//------------------------------// // Chapter 53 // Story: The Siren // by McPoodle //------------------------------// When the Elements act against a wrongdoer, that person has a while to react. Nightmare Moon spent those precious seconds panicking. That is the usual reaction. This was the second time for Discord, so He was prepared. Queen Chrysalis was panicking. When she had briefly taken over Thorax’s body, she had been able to sense the presence of a changeling. A “reformed” changeling. What were they doing outside of their Discord-forsaken frozen island? Chrysalis could never let one of her nymphs encounter one of those mad changelings. Just looking at one of them might be enough for them to figure out what they were missing, might trigger a transformation. And then another. And another. Chrysalis’ absolute control would be broken. And she would do anything to maintain that control. She stepped out into the main chamber of the underground lair, where all of her changelings—except Thorax—were waiting for her orders. She prepared herself to give the loathsome order, to evacuate from Canterlot and return to the Badlands as fast as possible. Much as she wanted to kill Thorax, she saw no way to do it without making things worse. She opened her mouth—and at that moment was struck, gifted, by an insane amount of love magic. One last gift from Discord. Along with a command: Avenge Me. Chrysalis smiled, opened her mouth, and laughed insanely. She would do it, she would still flee from Canterlot, but not before dealing lessons to all of her enemies along the way. ‘Changelings of the Hive!’ she broadcast, even as she began casting a spell. ‘I have discovered the presence of a deadly danger in Canterlot, one that only I can approach without falling instantly. I am taking away your hearing, temporarily, so that you might have some small protection. You will all assume your disguises and follow me to the Royal Gardens. There we will put on a show that will give the ponies nightmares for generations!’ Her changeling army cheered…horribly out of tune. Losing your hearing will do that. Still March 20th. “A Canterlot Wedding”. While the other Ponyville fillies were confronting Thorax and Apple Bloom, Diamond Tiara spotted Twist sneaking away, and decided to follow her. When she saw that Twist was just corking and collecting the bottles she had left behind earlier, she had had enough. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “There’s something more important going on here!” Twist stopped. She refused to turn around in order to keep from losing her nerve. After a few seconds of huffing she said, “Collecting my poshionss. And no, thiss is more important. I gotta help my friend.” Diamond reached forward and pulled Twist around to face her. Twist shrunk in fear. “Your friend? Apple Bloom?! She’s a monster!” “She’ss my friend!” Twist insisted, tears running down her face. “And nothing you, or anypony elsse ssayss, is going to change that! Even though you’ve turned her againsst me. Like everypony elsse!” Diamond stepped back at the sheer rage displayed on Twist’s face. “I am sstill her friend! And I’m taking these away, before…” She stopped herself, putting her hooves over her mouth before she said too much. At that moment a bright light shone down on the Gardens, and the angry voice of Princess Cadance rang out: “Pitiful ponies of Canterlot! Hear my words!” The two fillies looked up, to see the Princess flying down to land back in the clearing where their friends were. Twist’s eyes went wide, and she started frantically searching out bottles. Diamond noticed the expression, one that should have nothing to do with the arrival of the Princess of Love. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “That’ss not Cadansse,” Twist explained. “Help me find thesse bottless, or ssomething even worsse will happen to uss.” Seeing the absolute terror in Twist’s expression, Diamond wordlessly complied. Luna, Spike and the Bearers landed in the Royal Garden, where three fillies were surrounding the tree containing a nymph changeling and an exhausted… “Apple Bloom!” Applejack exclaimed running forward. The nymph immediately handed the earth pony filly over, before raising his forehooves into the air. “Sanctuary,” he pleaded. Before anypony had a chance to explain anything, a Royal Canterlot Voice filled the air, the voice of Princess Cadance: “Pitiful ponies of Canterlot! Hear my words!” Most of the ponies in the garden turned to the air in gratitude. Twilight saw a fearful Applejack moving to protect her sister. She turned her head to look curiously at Cadance, only to see a wave of green magic wash over her, revealing the form of another creature like the one in the tree. But this one looked much more formidable. “Who are you? What are you?” asked Twilight, stepping forward. She saw a ring of ponies take position around them, all facing outward. She recognized Pony Joe, her brother, even Moondancer. Other ponies faced these ponies, because the ponies forming the circle had all run away from their homes at the same moment earlier that night. “Shining dear, what’s going on?” asked Twilight Velvet, with her husband by her side. The monster looked down upon Twilight Sparkle with a sneer. “Why Twilight Sparkle, don’t you recognize me? After all, I’ve been impersonating your beloved foalsitter for months now!” “What have you done with Cadance?!” At Chrysalis’ mental command, all of the ponies in the circle dropped their disguises, revealing them to be creatures like herself. The watching ponies screamed in terror, none more so than Shining’s parents. “We are changelings, and I am their queen, Chrysalis! We have taken these ponies, infiltrated your lives, and fed upon your love!” Chrysalis gloried in the despair she felt, then proceeded to turn the proverbial knife. “Even now the real ponies rot in their prisons, nearly drained of their life and love. By the time you find them, they will all be corpses!” “I think not,” Luna said with the Royal Canterlot Voice as she rose into the air. She had been watching this scene carefully and chose this moment to intervene. “You will surrender your prisoners, and I may allow you to leave this confrontation with your life.” Chrysalis responded to this threat by laughing uproariously. “You? The pathetic shell left behind by the great Nightmare Moon? You could have tasted true glory, if you had remained true to my master, Discord. The One who wreaked havoc upon your little party this evening. I give you the barest taste of my contempt.” And with that she sent a massive beam of magic against Luna. The Princess brought up her own force beam, but it was swiftly annihilated, and Luna was blasted into the side of the castle. The crowd of watching ponies gasped in unison. Twilight and her friends got into position, and she used a voice amplification spell so that everypony would know that they had nothing to fear. “Queen Chrysalis, your master Discord was defeated by us, with the Elements of Harmony, and we…” “One-two-three-blast her!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, taking control of the Elements and… Nothing happened. Chrysalis laughed once again. “Oh Twilight, Dumpling! You should know that the Elements need to be recharged for at least five days after each use! I read all of Prince Blueblood’s notes on the subject.” (“Hey!” a haughty voice exclaimed from the back of the crowd. “Those notes were for good guy use only!”) “Now that I have demonstrated how powerless you are to stop me, I have a little lesson to teach,” said Chrysalis. After disabling her changelings’ sight on top of their hearing, she pulled Applejack and Apple Bloom out of the central group with her magic and held them aloft. “These two ponies, who some of you might think of as friends, as good, trustworthy ponies, are nothing of the sort!” She effortlessly ripped away their disguises as the two of them reached out in vain, as if they could use the strength of their earth pony forms to remain as they were. “These two are changelings, too! Hiding among you like the cowards they are! And how many more of them are among you, sucking out your love like I have?” Applejack tried to speak, but Chrysalis put a bubble around them. A bubble which Twilight then popped effortlessly, the result of years of practicing against her brother’s shield spells. She then put an amplification spell around them. As a matter of fact, Twilight wasn’t sure what to think. But she wasn’t about to have her best friend condemned without the chance to present her side of the story. “Yes it’s true,” Applejack told the crowd. “We’re changelings. But we’re not like her! The pony you know is the form I’ve spent most of my life in. And I, like every other member of the Apples, have earned our love from you, love we have…sipped, like…” She looked down at the Bearers and Spike, to see that all of them were looking at her with approval and acceptance. Fluttershy in particular. “…Like butterflies sipping nectar! While the members of Chrysalis’ foul hive feed like locusts.” She saw the doubt in the eyes of the other ponies. “Those of you who have had your loved ones replaced, you feel the weakness her changelings have inflicted upon you. You can’t feel love anymore, nothing matters anymore! Do you ever remember feeling like that around an Apple?” “We’re ponies in our hearts!” pleaded Apple Bloom. “My sister’s cutie mark is real, a gift from Harmony like all of yours! And I would do anything to get my own mark, to prove that I can be a pony, just like you!” Prince Blueblood stepped forward with a roll of his eyes and cast his own amplification spell. “Alright, fine, we’ll deal with the Apple problem later. For right now, I propose you all follow my lead.” And then he punched one of the standing changelings in the face. Being blind and deaf, it fell right over. With a roll of her eyes, Chrysalis dropped the two Apples out of the sky, where they were caught by Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. She restored the sight and hearing of her changelings. ‘Wipe them out,’ she ordered. ‘All of them.’ While a wild melee broke out between changelings and Canterlot ponies, Chrysalis landed in front of the two Apple sisters, with Thorax also in her sights. “One more piece of unfinished business,” she said with an evil smile, powering up her horn. Twilight was preparing to intervene when she was stopped by a small hoof tapping her leg. “Force field around the good changelingss,” Twist told her as she walked past. “We’ve got thiss.” Five Bearers and Spike looked around them, to see that there was a ring of potion bottles around all of them, with Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle positioned between them and posed for running, with a hoof poised above a bottle. Twilight scanned one of the bottles. “An emotion-storing potion?” she asked. “Zecora helped me make a gift for Apple Bloom, to collect every type of love from the Gala,” Twist said over her shoulder. She stopped walking when she was right in front of Apple Bloom. “They’ve been open all night.” “Please cast that spell, Miss Sparkle,” Scootaloo pleaded. Twilight raised the shield around the three changelings. Chrysalis, whose attention had been focused purely on building up the magic to completely destroy the three changelings in a single blast, paused and turned her head to look at Twilight. “Please,” she said contemptuously, “I can blast through that in less than a second.” She looked back, to see this other…strange filly standing before her. “And what are you going to do, grub?” “I’m going to sstop you,” Twist said calmly. “Your mouth’s broken,” Chrysalis observed. “I don’t allow my defectives to molt. Let me just fix the little mistake of your survival, like so…” She blasted her magic, which was immediately obliterated as her concentration was shot to Tartarus. Chrysalis cried out in agony, as she was blasted by a beam of pure hate. She collapsed into a heap. “Now!” cried Diamond. She and the other fillies stomped the potion bottles under their hooves, then proceeded to run around the ring, breaking every bottle as they went. A vast wave of hate spread outward. The ring of changelings cried out in pain, dropping the various illusions they had been using to escape beatings or terrify the attacking ponies. They broke formation and ran away. “Stay and protect me, you traitors!” Chrysalis cried. She rose to her hooves, to see an infuriated Luna hovering over her. Chrysalis was punched violently in the jaw. She tried to fight back, but the sea of hate around her made it impossible to concentrate. And then she saw Princess Celestia and the part of the Royal Guard she hadn’t gotten around to infiltrating coming down for a landing. Simultaneously she saw all of the captured ponies breaking upon the wave of fleeing changelings, pummeling them into submission. They were led, not by Cadance, but by Moondancer, who projected enough hate to nearly be a rival for Twist. With one last burst of magic, Chrysalis pulled all of her changelings (except Thorax) towards her, and then collapsed the ground beneath them. When the dust cleared, ponies peered into the hole, revealing the catacombs underneath. (Moondancer later led a group of ponies into the catacombs, but they never caught up with the fleeing changelings.) “Shining! Cadance!” Twilight followed the voice of her mother to find the two missing ponies who meant the most to her. They had a tearful reunion. Applejack and Apple Bloom had been at the center of the explosion but had been held aloft by the force field. Applejack knocked on the field, trying in vain to get Twilight’s attention to do…something—pull them to safety and drop the field, ideally. Apple Bloom began to resume her disguise but was stopped by her sister. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to stay like this, until we get everything straightened out.” “If we get everything straightened out,” Bloom said sadly. She looked over to the nearest solid ground, to see Twist smiling and waving at her. She sighed. “Twist, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I forgiffe you,” Twist said. She poked a defeated Diamond Tiara in the ribs. “Ow! I…I’m sorry I turned you against Twist. And…I’m sorry I was mean to all of you.” “What?” asked Silver Spoon. “What are you saying?” “I’m saying that I’m done with the bullying,” Diamond said to Silver. Turning back to Bloom she said, “You saved us, didn’t you? When your cousin turned us into your puppets, you saved us.” “What?” asked Silver. Bloom nodded. “I couldn’t let her do that to you. We’re supposed to be ponies, not monsters!” Diamond nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “And you…and Twist, proved yourselves the better ponies. Good luck on whatever cutie mark you end up getting.” She turned and walked away, a dissatisfied Silver Spoon trailing behind her. Scootaloo took the vacated spot. “I forgive you too,” she said. “I totally understand why you did what you did.” “Me too!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle. “Well, I wasn’t really mad at you, just confused, but I just want you to know that I—” “—That we—” added Scootaloo. “—Both want you to still be our friend.” Bloom smiled, tears of gratitude running down her cheeks. “Hey, do changelings get supercharged cutie marks?” asked Scootaloo. “And if we’re around you when you get yours, do we get supercharged cutie marks too??” Bloom laughed. ~ ~ ~ Applejack turned to the other inhabitant of the bubble. “Hey, what’s your name?” she asked. “Thorax.” Applejack examined the torn membrane. “Did Apple Bloom do this to you?” she asked. Thorax grinned. “She set me free,” he said. And then he collapsed from the loss of blood. Applejack sighed. “Twilight! We need a medic over here!” she cried. Then she put a hoof protectively over Thorax. “Consider this the beginning of your second life, Thorax. A new and much better life.” Twilight came over and floated the bubble back to safe ground before popping it. Celestia stepped forward to heal Thorax. “Not the membrane, please,” said Applejack, pointing it out. “It’s how the Queen can control him. You can restore it later.” With a nod, Celestia proceeded to heal Thorax without restoring his membrane. Twilight looked back at her brother and her parents, before whom she had just confessed herself. “Girls,” she said to her fellow Bearers as she stepped into their midst. “I have a confession to make: There’s a little monster living inside my head. And like Applejack, she’s friendly.” “The siren?” asked a bored Rainbow Dash. “Every time you were sarcastic?” asked Fluttershy. She at least had the courtesy to say it seriously. “We had a pretty good idea the whole time,” said Rarity. “I didn’t!” Pinkie Pie said brightly. “I did,” said Applejack. “I did what I could for both of them.” She then looked nervously around her. “You, um…you really don’t have a problem with me?” “The Elements chose you for a reason, Applejack Apple,” Princess Celestia said as she stepped into their circle. Applejack rubbed one hoof against another nervously. “Yeah, but the Element of Honesty? Me?” “Perhaps they were trying to tell you something,” Pinkie Pie suggested and then her smile shrank. “I…I’m not the laughing-est pony in Equestria 24/7, you know. Sometimes I need to remind myself what I’m the Element for.” “I believe that applies to all of us,” said Rarity. “If I may interrupt,” Prince Blueblood said, barging into the group. He had failed to hear Twilight’s confession. The Prince turned to address the group’s leader. “Twilight Sparkle, I am aware of your ability to learn any spell by seeing it cast, and you saw that changeling queen drop her illusion. I demand that you cast that spell immediately upon everypony. Destroy every illusion in Canterlot, so we might be sure of who is a changeling, and who is not!” Twilight looked into the faces of her friends, and saw terror in those of Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Pinkie. Rarity was merely worried, and her attention was focused on Rainbow Dash. She turned to face Blueblood. “That was changeling magic,” she said calmly. “I can’t just instantly convert that into a unicorn spell.” “Alright,” Blueblood said, disappointed. He pointed at the three changelings. “Study those three until you can perfect it. I’ll give you a month. And then I’ll take over.” “Is that a threat?” Twilight said. She gestured at first the Apples, and then the healed Thorax. “These ponies are my friends, and this changeling is under royal protection.” “We’ll see about that,” Blueblood said imperiously. “They will probably be declared enemies of the state before the next sunset.” “Not if I can help it,” Princess Celestia said, grabbing Blueblood by the ear. “Ow, ow, ow! Not in public, Auntie!” Luna levitated him into the air. “We are going to have a talk, Nephew,” she said as she floated him with her into the palace. Twilight turned silently to the other Bearers. “I’ve got a confession, too,” said Rainbow Dash. “And me,” said Fluttershy. “And…” Pinkie Pie stopped to glare up into her mane. “Yes, I’m sure! And me.” Twilight looked at Rarity. “There’s nothing you don’t already know about me, Twilight,” Rarity protested. “Just the…memory…manipulation.” She looked over at Rainbow, who nodded grimly at her. “Oh…drat. Yes, I suppose I have a confession as well. Hopefully not as…gross…as some.” She gingerly reached up a hoof to tap the top of her head, afraid that it might sink inside and land on a tentacle. Twilight looked between all of them. “I think we’ve had enough emotional turmoil for one night, right Ladies?” They nodded meekly back at her. “We’ll take a few days to recover from…The Worst Night Ever, and then we’ll have a set of ‘coming out parties’, hosted by Pinkie Pie.” “I’m on it!” “One secret per night. Is that alright?” The others agreed that this would be fine. As they made their way over to the garden, Twilight looked down at Spike. “You’ve been quiet,” she said. “I didn’t want to steal your thunder,” Spike said. “I’m still in sidekick mode, remember?” “You’ve got a secret too, Spike.” “My ‘alt form’?” he asked with a shudder. “Yeah, alright. But that’s not something I want anything to do with, until after I get my mark.” “Alright,” Twilight said with a smile.