//------------------------------// // Chapter I - Timed // Story: Let's Try This Again // by HypernovaBolts11 //------------------------------// Chrysalis's voice shook him awake, breaking his dormancy. He opened his eyes, and glanced around. He was being carried, by what he couldn't tell, as his sense of touch had been cut off by the halter on his face. He focused his attention on the strange object, and tried to puff air through his nostrils, only to find that he'd lost conscious control over his diaphragm. He was unable to hold his breath, feel his heartbeat, or even turn his head. He was, for all intents and purposes, completely immobilized. He began to panic, frantically wondering where his mother was, what they'd done with her, whether they'd killed her or not. His brain demanded too much oxygen, and his breath didn't speed up to compensate, so he blacked out. He awoke a few seconds later, his body in a sort of sitting position, with his head pointed forward. He saw a white pony, slim and tall, with both wings and a horn, piercing purple eyes, and a look that demanded every ounce of his attention. She smiled at him, not warmly, but businesslike, warning, and removed. He didn't understand much of the tongue she spoke, and wished that he simply knew what had become of his mother, what they'd done to him, why he wasn't able to even breathe on his own accord. He watched in great fear as a sharp, shimmering object loomed in front of his face, and a white hoof removed the halter from his nose. He promptly collapsed, unable to even breathe without the halter's help. He wheezed for a few moments, then blackness crept into his vision. He saw his mother, sitting completely still, a halter on her muzzle, watching him with a horrified look in her eyes. He heard her speak in a langauge he understood, and the halter on her nose snapping, "Stop!" He felt her warmth envelope him, her calming embrace, and her heartbeat slamming in her chest. He heard her breathing alarmingly fast, her swallowing, and then her crying as the last one, her final child's last remaining tie to the living world, was held to a knife, threatening to drop him into death. His eyes slid closed, his mind accelerated to one thought, and he managed to say, "M-mother, I'm... I'll see father, tell him. you.. love..." His mind screeched to a halt, his body went limp in his mother's embrace, and his labored wheezing stopped. He was dead, asphyxiated right in front of his mother. He thought he heard something say, "You're almost done." Then he didn't... anything. Chrysalis screamed at Celestia, and buried her nose into the body's shoulder. She began to cry, holding him one last time, and she sobbed against her son's dead body. "H... N-no... Don't go..." she whispered into his triangular ear her sobs, and tightened her grip on him. She could feel his love fading, her last source of sanity dying right in front of her. Celestia spoke, coolly, calmly, and without compassion, "Now, Chrysalis, do you understand how serious I am?" Chrysalis continued to cry, but nodded. When she and Celestia had talked, she knelt down on her knees, lowered her head, and pleaded through bleary eyes, "Please... I. You could have saved him. We were run out of our home. Starving, we came here in search of your help, but you kill him." Celestia sighed. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. "I knew all of that already, Chrysalis. But you have proven yourself to be an impossible force, and I am out of options. With him, you could just as easily have destroyed Canterlot as breathed," the princess told the former queen. "You..." Chrysalis's vertical pupils narrowed into slits. Her horn sputtered green sparks of magic. Her entire face turned a bright green, and she felt her mind being overcome with rage, rage unimpeded, rage unheard of on any world. "Your brother loved me! That's why we came here, and you knew that!" she shouted. Celestia kept a straight face as the queen stood up to hold their noses against one another. She said, "And you signed an agreement, may I remind you." She had never seen anyone so angry. Not Nightmare Moon, not Tirek, not Discord at his worst, was this angry. Chrysalis leaned forward, locked her horn against that of the princess, and growled, "I care not what oaths I've made, for blood is thicker than water, and I care for whom the bell tolls, unlike you, Celestia, who have ordered systemic murder and genocide of my children, children who had done no wrong to you." Her lips curled back in a vicious snarl, displaying her fangs to the alicorn. She reared on her hind legs, and lit up her horn with blazing green fire. Her eyes, whites and all, were replaced by brilliant white orbs. She heard the guards coming up behind her, and stomped her hooves against Celestia's chest, pushing the princess onto the cold marble floor. She loosed the ball of fire that had built in her horn, and it expanded, filling the room with unquenchable fire. When the spell fell away, there was a pile of ashes where the throne had been, and a hole in the floor where Princess Celestia had just lay. The guards screeched to a halt behind the queen, who turned to face them. She pointed a hoof at her son's dead body, and declared with three voices at once, "Revive him! I have harmed no one, and you have killed an innocent today!" The guards exchanged nervous glances, and froze when they looked behind the changeling queen. There, floating, eyes burning white, was Princess Celestia, who motioned them towards the door with a hoof. They bowed and promptly fled the throne room, leaving their weapons on the floor. Chrysalis turned to face Celestia, and the two held gazes. White fire met white fire between them, and visible waves of yellow and green magic emitted from their horns. The ground nearby to them began corroding, smoldering, cracking, and falling away in small grains. Then the walls began to dissolve, and the waves of magic which flooded the castle escaped into the open world, tearing apart any organic matter in their wake. Eventually, Celestia closed her eyes, and she nodded. "Very well, let's try this again," she said. She lit up her horn, and everything around her began to undo itself. The walls and floor reassembled themselves. The waves of magic returned to the two creatures. Chrysalis turned around to see the guards running back into the room, but backwards.