Chrysalis was what most would call a nervous wreck. The plan to blitz the defences of Canterlot during the wedding was going suspiciously well and whatever that mind-tampering bastard had done had made her indistinguishable from the real Cadance. She could go about her day without even thinking about the foreign object inserted into her cranium. The insertion point didn’t itch and she had not seen any glitches in its functions, even when she met the thing she’d been warned of.
“You know why Celestia’s eyes turn blue from time to time, right honey?” Chrysalis nonchalantly asked Shining Armour while they were wandering around the garden. She’d given the excuse of inspecting the garden for use in the wedding, but at least the Element of Honesty hadn’t bought it, if the shit-eating grin she’d given her was any indication. She might have revelled in that kind of misunderstanding in the past, but with her new hair accessory in play she found it hard to keep her hooves off of the young captain of the guard.
As a purely manipulative move she traced a hoof over the stallion’s barrel, feeling his muscles tense and flex at her touch. Again, as a carefully planned manipulative tool, which she definitely chose to use, she pressed her body against the captain of the guard and leaned her neck against his. She loved the simple smell of his shampoo and the warmth of his body. She wanted to keep him close and feel that warmth all around her, hear his voice cooing sweet nothings to her, to feel him inside her....
“I do, but I can’t tell you.” Chrysalis snapped out of sniffing Shining Armour’s hair as the colt denied her the information she asked. A part of her was angry at herself for letting Cadance’s hormonal instincts get the better of her, while another part wanted to pounce the colt and show him just what a thousand years of experience really meant in the bedroom.
“I’m only worried about her,dear. She’s been so stressed lately and I’ve actually seen her afraid when those blue eyes come out. I don’t have to tell you how rare that is, right? What is going on with my aunt?” She pushed the colt back and turned his head to face her. He was shaken by the sudden absence of loving mare on his skin. This is what was making her into a nervous wreck, this obvious disconnect with her changeling mind and Cadance’s near estrus instincts.
“I - I really can’t, you understand that, right?” He looked serious and concerned about her interest in Celestia. She didn’t see any suspicion of her identity in the colt. She should be ecstatic in having fooled the colt so completely, but something in her ached at seeing his genuine worry. The spike in her head had made her lie easier to tell, but far harder to live.
“You can’t trust me to keep my mouth shut, is that it? You think I’m going to go around spreading national secrets? I’m just worried about her health, Shining. Everypony else might think she’s immortal, but I know she can get sick and hurt.” Chrysalis kept walking forward, distanced herself from Shining and turned her head indignantly. A quiver in her voice and a downcast look and she could hear Shining’s will bend.
“She’s not sick, not exactly… I’ve been briefed on the details of it, but I can’t wrap my head around it. From the way the healers tell it, there’s a spirit of alien origin keeping Celestia’s heart beating, or tied to the beat of her heart. It calls itself Soldier and it can… control you, for the lack of a better word.” The stallion paused and looked away. He was unsure if he should confess the next part of the story, but Chrysalis stepped closer again and touched their sides together again. She might not be able to use changeling magic, but she could still play Shining Armour like a fiddle.
“You never question the command at the time, but it is frightening to think what it could do with just a word. My casters say it’s an infection of energy that dissipates quickly, but I still find myself double-guessing myself hours later. What if it’s been controlling me the whole time? What if it can make me forget orders it has given me and got to my experts before I could consult them?” Chrysalis entwined her tail with the unsure colt and leaned her neck against his. Chrysalis knew that most stallions only showed weakness around those they trusted to a great degree. She could use that in place of any mind-altering magic she might have thrown at him if she had access to her changeling magic.
“Do you think this spirit is malicious? Is it possible it is controlling Celestia’s court with this power it has?” Shining Armour was shaking his head before Chrysalis could finish her sentence. So, this alien spirit had somehow gained some degree of trust or respect from the captain of the Canterlot guard. Her plan might have been going far smoother she could have predicted, but she didn’t like how her hive seemed to be caught in this secret war these two entities were having.
“No, if he had any shred of malice toward us, then he would have acted on it already. The way I hear it he literally tore his soul apart to save her life, which is why separating them is such a challenge. No, Soldier’s not the problem.” Shining Armour glanced away and his jaw worked silently as he contemplated whether or not he should share what he was leaving out. Chrysalis nudged the colt affectionately and assured him he would feel better sharing his worries.
“Soldier’s not the only alien spirit in Equestria. He has two “brothers” for the lack of a better word. A few weeks ago the spirit named Smuggler got loose and Luna nearly died from the shock. A few days ago the same thing happened with the one called Priest and there were civilian casualties.” His voice sounded morose and defeated, rather than the justified anger she would have expected when talking about civilian casualties. What kind of magic had these spirits spun on these ponies to make them have such a high opinion of them?
“How did these spirits enter Equestria? Is there any way to send them where they came from?” A hushed tone and a small step to enter Shining Armour’s field of view made her question a serious one. She was quite certain it would have enticed a serious answer from the stallion, but instead she felt something stirring to life in Shining Armour as their eyes locked ever so briefly. Shining Armour’s horn lit up with magic and his eyes emptied of all emotion as a projected pad of numbers 1- 9 appeared between them.
“You have reached the centralised helpline for matters concerning the human spirits. If your business concerns the physical harm Soldier has caused you, please press 1.” Chrysalis took a step back from the stallion. It was obvious she had triggered another one of the spirit’s mind-altering spells, but she had no idea what it was making the poor colt rattle out. She concentrated a moment and was able to cast a sound dampening spell around them with what magic she had available. The last thing she needed was to have her cover blown because of the thing that stuck a needle in her brain thought messing with her was amusing.
“If your call concerns the psychological backlash of losing your autonomy in the presence of Soldier, please press 2.” Chrysalis noticed that the corresponding number on the projected pad flashed twice as Shining Armour talked. “If you believe you or your significant other has been ordered or coerced to commit a criminal act by the human spirits, please press 3. If you believe your memory has been altered to affect your behaviour, please press 4.”
“If your call concerns the malfunction of a reconstructive arcane construct, please press 5. If you have been subject to, or have witnessed, the ill-advised manipulation of a functioning arcane construct, please press 6. If you have experienced unusually vivid dreams involving members of the human race interacting with you, please press 7. If you have experienced auditory and visual hallucinations when interacting with reflective surfaces, please press 8. If you believe squirrels are bullshit and should be knocked down a peg, please press 9.” Shining Armour fell silent after the number 9 on the projected flashed. Chrysalis hesitated for a moment, before reaching out a hoof toward the numberpad.
“If you thought getting rid of the human spirits was as easy as asking the captain of the Canterlot guard, please press 10.” Shining Armour was no longer rattling out the list of button presses, now there was something looking back at her behind his still eyes. She had the irrational urge to point out there was no number 10 on a 9 digit pad, but was able to keep the outburst to herself. “If you wish to be spared the new hell my maker will create for you to suffer through, please press 11.”
“I thought you had the common sense not to go against me, Chryssi.” She heard the words clearly, but she didn’t hear it with her ears. She felt the words reverberate inside her skull as the spike in her cranium vibrated. It was actually the first time the insertion point of the spike ached in any way, but the lingering nauseous pain his words caused was something she would not forget. She could feel the sound dampening spell she had placed fail as bright colors danced at the edges of her vision.
“I understand how infuriating it must be for someone with your ego to accept help, but I have done nothing but accommodate your half-assed plan to guzzle up the love in Canterlot. I am sure you know the extent I could have perverted your nature with the magic I have at hand, but you still fail to appreciate my restraint.” Her head felt like it was filled with ice-cold shards of glass, with the painful contrast of the spike in her head feeling like white-hot steel drilling into her core. Every word jostled these textures of pain against each other and Chrysalis was not naive enough to assume that the human spirit was ignorant of this fact.
“Every breath you take, every step you make, I am watching you. I hear every single vapid thought of your own greatness, and it is something I allow you to entertain. I could break your vindictive little mind and mold you into Canterlot’s top whore, but I have decided not to do that.” She couldn’t be sure, but she could have sworn she felt the collective consciousness of the hive connect with her and the thought of her changelings seeing her in such a sorry state made the sickening pain ravaging her body sting sharper than it should.
“Shame is a funny thing, isn’t it? Every word I say drives your sense of defeat deeper into your consciousness, but yet you fight to stay awake. Some would say you are enjoying the shame, glad for the pain that masks your excitement, gives you an excuse to clench your teeth and let out that screaming moan.” The human laughed, every chuckle threatening to send her tumbling into darkness. The pain blinded every sense she had, but his words still rung through her head as clear as lightning. She couldn’t gather the energy to refute what he was saying and now she doubted what she would actually find beyond the pain.
“The way I see it you’re attracted to power, so it’s not a stretch to think you’d be turned on by its use, or your lack of it. Sure, that could be the truth, or I could just be messing with you, but you know what’s the really funny thing here?” The human’s voice cut out and for a brief second she thought her torture was over, but then the spike in her brain started to wordlessly shriek into her brain and her consciousness cut out in a brilliant flash of pain and dull light.
She woke up feeling warm and pleasantly fatigued, she also happened to be standing up and maintaining a simple levitation spell. That was her first clue as to the stretch of time she’d lost. She knew from both personal experience and second hand testimony that there was no way to shake off pain and physical trauma like that in less than a week. Her second clue was far less subtle, but it did drive home the human’s power over her memory and perception.
You’ll never know for sure.
“That vindictive bastard!” Chrysalis exclaimed as her hold on the lipstick she’d used to write the message on the vanity mirror slipped. She was wearing what she’d picked out as the bride’s gown and her hair was done up meticulously, so she could only assume she’d lost the days between her conversation with Shining Armour and the actual wedding. She had no idea what she’d been doing during those days, but by the fact she hadn’t been caught and jailed in Tartarus meant that the human spirit had done an adequate job of portraying Cadance in her stead. It was just as plausible that she had been the one to fool the ponies of Canterlot, but this human had erased her memory of it. She could have been living the time she lost without even knowing about the human and then suddenly written the message on the mirror as the human’s spell activated, most likely triggered by the reflection of her in Cadance’s wedding gown. Hell, she could still be in the garden, drooling and mumbling as the human’s magic forced her to live in a false world. The alien could be inserting another probe into her brain right at that moment, as far as she knew.
You’ll never know for sure.
She glanced at the message she had written again and felt a chill race up her spine as the implications dawned on her. Not only could she never know for sure if the human had tapped into some hidden fetish of hers when he had dominated her so thoroughly, but she could also never know for sure what was real and what was another illusion transplanted into her mind by this alien spirit.
“No!” She was not going to let this nameless bastard play her like this. She would become a nervous wreck if she let this human’s mind games get to her. The tricks it was using were petty and amateurish and there was no way they would work on a changeling with her experience. She knew what he wanted from her and that gave her an edge in this situation. The spirit was working under the radar of Celestia and whatever was behind that blue light, so she did have something to hold over this thing after all! She was the queen of the changelings! She was the one who played and manipulated these ponies! She was not going to let this thing get the better of her, no way! She was the one who would come out on top, no matter what she had to do! She was going to…
Do you remember writing this?
She had no recollection of picking up that burgundy lipstick back up again. Not only had the words on the mirror changed, but the mirror was not smudged at all around the letters, meaning she’d taken the time to clean the mirror thoroughly before writing that new message onto it. She levitated a wastebin closer and saw paper towels smudged by the same shade of lipstick discarded there. It could all be an intricate illusion, but it wouldn’t matter either way if she couldn’t tell the difference between it and reality.
“Why? You said you were helping me? Why are you…”
Sing for me.
The tube of lipstick clattered to the ground, as Chrysalis snapped back to consciousness the moment the message was written. It was jarring, it brought out a pure reaction of fright from her frayed mind and she was certain that was the exact reason for the abrupt awakening. She stepped back and stared at the request her tormentor had given her. She didn’t have to ask what he wanted her to sing, the words already itched at the back of her mind like a memory she couldn’t shake.
She clenched her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. She knew she could fight the compulsion, she could disobey her new tormentor and bring down both his plans along with her own. She had no concrete way to know that their interests actually coincided to any degree and bringing this manipulative bastard down before he backstabbed her was the smart move, no matter how she looked at it. Her hive had already fallen under this human’s spell and she doubted he actually cared for any of their lives.
She’d been driven to this point, in a way she could only think to be deliberate. The choice was entirely hers to make, the stakes were clear and her submission to this manipulative human would be made complete if she gave into this simple request. The power he had over her was unquestionable and she was sure there was enough mind-altering spells in her mind to force her into complying regardless of her choice.
“This day is going to be perfect…”
Soldier
“I don’t get it.” Soldier muttered as he craned Celestia’s neck away from the door. Cadance was on the other side, doing a version of the “this day aria” without the bits Chrysalis would have changed. A pony bride to be letting the overabundance of magic around them carry them into song, nothing to be alarmed about.
“How did we change it this much?” Celestia’s mouth muttered as Soldier started walking her body back to her office. He’d told the sun diarch he would stop pestering Cadance, but he couldn’t just let the matter drop. This Cadance had acted suspiciously when he’d made his presence known for the first time, but that could have been his overbearing presence unnerving the sheltered princess, as Celestia had pointed out.
“No Chrysalis, no adversity.” Step after step, Celestia’s body walked the halls leading to her office. Controlling the alicorn’s lanky frame had become close to second nature for him, so he could afford an errant thought or two. He could feel himself expanding, his tumultuous essence circling around Celestia and harmlessly going through walls and any other objects around them. The few ponies they passed only felt the arcane equivalent of a rise in barometric pressure; a loss of colour in the world, rather than pressure on the eyes, dulled sounds, rather than popping ears, and so on.
“I could have saved them, I could have stopped her.” Celestia’s body turned a corner and a series of cracks in the stone branched out from the seam in the stone. Soldier’s presence had built up speed and mass, agitating the miniscule faults in the stone enough for the cracks to form and follow the energy in its mindless race around its host. The cracks branched out evenly along the wall Celestia’s body was closer to, growing wider and deeper with each step. The lines converged and forced out pieces of marble as the wall shifted and shook with the invisible energy forcing its way through it. The first pieces of marble started tumbling in a circular pattern around Celestia’s hooves.
“I don’t know what to do.” Soldier’s control of Celestia’s body slipped as the thought was voiced through her mouth. More and more of Soldier’s essence poured out of Celestia, adding to the weight and mass of the energy rattling the stone hallway they stood in. It only took a few seconds for the mass of energy to build dense enough break the stone archway around them and push the stone outward in a lazy spiral. The stone grinded and crashed against the stone around it, adding that much more mass into the steadily growing circle of destroyed stonework and the occasional cord of wiring or stretch of plumbing. The low rumble and nearly earthquake level of tremors this loss of control caused had spared anypony from stumbling into the maelstrom, so far.
“What are you doing? Stop it, Soldier!” Celestia was awake now, deftly using her wings to stay afloat as the ground beneath her churned and traveled outward, only to be assimilated into the slowly expanding sphere of destruction around her. The momentum of the mass of stone slowed for a moment as Soldier tried to tear his energy out of the physical realm and gain some semblance of control, but he only had a moment to feel the strain on his sense of self, before everything went quiet.
No sound, no light, not even the slightest weight on him. There was nothing holding him back, tying him down to the mundane. He felt the momentum, the speed and the far reaches he could still reach taunting him. Faster, lighter, further, go reach beyond the pale and touch that tantalizing light. See the colour, feel the little thing flail as the rushing self swirls and gathers and…
Pain, speed, heat, light, stillness. Most of self dragging behind, slamming into core consciousness, panic, fear. SOMEONE HURT US! WHAT? WHO? WHERE ARE WE?
Expand, rush, which light hurt us? No lights, no hurt? All light to self, no light to hurt self!
No movement other than self, no light other than self. No danger if nothing to hurt, nothing to do, or want hurt. Make all movement self, make all light self. No danger, no need for many, become one again.
Celestia
It had been a few centuries since she’d felt so powerless. A war, a political scuffle, a renegade mage, those were the situations she had experience in. Housing an alien presence with the kind of power Soldier possessed over the world around him was a new problem.
His loss of control in Canterlot was something she’d anticipated, given the nature of his existence, but she’d never imagined the scope of the power he commanded. Seeing the very stone of the castle around her be grinded into jagged gravel was a frightening experience, but it was nothing compared to what all that power did when Soldier’s presence disappeared from her mind.
She could feel Soldier rushing out of her body, his core personality becoming one with the speeding energy around them, slowing the rush of energy for a short and hopeful moment. The colored light that usually signaled Soldier’s presence permeated the moving rocks and the air around her, bringing the violent cyclone of power raging around her into the visual spectrum. She could feel Soldier straining to steer the movement of the rocks inward, to stop the perpetually growing destruction around her.
The pain from his detachment was successfully negated by the piece of processed crystal glued to the off-colour patch of fur on her chest. The gem-cutters wanted a few days to construct an appropriate holder for the cut gem, but Soldier had ordered them to just glue it in place. The patch of fur was covered by her regalia for most of the day, so Celestia hadn’t objected to the pragmatic decision.
She also felt that strain build and build, until she felt the connection between them snap. The blue tendrils of light dancing around her whipped along with the force of the grinding rocks, before they dissipated into a faint hue of blue over the scene of destruction. There was another moment of brief hope when the blue hue around her started thickening, while the sharp gravel around her started to float down.
All she could see were the lazily churning blue light surrounding her and the occasional floating rock. The only sounds to breach the silence were the occasional flaps of her wings to stay afloat. She could feel something moving in the dim blue around her, something different from the pragmatic human she knew. She couldn’t help but be reminded of the darkness of the deep sea and the treacherous currents and demented creatures dominating that world. This something rushed out, forgoing the spiral that had ground a good chunk of Canterlot Castle to gravel. She could feel the energy around her swirling and pooling around a single point close to her. She’d seen this gathering point shoot out bursts of magic to try and keep Soldier at away, only to fall still and fade into the blue as Soldier rushed to meet the flailing energy.
She had gathered every bit of strength she had to teleport away from Canterlot when she realized what Soldier’s power would do without proper control, when she realized what it had already done to one unfortunate pony. The girth of the energy Soldier commanded was too much for any teleportation spell that could get them both far enough, so she had to gamble on teleporting only her own body and let Soldier be catapulted along with her through the connection they shared.
She’d chosen a small outcropping of rocks in the middle of an infamously stormy and rocky stretch of coast as her goal. She materialized above uneven terrain and very nearly tumbled straight into the stormy sea. The wind blasted a sheet of rain against her with enough power to make her stumble and the raging sea swept her a good ten meters along the slanted rock as soon as she was able to stand. Lightning flashed across the sky every few seconds and the roar of the wind and the nearly constant thunder made sure she was practically deaf and blind. The wind whipped her this way and that and she felt a twinge of pain as a particularly strong gust of wind stretched her outstretched wing the wrong way.
She’d been there for 30 seconds and she’d already managed three brushes with death by storm at sea. She could be reasonably certain no sane pony, griffon or sea faring vessel would be in the circumference of Soldier’s power. She couldn’t be sure about the sea ponies, but those slaphappy retards would probably just eat their dead and move on if it came to that.
She’d started to wonder if Soldier would actually follow her through their shared connection, but then she felt the first wisps of his presence reaching out to her. She’d lived for weeks with all of Soldier raging around her, so seeing the space around her start shimmering with blue light was not nearly as frightening as it should have been. She’d even gone through the trouble of briefly materializing in the upper atmosphere, just so that Soldier wouldn’t pass through the lands between her destination and Canterlot.
She should have known Soldier would take the shortest distance there is between two points, no matter how impossible it should have been. The basic theory in teleportation was to force two points to share the same space, but the ways to accomplish this varied greatly, along with the ways to move matter between these two points. Soldier’s connection to a part of her body brought him halfway and his lack of a physical body made it laughably easy for him to push through the pockets of folded space she had created by teleporting herself there.
The next few seconds played out in slow-motion for the apprehensive sun diarch. It could have been caused by Soldier’s arcane mass moving near the speed of light toward her, but it could also be apprehension on her part. The brunt of his terrifyingly condensed mass would either slam into her as soon as it materialized, or it would actually materialize inside the shared space their two souls shared and explode outward. Whichever the case, it would be painful and surely slam her consciousness out of controlling her body, practically knocking her unconscious.
The thought of finding a safer place to fall unconscious entered into her mind, just as everything flashed blue.
She’d been right about the pain. Soldier’s blue light roared into the space around her, slammed through the piece of her that Soldier had helped reconstruct and then exploded outward into the raging waves and stormy sky. She could feel her eyes straining to roll back and darkness licking at the edges of her vision as the foreign energy triggered every nerve designed to signal something wrong, but she fought back the urge as another flash of blue washed over her. Her knees buckled and there was another flash of blue at the edge of her vision, then another and yet another.
A sense of dread crept over the small part of her mind still functioning amidst the debilitating pain and sense of wrongness, as flashes of blue burst out from the sea around her in quick succession. She fell to her side on the cold stone and saw countless blue dots of light flying out of the churning sea, only to float above the water and drift closer to each other. She closed her eyes just as the dots started to converge together. There was another flash of blue light that seared into her eyes even through her eyelids, but now it was accompanied by a deafening crack of thunder and a wave of heat.
Smuggler
“Jeez! Why can’t that asshole just do his mental deterioration in private like any decent human spirit?” Luna’s lips muttered out as the scrying spell showed a perfectly spherical section of a nasty looking thunderstorm suddenly turn blue and dissipate. “Ooh, look at me! I’m the stoic hero character, but I’m still the dweeb who’s gonna go full Michael Bay on the technicolor equines!”
Luna’s magic kept the taxing scrying spell up for a few more minutes. Smuggler watched as more spherical sections of the storm were nullified in a gradually expanding circle and a vibrant blue hue became apparent at the epicenter. This field of stillness came just shy of hitting the coast, before it started to recede inward. He’d just watched Soldier either absorb or nullify the potential energy of a thunderstorm stretching several miles.
“I still think you’re the greatest thing since Flintstones chewable morphine, creator.” Luna #87 said, the programmed personality’s earnest admiration for him glowing from her words. He could reprogram the faux personality for her unintended sassiness, but the mention of these mythical chewable opiates did brighten his mood.
“I’m totally going to make that a thing.” Smuggler muttered aloud as he finally allowed the scrying spell to dissipate. He made Luna lock eyes with the borrowed changeling drone in the room and jumped into the creature’s more pliable body. There was a flash of green fire and the changeling grew several elongated hands in the place of its wings. He’d figured out how to use the transformative properties of changelings well enough, despite this ability being mostly instinctual. Having access to hands that weren’t attached to Luna’s encumbered form made monitoring his project infinitely simpler.
“I’ll need you to stay perfectly still, #87.” He instructed as two of his hands reached out to the tray filled with small glass bottles, while two others had picked up a syringe and were unscrewing the usual needle from it. He screwed in a longer and slightly thicker needle, before bringing the two bottles to it and plunging the needle through their corks in quick succession. One of the bottles had a liquid in it that shimmered like mercury, while the other held a murky brownish liquid. Smuggler let these two substances mix in the syringe and nodded sagely as the changeling’s eyes perceived the mixture starting to change colour into an iridescent white.
“You will feel an intense burning sensation. You have my permission to circumvent your pain receptors if need be, #87.” Smuggler stated emotionlessly as he inserted the needle slowly into Luna’s distended stomach.