I.
Handle With Care
This day was going to be perfect,
The kind of day of which I dreamed since I was small...
Everyone I'd have controlled, every stallion mare and foal;
Who said I could not really have it all?
With a screechy thud, the wheels touched down on the icy asphalt. The plane rolled and rolled, slowing down with every meter. It skid to a halt, the brakes wheezing beneath the cargo hold, reverberating through the entire aircraft.
As the engines spooled down, the hatch at the very back of the plane made a metallic clank and slowly folded apart, bathing the interior of the enormous hold in stale white light.
Against the lucid and pale sky and muted brown-red silhouettes of skeletal trees, there stood the shadow of a man on the ramp, clad in a poofy raincoat who was letting his view slide around the innermost darkness of the mighty war machine.
He tugged the collar of his jacket apart, revealing a very formal suit underneath, a black tie on a light blue shirt.
He was nervous, not too sure what the airplane's open hatch would reveal to him. All he knew was that he was expecting a delivery, and that it was a delivery like he has never seen. He still was self-conscious enough to look presentable to whoever - or whatever - would emerge from the interior.
Luckily for him, the first thing to step out of the darkness of the hull was a soldier with a grey-white camo jacket and a buzz cut. The patches on his sleeve identified him as an American and a member of the Army Veterinary Corps.
He shook the soldier's hand heartily, only taken aback a little by the fact that it was sweaty and sore, as well as a bit stiff, like that of a sailor working on the rigging during a gale.
Yes, the vet assured him, there had been a few turbulences on the way, but that was it.
The two walked back to the front end of the hold together, maneouvring between the occasional stacks of supply boxes and diplomatic baggage, chatting a little about the 12-hour flight, and if they managed to get any sleep at all.
In the front section, there was a single luggage plate, at least four square metres big, tied to the hold's ground by several industrial belts, with a heavy blanket covering whatever was laid out beneath it.
Next to it, there sat four soldiers, tired out, weak, red-eyed and sore, messing around in a heavy aura of boredom and lethargy.
Two of them were Americans, dressed just like the vet, only in blue vests with helmets hanging from their duty belts. 'SF' their shoulder patches read.
The other two soldiers, however...
The man in the suit needed a moment to comprehend this sight.
Two tiny stallions, white snouts, blue and grey manes, packed in glistening battle armour, lay on pritches attached to the airplane hull, drooping and playfully dangling all four limbs above the floor. Wearily, they raised their rather massive heads to acknowledge the presence of the human.
He had never seen such ponies in real life before. On the TV screen, maybe. But never with his own eyes.
Those intelligent, fascinating creatures, in all their three foot-tall glory.
The door to the cockpit opened, and out stepped another one of the creatures.
He looked a bit different; he had a horn on his forehead, a ruffled blue mane and purple-toned armour. Compared to the other two, he definitely looked the part of the superior.
Upon seeing the human in the suit, he quickly shifted one of his forehooves to the side of the head in a pompous, yet respectful fashion.
The human needed a moment to realize the creature was giving him a salute.
Unsure what to do, he sank down on one knee, and reached out a hand to shake the pony's hoof, as if it were a dog offering it's paw.
After that awkward gesture was accepted by the equine officer, both creatures saluted each other one more time, and the man straightened back up and slapped the grit from his pants, feeling strangely embarrassed.
Then he smiled, turned around and quickly asked for the "bumf", right off the bat.
"What is... bumf?" the unicorn asked hesitantly.
"The paperwork, Captain."
They quickly went to retrieve their 'bumf'.
The vet reached inside his camo jacket and handed the man in the suit a blue-tinted form wrapped inside plastic foil, while the equine officer stuck his head in a pouch that lay under one of the pritches, and picked out a big, beige paper scroll with a golden seal with his big teeth.
As the man filled out the blanks of the blue attestation, the unicorn, carefully breaking the delicate wax, used the power of his horn to slowly raise his scroll against the light so that everyone could read what was written on it.
"In the name of Her Serene Highnesses, Celestia and Luna, Princesses of Equestria, we hereby submit this creature, a felon and an enemy of the crown in the face of Equestrian Law, to thee, the most honourable judges of the United Nations, in the spirit of friendship and the hope of trust, and in the expectation of her being brought to justice for her dreadful and lamentable deeds..."
Without even reading halfway through, the man in the suit politely picked it out of the air and pressed it against the next best hard surface, to jam a pen into the coarse reed fibre to let the ink of his signature sink into the lower right corner of the paper.
Then he rolled up the royal decree and handed it back to the stallion officer.
"Alright, gentlemen, gentle..."
"Colts?"
"Yes, gentlecolts. My name is Commissaris Jaap Vorster, I am with de Dienst Koninklijke en Diplomatieke Beveiliging, that's the Royal and Diplomatic Protection Service, and I say... welcome to s'-Gravenhage. The City of Peace and Justice."
He turned back around and gave a short shout towards the open ramp.
"Is okay!"
Hurrying in came a man in a beret, a blue patrol uniform and a shouldered submachine gun, and another in a flourescent yellow and green-blue jacket and equally blue trousers, armed with a medical suitcase.
"That's Adjudant Ronnie van Eck from the KMar, and Niklaas Wouters, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine."
Then he addressed the stallion officer once more.
"Well then. Where is she?"
With a suddenly very serious countenance, the stallion turned to his two other equine companions.
"Cheval?" He sighed, "Remove the rug, please."
As if on cue, the thick black blanket on the luggage plate was slowly lifted, and pulled away in a fluid motion.
What it revealed underneath was a most unusual sight indeed.
Held down by massive, archaic silver chains, there lay a bug, eerily reminiscient of an equine, on her side, her four limbs pointing in one direction, and her head in another.
Her long, deformed legs, riddled with holes and cracks not unlike parasite-infested wood, were weighted down by thick silver collars.
Her slender, swan-like neck lay stretched out away from her body, with her snout, equally motionless, resting on the edge of the plate, her face partially buried under her slick and oily, sickly blue mane.
Her great black pupils, usually slim and sharp, rested bloated and unfocused in her green eyes, aimlessly staring into the space between the ceiling and the cockpit door.
Her wings, as well as most of her mid-section, were hidden under what appeared to be a knife vest under a horse blanket, tightly strapped around her to restrain whatever could be found beneath it.
A couple of cotton-wool pillows had been stuffed under her neck, head, stomach and rump, to assure her at least some basic travelling comfort. One of the pillows was frayed, and leaked down flew around the felled beast .
Intrigued by this foreign sight, the Commissaris slowly kneed down to her, and carefuly led two fingers past her numb and lifeless eyes. He hoped for some sort of reaction.
"Your Highness? Your Highness, can you hear me?"
Nothing. "I would like to inform you that you are now on Dutch soil, and will be transferred to your resting quartres as soon as possible."
The stallion officer rested a hoof on the Commissaris' shoulder, carefully drawing him away from the limp beast.
“Be careful. You can never know if she can hear you.”
Vorster shook his head, further observing the bug as her eyes strayed further and further into oblivion.
“Godver... dorie, man. What exactly did the Equestrians do to her?"
He looked around quizzically, seeking some kind of explanation.
The stallion shut his eyes and turned away from the beast, his snout burning with very apparent disgust, and a pinch of shame.
"We did that, Mr Vorster.” he stated bluntly, displaying no visible compassion for his prisoner. “Once we figured sleeping spells were too weak..."
"We sedated her with highly concentrated Ketamine." the human vet finished for him.
"The hell is that supposed to be?" the Commissaris inquired, a concerned look spreading on his features.
"That's uh..." the vet nodded at him suggestively, as if he were about to say something inappropriate. "Ahem... horse sedative. The catch is that she wouldn't respond to the medium dosage, which is about 40 microgrammes per kilo of bodymass." He scratched his nose. "So we gave her the maximum dosage, which is 80 microgrammes... which didn't affect her that much either."
"And?"
"We gradually worked ourselves up to... 400 microgrammes." he said and grinned.
Dr Wouters, the man with the orange vest who had just set up his medical kit on the floor, gave him a shaken glare.
“That must be about 160,000 mcg of Ketamine all in all! What the hell, are you trying to kill her?!”
The US Army vet was quick to defend himself.
"Hey, we had to pump that into her just to make at even at least somewhat complacent. This dosage would have killed any other creature in her weight class, but it didn’t even come close to affecting her!”
The Commissaris sighed, taken by the evolvement a bit to quickly.
"I can to explain why we had to do this." the equine commander tried to reason.
"Captain Shining, I do not know why you had to pump her full of ten horses worth of narcotics." Vorster waved the man in the orange vest over to him. "I would just like to issue a warning. You are now in the Netherlands, and we do not take this kind of treatment for granted."
Shining Armour frowned and blew some strains of scruffy mane out of his face.
"With all due respect, Mr. Vorster, but in Equestria, we don't usually coddle the enemies of the Princesses!"
The man in the orange vest pulled a pair of thin gloves over his hands and kneeled down to the Dutch officer.
"She better still be able to communicate once she wakes up." he warned the unicorn. "You have no idea what permanent damage a Ketamine overdose can cause."
Cautiously, the medic checked the equine hybrid's eyes with a little flashlight, then kneaded the skin under her jaw to test her muscle reflexes, and then looked at his watch to keep track of her pulse. Then he gave the soldiers around him a troubled glance.
"Okay, as a good doctor, I would suggest placing her in the airport sick bay for an hour or two - though she is barely stable enough for transport, as far as I can tell. She's still very much under the effects of the anasthetic."
"That's good enough for me." the Dutch officer remarked and lifted himself off his knee. "Send in the forklift, the carriage is waiting on the airfield."
Then he tugged on one of the silver chains tied between her legs. "Captain Shining. We do have a key for this, right?"
Shining leaned to his side, shaking something out of the collar of his armour. It was a turqouis gem on a necklace.
"You need this. It's a magically charged gem. The locks will open only if you place this in each shackle's dent."
"Huh." the Commissaris murmured as the unicorn floated the necklace up to him. "I knew the equines do things differently, but... this is new."
He and one of the Americans slid the gem into its position on each of the four shackles. One shackle after another made a short clanking noise, and fell into two halves of a ring.
The Commissaris grinned to himself as he slipped off the very medieval irons. In his imagination, this was something straight out of a fantasy dungeon. "Say... is there any reason for the chains? You could tie cruise liners with those things! They seem a bit... overkill, if you ask me."
"A lot of reasons, in fact." Shining began reciting. "'Extremely resilient, cannot be taken off by anything else than the gem, suppresses the magical capabilities of the prisoner.' It's standard ware, straight out of the Royal Equestria Field Manual."
"And that?" the medic asked as he pointed at the unconscious changeling's horn.
It glittered in the dim light, as if it were wrapped in aluminium and clingfilm. He held up a small plastic box that had been attached to one side of the horn with a cable.
“Oh, that’s a battery connected with tin foil. Don't forget to turn it on once the chains are off.” The vet explained, helpfully circling a finger around his head. "Apparently, a constant flow of electric current confuses the cranial nerves in the horn and renders it incapable of proper magic.”
“That’s… also new.” The medic slurred, squeezing his eyebrows down in disbelief. “Can you confirm that, Captain?” he asked the unicorn next to him.
“Sorry, I'm a soldier, not a doctor.” The equine officer admitted and smirked. “Though you’d be best off asking my little sis. She knows everything. She is the Princess’ personal protégé... don'tcha know.” he added, admittedly a bit swankily.
“Do we?” the Commissaris asked, a tad confused.
“Uh, well... she said she wanted to come afterwards. Maybe when Princess Celestia decides to travel here.”
“Chains away!”
The last shackle slid off the last limb, and the American dragged the heavy restraints around the platform.
"But..." the medic once again pointed out, "I'd suggest a little precaution."
Pulling the anesthesised creatures’ drooping gums apart with his two index fingers, he revealed to the others her tremendous fangs and menacing teeth, buried in blood-red gums.
One of the stallions guarding her shuddered at the sight.
"I'd suggest... a muzzle? Just so nobody's limbs end in her mouth during the transport."
Vorster stood up, raising the zip on his raincoat. He looked at the medic exasperatedly.
“A muzzle?”
“A dog muzzle, yes.”
The Commissaris looked around indignantly and snorted.
“You want to give a political detainee a muzzle?”
After this statement, the medic himself looked a bit unsure.
"Well, it would be better..."
“You understand what you are saying, Mr Wouters?”
“I think that's a very good idea, Mr Vorster.” Shining Armour interjected. “If she tries to-”
“I warned you about this already once, Captain Shining.” Vorster interrupted and waggled a menacing finger at him. “The Netherlands do not tolerate this kind of degrading conduct. Prisoners of the UN are not gagged just for the sake of being gagged.”
“Most prisoners of the UN do not have fangs either.” The vet snarked.
“The last thing we want to do is to imply our prisoners can't control their own teeth. The press would eat us alive. No muzzle.”
He kicked the chains away and turned around.
There was a sudden jolt out of the equine at his feet - as if her muscles flexed impulsively.
The medic at her side looked around, taken aback by the sudden reflex.
As he looked back at her bit, he noticed the right fang had moved to the side. As had the whole jaw.
It had flapped open and shut when he didn't look.
Then he gasped. Shocked, he froze up.
He followed his right arm all the way back to the index finger, which now hung in-between her fangs, gored.
More so, the fang had cut right through him.
"Oh, sijt. Fuck. Fuck!"
Before anyone else knew what had happened, the Changeling's eyelids flickered.
Her pupils contracted, focused, pulling back into their sharp slits, like stretched green cloth after a pocket knife had cut clean through it, bringing out the darkness behind it.
What happened next was over as quickly as it started;
Upon seeing the medic's face contorting with pain and shock, the American security officer instinctively reached for his handgun.
But before he could dodge it, a dark-grey, chaddered leg rammed into his stomach, knocking him back, sending him sprawling spine-first against a metal container several feet away.
Another hind-leg struck out, and sailed right into the feet of Commissaris Vorster. The policeman slammed onto the floor with a thud.
Then the powerful creature started up, with the distressed medic's hand still trapped in her mouth, pulling her legs together and scrambling onto all fours, rising - above the heads of Captain Shining Armour and his two fellow guardsponies - to her full height.
The other security officer and the Dutch Gendarme backtracked, one unsheathing his baton and the other un-shouldering his submachine gun. Chrysalis sneered fiercely as she directed a deafening burst of bright green energy into the latter, thrusting him backwards, letting him twist around and land on his chest.
The American security officer flinched at the sight of his Dutch comrade's smoking body, flung across the hull like a ragdoll.
And as he beheld the wrathful emerald glow of the foreign creature's eyes, his will to fight plummeted. Ineffectively, he thrust his nightstick at the equine, missing her head by inches, and quickly spun around for the saving daylight of the ramp.
"Chrysalis!" Captain Shining screamed, spreading his legs as he prepared to summon a spell to subdue the erupting changeling.
Chrysalis spat out the medic's bloodied hand and let him collapse into a squirming, wailing heap.
The Army vet, who had wisely decided to stay away, immediately sunk down to drag his screaming colleague away from the furious creature. But then he received a heaping blow on his head from above, and his unconscious form knocked both of them back down.
With everyone else taken care of, she turned to address Captain Shining, her old acquaintance. The queen was still a bit sedated, with her legs shaking and her nearly losing her balance after the sudden, unearthly surge of adrenaline, but she still made a formidable, haunting thing to oppose.
The two stallions at Shining's side were earth ponies, unable to take on a dealer of magic such as Chrysalis, and, attempting to avoid the fate of their human counterparts, backtracked behind their Captain as he bit his lips to concoct a quick, but forcible spell against the Changeling Queen.
"Hello there, Shining, dear." she greeted him almost calmly, a wicked smile revealing her blood-drenched fangs. "How is my favourite warrior doing?"
Her voice was just how he remembered it.
It was soothing and slick, lustful even, but there also was the eternal, unnerving buzzing in the back of her throat that tainted every one of her words with her very own uniquely haunting melody.
Shining growled. His horn lit up, glistening fiercely, ready to release his protective magic before the dreaded regent could make her escape.
"Are you pointing that thing at me?" she inquired, motioning a hoof to playfully nudge away his horn, mocking him with fake fear. "What, are you really going to strike down a poor old friend?"
"Stay behind me..." the Captain whispered to his two comrades, ushering them behind the vicinity of his horn.
"Well what are you waiting for?" the Queen asked impatiently. "I'm standing right here, aren't I? Take me down if you have to!"
The last few words were peppered with heavy sarcasm. Her gaze grew sinister, strangely defying, yet inviting to violence. "But you don't have to, if you don't want to."
Shining bit his lip even harder. He would have liked to take her down, more than anything in the world, he was sure he wanted to. But...
He couldn't do it. In his mind, he argued that he had orders, that was supposed bring her here unharmed. Just so she could receive a punishment much more fitting for a pony such as her. He didn't travel the whole way just to break this promise to his Princess...
He began to shiver. The glow of anger in his body slowly charred into white, ashen fear.
Her intriguing gaze met his glare time after time, no matter how he tried to find a way around eye contact. It was unnerving, positively unsettling.
"Shining..."
He was certain he just heard his beloved Cadence's voice resonating through the container.
"Stay back, you..."
"What's the matter? You didn't object the last time I called you that."
The Captain quenched the thought with a jittering eyelid.
"After all that time... reunited once more." She winked teasingly. "I could organise a tad more privacy, if you want."
Her horn glowed in weak green light.
Then, to Shining's left and right, the two earth pony privates suddenly tensed up, pressing their eyes shut and grinding their teeth, involuntarily grabbing their heads with their hooves, and began to stumble back and forth, gripped by piercing headaches.
Chrysalis' horn stopped glowing.
The two ponies collapsed instantly without as much as a sigh, clanking against the floor, with a loose helmet rolling between their Captain's legs.
"Easy... peasy." The queen took a step towards the unicorn. "And now what?"
Shining was alone. Between him and the saving daylight light of the ramp stood the creature that once took the guise of his great love.
He looked back up at her.
Her eyes, her big, green eyes glowed back down at him.
Once again, fear and tension blurred his mind as he found himself maneuvred into a cul-de-sac.
"Look at me, Shining. Just like the last time you looked me right in the eyes, and told me you loved me with all your heart."
The unicorn would have shuddered at the thought. Whatever she had done to him then - he could hardly remember any details - it had left a dirty hoofprint on his soul. The feelings she had instilled in him, they felt so unclean, so revolting.
And indeed, before long, he felt an old familiar feeling surge up again.
A feeling of content, warmth and ignorance to the world around him. Undistilled loyalty and love. And obsession and addiction.
He couldn't help himself. He felt his determination sway dangerously as he became lost in her yellowish emerald eyes.
"I knew you would remember. Nopony ever forgot their time spent at my side." She took another step forward. "Take my hoof, my prince. And lead me out of here, for the sake of a last waltz together."
The flame on Shining's horn expired, the built-up magic evaporated. With drooping, slumberous eyes, he reached out with a dazed hoof.
She accepted it with a smile. For once again, she felt the joy having some control over something. Even if it was somepony for whom she had obviously little affection. A stupid grunt of Celestia's, a regent she herself had defeated in single combat.
How pathetic.
How weak.
As she made sure the Guard Captain was following her, she turned back around, eager to escape this dreary container.
But as she strolled towards the light, her devious joy evaporated in a hesitant instant. She recoiled in shock.
Something was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
The coming morning light was too dark for the winter season. Her eyes had to refocus to see what actually lay outside the plane; she wasn't used to any of it. The colours were all muted. The shapes of the trees in the background and the weeds on the tarmac were bleak and hazy. They were ugly - in white, and greyish red - as they were unfamiliar.
"This... is not Equestria?"
Shouts rang from out there. Through the hatch, shadows came rushing in, yelling in a foreign tongue, their combat boots reverberating against the metallic surface. There, there came more of those creatures Chrysalis had spotted - humans, one of the royal guards had called them - closing in on her, standing on their back legs, menacingly unsheathing pole-like weapons with their claws. She had only ever seen three or four of them at a time, and never had they seemed as intimidating or fierce to her as they seemed ugly.
But now they were a dozen of them, dodging around boxes and diving into cover, at arms, and obviously looking forward to fight her.
Oh, the fools.
One of them halted only feet away from her, taking aim with his weapon.
"Down! On your knees! Marechaussee!"
The Queen smiled at the bipedal creature.
"No no. You get down."
Her horn lit up once more, ready to lash out at the pathetic beings anew. They may have matched her in height, but they were still no larger than any normal pony or whatnot. They were just all the same - foalish prey.
But then she heard something shuffle behind her. She was almost sure it wasn't Shining.
From the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the creatures - a pilot - approaching her, holding a small black canister in front of himself.
Before she could do anything about it, a geyser of mustard-yellow fluid erupted into her face, accompanied by a vicious hissing noise, drowning her eyes and her nostrils in a stinging, swelling sensation. A suffocating feeling jumbled her magic spell just momentarily. Then the human creature threw the small bottle aside and lunged forward, grabbing her by her throat and horn, as if to keep the head of a bull in place.
Obviously unaware of what he was doing, his hand began to singe as it touched the magically loaded horn, making him curse painfully, but he didn't let go.
Seconds before Chrysalis could send a conditioning spell through his impertinent form, he reached forward and grabbed something dangling just above her eyes.
She heard a tiny mechanical click.
The next thing she felt was a searing pain shooting through her horn and into her brain, nearly scorching all her senses, stunning her just as she was.
Only with great effort could she keep control of her flexing limbs and stay upright.
"Captain Shining! Captain Shining! Are you... can you hear me? Do something, sir!" the human yelled, dropping on his knees and grasping his singed hand.
Chrysalis wanted to turn back around, completely exhausted, and reinforce her spell on the unicorn, just so he wouldn't react to the human's distressed pleas.
She would make it out of here, no matter what, and if they were in her way, they would all get what was coming to them!
But her horn would not respond. The only thing she felt was another shot of pain driving through her head, as if her horn had been lopped off. Again and again, she sharpened her thoughts to produce the spell before it was too late, but her horn didn't obey.
It didn't work. The spell would not come to be.
And Shining Armour was probably slipping away from her control as she thought about it.
Indeed, just as the unicorn stallion snapped out of his trance, his first, panicked reaction was to fire up his magic, in defence of whatever danger was awaiting his consciousness. The only thing he saw as his blurry eyes refocused was a jumble of humans, all dressed in uniforms, holding up weapons and desperately rallying him. But as he tried a step towards the availing soldiers, a big grey form reeled in front of him, obscuring his sight. Instinctively, the dazed officer used his horn to blast the disturbance out of his way.
Chrysalis wanted to turn around, but something powerful struck her in the back. Like a rose bolt of lightning, the magic impaled her, lulling her muscles, slowing her movement, weakening her resistance. She could not build up a counter-spell; her efforts were to no avail.
Her knees gave in. She sunk to the ground. Her vision blurred under tears from the spray, pain and frustration.
The gendarmes and policemen pounded forward, giving the weakened creature her coup-de-grace, viciously striking her down with rifle butts, batons and jackboots, with one or two even dropping on top of her legs to keep her restrained.
She could make out the tuneless ringing of chains as one of the gendarmes unpacked several feet of plasticised steel chainwork with four shackles, the inlaid rubber squeeching as he strapped them around Chrysalis' legs.
After that was done, the gendarmes backed away, once more leaving the chained changeling resting on the ground, battered and weighted down. The battery that suppressed her horn's magic still dangled just above her eyes.
Commissaris Vorster, fumbling with his trited tie and a torn-apart zipper on his jacket, stepped forward, holding on to his right shoulder with his left hand, wheezing with each step.
Solemnly, he looked down at the changeling.
"Your Highness... I would like to inform you that you have now reached Dutch soil and... and will be transferred to your resting quarters asap." Then he turned around and walked off, cynically sighing "And Dr Lecter sends his regards."
With these words spoken, a pair of hands reached down to her and forced something rigid and firm over her snout.