For Her Mistakes

by Onomonopia

Lost in the Maze

Trixie brought the wagon to a stop just in front of the maze, looking out of the front of the wagon upon the final obstacle between her and the Changeling Empire. Ever since Batman and Morgaine had shown up in Equestria, the changelings had become much more reclusive and had increased their defenses considerably. And the only known way into the Changeling Empire was through the Crystal Maze, a place that was said to eternally damn anypony who could not find their way through.

"Alright, everypony out," Trixie said to those who inhabited her wagon, watching as both Starshine and Sombra walked out. The moment Starshine saw the massive walls of the Crystal Maze, his eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and his jaw hit the ground. Much to Trixie's surprise though, she saw that Sombra also had a similar look on his face as he stared in amazement at the crystal walls.

"They're even more glorious than I remember," Sombra muttered to himself, thinking that neither of them had heard him. But then, Trixie grabbed him with her magic and pushed him forward to the front of the maze.

"So, you've been here before. Good, then you can lead us through the maze," she instructed, but Sombra chuckled and shook his head at her as he turned his attention back to the maze.

"No, Trixie. This is an evermoving, ever evolving maze that changes everytime another pony enters into it," he explained as he placed a hoof on the outer wall, feeling the magic that flowed through it enter him. "There is no simple way through it. Either you find your way through, or you don't. Simple." Trixie frowned at his explanation, not sure if she could trust him or not. But she had little choice at this point and she had to plow ahead. So she nodded as she used her magic to pull three saddlebags out of the wagon, and floated two of them over to Starshine and Sombra.

"Alright then, if we're going through this maze, we're going to need provisions in case one or more of us gets lost," she said as she placed her own saddlebag on her body before wearing her coat over it. "There are enough supplies in there to last a pony for two days, if conserved. I'm looking at you Sombra." Sombra growled and muttered something about her being an uptight donkey, but Trixie ignored him as she walked over to Starshine and helped him place his bag on.

"I believe that's everything then," Trixie said as she shut the door to her wagon and placed her protective shielding over it, taking one last look at it before she turned to face her next obstacle. "If everypony is ready, then we shall head inside." Trixie was the first of the three to enter, but Starshine quickly followed her and Sombra entered a moment later, looking around for something as he did so. "Okay everypony, from what I read, this maze likes to cause illusions and plays tricks with your mind," she began as she walked a bit deeper into the maze. "So that means we should all stick toge...ther." Trixie's words died in her mouth as she turned around to see that Sombra and Starshine were both gone and the entrance that should had been behind her was only a wall of crystal.

'Everything hates me,' she thought to herself as she tried to cast a locater spell, only to watch the magic get eaten up by the crystal walls. 'It seems that the walls either absorb or cancel out magic, meaning I can't use my horn to get me out of this one. Looks like I'll have to rely on my wits...great.' And with that thought, she began to walk down the only path available to her.

/M\

"Hello? Trixie? Sombra?" Starshine called out into the maze, as he looked around for some sign of his teacher or the tagalong they had. But all he got in reply was the silence of the maze. He lowered his head slightly and continued to move forward, looking at the pinkish color of the wall and his reflection it showed. 'It's okay Starshine, you've been living on your own for nearly three years, you can handle being alone for a little while longer.' Even though he tried to say this with as much confidence as he could muster, he still spun around with his heart in his throat when he heard something snap behind him.

"I-is somepony there" he called out into the maze, which he was certain didn't look the same from when he had looked behind him a moment ago. Despite the crystals being bright and colorful, there were still plenty of shadows in the corners of the maze that seemed to move only when he looked at them out of the corner of his eye. Starshine swallowed his fears as best he could as he turned and continued to walk into the maze, looking from side to side when he thought he heard something. He had just about gotten his fears under control when he heard something behind him and he spun around to face it.

"W-what are you?" he stammered in fear as he saw what was behind him. It looked like Starshine, but was covered in blood, and both its eyes were missing, although that didn't stop it from looking right through him. It let out a low hiss and began to walk forward, stretching out one hoof as if to grab him.

"Go back," it whispered with a jaw that shouldn't have been able to move. Starshine slowly backed away in fear as the other him slowly dragged itself towards him. "Only death awaits you here. Go...BACK!" It lunged forward as it hissed this, but Starshine had already turned in the opposite direction and ran for his life, taking the first turn that he came across with no thought of where he was going. The sound of hooves behind him told him that the thing was still chasing him, even though he was starting to tire. But just as he felt that he couldn't run any farther, he stumbled over something and fell to the ground. He looked behind him with a groan as he got up and felt even more terror enter his heart, when he saw that it was a pile of bones from a pony. He found his second wind after that and sprinted as fast as his legs could carry him, eventually leading him to a tree of pure crystal that had been consumed by the maze long ago. He scrambled up the tree faster than an unicorn without magic should have been able to do and hid in its branches as the thing passed underneath of him.

"I will find you," it hissed as it moved down another corridor, the sound of its hooves growing softer and softer. "And you will die." Starshine wrapped his arms around his legs and pulled himself into a fetal position, trying to keep himself from whimpering.

'Trixie, where are you?'

/M\

Trixie looked into her reflection in the crystal wall, wondering which of her spells she could use to destroy the entire thing in one blast. She had been wandering around for hours and had gotten no closer to the exit now than she had twenty minutes ago.

"I swear that if I have to keep going in circles, I'm going to blow this whole place apart," she grumbled to herself, sighing in rage as she reached another dead end. She turned around and let out another sigh when she saw that the way she had come through had been closed off. Once she had turned around again, she saw that the path that had been closed off was open. 'This place is trying to lead me somewhere. But where?' she asked herself as she followed the only path that was open to her. The path led her to a wide open area with a large number of crystalized trees that looked to have always stood there. The path was long and narrow with rows of trees on either side of the road, giving her only one option to advance.

"I am really starting to hate this place," she grumbled again as she began to move forward, but became suddenly on guard as she walked because she heard a faint sound behind her. 'It has to be a threat. Starshine would have announced himself and Sombra can't keep his mouth shut long enough to be that quiet. I'll attack in three, two...' Trixie spun around and fired a bolt of magic into whatever was behind her. But much to her surprise, the creature that looked like a dark version of herself took the blast right in the chest and was launched backwards into a wall of crystal, where it shrieked as magical energy coursed through it. Its shrieks died down as the smoking corpse landed on the ground, the her image on the dark version giving way to its true identity.

"A changeling, huh?" Trixie muttered as the creature's real form revealed itself, walking over to the smoldering remains to examine it closer. It was a smaller changeling that didn't look any different than any of the others she had come across, but it was wearing a small pouch around its neck that gained Trixie's attention. She took the pouch and opened it to see a small map inside, a map that told her how the maze worked and what she needed to do to get out.

'I'll need this if I hope to find the others,' she thought to herself as she turned away from the changeling and started to head back into the maze. 'And if a changeling came for me, then I'm certain that they'll go for the others. Sombra should be able to handle himself, but I need to find Starshine now.' With that thought, she ran deeper into the maze, the map guiding her to an unknown location.

/T\

Sombra could not believe how easy it had been to lose the two fools in such a short time. The moment Trixie had taken her eyes off of him, he had shot off to a side path towards the center of the maze. Unbeknownst to either of the two ponies, he actually did know of a way to navigate the maze.

'I was telling you the truth, Trixie, there is no set path through the maze,' he thought to himself with a smirk as he headed in the direction that the crystals which were less bright led him. 'But there are hints you can use to navigate if you can see them.' The last time Sombra had been here had been in his youth, before he had truly become the wonder he was. And this was one of the many hideouts he had created all over Equestria in case he ever needed them. 'The best part is, I don't need to worry about the foal Trixie interfering either. If the past ten generations of changelings couldn't find it, then there is no way she can.'

He smiled as he exited the corridor he was in, and entered the center of the maze that was filled with floating orbs of different colors, which circled him when he entered. He growled at the colorful spheres because they reminded him of how he had failed to fully corrupt this area the last time he had been here, and how there was nothing he could do now. He ignored the spheres and focused on the insignia in the ground in front of him, closing his eyes and focusing. He might have lost his horn when he tried to re-take the Crystal Empire, but that didn't mean he was without magic.

"Awake, chamber of the past king," he spoke aloud to the ground, stepping back as the insignia in the floor began to glow and fall away into darkness, revealing a staircase that descended into the black void. He made a quick descent into his old territory, coming to a stop in front of an old, wooden door. 'Fortunately for me, I did not enchant this door or else I would not be able to get through,' he thought as he opened the door, taking in a deep breath of an old laboratory. The laboratory had not been used in years, and the chemicals on one shelf were probably toxic by now, but that was the last thing on his mind as he walked to the back where a large cabinet sat with numbers on the side, going from one to a thousand.

"Now then, which one of these was it?" he muttered to himself as he looked through the numbers, coming to a stop at fifty five and pulling out the magically shielded packet that he brought to a burnt table in the center of his room. "Let's see...grr, I don't have any of these materials to help re-forge my horn. And the only place to get some of these is in...this is going to take more time than I thought. I will have to put my horn on hold for now," he said as he picked up the packet and placed it back onto the shelf, taking out another and looking through it. "But this one...this one I can do just fine. Better head back up, Trixie will probably be hoping that I'm dead. She'll be disappointed." Sombra hid the packet in one of the saddlebags and took a number of other items that he would need for this plan before he gazed at a set of crystals that he had not seen in almost a thousand years.

"And I better takes these too, just to be safe," he muttered as he placed them in his bag before turning and heading up to the surface.

/T\

After about an hour of waiting, Starshine had finally built up enough confidence to climb out of the tree and head back into the maze. He constantly looked around for any sign of the creature as he walked, never noticing that the maze this time continued to let him go in a straight line with no deviations to his path. Starshine was just beginning to think that the creature was finally gone when he turned around again to see it standing right behind him.

"You will die," it hissed before racing towards him, to which his response was to scream and run in the opposite direction as fast as he could. But his speed meant nothing as the creature began to gain on him faster and faster until it was almost right on top of him. Once it was close enough it leapt into the air, bearing its fangs as it prepared the final strike.

"Oh no, you don't." The creature took a massive chunk of magic to the face that sent it flying into one of the walls, where it changed back into a regular changeling that sank to the ground without a sound. Starshine spun around to see Trixie standing next to him, her horn just beginning to cool down. "I'm glad I found you when I did. That changeling almost got you."

"T-that thing was a changeling?" Starshine asked as he looked at the unconscious creature that lay silently near him. "Then why did it look...so much like me?"

"Changelings are masters of manipulating their appearances to copy those of others, even if they've just seen them," Trixie explained as she pulled Starshine into a quick hug. "Now come on, we need to go find-"

"Don't get your mane in a knot, I'm here," Sombra said as he walked up behind the two of them, causing Starshine to scream and jump behind Trixie. "And it took the two of you long enough, I've been here for a while." Trixie opened her mouth to say something, but then she looked at his bag which was stuffed with crystals.

"What?"

"Nothing," she muttered as she pulled out the map and turned towards where the exit was supposed to be. "Let's just get out of here, I don't want to spend anymore time in this maze." Trixie led the group as they headed towards the exit, with the maze no longer playing any tricks on them as they walked forward, something she noticed. A thin smile crossed her face as she saw the exit in front of her at the end of a very large pathway. The group had just reached the end of the path when a light flashed in the distance and struck Trixie in the chest. She barely had the time to register that she had been hit before the stunning spell had taken effect and she fell to the ground. Starshine was about to run over to her before he too was struck by the spell and collapsed. In the brief seconds he had before he too was struck, Sombra tore off his bag and chucked it behind a crystalized bush, hoping that whoever was shooting at them didn't see him do that before he too collapsed.

/T\

The moment she was awake, Trixie shot up off of the stone floor where she found herself and looked around, her magic at the ready. But she quickly found, to her dismay, was that her magic was not responding and she was trapped within the confines of a prison, with two large changelings standing outside of her cell. She looked through the bars to the cell next to her to see Starshine, letting out a sigh of relief when she saw that he was breathing.

"Still no concern for me, eh?" Sombra asked as she turned to see him standing next to his bars in the other cell. "In fact, I think that you should be showing some more concern in general. We aren't exactly in the best of places."

"And just how do you know where we are?" Trixie asked him as he looked at the two changelings guarding them, who glared at him with unfriendly eyes.

"Let's just say this isn't my first time in this dungeon," Sombra said with a hint of fear as he tested the strength of the bars, cursing to himself as they held strong. "And if we are in the dungeon I think we are, we can expect to see some royalty soon." Trixie frowned as she looked over to Starshine, who had just begun to stir. She told him what she knew, once he was up, and he looked at the guards with a similar fear that Sombra had shown, making Trixie feel uneasy. She looked around the room to see their bags laying on a table, but she didn't see Sombra's missing bag.

"So, why can't I use my magic?" Trixie whispered to Sombra as the guards began to speak amongst themselves.

"The changelings have a spell that can cancel out unicorn magic for a while," Sombra said as he began to pace in his cell, wondering to himself if he should use the magic he had, or if the situation wasn't at the level of desperation yet. His confidence did fade away a bit as the two guards left, leaving the prisoners alone in the room.

"Something's up, no guard would ever leave prisoners like us alone," Trixie muttered aloud, Sombra nodding in agreement. The guards came back a moment later; this time there were small smiles on their faces as they looked at the three.

"The three of you are very lucky. You'll get to see the queen." Trixie swore that she heard Sombra gulp from the other cell, as the guards opened the door to their cells with spears pointed at their throats, while they were shuffled out of the room and marched down a long black hallway into the center of the changeling castle. Starshine huddled as close to Trixie as he could while Sombra did his best not to run at the first chance he had. Trixie, on the other hoof, noticed that it wasn't just guards that occupied the castle, but also a number of smaller changelings that she assumed were foal age running around as well.

'I wonder if they are the children of the queen,' Trixie asked as she kept walking. Eventually they reached the doors to the throne room, and the only reason she knew this was that the security was tripled around this door. 'So this is it. I'm finally going to meet the queen, huh?' The doors swung open and the guards pushed the three inside before swinging the door shut behind them. As Trixie looked up, she got a quick glimpse of the room where they were trapped. It was filled with portraits of past rulers and a massive green, stained glass window behind the throne. But what gained her attention the most was the figure that was sitting atop the throne, looking down on them.

"Chrysalis," Trixie muttered to herself, looking at the ruler, until she realized that the ruler was not looking at her or Starshine, but the pony behind them who was avoiding her gaze.

"Well, hello there, Sombra," she said in a sweet tone with venom underneath of it.

"Hello, Chrysalis," Sombra responded with a hint of fear.

Comments

[Jlargent]

The one thing Sombra fears more than anything...His ex-girlfriend.

[Uzume Tennouboshi]

Damn, if even Sombra is scared of Chrysalis, you know that the feces have just hit the bladed rotating air circulation device.

[Magenta Cat]

3867872
Hey, that's actually very funny.

And for the author, good chapter.

[Kenshinryuu]

SOMBRA IS CHRYSALIS AND TRIXIE'S BITCH!!!! I can seriously see both of them smacking him around magically a bit while they talk. I can also see Starshine befriending a young changeling and that changeling coming with them, bonus points if it was Chrysalis's daughter.

[Scarheart]

Give him hell, Chryssie!

[FleetlordAvatar]

3867872 Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Dragon363]

I have a thought Queen chrysalis is Sombras Ex Marefriend

[Mr-Astounding]

Achievement earned: A-MAZE-ing, isn't it? (make it through the labyrinth)

[Mr-Astounding]

7243276 possible "game over" scene:
random Changeling: You might have dabbled in trickery, but WE practically invented it!