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// Chapter 9: A new face, An old memory. 
// Story: Life through Love 
// by SentientHydra 
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	The moment lasted forever before she spoke, light glinting off fur and carapace, feather and membrane as she walked a few steps forward into the clearing proper "Don't worry, this won't take long." her mask snarled, glaring at me with a hatred that was almost palpable. The words and the changeling/alicorn's stance would have chilled me to the bone, were it not for the warm, strangely malicious,  almost apologetic smile that the black-shelled changeling beneath gave.

I felt the bound guard's hope rise as the apparent alicorn entered the clearing, horn glowing green. Perhaps they would be less exultant had they could see or hear what I could. Chrysalis was Stalking like a noble born and raised, her horn and head held proud.

Words clamoured in my mind, feelings and half remembered images flaring in my mind's eye like the corona of an eclipse, all outshone and shadowed by the big, black ball of hatred Irrationally felt. 

'Betrayer

'Deciever'

Enemy

The hatred was vast and unbidden. I didn't know who this 'chrysalis' was, or what she had done. But the last vestiges of this body's old mind were determined to make her pay for it.

With a feral roar I charged, wings and hard legs hurling myself across the clearing.

I would like to say our battle was epic, reporting with alarm an awe that balls of fire raged across open space, our roars and battle-cries echoing for miles around, two titans of magical combat going at each other with hoof, horn and jaw. I Would love nothing more than to embellish our tale. Even to say that I managed to gain an upper hoof.

If would be nice to say that I hit her, this vile 'traitor' in alicorn skin, that I tackled her to the ground and made her pay for what she had done --I had a theory on what precisely she had done to the old body. And it wasn't the nicest.

It is sad that I cannot. Instead I must relate that the combat (If any) was short, and one sided. I never came within four hooves of touching Chrysalis.

She saw it coming before I even began to crouch, sidestepping my charge with grace, poise and minimal effort. I came at her twice more, then came her retaliation; a simple blast of magic, swift and brutal, throwing me a few meters across the clearing into a tree-trunk. Then I was pinned, an emerald glow binding my limbs and body like a steel vise. Still silent she stalked closer, deflecting my desperate destructo-bolts with insulting ease. Her expression was completely blank, until she walked out of the guard's sight.

Her shell and her true both wore the same grim frown when she spoke next "I'm sorry C-creature. But this is what must be..." She left words unspoken at the end "To maintain my cover"

A pony wouldn't have caught it, that momentary hesitation in naming me, a pony's mind would have written it off. But My changeling ears were sharper, my grasp of the physical, mental and metaphysical cues perfect. Chrysalis was an open book to me, her every feeling laid out like a red carpet, I tried to hide my feelings from her, but from her expression, her 'aura' I knew that she knew that I knew. 

Chrysalis was trying to help despite her feelings. She hated me, or at least hated the old me she knew. Her first wish would be for my failure and defeat. My death however, seemed to be her limit.
She was genuinely concerned for me, In a way I hadn't seen since Silver Lining, I could also however tell that whatever occurred next was going to hurt.

Twilight (her aura flooding with false sympathy for me, with hope and strangled fear) called out again, but her words were lost as I impacted the tree, green magic slamming me into the bark. I was pulled back and slammed again, and again, and again. The bark began to splinter faster than my chitin, the age old tree protesting with crackles and groans. Chrysalis was thorough in her beating, hurling me at a wayward rocks, then back at the tree; Rock, tree, tree, rock.

I screamed at the first impact, shrieking at every one that passed by until the breath was driven from my lungs

Chitin cracked, bones broke, I felt my horn explode in pain with a violent crackle of sparks and pain. Soon my silence broke into a wail of pain, then into whimpering, then nothing. Blood dribbled out in a green stream from my mouth as I hung there, a limp rag doll in Chrysalises magic. 

The coup de grace came more suddenly than i expected, magic gripping either end of me then pulling up and in whilst another held my midsection.

One more sound I will never forget. The sound of my spine snapping beneath my cracked skin.

The blackness came within minutes. Void creeping into my numb body's senses while I dropped to the grass. My last vision was of Chrysalis black hooves walking away, her muted voice unintelligible. 

I wondered vaguely as my life bled and blanked itself away. 'Where would I wake up? In chains or freedom,  heaven or hell.	Perhaps I'd be Returned to Earth.

Mayhaps I would not wake at all, that would be nice, at least then my horn would stop aching. Even in the darkness there was still pain.