Twilight rose from a deep sleep, fragments of a dark, dreamless sleep trailing off her consciousness as it ascended to wakefulness. Smells started to make themselves known to Twilight's nostrils: disinfectant and ozone primarily, laced with a lingering, familiar fragrance that frustrated her senses even as it comforted. As her sense of smell returned, so too did her sense of hearing; the soft beeping of a heart monitor was familiar as well as troubling, and a faint murmur of voices from somewhere nearby was still too soft to make out, though something about the tones of the voices was reassuring. Twilight's senses of touch reported that she was laying in a rather soft bed, under some very clean sheets, and, thoroughly reassured by her other senses, Twilight very slowly opened her eyes.
Twilight's hospital room was quite dark, but she could see well enough by the moonlight that filtered in through the blinds on the window and the fey light of her own burning mane. She had electrodes attached to her body and horn, and a mild tug in her foreleg as she looked around told her she had an intravenous drip attached. A look at the bag told her it was simple fluids, which was reassuring, but she still had no idea for the moment as to what had happened, until a soft sound caught her attention.
Twilight turned sharply, her monitors speeding up briefly until her vision caught up to her reactions. Princess Celestia, diarch of Equestria, snored softly in a chair beside her bed. She looked disheveled, her swirling mane was uncharacteristically unkempt, and Celestia's coat lacked its usual radiance. On the floor beside the chair, the royal regalia sat in a relatively neat pile, and without it, Celestia looked smaller somehow. Deep circles lined the Princess' eyes as she slept, and Twilight began to wonder how long she'd been unconscious.
The sight of her mentor reminded Twilight that she hadn't really spent much time with Celestia since she had resolved to build the Citadel. Twilight thought back, and with some shock she realized it had been almost four years since then. She hadn't even had time for her own birthday four times over, though she had always made time for Luminous's, and she hadn't been to a Summer Sun Celebration in as long a time. Tears rose unbidden to Twilight's eyes as she silently regarded the sleeping Princess, and as she wiped them away, the movement of her arm caused the stand for her intravenous drip to rattle a little.
Celestia started to stir at once, though the sound was scarcely louder than a whisper, and as she looked up, Twilight suddenly found herself being embraced by the Princess of the Sun. She felt her mentor's warm, ethereal mane against her face, and once again the tears came, but Twilight just let them flow. She didn't understand what had happened, she didn't know why she was in a hospital, where Luna was, where the changelings were, but those questions could wait for the moment.
For several minutes Twilight just held Celestia, and to Twilight's surprise, she felt tears falling on her cheek that were not her own. Twilight swallowed as she realized Celestia, who had always been the serene strength in her life, was crying. The alicorn's breathing was harsh as she held her student, and the faintest of tremors wracked the diarch's body. It was like watching Celestia waste away in her bed, all those years ago when she had still technically been a wanted criminal: heartbreaking.
Twilight sniffed again, and Celestia withdrew, once more smiling serenely, though her magenta eyes were still tired and full of emotion. “I knew you'd be alright,” Celestia said softly, “But,” Celesta continued, with a sad sort of smile, “My most faithful student, we really must stop meeting like this.” Twilight stifled a chuckle at that, though the joke was bittersweet. Twilight hadn't really seen Celestia in ages, with all the demands on her time, and it really did feel like the only time she saw her mentor was when danger loomed.
To break the silence, and to assuage her own lingering fears, Twilight asked softly, “What happened?” Celestia sighed, and began to explain.
Queen Chrysalis, monarch of the Changelings, felt her brood's distress keenly as she flew towards the hive. She flew high, amongst the concealing clouds even though she was transformed into a pegasus. She had been flying for the better part of the night, and the sun was now beginning to warm her false, disgusting coat of hair. She didn't know what had happened when the filthy purple food-stock had apparently escaped, and arrived in such a grand manner at the Citadel, but whatever it was the unicorn had done, it had snuffed out a significant number of her children's lives.
Their psychic waves of sudden, incandescent agony had ripped apart Chrysalis' disguise as she had been about to feed upon the affection of yet another simpering noble. She had been forced to kill the fool of course, once her cover had been blown, and she hoped the investigation into the noble's death would occupy the freakish mutant ponies for long enough for her to escape without notice.
Not that she feared the creatures. They seemed entirely too wretched to even approach her power, though they were surprisingly tenacious, but Chrysalis felt sure that once she had dealt with whatever had befallen her hive, she could recoup and make use of the so-called 'changelings', just as the arrogant, blue wretch had told her years before. Despite the setback, everything the puny little thing had told her had proven true, and the creatures that dared call themselves changelings were still the perfect entry point for infiltrating pony society.
Chrysalis' thoughts were interrupted by a fresh wave of death from her hive. It wasn't as strong as the cataclysm hours ago that had preceded the unexpected and unwelcome arrival of Twilight Sparkle, but it was still alarming. She accelerated immediately, and passed over the town called Dodge City. The little primitive 'city' barely qualified as a town, and Chrysalis was gratified to notice that they seemed to be preoccupied with bringing in a new train and repairing their pathetic little town.
The Changeling Queen spared a moment's thought wondering how such hideously stupid creatures could have possibly inflicted so much damage, especially as the sensations of terror and pain began to rise in intensity. While she knew her plan was flawless, Twilight Sparkle and her mutant ilk posed a serious problem that the insectoid queen resolved to deal with, as She burst through a cloud, and stopped in shock and dismay.
The small mountain that had hosted the hive had collapsed inward, and all around it, her drones were dragging the dead to one pile and the injured to another. The stench of death lay heavy on the plain around the mountain as Chrysalis descended swiftly, her disguise burning away as two drones broke off from their tasks to greet her in the setting sunlight. They were her favorites, she was pleased to note, though they bore cracks in their carapace from some sort of heavy impact.
Chrysalis immediately received a psychic update on the situation, and felt a brief flash of smugness at the efficiency of Changeling communication before the true horror of the situation had set in. Nearly half the brood was buried under the remains of the mountain, and of the remaining half, only half of those were still able. Cave-ins wracked the former site of their home, following the fire that had wormed through and taken all of the cocoons in an instant of thunderous destruction.
Still, that left her with just under a thousand changelings, so Chrysalis immediately started directing the survivors, who worked harder and more efficiently under her direction. The problem of the missing food sources could be remedied in time, if enough of the healthy workers were extracted from the remains of the hive, though Chrysalis knew that many of her brood would starve.
The Changeling Queen made some cold calculations on that front, and started to direct members of her brood to isolate those who could not be helped, or were unnecessary. She directed the healthy to drain what love they could from those who were severely injured or useless. There was some protest, of course, until Chrysalis' loyal drones descended upon those who dared defy her. Some changelings too attached to their mates or spawn fell before Chrysalis' guards, before the others started to fall in line.
It was at that point, while the Queen was considering snuffing a few more of the dissenters, that one of the sentry drones went abruptly silent. His mental presence was immediately snuffed out without even the slightest pain, and would have gone unnoticed if Chrysalis wasn't already on high alert. As it was, the remaining sentries winked out one by one so swiftly that their painless waves of death the only warning Chrysalis was able to relay to the hive before swift, whistling death came swooping in.
Before her eyes, Chrysalis saw a drone drop from a length of pointed metal with fins of leather driving straight through his head. Hundreds of bolts fell from the sky it seemed, shot out from behind rocks, or seemed to come from nowhere. And while the survivors were still reeling, that's when the creatures swarmed in. They were like huge, vicious toads, dressed in armor and carrying bizarre weapons.
Wet skin shimmered in the dying sunlight, with croaks of savage triumph, firing bolts of metallic death from the strange contraptions clutched in their damp fingers. They hopped and bounded, faster than even the combat drones could follow, and amongst them, four-legged nightmares waded through. They were the filthy, mutant ponies, Chrysalis realized in her fury, the ones that dared take the name 'changeling'. Their sheer audacity spurred Chrysalis to snarl a direct order to attack to all the remaining of her brood, filled with her psychic hatred and burning, dominating will.
Instantly, every Changeling, drone, worker and larva alike, lunged for the intruders, who found themselves faced with a horde of almost a thousand frothing, screaming insectoid creatures. Several of the toad things took solid hits, and the attack began to break. Toad-like bodies fell here and there before the furious swarm, and Chrysalis boosted her psychic push with her fresh exultation. Soon the battle had become a rout, and the reckless invaders were being pressed hard by the wrath of the Changelings.
The invaders, mutant pony and freakish toad alike, broke and ran, and Chrysalis furiously demanded their pursuit, following behind. Through the eyes of her drones, the Changeling Queen caught glimpses of the insolent invaders fleeing to a dark cave. They or hopped in droves, but it was still only a mere hundred or so. Against her brood, they would stand no chance, Chrysalis knoew, so without a second thought, the swarm pursued them into the darkness, and as they passed the threshold, they vanished from Chrysalis' mind. Alarmed, she followed through, and found herself in a sudden, unexpected labyrinth of stone.
All through the tunnels around her, Chrysalis heard the sound of combat, the buzzing of drones and the screams of the dying as she felt wave after wave of death wash over her. The acoustics of the strange tunnels made finding her brood difficult, but she still had her psychic connection. In fact, the strange place seemed to amplify Chrysalis' psychic connection to her brood. Flashes of violence, of terror and confusion washed through Chrysalis' mind as her brood battled with the invaders in the tunnels, only to find themselves victims of sharpened crystals, rockslides and stranger, more nightmarish things.
On top of that, Chrysalis' psychic imperative had exhausted her children to the point of desperation, and many fell in a faint, unconscious, before being slain. Chrysalis burst into a corridor, where two drones fought feebly against some denizen of this place. It was like a timber wolf, but covered in rocky armor and glowing with crystals that seemed to shine with inner malice. One drone sensed his Queen's presence and tried to lunge at the creature. He was rewarded with a swipe of the creature's claw that shattered open his throat carapace. The other leaped to avenge its fellow, and was kicked back out of sight down the corridor.
At that moment, the dying drone tackled the creature, while simultaneously something slimy dripped onto Chrysalis' back. She spun just in time to dodge another rocky abomination, this one like a scorpion that merged unwholesomely with a coyote and a lamprey. Its crystal-furred legs jingled as the pawed limbs extended towards Chrysalis' face, and its gaping, sucker-like maw followed suit. Chrysalis dropped, allowing the creature to fly over her head, but its tail smacked her hard and spun her around before it impacted the wolf creature and they started fighting.
The dying drone, who had apparently not expired in his last-ditch attempt, urged his Queen to flee, before his life was wiped out in another wave of death. A keen scream of agony echoed from down the crystalline corridor, breaking into a thousand reverberations of pain before assaulting the Changeling Queen's mind and hearing. For once, Chrysalis listened to a mere drone and fled back the way she had come, fear warring with her incandescent wrath as she buzzed towards the exit.
Something scraped the tip of the Changeling Queen's wing, nicking it painfully. The walls were beginning to glow as small, sharp crystals grew out in snaking vines that seemed to reach for her. The waves of pain, terror and death from behind Chrysalis drove her onwards, while sharp, crystalline spikes shot towards her. Ahead, the faint moonlight of the advancing night was like a beacon of hope that promised solace from this gem-studded nightmare of blood, pain and death. Then the crystals all shook, and a great grating rumble sounded from all around. Crystals fell and pierced Chrysalis' wings, left deep scores in her black armored body and forced her to dodge, risking worse injury.
Worse yet, the opening ahead was beginning to dim. Rocks were sliding down across the entrance, shaking more crystals loose with every damning boulder and reducing Chrysalis' chances of escape. She put on more speed than she had ever had to before, and the Queen's wings ached with the effort. The corridor seemed to stretch, as if attempting to prevent her from leaving, and as her wings were about to give up, Chrysalis burst through the tiny space between the falling boulders into the chill night.
Queen Chrysalis, sole monarch of the Changelings, hit the rock in front of the cavern as the last rock smacked home, sealing the cave. Immediately, a net slapped over her, laden with a sticky slime, and Chrysalis struggled ineffectively against the bindings as her captors approached, cursing and shouting threats in her terrified rage until a hoof kicked her hard enough across her jaw to scatter her thoughts and stun her into silence.
In that time, more slimy strands were wrapped tightly around the Queen's mouth by quick, if slimy, amphibian fingers. A soft, pony voice asked a sharp question that eluded Chrysalis' stunned senses, a gutteral voice, like a burbling, flatulent swamp, answered, “We missed one, Lady Trixie,” As her senses recovered, Chrysalis could make out a hulking toad-like creature. Its mouth was easily bigger than the Queen's head, and the stench of it was almost overpowering.
“Leave it,” A far more normal voice answered, as a pony silhouette stepped forward, “This one lives for now.” To Chrysalis' thinly disguised relief, the silhouette resolved itself into a familiar shape, then the pony lit herself, and Chrysalis' blood froze. It was the creature that had set her on this path, but not quite. Where the self-centered pony who had told her of the so-called changelings had been groomed and flawless, this creature was grim and scarred, with a mane like an unwashed paintbrush, and a coat covered in idiotic doodles.
Chrysalis' scathing inner monologue was cut short by the creature saying to the toad with it, “Go back to the hive, help the others.” As the toad moved away, the pony creature moved closer, but before Chrysalis could bring her horn to bear and smite this impudent wretch, it was forcibly shoved up, wrenching the Changeling Queen's neck as she was brought up face-to-face with the unicorn. Whispers drained the violence from her thoughts as Chrysalis felt the anger bleed from her mind.
She tried to fight it, to strike this creature down, but something about her violet gaze was draining the righteous anger of the Changeling Queen, and leaving only sorrow and fear in its wake. It was some kind of magic, but something that eluded the Queen, something she could not counter with her own potent magical resources. “You were the one,” the blue unicorn said softly as Chrysalis sagged against her restraints, “you were the one who imitated Dame Twilight Sparkle.”
Chrysalis snarled a curse softly in response, a last breath of defiance, until she was smacked hard across the face again by a blue hoof, “That's for blasphemy,” the blue unicorn said sharply before she continued, in a smoother tone, “For your sacrilege, your profaning of the Dame's sacred form, and your further blasphemy against her mission... you shall be left alive.” Chrysalis, who had been bracing herself as best she could, couldn't believe what she'd heard. Her confusion must have showed, for the creature continued, in a tone as if one were explaining to a hatchling, “You will be left here, where your bonds will dissolve in the morning sun, free to go.” A smile colder than the Frozen North lit the unicorn's mouth, “Your kin will pay for your crimes. Those that are not devoured by the toads will be taken.”
Chrysalis tried to scoff at the so-called 'changeling' and its threat, but her mind turned to the dark labyrinth in which she'd abandoned her brood, where terror grew like slime upon the walls and dripped into her soul, sending her running. The pony's smile widened without humor, “You will live, and be alone, the last of your kind.” The pony stood and looked down at Chrysalis, whose eyes were wide with shock, “Your life is my gift to you, for leading your bugs into our trap and then leaving them to die. You saved me much trouble.” Those cruel, violet eyes grew colder, “But if you ever set hoof in Equestria again, consider the gift... revoked.”
The last waves of death from Chrysalis' ruined hive punctuated the creature's grim pronouncement, and the silence in their wake was profound. Tears, unbidden, rose to the Changeling Queen's eyes, and it was only then that the blue unicorn left, leaving Chrysalis alone in the freezing desert night.
Dame Twilight Sparkle, First Knight of Equestria, looked on at her sleeping squire. “She's really grown,” Twilight said softly to Princess Celestia. She and Twilight had moved to Luminous's room once Celestia's recounting of events had finished. Twilight's doctor had protested, but Twilight had simply ignored his complaints until he went about somewhere else. It was so dim that even Twilight's mane seemed bright to her, though Celestia never seemed to be impeded by the dark.
“She has,” Princess Celestia responded in an equally quiet voice. It was well past midnight by then, but the Princess showed no sign of her weariness from earlier. “And so have you." Twilight snorted softly, she felt exceptionally useless at that moment. As if divining her former student's disquiet, Celestia continued, "Everypony is caught wrong-hoofed sometimes, dear Twilight. Learn from the incident, and look to the future."
Twilight shook her head gently and looked down at her battered squire. Luminous was bandaged and clean, but exhausted. Her cutie mark on her right side would bear a thin scar, but beyond that she merely needed rest and nutrition to recover fully. Luminous had come a long way from the stubborn little filly that had shown up in Twilight's library, and the violet unicorn felt pride for her squire's rescue attempt, as well as something new, something she had never felt before.
Slowly, a realization stole over Twilight as she watched Luminous quietly rest, and she turned to her mentor. “Princess,” Twilight said seriously, “Is the Canterlot Adoption Agency open at this hour?”
Princess Celestia smiled, “If not," she answered lightly, "then they're certainly in for a surprise."