Twilight crouched behind a shrub, breathing hard. Chrysalis would hear it and find her any second, which made it all but impossible to stop as the stress overwhelmed her thought.
Can't breathe have to breathe can't hide have to hide, her instinct screamed at her. Like she'd been dreading, a set of ink-black hooves landed hard enough to crack the earth in front of her.
HAVE TO RUN. RUN THEN HIDE THEN RUN AGAIN.
Thankfully for Twilight, teleporting was easy enough to be instinctual for her when she needed to run. She jumped through space to the furthest point she could see, well away from the clearing she’d been caught off guard in.
“Twilight?” she heard from the woods in Applejack’s familiar drawl. It had come from even further out than her teleport had taken her. Rescue had arrived!
Twilight ran to her friend, then ran past her without stopping. “No time to talk, AJ! Chrysalis is here! We need to leave!”
“Oh, is she now,” Applejack said in a tone that made Twilight’s skin crawl. When she spoke next, her accent thickened to the point of parody, and Twilight’s blood ran cold. “Yer far too trustin’, ya know that?”
Suddenly, Applejack leapt at her as another flash of green filled Twilight’s vision. Before she could react, Twilight was pinned.
“I do so enjoy tricking you ponies like that,” Chrysalis said with a sneer. “You're so eager to see a friendly face, you forget it might be me smiling at you.”
Chrysalis leaned in so close that Twilight could smell each breath Chrysalis took. They stank like something which had been festering in a corner somewhere, unnoticed. “You were never going to win this, little princess. You don't have the guile. Or the guts to truly fight. None of your kind do! And what fight they have in them will be beaten out when I rule Equestria.
“You'll get to see it all, too. Having you captured and broken is too valuable to make killing you worth it. Thankfully, your little student doesn't have that going for her. You'll watch her die, Twi-"
Her monologue was cut off by a beam of pure energy slamming into her head. Twilight panted as the fear and adrenaline refused to leave her system. She couldn't see clearly because of the light from her spell. It felt like Chrysalis had stopped moving entirely, but hadn't been thrown off despite the blast.
As her vision began to clear, she felt liquid seeping through the fur on her chest. When she could finally make out what was in front of her, she understood why. There was simply nothing left where Chrysalis's head was supposed to be, and a sickly green fluid was dripping from the remains.
A few moments passed in silence before the body collapsed on top of Twilight with a soft thud. She took the body in her telekinesis and threw it off herself. As her mind finally slowed with the fight over, she could only think about one thing.
I killed her.
It had been automatic. Chrysalis had pushed just hard enough to finally break Twilight's resolve, and now the changeling queen was dead.
Twilight sat on her haunches, took one ragged breath in, and let a sob back out. She'd just crossed a threshold, one she had hoped to never cross. She would be a killer for the rest of her life. And some slightly more rational part of her that she wasn't listening to told her it was necessary. That Equestria would praise her for this. It had come down to a Princess of Equestria or one of the greatest monsters to ever live, and she had survived. And yet here she was, weeping
A strange, disgusting gurgling noise coming from the body snapped Twilight out of her despair. It was twitching, with air coming out of the neck making the wretched noise. It was almost like… laughter?
Another flash of green overtook the corpse, and then Chrysalis was whole again, cackling.
“Did you, heh! I mean, really! Ha! You honestly thought that a master shapeshifter would be idiotic enough to keep her vital organs in her head?” Chrysalis stood, ready to continue the fight.
“And really, what was with the sobbing? You thought I was dead and you start crying!? Your enemy is slain! You should be celebrating! You ponies really don't know how to fight worth a damn!”
Twilight breathed heavily as she got back on her hooves. This was already the worst fight she’d ever been in, and it wasn't about to get any easier.