Canterlot castle, my sometimes home, sometimes place where I store my stuff. An obvious illusion, I was under no pretense here. General, somehow, was still alive, its consciousness returned to its master down here in the Abyss after Erdrick destroyed its body. Cursed to come alive again, denied rest, I supposed we had something in common. Idle speculation of course.
I took stock of my surroundings. Right now I was in my room, or an illusion of my room, with all the usual junk lying around. Presumably this 'game' General had come up with hadn't started yet, but it was likely no different from the last one. She/It was going to do something awful to ponies I cared about, and I had to stop that. Nothing to it.
I stepped out into the hallway and looked up the skylight. Ten in the morning, roughly. A clip-clopping came down the hallway and muffled itself as it stepped onto the carpet that draped the marble floor here. I looked to see who it was.
Celestia.
My heart stopped for a moment before I forced it to beat again. Just an illusion, certainly General wouldn't have used the real one. She was probably beyond its power, I reasoned. No, not reasoned. Hoped.
"Cadence? Oh there you are," she said. Sing-song voice, regal bearing. This was a good illusion.
"Yes?" I asked.
"The council wants a meeting with us, and that means you, specifically, in half an hour. Are you able to attend?" she asked. She lingered in front of me, waiting for the answer, as I looked up at her.
How desperately I wanted for this to be real, for everything to be normal and happy back at home. These images still resonated despite that part of my mind that told me not to believe them. Just to let myself go, off into the dream, a part of me still wanted that.
The smart part of my mind won out.
"Sure, I'll be there," I said.
"Right, try to clean your mane off at least. And you smell a little off too. Don't be late!" she said, and trotted past me. I noticed another serving filly had been following along behind her the whole time, with a notepad, trying to jot down what she had been saying. I eyed her as the two passed. Nothing out of the ordinary, yet.
I knocked on Luna's door, but there was no response. Perhaps she wasn't a part of this game. Best to leave it that way, I thought, though that might also have meant she was dealing with her own nightmares right now. Good luck, sister.
I had a little while to poke around before I needed to be at the councilor's chambers, so I wandered the halls. Absolutely nothing was unusual, this was a very well put together simulacrum of the palace. Ponies darted here and there, politicians and nobles trotting back and forth yammering at one another, workers cleaning up. Guardsponies trying to ignore everypony as they went about their business. I had an idea.
"Excuse me," I said to the nearest guard. He straightened up.
"Yes Princess?" he asked.
"Is Captain Antares anywhere on the grounds? I'd like to speak with him," I said.
"Err, captain who?" he asked.
Not good.
"The captain of the night watch," I said.
"The captain of the night watch?" he repeated after me, "That's Captain Orion, ma'am."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I must have forgotten," I said. This little game of General's was playing with outdated pieces. That meant it'd be easier to identify Wedge, I guessed, but I had no idea what he had done before becoming Captain. I had barely spent any time around the castle, Shining Armor would know more.
Oh please, tell me he's not part of this.
One way to find out.
"What about Shining Armor?" I asked.
The guard looked at me for a moment. He was thinking.
"I'm not sure. He should be on duty, ma'am, but I don't know where he is," he said.
"Thank you kindly," I said. I trotted off, aimlessly moving through corridors dreading to meet a crude imitation of my husband. It didn't happen, and I wondered if General had a plan for him, or perhaps had mercifully left him out. Mercy? Heh.
Here I was, constantly second-guessing myself. This was a game, though I didn't know precisely the rules, and I knew something was going to happen. Wouldn't it be best to play along?
I headed over towards the councilor's chambers and arrived a few minutes before I was due. They all looked up as I entered, the twelve of them seated around an elongated table. Celestia was in a corner looking at some documents, and she passed them to her assistant as I entered, eying her speaking podium at the front of the room which was currently unoccupied.
"Ah, there she is," the representative from Baltimare said.
"What is it you needed to consult me about?" I asked. I've never been terribly good at this, and the councilors rarely asked me for advice, that had been Celestia's thing. I also didn't particularly care about making a good performance, and I looked a little rough, and likely smelled like salt. They could go suck a lemon if they didn't like it.
"Ahem," Celestia said, stepping to the podium at the head of the table, and looking down on all of us.
"Princess Cadence, we summon you to ask your consultation in matters military," she said, formally, as she was now speaking for the council.
"Very well," I said.
"We have been concerned as of late due to an increase in the number of changelings spotted within our borders. You know more than anypony on how to deal with them," she said.
Changelings.
General's game was even sicker than I had expected. It knew I still had nightmares about them, it knew they had almost ruined my life once. It knew I hated them and would scour every last one from the planet if given half a chance.
"Might I suggest we form a group of changeling hunters, then. Groups of three, with at least one talented Unicorn who can cast disruption magic. We'd need at least twenty for each major city, and a smaller number for the towns," I said. This wasn't new, this was very similar to the policy we had instituted after the disaster at my wedding, to flush out the changeling spies in Equestria.
This was all a retread of where I had been before, even the statements Celestia had made were the same to the letter. This 'game' had me going back a few years to relive something that had been boring and procedural.
A shadow loomed above us in the room. I noticed it first, and looked up at the skylight which illuminated the chamber. Above the glass was a black shape, buzzing in place and casting its shadow over the table. Everypony else looked up to see what I had seen.
"That's not a guard," I said, stepping back. This was where the history had diverged, it seemed.
It was a changeling, and above it there were more, lots of them. Dozens. Hundreds. The alarm sounded and the great ringing bell was deafening as the sounds of battle started throughout the palace. The changeling above us took this cue to smash its way through the glass, followed by several of its cohorts, and landed in front of us as the councilors scattered and made for the door.
The first one to land came straight at me, lunging with something that looked like a pair of scissors in its hoof, swinging it wildly. I drew my sword and gashed open its neck in the same motion, the clumsy attack being barely worth acknowledging. The councilors were nowhere near as competent, or as armed, as I was, and the changelings that had poured in pursued with zeal.
"Tia, get them out of here!" I shouted, though I guess she thought I was referring to the councilors. She forced the door open with her magic and the panicked politicians followed her out, save one, who could not get past the changeling who was blocking her way.
"Cadence!" she shouted, pointing at the cornered councilor.
"I'll get her, get them someplace safe!" I shouted back.
The representative from Trottingham, I know not her name, had backed herself into the corner opposite the door. I vaulted the table and landed on the other side of the changeling, but he made no effort to attack me. He brandished that strange scissors-like device and stabbed the councilor in the leg as she tried to shrink into the corner. He turned to me and smiled, I think, before my sword punctured his heart. The smile vanished, as did his life, and he slumped over.
"Come on, whoever you are, Celestia knows of a safe place," I said. I actually didn't know where she had gone to, but there were enough secret passages in the palace that we could hide the councilors fairly well. The pony didn't follow me, she just kept clutching at the wound where she had been stabbed.
"Hold still, it didn't go deep. Put pressure on it," I said, getting close to the leg.
"It – it oooh," she said. This wasn't a pain reaction. The wound wasn't bleeding either, but there was something distinct and black spreading under her skin, visible through her coat.
"Poison?" I said, looking closer.
"No, don't," she said, as I bent in closer. Poisoned knives, that's pretty messed up. The changelings had evidently had enough of stealth and infiltration.
I leaned in to try to suck the poison out, but the councilor shoved me away with her hoof.
"Hey! I've done this before, let me help you," I shouted.
"No! It feels so good," she said. Her face had taken on the look of a coked-out addict, she had a vacant smile and her eyes had rolled back.
The black sludge was spreading up her leg fast, way too fast to be poison. It made its way to her heart within seconds and then, everywhere, all at once. Her entire body turned black except her eyes, which she closed. She slumped over, leaving me baffled. Could I have saved her? Or was this the explanation of how the game worked? Was I supposed to see this happen so I knew the rules?
I checked the body, and to my amazement, it was warm. Still had a pulse. She wasn't dead, but she certainly wasn't moving either. I supposed she was safe enough this way, but I certainly couldn't let this happen to my friends. Now the game was on, I had to find my companions before the changelings did.
I bolted out of the room and into the chaos that raged in the hallways. Guardsponies and some staff members, the more courageous ones, anyway, were battling changelings all throughout. They had come in though the skylights that lit much of the palace, glass shards lay everywhere as spears and those strange scissor-needles clanged. I could already see several blackened bodies lying in the hallway, and before my eyes a guard had been stabbed in the chest.
I shot forward and impaled his attacker from behind, but it was already too late. I wasn't sure if I could suck out the poison or not, but it was so fast acting that even the five seconds I took were too much. He was gone, just like the councilor.
The battle was far out of my control at this point, and it wasn't going so well. For every changeling that had fallen, there were two of those black lumps that had been ponies. I could fight and try to win here, but I was going to be outnumbered, fast.
"Cadence, over here!" Celestia shouted at me across the din, and I whirled to see her suspending a changeling in midair with her magic, before tossing it against the wall. It crumpled like a can at the impact.
She ran off and I followed, tearing through the maddened corridors. All around us the battle continued, the changelings winning, by a lot. We had only minutes before they would clinch total victory.
At last we broke into the throne room. Wait, the throne room?
"Why are we here Tia? This isn't safe! We're going to get pinned!" I said.
"It's the only place left. The changelings knew about all our hiding places," she said.
"The councilors?" I asked.
"They got them. I'm sorry," she said. She hung her head.
"Damn it," I spat. The door burst open and a dozen changelings swarmed in.
They took up positions in a circle around us. Celestia had accepted defeat, it seemed, and was not willing to keep fighting, but I wasn't going down that easily.
"Come on, who's first? Who wants to test themselves?" I barked, a challenge that went unanswered. None of the changelings wanted to get close, they waited in a horde that grew all the time as more flooded into the room. Those creepy scissor-needles glinted as they brandished them.
One stepped out, or maybe was pushed, and I sliced his head off before he took two steps. I punted the head into the crowd and challenged again.
"Who else? Come on!" I shouted.
"Why not me?" came a voice I had been dreading, from directly behind me. I whirled around just in time to catch a hoof in the mouth and fell over, dropping my sword. It clattered on the floor and skittered into the horde of changelings. I didn't care, because it was her.
Chrysalis. Standing over me.
"Been a long time, Princess," she said. Practically drooling, she gazed at me with unalloyed malice.
"Celestia?" I asked.
"She's been gone a while. I had adequate time to learn all your secret passages, and now, I've got all your political leaders. Let's see you mount a resistance without them, hmm?" she said.
"You bitch," I said. I spat in her face, and she didn't even flinch as it splashed on her cheek.
I knew, deep down, that this was part of General's game, but seeing her snarling face brought out something in me that few living ponies had ever seen. The only reason I hadn't slashed her throat open was I had dropped my sword. Given the chance, given even a moment's opportunity, I'd cut off each one of her limbs and dangle it in front of her eyes, just to watch the horror in them as she realized she'd never use it again. I'd carve hateful slurs into her back with my blade's edge, I'd pull out her crooked teeth one by one, then shove them down her ugly neck. I'd bend her, then I'd break her, and if I could, I'd bring her back only to break her again.
"Well, time to see if you're immune to this too," she said with a chuckle. One of her changelings handed her a scissor-needle and she swung it at me as I lay on the floor.
I rolled out of the way and stood up, angling a kick at her jaw. I missed and threw myself further off balance, she had recoiled at the last second.
"Hold her down!" she shouted, and all at once, thirty changeling hooves grabbed me and pinned me to the floor. I struggled, vainly, as the odds were firmly against me now.
She stabbed me in the chest, but it didn't hurt at all. It was barely even a paper cut, and none of the effects I had seen earlier happened to me. My physiology was different from that of an ordinary pony, and Chrysalis' expression told me she had anticipated this. The black poison sat in the wound for a moment, then dissipated.
"Too bad. Toss her in the dungeon until I figure out what I'm going to do with her. And no beatings, you hear me? She's mine," she said.
"When, when, I get my hooves on you, I'll strangle you with your own intestines! I'll - " I shouted, before a changeling grabbed my mouth and held it closed. They hauled me out of the room and I lost sight of everything behind a sea of black changeling bodies.