her head. “Wh-what? I…” She banged her fist on where the portal should have been; nothing happened. She banged and banged until she felt like her knuckles were broken, and then a couple extra times for good measure, but try as she might, the stone didn’t waver. “Let me through! Let me through! Dammit, let me through! My friends are in there!” She kicked it once, as hard as she could, and screamed, as loud as she could, and collapsed in the grass. Sunset and the rest of the Rainbooms tumbled out of the portal in heap of flesh, limbs, fur, and hooves. “Holy shit! I’m a horse!” Pinkie giggled. “Hey, me too, Rainow! What a coincidence!” “Rarity, you’re pullin’ mah… uh, mah tail? Dangit, this is freakier than Granny’s dentures…” “I am pulling on nothing, Applejack! I am a horse! I do not have hands at the moment!” “Pony,” Sunset corrected. “You’re all so cute!” Fluttershy squeaked, hugging whichever of her friends’ body parts she could get a hold of for all she was worth. “Fluttershy! Watch it! I know we’ve been friends for, like, forever, but that’s a little too personal!” Fluttershy’s face erupted hotter than the volcanos of the Dragon Lands. “Well, Rarity, if yer not doin’ it, then kindly tell me who is!” “How should I know?!” “Wow, Rainbow! Your hair does taste like skittles!” “Pinkie, no!” Sunset levitated Fluttershy’s cuddly hooves from around her barrel, wriggled out of the dogpile (ponypile?), and stood. It felt good to be a pony again, even under the circumstances. Especially the whole magic bit—it was nice to be able to cast spells and not worry about them blowing up in your face or destroying the school or chopping someone’s finger off. “Wait a minute.” She looked around. They were in… a cave? Did Chrysalis move the mirror here? And for that matter, “Why isn’t Chrysalis here?!” The blob of multicolor fur stopped moving, and stopped blabbering. Five pairs of eyes followed Sunset’s around the cave; nobody made a sound, except for Pinkie spitting Rainbow’s tail out of her mouth. (A tuft a hair was missing.) It was a large, spacious room, with several tunnels branching off in many different directions. There was a line of carvings on the walls; a pony, griffon, zebra, thestral, windigo, buffalo, siren, yak, changeling, and pretty much every other intelligent race Sunset could think of, including a few she didn’t recognize. Her eyebrow rose as she spotted a striped couch against one wall, and climbed even higher at the refrigerator next to it, the faint hum of the thaumic cooling unit audible in the newfound silence. This place was certainly lived in, it would seem. But why on earth would Chrysalis be living in a cave instead of one of the many castles she presumably had to choose from? Something strange was going on. “Maybe its for th’ best,” Applejack finally said, squeezing out from between Rarity and Fluttershy and wobbling to her feet. “I don’t think we could fight her like this anyway.” “What are you talking about?” Rainbow shouted. “This is terrible! We let her get away!” “I don’t know… I’m okay with it,” Fluttershy whispered. As all of her friends slowly detached themselves from each other, Sunset got a clearer view of the mirror portal, and her eyes widened. “That—That’s not the portal,” she said, looking at a wavy funhouse mirror resting against the damp wall of the cave. A distorted version of her pony self looked back, fear in its eyes. “Whatever are you talking about, dear? We came through it—of course it’s a portal.” “Yeah! See, watch!” Pinkie trotted over to the mirror and thrust a hoof towards it. It shattered. They all stared in stark denial as the shimmering pieces rained to the ground. “Huh.” Pinkie scratched her head. “Whoops.” “Oh, come now, my little human-ponies,” drawled a smooth voice from… somewhere. “Here I am, saving your flanks and offering my exquisite hospitality, and you break all my wonderful possessions!” “Who’s there?” Sunset barked, her head swinging around wildly. The voice ignored her. “Honestly. Didn’t your mothers teach you fillies anything? Or maybe it’s all the Internet’s fault. That seems to be common philosophy over on Earth. Personally, I think the whole idea is wonderfully chaotic.” Suddenly, Fluttershy screamed, and the rest turned to see whatever was mildly alarming enough to warrant such a reaction. “T-t-the carving!” She pointed to the wall, and sure enough, one of the creatures etched into the stone was walking about, its mouth moving in concurrence with the voice. It was one of the species that Sunset hadn’t recognized—something from the chimera family, it seemed, with many animals’ limbs sewn onto a snake-like body.   “Though, I imagine you must have thought I was old Queen Chrysalis, Drama Queen of the Changelings and the Attention Whores. I suppose, then, your actions may be redeemable. You’ll still have to pay for the mirror, of course—it’s not like I can just make them out of thin air.” The etching put a paw on its stomach and doubled over in sharp, giddy, not-entirely-sane laughter. “How’s it doin’ that?” Applejack asked softly, mystified. “Magic,” Sunset answered offhandedly. But from the arcane signals her horn was picking up, it wasn’t any ordinary magic. There was a huge presence in the room, and it reeked something awful. “But don’t worry about Chryssie, she won’t show up here anytime soon. I use bug spray! Well, that and divination distortion enchantments.” “Who even are you, anyway? You wanna fight?!” Rainbow dash raised her front hooves, and fell on her face. “Why, I can’t believe I forgot to introduce myself!” the voice said apologetically, with just the right amount of subtle sarcasm to piss Sunset off. “How very rude of me.” The carving grew in size to about three times Sunset’s height, which would have been a lot more impressive if she were still human. It—he—turned to face them all directly, and took a step forward; he sauntered clean out of the wall and into three-dimensional space, his unnatural eyes leering at the group from his goat-like head. An eagle’s claw waved at them. “Hello there! I’m Discord, lord of chaos. Pleasure to make your acquaintances. “Oh, and before I forget.” Discord smiled impishly. It cut the air like a dagger. “Welcome to Equestria.”