KNOCK KNOCK
"Spiiiiike! Can you get the door? I'm too busy working on my project!" Shouted an invested Twilight Sparkle.
"Ugh, fine, but only because I'm your number one assistant..." Spike grumbled, heading out of the kitchen with a piece of toast.
The young dragon walked through the halls of the Friendship Castle, passing by many guardsponies posted at their various stations, before coming to the main door. He opened the door to find an eagerly prancing Rainbow Dash, seemingly jogging in place.
"HiSpikenotimetowastegottawarnTwilight!" Rainbow spewed out before shooting past him, leaving him spinning in place before thudding to the ground, dizzy.
Spike got up and rubbed his head, looking at his claw. "What's her deal?" He mumbled to himself. He jogged after her, though he couldn't keep up with the fastest pony in Equestria, not by a long shot.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash zipped through the halls, trying to locate Twilight Sparkle. "Twiiiiiiliiiiiight!" She yelled out, her voice echoing amongst the crystal thoroughfares, "Where are youuuuu!?"
"Rainbow?! I'm in here!" Twilight shouted, though the echoes threw Rainbow off.
Rainbow zipped to where she thought Twilight might be, but found nothing. "Where?!"
"Ugh, in the lab, Rainbow Dash!" Twilight shouted again, exasperated.
Rainbow Dash soon sped off towards the direction of the lab, nearly tearing the open door off of its poor hinges with how fast she was flying. She skidded to a stop just short of Twilight and her gizmos and gadgets, the only damage done being a stack of papers tipped over.
"Rainbow! Those were my notes!" Twilight yelled for the umpteenth time, carefully taking her notes in her lavender magical field and rearranging them neatly back into a pile.
"Notes? There's no time for any of this stu-" Twilight stopped her by pressing a hoof into Rainbow's snout.
"Shhh- I'm almost finished with my ward!" The purple pony removed her hoof from Rainbow Dash's muzzle, returning to work on what appeared to be a polished black sphere. Strands of lavender magic spilled from her horn and etched themselves into the orb, carving a multitude of patterns.
"Queen Chrysalis is coming, Twilight!" Rainbow finally let out, panting from the stress and exhaustion.
Twilight sputtered, nearly dropping the polished orb. "Queen Chrysali-"
Just then, a sunroof above the two shattered, and a charcoal black figure raced through, alone. The figure rapidly tackled Rainbow Dash, sending her flying into a bookshelf filled with notes among other items and oddities. Rainbow Dash promptly slumped to the floor, groaning, and the now visible figure turned to Twilight, who had just dropped her orb.
"Twilight Sparkle! You have tormented my empire for far too long, now you shall get your just desserts!" Queen Chrysalis boasted, her wings buzzing and quickly encroaching upon Twilight.
Twilight, not knowing what to do, quickly flung the nearest object at Chrysalis, that being the black polished orb with many wards applied to it.
Chrysalis's eyes went wide as time seemed to slow down in motion, she saw the orb coming, and sensed the wards that were applied to it. She knew not what the wards contained but knew that she was in trouble. The queen attempted to veer off her course to dodge the orb but she couldn't in time. The orb quickly connected directly with Queen Chrysalis's forehead and shattered. Queen Chrysalis was suspended in the air as the shattered remnants of the orb circled around her, coalescing into a grey sphere of energy that completely surrounded the entrapped Queen.
Twilight could only watch in awe as her latest project did its work upon the Queen. The grey sphere of energy contracted and expanded, fitting itself to the shape of the poor entrapped Changeling. Its job was to find any source of magic, any whatsoever, and completely nullify it. How good of a job it would do would depend on how much magic Twilight had poured into the ward. She watched as Chrysalis let out one final screech as the ward contracted one last time, then Twilight herself was blown back as the energy field exploded outwards. Sending her notes and furniture flying in all directions.
A cloud of smoke obscured the area as Twilight got to her hooves, coughing. "R-Rainbow Dash... Rainbow! Are you okay?!" Twilight called out amongst the fog.
"Yyyyep! Still here." Rainbow coughed, "Woozy though!"
Twilight couldn't see Rainbow, in fact, she couldn't see much at all. She walked forward, gathering up magic to dispel the smoke that surrounded the room. Before she could unleash her spell, she stumbled over something on the floor. The alicorn looked down at what she had tripped over and saw that it was a crown. In fact, it was Queen Chrysalis's crown! It seemed to have lost its turquoise pearls that adorned the tips and had retracted its spindles that held the pears. It now looked like a shortened four stemmed crown, versus how it looked before.
The alicorn shook her head and unleashed the spell to get rid of the smoke, a light vortex appearing above her head that acted like a vacuum. It quickly sucked all the smoke in the room, revealing the damage it had done. Furniture was smashed up against the wall, broken glass lined the floor of the room, strange liquids bubbled in puddles throughout the place. Overall, it was a mess. Twilight couldn't ignore the elephant in the room, however, and quickly took note of the prone black figure in the center of the destruction.
As Twilight approached Queen Chrysalis, the changeling coughed and sputtered, gasping. The two-toned nature of her voice appeared to be lost, and she struggled to get to her hooves. Twilight stopped, and looked to Rainbow, who was getting to her hooves on the other side of the room. Rainbow looked to be about as shocked as her. Queen Chrysalis was noticeably shorter, she had lost her carapace, and the webbed mane that she was used to seeing on the queen had turned into that of a cyan and turquoise mane. A proper mane. In fact, Queen Chrysalis just looked like an ordinary obsidian colored pegasus pony.
Queen Chrysalis, meanwhile, got to her hooves, groaning. She looked around the room, bewildered, before settling her eyes on her crown. Then her eyes turned to meet Twilight's. She looked to her crown, then back to Twilight again, and Chrysalis's eyes began to water. Before Twilight could react, Chrysalis rushed over to Twilight. The alicorn steadied herself, expecting an attack, but an attack never came. Instead, she felt two soft hooves wrap around her, and a sobbing pony nestling her muzzle into Twilight's neck.
"T-thank you... Thank you so much..." Chrysalis wept into Twilight.
"Uh... What just happened?" Called out Rainbow from the back.
All Twilight could do is shrug, as she looked toward the deactivated crown. Twilight tried to piece what was happening together in her head, but was having a hard time making sense of the matter.
Chrysalis pulled herself away from Twilight, and walked over to the crown, kicking it with a hoof. "You disabled my crown. You- You cured me, right?"
"Cured? What are you talking about, Chrysalis?" Twilight asked, leery, and cocking her head in confusion.
"The crown, it was the crown, that cursed item. Ever since I put it on... It made do things, say things, it changed me!" The onyx pony stomped the floor, snorting angrily before calming herself with a breath. "It changed me, but I'm cured now, right?"
Twilight's ears folded back, realizing what had just happened. The crown was a cursed item and had cursed the quee- Chrysalis in turn. Twilight couldn't offer much to the poor pegasus pony, though. "I'm sorry. It's um... The nullifier was only meant to be temporary."
The former Queen's eyes went crazed as she looked back to Twilight with pleading eyes. "Please oh please make it permanent! I don't want to go back!" She dropped the floor, sobbing heavily.
Rainbow and Twilight couldn't do much other than just look at one another, but Twilight soon approached the sobbing pony and offered a hoof to rub Chrysalis's back.
"I'm so sorry, Chrysalis, I can't make it permanent... If I sap a pony's magic for too long then they will- Well... They wouldn't be with us for very long." Twilight said lightly, still rubbing the pony's back.
"Can you at least f-find a way to deactivate the crown, permanently?" Chrysalis choked out between sobs, pointing at said crown.
"I can try, but it will take time, and if you return to normal..." Twilight started,
"Then I'll keep trying to take it back, again, and again, and again!" Chrysalis shrugged off the Princess of Friendship, brooding over the crown that once was hers. "Just- Imprison me- Cage me- I'll do anything to be permanently normal again!"
"Chrysalis, we both know that you'll just get out. I'm sorry, there's not a lot that I can do. The most I can do is give you little bits of normality every once in a while, but who knows what you'll do when you're back to being the Queen again." Twilight let out a spell of magic, examining the crown. She bit her lip as she considered her options.
"So what do we do?" Rainbow asked, approaching the two ponies.
"Well, I estimate that in about five minutes, the crown will reactivate again. And then... I'm not sure." Twilight sighed, rubbing her head with a hoof.
"Can I at least have another hug before I go? The only thing I ever wanted was to be loved, and the crown promised me eternal love, but..." Chrysalis sniveled, looking down to the floor.
"Of course, everypony deserves love, Chrysalis. I'm sorry it has to be this way." Twilight sympathized, wrapping her hooves around Chrysalis, who nuzzled into Twilight's neck again.
"Yeah, nopony ever gets to choose how things play out. I'm sorry too, Chrysalis." Rainbow agreed, wrapping her hooves around the pony as well.
"Thank you, I'm sorry for anything that happens, and has happened. The crown keeps me alive, but the magic makes me crazy. I'm sorry for whatever I do, when I don't remember you." The pony sobbed, weeping for the times for when she could be normal again. Wishing she could be normal again.
"I promise, I'll try and find a way, Chrysalis. There's always a way." Twilight said with a hint of finality.
"Yeah, there's always a way." Rainbow Dash said as well, "We won't let you down, and one day, we'll all be friends."