Luna
“Suuuupriiiiiiiise!”
My head jerks around just in time to witness a horrifying sight: Twilight Sparkle, her neck twisted in a bizarre and almost impossible angle, impaling my sister through her chest. As the first drops of Tia’s blood hit the ground, Twilight’s horn unleashes a green electrical storm straight into her most vital organs. The throne room is lit up with such force that I can even briefly see my sister’s skeleton. And then, with a heartrending wail, Tia’s eyes roll back into her head, and she topples over.
I… I… What?!
Twilight pulls her bloody, sparking horn from the ruin of Tia’s chest, breathing heavily. She looks down at my sister’s broken form and grins widely, showing all her picture-perfect white teeth.
“What treachery is this?!” I hiss, finally overcoming my mind’s momentary paralysis. My own horn grows hot on my head.
“Oh nothing,” Twilight smirks at me. “I just thought I’d give myself a little long-overdue promotion. How does “Queen Twilight Sparkle, Sovereign Ruler of Equestria” sound to you?”
“You are not Twilight Sparkle,” I snarl at her, even as I check the aether for illusions. None, so that means… “Changeling.”
Her face visibly falls. “Oh come on! I spent days coming up with just the perfect routine for this moment and you’re just going to- GAH!”
The false Twilight ducks at the very last second to avoid a blue fireball about twice the size of her head, which incinerates the throne behind her and a good portion of the wall behind that as well. Without pause I throw a second, and then a third. She just crossed the last line. No games, and no surrender.
The insect wearing the princess’ form throws herself roughly to the side to dodge the cleansing flame, it burning chunks of the floor out instead. I stamp my forehooves and crystal floor bursts into a wave of lethal spikes that tear up through the ground at her. She yelps and leaps into the air at the last second, though not quickly enough to avoid an impromptu mane-cut from one twelve foot long specimen.
“Now would be…” she calls out, gasping for breath. “A very… good time!”
On cue, several chunks of crystal or apparent statues around the room burst into green flames, revealing the hideous insectile forms of the species we thought long dead. I am beyond caring. My sister, the one pony who has always been there for me, even when I was too mad to see it, lies broken on the floor. She may even be dead. The thought of that… my only family, the one companion that I shall ever have throughout my endless days. Without her… without her…
“Die,” I whisper.
I throw another ball of fire at the changeling nearest to me. This one is less nimble than Twilight’s imposter and is caught full-on. It doesn’t even have a chance to scream before the magically-guided flames bore through its exoskeleton and plunge into its vulnerable insides. It takes but fractions of a second for its heart to be consumed, followed shortly by its lungs and the remainder of the organs of the creature’s chest. Some even shoots up its neck to vaporize the changeling’s brain. A smoking, empty shell hits the floor before anyone has even had time to blink.
The idiot insects don’t quite grasp the lesson. Loyally obeying their presumed queen, perhaps three dozen or so launch simultaneous arcs of green energy towards me from all angles. I simply vanish from the spot and allow the explosion to consume the floor. I reappear high in the air, directly above the false Twilight. Before she even has a chance to look up I deliver a vicious double kick to the rear of her skull. She plummets towards the earth, screaming. The other changelings adjust their facing and fire more magic at me. This time I envelope myself in a blue orb and watch the green lances explode against it one after the other. The fire and smoke, at least, are spectacular.
“That’s it!” Twilight’s voice calls out. That the creature continues to wear her form even know I would take for an insult were I not already furious beyond words. “Kill her! Kill her for the glory of the hive! For the memory of Chrysalis!”
Through the haze, I can vaguely make out changelings cautiously approaching my position. That makes things more convenient, so I impel the smoke to linger a little longer, force the unnatural fire to burn just a few seconds more. Wait for it… wait for it… wait for it…
“FOOLS!” I roar in a Royal Canterlot Voice loud enough to rattle the Imperial Palace itself.
I lash out with my barrier, pulsing the globe in all directions to shatter walls, ceiling, and pillars. The channeling drones, having so helpfully gathered themselves close, take the full brunt of it and are thrown everywhere. The luckier ones travel some distance from my barrier before they hit the ground or a wall. Those less fortunate… well, it’s a quick way to go, at least.
“I come from an age of gods and monsters, you pathetic insects!”
I gather a lightning storm about my horn and fling it downwards with a vicious thrust of my head. The electricity catches one downed changeling without issue and immediately arcs through its body and into another, and another, and another, and into more still, subjecting them all to a thoroughly lethal dose of ancient pegasus war magic. One manages to get up and send another beam of green up at me - I swat it aside with my bare hoof.
“I have treated with gods and slain them!” I yell down at them. “I have traveled the world a thousand times and more and learned more of magic than you could ever imagine! I have fought armies and wrestled with monstrosities that would think you mere fleas on their hide! I seized control of the moon itself over the broken bodies of the great sorcerers of old! I have lived for uncounted millennia, and I will live to see the star themselves die!” I roar loud enough to surprise myself. “I AM A GOD, YOU PITIFUL MORTAL FOOLS! FLEE FOR YOUR INSIGNIFICANT LIVES!!!”
I don’t know why I’m trying to scare off the changeling drones. I could easily just kill the rest of them here and now. I suppose it could be that I recognize that they didn’t really have a choice to be born what they are. These drones are little more than loyal soldiers doing their duty for queen and hive, even when it means facing down a demigoddess. I suppose a part of me might respect that. Besides, they didn’t strike down my sister.
Whatever the reason, that just about does the job. Changeling drones are far from mindless, and while loyal most know a losing fight when they see it. Those that are still capable of movement run, fly, or hobble towards the throne room’s broken wall and the hallway beyond.
“Get back here!” the false Twilight screams at them, even going so far as to grab one of them with her green aura. “You cowards! You traitors! I hatched you ungrateful worms! Where is your loyalty to your mother?!”
“Where is yours to your daughters?” the captured drone hisses back. “We can’t beat her! We’ll all be killed!”
“Then it is your duty to die for the hive!” she rages, still in Twilight’s voice.
“For the hive! Not for you!”
“I am the hive!” she snarls at the drone.
The drone bares its fangs and snaps at the queen. Though long out of their reach, she flinches. That’s all the opportunity the drone needs to shatter her grip and fly for it. It buzzes out through the wall and vanishes quickly into the hallway beyond.
I, not being of the time-wasting sort, use the brief mother-daughter spat to descend to Tia and hurriedly check her. She’s alive, praise the gods! But just barely. That attack outright melted a considerable number of her internal organs. The alicorn magic running through her is the only thing unnaturally forcing her body to stay alive. Regenerating from this will take some time. When turn around, though, I’m not any less angry. In fact, seeing the damage done to my poor sister up close and personal has, if anything, made me want to kill this bug queen even more. And then Sombra.
“Now it is just you and I,” I tell her as I stalk forward in the manner of predatory cat.
The false Twilight bares her teeth and growls.
“With you, I will not be so merciful. You have collaborated with Sombra, invaded an innocent kingdom, and stricken down my own sister. For that, you must answer.”
“Hmph,” green fire envelopes the image of Equestria’s princess, dying down a moment later to display the tall, chitinous form of a changeling queen. “I won’t need your mercy.”
“I am a god, you fool,” I tell her, my voice low. “You are but a passing mortal insect.”
“Some god,” she snorts, looking meaningfully past me and at Tia’s limp form.
I narrow my eyes.
“A pony, even if some fools worship it as a god, is still in the end only a pony.”
“We shall see.”
Energy bursts forth from both our horns simultaneously. There is no complexity here, no epic feats of masterful spellcraft. We simply unleash beams of blue and green energy that meet in the center of the throne room – a contest of raw power. I pour in great rivers from the vast ocean that is my magical power. She is stronger than I thought, but slowly I begin to take the advantage.
“Did you know,” she manages despite the eveident strain on her face. “That I took down your beloved sister… with your niece’s love?”
“Cadence?!” my ears perk up, though I don’t let up for a microsecond. “What have you done with her, you devil?”
“Isn’t it… nrgh… obvious?” she shows fangs in the vague approximation of a grin. “I drained her… dry. I did… what my mother should… have done, all those years ago. She is… dead. And her power is mine! All mine!”
I grit my teeth. I remember the stories of the wedding all too well. Celestia and Chrysalis, and the love that made all the difference. If this beast has truly claimed all the love that was in my niece’s heart then shouldn’t…
Wait.
My eyes flick backwards, just for a moment.
“You already used it all,” I declare. “You can’t beat me and you know it. Not without Cadence’s love. And you already used that to strike down my sister. You’re running on scraps!”
“Nrrrrgh!” is all the response she can make as the point of our spells’ contact creeps slowly, inexorably, back towards her head.
“You’re only…” my eyes widen, as I come to realization. “Stalling for time!”
I don’t even bother to listen to her reply, with my eyes instead shooting back towards the throne room’s shattered entrance wall. Sure enough, he’s there. King Sombra is standing there, observing us both through those unnatural red-green eyes of his. My ears fold back, and I’m immediately set to calculating how fast I can cross the throne room, grab Tia, and bolt out of here. I knew this was a bad idea from the start! Now that they’re both here I have no real option but to-
“Now… would be…” the queen manages, the point of magical contact now only a foot or so in front of her head. “A good… time…”
Sombra does… nothing?
“Sombraaa…” she moans, legs starting to wobble as my magic creeps inch by inch towards her head. “Help… Help!”
The dark stallion still stands there, stock still. His expression is perfectly neutral.
I think I get what’s going on before she does. I don’t know why he’s choosing now to make that move, but I’m not wasting the opportunity. I redouble my efforts, pouring more and more power into my magical beam before he changes his mind and it’s two on one. Blue presses green even further back, to within an inch of the queen’s head.
“HELP ME!” she screams. “HELP ME YOU SON OF A-”
She never gets a chance to finish. With one final push I break through the last of her magic and blast her horn. All the changeling queen gets is one final high-pitched wail before my lethal energies travel down her horn, into her head, and make her living brain… not so living.
Her smoking corpse hits the floor half a second later.
There is a moment’s pause in the throne room. All is quiet save for the sound my own slight panting, as my body works to cool itself down a little. I could do without breathing but that costs magic and I don’t wish to spend it right now. For his part, the usurper king continues to regard me with a calm expression, silent as the grave.
“One down,” I say, taking one step forward. “And one to go.”
“Funny,” Sombra says. “I was thinking the exact same thing.”