//------------------------------// // The Canterlot Incident // Story: Changeling (Re)Borne // by WindigogoGadget //------------------------------// Chrysalis won. And she felt good. Her footsteps had rung hollow and undisguised among the buttressed interiors that made up the regal hallways of the Canterlot castle, at one point she'd decided to purposefully scuff the tile in front of the room that made up Celestia's bedroom, just to be a little petty. It was not like it was undeserved either. Celestia had been bested, Luna was kept dreaming peaceful while they were busy rearranging the entirety of the corridors by sealing off intersections here and there. But not everything was perfect Yes, the element bearers had made a grand escape, that could in theory jeopardize the invasion, but she had them and Princess Cadenza on the run. Likely not for long, but every moment that the three imprisoned bearers were on the move bought more time for her and her drones that were in charge of capturing them. This crucial detail of the elements of harmony being loose was of little consequence. The decisive changeling population boom had been utter hell on her subjects, but it had done wonders in making them aggressive to perceived hostile threats. Anything else was just struck down with goo. She had no illusions that she would be able to hold Canterlot long, even if it fell there would likely be insurrections or riots at the borders of Equestria where her influence would be little to none, the possible attacks by the dragons and neighboring countries notwithstanding. In truth, the invasion was a front to get a more important, personal matter attended to. The plentiful bounty of love being harvested and shipped off to the main hive was a pleasant byproduct, it was mere commensalism. Chrysalis had not won. Not until she had successfully slain the phoenix known as Philomena. Not until all the pieces had fallen back together again. With her target in mind, she trotted along the halls with purpose and vigor, the comforting whistling and thrum of the drones outside hard at work with the occasional scream of a pony made an almost harmonious melody of chaos. An alien determination led her to stay strong thus far, but she couldn't hang on to it for much longer. It was fading, and fast. She just had to hold Canterlot long enough to take that damned phoenix under her control, and everything else would sort itself out after. She didn't need Canterlot forever this time. Chrysalis' shell split in two as a hairline crack formed on her face, the brilliant blue flowers in her mane dulled as the crack grew to her elytra, something visibly trying to force its way out. Ponies looked on in shock and horror as the flowers dropped off and withered to dust as something red crawled out of the split, pulling itself out with nothing to accompany it but the wet squelching noise it made as it squeezed out of Chrysalis' body. It gasped for air, tearing a mouth open as brilliant red eyes came out of its head. It looked like another changeling matriarch, but smaller. The thin wispy mane was just like Chrysalis' but with a deep crimson color, the eyes initially red and slitted like a dragons kept changing styles with each blink, with the only constant change being that the pupil had turned and stayed blue. There were also some features missing. The right eye was gone and had brilliant blue flowers budding forth instead, and where a changeling would have holes grew flowers as well. The horn was hardly standard, instead appearing like two thorny vines that twisted around themselves to end in a pointed double helix. The menacing pearl-white changeling freed itself with one final crack, stepping out from the hollowed shell of the queen. And almost immediately collapsed into a murmuring mess in front of everypony. "Uh. What?" "D-Do you think they're okay?" "'Shy, I don't think now is the best time to ask that. 'Doubt it though..." "Well do what you want! But I'm getting her while she's down!" "Wait! Rainbow it could be a trap-!" But of course, Rainbow never listens, and Applejack either wasn't able to stop her or didn't and now she was off to pummel the Queen. "EYES! I GOT NEW EYES!." The sound barrier might've cracked from the speed she twisted to face RD, or it might've come from the fact Rainbow immediately stopped and backed off from the crazy bug-mare. "Nope! Not dealing with crazy and fast!" Rainbow was back on the other side of the throne room with the rest of her friends, getting an admonishing look from Applejack. "What happened to being the fastest flyer alive there? You a chicken now?" "HAIR? What color- What color? Red? No... NO! Ginger?! I lost my soul? How does that even- No wait, red, not ginger. It still might be there-" The chat was interrupted by an odd sight, seeing the albino changeling fuss over something like hair in an increasingly distraught voice. Twilight was confused, and partially wished she could record this in some way other than paper. "I would have to agree with that, darling! Red truly doesn't suit your color!" Rarity called out loudly, though she wasn't sure if she was heard by the changeling before she was shushed by Rainbow Dash. "What are you doing?!" She hissed. Rarity rolled her eyes and whisper-shouted back. "Playing along, If I can keep this up you can all run to find the princesses and the phoenix she's missing. We can't use the Elements now and expect her to be able to tell us what she did with them after!" "Great Idea! Rainbow Dash, Applejack, with me! We'll split up and see if they're hidden in the castle, she couldn't have had long to do this!" Twilight butted in, gesturing to a hallway they could take from the left. "Oh, am I a girl? No! Wait- No! I'm a guy! Hooves- No hands, one- two? Two horns, a snout, I've had worse. The eyes are defective, why is it always the- GRAAGH!" The others wisely decided to bolt out of the room faster, leaving the others behind. They'd be fine! Probably! "Oh no! Um- Are you okay?" Fluttershy called out. That was about as much courage she had as she still decided to use Rarity for cover since Pinky Pie had bounced away somewhere. The changeling king(?) had fallen over itself in a tangled heap of limbs and hair, grumbling something in fast breaths and with twitching legs. "HEARTS! Gagh! Three hearts! Two hearts and a half too many! Need to stop them-" He was spasming and twitching every which way before somehow managing to right themselves and stumble further away from the approaching pegasus and closer to the changeling husk, having gone oddly unnoticed until the albino changeling suddenly licked their teeth. "Wait. Wait- I know these teeth. Three hearts- I'm not supposed to feel any of this unless-" "Chrysalis...?" Fluttershy was still approaching the changeling, slowly. Rarity was watching with a very mild case of intense fear as her horn glowed with about all the offensive spells she could give. (Hint, only one.) The changeling had suddenly gone quiet, the ears twitching as if straining to hear something. "Alyosha" Who is that? It sounds familiar. His ears strained to hear it reflexively as he attempted to focus on the voice. The voice was familiar, who was it again? Why couldn't he remember? It was the only voice he could hear for ages, wasn't it? "Alyosha. Can you hear me?" He was compelled to listen, but he wasn't sure how to respond to the command. The hearts were still beating too fast, too intact, this body was way too fresh for him. It felt like too much. "Steady. Steady now. One hoof in front of the other now." "Listen. I know you're confused, but I can explain everything but I need you to trust me right now. You are in terrible terrible danger-" The world went white and noisy as some incessant noise rang in his ear, the cold marble underneath him slamming into him as he felt something impact his head and detonate, taking the full concussive energy of an offensive spell. Snapping out of the high he'd been riding from suddenly having a body for the first time in eons, he could feel something backlogged in his throat and something trying to dribble out of his nose. Nothing was cracked, but his 'skin' felt like it was shifting in all the wrong ways. "Alyosha? Alyosha, if you can hear me, run! RUN!" He could only pause to cough up some red resinous material before scrambling to his feet- hooves, getting back up with a minor limp. His vision was blurry, but that was okay, having good vision was just a luxury. Alyosha gripped the awkward royal husk and hoisted it onto himself. Memories were slowly coming back as he was barely able to maneuver out of the way of live spell-fire, Chrysalis didn't leave him, and he wasn't going to leave her behind. Run. Run. He couldn't hear anything, he could barely see, he was going to die to spells again, wasn't he? Sprinting down the hall he could make out a smudge of various colors getting bigger as it got closer, taking a sharp turn into a hallway he lost the blur for a while, hopefully. There was still a purple smear chasing him, and various gray and yellow smudges of guards charging spells at him. His horn glowed with twin-colored magic as swirls of green and red aura covered the smudges, lifting them to slam them into the ceiling. This also slammed him into the ceiling as well, and he felt like something in him was punctured as he started feeling the urge to spit and wheeze. Lesson one, no magic. He couldn't identify targets beyond 'throw what has a body' which didn't work when one had a corporeal form. Lesson two, don't get slammed into solid metal with someone's horn pointed at you. Escape. Extract. Evacuate. Voices, voices, too many were telling him too many different words that meant getting the hell out of there while the aggressor was down. Fleeing the vaguely pony-shaped masses his limp had exaggerated from a minor one to a major one, and his center of balance was off as he tried to run away. Light was coming from somewhere bright, a rectangle of light called a window. He dared to launch himself at the light and was attacked by a pony-shaped rainbow, as he was pinned to the ground he struggled to match with his attacker's pace as hooves struck against his carapace, but eventually managed to get a half-decent strike on the cyan being before punting them from the closest thing an equine had to the supine position, scrambling to upright himself he still had the queens deadly horn impaled in a lung, and jumped with the husk out the window, shattering it and plummeting to the ground. "Oh my goodness she jumped. Twilight said breathlessly. She had managed to catch up with Rainbow Dash who was busy groaning in pain from the hoof she took to the gut, and the royal guards they were able to find were busy assisting each other up and ditching the occasional piece of compromised armor. This entire day was strange, and it was slowly turning into a nightmare. The princesses were missing, Queen Chrysalis came back and turned into... something! And for the life of her she couldn't find Cadence either! She was supposed to be visiting, where was she? Oh goodness, where where the others? She'd totally left them in the dust back at the throne room! Were they on their way already? Would they be mad? No! They'd understand! Probably. "Now that truly is surprising. I suppose trigging the little ones trauma was enough to get him running properly. Points off to me though for not dealing with all the guards." Came Chrysalis from behind her. Somehow she wasn't a husk, and looked a lot more lively than what she'd usually seen. The eyes were still as scary as ever. So Twilight started blasting. Chrysalis didn't even flinch. She was completely unharmed by the first blast and the second one just went straight through her, and by the fourth mana-draining shot, she called it quits and let herself quietly hyperventilate her stress and fear away for a solid minute. "H-How?" "Magic" Chrysalis said smugly. "I wouldn't expect you to understand it if I just spoonfed you how I survived that debacle. I'm just going to stand back, and watch it all unfold until he figures it all out." "What did you do with our princess!" THUNK! There was an attempt to slam Chrysalis into the tile below, but that really just resulted in Rainbow Dash crashing into the ground instead, who was again out for the count. And all Chrysalis could do was give a smug smirk, and roughly shoved them off to the side. "Untouchable~!" She sang, "I'm in such a good mood that I might humor you for a moment, not for your sake since you're out cold, but because I think it might be just a bit more... Fun. Well. Follow along then." The apparition of Queen Chrysalis began to walk off into another corner of the castle, disappearing behind a wall as she turned off into another hallway out of sight of the busy guards. So of course, the group followed. Sans Pinkie Pie, oddly enough. She was still at large somewhere in the castle. "Your precious princesses are gone. For good. They're fine, of course, but I just thought you should know that this time, Princess Celestia and Luna aren't going to save you. In fact, if you want to save them, maybe you should brush up on the history of magic again in the forbidden archives, hm?" "Y-You're lying! We'll find them, and it'll be over for you, Chrysalis!" Twilight declared. Chrysalis chuckled softly. "Over? Twilight, Twilight, Twilight. I'm dead. This is just the beginning of a bright new future, for all of us. Ha, you have no idea how many times he said that before the princesses eliminated every single one of his kind. But they weren't nearly fast enough." The apparition paused to look out the broken window, watching the white changeling crumpled to the floor. It was an unpleasant sight, and the red hair splayed out everywhere helped conceal the glowing blue blood he'd splattered on the ground. "I win this time, Purple Smart. It's up to him to take the last stretch." "H-He? Who is he?" "Just a little colt of mine, he used to be about a thousand years out of date, made by Starswirl in a lab. Oop- You weren't supposed to hear that." Chrysalis gave a broad grin, snorting to herself before beginning to trot away from the group to turn the corner of a hallway. Twilight's hair poked out slightly, and she was about to ask questions when Fluttershy had beat her to the punch. "Your colt? That's horrible! You can't just drop a child as a distraction! You're a horrible mother! You should be ashamed of yourself!" Shouted the yellow pegasus. She had screamed at her with about as much fury as she could in that outburst. "Oh, sorry. I suppose I was just supposed to let myself be captured before he could be free?" Chrysalis spat back venomously, an even glare at Fluttershy revealed that something she'd said had gotten under that thick chitin of hers. "This little scenario is the two of us being even. I'm sure you've all realized by now that I didn't need Cadance alive. Her being alive is purely because she was lucky enough to have taken care of one of the brats pieces when he was all ripped up after-" "Chrysalis!" Screamed Cadance, a pink bolt of magical energy went soaring to the changeling ghost, phasing right through her and impacting a wall with a minor explosion. She was not amused. "Pah! Why do I even bother with you fools. I have a newly made changeling that needs... Orienting. Toodles~! Oh, before I forget. This is your last freebie from me, Cadance. It's over next time." "No! Wait!" Twilight Sparkle's horn lit as she readied a spell to contain her in vain, she had just walked straight through it and straight through the floor, and possibly even the wall. "What did- Oh darn it!" Exasperated, she beat her hooves on the ground and stopped dead in her tracks before she ran into a wall. "Urgh. I'm back up. Well, uh, she got away. Now what do we do egghead?" Coughed Rainbow Dash. Twilight sighed and walked to look out the window, her eyes widening in surprise when she looked down. "Well. We find ourselves a confused foal before Chrysalis does." Cadence stared out at the broken glass with a confused stare. "Er. Mind filling me in, Twilight?" Heavy bleeding. Guards searching. Heal. Heal. Heal. His flesh wouldn't listen to his command to heal. Damn it! When was being a meat suit so difficult? He didn't remember it being this hard being human! No, not a human, but still- The degree of controllability, the perfection of being pure darkness- It was nothing compared to being a fragile hunk of flesh, a broken automaton piloted by neurotransmitters. Something his older brother said, mind over matter. Would that still apply? His memories were still scrambling together to recombine in something even remotely coherent. Right now all he had to work with were a few childhood memories combined with various times he had died in the hooves of Chrysalis, and at the magic of the twins. His hooves scrambled to find purchase on the grass, but at least it was easier than running on the cobbled stone he'd landed on. He wasn't able to run off very far, or at least it didn't feel like very far. In maybe a minute or two he was in some sort of garden with blurry statues everywhere. His vessel was cracked in spots, his flowers were leaking out of him and so was something that tasted like iron and colored blue. Blood? Was he copper-based like a crab? Forget that, he was leaking. STOP. THE. BLEED. DAMN IT! "This way! We found her!" "I got her- Gah!" Flowering magic slashed at the pony guard, leaving them a crumpled mess with a little trickling of red. Memories of horror returning to him as he staggered through a bush, finding a shortcut through some grassy knolls and shrubbery, azaleas crumpled underhoof as he tried to find a path away. Flashes of moving colors, twisting into frightening images. Hallucinations. Felt so real. Memories of horror. Equestrian atrocities. A thousand hearts beat with his in fear as he pounded the earth to escape the encroaching guards. He could hear something buzzing and more shouting, but he did not care to focus in on it at the moment. He tried to get his wings to move, but they bent at his command instead. He had no idea how to use these things properly. Were they rotated or flapped? How to generate lift? UNKNOWN. No appeal to take it any longer. He got back to running, but not before trying to jam a broken branch into the hole to plug it. The jagged edges stung painfully and dug around in something inside him as it prodded valuable organics. Or it would have, had he not forgotten that there was currently a wicked horn sticking him. He broke the husks horn off and let it stay in. He was ruining himself by running around with it, even more so when there was the added weight of a corpse that he wasn't going to leave behind. He wasn't sure why, but he wasn't going to do it. What a wonderful day to be born again. Welcome to the kingdom of light, you've gone beyond the chalk, too far. Too far. His hooves trembled. Where was he? Everything hurt. He stared up blankly, watching swarms of black fly around the sunny sky like storm clouds. He liked it when it snowed. Maybe there was a spell for that? ...He had definitely lost a lot of blood. He could hardly keep his thoughts in line now that he had somehow managed to lose the guards. Two guards. "Killing streaks don't matter to those monsters." He thought to himself. Now... Now what? Well, he wasn't going to be safe forever standing around in one spot. He was certain that anything black and in the sky was friendly, but everything felt off. Like there was a pressure weighing him down, a tense atmosphere that he could detect. He wasn't sure if it was something magical or just him feeling woozy from standing up with so little fluids in his system. Trains. Someone liked trains. Trains existed. Probably. Find a train station and use it to escape. There was... At least one. Where's the voice that's with me in the dark? Was another thought he had. Guidance from them would be appreciated. Guidance at all would be very much welcome. He had no idea where the hell he was. Black clouds were swarming everywhere and diving at random, he could see ponies running in the distance, and now he had somehow wandered into a city back alley. Also, his legs hurt. He was certain he fell from somewhere and managed to land here. He felt like laying down. Just for a moment. "There you are. So you managed to get away. Good for you. No sleeping, I need you to walk." Said the voice from inside his head. Except it was coming from outside, somewhere to his right side. He pounced straight into a wall and heard a disappointed sigh. "Not you too. We can have the annoying pony emotions later, but I need you to head south- FORWARD! And to the newly minted extraction team waiting for you." Chrysalis spoke, nudging the white changeling around. "Come on Alyosha, get up. Start running again." Alyosha started dragging himself along at first, leading into a steady crawl that became a slow walk along abandoned streets. He'd passed about two windows when the voice decided to start talking again. "You're doing... Fine. But I need you to hurry. Hurry on. Your wings. Use them. Try." "No, no- Stop, don't-" But it was too late. The white changeling had jumped, generated a second of lift, and promptly swerved and crashed into their own face on the stone road- instantly going limp from a combination of blood loss and self-inflicted trauma. "...jump. Damn it."