//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10: The Queen and the Alpha 
// Story: Howlite Howler Part 2: Trust Denied 
// by JNKing 
//------------------------------//

Luna staggered back to her hooves. Chrysalis floated above the throne, shrouded in green lightning like a sick storm cloud, linking her to Luke and Thorax. She unleashed a mocking laugh.
“How does it feel, Luna?” Chrysalis mocked. “Knowing that Canterlot has fallen… all because of you.”
“Canterlot has NOT fallen!” Luna screamed defiantly, even as her hooves trembled to keep her up. “As long as we draw breath, we shall never…”
Chrysalis’ laugh cut her off. “Look around you, Princess,” she demanded. “Your sister has fallen. Your city is overrun. And even better…  you deserve it.”
She lifted Thorax and Luke into the air. The diamond dog flinched in her aura as their scars were forced into the limelight, nearly reopening as he winced in pain.
“Look what your subjects did to mine,” Chrysalis insisted. “Accept your place at my hooves, and resign yourself to justice.” 
“This is not justice,” a voice snarled.
Chrysalis’ eyes widened, and she turned.
Shiva, Skippy, the diamond dogs, Cadence, Spike and the Mane Six all stood tall at the entrance to the balcony, eyes narrowed in anger.
Chrysalis gasped. She glanced back at Luna, before turning to Shiva with a winning smile.
“W-Welcome back, Howlite Howler,” Chrysalis said grandly. “Your timing couldn’t be better.” She indicated Luna, who shared a nervous look with the wolf. “Only one princess stands between us and victory.” 
Luke turned to Shiva, growling at the Mane Six as they glared Chrysalis down. “The Elements of Harmony can’t stop us,” he said. “Why shouldn’t we see them fall?” He extended his paw to the pack. “Let Equestria never threaten us again.”
Shiva glowered at Chrysalis, before her eyes glanced up. Her ears flattened and she snarled at Chrysalis, pointing up. 
The others followed her gaze. Cocoons held Celestia, and several ponies and diamond dogs. Luke’s face fell as he beheld his fellow pack mates. 
“How… did I not notice that?” he mumbled.
Chrysalis gave the dogs an uncertain look. Her eyes narrowed, but she backed away from Shiva as she marched on her. 
“Did… you want those back?” Chrysalis asked.  
Shiva growled, her fur beginning to glow. As the ponies perked up in hope, Chrysalis shrugged.
“Very well,” Chrysalis said, before her horn lit up with light. “Take them.” 
Luke gasped and jumped to protect his Alpha, only for the cocoons to burst. The diamond dogs tumbled out, landing in a gasping, slimy heap before her. 
“Luke,” Shiva gasped, running to his side. Skippy tried to hold his ground, but the rest of the dogs broke ranks, embracing their freed comrades with whimpers of concern.
Luna and the ponies gaped in shock while Chrysalis smiled.
“Consider them my thanks,” Chrysalis said. “For all your help.” She motioned to the outside. “Take them and go. Be at peace.” She grinned at the ponies. “Unless you actually care about these ponies.”
Shiva and Twilight locked eyes. And Twilight saw it; Shiva didn’t want to care. She didn’t want to be a part of any of it. As her dogs looked between them, they all started to unanimously long for the exit. And even as Skippy stood ready, refusing to leave their side, Shiva herself was considering taking them away. 
“Shiva… no…” Pinkie almost begged. But then, Chrysalis’ smirk turn malicious. Her horn lit up with light.
Luna was charging forward before Shiva could blink. At first, the dogs yelped, thinking the alicorn was going for them. A second later, Chrysalis’ spell exploded a foot from Shiva, who jumped back with a bark of alarm. Her link flared to life, binding the dogs together into a pack.
Yet, as the smoke cleared, they found themselves facing Luna; back scorched and her eyes struggling to focus. 
“Princess Luna!” Twilight cried, attempting to charge up her element. But as Chrysalis sent her changelings at the six ponies, Shiva and Luna stood, trapped in each other’s gazes.
“Wolf… Shiva,” Luna whispered. “I’m sorry that you suffered at my species’ hooves.” She blinked, and tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. “I’m sorry you only knew me as a cruel and evil creature.”
Shiva’s ears flattened.
“Please,” Luna begged. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But don’t let anger and hatred cloud your mind. There is so much more light in this world than the darkness you’ve seen.” Luna stood tall, blocking Shiva from Chrysalis with her body. “If you have truly lost faith in the light… then I suppose we are all doomed.”
As she spoke, Chrysalis bore gleefully down on Luna. Her next spell hit Luna dead in the back. Her body arcing gracefully through the air, she sailed over Shiva and her dogs, and disappeared through one of the stain glass windows.
Voices screamed, but Shiva didn’t hear them. She barely saw Twilight and Rarity limp after her. All that mattered was Chrysalis, grinning down at her small pack with malicious green eyes.
“Equestria is mine now,” Chrysalis declared, rising up on a ball of green lightning. She lifted her hooves, and her changelings flew through the windows to her side. “Bow before me, Howlite Howler, and prepare yourself for a new era.”
Shiva’s ears flattened, and she shimmered with light. Luke looked between the two in horror. 
“But…” he stammered. “You said we’d rule together! We could take all we wanted from the mines of Canterlot.” 
Shiva glanced at Luke before turning her eyes to Chrysalis. “Now that you have what you want,” she guessed. “You’ll just add us to your empire anyway.”
Chrysalis smirked. “You catch on quickly,” she praised. “But now, it’s time for you to use that intelligence.” Her lighting flashed in warning. “I won’t tell you again,” Chrysalis all but snarled. “Bow.” 
But Shiva stood defiantly before her.  
“The day my pack bows to you…” Shiva growled.
“Is the day we fall to Tartarus,” Skippy agreed, standing faithfully by her side. Luke still looked crestfallen at Chrysalis’ betrayal, but as the diamond dogs converged behind Shiva, he joined them, glaring in sad betrayal at Chrysalis slowly fading grin. 
“You will serve me,” Chrysalis growled. “One way or another.”
Shiva flared her lightning, and shrouded the wolves in light. Spike similarly stood alongside them, his bulk increasing slightly as a link twined around him. 
“You want her?” Spike growled. 
“Yer gonna have to go through all of us,” Applejack said, putting herself at Shiva's, alongside Pinkie and Fluttershy, and soon enough, the rest of the recovered Mane Six.
Chrysalis cackled in amusement. Though the amusement rapidly faded when the wolves and ponies struck.

#

If Shiva had buried her grudge against the ponies, they might have beaten Chrysalis in the first wave.
The wolves were skilled, and equal to the Elements in terms of teamwork. They shot through the changelings Chrysalis sent at them, going straight for the queen while the changeling warriors were tossed to the side by the link.
Yet nothing they were doing was putting a dent in Chrysalis’ defenses, and part of that was due to them getting in the way of the ponies. Every time Rarity and Twilight shot a spell, a diamond dog would sometimes be caught in the crossfire. When Applejack tried to lasso Chrysalis, the queen threw Luke into her path. And after Rainbow Dash got knocked into Shiva one too many times, the white wolf threw Rainbow Dash out another window in a burst of frustration-induced rage. The changeling queen took full advantage of their lack of cooperation; no matter how hard the dogs or ponies fought, Chrysalis kept at least five changelings between her and them.
“What the hay, Shiva!” Rainbow Dash snapped, flying back through the window. “We’re supposed to be on the same side.”
“You’re the ones getting in our way!” Shiva snarled back, throwing Pinkie Pie at Chrysalis.
“We need to link with them,” Skippy said. “Then they’d be able to know what we’re trying to do.”
“And give them more access to our magic?” Luke demanded. “They’d just use it to betray us the second the changelings were down.”
“We’re not like that,” Fluttershy protested, only for a group of changelings to interrupt her with a burst of spells. 
“It’s no use,” Twilight said. “We’ve got to pull back and use the Elements properly.”
“But if we do that,” Applejack protested. “We could hurt Shiva. We don't know what the Element's will do to her.”
Shiva paused, wanting to hear more, but the sight of a familiar scarred changeling dashed her curiosity from her mind, replacing it with cold fury.
“Thorax!” Shiva snarled, batting aside a changeling that tried to defend Thorax. The changeling was backing away fast from the diamond dog, but she kept after him in hot pursuit. "You led Luna into that trap, didn’t you?"
“I served at the behest of my queen,” Thorax protested. 
“A queen that uses you like a tool!”
“And you don’t use your pack the same way?” Thorax demanded. 
Shiva bellowed, her lightning spells frying the ground Thorax dodged from. Yet, as Thorax rolled, he was barraged by two apples and a cake slammed into Chrysalis’ face. He stumbled backward, and Luke took his chance, leaping from the circle and flooring him with an axe punch.
“You should've taken my peace when I offered it,” Shiva growled, flaring her lightning. “Now all I have to give... is death.”
Seconds before she could finish the changeling off, however, she spun back around, aiming her bolt at an approaching Applejack and Pinkie. Fluttershy preparing a stare behind her.
“Shiva, for land’s sake!” Applejack said. “We ain’t the enemy.”
“Then stay out of the way,” Shiva snarled. 
“We can’t!” Fluttershy protested. “We don’t want to risk hurting you with the Elements.”
Shiva and Luke glanced at each other, before noticing how Chrysalis kept putting changelings between them and her. 
“Pack,”Shiva ordered through the link. “Let Chrysalis draw back. Focus on the changelings but let her think you’re being overwhelmed.” She turned to Twilight. “Focus on the queen. We’ve got the drones.”
Chrysalis laughed, easily flying out of reach of the mares. But as the dogs let the changelings push them back, Chrysalis noticed that the Elements were grouped together, and charging their gems into a rainbow beam of light. 
But as the rainbow beam arced down towards Chrysalis, the changeling queen began to chuckle. 
“You foals,” Chrysalis said. “Did you think I wouldn’t pick up some tricks by absorbing the love from Shiva’s mate?”
Shiva’s eyes darted between her and Luke. Confusion slowly turned to fear in the diamond dog’s eyes, before Chrysalis turned to her subjects.
“Changelings,” she declared. “Lend me your magic.”
Shiva paled, as Chrysalis flared her horn. Green light shot out from Chrysalis’ body; sickly green waves of light that flared towards the changelings around them. 
“Wait," Shiva muttered. "No!"
But the changelings raised their heads as one, sickly green energy leaving them and heading for the queen. 
“She is my queen,” Thorax said sadly. “I can’t deny her.”
Yet, as he spoke, his voice was tinged with agony. And as Shiva watched, his body began to wither. Their magic swirled around Chrysalis, turning into a bright green beam that clashed against the rainbow beam… and held it in place.
“What?!” Twilight stammered. “She-She can’t do that! The Elements are powered by friendship!”
“Such as loyalty?” Chrysalis asked mockingly. “Perhaps, like the loyalty of my subjects?”
“Uh-oh,” Luke mumbled.
Shiva stared at Thorax’s withering form in mounting horror.
“You’re killing them,” Shiva realized. “Chrysalis, stop! You’re killing your own subjects!”
“And that’s supposed to mean anything?” Chrysalis demanded. Her horn flashed, and Shiva and her dogs were thrown back from her. A similar shockwave made the rainbow beam falter as the Elements struggled to keep their hooves.
“This was where you failed, Howlite Howler,” Chrysalis noted grandly.  “You wasted so much thought and concern for the pathetic well-being of your subjects and the subjects of your enemy. Not realizing the power you could have had when you stopped trying to get along with everything, and just took what was yours by right!” She shook her head. “It’s almost embarrassing to think about, honestly.” 
Chrysalis’ beam slowly but surely began to drive the rainbow beam back. The mares whimpered as Shiva regained her paws, Spike joining Luke and Skippy at her side.
“Rejoice, Shiva,” Chrysalis offered, with the honeyed tone of a soothing mother. “Soon, you’ll learn. Our subjects are nothing but tools. Their only purpose is to follow our commands and help us – or should I say, me – fulfill my goals.” 
But Shiva didn’t glower or whimper. Instead, her tail began to wag, and she chuckled softly. Chrysalis’ expression turned perplexed. 
“You call us the foals?” Shiva asked. “It’s just as I told you before: a Queen without subjects is nothing but dust.” 
The diamond dogs loaned their strength to Shiva, and she sent forth a beam of white magic. With Chrysalis focused on keeping the Elements back, and her subjects too withered to aid her, Chrysalis was helpless as Shiva’s beam scorched into her like she had been dropped into the sun.
“What?!” Chrysalis stammered before the pain reached her. Her shrieks of agony ripped through the air, and despite her evil, the Mane Six found themselves wincing in sympathy.
Shiva held no such sympathy, and poured on the energy. Chrysalis’ minions dropped from their links, gasping as if they had been denied air for years, all while their so-called queen slowly burned away into nothing. 
As the last of Queen Chrysalis floated away with the beam of light, the green magic holding the Element’s back faded, and the rainbow beam slammed into Shiva’s lightning.
Shiva gasped as a rainbow prism glowed around her link. 
Then everything went white.

#

For a moment, things stayed white. Shiva couldn’t move. She could barely breath.
“Hello?”she called into the light. “Are you guys there?”
“We’re here,” Skippy assured her.
“Everything’s… frozen, though,” Luke said. “Did we just blow up Canterlot?” 
“I’m pretty sure there would’ve been a shockwave blowing us back,” Skippy argued. 
“Maybe we’re about to feel it,” Luke noted, his voice rather eager for such a disastrous outcome. “Just watch. The shockwave will hit us any second.”
Shiva glanced around, but nothing came for them. No shockwaves, no burning sensation. They were just… frozen. Almost in time. 
“Any second now…” Luke mumbled. But he voice was growing fainter. 
And as the dog’s voices faded into the background, Shiva saw a prism of rainbow light form from the blankness in front of her.
“Guys?”Shiva asked, reaching for her pack. But then a voice soothed her.
“Relax,”the voice said. “We have no intention of hurting you.” 
“Far from it,” another voice replied. 
The prisms of light took shape. From their forms, Shiva saw… 
“Applejack?” Shiva asked, her eyes darting to the six ponies before her. “Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy…” She shook her head – the only part of her she could still move. “What is this?”
Twilight smiled softly, but something was slightly… off about her. The mark on her flank was different, somehow. More like a gem than an actual mark.
“Shiva, you’re the one who figured out mind linking,” ‘Twilight’ chastised. “Surely, you’d recognize a link when you made one.” 
Shiva’s eyes narrowed. “But you’re not Twilight Sparkle,” she noted. She gazed at the mares. “None of you are those ponies.”
Applejack’s grin widened. “Very good, Shiva,” she praised. “We’re the Elements they wield. The Guardians assigned to protect Equestria…” Her face fell. “Even when they don’t deserve it.”
Shiva’s ears perked. “So,” she noted. “Even you disapprove of Beast Breaker’s actions?”
Twilight's ears flattened. "That one of our own subjects was capable of such cruelty...?" she bowed her head. "As it is, the ones that aided him shall be receiving their due soon enough. For what happened to you after was not justice. It is not what we wanted.”
Shiva glowered. “Then why didn’t you stop it?” she demanded.
Twilight lifted her head, and the whiteness faded away. While it was still filtered, almost as if through a camera lens, Shiva made out the Mane Six above them, the gems aglow and sending the rainbow beam right into a scorching crater in front of the ground. Twined around the rainbow was Shiva’s lightning beam, leading right back to her and to the rest of her pack. 
“We need bearers to influence this world,” Twilight said sadly. “It is the cost of being able to wield such power. And when even our bearers have their vision clouded by fear and anger… there is little we can actually do against the beings we are sworn to protect.” 
“The fact that you were capable of showing our ponies such generosity,” Rarity – or her Element? – said.
“Despite the lack of kindness, they’ve shown you,” Fluttershy added.
“Says a great deal about you.” Both of them inclined their heads. “Equestria is truly blessed to have someone like you in charge of the diamond dogs.”
Shiva huffed. “Don’t think this is going to be a constant thing,” Shiva growled. “I only wanted to make sure Chrysalis didn’t hurt my pack.”
Applejack – Honesty? – hummed, rubbing her chin.
“Is that really all?” she asked. “Or… did you want to prove that you were better than them?”
Shiva grimaced, but before she could speak…
“Because while you showed great courage and tenacity,” Twilight noted. “You also gave in to wrath and pride. It is a hard battle to forgive, but to triumph is to show greater strength than any…”
“Spare me the ‘sparing is strength’ line,” Shiva said. She steeled herself, despite her body still being frozen. “Are you going to force me to stay here?”
“No,” Honesty said instantly. “If it is your desire to leave this place, even we don’t have the power to stop you.”
“And even if we did,” Kindness added. “It would go against our very nature.”
“You’d be miserable here,” Pinkie – Laughter? – added. “If you were to stay, we want it to be because you want to.”
“And if another foe comes to take Equestria,” Loyalty – Rainbow Dash? – added grimly. “We do hope you’ll stand by our side. But we can’t force you to be loyal to us. Not unless you truly want to forgive us.” 
Shiva sighed. “You were right about forgiveness,” she admitted. “It is a hard battle. And one I don’t feel I’m ready to take on.”
The Elements frowned in disappointment, before Rarity – Generosity? – let out a puff of air. 
“Then be free to take your leave,” she declared. “And know that should you be willing to try and take that path to forgiveness…”
“Equestria will always be open to you,” Generosity, Kindness and Honesty said at the same time.
“Good luck, Howlite Howler,” Magic said, as they faded into the twining rainbow and lightning. “For what it’s worth… we hope you find peace wherever you choose to call home.”
With their final blessing, the Elements faded into light.
And the shockwave Luke was talking about finally hit them.