Glimpses

by Pen Stroke

Variance 4 - Bloodstone-Uniform-Gold-Sapphire

“I thought you were taking care of the alarms?”

Nyx forced open the door, her horn arcing with magic as she came to face the two changeling guards just outside. They hissed, their wings buzzed, and they tried to go for their weapons, but they never even got to take aim. A swift blast from Nyx’s horn was enough to knock each one out, their bodies flopping to the floor like wet noodles.

“I did,” Rita said over the radio in Nyx’s ear. “We did.”

Nyx glanced left and right down the hallway, checking for any more guards before dragging the two unconscious bodies back into the room. A few moments later, she strode out into the hallway. Their mission target was wrapped in a levitation spell, bouncing around behind Nyx like a balloon on a string. “It sure doesn’t sound like it,” Nyx said as the ship’s alarms continued to assault her ears, her voice being picked up by the tiny microphone that reached down from her ear and rested against her cheek.

“That’s not the intruder alarm. It’s the ‘there’s a hacker’ alarm,” Jane answered. “I told you not to snoop.”

Rita’s voice came back onto the radio, starting with a deep growl. “Our whole reason for being here is to get information. I just thought it would be easier to get the data from their systems instead of trying to interrogate someone. The data is right there.”

“And didn’t you think it was perhaps too easy?” Lin hissed. “It was like meat in a tiger trap, and you fell for it.”

“Enough. Just be ready to move. I’m heading to your position now.” Nyx kept moving through the dimly lit corridors of the ship. The walls fluttered a little as she passed, the strange amalgamation of technology, chitin, and green flesh looking more like the guts of some vast beast than a starship. She kept a constant pace, only slowing as she approached intersections. She’d check her corners, stun any guards that happen to be in her way, then keep going.

“Crestwind? Adrian? How’s our exit?” Nyx asked into her radio as she rounded a corner and began galloping down a long corridor.

“Getting toasty,” Crestwind replied, the sounds of blaster fire in the background. “We sent Feather ahead to align the mirrors, but I don’t know how long we can hold our position.”

“Just hold on, once I have Rita, Jane, and Lin, we’ll be heading straight towards you.”

“And the package?” Crestwind asked.

Nyx looked back at her levitation field, frowning at the creature inside. Queen Chrysalis, despite the revelation of the nature of her species, still looked the same, if not better, than she always had. Her chitin was clean, polished, and her green markers had an otherworldly glow to them. Somehow, she made being unconscious look dignified, her legs and head folded into her with only her tongue hanging out of place. There wasn’t even a mark from where Nyx blasted Chrysalis’ face with a stun spell.

“Yeah, I’ve got the royal cockroach stunned and ready for transport. Just make sure we have a way out.”

The sounds of blaster fire reached Nyx’s ears once again, but this time, it wasn’t coming over her radio. She lowered her head and powered forward, galloping at full pace through the corridor. She rounded one final corner, seeing a half dozen changelings all firing at a command console which stood in the far corner of the room.

Nyx cursed, seeing there were too many to take out with single blasts. She took a few steps back, hiding behind the corner of the connecting corridor as a charge of magic built up in her horn. A sphere of energy formed and drooped from the tip of Nyx’s horn, looking almost like a large drop of water. It grew heavier, almost threatening to break away and fall under its own weight. Before it could, Nyx swung her head and lobbed the spell into the room as she shouted, “Thunder in the cloud!”

There was a momentary pause, then a flash of magic as the stun bomb went off. A few seconds later, Nyx heard the sound of bodies hitting the floor. She listened and waited to make sure her spell had properly dissipated before she rounded the corner and stepped back into the room. The guards were all on the floor, and the creature that had been using the control console as cover stood up, one of her three mouths snarling and baring its carnivorous teeth.

“A little warning might have been nice,” Rita, the tiger head of the chimera said.

Jane, the goat head, huffed and leaned a little into Rita’s personal headspace. “She did warn us. She shouted ‘thunder in the cloud.’ Besides, she wouldn’t have needed to warn us if you didn’t set off the alarm.”

“I set off an alarm, not the alarm. There’s a difference,” Rita argued.

“In semantics alone,” Lin, the serpent head, hissed. 

Nyx rolled her eyes as she moved over to Ri-Ja-Li, using her prehensile, ethereal tail to flick all three of them on the bridges of their noses. “Argue about it later. We gotta move.” A bit of Nyx’s mane moved, tapping the call button on the radio in her ear as she began marching towards the door that led out of the room and out of the ship. “Crestwind, we’re on our way out. The exit still good?”

“Yes, but we lost contact with Feather. She might have been intercepted at the mirror.”

Nyx cursed, quickly about-facing and taking a few steps to bring herself closer to Ri-Ja-Li. “We need to get to her, then. We can’t let them secure the mirror. Activate your markers.”

The three heads of Ri-Ja-Li frowned. “No, please Nyx, don’t do it,” Rita begged.

“Consider this the consequence of setting off the alarm,” Nyx said as she held out her hoof. “Now give me the spare radio.”

Rita groaned, but then glanced at Jane. Jane bleated her own distaste for the proposed action, but used the leg she controlled to dig into their saddlebags. She soon procured and passed to Nyx a spare ear piece, which Nyx took as her levitation spell brought Queen Chrysalis close. Nyx held a button on the side of the device for a few seconds, causing a little blue light to turn on before she inserted it into the queen’s ear.

As Nyx levitated Queen Chrysalis back to where she had been floating, she could sense the magical signal being put off by the freshly inserted earpiece. That one signal was soon joined by five others. Three came from Ri-Ja-Li, who was clenching just about every muscle in her body at once, looking like she was trying to hold her breath and pass gas at the same time. The other two new signals came from outside the ship.

Nyx waited until she was sure she could properly feel the six signals before closing her eyes. She rolled her shoulders, trying to calm her body and clear her mind as her magic reached out, passing through the ship’s carapace to touch all the signals at once. “Jumping in three… two… one…”

Nyx triggered her teleportation spell, blinking herself briefly out of existence and pulling everyone she had connected to in her wake. There was a moment’s pause, a moment where she and all the others existed in the swirling colors and vibrance of the teleportation plane. Then, with another pop, the spell spat them out at their destination.

Nyx spread her wings, catching herself and making sure she stayed aloft with her captive as she surveyed her surroundings. The tight corridors of the hive ship were replaced with open blue skies and a wild-grass field. The hive ship itself was nestled in the distance, in the shadow of a tall, barren mountain that made the alarms coming from the ship carry a notable echo. 

In the field below, there was a firefight going on around an oval shaped metal frame that stood out like the pull tab of a zipper. Changelings were moving in, sending an almost constant stream of fire towards a round console that stood atop a low podium—the alignment console. Feather was behind the console. The griffin had her claws wrapped tightly around her blaster pistol as she returned fire while trying to keep her larger form tucked behind the console’s insufficient cover.

The two soldiers in the squad, Adrian and Crestwind, snapped into action to aid Feather as soon as Nyx’s teleportation spell finished. Crestwind then spread her teal pegasus wings and flew out of Nyx’s field of view, to rain blaster fire down on the changelings from high above. At the same time, she heard Adrian, a light brown horse, land and roll in the tall grass. He was back on his hooves by the time Nyx landed, galloping around the changeling perimeter to attack their flank using the blasters built into his helmet.

All this happened as Nyx and Ri-Ja-Li landed close to Feather. Nyx touched down gently, wings slowing her descent as she raised a spherical magical barrier around the alignment control console, providing the trio a moment's respite from the battle. Ri-Ja-Li landed with as much gracefulness as a falling sack of potatoes, flopping down into the tall grass a few feet to Nyx’s right. The captive and still unconscious Chrysalis floated next to Nyx in the same position she had been for the past several minutes.

“I appreciate the timely arrival.” Feather dared to poke her head out from behind the control console, though her claws remained firmly gripped on her blaster pistol. Her eyes moved to Chrysalis. “Is she still breathing?”

“Last I checked.” Nyx lowered Chrysalis closer to the ground. “Though I wouldn’t mind you checking her vitals to make sure. Ri-Ja-Li can finish the gate alignment.”

“I didn’t get started setting the alignment. I heard the alarms coming from the ship, and my bad luck struck again. I hadn’t even taken ten steps when a patrol, on its way back to the hive ship, spotted me and started blasting.” She moved next to Chrysalis, her claws reaching in through Nyx’s levitation spell as she removed a few medical tools from her saddlebags. “So, who set off the alarm?”

“There’s no point in tossing around blame,” Rita said as she and her sisters managed to pick themselves off the ground. They moved to the alignment console, getting around to the far side. The device resembled a clock, but instead of two legs and twelve numbers, the device had twelve legs and thirty six numbers. Ri-Ja-Li began to shove the different metal legs into different positions, the console clicking loudly as gears inside ratched around.

“No point in tossing blame,” Feather said as she used a claw to open one of Chrysalis’ eyes and see if her pupil adjusted under the sun’s bright light. “So that means you did it.”

Jane and Lin chuckled while Rita only growled. The three sisters pushed the last metal leg into place, then used their right forward paw to press down on a smoothly polished gemstone at the center of the device. There was a single loud click. The arms on the device began to spin, slowly returning to their neutral positions while Nyx felt a familiar aura of magic taking shape.

The nearby metal frame, which was similar in shape to the mirror that connected to the human world, began to activate. Small clear gemstones around its frame became illuminated with different hues of color. Small bolts of energy leapt between the gems, the surges happening with greater and greater frequency as the glow in the gemstones grew brighter and brighter.

As the energy leapt, a shimmering field of magic formed in the center of the frame. It started as merely a distortion of the air, like waves of heat rising on a scorching summer day. The magic field, however, grew more opaque and reflective. Within a few seconds, the field was a mirror like surface that rippled gently, distorting the reflection of the world around it in almost mesmerizing ways.

The shield was still holding, but the dampened sound of blaster fire rapidly increased in volume as soon as the mirror was aligned. The changelings were changing their targets, focusing a volley of fire against her barrier. Nyx grimaced at the patrol that had made their exit more complicated as she tapped the radio in her ear. “Celestia-Pinkie-Mountain-Celestia, do you read? This is Apple Squad. The dragon’s nest has been raided, but we’ve got fire on our flanks and are coming in hot. MAC is Apple Pinkie Rainbow Seven Eight Windigo.”

“Apple Squad, this is Celestia-Pinkie-Mountain-Celestia. Code confirmed. The way is clear and the last dance of the Fall Formal has begun. Better mosey,” a voice replied over the radio.

“You heard her, move!” Nyx bellowed as she walked her barrier closer to the mirror. Feather went through first with Chrysalis. Ri-Ja-Li followed quickly after. Nyx remained, holding up her barrier as Crestwind and Adrian retreated to her position. Adrian limped towards Nyx's barrier, his stunned leg dragging along behind him. Once safe, Crestwind reached out and pulled him along with her as she leapt through the mirror.

Nyx’s barrier was just starting to crack when she jumped through the mirror herself, her body slipping through the field of reflective magic. Her body was wrapped in a sensation like she had just fallen into cold syrup. She was unable to move, unable to breathe, and almost unable to think as the mirror’s ancient magics whisked her away.

Warmth and the freedom to move returned to Nyx when she popped out the other side of the mirror. She landed, her momentum from leaping through the mirror forcing her to trot forward a few steps before she could turn around. She saw their local mirror, a significantly more elegant version of the mirror she had just leapt through. Metal was replaced with thick, opaque crystal, and instead of being in a grassy field, their home mirror was sheltered and secure within a room of the Crystal Palace.

“They’re through. Raise the barrier!” Cadance shouted above the many other voices in the room, and at her command, an almost perfectly clear magical barrier formed over the mirror surface.

“Nyx, are you okay?” The voice said again, its owner descending a set of stairs that connected the elevated command room to the actual mirror chamber. Cadance approached quickly. Her aunt’s body language made it seem like she wanted nothing more than to hug Nyx, but she restrained herself, simply standing eye to eye with her.

“Things got a little rough, but we’re okay,” Nyx said as she looked over her squad. Feather was doting over Adrian, checking on his stunned leg. Ri-Ja-Li was next in line. Nyx could only guess the chimera was waiting to complain about some scrape or bruise she got because of the teleportation jump. Crestwind was putting on a tough act, but it looked like she was favoring one of her legs. 

“What matters is we accomplished the mission.” Nyx’s gaze shifted to Chrysalis, who was being put on a stretcher. The changeling queen was surrounded by two security squads and a medical squad. Fresh sedation spells were being cast by the medics as the soldiers with blasters kept their weapons ready to fire.

“She may not be in the best of moods when she wakes up,” Cadance said as they watched the medic wheel Chrysalis away. “I still think we should have waited for her to reply.”

“She’s ignored it for a week, and we can’t wait any longer.” When Chrysalis disappeared from view down the hall towards the quarantine room, Nyx looked to Cadance. “This time, there will be no bargaining, no lies, and no agendas. Is everything ready?”

“The science and magic staff believe everything is ready, but we’ve never used this on a changeling before. We might not get anything. Worse, we could end up killing her.” Cadance sighed, bring a hoof to her face and rubbing her nose. “I can’t believe I just said that and meant it.”

“I know our friends are few and far between right now, but today, this ‘frenemy’ is more enemy than friend,” Nyx said as she took a step to leave. “I’ll go supervise things and then call you and Spike when we’re ready.”

“We can’t magically sedate her for any longer without putting her health at risk. She is going to start waking up in a few minutes.”

“Then when she starts to open her eyes, knock her out with drugs or a hammer. I need more time,” Nyx said, her voice cracking like a whip. Creatures bustled around her, technicians intermixed with magic users. Technical consoles beeped, indicating even the tiniest fluctuations in the spells. The unicorn, zebra, and other magically talented species in the room were providing simple, raw energy. Even Spike stood amongst the others, his four claws planted firmly as his barreled chest worked as a tireless furnace. He kept up a constant stream of fire, providing the largest contribution of magic to the spell.

In the center of it all was Chrysalis. She was held suspended in the complex magics of the chamber. She bobbed as if floating in the gentle, rocking currents of the ocean, and at first glance appeared to be surrounded by jellyfish. Amorphous blobs of color grew and bubbled from Chrysalis' eyes and ears, forming a gently turning kaleidoscope of colors. 

The swarm was being picked apart by Nyx and Cadance. The pair was sitting on clouds, at an even elevation with Chrysalis. From their cumulus cushions, they used their magic to pull and tug on the blobs of color, drawing them close and forcing them into focus. They were searching Chrysalis’ mind, delving into her intellect and memories to find the information they sought.

For a creature as old as Chrysalis, it was like trying to find a few key paragraphs in the vastness of the Crystal Empire’s library after it had been hit by a tornado full of razor blades.

Nyx rubbed her face as she pushed a blob back into the swirling vortex. Her exhaustion was written into her bleary, bloodshot eyes. They had been at it for hours with nothing to show for their efforts. She now knew more about Chrysalis than she ever wanted to. She knew that Chrysalis knew her multiplication tables. She knew the names and faces of the most important creatures the queen had seduced or impersonated.

She saw the face of her Uncle Shining and had to dismiss it quickly back into the miasma before Cadance noticed it. She saw the day the ships came, and Chrysalis revealed herself to be but a “loyal,” terrestrial queen in a vast, space-faring empire. She saw some of their past encounters, times when they had been betrayed by Chrysalis and other times when they had saved one another.

“Nyx, I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe she doesn’t know.”

She couldn’t see her Aunt Cadance on the far side of Chrysalis’ thoughts, but Nyx glared in the correct direction. “No, she knows. She always knows. She makes it her business to know.”

“Maybe we should just try a traditional interrogation,” Cadance said, her voice weak from her own exhaustion. “You and Spike could—”

“It would take us days, maybe weeks to break Chrysalis, and by then it would be too late.” Nyx spread her right wing, flapping it a few times to push her cloud cushion around the perimeter of Chrysalis’ suspended thoughts. She rounded to the far side of the sphere, almost crashing up against Cadance’s cloud. “This is our only chance to find the Vermillion Queen.”

There was a pulse of light. Cadance and Nyx looked to the memories, seeing several fresh blobs forming from Chrysalis’ eyes and ears. Cadance glanced over at Nyx. Nyx then watched her aunt look down at the the staff of creatures that were maintaining the spell from their control consoles. “What just happened? What’s her status?”

“The queen is starting to come out of the stun spells. She’ll be conscious in under a minute.”

“Who cares,” Nyx said, standing up on her cloud. “She heard me. These memories… they are all of the Vermillion Queen.” The mind spell pulsed again, more bubbles filling the space as the other memories returned to Chrysalis’ mind through her horn.

Cadance lifted a hoof to place it on Nyx’s shoulder. “Nyx, we can’t. The spell is too invasive for a conscious mind, and she’s the only inside informant we have on the changelings. We can’t afford for her to get hurt.” Cadance looked back down at the staff below. “Begin the shutdown sequence and be ready to transfer her out of this room. She can’t wake up in here.”

“No, we’re so close!” Nyx snapped, shoving Cadance away and jumping off her cloud. She used her wings to bring herself to the very edge of the mind spell. She could feel its energy washing over her, like tendrils of spider webs that passed through her skin and clung to her mind. Still, she stayed at the edge of the spell, forcing herself ever closer. “Come on, you love-sucking cockroach. Where’s the Vermillion Queen? Where is Twilight Sparkle?”

“I see her eyes moving. She’s waking up.” One of the pegasi medical staff shouted.

“Just a few more seconds,” Nyx shouted, her eyes flitting between the thought bubbles coming from Chrysalis’ head. They were pouring out like the queen’s mind was filled with an angry boil. “Yes, that’s right, you hate my mother. You hate my family, don’t you? You probably want to kill Twilight. You’ve probably made a dozen plans of how you’d do it, even after she was captured. You’d never just let her disappear, be given to some other queen. If anyone is going to have her power, it’s you. So where is she?”

“We’re starting to get feedback. The queen’s mind is connecting to the spell. If that connection finishes, she’ll be fried.”

“Nyx, we have to kill the spell now,” Cadance shouted.

“One… more… There!” Nyx’s magic lashed out, snatching a single memory blob, one splashed with red, purple, and what looked to be galactic coordinates. “Shut it down!”

In an instant, levers were thrown, buttons were pressed, and all the creatures providing magic to the spell stopped. The bubbles of thought began to flow back into Chrysalis’ mind, fleeing like a school of fish that had been startled by a predator. Only the one Nyx grasped in her levitation magic remained, unable to escape. Nyx was staring at it, committing its every detail to memory. She began to feel the spell pulling, trying to take back the thought as well, but she held on. She could not forget. She could not let this opportunity get away.

Chrysalis was caught with a cloud, winged creatures quickly carrying her back down to the floor and placing her back on a stretcher. She was stirring, but the effects of the spell would leave her groggy and with a pounding headache. Medics and soldiers began to wheel her out, hopefully rushing her away before she could focus on her surroundings. The last memory bubble escaped Nyx’s grip, shooting back to the twisted mind it belonged to. Even as Nyx collapsed back to her cloud, she was smiling. She smiled, laying back with her hooves sticking up in the air as Cadance came in close.

“We got it,” Nyx said, grinning like a kid at Hearth’s Warming. “I know where she is.”

“I just want to go on record again that I don’t like this plan,” Rita said, Jane and Lin nodding their heads as they sat in the pilot seat. Nyx and her squad were in a small, crystalline shuttle, idling in the void of space. Nyx was in the copilot seat, her eyes focused out the window while Crestwind, Adrian, and Feather were in the back, all of them double checking their gear.

“Your protest is noted, again,” Nyx said before her ethereal mane gently tapped on her ear piece. “Celestia-Emerald, this is Snowflake One. We’re in position.”

Cadance’s voice buzzed over the radio in the small shuttle. “Roger Snowflake One. We’re all ready on our end too. Best of luck to you, and… bring her home.”

“Just make sure we have a home to come back to,” Nyx said back to her aunt before smiling a little. “And make sure the cafeteria makes hayburgers tonight. Nothing says ‘welcome home Twilight’ like a hayburger feast.”

“I’ll be sure to let the cooks know.” The small bit of levitity in Cadance’s voice faded, leaving only the strong, commanding voice that everyone in Nyx’s squad knew all too well. “The cloak is dropping in three… two… one…”

Out the front window of the shuttle, Nyx could see the blackness of space and the speckled stars warp, as if they were suddenly on the far side of a very thick lens. That lens then began to melt, leaving behind in its wake the silhouette of a ship. The entirely crystalline hull glinted in the exterior lights, and an undeniable sense of awe filled Nyx’s mind.

The Crystal Hope, once the centerpiece of the Crystal Empire, floated in space as a marvel of magic and technology. It shared its origins with the galactic mirror system, the legacy of a space-faring society that had fought and presumably been destroyed by the changelings. The Crystal Hope had also been the only thing that had saved Equestria from a similar fate when the hive ships entered the planet’s orbit for the first time.

They had spent years protecting the ship. Many lives and other ships were lost ensuring that the Crystal Hope didn’t fall. Now, they had just dropped it off in the middle of nowhere, entirely alone. It was unguarded, and from the signals it was sending out, disabled and in need of assistance.

It was like leaving a slice of cake unguarded around Celestia. Eventually, even if it was an obvious trap, someone would take the bait.

Sensors on the shuttle beeped, and after pressing a few buttons, Ri-Ja-Li grimaced before looking over at Nyx. “Well, it worked. Long range sensors are showing that the nearby hive ships just started heading our way. With their hyperdrives, they’ll be here in ten minutes.”

“Then put us in position. I want to board the Vermillion Queen’s ship within a minute of it dropping out of hyperspace. The Crystal Hope’s shields will only hold for so long. Every second counts.” Nyx turned in her seat, looking back at Adrian, Crestwind, and Feather. “Secure our landing port and make sure Ri-Ja-Li has a console to work with. Lethal force is authorized. Once I have our target, I’ll teleport back to the ship with her. Understood?”

Everyone nodded their heads, and Nyx returned the nod before looking back out the front window. It was the calm before the storm, the moment’s peace before they would be leaping back into battle. Nyx, however, felt no nerves or fear. Her heart was steeled with determination, and a few whispered words escaped her lips.

“I’m coming to get you, Mom.”