Zoey, Zane and Zack wandered the cave where Chrysalis had her conversation with Tirek. The old hangout for Chrysalis and her ex-partners was lifeless as usual, with the occasional drop of ground water being the only noise in there. The trio split up, looking for any clues as to who was behind his mind controlling. After fifteen minutes of mindlessly scrambling, they all came to the consensus that there was nothing here. "Well, we didn't find anything, so now what?" Zoey asked in frustration. It was that question that slowly made it apparent to everyone that they didn't have any of what Chrysalis wanted, and that this was the extend of what they knew from the hive mind's memory transfer. Eventually, they came up with a flimsy plan. "Why don't we jus wait for tat big ol' Tirek dude to show up? He should be able to lead us to the person controlling them." Zane said. With a lack of options, they went with that as their "great scheme". The trio hid behind a large bounder in a corner of the cave. And so they waited....and waited...and waited.
After a few minutes of doing nothing but slumping around behind a rock, they came to realize two things. The first of which being that lying on stone ground was somehow less comfortable than lying on the hive's walls, and the second being that camping like this would take forever, and that it was likely impossible that neither Tirek, nor his captor would even show up. Still, even with the hopelessness they had, they sat there and waited for something to happen. thirty minutes later, and both Zane and Zack were asleep. They both heard a loud noise and they both awoke from their respective dream worlds. They saw that Zoey was gone, and they jumped from their hiding spot.
And they saw Tirek holding Zoey by the neck. The brothers sprung into action, both charging at Tirek with their pitchforks. They took Tirek by surprise and two pitchforks went into Tirek's legs. He felt immense pain, but didn't react. Instead, he grabbed Zane by the leg and swung him at Zack, knocking him into a boulder, the sheer impact creating a large crack in the middle. Tirek then continuously slammed Zane into the ground. With every slam, a rope of green blood flung from his face until eventually, he was dropped on the ground with a grotesque facial structure. Zack got up and tried to oppose Tirek with all the energy he had left until Zoey was dropped by Tirek. Zack crawled to his sister with tears in his eyes. "Zoe...what did he do to you?" He asked. Zoey didn't answer, but instead thrusted her pitchfork through Zack's chest. He fell to the ground and looked up with blood and tears running on his body. "W-why..." Was all he could muster before he dropped to the ground. Zoey got her pitchfork unstuck from Zack's body, and flew atop Tirek and sat on his back like he was her horse. A pink portal opened behind them, and out came Cozy Glow. "Hmph, I always took you three for idiots, but I didn't expect you to actually do it! Now c'mon, we got a castle to redecorate!" She said. What she didn't notice, was that an invisible Arachnis was now following her.
A pink portal opened in the throne room of Tirek's now stolen castle. Since the conquest, Cozy had made major redecorations to the structure, turning it's red and black color scheme to a new pink, purple, and sometimes brown pattern. She had been using Tirek himself to gather any sort of info without showing an ulterior motives. Her mind controlled slaves stood on both sides of her throne while she read a book about different types of magic. "Geez, why did they have to use this cryptic ass language. I can't tell the damn u' or v's apart. Ugh, they all look the fucking same to me. This is exactly why I'm against that purple nuisance. She's always got the right answer to every damn thing!". Her ranting diverted her attention to her surroundings, giving Arachnis the perfect opportunity to levitate the book away from Cozy, unbeknownst to her. All she saw was the book in a red aura before it was teleported out of the throne room.
"H-hey! Come back back!" She growled before throwing a tantrum. "Just WHO do YOU think you ARE!? Stealing my magic book like this! Tirek! Zoey! FIND WHOEVER IS STEALING MY SHIT AND GET IT BACK. MOVE DAMMIT!" She commanded to her brainwashed soldiers. They mindlessly searched the entire castle for the book poacher. Arachnis eventually exited the castle through a wall and deactivated his invisibility. He could only hold it for so long before it begins to drain him. He began his trot home, with the book in hand, before the castle doors bursted open behind him. Arachnis looked back, and saw Zoey and Tirek. Their stares were like an assassins, precise and cold. Arachnis knew that he needed to at lest free Zoey from Cozy's spell to be able to return home, so he prioritized that over anything else. "Alright beauty and the beast, bring it!" He yelled. Tirek and Zoey rushed right at him.
Zoey hovered in the air to supply air support while Tirek charged at Arachnis. He held his fist up, and slammed it down in Arachnis' direction. He jumped out the way and leaped onto Tirek's arm. He jumped behind his head and concentrated his magic into an energy beam. It blasted into Tirek's neck, which made him yell, as the beam burned a bald spot in his long hair. Zoey swooped in for a blindsight and Arachnis teleported in behind her. He levitated Tirek's hand and slammed it into Zoey with enough strength that it sent her flying into the outer wall of the castle. She hit her head and went unconscious. Arachnis turned to a now recovered Tirek, who had empty eyes but rageful body language. He lunged at Arachnis, landing right on top of him. He thrusted both his fists down on him, intent on crushing his skull. Arachnis opened two portals, one for each fist. The other side opened on the side of Tirek's head and his fists slammed right into both sides of his temple, knocking him out cold. Arachnis made a sigh of relief and pushed Tirek off him with his hind hooves. He ran over to Zoey, who was beginning to awaken from her light concussion. Arachnis activated his magic and a green ray flowed from his horn. It flowed to her head and his slowly began to heal her head injury.
Zoey's eyes opened slowly. "Y-your highness...what happened?" She asked.
"You were being mind controlled by somepony. I had to knock you out to get you to snap out of it." He said.
"Guess that explains why I gotta headache." Zoey tried to get up, but the pain in her head detested any sort of movement. She quickly sat back down and held her head. "Jesus fuck this hurts."
"Don't push yourself." Arachnis said as he levitated Zoey. "Just give me the directions and I'll take you home."
"Will do. But we ain't leaving without Zack and Zane. We gotta head back into the cave." She said.
Arachnis went dead silent. He had only just remembered what happened to them. He faced Zoey with a somber expression. "About that.....Zoey, you did some things while you were under that spell."
"Like what..? Did I hurt them!?"
Arachnis shook his head, which denied Zoey's initial fear, but confirmed her worst fears. Despite the agonizing pain in her head, Zoey yelled at the top of her lungs. Tears pooled down her cheeks like a waterfall. Arachnis was hesitant at first, but he eventually rubbed a hoof along her shoulder. Her sobbing eventually dwindled and she spoke again. "I swear I'm not gonna let any lowdown animal get away with this..." She said. "A-are you able to get us home?" Arachnis asked. "Y-yeah. Let's go, your highness." Zoey replied.
After that, Arachnis took Zoey's directions, and began their journey home from the stolen castle.