I Put a Spell On You
Spike anxiously chewed on a claw, Twilight was supposed to be back an hour ago.
Rarity was there as well, she had been so stressed out that she was told to go off and calm down. Unfortunately Rarity dealt with stress by working, and sitting letting the minutes screech by was doing nothing for her.
Of the three of them, outwardly at least, Fluttershy was doing the best. Sitting with Diamond Tiara in front of her, gently stroking her hair had enough of a muting effect on her stress for Fluttershy to at least appear collected.
Then there were changelings, changelings everywhere. They would all turn, as one to look at the teleportation spot anytime one of them heard a sound. Every one of them had something to do, nervous dice rolled, knitting even without a clear goal, and changeling goop balls ricocheted off walls alongside other pastimes you can fashion when you can make things out of spit.
Spike decided to try and break the ice and try to talk to one of the changelings who was knitting with crude goop and drinking straw knitting needles. Spike searched for any point of common ground he could think of.
“So how do you know the queen?”
The air around them turned a bit cold.
“Which one?” The changeling asked guardedly.
“Naudia?” Spike said uncertainly. “Who else?”
That seemed to defuse the tension a bit.
“You could have been talking about ‘Luna’ or,” And their faces darkened. “You could have been talking about Chrysalis.”
“You don’t like Chrysalis?” Spike asked confused. “Weren’t you loyal to her at one point?”
“Loyalty and love are different things. Ask my husband about our daughter.” She was angry, but Spike didn’t quite know at who. “Her plan seemed good, but recent months of plenty have shown that she was wrong. Unable to see past whatever grudge she held against ponies justified or not. She would have ground us to extinction before accepting even a handout from ponies.”
“Then why didn’t you...” Spike waved his ink stained claws about.
“Chrysalis WAS the only option, a barren people can’t very well go and split off from the one who can give us kids.” The changeling scrunched up it’s nose at Spike’s expression. The changeling waved their horn in an egg shaped circle in the air as if to demonstrate making an egg with magic. “Not like that, with magic.”
“But why can’t you have kids yourself? Did Chrysalis do something to you?”
“No pony-dragon we were designed that way from the start. That’s why we don’t like ponies very much.”
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The next few minutes were the strangest Twilight had ever experienced from a personal standpoint. Obviously she had been through Discord and all the madness that had brought, but this was different. They had been captured by corrupted changelings, supposedly mindless monsters, AND Nightmare Moon, well Nightmare Chrysalis, at the same time and nothing was going the way she was expecting.
That they were prisoners, and even Twilight’s presence were tertiary at least for right now, the real trouble was being on the sidelines of the most hellish family reunion Twilight could imagine.
“So.” Chrysalis said. “The little failure has returned.”
Twilight knew Naudia could hold it together in tough situations, that had basically been all that they were doing for a while now. But Naudia had no response to her mother’s scorn except to lower her head and soldier on in chains.
“Do you know why Naudia doesn’t have a horn ring on right now?” Nightmare Chrysalis said, and Twilight looked around to see who she was talking to. “Twilight, I feel you haven’t been privy to this information.”
Naudia shrunk away, she knew what was coming. Twilight could only guess as to how regular an occurrence this could be in the presence of her mother.
“She doesn’t need it because she’s betrayed you, or because she’s obedient to me.” Chrysalis continued, “She doesn’t need it because she has been and always will be a failure at magic.”
“But...” And Twilight tried to think of a time Naudia had used magic around her. “the skin hardening spell.”
“Children can do that, all changelings can.”
“But Luna... how did she get Luna down so well?”
“She’s okay enough at stun spells, probably still caused a nasty headache, but it sounds like you still have Mattar around to do your spellwork for you.” Chrysalis turned again to Naudia viciously turning the conversation back around to pressure on her. “That reminds me when we can corrupt a queen’s guard, we’ll be in a much better position than we are now, glad you brought him along.”
This conversation wasn’t going how Twilight thought it should. This isn’t how a family worked, and that grated at her core. To her Chrysalis was always… always… there, misunderstood, a pony-er changeling that needed a kind hoof offered out to her. Or at least that was Twilight hoped she would be.
But here, next to her, she had found a monster whose ties to sympathy and empathy had not only been cut, but cauterized off long ago. Judging by Naudia there wasn’t a time before this in living memory.
“Don’t worry about it though Naudia, by delivering yourself into my hooves I can create a new breed of changelings.” Chrysalis smiled at Naudia in a not at all friendly way. “All the obedience of a corrupted changeling, but all the ferocity of a queen’s guard.
“Take Naudia down to the dungeons, maybe I’ll let her stay there until I raise a queen fit enough to rule.”
With that Naudia was dragged away from Twilight who was lead off with Chrysalis and at least twice as many corrupted changelings as as were needed for Naudia. Far more than would be needed for Twilight, Naudia realized it was just another dig at her.
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Naudia reflected on the situation, she was drained, chained up and without a horn ring. However there wasn’t much she could do with that, her prison would be warded against common changeling magic and wouldn’t have a lock to be picked.
Worst of all her mother’s personality seemed to have barely changed.
Even then the guards outside would be corrupted changelings, and in her drained state they were practically invincible. However Naudia had some tricks up her sleeve even for that, especially since she likely wouldn’t be fighting so many corrupted changelings as she did out in the desert, at least not at once.
There was only one shot at this too, this was a love reserve, not a steady flow like she’d been getting from Twilight. Even then, if she failed, did Chrysalis know what kind of leverage having Twilight gave her? That only doubled the necessity of this mission.
The corrupted changelings were light on security, mostly because it was practically impossible to sneak in one pony or changeling with the power to destroy a significant number of corrupted changelings on their own, even if they never planned to get out. That's where they were wrong, Twilight was already here, somewhere, and Naudia and her together could cause massive amounts of damage.
Naudia finished coughing up the glowing green ball and savagely bit into it, doing so she realized something. This cell was warded against changeling magic, it depended on her not actually having that much enhanced strength because she was so drained. Naudia licked some green slime off her muzzle.
That’s where she was ahead of the game.
The lock on the prison cell snapped like a twig and the door burst out to splatter one of the corrupted guarding Naudia’s cell. That wouldn’t be nearly enough to kill it but it gave Naudia enough time to do what she needed to.
She began to drain the hatred out of the other corrupted changeling, viciously, hatefully, in a way that her mother would have thoroughly approved of.
As the corrupted changeling in front of her collapsed she whispered to the air.
“I’m counting on you Twilight.”
What the other corrupted changeling encountered resembled a changeling in only vague terms, as most changelings didn’t emit jets of orange fire from every gap in their carapace. Naudia screamed and charged the corrupted changeling streams of flame trailed from her mouth and a fire in her eyes.
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Twilight was pushed into Celestia’s throne room to find a horrifying sight before her. Celestia still in stone at the foot of the throne, even in stone the pain in her eyes carried over. She was positioned as if she was petitioning the throne, though awkwardly due to where she was frozen.
Behind the throne in cocoons were her missing friends. Pinkie Pie struggled inside her cocoon hair limp and asleep, her eyes were clenched tight as her teeth. Applejack floated limply inside her’s defeated and bruised. Rainbow Dash was no better but she seemed to be still trying to fight even inside the dream.
Below them still awake, beaten, tired, dirty, and barely awake were Twilight’s parents stuck to the floor with changeling goop. Wearily they looked up as Nightmare Chrysalis walked into the room with a full set of guards.
“Twilight!” Her mother shouted.
“How did you even find them!?” Twilight demanded of Chrysalis.
Chrysalis merely smirked at her, relishing in the moment like a fine wine, then turned and pointed a hoof at Twilight.
“Through their connection to you Twilight.” Chrysalis threw her head back and laughed, “And I’ve kept them here ever since the invasion just for this moment!”
“However things right now couldn’t have gone in a more unexpected and better way than they did for me.” Chrysalis leaned towards Twilight, her broken horn nearly touching Twilight’s own. “Naudia gave me the best homecoming present I could have asked for, and I’m going to use it to destroy you and her in one masterstroke.”
“You’re not going to get away with this!” Twilight said, confident that Shining and Cadance could find a way to help them out even here.
“I don’t need to, even now Naudia is working her way up here burning through love at an astonishing rate after she broke out of her prison cell.” Chrysalis was enjoying this too much. “But before she gets here I think there is something you need to tell your parents.”
“What?” Twilight asked, not sure how this could be turned against her.
“Well, go on then. It’s rather rude to not tell your parents these sorts of things.”
“Uhh, well Mom, Dad,” Twilight said awkwardly, “umm… I’m going out with Chrysalis’ daughter.”
It was clear this was a bit too much for them to process right now.
“Well I guess we can talk about that later dear?” Twilight Velvet said. “But how is this relevant Chrysalis? What can you possibly do with that?”
“I’ll show you, better yet I’ll prove to you.” Chrysalis smirked in an insufferable manner.
She began casting a spell and Twilight flinched back.
“No need to be afraid Twilight, it’s just a simple scanning spell.”
Sure enough in front of Twilight facing her as if a mirror had been placed in front of her was her entire body outlined by the magic tracing itself down her nervous system. Squinting she tested it by leaning in closer to it, the spell her leaned in closer as well and it was accurate down to the tiny details. This was indeed a perfectly accurate version of her, right down to all the ward and mind shield spells that were still active.
“Good, you know how to check a scanning spell like this.” Chrysalis purred. “Are you ready Twilight? Allow me to show you how you’ve already lost.”
Chrysalis pointed at the bottom of Twilight’s brain on the model with her hoof, at the temporal lobe.
Unfortunately this was much harder for Twilight to see as moving closer moved her head inside the model. Then it helpfully rotated up so Twilight was staring at the bottom of her head…
There it was, in a green magic, a spell Twilight could recognize anywhere, something that Celestia had drilled into her after the changeling attack. A spell that may have just proved Celestia correct.
A compulsion spell.