//------------------------------//
// Duel 
// Story: Strange Bedfellows 
// by BRBrony9 
//------------------------------//

No longer were the two sisters the only royalty in the sky. The effulgent flash had heralded the appearance of Queen Chrysalis herself, her large, insectlike wings flapping firmly and her crooked horn glowing. A malefecent laugh came from her throat, rivaling any Royal Canterlot Voice, echoing around the valley.

Both Celestia and Luna immediately ceased their attacks on the legion of drones, both of their attentions being grasped by the materialisation of their old foe. Ponies below looked up in fear. Drones were one thing, but here was a Changeling that could rival the princesses in power and ability. This was proof that they had found the right place and the right Hive. Most gunfire and drone magic that had been aimed at the three royals seemed to die away, as if in anticipation of something far greater in power, like an audience, boisterous during the interval, now falling silent in anticipation of the climax of the play.

Chrysalis was not wearing her normal, understated crown. Instead, perched upon her head, was the Element of Magic, its lustrous surface glinting in the sunlight that now streamed over the mountain peaks. The gesture could be interpreted either as mocking, or as pragmatic; what better way to protect the prize she coveted than to keep it upon her person?

Celestia and Luna halted in the sky close to the Queen, who was rapidly surrounded by a ring of drones, eager to protect their monarch. A few puffs of smoke marked scattered shots from at least one airship that had attempted to bring her down, with no success. Like the princesses, Chrysalis had shielded herself with a strong magical barrier, dark green in hue, that resisted such efforts to strike her down. She would brook no such impertinence when defending her home and her children. The guns and blows of mere ponies meant little to her magic, not exactly Alicorn in nature, but rather a very similar type and strength. 

'So, the white knight and her subordinate sibling ride to the rescue of the stricken damsel,' Chrysalis mocked in a teasing voice. 'I wondered how long it would take for you to find us here. Or perhaps you didn't. Perhaps your new human friends did, hm? But then why are they not here with you? Have you abandoned them so readily, just as you abandoned my children in their hour of need?' Chrysalis hissed, her ire directed squarely at Celestia, all but ignoring Luna's presence.

'Your children are no concern of mine,' Celestia replied darkly. 'You have my student. Where is she?'

'Oh, please. Your student doesn't matter to you. This! This is what matters to you.' Chrysalis tapped the Elemental crown she wore with a hoof. 'You want this back. No, you need it back. And I'm afraid you're not going to get it.' She laughed, an arrogance borne of confidence. 'You won't get your student, either. Oh, I know all about your little plan. Your team, already inside the Hive. They may have noticed how surprisingly easy it was to gain access. But I'm afraid that leaving will not be quite so easy for them.'

'Enough!' Celestia barked. 'You have made a grave mistake trifling with us, Chrysalis. We shall not be as forgiving this time.' This drew another scornful laugh from the Queen.

'Forgiving? You consider leaving my children to starve to be forgiving? Deliberately refusing our plea for sustenance because you were afraid of me? Things could have been so different between us, Celestia. But the choices you made left me with no other option. That was a long time ago, but I have not fogotten. We have not fogotten. But there was one thing you were right about. You were right to fear me!'

Chrysalis repeated the mantra she had spoken to Twilight, and her horn flashed, a bright green scythe of energy cutting across the sky. Celestia and Luna both disappeared in rapid succession, reappearing behind Chrysalis, but the Queen was ready for their movements. Drones swarmed towards the two sisters, but were swatted aside. Celestia's horn unleashed a powerful bolt of magic, but Chrysalis was too quick, her wings buzzing as she flashed around the sky. Luna teleported to try and cut her off, but had to dodge a huge blast from the Queen's horn which tore past her and smashed into the rocky side of the valley, setting off a great cascade of rocks and soil. Infantry on the extreme right flank of the advance had to run for cover from the debris and bouncing boulders.

The two sisters tried to catch the Queen in a pincer move, attacking from two sides at once. While she dodged Luna's shot, Celestia's blast of magic struck her firmly on the shield that surrounded her. It shimmered a little, but it resisted the attack beautifully, like a twig being thrown at the sturdy shell of a tortoise. The Queen turned and directed her fury at her foe, a concussive wave of magic washing over Celestia and her shield, with similarly little effect, like the sea beating fruitlessly against a mighty headland. The princess was unmoved, instead returning fire, but Chrysalis was gone, teleporting away in a flash and reappearing with another, firing upon Celestia from behind, striking her again. Her shield flickered, and Luna intercepted the Queen, a flurry of rapid bolts of magic coming up at her from below as the younger sister dove down and then pulled up into a steep climb.

Ponies below and on board the airships watched on with awe. They had seen their princesses carving through the drone swarms, but none of them, save a few of the Royal Guard aboard the transports who had been present in Canterlot during the last Changeling invasion, had ever seen either princess engaged in a duel with a creature of equal or greater power. Chrysalis certainly seemed to match that criteria. Whenever her magic struck, shields flickered. Whenever it missed, it caused a landslide. The valley vibrated to the titanic energies being unleashed by all three mares. What was even more unnerving was that Chrysalis was not only standing firm against one princess, but that she was more than holding her own against both of them at once. Nopony could stop for too long to stare, however, as the battle was still raging even as the mighty duel unfolded.

'Come now, you must be slipping!' Chrysalis chided, outmaneuvering another of Celestia's attacks. 'Getting soft in your old age?' The Queen retaliated by using her magic to grapple a large boulder from the valley floor below and hurl it toward Celestia. A shout from Luna alerted her, and the older sister was able to turn and neatly slice the rock in half with a precision beam of golden magic. Chrysalis did not relent, swiveling in mid-air to fire a powerful bolt of energy in Luna's direction. She teleported out of harm's way, appearing just above the Queen, and letting loose with a strong beam of dark blue flame. Chrysalis countered with her own cone of energy and the two beams met in the middle. When two sources of magic of equal power met, the result was usually a stalemate, or else a concussive blast that would shatter windows and send those nearby sprawling. But this was not a battle of equals. Luna's magic rapidly found itself being forced back, the length of her beam shrinking. She pushed renewed strength into it, trying to overcome, but to no avail.

Only her sister's intervention was enough to stop Chrysalis from overpowering Luna completely. A golden blast struck her emerald shield, and Chrysalis cut off her magic and teleported away, but she was immediately on the return, horn flashing rapidly as it pumped out a string of green bolts that rained against the shields of the two sisters. Chrysalis then focused her attention on Luna, sensing the younger sibling to be weaker and more vulnerable. A hellstorm of magic smashed into Luna's shield as Chrysalis unleashed her fury. The shield wavered; even though their capacity and strength was almost unimaginably higher, Alicorns still suffered somewhat from the mental feedback of the shield coming under constant pressure, as was common to the unicorns of the airship crews or the city barrier guard. The power being exuded by the Changeling Queen was far greater than anything pony science could create, greater than anything human ingenuity could unleash. It was greater still than it should have been; even with Shining Armour and Cadence's love energy, Chrysalis had been considerably weaker than she currently appeared to be. Something was giving her more strength and energy. The Element of Magic? 

Safe inside her shield bubble, there was no way to remove the Element from Chrysalis. The shield would have to come down. Celestia dove toward her, firing as she went. It did not deter the Queen, who simply shrugged it off. She was focused, intent on dealing a blow to Luna and eliminating one threat. Luna's shield wavered, fluctuated under the heavy bombardment of magic. Only Discord and her own sister had ever given her such a beating before. She teleported away, but the assault was resumed a moment later. There seemed to be no escape. Chrysalis had her sights set on the younger sibling. Finally, her barrage of bolts and beams told true, and Luna's shield flickered one last time before vanishing, her mind shaken by the pounding of magic on magic that had weakened and disoriented her. Chrysalis giggled manically, and her horn glowed brightly, magic building up at the tip.

Out of nowhere, Celestia was there, imposing herself between the Queen and her sister. 'Enough!' she roared, her horn glowing in response and anticipation. Chrysalis just laughed once again.

'Why not move aside, Celestia? Let me finish the job you could not bring yourself to carry out so long ago. I am not as sentimental as you are.'

An angry princess was a sight to behold, and Celestia's fury was vented in a vast beam of golden light, a good twenty feet in diameter. It engulfed the Queen and she disappeared inside the blinding, white-hot furnace of magic. The beam struck out across the battlefield and slammed into the rock walls of the valley, exploding in a great fireball that mushroomed up into the sky, all but collapsing an entire hill in a torrent of falling dirt and stone. A great cheer went up from the airship crews and the infantry on the ground, but as the beam died away, so did the jubilation.

Still floating, almost nonchalantly, in the exact same spot, was the Changeling Queen. Magic that shattered the landscape and would have massacred an entire army in one fell swoop had done little more than set her shield shimmering, like some giant mirror. Another laugh came from her throat, along with the hissing of her forked tongue. Even Celestia looked shocked by the result of her attack, or rather the lack thereof. 

Chrysalis vanished with a flicker of green light, only to reappear in a brilliant display above the volcano. Her booming voice echoed across the valley.

'Enough of this foolishness. You came here to retrieve your precious Element, and the student you claim to care so much about. Unfortunately for you, Celestia, you will come away with neither. Oh, you can try to recover one. You can come after me, or you can try to save your student, but you will fail either way. You are no longer the real power on this planet. Soon, Equestria will crumble and bow before its Queen!'

Her laughter reached new heights as her horn glowed, and an emerald beam of magic shot down into the caldera below her. She teleported away once more, reappearing close to Luna and Celestia as an ominous rumbling began, coming from the volcano, which had been gently steaming. It was clear that the Queen's magic had done something terrible. Luna and Celestia shared an uneasy glance before turning their attentions back to Chrysalis, but the ponies of the assault force could hear and see for themselves what she had done. Something was very, very wrong. 




Twilight's eyes had been closed, getting what vaguely passed for a little rest. She had been abandoned by the guards and the Queen, left alone in the torture chamber. Though a light in the ceiling blazed down upon her, at least closing her eyes helped block some of it out. She had no idea where the Queen had gone, or why. Normally she delighted in lording it over her captive and inflicting pain. Twilight lay there for a length of time that was totally meaningless to her, with no way of measuring the passage of seconds or minutes as she sweated in the muggy heat.

Some crackling sounds could be heard after a while. She dismissed them as part of her imagination, which had been very active when she was alone in her cell. But there they were again. Fire? She opened her eyes and looked around. The room showed no signs of fire and there was no smoke. But there was the sound again, closer this time. No, not fire...gunfire.

As abruptly as the sounds had begun, they ceased, plunging Twilight into silence again. She closed her eyes. She must have been mistaken.

A loud bang startled her and made her eyes shoot open once more. The door had burst open, and two dark figures were charging into the room with guns raised. Twilight felt her heart beating faster out of reflex, before the realisation set in. These were not Changelings.

'Clear!' a mare called. A stallion's voice echoed the call a moment later. One of the shadowy figures approached Twilight, its face covered with dark paint.

'Easy, Twilight,' the figure spoke, the mare's voice. 'We've got you now.' Several more of the figures entered the torture chamber. They were all dressed in camouflage gear, and they all had wings, she noted. Two of them began to work at removing Twilight's shackles to free her from the table upon which she lay.

'We're getting you out of here,' the mare assured her. 'Remember me?' She peeled off her helmet, revealing a familiar mane of vibrant yellow and dark orange. Her face was still obscured behind camouflage paint, but Twilight recognised her right away.

'Spitfire?' she blinked. 'What...what are the Wonderbolts doing here?' she questioned incredulously. Spitfire shook her head.

'Not the Wonderbolts, kid. I have another job too, you know.' She grinned. 'Special Tasks Group. Air Corps special forces, and we're getting you out of here.'

'How did you get in here?' Twilight asked, as the other ponies worked to free her. 'There must be thousands of Changelings in the Hive!'

'There were. But guess what? We didn't come her alone,' Spitfire replied. 'There's a whole fleet up there. The princess is leading the way.'

'Princess Celestia is here?' Twilight managed to crack a small smile. 'i guess she'll fix all this...she'll know what to do. Where's the Queen?' she questioned. 

'No idea,' Spitfire replied. 'No sign of her in here. But it's a big Hive. We were lucky to find you so quickly. To be honest we had no idea where you were going to be down here...do you know where the Element of Magic is?' Spitfire asked, as Twilight's shackles were removed. She helped the young mare to sit up slowly, as Twilight shook her head.

'No...when I woke up here, it was gone. I haven't seen it since. I guess Chrysalis has it locked away somewhere. You have to find it, if you can...'

'I know. We're here for the Element as well as you,' Spitfire assured her. 'Can you walk?'

'I-i think so...' Twilight nodded. The other Pegasi helped her to her hooves. She was unsteady, wobbly, but she managed to stay standing, trying to stay proud despite her incarceration. The Pegasi worked to remove the metal lock from her horn, managing to crack it open and toss it aside. 

'Arcwing, support her,' Spitfire ordered, and the stallion did as ordered. 'Alright, let's move. Once we get her back to the surface we can come back to look for the Element.' Spitfire left the room, and Arcwing led Twilight out. The corridor outside was crowded with Pegasi, in the dark uniforms of the Assault Infantry, faces masked with paint, all colours dulled and obscured, lending a sinister air to their appearance, not entirely dissimilar to the Changelings they were fighting, with just their eyes shining in the dim light provided by the flashlight beams. Some of them nodded at Twilight as she passed by. All of them wore grim, determined expressions. They were obviously good at their job; to get this deep into a Hive, even with the majority of Changelings outside apparently fighting an airship fleet, required more than just luck. Only skill and bravery could have got the force inside to rescue her.

Arcwing supported Twilight as Spitfire issued orders to the ponies. There were more, far more, in the chamber adjoining the corridor. Several hundred, Twilight guessed, all clutching rifles and adorned with equipment; grenades, flares, ammunition pouches, bandoliers. Some carried sticks of explosives, while other had entrenching tools and other portable engineering equipment in case they needed to blast through a cave-in or a deliberately blocked tunnel, or in case they had to free Twilight or the Element from some kind of entrapment, as indeed they had, a crowbar and spreading tool having been used to extricate her from the shackles that bound her to the torture rack.

There were bodies, too. Dead Changelings, which explained the gunfire she thought she had heard. There were ponies, as well. Only two, but that was two too many. They had died to rescue her, Twilight realised. The thought made her feel slightly nauseous, though her dehydration and the lack of food did not help. As if reading her mind, Arcwing proffered a canteen of water to her. Twilight nodded, and he brought it up to her lips and tipped it back gently, allowing the life-giving fluid to run down her throat. It was warm, but it was blissful.

The assault troops began heading back up the tunnel, rising slowly toward the surface. Spitfire and Arcwing stuck with Twilight, escorting their prize away from her prison. Everything had happened so quickly that Twilight still wasn't sure it had really happened at all. Many times in her fevered half-dreams and long periods of loneliness, she had imagined rescue coming in all forms, ranging from her solo escape, through a daring commando raid such as reality seemed to suggest, all the way to the princess herself simply bursting through the earth with a great rumble and roar and striking down all who lay before her.

Rumble...there was a rumble. Yes, there was a rumbling in the distance, something rattling and shaking the ground. Some of the Pegasi were looking around sharply, looking for contacts or danger. But it was just a rumble, some minor earth tremor perhaps. They continued their climb up the tunnel, to another chamber where flashlight beams played over dozens of corpses. There had evidently been a big firefight here. Ponies and Changelings lay dead, but there was no possibility of taking the bodies of their fallen home with them. They would be commemorated only with a headstone and an empty grave, maybe a name engraved in gilded letters on a wall of memorial at Cloudsdale or Canterlot. Like those outside the torture room, they had all died to save her.

Twilight tried to banish such thoughts from her mind, lest she go mad after so long resisting the mental deprivation. Her attempts were aided by another rumbling, louder this time. The ground shook more violently, causing some Pegasi to take to the air to avoid losing their footing on the slick rocks. Twilight swayed but was supported by Arcwing.

'What's that...?' she asked tremulously. She had felt no such shaking during her time trapped in the Hive. 

'Just seismic activity,' Spitfire replied. 'This Hive is inside a volcano.' That news came as a shock to Twilight, but it did explain the heat she had felt. It also showed the intelligence of the Queen- hiding the Hive inside a volcano would surely dissuade any investigations that might locate it. Yet somehow, the fleet had managed to find it, and find her. 

The floor was shaking again, more violently still. Surely it was not normal? Indeed, the Pegasi began to speed up, subtly but noticeably. Something was clearly wrong. She felt Arcwing pull her along rather more firmly. More shaking, more rumbling. Dust began to drizzle down from the ceiling of the chamber as they headed for another tunnel, dimly visible in the torch beams. There was a bang somewhere distant, followed by a crash and another loud rumble. The Pegasi began to run, some flying instead. Twilight found herself being hauled along as Spitfire took to the wing just ahead of her. 

Small rocks were falling from the tunnel roof as they entered it at pace. Evidently building the Hive under a volcano, while good for secrecy, came with its own attendant risks of volcanic and seismic activity. Such activity suddenly breaking out during the raid, however, was rather a big coincidence, given that Twilight had felt nothing similar during her days or weeks below ground. That suggested a rather more sinister cause might underlie the earthquakes that were now shaking and rattling them.

There was a glow up ahead, and a deep rumble from behind. Part of the chamber they had just vacated came crashing down, tons of rock dropping down, kicking up a huge cloud dust that washed up the tunnel behind them. The last of the rearguard had cleared the chamber just in time, but if the quakes continued, there was no guarantee of a safe passage to the surface. 

Soon they came to another chamber, larger still than the previous one. Cracks in the floor and walls were oozing magma through from some unseen source beyond. The heat, even from a distance, was terrific. The Pegasi led the way, having marked the route to the surface with fluorescent marker sticks. All they, and Twilight, could do was hope that they were still there, and had not been tampered with or destroyed, and hope that the route itself was still clear of debris. 

As earth continued to tremble, however, that seemed less and less likely. There were loud and disturbing sounds from all around; bangs, groans, the creaks of shifting rock under stress. The commandos navigated their way through the uneven surface of the cavern, avoiding the magma that was leaking through. Another tunnel led up, toward comparative safety.

Twilight found that, though they had not walked far, she was already becoming tired. Her legs were weak through lack of use, and her body was not well-suited for exercise after so long merely sitting or lying in one place. She hoped it would not be much farther to the surface. 

The lead Pegasi at the head of the column of ponies suddenly stopped, flashing their torches vigorously, some kind of warning signal, it seemed to Twilight. Several of them began shouting. 'Back! Go back!' The column turned, filing back down into the main chamber. Twilight didn't know what was going on as Arcwing bustled her back along the tunnel, but the reason for their reverse soon became apparent.

Down the tunnel they had been climbing came not Changelings, as she had feared, but rather a steady flow of magma, bubbling, oozing along, flowing at a worryingly fast rate, propelled by the unseen forces of volcanism deep within the earth. A wall of heat was barring their exit from the Hive, and the shaking and tremors were only intensifying. There could be no way through; even if they had unicorns who could cool the magma with magic, the tunnel would still be packed solid with a mass of rock that it would take weeks, perhaps longer, to drill through. If the tunnels all the way to the surface were similarly filled with magma it could take years, like drilling a rail tunnel with a spoon. As it happened, Twilight was the only unicorn among them, and she was in no fit state to perform feats of magic after her ordeal. If they were to leave the Hive with their lives, another way out had to be found, and fast.