A teenage changeling sat in her room, flopped lazily on her back, staring up at the posters of her favorite heavy metal bands that she had plastered to the ceiling. She slowly blinked a few times, blew the dark fringe out of her eyes, played a bit with the asthma inhaler around her neck, and then rolled over onto her stomach.
"This is so bogus." she said to herself with a huff.
Her name was Dark Spawn. But she never liked to be called that, mostly out of disdain for her mother, Queen Chrysalis; she may have been Queen, but she was horrible with names. Instead she had chosen the name Shining Scale for herself, after the royal guard her mother had used as a stepping stone in the invasion of Canterlot, and ironically, who had defeated her in the end. There was a strong sense of irony in that, something Scale could appreciate. Plus the fact that it drove Chrysalis absolutely nuts was a nice bonus.
Yes, Dark "Shining Scale" Spawn was the daughter of the Queen. And she had been grounded, yet again.
"I hate being grounded!" she yelled in frustration.
"Perhaps you wouldn't find yourself confined to your quarters so frequently if you did not anger your mother so much." Treep he-oh, one of her personal guards commented from outside the door.
Her other guard, Arr-too, merely let out a low whistle in agreement.
Just then an explosion shook the Doom Citadel, and from how frequently it happened, Scale knew it had come from the inside. There was no way she was going to miss out on this, so while Arr-too and Treep e-oh bantered on what might be happening, Scale picked up one of her pillows and one of the Equestrian bits she kept laying around her messy room. She quickly and quietly moved over to the ventilation shaft and unscrewed the cover, quickly slipping inside, using the pillow to muffle the sound of her sliding along.
Shining Scale spent a few minutes crawling through the vents of her mother's Doom Citadel, following the sounds of explosions and more often the shouts and sounds of a battle.
Finally she came to the vents overlooking the throne room; she liked to sneak over to this part some times to watch her mother give orders to her subjects, and then chuckle silently as those subjects proceeded to mess up in some hilarious manner. But what she saw this time was much more entertaining; a pair of ponies were doing battle with her mother, spells were being shot off as frequently as insults and taunts, and exploding with just as much impact.
This would have been amazing to watch, but one thing made that impossible, and that was the particular ponies involved. By their looks and how they matched up with the unflattering descriptions she'd heard Chrysalis use, those ponies could only have been Captain Shining Armor and Princess Cadence.
This was no longer something that Scale could be content with watching from the sidelines. She simply had to get in on the action. And this... this required a dramatic entrance.
"Let go of my Shiny!" Cadence yelled as she held on to Shining's front legs and upper torso for dear life.
"Not until you change my mane color back to normal! Pink does not suit me!" Chrysalis shouted back as she pulled Shining's back legs with all her might.
"Ladies please! There's enough of me to go around, but not like this!" Shining cried out in agony as he felt like his bones would give in and the mares would tear him in two any second.
Suddenly the lights went out, putting a stop to their fight as an ominous heavy breathing filled the room.
Then one of the lights went on, drawing their attention to one side of the room. One of the vents from above was covered in a dark aura as it was twisted, bent, split open, and then lowered like a ramp. And slowly descending in a dramatic fashion through the steam was... A changeling wearing a pillow case like a cape?
The three combatants just stared at the new arrival before Chrysalis spoke up.
"Dark Spawn, what are you doing out of your room?" she asked, visibly upset at her daughter's disobedience.
"I am here to greet our guests. And to put our plan back on schedule." Scale put simply.
"And... who are you exactly?" Cadence asked.
"My name is Dark Spawn. Lord Dark Spawn." she said, trying to be cool and intimidating, though her high-pitched voice failed her in that regard. "And I want you, Princess Cadenza, Shining Armor... to join us."
Cadence looked at her for a moment, trying to tell if she was serious. Shining was just glad to not be stretched anymore.
"You have seen what lengths we have gone to against each other." Dark Spawn continued "Imagine what could be accomplished if our species united!"
"That sounds... nice. Really." Cadence told the young changeling before her "But I'd never join her!" she thrust a hoof at Chrysalis.
However, Dark Spawn had one final ace up her metaphorical sleeve, and the Princess had just played right into her hoof. "Chrysalis never told you what happened at Canterlot."
"She didn't need to tell us. We were both there!" Shining pointed out the obvious "She locked Cadence in the caves and impersonated her, she messed with my mind! And then she ordered her changelings to attack the city! I don't think either of us could forget that for as long as we live."
"But you left out one very important thing Captain. After the invasion, Chrysalis had a child; she had me." Dark said, much to both ponies' shock "My real name is Shining Scale... and you... are my father."
"Shining?" Cadence looked at him and started tearing up in a mixture of anger and sadness fueled by betrayal.
"Cadence I didn't- I mean I don't think I- I can't even remember-" Shining went into a stuttering mess that would put Twitch to shame, trying to figure out when, if ever Chrysalis got him into bed. She surely didn't seem the type, or even remotely interested in him.
"No no no!" Scale stomped for attention "Not you..." she moved her hoof from Shining to Cadence "I meant Princess Cadenza! She's my father!"
The glass broke for a second time, and the two ponies stared wide-eyed at her.
"N-no." Cadence denied it with all her rational thought "That's not true; that can't be true! That IMPOSSIBLE! Literally impossible!"
"Actually... no it's not." Chrysalis chimed in, not confidently smirking or in a full blown rage, but actually timid for once. "You see, it's kind of a rare occurrence. I wasn't even sure what was happening to me until Dark's egg came out. But while I imprisoned Princess Cadenza in the crystal caverns, I had to find a way to detain her magic too, and that meant feeding on her until she could no longer use it." she looked away, twiddling her hooves "I may have taken far more than I needed to. And then when I was disguised as her to drain you of your love for her, Shining, it made the love I stole from Cadenza manifested within me as... her."
Shining was silent for a moment, mulling it all over in his mind. "So what you're saying is-"
"You two knocked me up through the power of love. Yes." Chrysalis finished and then refused to make further eye contact.
"Great! Now that that's settled..." Scale said as she walked over to Cadence "Dad, can I have some money for a tattoo and some piercings?"
Cadence simply looked down at Scale and tried to take in what she'd just heard, and promptly fell over with her eyes rolling back into her skull.