//------------------------------// // The Forgotten City // Story: Chrysalis' Revenge // by ladyanaconda //------------------------------// Fukkuteru, Shining Armor and Discord departed at dawn the next day, not before Spike, who had the habit to wake up early, made them a snack. Shining Armor was reluctant to leave his wife just when they had reunited, but he knew it had to be done; Rarity might have a clue of Twilight's whereabouts. Besides, that city could be the place where the last piece of the artifact could be located. The rest of the ponies had stayed behind in Ponyville to take are of the pregnant princess; Stormfly has also been left behind due to the fact that he had already found his lost child, and they assumed he would want to spend time with her. Shining had rode on Discord's back this time (much to his relief, since Fukkuteru was not precisely gentle with his flight), and they headed out for the mountains. Luckily for them, according to the book the city would not be so hard to spot if the towers of its once-glorious palace were still standing. After hours of flying through the mountains, the Kuros finally spotted the ruins of a once beautiful place. The homes were worn down by the passage of time, with most lacking a roof, and the plants long withered. As they landed on the one of the former royal gardens in the palace's courtyard, Fukkuteru spoke, "What a pity. This place was such a powerful empire, and look how they ended up." "What's that supposed to mean?" Discord inquired. "A thousand years ago, this was one of Equestria's most prosperous cities, but they were soon consumed by greed. They dug deeper and deeper into their gold mines, tampering with mountain itself. One night, however, there was a mysterious fire that devastated all of the city and killed most of its citizens. The Royal family was barely able to escape, but they had nothing left. It is not known what became of them." "How are we supposed to find Rarity in this place?" said Shining Armor looking around, "It's very big. She could be anywhere!" Before they could do anything about it, a white-coated mare took a sharp turn at the corner, looking behind her as if she was being chased by a monster, and ran into the Kuros. She fell to the ground with a loud thud, but when she looked up to see who she had bumped into, she let out a piercing scream. Shining and Discord recognized the mare. "Rarity!" "Not another monster!" the fashionista crawled away from Fukkuteru, "Stay away, you ruffian!" The Kuros let out a sigh of frustration, "Nice to meet you, miss Rarity." "Don't worry, honey, he's on your side," DIscord explained as he helped the mare up. "Rarity, why are you wearing that clothing?" Shining Armor pointed out upon noticing she was wearing an outfit reminiscent of those worn by dancing mares in Saddle Arabia. "It was horrible!" Rarity started wailing, falling to the trio's hooves, "That horrible stallion wanted to make me a concubine, can you believe it?! I was trying to runaway when I ran into you! I can't go back there! It's Tartarus!" "Speak of the devil," Fukkuteru pointed out, looking up at the sky, "I think he's looking for you!" A pegasus as red as blood, with iron-sharp wings, wavering black mane and saddle-Arabian attire swooped down towards the group, "I've found you!" he snarled at Rarity. Rarity immediately tried to run away, but the pegasus wrapped his hooves around her waist and lifted her off the ground, ignoring her screams of terror. She looked down at Shining and Discord, "DON'T JUST STAND THERE!!! HELP ME!!!" Fukkuteru outstretched his wings, threw Shining Armor on his back without asking (much to the unicorn's dismay) and, with a furious flap, was soon in the air, followed by Discord, going after the pegasus. Rarity let out screams, trying to get the pegasus holding her to drop her, not minding if she fell to her death, as long as she was no longer in that pegasus's grasp. Soon they were all flying around the ruins of the city, avoiding "What to we do?!" Discord cried out "I can shoot a fireball or a beam at him," Fukkuteru suggested. "Are you nuts?! You could hit Rarity!" "Any better ideas, genius?" "Discord! You follow him, Fukkuteru and I will catch up to him on the other side of the city!" Shining Armor cried out at the draconequus. Nodding, Discord flew after the pegasus, while Fukkuteru and Shining Armor flew into a different direction. Dodging through the buildings and towers, the Kuros didn't set his eyes off the pegasus, even though he couldn't actually see him clearly due to the structure of the city. "HEELP!!!" Rarity screamed, in horror, "I DON'T WANT HIM TO PUT A HOOF ON ME!!" "My dear, it would help if you stopped screaming!" Discord called out to her, "All I can tell you now is 'get ready!'" "Ready for what?!" Before the Draconequus could reply, Fukkuteru burst through one of the windows, destroying the tower, and slamming into the blood red pegasus, knocking Rarity off his grasp. The fashionista screamed and flailed her hooves in panic, before Discord caught her on his arms and flew down to the ground to look for a place to hide while Fukkuteru and Shining Armor took care of the pegasus. "Get ready, Shining!" the Kuros called out at the unicorn on his back, "I'll fly closer to him, and you'll have to shoot at him!" Shining Armor narrowed his eyes and started charging a beam of magic as Fukkuteru flapped his wings and flew forward as if planning to slam into the blood pegasus; the sultan of the city snarled at the two and dove towards them. "NOW!" Shining Armor fired his beam and Fukkuteru fired a purplish green fireball at the diving pegasus. Before the sultan could react, he was truck by the two opposing forces and he screamed in agony as he felt his body starting to burn. The sultan was destroyed by an explosion of swirling colors. When the smoke cleared, Shining Armor noticed a falling object and quickly used his magic to levitate it closer and take a look. It was a great oval-shaped diamond, transparent as crystal, presumably the last artifact to complete the scepter. "Hey!" Discord called out from beneath, standing by the apparently traumatized Rarity, "WHat do we do know? Rarity doesn't know about Twilight's whereabouts!" Fukkuteru flew down to land in front of Discord, and Shining Armor hopped from his back into the floor. Taking the scepter, which already had the giant crown-like ring on its upper top, gently levitated the diamond to the center of the ring, and he nearly dropper it when suddenly a blinding light from the diamond, no, the entire scepter took them off guard. Fukkuteru used his wings to shield his face, while Discord and rarity covered their eyes with their hooves. When the light died down, the three pieces of the scepter where together once again after a thousand years. "Well, we have the scepter," Fukkuteru commented, "What now? Should we destroy it?" "I wouldn't do that if I were you." The quartet was taken by surprised when the Changeling Queen, with the same purple mist from before emanating from her eyes, landed a few hoofteps from them. Fukkuteru immediately recognized that mist, and those eyes, but he kept his shock to himself. His race was forbidden to speak about it to outsiders, no matter how much he trusted them. Shining Armor and Discord immediately took a fighting stance, "Listen here, Chrissy!" Discord snarled, "Give me my wife back, and I might have mercy!" Chrysalis simply snickered, "You think you can stop me? When I have Sombra's magic, nopony can stop me!" "Chrysalis!" Shining Armor snapped, holding the scepter up in the air, a brilliant raspberry aura shinign on his horn. "Give us Twilight Back, or I will destroy this damn scepter once and for all!" After remaining silent for a few minutes, Chrysalis smirked, "You're smart, you know. Very well, the Unicorn in exchange for the scepter, but..." her eyes flashed green, "Only with the three of us present!" Black magic oozed from her horn, and in a flash, she, Shining and Discord were gone. Fukkuteru and Rarity stare at the place where they had been standing in shock. Shining Armor and Discord appeared in the crater of an inactive volcano, but there were a few river of lava running through the rock. Chrysalis landed about a meter in front of them, the smirk still present in her face. "Hand over the scepter," she growled, "And I'll give you that Unicorn back." "How do we know you will keep you word?" Discord narrowed her eyes. The Changeling Queen snorted in annoyance, and with a flash of her horn, a lavender Unicorn with a great, swollen belly appeared in the middle of the crater, just between Chrysalis and the duo. However, her pupils were shrunk and green, she was in a trance, just like when Shining Armor had been under the changeling Queen's control. However, her pupils were colored red, and her sclera was solid lime green, like Sombra's eyes. "TWILIGHT!" Before they could run any further, black crystals struck from the ground, blocking their path. Just then, Sombra's familiar black mist, surrounded the duo and Twilight. Soon, Sombra's head emerged from the mist of black. "The scepter first." He hissed. Reluctantly, the white unicorn flung the scepter towards the Changeling Queen, and it landed just a few hooves in front of her. Sombra started to laugh, eyeing the lavender Unicorn as he did so. "Now do whatever you want with the mare," he snickered, "Her usefulness has come to an end." When the black Unicorn flew down to meet his Queen, Shining and Discord jumped over the obsidian crystals and ran towards Twilight Sparkle. "Twily!" Shining was the first to speak. "Twilight, honey, are you okay?" Discord was next, holding his wife by her shoulders. No reply. The same emotionless expression remained on her face. "Twily?" Shining repeated pleadingly, "It's me, your BBBFF!" No reply. "Twi! Please don't do this to us! Not after all we've been through, honey! You have to remember! Do it for our foal!" Discord felt his eyes swelling up with tears. Nothing. "You fools!" The pair didn't react to Chrysalis's taunting voice. "It's too late for her!" She said, "Now, behold, the return of King Sombra!"