"Stop it! Stop it now!" The Queen screamed. The frightened Changeling did so immediately, transforming back into his insectoid-like self. Chrysalis turned toward the ponies and their guides, and then, blushing at her own idiotic shock, turned away from them. She carried the baby Changeling on her back into her private quarters. She pulled down a glob of love and extracted it all at once for a huge burst of energy. She began eating as much as possible from her room, within a minute her entire store was drained, and green magic enveloped her, coursed through her body and veins, making her heart strain against the flow of the blood it itself was pushing. She walked back into the main room, a demonic green beast compared to what she was before. "All of you... Stay where you are." She said in a reverberating melody. Like seven or eight voices were speaking at the same time at different pitches. With a flash of vermillion, all of the ponies were trapped in a large cocoon, it looked like a dead, green jellyfish. "Now then, my little Changelings." She began. "Bring me the Doctor, encase the others, I want to deal with him myself."
The Changelings looked from one to another, what was this magnificent creature before them? They however scrambled out of every tunnel, scanning for the Doctor with all their strength and all their will. Chrysalis shivered, and fell to the ground in a heap, her magic completely spent. She limped back to her cave and began suckling more energy from other reserves, she didn't know what the Doctor could do, she had to be as powerful as possible. She looked at her youngest child, there was a large pool around him of the love energy. She began to nudge it gently out of him, letting him go through the sequences of releasing the love in it's slime form, which they used for building and storage. Within minutes the baby had refilled the storage and was sleeping contentedly. Chrysalis nuzzled him and went back to the stores, they were even more full than they had been when she had previously drained them. She took some more energy from the great green vats, enough that she could summon a beam of energy. It was a very rare technique, only done by the most skilled magicians. It was something Chrysalis had never aimed at a pony, she once brought down a dragon with it though, turns out greed is not love, and that Dragons are not a potential food source. She walked back into the great hall and waited, she was ready, she could fire a beam at any of the entrances if she needed to. The Doctor could come as a captive, or as an attacker, but she was ready. The Doctor would not leave this cave alive if she could help it.
"Alright, ready?" Pinkie said, her pulse quickening slightly.
"Ready!" the other two said together.
"Go!" A changeling came charging from around a bend, and barely had time to skid to a halt before being splashed with a green liquid. It didn't have time to blink before it froze in place. "Haha! Yes!" He flipped his Sonic Screwdriver into the air and caught it again. "Good one, Sunflower, prepare another bolt.
"Hoo... alright." Sunflower strained herself, summoning a large tuft of cloud the ripped out of the walls, and began turning it into the love energy, a process that put a lot of strain on her, required a lot of cloud, and a lot of love she had to gather off the Doctor. She didn't have the processes needed to create the 'honey' as the Doctor had taken to calling it, but from dealing with being inside it she had gotten an idea of what the love became when it was tangible. And using transmogrification and clouds she had managed to create a similar substance. The Doctor then liquified it and froze it against the Changelings. He smiled as the group slowly made their way back to the main hall, they had already frozen six Changelings, and gave instructions of escape to three very scared pegasi. Sunflower had gathered quite a bit of 'honey' and was slowly moving along with Pinkie and the Doctor. Pinkie Pie led the way, constantly looking ahead and checking her pulse.
"Doctor, Sunflower, get ready!"
"Alright, you got enough?"
"I-I think so."
"Okay, let's go in then, time to save Cloudsdale!"
Pinkie Pie took a step back, letting Sunflower and the Doctor go first. She held her breath, trying to be prepared for anything. Sunflower went first, she galloped into the room, and took in the sight of the Queen of the Changelings, with a yell she shot the liquid forward. Chrysalis took in the unicorn and saw the Doctor fly in behind her. She dodged the liquid easily, and then fired a beam at the Doctor. He took it in and expertly swooped away from it, but the beam stopped the instant she knew it wouldn't hit, she corrected it and burned a hole through the Doctor's wing. She let a frown appear on her face and fired again, the Doctor flapping his good wing to push him out of the way.
The Doctor looked around, and finally taking in the giant jellyfish cocoon he let his tiny tool glow, and the cocoon burst, letting a wave of liquid love pour over everything, it blasted into the sewer tunnels, leaving everyone in the hall submerged in the liquid love for several moments. Chrysalis, being the tallest, was the first of the now many ponies to find her feet back on the clouds. She watched in horror as the love flowed downhill through the sewers, mixing with the water, and even worse, all that remained in the room was flowing down the hole she made earlier when she tried to drop Pinkie and the Doctor. She grabbed onto it with her magic, trying to pull back the torrent that was falling to the ground. She strained with her magic and her eyes widened as it began to fall again, being pulled by gravity and another magic. Her eyes caught the unicorn forcing more and more of it out through the hole. She frowned and took her concentration off of it for a while, sending a beam at the Unicorn's horn.
Sunflower shrieked in pain, and stood on her back legs before falling onto her back, her horn blackened at the tip. The Queen turned back to her work and struggled to pull back all of the love from the hole, though by now the first of it that had spilled away was a great distance away. A new thought occurred to her, and she began dragging it with magic and absorbing it over the long distance at the same time.
But a blue spark from behind her caught her attention. The love began flowing out faster, somehow. Large frozen chunks that widened the hole and then weighted down the torrent. Chrysalis felt her own magic being pulled along with her body down it. And then she felt her fur begin to prickle. "Queen, you kept these ponies away from their lives, something that I think is wrong." She felt her body stiffening from the love freezing on her, and weakening from the love being drained out of her along with the torrent. "But I've faced others before you who have done the same thing. For food even. They were called angels, i'm not sure if you have them in your world, they touch you and you're sent into another time, and they feed on the energy of the displacement, they're my enemies, but I understand why they do it, but you're worse. You lived these ponies' lives for them. You didn't just take it away from them, you stole it, changed it, broke it so they would never be trusted again. And that, I will not forgive." Chrysalis couldn't move anymore, her body was completely frozen, but she could still feel her magic being dragged away from her body, in larger amounts now. She felt herself getting thinner and thinner. Her wings were beginning to disintegrate. "And not only that, you brought upon this punishment yourself. You made the magic that is flowing out of here your own, and when it goes it'll take you with it." The Doctor looked her in the eyes. She could not feel any worse than she already did, but now she knew that she would die. Or not. "But I promised not to kill, even in an occasion where it was your own mistake, I'll keep you from dying." He thawed her instantly, and she desperately began pulling herself away from the magic, letting go rather than trying to pull even her own back in. After two more seconds of life and death struggle she was panting on the ground, he horn and legs had partially faded away, and her mane lost it's ethereal feel, and had faded spots as well. She knew somehow that all of her children were fading away with her, and that realization gave her the strength to let go of the magic once and for all. She began struggling to her hooves and took a look behind her. THe Doctor stood directly behind her, with a determined straight line for his mouth, and his big blue eyes locked right into her soul.
"What now Doctor? You ruined me. Us. My people. My children." She swung her now jagged horn at him, but he dodged it and stuck his foreleg into one of the holes in her legs. He jerked it forward, knocking her back into the ground. "Our base of operations was here, our storage, it was so carefully thought out. Only here was such a large sewer, such a gigantic underground, even better for us than Canterlot's underworld. Here the weather of the entire country is controlled, and by ordinary ponies too, ones that we can impersonate or insert easily. You destroyed our entire influence over Equestria! And why?! So that a few hundred ponies won't get culture shocked or lonely. My people will be hungry, we will be hungry for a long time. Doctor, what you have done today will make my children's stomachs growl, I hope you know that. And know I will never forgive you, that when you see me you should run, because I will make your life horrible."
"Likewise."
Queen Chrysalis rose back to her feet, and sending out a telepathic command to the rest of her changelings, she lifted a baby changeling to her from some hidden alcove, and she dived down the hole in the floor, and when the Doctor looked down, he saw Rose falling with a Changeling foal in her arms, her face contorted with hate for him. He jumped away from the hole, he shook his head, but the accursed image wouldn't leave. He would remember that image for the rest of his life, a final gift from the Queen.
Pinkie Pie moved to his side, as well as the other Pegasi they had freed. The Doctor grimaced when he saw the burnt hole in his wing. He closed his eyes and golden light poured from his wing. The hole disappeared, and then so did the wings. The Doctor looked confused, but then he tensed his muscles a little bit and the wings appeared from thin air. "Well, look at that..." He would have to deal with it later. The Pegasi crowded him, giving their thanks to the TIme Lord, but a hoof in the air silenced them. He walked over to the groaning and sprawled out form of Sunflower. "You alright Sunflower Spark?"
"Ugh... I-I am..." She turned over onto her side, and the Doctor looked at her Cutie Mark for the first time.
"What is that supposed to be?"
"Um... I'm not sure, it appeared when i first made this spell as a filly. I was trying to figure out a way to visit my Pegasus friend who had moved away. But... when I did the spell it appeared." The mark was a sun, like Celestia's, but much smaller, and going over across it was the image of curved line, showing the path of a unicorn-shaped silhouette that was over the sun in a position like jumping. "I think it means my special talent was getting higher up than anypony else without wings. The first non-flying pony to climb to the flying cities without an airship." She looked at her hooves standing on the cloud. "And I fulfilled that dream. I still haven't gone past the sun though." She let out a tired laugh.
"It just appeared?"
"Yes..."
"How?"
"It's magic, everypony eventually gets one when they find their special talent. You have one."
"Well yes, but I don't remember ever getting it."
"Huh... so what do we do now?"
"We need to get everypony to the surface and throw a 'welcome back' party!" Pinkie Pie shouted out. She helped Sunflower get up, and then smiled at the many wet Pegasi in the room. "Some of you have been stuck down here for a really long time."
Sunset II flew after her Queen, but found it more of a chore than ever before. Her wings, while the ability to fly was mostly magic, was still dependent on their strength and movement. She was gasping for breath, and the other Changelings looked just as bad, but worse was their Queen. The beautiful all-mother they looked upon before was gone, now there was a skinny, faded away, struggling, and silently furious failed Queen. She looked back at the white city they had all called home for the past two centuries. She had three all-pony children there, and seven grandchildren. She had a gravestone with one of her old names on it, next to one that had the name of the stallion she spent forty years with. And somewhere in that city, was a stallion she hoped wouldn't be too disappointed that the Sunset he proposed to was a monster, and that the real sunset was a filly who never met him. She turned her head away from her home, and to her unfortunate mother. "My Queen... where are we going now?"
"... Canterlot, Manehattan, Hoofington, any where but Cloudsdale I suppose. At least for awhile. Perhaps someday we might return. But for now... we lay low. We spread out, we should be everywhere, but we shouldn't come together in large groups. What influence we still have needs to be kept subtle, now more than ever we have to focus on the masquerade. We disappear from the Earth. At least for now. But believe me my child. We will rise again. And the country will cower from our power."
Sunset lowered her head and managed to follow her Queen. But she knew that the glory days were behind her. She winced as a wind blew through the holes in her legs.
The party wasn't a very fun one. The presence of so many ponies suddenly appearing younger or returning from the dead was met with fear and confusion. And with some, great sadness. The filly that was cocooned near the entrance, her coat a maroon color, was awkwardly comforting a sobbing stallion. There were ponies visiting their own graves, and meeting younger siblings decades older than them. There were children who had found their 'mother' younger than them. The Doctor looked over the scene and brooded. "Everyone lived." He murmured.
"That's right. And think about it this way, at least they aren't captured any more. Sure, it's sad that some ponies have to find out that their neighbors weren't who they said they were, and see that the world is older than they remembered. But how is that better than letting even more time pass without them growing a day older?"
"...That doesn't really make me feel better."
"You did the right thing."
"Oh, did I?"
"Yes. The Changelings can find some other way to get love. And these ponies deserved to be free, now come on. Despite all the sad this is still a party, and I will not tolerate grumpiness. Sad, sure. Parties are to cheer ponies up, but I won't be dealing with your grumpiness." She put her forelegs in the Doctor's mouth, and stretched them into a monstrous smile. "There, that's better."
"Ib's albo nok fibicly pobible." The Doctor mumbled out. But when she released him, he was grinning a little bit. "So, where do you want to go next, do you want to go home? I know that this was more than you expected... and most of it not pleasant. This is my life, my luck. I have the most incredible adventures, but with the fun there's more sadness, with the excitement there's more danger. People die around me Pinkie, and wherever I go disaster is nearby. I don't cause it. But I always end up in it. So do you still want to stay with me, and have fun, but go through one horrifying disaster after another?"
"Doctor... of course!"
"What?!"
"This... it's... more, I dunno, intense than what I normally go through, but I've had my fair share of danger and fun in daily life anyway! I fight dragons and demons on wednesdays and thursdays, and bake cakes and go to parties on the weekends! What I'm saying is, i can handle danger, I can handle monsters, but I won't leave my friend alone. You may go on these incredible journeys, but what fun is it if you're alone for the fun, and have no one to help you through the pain?" She waved her fore leg over the party in front of them. "Would going through this alone be as nice?"
"No... well, if you're going to be joining me anyway, where should we go next?"
"Actually, I had an idea earlier when you were talking with Sunflower Spark!"
Sunflower looked over the bright light, and saw the blue globe in the distance. She looked straight down and not even her super-sunglasses could keep her from wincing. She felt the heat rise from below, even through the Tardis's shield. "This... this is incredible... but I said i'd do it without an airship."
"This is the far future, so if you do it within your own lifetime you will have still gotten here first."
"Isn't it great!?" Pinkie pulled out a bag and a few ears of corn in a metal basket on a steel pole. She had a towel wrapped around the part she gripped. She stuck the corn out of the shield for an instant and pulled them back in, perfectly popped. She poured the puffy golden-white snack into the bag and handed it to the Doctor, who took a careful bite out of it. They offered some to Sunflower, but she declined it with a shake of her head. As she shook her head a single tear was flung into space, and it evaporated over the Sun.