The Swarm Returns

by Digital Ghost


Reminiscent

"Twilight! Are you alright, what happened to you?" Shining Armor came running as soon as he saw his little sister walk into the room looking like she just had a bad day on the roller coaster.

"I'm fine, big brother." Twilight reassured him. The pain in her head was a bit more bearable now that her brother was there, but not so much as to be invisible to the keen eye of a soldier.

Sighing, Armor turned his attention to the escorts and repeated his query, firmly. "What happened?"

The lead escort rubbed the back of his head, not really sure how he should report what had happened on the way. "Princess Twilight and Queen Chrysalis had a... uhh... minor conflict in the hall."

"Oh no, what happened, Twi?" A clear essence of disappointment trailed Armor's voice.

Twilight hung her head slightly, knowing fully that she was equally to blame as Chrysalis was for the fight. "I... I tried to blast Chrysalis with my magic..." She couldn't bring herself to look into her brother's eyes, fearing that if she did, her soul would be crushed by a disappointed stare.

Rainbow Dash, deciding she couldn't stand there and let Twilight take the blame for what that old hag had done, breathed deep and told Armor everything. "Chrysalis started it! She used her magic to force me to kneel down to her! Twilight was only trying to help me. If anypony's to blame, it's Chrysalis!"

Applejack grabbed Dash down from where she hovered and Rarity took position in front of the pegasus to calmly address the prince. "What Rainbow Dash is trying to say is that we had a little misunderstanding when we met, is all. But it's surely nothing too serious that a little cup of tea won't fix."

"What?!" Dash moved to protest, but Applejack pulled her back.

"Would ya keep it down? We don't want this to end with us getting kicked out for fighting with the other guests. Besides, you're the one who provoked her in the first place." The farmer let go of her and gave her a stern look that was met with Dash rolling her eyes.

"I see. Well, I'm glad you are all alright. I wouldn't want any of you to miss tomorrow's festivities. I'm sure you all have a lot of questions about why Chrysalis is here, but those will be answered tomorrow at the ceremony." Armor hugged his little sister. "I know you don't trust the changelings yet, Twilight, but could you give them the benefit of the doubt, at least until tomorrow? They might not be as bad as they seem."

Might not be as bad as they seem? Twilight thought about going against his brother on his logic, but she realized that Armor wasn't that dumb. He graduated top of his class, surely he knew what he was doing, right? "Okay." She told him.

"Is that a promise to your BBBFF?"

Twilight's face lightened up. "Yes, it's a promise!"

"Thank you." Armor gave her a warm smile before breaking away from their embrace. "I should go make sure everything is running smoothly at the square. You girls should check out the stalls, maybe you'll find something you'd like there."

As Armor and the rest of the guards left, the ponies discussed what they were going to do now that they had the rest of the day to spend.

Applejack and Rarity decided to go with what Armor suggested and hit the shops to find something for their sisters back home. Fluttershy went to the gardens to spend time with the animals she neglected to visit the last time she was in the empire. Rainbow Dash volunteered to keep an eye out for any questionable changeling activities, and brought Pinkie Pie with her for back up.

And Twilight? Well she stayed in the castle. She thought about what her brother said and decided that maybe Chrysalis deserved a second chance, even after what she said about Shining Armor. After all, Fluttershy gave Discord a second chance and it all seemed to work out in the end. For the most part.

If there was anything she learned from Fluttershy since the first day she was in Ponyville, it was that a little kindness can go a long way.

=====

"Pardon me, my Queen, but may I have a moment of your time?" Vigil was kneeling before Chrysalis, who had just finished fashioning a throne of her own design.

"Can't it wait? Very well, make it quick." Although tired, Chrysalis was graceful in addressing the captain.

"Why did that guard refer to you as a priestess?"

"That is a long story, but you all deserve to know the history of your heritage. It all started back--"

There was a knock at the door, and the only other female changeling reported in. "Twilight Sparkle requests an audience."

Vigil made his way to the entrance. "Tell her the queen doesn't wish to be disturbed."

"No, let her in." Chrysalis waved her hoof and Siren went to fetch the guest.

"But my queen--"

"Don't worry, captain, if she tries anything, I have the right and means to defend myself."

"If you say so..."

A few moments later, Twilight entered the room, accompanied by Siren and the two other escorts.

"Siren, Rook, Cross, you may retire from your posts. Explore if you wish," Chrysalis' eyes drifted to the visitor, "we may not be here long."

As soon as the three were out of the room and the doors shut behind them, Chrysalis walked down from her throne and approached Twilight with a smirk. "I see you've found yourself a pair of wings. I take it you are one of the high and mighty princesses now?"

Twilight pulled her wings closer to her sides, still feeling slightly uncomfortable at being labeled as a princess, and a high and mighty one at that. "Yes, that's what Celestia told me. But --"

"Celestia says a lot of things, Twilight. Why did you want to see me?"

"I wanted to apologize for earlier. I shouldn't have threatened you." Twilight nervously rubbed her foreleg. "You're Shining Armor and Cadence's guest, and... I should have respected that."

"Yes, you should have." Chrysalis scoffed. "Tell me, why the sudden change of heart, princess? Just an hour ago, you were ready to throw me into Tartarus. What happened to that 'you mind controlled my brother' stance, hmm?"

The alicorn frowned. "I still think you had something to do with this, but... when I talked to my brother I had a spell that let me detect if somepony was manipulating him or not, and... I couldn't get anything."

"That's because, as I've said, I've done nothing to either your brother or step sister. But that still doesn't answer my question." Chrysalis moved in closer, making Twilight take a step back. "What made you come to me, and without your friends?"

"Trust."

Chrysalis was taken aback. "Trust?" Her head tilted in confusion.

"Yes. Even if I don't trust you, I trust my brother and his judgement. And if I couldn't trust my BBBFF, then who can I trust?"

Chrysalis' features mellowed, relaxed, and the alicorn could have sworn that a faint crack of a smile began to appear on the queen's face.

"The bond you share with your brother is really strong, it seems. Maybe you were the one I should have impersonated." With a sigh, Chrysalis turned to face a large mirror, almost as big as the double doors that lead to the room.

"I didn't see that the last time I was here." Twilight said.

"That's because you never knew it was there."

The princess looked at Chrysalis suspiciously. "And you did?"

Chrysalis remained silent, seeing that the answer was obvious, and walked to the mirror. Twilight followed, and so did Vigil, if only to be in a position to take immediate action if Chrysalis was threatened.

"Take a long, hard look, you two." the queen said simply as she closed her eyes.

Twilight was unsure what she was supposed to be looking at and was about to ask, when suddenly the figures in the mirror distorted, spiraled, then disappeared, leaving nothing to view but a blanket of white fog.

"This is the Mirror of Memories," Chrysalis explained, "and at the time before Sombra's rise, this was used to help rehabilitate the crystal ponies that had gone mad from their transformation."

"Transformation?" Vigil and Twilight uttered the word with confusion. Did she mean their coats?

The image of a pony and the crystal heart appeared in the mirror. "By now, you both should know how the crystal ponies get their crystalline coat. Once a year, the Crystal Heart releases the love it gathered across the land, enlightening every creature's spirit with peace. The close proximity of the ponies who called the heart as their most valuable treasure, had a much more noticeable effect."

The pony in the mirror was hit by the harmonious pulse emitted from the heart, and his coat shone akin to a diamond.

Strangely, the mirror emitted a green glow. When the two spectators turned to Chrysalis, they found that she also harbored the green glow, and soon, they were draped in the same glow too. "Now my children," Chrysalis said as if in a trance, "close your eyes and open your mind."

As soon as Twilight did what Chrysalis said, she felt a strange calm flow through her body, and when she opened her eyes, they were flooded with light. When her senses grew accustomed to the brightness, she saw that she was now at ground level, in the square. She could see the crystal heart a minor distance away.

"Wait... How did I--" Her track of thought derailed when she heard hooves coming after her. Looking to her left, she saw a rickshaw going at full speed. Unable to get out in time, she cast a shield in front of her, positioning it so that neither she or the pony operating the vehicle would be hurt.

But her magic proved useless.

The driver and the rickshaw passed through her and her shield like smoke. Expecting the worst when she opened her eyes, she was surprised to find that she was unhurt. A pair of ponies walking through her a moment later answered the question on her intangibility.

"Chrysalis!" She called out, seeing the queen and her guard making their way to her. "This place looks different."

"That's because we are years before Sombra's rule." Chrysalis answered. "Notice the king and queen by the heart." The scene was hazy at best, but Twilight suspected that it was because the memory wasn't as strong as it used to be.

"Why did you bring us here?" Vigil, who was as confused as the alicorn, questioned.

"So you both will know the truth."

"Truth about what?" Twilight asked.

Chrysalis didn't answer, but motioned for them to keep their eyes on the crowd that gathered around the crystal heart. There was a pony, tall and proud, and draped in white robes that had just gotten off of her carriage, accompanied by guards, one of which was a unicorn who had a distinct armor from the rest: regal white with golden trims adorned with a seal similar to the robed mare.

As the draped pony made her way to the crystal heart, the bystanders bowed down in her wake and rose back up when she stopped in front of the ancient relic. She bowed to the king and queen, and the royal pair returned the gesture.

The king was making an announcement, but all the three could hear were inaudible murmurs. "I'm sorry, its been too long since I've done this, and my memory is fading." Chrysalis said.

After the announcement, the mare had pulled down her hood, letting her beautiful, flowing mane be caught in the breeze. There was a sparkle in her eye that made her wide smile brighter. She bore a long, slender horn which began to glow with the crystal heart as it spun.

The giant snowflake on the ground lit up as it had before during the Crystal Fair, then a sudden burst of light shot straight up from the heart. The heart emitted a blinding pulse of light, and then when the brightness returned to normal, the coats of the ponies turned crystalline.

Twilight wasn't sure what she was supposed to learn from this. Wasn't this just how the Crystal Fair was normally conducted?

Suddenly, the mare tending to the heart curled up and groaned in pain, as did a few of the crystal ponies.

"What's happening?" Asked a shocked Twilight.

Chrysalis kept calm, but she was visibly cringing. "Transformation."

The scene blacked out, but the ponies who were in pain remained.

The screams were so crisp.

So... real.

The ponies' shimmering crystal coats began to darken. Their eyes widened. Something began to protrude from their heads. And a dark aura swirled around the ponies, ultimately blocking them from sight.

Green light escaped from the imperfections of the spheres and got brighter as their containers broke apart.

One by one, the spheres dissipated, revealing the byproducts of the ponies they consumed: Changelings.

Among them, where the robed mare once stood, was no other than Chrysalis herself.

But before either Twilight and Vigil could say anything, Chrysalis began to speak. "There was a young filly who attended the Fair a thousand years ago. She didn't know what to expect, but she sure didn't think that she would end up with wings and a horn. When the heart spread its love across the land, she felt that happy feeling that always came after the burst. But there was something different that came after: a hunger she couldn't understand. It grew like an ember dropped in hay, and the next thing she knew, she looked... different. Felt different. She changed that day, in more ways than one."

Chrysalis lowered her head and the scene changed to show a young filly's painless transformation into a changeling. "In a strange twist of fate, her transformation was only temporary and she returned to looking like her self again, except that she had grown a horn, and the hunger she felt was also still there. When the ponies noticed her, she was brought to the castle. Scholars studied her, questioned her, and eventually brought it upon themselves to teach her. The filly's parents were given lodgings within the castle, to make the filly feel comfortable staying there. She stayed and learned how to control her new-found magic, all the while being told that she would be the one to help the changelings find a place in this world. Where they wont be feared as monsters who only lived to feed their hunger for love.

"Back then, ponies were easily scared of things they couldn't understand. So the changelings were forced to hide from outsiders of the empire, or risk getting hunted down. Of course the little filly was filled with hope when they all said that she could somehow save the changelings from such a cruel fate. So she grew up believing on that dream. Young and foolish as she was, she soon became the empire's Priestess, getting the privileges of royalty, as well as a place where she could meditate and reflect on the magic given by the heart."

The scene changed back to the square, after the transformations. "When her powers reached its peak, she felt confident that it was time to cure the changelings of their ailment. The priestess did her best to counteract the heart's unwanted effect, by casting a spell in hopes to reverse the transformations... but all she did was make the heart unstable, and in turn, the ones it just turned, went mad."

Chrysalis didn't need to explain. The memory told the rest of the story. The new changelings began attacking the ponies out of blind rage. Panic rooted itself inside everypony and the guards were forced to fight their own friends and family to protect the innocent.

Changelings who were already turned before the disastrous feedback were unaffected by the unstable heart, but they weren't spared a few mistaken swings from the guards.

"What are you fools doing?! Contain the changelings, don't kill them!" Ordered the soldier with the decorated armor.

"Sorry, captain!" a guard shouted.

The maddened changelings were soon subdued, but there were many injured during the struggle.

Chrysalis began to speak again, and the memory set its pace with her. "The priestess tried everything she could to save the injured, but not all were lucky. By the end of it all with the help of the magic mirror, the maddened changelings regained their senses and were set free. But despite saving who she could, the priestess... she couldn't believe her failure..."

Tears welled up in Chrysalis' eyes. She couldn't continue.

Twilight approached, feeling a lot more sympathy for the queen. "It wasn't your fault. You were only trying to help cure the changelings. I know you feel responsible, but there are things that can't be helped. I made my share of mistakes, and I know for a fact that mistakes can be fixed."

Chrysalis took a deep breath and blinked back the tears. "That's kind of you, Twilight... But I made a much more disastrous mistake than you think. Something I can never fix, or even attempt to."

"What is it?"

"... Sombra"