//------------------------------// // But I'm not giving up, not yet // Story: Painted Mirror // by Lord of Turtles //------------------------------// Chrysalis was very happy indeed. She crossed her legs where she lounged on the throne, the only one left in the room after she had smashed the smaller one belonging to the still fleeing princess. Honestly, the piece of furniture was quite uncomfortable and nowhere near as impressive as the Titan-made artifact set up in the square, but the sheer spectacle of her lounging on her defeated enemy's literal seat of power was something she simply couldn't give up so soon. She focused again, casting her perception through one of the nearby guards. It was an eerie sensation at first, but one she rapidly grew used to. She admired herself, not for the first time that night. She took the time to examine her long, lithe body stretched out before the guard, the faintly shimmering amulet fastened around her neck. She felt a small surge of shameful interest within the drone she was casting through and chuckled silently to herself. She explored this one's mind for a moment and found it was one of the transplants from the eastern hive, not her own brood. She found that acceptable and let him pine fruitlessly. She did another check-in, pulsing her will out to the vast swarm attacking the city. She got back a rapid kaleidoscope of images, almost too confusing to process. She reached out to a few of the nearby changelings, outsourcing the bulk of the cognitive process to their smaller minds and fed the completed report back to herself. The nearby changelings grimaced slightly, the hijacking of their mental functions a painful experience, but these particular creatures just so happened to be among the small minority that had attempted a coup against her before she had mastered the amulet, so they had been relegated to little more than extra processing power for the resurrected hivemind, at least until the strain made their brains leak out of their ears. She smiled as the filtered information fed through her thoughts, little different from the previous checks. Canterlot was in chaos. Its citizens already being envenomed and cocooned, its defenders fighting a pointless battle in garrisons and barracks, and its rulers either on the run or hanging suspended in the castle. Even its greatest weapon, the Elements of Harmony, was nothing but a couple of pieces of useless jewelry now that one of them was back in her clutches. This was going perfectly. Almost. There had been snags, of course. No plan survives contact with the enemy. She'd been forced to buy a little bit of time right before the throne had been activated, even one misstep in the activation process and the magic of the artifact might fade for all time. That little error had cost a few dozen lives to make up for, and those heroes would be remembered for all time. The biggest issue was, of course, the party guests that managed to escape her trap. Chrysalis rubbed a hoof over her chest, feeling solid chitin where only a short time ago it had been little more than a mass of black shards held together with membrane and goo. That strike had given her victims the chance they needed to flee, and flee they did. She sent her gaze through the lead of the pursuit team, a hundred strong company that was following the locomotive. She saw the small, lit segment far below the flying changeling, chugging along at breakneck speed. She felt a prickle of annoyance and almost willed the company to attack the train, but held back. Twilight Sparkle was on that train, along with her brother, a Princess, several dozen guards, and that bizarre ape. She'd just be throwing lives away for nothing. She reminded herself that victory was already hers. She had the city, she had their ruler, she had an army the likes of which the world had not seen in millennia under her complete control. All she needed to do was consolidate her forces here, and then strike out against her foes. Ponyville would be next, a break in the initial plan for sure, but she couldn't simply let the Elements and an alicorn sit unattended for any length of time. Within the week that confounded village would be buried under a tide of black carapace. Acting out of spite and petulance would do nothing to advance her goals. The Queen of the Changelings settled onto Celestias's, no, her throne, smiling faintly. This could scarcely be going better. And it was at that moment that Raj struck. One of the nearby guards saw him drop from the ceiling. The alarm he felt passed up the connection to his queen at the speed of thought and Chrysalis' eyes snapped open, terribly aware. She sprang away from the throne with perhaps inches to spare as the blade of a golden hatchet slammed into the edge of the throne, sinking deep into the solid stone right where she had been lounging her head. Never one to quit, Rajrishi wrenched the ax free and was after her in an instant, closing the distance in three short bounds. It was long enough for her to compose herself though. A shield made of sickly green light appeared between them, protecting her. The human crashed against it, his raw strength enough to cause the field to buckle. Without a word, she sent a missive to her attendant guards to attack the intruder. They leaped to obey and charged at him, heedless of the danger, as he kept bashing against the shield. As the guards closed, Captain Rajrishi somehow sensed them closing and whirled his ax in an arc. The blade cleaved through the necks of two of the attackers and buried solidly in the head of the third just below his ear. The panic and fear of the first two reached her in an instant, feeling like a distant lingering sensation. She cut them off from the hivemind as they fell, death racing to take them in seconds. The third was struck too rapidly however, and the death raced up the connection and stung the queen, feeling like a pin against her thoughts. This close it was keener, a burning prick as one, tiny node of the hivemind went terribly dark. The guards had done little to halt the intruder, but they bought time. She took it to flap backwards and get some distance from the human as she reached out to any nearby drones for help. Raj ripped his ax from the dead changeling and drove it into the shield again, shattering it easily now that Chrysalis wasn't feeding energy into it. He started to follow after but halted when the upper windows were filled with buzzing drones. Within a second, more than two dozen of her minions stood between her and the intruder. The human swore and backpedaled as the changelings opened fire, small streaks of green energy firing from their horns. The human was too fast however and found cover behind the throne before any of them could land a hit. Chrysalis let out a breath. Her evening had gotten far more hectic in the last twenty seconds. She mentally ordered any available drones to come to the castle and got an affirmation from more than a hundred in an instant with several times that likely to be available after some shuffling. Time, all she needed was time and this creature wouldn't stand a chance. She flicked through the perceptions of every changeling within the room, hoping one of them could see the thing, which none of them could. She considered having them spread out to get eyes on him, but that would thin the barrier between her and him. Just wait, she just needed to wait. “I'm surprised, Captain.” She yelled out, mentally ordering everypony present to be silent so she could be heard. “I really thought you would be on that train with the rest of the fleeing cowards. Tell me, how did you get here with no drones seeing you?” There was a few seconds of quiet before the human yelled back, “The canals. You aren't patrolling to canals.” Chrysalis swore at herself. Changelings, as a race, are not strong swimmers. Neither are ponies for that matter, so she hadn't bothered doing anything with the canals that crisscrossed the city. The human shouted again, “Now tell me something. I hit you in the chest with Gate Maker. That name isn't ironic by the way, that thing knocks down walls. I know a Changeling Queen is resilient, but nothing short of a True-Born Titanspawn can bounce back from something like that.” Chrysalis grinned. The human had come to the palace assuming she would be injured, a fatal mistake if there ever was one. “Perhaps your pitching arm isn't as up to snuff as you assumed?” She asked, hoping to buy more time. “Nah, that's not it. I'm guessing it has something to do with the necklace. I'm guessing it lets you siphon the vitality of the drones under your control, right? Like some sort of psychic vampire that preys on its own children?” Chrysalis' face fell. While she did not care for the unflattering metaphor, that was exactly right. One of the many benefits of being the nucleus of the hive mind was being able to draw off the strength of her minions to heal and empower herself. It was the only reason she was still conscious after absorbing the hammer blow from before. A terrible crack sounded from the throne, the whole piece shuddering. It happened again a moment later and Chrysalis recognized it, the sound of shearing stone. The whole structure crashed to the side, more than seven feet of stone laying on its side. Chrysalis was confused by this for a moment before the mass of worked rock lifted up and started charging at her. The human was running at her with a six-hundred pound piece of cover. She started screaming an order on instinct but the minions were already following her instructions by the time she opened her mouth. More green bolts streaked out towards the attacker but they simply bounced and splashed off the stone. Several of the drones buzzed into the air in hopes of getting a better shot, but the human was moving too quickly. Rajrishi smashed into the formation of changelings, scattering the forward line apart. The piece of broken masonry crashed down onto the creatures and Chrysalis felt a pair of death-stings hit her mind. She backed up, mentally ordering the remaining drones to move in on the human. They complied despite the mad fear she could feel bubbling in their thoughts and rushed the human as a single entity. She lost sight of the human under the press of chitin and felt a trill of excitement at the impending victory. She cast her vision into the mind of one of the forward drones, hoping to bear witness to her would-be assassin's demise. Instead she saw a flashing ax split apart the changeling's vision. Chrysalis let out a bark of sympathetic pain, her concentration wavering for a second. By the time she had re-asserted control, three more death-stings pained her. The human hadn't gone down, hadn't balked in the face of the swarm. To the contrary, he was annihilating them. A pair of drones charged, horns burning with sickly green energy, but they were dashed aside by a flashing golden ax. Another went high to try and rain fire down on him, but the assassin managed to zig-zag the shots while striking out against the line of drones trying the hem him in. He was moving with the kind of flow and rapidity Chrysalis had never seen before. He struck, dodged, blocked, and maneuvered with terrible instinct, inflicting horrific damage on her minions in the process. Refusing to concede, Chrysalis redoubled her efforts, laying all of her focus on micromanaging her minions, mentally forcing their bodies to pump more adrenaline to make them stronger and faster while making their movement more precise and direct. It made little difference however, the human was simply too savagely violent. Then, much to her surprise, she felt something. Like detecting a single grain of sand under her hoof on a marble floor. A tiny mote drifting inside of the creature, so small she couldn't detect it before. In the human was the smallest of drops of venom, injected through a minor bite on his hand. With him inside the throne's field, his biology hadn't broken down the magic that bound it together. That was her in, how she would beat this. It took doses and doses to fully beguile a creature, but she didn't need to beguile him. She just needed to seize hold for only a second, that's all it would take for the swarm to close in and finish the beast. She reached out with her magic, telling the single drop to seep into the recesses of his mind, to give her influence over this creature. She threw the mental capacities of a dozen more mindslaves into the task, their will bolstering her own towards the task. At first there was nothing, and she was afraid this was a waste of time. Then there were flashes, memories flickering through her mind. She dug deeper, pressing for the control she needed. She saw buildings stretched higher than the clouds, machines that roared and rumbled along, and people, so very many people, thousands or even millions more crammed into a world smaller than Equus. She saw a house with no one in it, sand, more sand, a small face that looked like his own, and smelled something that ached with longing, felt a deep, powerful love that matched that of Cadance and Shining Armor in intensity but was older, more rooted. Like it was a part of this creature more than his skin and bones. And she could feel it reciprocated, a melancholic, longing desire drifting from impossibly far away. She grabbed hold of those emotions, tracing them along the wefts and weaves of his thoughts, to his foremind, where his current thoughts were. They hit like a hammer on her mind, the thoughts just as violent as the creature's actions. There was no reluctance to it, no remorse or notions of restraint. Just anger, control and... fun? Right there, flickering in his mind like a forgotten candle, naked entertainment. By Crom, this monster was having fun! That notion shook her, a tremor of fear running down her body, but she kept hold. She had the thing's thoughts now, tight in her hoof. She twisted them, intent on nothing specific and... Nothing. Nothing happened. She reached out into the thing's mind again and found no grip. She had burned through the iota of poison in his veins. All across the city of Canterlot hundreds of changelings started spewing vulgarities, expressing their queen's frustration for her. She backpedaled, buzzing her wings to pick up speed. Distance was her ally, distance and time. Reinforcements would arrive soon, she just had to last until then. The human must have seen her take off, because as soon as she had a limp body was flung her way. She jinked out of the way of the dead missile, one of her brood-drones unless she missed her guess, and pulled up a shield to block another a second later. The barbarous creature was hurling her dead minions at her! More than anything else, that infuriated her. She shouted, “You vile brute!” and charged her horn. She launched a mad fusillade of spell darts at the human. He slid past the first line of shots and broke into a run, breaking away from the scattered guards. Chrysalis buzzed upwards, out of reach of his hands and weapons, and launched another barrage. She managed a hit, one of her rounds slicing into his hip. Rajrishi's steps faltered and he went into a roll. He came up in a spring, slipping past another mass of her shots and hurled something at that was too fast for her to identify. His aim was off though and went far too high. She grimaced and focused again while directing what was left of her drones to re-engage. Alarm rose up among the local swarm, at least from those that could see her. She hijacked their vision in time to see a glowing ball of something hurtling towards her from above. She started to slide out of the way but wasn't fast enough to evade the descending chandelier, its elegant arms still lit by faint flames. She and the chandelier hit the ground with a terrible clatter, her own pain and dismay rippling out into the swarm, giving pause to it. She grabbed back hold of the reins of power in an instant and stole strength into herself, rolling the burning decoration off of her. One of her eyes wouldn't focus and the other one was blinded, a broken piece of crystal stabbed directly into it. She shook the shard free and shunted the pain onto one of her mindslaves, the wretch's screams echoing through the halls of the palace, and blinked once, the wound smearing away like a dollop of jelly. She did a mental check, reinforcements were just a second away. All she needed to do was get back into the air. Her vision justified just in time to see the dark figure step close and swing a fist directly into her face. She felt layers of carapace shatter apart and reform an instant later with stolen vitality. Another blow struck her at the base of her neck and she staggered, the pain slicing into her as one of her mindslaves stroked out and went insensate. She came back a second later to feel herself being pulled forwards, the human's hand wrapped around the chain of the Alicorn Amulet. In his other hand was that gleaming ax, still wet with changeling viscera, poised to divorce her head from her neck. Chrysalis pushed her hooves against the human's chest with a strength borne of desperation, fearing the descending ax. Raj flew back and away, the Alicorn Amulet held tight in his fist. Chrysalis felt the loss before she saw it, a sudden vacancy in her mind, a terrible loss that was difficult to name. It was like she had been using her eyes and had suddenly been forced to wear a welding mask, but even that didn't work. She didn't even have the mental framework to fully encapsulate what had been ripped from her. She stepped back, butting against the fallen chandelier, fear gripping her. The human rose to his feet, seemingly unhurt. He looked down at the item in his hand and then back to her. She saw the evil glint in his expression, the knowledge that she was so much weaker now. He slid it into his jacket pocket and took a step forward. Right then, every door, window, and less than structurally sound wall burst inwards, a riot of battling changelings spilling onto the grounds. For a second Chrysalis felt elation, thinking her swarm had come to save her. That vanished in an instant when she saw the drones of her swarm brawling and scrapping with one another. Some clawed their way for her, hate in their expressions, while others tried to hold them back from her. Several others appeared to have simply gone mad from her control, striking out in a maddened fury at anything nearby. She lost sight of the human in the chaos that had erupted. She opened her wings to fly up and away but felt a sharp stab of pain. She looked back and saw a slice in her right front and hind wing, enough damage to make them useless. Swearing, she vaulted the chandelier and made her way across the ballroom on hoof. She needed to rally her loyal drones, track the human down before he escaped. She saw a gleam of light and flinched back. The human's ax sunk into a stone pillar so far she could see nothing of the head. She looked back and saw the human rushing towards her, tearing through the chaotic fighting like it was smoke. The human wasn't going to flee with the amulet, he was still trying to kill her. Chrysalis ran, vaulting up the stairs to the higher levels. She was at the top of the stairs when she heard cracking stone. She cast a glance back to see the human standing at the bottom of the case, glaring up at her. She snarled and launched a bolt of green at his face. He swayed out of its path and came bounding up the steps at her. She galloped away in a panic, heading further up. She reached out into the hivemind, grabbing for any loyal drones that might help her. Without the amulet it was a shabby thing, but enough to emit her distress. She got returns from several hundred, but they were far from her and preoccupied. She was on her own. That prospect did little to curb her terror. She could feel the human behind her, a pulsing knot of malice closing in. She paused at every hall, losing precious ground as she tried to remember which of the castle's passages might lead to freedom. She felt tired already, soreness building in her muscles. On instinct she tried to draw strength through the hivemind but found it as responsive as a stone, useless without the amulet. Just run, just keep running, that's all she could do. Then she went up a stair, down a hall, and it wasn't. No more doors, no more halls, no more stairs, just a central pillar and walls lined with stained glass windows. She had trapped herself. Seconds. She had seconds before she was caught. Nowhere to run, no one to put in front of her, nothing left. Then, an idea. Something she remembered from before, when she had channeled through the poison in the human's body. She ran for the pillar, her body melting with green fire as she called on the only real magic left to her. Rajrishi slid into the room just as she had finished ducking around the pillar, a thin wisp of her tail visible. Snarling a curse he sprang forward, ax high, spun and- -came face to face with his loving wife Marielle. She stared up at him, blue eyes bright and staring. She was wearing the summer dress, the blue one chased in yellow he got her for their anniversary. Her hair was in their natural curls, just the way they were when he came home from the war. She smiled, projecting just as much warmth and kindness as he had ever imagined. He saw this, saw all of this, and hesitated. That was all Chrysalis needed. Her disguise burned off in a flash of green and she pounced, driving the tip of her jagged horn into his chest. The gnarled point tore through his uniform, armor, rib, lung, and then all that again as it tore out of his back, the tip cracking through the shoulder blade of his ax-hand. He staggered back, sputtering curses and struggling to support his weight. With a wrathful shout he curled his ax up and hooked the beard of it on her horn, with his other he unsheathed his knife from his side. Sputtering up blood and spittle he drove the blade down into the queen's back, slicing chitin and carapace. Chrysalis shrieked, struggling back from the lock but was held in place by the ax. Hissing with effort, she twisted her head hard enough to crack her chitinous horn off at the base. Unbalanced, the two of them fell back and away from each other, Chrysalis onto her side and Rajrishi stumbling back against one of the windows. She could feel herself dying, her life ebbing out through her perforated back. She tried to call on her magic but was met with a tingling discomfort, her missing horn responding to nothing. She glanced around, furtive, terrified, looking for anything that might save her. The amulet, the Alicorn Amulet. The human still had it, he had to. She started crawling, pulling herself along with the one hoof that was still following her commands. An hour ago a million changelings followed her orders, now only a single hoof did. She saw it, on the ground near the human's foot, somehow torn free in the struggle. She had no idea how, but she wasn't going to question it. She reached out, vision going dark. Her limb touched it, whispered against it. She reached again, found purchase, and dragged it back with all the effort of pushing a mountain. She looped it around, holding it to her neck, hoping the clasp would- Bliss, sudden and complete. She felt her mind expand out, grabbing hold of the weaker minds and those loyal to her in an instant. She channeled their energy into herself, the pain of her injuries fading in an instant. The fear, the panic, it was all gone, replaced with confidence and absolute certainty. Chrysalis panted, the wounds on her back sealing slowly, vital energy flowing to her from a markedly diminished swarm. Without her control, many of her unwilling minions had taken the chance to flee to city. It would take time and much borrowed will to bring them back to heel. How quickly everything had unraveled. As slowly as she was healing, the human was doing worse. Thick red seeped from the edges of the severed horn, darkening the front of his uniform. Despite that, he was already back on his feet, though he leaned against a tall window for support. His breath came raggedly, weakly, but it came. Chrysalis coughed, keeping a wary eye. “That's... you know I cannot help but be impressed.” Raj looked at her sidelong, his skin going white. “What?” The changeling queen smirked, “I drive my horn into your chest, piercing your lung, breaking ribs, all but killing you. And your first reaction is to draw that knife and open up my back. I don't think there is a single creature in all of Equus that would do the same.” “I'm not from here.” Raj spat bitterly, a little bit more strength in his voice. She felt the holes in her chest suck shut, giving her more confidence to speak. “Oh, I know that, I know that very well. Captain Rajrishi Singh Oberoi, commander of the Lunar Guard and the Princess of the Night's champion. Greatest warrior in all of Equestria some say.” She grinned evilly, “And the reason for this whole evening.” Raj coughed up a plug of crimson. “Oh, great, another royal horse creature overstating my importance. Awesome, I get more of that.” “And still with that melancholy wit. But it's true in this instance. Without you, I never would have been able to do this.” She gestured out at the dying city before pointing a hoof at her amulet. “I never would have found this treasure.” “Shut your wormhole bug.” Chrysalis did no such thing. “I had been planning a more subtle invasion, a quiet takeover of the country's most important ponies. It was the only option I had after Shining Armor and Cadance reduced my numbers and embarrassed me. But then you came along, a completely unknown factor. I was prepared to continue, but I ordered for more intelligence be gathered on you. I wouldn't let something like a new player upset my plans. It was during that scouting we learned of this, the Alicorn Amulet, the only relic made by the Faustmare, and that changed everything.” Her smile grew wider. “I didn't need subtlety, every hive, every changeling, was mine to command once I had it in my hooves. I scarcely needed to transport my throne, my numbers were such that any realm was mine for the taking. And it's all because of you, your mere presence changed everything. It's fitting that you would be the one to come so close to stopping me.” She tilted her head back, leering at him as he leaned on the wall. “But only close.” Raj looked up at her, tired and pale. “Wow... Princess Cadance was right.” He wiped his chin. “You really do like to hear yourself talk.” Chrysalis opened her mouth to laugh, her eyes tilting up. Raj took the chance and whipped his body, hurling his knife with everything he had left. The steel sang from his fingertips, heading straight for the changeling queen's throat. The blade sparked off a moment-field, conjured from the barely regenerated nub of the queen's horn. She watched the weapon skitter across the floor, the tip snapped off cleanly. She smirked at him again, “A noble effort Captain, but still not enough.” Raj's hand lowered, his posture sinking against the window. “I didn't... I didn't think it was.” He smiled grimly, teeth reddened. “But I had to try.” Chrysalis didn't say anything back. She simply darted forward, spun and bucked him through the window. * * * Raj felt a sudden chill hit him, a dry, cruel cold, and went weightless in the open air. The edges of his vision went dark, night dark, the periphery swallowed up by the magically gloomed palace. To his right he could see the town through a cloud of glittering razors. Scarce, flickering light clung to windows of the town, the roofs and eaves lit by the light of alien stars. He thought about how much Mari would have liked the view, and then he was falling. Shadow coiled beneath him, a long dark stretching into infinity, both close enough to touch and as distant as home. He thought about the Everfree at night, how impenetrable the darkness of that forest was in the long hours, and realized this was nothing like it. He realized how afraid he should have been, but he was out of that. The tap had gone dry on fear. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. He thought about Twilight, and Fluttershy, and Rainbow, and Applejack, and Rarity, and Pinkie. He thought about Luna and Topsail and Minuette and Berry Punch and Spike and Zecora. He hoped that they would be alright, that they'd find a way to stay alive. Then he remembered that Zecora was dead, and that didn't work. He thought about his wife, and a small, weak little part of him was glad he got to see her again before the end. And then he fell into that long dark. He fell and fell, until he stopped.