//------------------------------//
// Loww 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

"So, what's the plan, Stellaria?" Chrysalis asked, her voice and body camouflaged as Suri Polomare's.
"Just Stella is fine while we're in public." The alicorn, who somehow received no attention from the ponies around them even while wearing no sort of disguise, levitated her beige-coloured briefcase to her side and began to walk down the street. She'd stuffed the entirety of her laboratory in the briefcase. And the real Suri. "We're going to Ponyville first, Chrissy. Not directly, and we'll probably stop somewhere around it for a bit, but that's the general direction."
"Ponyville?" Chrysalis stammered, forced to speed up her steps to catch up with Stellaria. "That's where the real Twilight is."
"That is where the inferior Twilight lives, yes," Stella replied, her eyeroll permeating her tone. "I don't need to be reminded of such details." As she continued, her voice and her legs both began to pick up speed. "Not that her being the inferior Twilight means I'm the superior Twilight, I am of course superior to her but I'm not-" She cut herself off and stopped walking for a moment. Then she resumed, at her previous, measured pace. "I know that. It's precisely why we're going there."
Chrysalis had caught up with the pony in the meantime. "It is?" she asked, turning towards her. "Are you sure you want to risk being so close to her?"
"Would you rather spend your life hiding?" There was a mocking edge in Stellaria's tone as she asked that, but she kept her head pointed forward. "Opportunities should be seized when they present themselves, and you should always be ready for them. Lying in the shadows won't help you. You'll never be strong enough to defeat Twilight on your own, Chrissy. We need to act, and work with what we have."
Chrysalis had to bite down on her tongue and swallow back her own bile. "I've captured that insolent worm and her friends once before and I can do it again. I'll build a new army and-"
"And what? Get betrayed again?" Stellaria laughed. "You're a terrible leader. Every success you ever had was the result of someone else's work, and every failure you collected the result of your own mistakes undermining their efforts. I am your new army, if you've already forgotten about that. I'm what you came up with to try and succeed again, and you should consider yourself lucky that I haven't brought you to the same end you left me to suffer. Listen to someone who's better than you, for once in your life, and maybe you'll finally get a chance to see what winning is actually like."
Chrysalis was biting down on her teeth so hard they would have cracked had she really been a pony. Green flames danced furiously inside her eyes, and her steps came down heavy on the road. But she knew better than to risk trying to rip the alicorn's spine out in broad daylight. "Why Ponyville?" she asked, trying to move the conversation.
Stellaria smirked, clearly aware of the effect her words were having on Chrysalis. Still, she'd played around enough, and an explanation of her plans was needed. "How much do you know about scales?"