Princess Luna glared as the Guardsponies reared back for another hit against the Tavern’s entrance. “Come on! What’s taking so long!?” Their captain bellowed as the massive ram smashed uselessly against the door. She frowned, watching the group slam against the door over and over again, with all the effectiveness of a spitball against a fully-armed battleship. She frowned. How in Equestria could a group of fully-grown, trained soldiers carrying the best gate-crashing equipment available not bust through some dingy little tavern's door? She had to investigate.
"Stay here," she whispered to the pair sitting next to her.
"O-okay," Fluttershy whispered, taking one look at the wall of soldiers between her and the café and cowering back.
"Aww, but Princess!" Pinkie started indignantly. "How are we supposed to have any fun just waiting for..."
A single glare silenced her, Pinkie's lips sealing all by themselves. Still got it, Luna smiled as she unfurled her wings and soared right over the guards' heads, landing with the trademarked grace practically all Canterlot royals possessed, her hooves hitting the ground with a pair of nearly-inaudible taps.
"Put some back into it!" A somewhat important-looking guard in well-polished armor shouted. Figuring he must have been someone in charge, she strode right up to him, chest out, back straight, shoulders back in the most intimidating stance outside the walls of Canterlot. She positively towered over the other ponies: just like she needed.
"Guard! What is going on here!?" She barked, her voice at half "Royal Canterlot" levels.
"Wha-oh! Princess!" The stallion gasped, hurriedly saluting. "You shouldn't be..."
"We are visiting royalty, and we shall go where we please!" The Princess glared, cranking it up to 60% RCV. "Unless thou hast a problem with the rights of those divinely chosen as royalty?"
That did it: a bit of ye olde Equestrian and a couple of ancient ideas she knew the Crystal Ponies hadn't outgrown like the rest of Equestria, and he was like butter in her hooves. "Nuh-no, I never said that..." he trailed off, head bowed, ears folded back.
Luna allowed the smallest little smile to play at the corners of her lips, much like the look a hawk got after spotting a field mouse. The guard pasted a nervous little smile on his face in return. "Very good," she said. "Now, we were merely wondering about thy attempts to rend yon portal asunder."
His shoulders slumped, one hoof reaching over to rub nervously against the other. "Wuh-well, we were just having trouble getting through. The enemy has themselves barricaded really well, and..."
"Thou regards anypony that gets into a drunken brawl as an enemy of the state?” Luna asked, an eyebrow rising. “Heavens above, I pity thy loiterers!"
"Th-they ARE breaking the law..." he replied weakly, like a foal realizing he didn't really have an excuse for forgetting to walk the dog as his parents stared him down.
Snorting, Luna turned to the ponies on the ram and extended a hoof, cranking her voice to full Canterlot Royalty volume. "HALT!"
The ponies obeyed immediately, dropping the massive hunk of military equipment and looking around fearfully, some half-expecting Sombra to appear before them. "Princess!" One near the front with epaulets on his shoulders gasped. "What are you..."
"This is not working," she replied curtly, marching up to the tavern's front. "It obviously requires a more intelligent approach."
With the Commander tailing her worriedly (and trying very hard not to stare at her toned flank), Luna peered through one of the plate-glass windows built into the tavern’s façade. She spied a few beaten and bruised crystal stallions, along with four familiar mares all gathered together. She tapped on the glass, and immediately Twilight looked up and grinned. Princess, she mouthed, the sound completely blocked by the glass. The little unicorn galloped up with the enthusiasm of a small filly in her sister’s court and put a hoof to the window, and Luna smiled and placed hers right over it, the pair smiling at each other not as ruler and subject, but as friends.
“What’s going on?” The Commander asked, watching the scene incredulously.
“We are working on it, guard, give us the courtesy of a minute,” Luna replied, her eyes never leaving Twilight’s. The little unicorn’s mouth started running frantically, everything she wanted to say obviously spilling out all at once. The Princess held a hoof up to her lips to silence her, then pointed to an ear and shook her head. Twilight stopped and frowned, then clopped a hoof against the glass. She repeated the motion, but harder, as the Princess arched an eyebrow. Twilight motioned desperately to her hoof until Luna gave hitting the glass a try, and nearly fell off her hind hooves when it bounced right back, as if she had just punched a guard’s breastplate, not a cheap sheet of glass.
Looking the glass over, the Princess frowned. “This building has been enchanted. Nopony can get in, and likewise, nopony can get out.”
“What?” The guard asked, eyebrows disappearing up into his helmet.
“Stand back, guard,” Luna replied, rearing back as her horn glowed. “Let us see how a simple enchantment stands against the might of an Alicorn!”
The guard dove for cover as Luna’s wings flared out behind her body, the air swirling around her. She opened her eyes to direct the spell’s force, but just as she felt ready to unleash it, she caught sight of Twilight frantically waving her hooves and mouthing “no, no!” over and over again. Luna doused her horn and fell back on all fours again, cocking an eyebrow at the unicorn. Didn’t she want out? Wasn’t that the whole point of this excursion? But then she noticed the way she kept frantically pointing at her horn and holding it up to the glass, as if there was something on it Luna was meant to see. Curious, the Alicorn stepped up to the window as Twilight held her horn closer to it, giving the Princess the best look she could of the ugly scorch mark burnt into its side. Luna gasped at the sight, immediately turning to the Commander.
“Guard, have your ponies stay back; whoever placed the enchantment on this building also placed some sort of trap for anyone attempting to use magic on it,” she barked.
“Of course, Princess,” the Commander reported, immediately holding up his hooves and waving the other crystal ponies back.
Nodding, Luna leaned in to the magically sealed door, prodding it gently with her horn. Twilight’s eyes widened and she shook her head furiously, but Luna just nodded reassuringly as the tip of her horn tapped the wood. Taking a deep breath, she started to focus.
“Ah, Princess, should you…” the Commander started.
“Fear not, my little crystal pony,” Luna replied, grimacing with focus. “We merely need a small taste of what we are up against.” As her concentration grew, she was suddenly grateful she’d left Pinkie behind on the sidewalk: Heaven knows that little pink mare would probably be trying to blast the building with every single party-related weapon imaginable if she were anywhere nearby.
The guard bit his cheek, but knew better than to try and argue. He merely watched as she took a few calming breaths and focused on the energy flowing out of her horn. After a while, the horn dulled, its light-teal color giving way to a dark navy as Luna purposefully drew as much energy away from it as possible. She focused on turning it into nothing: her horn was no longer the center of her magic, but now a mere inanimate object that happened to be attached to her head, like a regular pony’s mane. It’s just a dead thing…it’s not part of you… she repeated as she slowly advanced on the door and plunged the tip of her horn into the tiny magical aura humming just over its surface.
Just a dead thing…it’s not part of you…just an object… she repeated, her concentration nearly failing at the sense of relief that washed over her after she successfully touched the door without it lighting off another magical attack. She breathed in, and out. Breathed in, and out. Focus… placed as she was, she could finally get a reading on just what this magic was, and immediately a cold feeling washed over her. Shivers lit up and down her spine as a hard knot twisted in her stomach.
“Fear!” She gasped aloud, pulling back and allowing her magic to surge back into her horn. “It’s fear!”
“Um…what?” The Captain asked, but the Princess had already taken off towards the crowd of Guardsponies at a dead gallop. She nearly ran right into the crowd before grabbing a stallion and pulling him up to her face.
“There was a yellow stallion with me earlier,” she said curtly, not even bothering with such niceties as allowing the stallion to gather all his marbles up again.
“Uh…” the guard replied.
“I’ve already dispatched another one of you to look for him, but I want more to join in the search.”
“I can…”
“Why are you still standing here!? Get to it!” She barked, and the stallion took off in a cloud of dust before he even had a clue what his hooves were doing.
The Commander jogged up to the Princess's side, head spinning. “Princess, I’m sorry, but why is a search for some random stallion so important? And what did you mean by ‘fear’?”
“We believe that stallion was a changeling infiltrator,” Luna replied flatly, her eyes scouring the platoon before her for anything that looked even slightly out of place. “He might be the one who placed the spell on the tavern.”
"A...what?"
"Right...the wedding was before the Empire's reemergence," she muttered, turning to the guard in exasperation. "A changeling is an insect-like pony capable of taking the form of anypony they wish. Instead of food, they feed upon the loving energy of normal ponies, usually by taking a pony's place and leeching off the emotions of their loved ones."
"They...feed on emotions?" The Captain asked skeptically.
Luna rolled her eyes. "Just...trust us on this, okay? This is what I meant by 'fear': changeling magic is fueled by emotional energy, and the spell over yonder tavern is just such an enchantment. Powered by fear, to be specific."
"So, this stallion is one of these 'changelings'? And he made the spell trapping those ponies?"
"Yes and no," she replied, eyes still scanning the mob of faces around her, forehooves propped up on a table for a better look. "He might be the changeling who laid the spell in place, but there's only one changeling in existence with the skill and power necessary to craft something so potent: only one changeling capable of harnessing that much power from fear itself without being overwhelmed..."
She trailed off as the sound of clapping hooves floated up from the crowd. All eyes turned to a rather large, beefy stallion near the front, clad in golden armor, his hooves clapping together slowly and mockingly. The Princess glowered as the stallion stepped forward, still clapping, a horrid grin on "his" face. "Well done, Princess, very smart. I can see there's more to you than just a pretty face and sexy wingspan,” the stallion said in a gravelly voice. Yet, there was something else to the voice, a hidden layer just beneath everypony’s hearing, enough for one to detect but not to place.
"What do you think you're doing!? Get back in rank before I have you tossed in the brig!" The Commander bellowed.
The grin turning into a sneer, and the stallion levelled a cold, steely glare on the smaller Captain. Suddenly, a large, hole-filled horn materialized in the middle of the creature’s forehead and unleashed a bolt of fluorescent green magic. Luna just narrowly managed to knock the oblivious stallion out of the way in time, diving against him and arching her back to allow the bolt sail by just a few inches under her form, singing a few feathers on her wings. Tumbling off her shoulder like a gymnast, she bolted to her hooves and glowered, teeth clenched, horn glowing. The "stallion" grinned, a set of razor-sharp teeth where flat, pony teeth should have been.
"Nice reactions, Princess," they hissed in a strange, multi-layered voice. The soldiers around them gasped as the phony pony disappeared in a flash of green flames, revealing a tall, black, slender creature in his place, her long, sharp fangs and emerald, cat-like eyes gleaming in the midday sun.
"Chrysalis!" Luna bellowed in full, Royal Canterlot voice. "Thou dare bewray thyself in Equestria again!?"
"Well, technically, we are in a semi-autonomous region," the queen of the changelings cackled, running a hoof through a few strands of mossy, green hair. "Though it is good you know me, Princess. Nice to see my reputation precedes me."
"The only thing that precedes you is the tale of your failure in Canterlot! Thou must be a fool to show thy true form in a city ruled by the very pair that defeated thee!"
"Ah yes, Cadence and Shining Armor," the Queen grinned, a hoof scratching at her chin. "About them..."
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“More loan requests from the southern districts, sire.”
“Nnngh,” Shining Armor moaned as yet another stack of papers landed amidst the humongous collection already on his desk. His head landed atop a stack with a deep thud, sending a few bill orders and a couple public works approval forms tumbling to the floor. So this is why Celestia puts up with all those Canterlot nobles… he moaned. Egotistical and dry as they might be, the nobility in Canterlot at least knew how to keep a modern kingdom functioning!
“Sire? Are you alright?” The dark purple crystal pony standing in front of his desk asked worriedly. “If you want, I’m certain I can take a good share of the load off you.”
“No, Inkquill, that’s quite alright,” Shining replied, trying to lift his tired head up, but only managing to turn his face to the side so at least his voice wasn’t muffled. “You just get back to your studies and let your prince handle the heavy lifting, okay?”
The pony nodded as Shining forced a smile onto his face. Inkquill was everything one could want in a bureaucrat: hardworking, enthusiastic, devoted, caring, what more would you need? If only he’d been born a thousand years later, he would have made a fine worker for the maze of triplicated and collated forms that was modern bureaucracy. As it was, the last time Shining had let the guy work unsupervised, he approved several exorcisms and a formal prayer to bolster a bridge that had been damaged in Sombra’s siege. Patience, Shining, he can’t help being a millennium out-of-date. Just let him finish his studies and you should have a fine worker in no time.
“So, how are your studies going?” The newly-crowned Prince asked. “Catching up to modern Equestria?”
“Oh wonderfully, sire!” The crystal pony replied with all the enthusiasm of a kindergartner that just learned something they were dying to let you know. “Did you know that bloodletting actually detracts from a patient’s health during illness?”
Shining Armor’s right eye twitched. “Fascinating.”
“I know, right? Who could have thought such a basic medical procedure could be so wrong!?”
Not you, apparently. “Why don’t you get back to your books, eh? I’ve kept you from them long enough.”
“Of course, sire,” the pony trotted away, his step so light and endlessly cheerful that it made a part of Shining Armor want to vault the desk and just start punching him until something shattered. Instead, he sighed and let his head thump against the desk again. He knew that was just the stress of the day’s work talking. Inkquill was going to make a fine worker someday. Thing is, that day was still far off, and right now the Shaman’s guild was threatening to strike, the economy was running on government loans and subsidies from Canterlot’s coffers, the water system was backing up from every attempt to integrate it with more modern machinery, and half his citizens still thought the greatest heights of medical technology involved leeches.
And to think: he’d actually thought things would get easier once Sombra had been defeated, but this…ANYTHING was better than this! Give him Discord! Give him Nightmare Moon! Heck, give him a changeling invasion! But if he had to stamp his name on another form of approval one more time…
“Ugh, Twilight, why did you have to entertain the Princess!” He lamented. If his sister were here, she’d have these forms filled out, filed away, and laminated by now. He groaned and turned his head to lift his snout out of “A Formal Request from the Pony Oaks Daycare center to participate in the Summer Sun celebrations’ parade (must be filled out in triplicate to be validated)”.
Slowly, he lifted himself up. The fact of the matter was, Twilight wasn’t here. The Princess had arrived in the Empire and she needed Twilight to serve as her guide, just like the Empire needed these forms signed, collated and delivered now! So he was gonna soldier up, pick up his pen, and knock dis work outta da park like the prince he was meant to be! Like the prince he needed to be! Like a BAWSS!
Right after a quick nap, of course.
“Aww, is somepony tired?” Shining smiled as the light, melodic tone of his wife’s voice filled his ears. Grinning tiredly, he watched as a pink hoof set a streaming mug on the desk next to his head, right in between a couple stacks of papers that had hardly shrunk since that morning. Smiling down at him, the princess parked her flank on the desk right next to the mug.
“Cady, you are a sight for sore eyes,” he smiled, picking up the mug in his magic and lifting it to his lips.
“I just wanted to check up on my beloved husband,” she cooed, smiling as he set the mug back on the desk.
“Mmmh,” his throat rumbled with enjoyment. “That stuff takes me back. Remember our first date? In Canterlot Gardens?”
“Ah, yes,” she sighed wistfully, curling up in his hoof as he offered it to her. “The gardens…the moon…the romance?”
“Yeah,” the smile faded from his face. His grip on the mug tightened. “Too bad we were dating in secret at the time, which would’ve made Canterlot Gardens a pretty lousy destination.”
The eyes of the princess flashed green. “Oh, shi-“
Immediately, Shining shattered the mug against the impostor’s face, spraying the liquid all over their body. The fake Cadence tore out of his grip and flailed wildly, blindly trying to strike with anything they could get their hooves on, but the former guard captain easily slammed his body against them and pinned the impostor to the desk. “You think I don’t know what Nightroot tranquilizers smell like!?” He bellowed. “I was the Captain of the Canterlot Royal Guard!”
“Yeah, and you did a bang-up job during our invasion, too,” the creature in his grasp hissed, squirming and baring its fangs.
Sneering, Shining silenced the impostor with a punch to the jaw, following up by placing his hoof against their throat. “Where is she?” He growled.
“I’ll never-GACK!” The changeling choked as Shining put just a bit more weight behind his hoof. “Okay! Okay! She’s in the coat closet! Just outside!”
“Smart move,” he replied coldly, keeping the changeling pinned under his weight while his free hoof popped open a desk drawer and fished out a pair of iron manacles. “Now, if you’ll please hold still…”
“You seriously think I’m gonna-ACK!” The changeling gagged again as Shining pressed a hoof right into their Adam’s apple, then nonchalantly locked one of the cuffs around a forehoof as it flashed back into black chitin. Shining promptly shoved his prisoner to the ground and wrapped the manacle’s chain around a desk leg, slipping the remaining cuff around her (his?) free forehoof.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” he spat as he galloped towards the door.
“Buck off,” the changeling wheezed, rearing up as far as the cuffs would allow them. To Shining’s surprise (and mild horror), a changeling stallion stood where the impostor had, leaving the Prince to shiver at the thought of the make-out session he’d had planned before smelling the Nightroot in the mug. “You’re too late! We’re already in the city!”
“Not for long,” Shining muttered, closing the door behind him to block any ranting from his prisoner. Cadence didn’t have to hear that, especially now that she’d been captured again! Oh but this time, this time, he was gonna be there for her, and heaven help anyone stupid enough to get in his way.
Jogging right past Inkquill, lying unconscious on the floor next to the receptionist’s desk, Shining Armor dashed to the coat closet and nearly tore the door off its hinges. He peered into the darkness, nearly crying out with relief on finding a trembling pink form atop a pile of laundry bags. “Cady!” He gasped, throwing himself inside and pulling the Alicorn close, her tear-soaked face wetting the fur on his neck as he set to work freeing her of the green goop binding her hooves and muzzle.
“Shining, it’s them!” She gasped once her mouth was free. “The changelings are back!”
“I know, love, I know,” he shushed her, kissing her tenderly as he peeled some of the gunk off her hooves. It never even occurred to him how odd it was that her horn wasn’t bound. He was so relieved to have her in his hooves again that he never thought to question why she hadn’t tried to free herself if her horn was free: or at least tried to bang something around for attention. As it was, he just smiled reassuringly and held her close. “I’ve got one of them chained up in my office. You think you can pull off that love spell we used at the wedding?”
Wiping away a few tears, she nodded and sniffled. “I-I think so.”
“Okay,” he closed his eyes and touched his horn to hers, willing himself to relax and allow his love to flow from his heart, becoming a force welling up within his body, ready to burst out and send the bug-butts flying. “On the count of three, alright?”
“Okay,” she said, smirking as she wrapped her hooves around his body.
“One…”
“THREE!” She barked, a green bolt of energy blasting from her horn and knocking the unicorn back. Shining Armor flew against the closet’s wall and bounced, landing on the floor with a deep thud. The air knocked out of him, his head reeling with the shock, he looked up at the pink creature standing before him.
“C-Cady?” He moaned, trying to push himself up to his hooves, only to be shoved down again by a hue of green magic.
“Do you know the time when your enemy’s guard is at its lowest?” The creature asked, eyes glowing green as “she” bent down to the fallen prince, her fangs bared in a cocky sneer. Shining moaned as he was picked up in the creature’s magic and hoisted up like a helpless filly.
“It’s just when they think they’re about to win,” the changeling whispered before finishing him off with a final, green-lit blast from its horn, cackling as his mind disappeared beneath the power of its spell.
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The changeling in Shining Armor’s office perked up at the sound of approaching hoofsteps, ears folding back as he tried to hide behind the desk, rattling the chains around his hooves. His fears instantly fell once another changeling strode in with the alabaster unicorn in tow, a big, blank gaze on his face and a green hue glowing in his eyes.
“Crashy!” The chained changeling gasped.
“Burny!” The other changeling dropped his disguise and galloped to the chained changeling’s side, nuzzling him warmly. “He said he’d captured a changeling; I was so worried about you!”
“Aheh-yeah,” Burn snickered, the chains clinking as he shifted to accommodate the newcomer. “Ran into a bit of trouble with this one.”
“No kidding?” Crash snickered, batting his partner with a hoof. “I toldja not to go with that generic sleeping potion! Royal Guards are trained to detect that stuff!”
“I thought since he was a pencil-pushing former Captain, he’d be all fat and dumb and stuff!” The chained-ling replied defensively. “Not, y’know…”
“Handsome and smart?” Crash interrupted, deadpanning.
Burn's tattered ears folded back. “I didn’t say that…”
Crash glared at him for a second, then his eyes lit up and he swatted playfully at the other changeling’s chest. “I know you didn’t! I’m teasing, you stupid fag!” He laughed, leaning in for a quick kiss. “Besides, I had to kiss the guy, and after that I know I have nothing to worry about.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Oh, hun, I have no idea how he snagged a princess, but it wasn’t with his lips,” Crash smiled, leaning in closer to his lover. “Like smooching a dead fish. I think I need a reminder of what a good kiss feels like.”
“Kinky,” Burn remarked, eyeing his chains. Crash leant him against the desk, lips slowly working down the side of his special someling’s face and along his neck. Burn turned to accommodate his love’s fangs, and his eyes bugged out at the shimmering green hue staring blankly back at him. “Uh…”
“What?” His partner followed his gaze to the unicorn standing ramrod straight in the corner. He grinned mischievously and turned back. “Oh c’mon, Burny, you’ve never had someone watch?”
“Very kinky,” Crash laughed as they leaned into one another’s lips.
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Luna glowered and assumed her combat stance, head bowed, horn glowing. The Changeling Queen smirked and leaned back against one of the outdoor tables, forelegs crossed nonchalantly across her chest, even as a mob of Crystal Guard enclosed her in a circle of pointed spears. "What hast thou done with our cater-cousins!?"
"Oh, no need to worry, they're safe," the Queen cackled. "For now."
"Y-you might as well give up now!" The Guard Captain screamed, having recovered from the Queen's attack and now fumbling to keep a spear in his hooves. "The Crystal Guard will stop you!"
Chrysalis's face lit up as Luna face-hoofed. The Captain arched an eyebrow at her. "What? What did I say?"
"Wherefore wouldst thou give her that opening? Wherefore?" Luna sighed, massaging her temple with a hoof.
"What? What opening?"
"Pardon me for using an old cliché," Chrysalis snickered, spreading her hooves out wide while a sinister sneer spread across her face. "But how are you going to stop us when we’re already here!?"
In an instant, a set of green bursts of flames erupted all throughout the crowd, little black bodies appearing to replace the shimmering, crystalline forms. The black bodies of an entire army of changelings, still wearing Crystal Guards' armor, had the remaining crystal ponies as well as the Princess utterly surrounded. The Queen snickered and stood reared up while her army rose into the air, bearing down on the remaining guardsponies. Somewhere in the mob, with the fearful gasps of the guards filling the air around them, Fluttershy and Pinkie wrapped their hooves around one another in fear.
"That opening." Luna replied, a hoof still massaging her temple.
"Attack, my swarm! Seize what your queen has granted you!” Chrysalis bellowed. Instantly, the buzz of a thousand wings drowned out the surprised cries of the ponies as the changelings descended upon them, like a pack of lions attacking a zebra herd. Angered hisses and the emerald green of changeling attack spells filled the air. Most of the crystal ponies were caught almost immediately, swiftly pasted to the ground with changeling magic and forced to watch as their comrades fell by their side.
Chrysalis smiled across the square at the Princess as the battle raged all around them. The Crystal Captain at Luna's side still clenched his spear, still shaking, but she raised a hoof against his chest to stop him. "We-I am the only one capable of taking on yonder wretch," Luna explained, gesturing towards the Changeling Queen. "See to your fellow guardsponies."
Biting his lip, the commander nodded and turned at a squad of changelings approaching from the right, horns charged with that sickly green glow. He leapt against them with a defiant battlecry, weapon flashing in the daylight. Luna glowered at her opponent, who merely smiled easily and stood away from the table, cracking her neck.
"Face it, Princess," the Queen hissed. "You've already lost."
"Not while there is love in our hearts and hope in our souls!" Luna barked, letting loose with a blue blast of electricity. Feigning a yawn, Chrysalis deflected the attack with a simple shield and replied with a blast that sent Luna flying into the air, slamming her through an upper-floor window.
Luna blinked, trying to focus through the pain ripping through her body. Wincing, she pulled a shard of glass from her wing and stretched it out. It stung, but not enough to keep her from flying. At least we managed to keep from crying out at the blow, she sighed as she sat up. Now that would have been simply embarrassing.
By the time she sat up fully, the Changeling Queen was already waiting for her, hovering just outside the window, the little smile still on her face. "Hmm, and here I thought you'd have more fight in you than your sister," she sighed mockingly. "Oh well, life's full of little disappointments, isn't it?"
"Speak not of our sister that way!" Luna screeched, anger blinding her judgment as she leapt at the Queen. Still smiling, Chrysalis dodged and followed up with a spinning hoof kick to the back of the Princess's head. Letting out a startled shriek, Luna twirled around and managed to catch the changeling in the jaw with a roundhouse punch, only to immediately take a knee to the stomach, knocking the air right out of her lungs.
Her anger burning off, Luna backed away, switching tactics with her rediscovered clarity. She charged again, but this time when Chrysalis dodged, the Alicorn pulled off a mid-air stall, halting right in front of the changeling for a split-second, which she used to unleash a massive blast of her magic. Chrysalis was stunned for just a moment, her ears ringing from the explosion of magic, but it was enough for Luna to leap at her with a flurry of kicks and punches.
Eventually, Chrysalis managed to duck away, taking off a bit higher into the sky with a flap of her insect-like wings. She wiped a bit of turquoise blood from her mouth. “Impressive. I guess I misjudged you, Princess,” her multi-layered voice hissed.
“You have misjudged many things in coming here, monster,” Luna growled, charging the Queen once again. Chrysalis's expression shifted from that confident, mocking smile to a dark glower in the split second it took Luna to close the distance between them. Dropping out of the way, she hit the ground and shoved off, blasting into the sky just a few feet behind the Princess. Her eyes glowing with power, Luna unleashed a flurry of blasts from her horn, only for Chrysalis to shrug them off like annoying flies.
The Queen bore down on the Princess, and Luna felt a knot twist in her stomach at the look of rage in those emerald eyes. "Monster, eh?" The changeling hissed, swooping close. "Always a monster, always a thing to be destroyed! To be fought!"
"What're you..." Luna started, forgetting her Royal Canterlot tone before a chitin-covered hoof smacked against her jaw. Reeling from the blow, she tried to reorient herself in the air, tried to gain some sort of upper-hoofing on her opponent, but it was all useless. Chrysalis already had the advantage, and in her rage, she had no intention of letting it go.
"A monster! A vile, wretched thing!" The changeling hissed, punctuating each sentence with a punch to Luna's face. Spittle nearly flying out of her mouth as she snarled with each punch, she didn’t even notice as her hoof with numb from the sheer force of the blows. "Nothing more than a thoughtless, evil creature that must be destroyed, right? Right!? Isn’t that right, Princess!?"
Each new blow drew a fresh bit of blood, but the changeling seemed unaware of it, the anger burning through her entire body. Howling with rage, Chrysalis reared up and slammed her hooves against Luna's chest, sending her crashing into the ground, throwing up a few tons of dirt from impact. The changelings and ponies on the ground stopped fighting to gaze upon the display of power in awe, Chrysalis still hovering high over the crater, her shoulders rising and falling with every breath. Luna just laid there, the dust settling around the crater she'd just created, her wings splayed out under her body and blood oozing from her nose while her breath came in shallow, pain-filled gasps.
Chrysalis took one look at the sight and balked, immediately swooping upon Luna and giving her a quick once-over, followed by what little she knew about battlefield triage. Pulse is stable, breathing steady, good... she sighed with relief, a hoof pressed to Luna's throat to feel a pulse. Heavens above, she hadn't meant to lose it like that! She was just supposed to disable the Princess, not beat her to within an inch of her life!
"Oh dear sweet Celestia, she's gonna kill her!" A crystal stallion gasped from somewhere along the crater's edge, bringing the Changeling Queen back to reality. Scowling, Chrysalis allowed the rage to flood her body again, but this time it was controlled, tempered.
Of course that's what I'm doing, she grumbled, allowing the rage to run itself dry in a long, controlled burn within her chest. That's what we monsters do, right?
Still scowling, Crysalis set to work securing Luna, binding her hooves and muzzle in a mass of goo emanating from the holes in her horn, applying an extra-large mass to the Alicorn's horn. Finally, she lifted her bound prize before her, encasing Luna with the green shimmer of her magic, making sure to move her slowly and carefully to avoid exasperating any injuries. She held the bound princess up, presenting her like a hunter’s trophy. The mood in the crowd immediately sank through the basement, one didn’t need to be an emotion-sensing creature to feel that.
"Crystal Empire, behold; your greatest powers, bought low!" She shouted. "If an Alicorn couldn't stand against the swarm, what chance have you!?"
She glowered, still managing to lay the Princess down gently while standing at her full height. “Surrender now, and perhaps you and your loved ones will live to serve us.”
There was a moment of silence from the crowd, some ponies shifting uneasily from leg to leg and peering at the changelings surrounding them. The changelings among them hissed in return. Eventually, the Crystal Guard’s captain strode up to the edge of the crater. All eyes focused on him, changeling and pony alike.
The Captain sighed and pulled off his helmet, looking it over before setting it on the ground by his hooves. He ran a hoof through his sweat-drenched mane, took a few deep breaths, and glared into the crater, at the black menace who had Luna at her mercy. His eyes narrowed. The changelings all hissed at him in rage.
“As a Captain of the Crystal Guard, and the senior ranking officer in this region of the Crystal Empire, I have an important instruction for every pony under either my command or my protection,” he announced, his voice booming throughout the square, echoing in the ears of every single being gathered in front of the little tavern. His gaze turned to the crowd around him, surveying each and every single set of eyes as the crowd held its collective breath, waiting for his words. What would they bring? War? An order for submission?
Suddenly, he wheeled around and took off, nearly tripping over his own hooves as he burst off as fast as his legs could carry him. “RUN!” He barked.
Instantly, the guards dropped their spears and armor and took off alongside the civilians in a mad, panicked dash for any sort of hiding spot. The cries of the civilians rang through the air as the changelings shook off the shock of so many ponies running in so many directions at once and gave chase.
Chrysalis arched an eyebrow at the sight. “Huh. A part of me was hoping that would end somewhat differently,” she mumbled. Oh well. Disappointments. Such was life. Bla-de-bla-de-bla.
She hardly even noticed when one of her high generals landed behind her, his rank distinguished by his silken, black cape, held onto his back by the silver, moth-shaped clasp around his throat. “You gotta love it when they run, right, your majesty?” He asked.
“Hmm?” Her eyes rolled down to the decently-sized (but still smaller than her) changeling. “Ah, yes General Chickit, the chase is always the best part.” She replied absentmindedly. The high-general couldn’t help but scowl again. Ever since the loss of her Mother, Chrysalis had always shown weakness. Sometimes, he’d catch her daydreaming in the middle of the weekly meeting with her advisors and top military commanders, with this pathetic look of yearning in her eyes.
Should’ve figured: love makes one weak. Love tenderizes the heart. He mused. Even with all her power, the Queen still couldn’t get that loss out of her mind! Her Mother still weighed on her like an anchor around her neck! Well, her loss was his gain. He could see the consequences of love with his very eyes: first in the weakness of the ponies, now in the weakness of his own Queen.
“If it pleases you, my Queen, I wish to join our forces in the hunt,” he said with an embellished bow.
“Yes, yes, go ahead,” she said, waving him off and completely missing the mocking tone in his voice. With another bow, the general launched into the air, his sights already set on a nice-looking family of pegasi tourists. Fangs bared with glee, he descended upon them and quickly bound the frightened ponies, relishing in the cries of the parents and the tears of the foals.
Finally, Chrysalis stood up to her full height, her wings unfurling and buzzing in the air. Nudging the Princess to ensure that, yes, she was still as unconscious as she was five minutes ago, the Queen joined her swarm in the skies. “If it’s a monster Equestria wants…” she mumbled, a wicked, fang-filled smile spreading across her face as she joined in the hunt.