Strange Bedfellows

by BRBrony9

Seeking The Truth

Twilight had, once again, done as Princess Celestia had commanded. She had returned underground, to calm the civilians, or at least that was the theory. Exactly how calm they could truly be when the city was still in mortal peril was questionable at best. Many of the foals were openly terrified even though the immediate danger had passed; the catacombs were full of sobs and tears. Twilight knew she was not the best pony for the job, despite what Celestia had said, but she knew that she had the right ponies around her.

Over there, Pinkie Pie was playing with a group of foals, bouncing balls with her tail and making them giggle with funny faces and jokes. Applejack was leading a singalong as she strummed on a banjo that somepony had found from Celestia-knows-where among the ruins of the city or in the subterranean stores. Fluttershy was acting as a kind of therapist, speaking soothingly and calmly to a few ponies with rattled nerves, overcoming her own fears to help others. Rainbow Dash was telling some rousing war stories to those ponies who resented crouching in a damp hole and would rather have been above ground and taking the fight to the enemy. Rarity was making the rounds, handing out rations and even some flowers she must have picked before the civilians had been forced underground again. And Twilight? Twilight just stood around watching them do what they did best. She couldn't think of how she herself could help out in such a way. Yes, she was respected, she was sure. Ponies would listen if she told them to do something. But did they really relate to her? Could she get in their heads in a positive way and allay their fears the way her friends were doing?

She didn't think so. It just wasn't in her nature. Even after several years living in Ponyville and learning all about friendship, she still found that it did not come naturally for her. She could do it, yes, but only by thinking directly about it; not exactly forcing herself, but making a conscious effort. She could see the benefits, and that was what her time in Ponyville had taught her, but taking advantage of them was still something that she had to think about, to let herself get outside of her comfort zone. Normally she could immerse herself in her research, in her books or her telescope or any number of experiments, and distract herself from her surroundings for a while whenever she felt like she would be overwhelmed emotionally by the effort of trying to form or maintain friendships. But not any longer, not at the present time. Her works and books were all gone, along with the library itself, her home. She wanted to be doing something active, to be taking part in the defence of the city, to be truly helping out. But Princess Celestia had decreed otherwise, told her that she had responsibilities below ground, rather than above, and that was what she would stick with, no matter what her own head told her.

Your potential is limitless. You should be doing more than foalsitting.

That may have been true, but it didn't make her feel any better about herself, or about her capture. She didn't know if that was why Celestia had relegated her to helping out in the underground and not fighting on the frontline. At the very least it had to be related to the loss of her Element, which rendered the whole system useless. But, she reminded herself, I can still fight. That was nothing short of the truth, and she didn't know why Celestia would not let her anymore. She had been happy for Twilight and her friends to take the lead against Discord, against Nightmare Moon, Sombra...albeit with the Elements as a backup in most cases of it should be needed, but they had also fought any number of other threats that would not require the Elements to defeat, but which could be just as deadly. These enemy infantry and aircraft certainly fit into that category. So why the reluctance to let Twilight fight?

Is Celestia afraid for your safety? Or does she fear letting you fight for some other reason?

She didn't know, but she wanted to find out. She was determined, and so she left Applejack and Rarity, Rainbow and Pinkie, Fluttershy and Spike, and headed up the stairs to the surface again. The guards let her past; Celestia had not confined her to the catacombs in a literal sense, and she was still free to move around the palace grounds. No doubt her friends would be also, though they had remained below tending to the civilians since the attack unfolded and had not ventured out.

The palace grounds had been cleared of bodies. Where they had been carted off to, Twilight could only guess. The smouldering wreckage of several Chaos landing craft lay in the rear of the building, among the gardens Celestia had long cherished as a prize part of the palace, and of the city itself. She had ordered their construction countless moons ago, and while they were still mostly intact, there were sections that were severely damaged, with burnt foliage, holes in the lawns and shattered statues and trees. There was bullet and shell damage to the walls of the building, yet more shattered windows and bloodstains. Most of the damage which had been repaired from previous attacks had been re-inflicted with a vengeance, and areas previously unharmed had suffered at the hands of the enemy.

Twilight headed inside the palace., working her way through the throngs of guardsponies and palace staff who were trying their best to restore order and carry out Celestia's orders. She made her way to the throne room, where she had seen Celestia earlier that day. Now, however, she found the elder Princess was absent, and her younger sister was there in her stead.

'Princess Luna!' Twilight trotted in, and Luna waved the guards away with a hoof, allowing Twilight to approach the throne where she sat.

'Twilight Sparkle,' she greeted her. 'How are conditions in the catacombs?'

'They are...fine, I suppose,' Twilight replied. 'As fine as they can be, given the circumstances. I guess ponies are kind of getting used to all this kind of thing.'

'It is a sad day when this kind of suffering becomes the norm in Equestria,' Luna pointed out with a weary frown. 'We must seek to return to the times we knew before, the times of peace that my sister fought so hard to achieve, and for so long to maintain.'

Twilight nodded. She certainly agreed with Luna on that point. Most of the threats she and the other Elements had fought had been dealt with in relatively short order; days, at most. Even Sombra's occupation of the Crystal Empire had only lasted a couple of weeks before he had been killed. This invasion had been going on for months. Twilight wasn't even sure exactly how long; she had lost count. To find another event of greater duration in Equestrian history, one would have to go back to before Celestia's reign, to when Discord had been the ruler of the land. The turmoil created then was matched only by this current madness.

'I hope we can, Princess,' Twilight spoke. 'I truly do...but I don't know how we will be able to. I don't know if we can defeat these enemies.'

'These enemies are no different to any we have faced before,' Luna replied. 'They are a threat to Equestria and its citizens, and they must be destroyed or forced to flee. There can be no doubt about that, and no room exists for an alternative solution. Diplomacy is not an option with these Chaos fanatics, nor with Queen Chrysalis, not any longer.'

'Were there negotiations with her before?' Twilight asked. Chrysalis had said as much when she had Twilight prisoner, but Twilight took everything the Queen had said with a hefty pinch of salt.

'There were, years ago,' Luna confirmed. 'My sister tried to negotiate with her, but no agreement could be reached. The Changelings are a ravenous species and they were more than willing to take without permission, not just love energy but material goods as well. Whatever they needed to sustain themselves, they would steal from us.'

Twilight did not want to repeat the side of the story she had heard from the Queen; that Celestia had ended negotiations because she feared Chrysalis and the potential threat she posed to her own power base. But the fact that Luna had confirmed that such negotiations did indeed occur planted just that small seed of doubt in Twilight's mind about how much of Chrysalis's diatribe may have actually been true. If that small fact was correct, why not the rest of it? Perhaps her statement had been the true nature of events. Twilight did not know, but it was one more thing that she could, though most likely would not dare, to ask Celestia about.

'I suppose that they are not that different to these Chaos humans, then,' Twilight pondered. 'Where is Princess Celestia?' she asked after a moment. 'I was hoping to speak with her about something.'

'My sister is occupied at the present time,' Luna replied. 'Some pressing business...she received a communique from the Imperial fleet.'

The bridge, as Lord-Admiral Marcos had feared, had become a morgue, with the bodies of a few of his senior staff and many armsmen now piled willy-nilly in a corner, with no thought or care for their dignity. Blood splatters, some an unearthly green but mostly the familiar shades of red, dotted the deck and the command consoles, some of which had been smashed and shattered by gunfire. There were numerous other survivors, which was some comfort, including most of the bridge officers. They were alive, but bloodied and bowed, kneeling near his command lectern, with Changeling drones guarding them with menacing expressions and lowered horns, aimed as though they were rifles.

Marcos had no idea if the distress call from the bridge had made it through, nor did he know the state of his ship. Fighting might still be ongoing, or it might have ceased already. The vital sectors could all be under Changeling control, or they might still be in the hands of the crew, depriving Queen Chrysalis of the victory she sought. The Queen herself had marched him out onto the bridge, and now two of her drones forced him to kneel near to the other captives. Their hands were not bound, but their weapons had been stripped from them. The survivors had glanced at their Admiral, hoping for ideas, for inspiration, for some solution to their predicament and a way off of the bridge. But Marcos had nothing. Kneeling with the others for some time, he then found himself in shadow, and looked up.

Chrysalis stood in front of him. She was surprisingly intimidating, despite her relatively slender appearance. Her body was thin and her legs shared the same disconcerting holes that the drones possessed. Her horn, however, was much larger than that of the drones, some four or five times as long and sharply crooked, as opposed to the smooth curve of her underlings. It was far larger than any of the pony horns, too, with the exception of Princess Celestia. Marcos recalled her horn being roughly the same size, and therein lay a possible connection theorised by the Magi of the Mechanicus aboard the Ferrus Terra; the logical conclusion, they had deduced, was that the size of the horn directly corresponded to either the amount of magical potential a creature possessed, or the actual amount of power or energy they held within themselves, manifesting as the unknown particle they had detected since arriving in the system. It seemed to fit, certainly; both Chrysalis and Celestia, as well as Luna, who Marcos had not met in person, were known to possess horns much larger than that of their followers, and they were the three creatures who had displayed extreme levels of magical power so far, during their battle near the volcano Hive and, in Celestia's case, in controlling the system's star through means that completely escaped his understanding, and had seemingly stumped the Magi as well.

'My, my, an Admiral without a fleet at his command,' Chrysalis addressed Marcos directly, a smug smirk on her face as her tongue flicked across her lips. 'An Admiral whose flagship has fallen to the enemy, an enemy he perhaps did not even realise was present until it was too late.'

'What do you want with my ship?' Marcos growled at her. if she were anything like Celestia, he thought, then it was possible she could be reasoned with, though how likely that was he did not know.

'Quite simply, Admiral, I need it,' Chrysalis replied. 'My other ship would not be large enough for all of my...new children.'

'Other ship?' Marcos narrowed his eyes. 'What other ship?' He feared that he might already know the answer. Chrysalis did not even move, not even blinking, and one of her drones scurried over to the vox console, using its magic to manipulate the controls. The active vox tone played, and Chrysalis spoke.

'Calling the Polaris Maxima. This is your Queen. Respond.'

Rather than the voice of Captain Danrich that Marcos would expect, indeed had heard for himself not so long ago, there was a chittering sound, vocal hisses and screeches that, while untranslatable, certainly sounded to Marcos like sounds of happiness. They were the same sounds the drones on the bridge had made when he had been dragged out of the ready room, to be displayed like some prize pig for them to gloat over. It seemed that the Polaris Maxima was no longer an Imperial vessel, either, a fact that caused Marcos pain, and Chrysalis undisguised joy.

'Do not be sad, Admiral! You still have all those other ships out there that will follow your orders without question,' Chrysalis pointed out. 'Or rather...they will follow my orders.' Her horn flashed for a moment, making Marcos wince, and then there was no horn anymore. Nor was there any Chrysalis. Instead, he was looking in a mirror. He was looking at Lord-Admiral Arlen Marcos, commander of the Western Fringe Crusade, hero of Tarffan IX and lifelong Navy man. For that was what he saw before him; an identical copy of himself, with the same haircut, the same uniform, the same medals. The only thing that was different was the expression he wore; not a glare of anger, but the same insufferable smirk that the Queen had worn until a moment earlier. Then, there she was again, after another brief flash of magic. 'In fact, they have already carried out my commands. Those troop transports you ordered into close proximity in order to deliver reinforcements? They have already turned back. You will not be getting any help from your fleet, Admiral, I am afraid. This ship is mine now.'

'Why?' Marcos asked. 'What the hell do you want with this ship? Are you not content with trying to overthrow the Princess? Is she not your real enemy?'

'Why yes, she is,' Chrysalis replied, with a little flutter of her insectlike wings. 'But the arrival of your fleet gave me pause for thought, for it taught me that there is so much more than just Equestria that I can conquer. There is an entire galaxy out there, just waiting! Think of all the love...' Her wings flittered again. 'So many creatures with love for themselves, for each other, for their gods and masters and lords, for life itself...' Chrysalis noticed Marcos's expression and chuckled. 'You see, Admiral. You may not have believed it when you were told this, but we Changelings truly do feed on the emotion you and I both call love. Not romantic love, at least not exclusively. Love in its broadest sense, agape as well as eros, platonic...every possible form of it you could imagine, Admiral. There are several million creatures on our planet, but from what I understand, there are trillions...more than trillions. An almost infinite supply of creatures out there among the stars, both human and otherwise, who all exhibit some form of the emotion...even if it is simply an Ork Mek's love of speed...'

She paused for a moment to savour Marcos's expression again. 'Yes, Admiral. I know about the Orks. I know about the Necrons and the Tau and the Eldar, and of the Tyranids...who I must say, I do feel some affinity with. You see, when I, or one of my drones, come into direct contact with a human, we are able to impersonate them perfectly, but physical contact with them means that we also absorb their knowledge. You can see how such a trait is...desirable.' She smirked and her tongue played across her lips once more.

'So you want to conquer the universe, is that it?' Marcos replied derisively. 'Better creatures than you have tried, and failed. The Milky Way is a vast place, filled with horrors.'

'Then it sounds very much like Equestria, only considerably larger,' Chrysalis commented. 'I have no doubt that there have been attempts to conquer the entirety of the galaxy before. Indeed, your own Emperor tried and failed, did he not?' That comment drew a frown from Marcos and the other prisoners, and elicited a chuckle from Chrysalis. 'Even he could not overcome the odds stacked against him.'

'You could not even conquer Equestria,' Marcos spat. 'What makes you think you can conquer the galaxy? Even delusions of grandeur have their limits before you become something to be pitied, not feared.'

'Perhaps I cannot,' Chrysalis replied. 'But consider, Admiral, if you will. Every creature that loves is a source of energy for me and for my children. The more creatures we have access to, the more love we can siphon. The more love we can siphon, the stronger we become; the stronger I become, and the more drones we can spawn. There are only so many creatures on our planet, thus there is a limit to my power. Out there in the rest of the galaxy, though?' She licked her lips. 'Unlimited power awaits. One only has to get there to exploit it, and that, Admiral, is why I need your ship.'

Marcos did not want to dismiss her out of hand. It might sound like an insane plan, but she had come this far, hadn't she? Somehow she now possessed at least two Imperial warships, a fair chunk of the surviving combat elements of the Crusade fleet. 'You know you'll never succeed in such a plan. Why not content yourself with destroying your rivals and ruling this planet?' he asked her.

'Small minds, Admiral, small minds,' she tutted. 'I shall indeed destroy my enemies, using your ship to do it. But that is only the beginning, you see. One must truly dream big to achieve that which is their ultimate destiny, no? It seems your ultimate destiny was to lead this fleet to its death and destruction. What a sad end to a proud career.' Chrysalis chuckled, seemingly a common trait of hers.

'Spare me your patronising tales,' Marcos grunted. 'Why have you not simply killed us all and moved on to your next target?'

'Well, you see Admiral, I do like to gloat,' Chrysalis replied. 'Some may call it a character flaw of mine...I am sure Princess Celestia would. Now, speaking of Celestia, that is most interesting...I believe you have met her in person, hm?'

'Yes. What of it?' Marcos questioned.

'Oh, nothing. I just found it interesting. How do I compare with her in your estimations, Admiral?' Chrysalis asked with a smirk.

'Well, she did not try to take my ship from me when she came aboard, so I would say that puts her rather higher than yourself in my mind,' he replied. Far from the expected annoyed look, Chrysalis just laughed once more.

'I had thought a representative of the mighty Imperium might have respected power and aggression over diplomacy, at least from what I understand of your kind,' she pointed out. She was interrupted, however, by a sudden beeping from a console. Immediately she teleported to it, and began to hiss angrily. A moment later, Marcos knew why. Though he could not see the console, he could see out of the viewscreens.

Lancing out across space, great flaming beams of energy were cutting through the void. He recognised them at once; it seemed the Princess was busy once more. Chrysalis watched with anger until she realised that the beams were not targeting the Emperor's Judgement, or indeed any of the Imperial ships. They were racing toward the planet.

'Well, well. Is this the Princesses' doing?' Chrysalis asked, rounding on Marcos. When she had touched him she had absorbed his memories of the assistance Celestia had given his fleet, and now she was seeking the confirmation that her rival was acting out again, for some purpose or another.

'I do not know,' Marcos replied truthfully, though it certainly seemed like it was the handiwork of Celestia. After all, what other force could possibly cause the same dramatic and impossible spontaneous release of so much energy from a celestial body?

Chrysalis returned her attention to the console and the viewscreen. The beams were on course for the planet, and more specifically, the Chaos ships in orbit around it. Alerted by their sensors, the ships tried to maneuver, jets flaring against the backdrop of space, silently pushing the huge craft forward or astern, anything to get out of the line of fire. But the speed of the energy blasts was tremendous, and Marcos was sure they were moving considerably faster than during the last attack. The blinding flash as each one crossed his vision made him wince, and he turned his attention to the planet on the viewscreen. Chrysalis, or one of her minions, who had evidently inherited the technical knowledge of one of the bridge crew, brought the screen to maximum zoom, so that the outlines of the enemy ships could just about be discerned against the blue and white backdrop of the planet.

Marcos watched in confusion as the first of the ships exploded well before the first beam seemed to reach it. A brilliant flash marked the end of a Chaos cruiser, There was a second flash, and another ship died, then another. Only then did the beams of energy seem to reach them, and only then did Marcos realise that they must be traveling faster than the speed of light. They had not moved that fast during the previous attack, or the demonstration- but that was a display of brilliance by Celestia, he realised. The planet was far enough away that too much warning would give the Chaos ships time to move clear and avoid the attacks. The electromagnetic emissions profile from the star would match that of the previous solar attack and would alert them to the potential danger, which had wiped out their comrades, but the strikes would arrive much faster than any which had been delivered before, and leave the Chaos forces no chance to maneuver to safety. The attacks were precise, accurate, even over such a vast distance, millions of miles. To be accurate enough to hit a target a couple of miles in length at such a distance was almost impossible except for the most advanced targeting cogitators. The target area would have been some tiny fraction of a milliradian, and any miss would likely strike the planet and cause destruction. That, Marcos knew, was why Celestia had been reluctant to destroy the remains of the Chaos fleet earlier. Yet now she was doing exactly that. He did not know why, though it pleased him greatly to see Chaos ships fall and burst into plumes of venting plasma and atmospheric gas.

Chrysalis, too, seemed pleased, judging by her excited giggles as she watched the destruction unfold across the void. As the wreckage drifted, floating around the planet until their orbits decayed enough for the shattered remains of the Chaos ships to burn up in the atmosphere, Marcos felt the familiar thrum of the main drives of the Emperor's Judgement kicking into gear. Chrysalis used her magic to activate the vox net, and spoke in a disconcertingly familiar voice.

'This is Lord-Admiral Marcos to all ships. The Chaos fleet has been destroyed. Maintain formation and advance. We are returning to the planet.'

Marcos could see on the tac-map display that the fleet were complying with his- her- command, the cluster of blue icons moving toward the planet. He knew what Chrysalis had said; that she would wipe out her enemies at home before moving on among the stars. But there was nothing he could do except watch the planet draw closer, getting larger in the viewscreen.

Various alarms and alerts beeped from a number of consoles, including one particularly insistent beeping as they drew nearer to the planet and began braking procedures. The ships began to slow, including the Emperor's Judgement. The fleet moved into orbit in the space occupied, until very recently, by the forces of the Archenemy, preparing to take up positions above Equestria. The vox buzzed, and Chrysalis answered in Marcos's voice.

'This is Marcos, go ahead, Captain.'

'My Lord, this is Captain Marsten,' came the reply, the voice of the Indefatigable's commanding officer. 'After interrogation, I have determined General Jahn's claims to be false. He is not a Changeling, I do not think, merely a traitor. I will return him to your vessel aboard the stolen shuttle, if you would care to prepare a welcoming party to transport him to the brig.'

'Very good, Captain. I will have a team standing by for the General,' Chrysalis replied, before signing off. Marcos did not know what the exchange was about, but his brow furrowed. General Jahn was not a traitor. He was a good man, an upstanding officer. He would not betray the ship or the Emperor. But even if he had...why would Chrysalis want him returned, and why did Marsten believe the words he had just spoken to the Queen?

Marcos did not know, and feared he may never discover the truth. He did not know why Chrysalis had not simply killed him, other than what she had said about gloating. Perhaps the Changelings wanted human slaves, or perhaps they were merely trophies to be paraded in front of countless drones before being publicly executed. Either way, Marcos could see no way out of his predicament.

Docking Bay 5A was prepared to receive an incoming shuttle. General Jahn was aboard, being returned to the Emperor's judgement for supposed trial or imprisonment. The guards all knew that Captain Marsten had apparently been duped into believing the Lord-Admiral's story, and disbelieving that of the General. So much the better, but they were ready for anything, just in case. A trick was quite likely; the Captain had seemed rather reluctant to accept the Admiral's word at first. It was possible he was sending over a combat team to try and retake the ship, or at least the security centre.

In came the shuttle, through the forcefield, settling down on its landing legs, engines shutting off with a decreasing whine. The ramp lowered, and half a dozen armsmen disembarked, meeting their opposite numbers who were guarding the docking bay and providing a prisoner escort. Where was the General? There was no sign of him coming down the ramp in shackles. The guards were wary. A trick? A trap? A bomb?

There was a subtle blurring of the air inside the docking bay, only barely perceptible and lasting for but a moment. Then, there was a blinding burst of incandescent light. The guards shielded their eyes in confusion, raising their weapons. It was most definitely a trick, flash grenades perhaps. But as their vision returned, they could see a most unexpected sight, and a most alarming one.

As one, they opened fire.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

I think Celestia might be getting a little annoyed with enemies bringing the night?

So she might have decided it was time for daybreak?

Get inside the shield, always makes things a lot easier.