The Last Changeling Queen

by Atuhor Name

CH. 10 Shatter The Sun

Canterlot was in chaos. Not the fun type of chaos that Discord wrought: nothing so reversible, or enjoyable to the correct tastes (Discord’s tastes, specifically). No, this was a mass panic.

Ponies are naturally skittish creatures, as anybody who has ever tried to train them for the armed forces will tell you. They don’t react well to “unnatural” things. Sure, they’ll be fine if the weather ponies make a cloud delivery a day late, or if the sun rises ten minutes later than expected. In their world, that was normal, explainable, and fundamentally agreed upon as “Somepony else’s problem.”

The moon turning blood red and remaining up at all hours of the day was about as far from “Somepony else’s problem.” as was possible to get. It was out of the ordinary, and altogether too similar to eternal night for rumors of Nightmare Moon not to simply materialize out of thin air. The rumor mill barely had the time to make a full turn around Canterlot arriving at "Twilight Sparkle was possessed by Nightmare Moon and going to bring about eternal winter" before the city fell under attack.

Even now, the streets flowed with panic as living nightmares grew. The first day, they were small; nothing more than unpleasantly squiggly things that scuttled about in a highly disconcerting manner, having the singularly insect-like ability to seemingly phase through walls and into places you would not expect to see them. But, as the blood moon grew stronger, so did they. Feeding from an unknown source, they could no longer simply be erased by chucking them into the light of Celestia’s sun.

Now, Celestia led a contingent of royal guards, and even a few enterprising unicorns, in an attempt to clear out the as-yet-unexplained menace.

Cutting off the magic to her horn, Celestia left another emptied-out house. Already, fatigue was beginning to show through her normally stoic demeanor. It was fortunate that these monsters could still be killed by a powerful enough illumination spell, but what worried Celestia was that she hadn’t seen two alike yet. Her and the guard had purged nearly a quarter of the city already, and every one of them had wildly different descriptions of every one.

And they were getting larger, requiring steadily stronger spells to destroy.

As Celestia finally reached the front door, she was assaulted by the sound of wood splintering. A royal guard was thrown through a door directly across the street. Just barely managing to catch the guard in time, Celestia stopped to watch the monstrosity that launched him attempt to squeeze itself through the door.

If you could cross a crab, a spider, and an octopus, you might have an analogue for the chitinous sucker-armed creature attempting to fold itself up through the doorway. It did not have tentacles, merely extremely large suckers, like fingers on the ends of its spiky appendages. Their use could only be guessed at, as it used them to drag two motionless guards face-first. On its back, seemingly placed at random, were horrible... orifices, that seemed to be emitting spores into the air. It had eyes, but they weren’t covered by anything. The exposed flesh simply contracted around them as it stared Celestia down always keeping more than two eyes open.

Celestia began charging her horn with the power of the sun.

The creature attempted to scuttle out of her sight, but only managed to wedge itself into the door frame, cracking it with its chitinous shell. A flash of light, and the creature was gone, leaving nothing but an unpleasant feeling in the air, as if unease could be coalesced into a stench.

Rushing over to the guards, Celestia found all three of them to be entirely alive, but asleep. So deeply asleep, in fact, that Celestia could not wake them up, despite the wildly apparent and highly unpleasant nature of their dreams. This was clearly beyond Celestia’s domain. She would have to call in Luna, and send Shining and Cadance after Twilight instead.

That meant leaving the city without the protection of Shining’s shield spell. Celestia tried to think of a positive side to this, as she began casting her spell to communicate with Luna. The best she could think of was that the guard would be at full strength, rather than spread thin on shifts, reinforcing Shining’s shield while they were being attacked from within.

For the second time, Luna declined visual contact through their communication spell. Celestia didn’t pay it any mind; the spell was infallible.

The first thing Celestia heard from the other end was rushing wind as if Luna was very high up somewhere.

“Yes, sister? It is not entirely a good time at the moment.” Luna said curtly.

“Really? What's happening on your end?”

“I have to decide how much trouble the thestrals are in right now.”

“Really… So you actually know what has happened to them? Enlighten me. For all I know, they just up and left, all at once.”

“Somehow, they detected Nightmare Moon’s return, and collected me to make sure I wasn’t under her influence. Right now, I’m heading on my way to the Everfree to hopefully find Twilight.”

“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you to head back to Canterlot. We’ve got a situation, involving living physical nightmares, that I absolutely need your help with.”

“What!?” Luna sounded as if somebody had just slapped her with a fish.

“Manifested Nightmares are attacking Canterlot. I need you back here to see if you can deal with this any better than we can.”

“But who is going to find Twilight then?”

“I’m sending Cadance and Shining Armor after them.”

“Alone?”

“We can’t spare anypony to go with them.”

There was nothing but the sound of wind for a long moment. Then Luna spoke.

“Send the changelings.”

“Luna, you can’t be serious!”

“I’m deathly serious, Celestia. Shining and Cadance can’t find her alone, and you need all the help you can get.” Luna laughed, “Besides, you know the phrase, ‘set a thief...’ “

"I don't know, Lulu." Celestia said, actively searching for a reason to say no.

"You said last time that you had proved Twilight’s innocence, I’m assuming for now that means you’ve verified her story, and thus vindicated the changeling queen Naudia. Am I wrong about that?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, but you’re more or less correct.”

“Then we have a bargaining chip with the changelings and, more importantly, a reason to put aside our grudges against them in the face of a greater danger.”

“But-”

“But nothing, Celestia. You of all ponies should realize that Equestria comes before any of your misgivings, and if Canterlot is still standing tomorrow, then we’ll have a chance to discuss whether or not this is the right decision.”

Celestia grumbled, but could not articulate a definite counterpoint for this argument at that moment.

“I expect every able-bodied changeling to be mobilized by the time I get there. I should be in Canterlot within two hours.”

----------------

“I’M GOING TO BE WORKING WITH WHAT!?” Shining and Cadance shouted in unison.

“You are going to be working with changelings to find Twilight as quickly as possible and bring her back here.” Celestia said, possibly with even more misgivings than the royal couple.

“But Celestia! You can’t possibly think this could be a good idea!” Cadance pleaded.

“I don’t. But with the city in the shape that it is, my hooves are tied. The changelings can probably find their queen better than any of us, and Twilight was willing to talk to you. You have to work with the changelings to find them.”

“Why can’t you go, Celestia?”

Celestia’s stoic mask fell for a second, as a pained look forced its way through.

“She won’t listen to me right now, whatever I say. If I was the pony to go and find her right now, I would only do more harm than good.”

The incredulous looks on their faces told Celestia that they were nowhere near convinced, let alone happy with their situation.

“I could go, and scare off what little hope we have of resolving this with the Elements quickly, or I could send Luna, and risk Canterlot being overrun before she gets back. Or, I could send you two, who Twilight might actually talk to and believe. I’m certain neither of you are happy about this situation, but it’s not about that right now. It’s about Equestria, and what it needs, rather than what you want. As leaders, it is your job to put aside your differences, so that if there is a tomorrow, you can resolve them at all.”

“Something you could have learned earlier, Celestia.” Shining let out of his mouth, before slapping his hooves up to his face, as if trying to pull it back in.

Another twinge of emotion passed through Celestia’s iron grip, this time profound regret.

“Yes... I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to make it up to Twilight.”

Silence intruded on the conversation. It lasted for a while, until something occurred to Cadance.

“If we’re going to do this, then I need you to write up a full pardon for Twilight and Naudia.”

“Is that... completely necessary?” Celestia’s expression turned sour.

“Yes. With the connection I felt on Twilight, I know they are quite attached. Twilight won’t come if she can’t bring Naudia with her. Besides, you know what a stickler for paperwork she is.”

This was something Celestia very much wanted to argue against, and even spent a second or two attempting to think of an objection. In the end, it boiled down to cutie marks, and trusting Cadance. Celestia silently pulled a quill and parchment out with her magic, and wrote out a quick, almost clause-less pardon, before sealing it up with her seal in a golden light and silently giving it to Cadance.

“I... I think we should get going, then.” Cadance said, taking what seemed at the time like the only way out of this conversation.

As they walked away from Celestia, Shining nudged Cadance and whispered:

“Why’d we walk away like that? You know that means we’re going to have to be working with changelings, right?”

“Yes, but this is for Twilight, and to a lesser extent, Celestia. You could see how badly she was hurting. And you didn’t help much with that comment of yours.”

“Well… you know how heated I can get when it comes to my sister.” Shining’s ears folded down in shame when Cadance shot him a glare. “All right. I should have been more considerate. But still, you know what she did to Twilight.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. But a national emergency is not the time to bring up your grievances to the ruler of a nation.”

Eventually, they made it outside of Canterlot and to the changeling prison camp, to find it disturbingly quiet.

There were no changelings wandering about, nor were there any changelings in the first two dormitories they checked out. The lights were still on everywhere, but the buildings themselves were suspiciously empty. By the time they checked building number four, even Cadance was beginning to suspect the changelings had escaped on their own, despite the guard at the gate’s assertion that they hadn’t.

The fifth dormitory, the largest, was suspiciously quiet and dark. Sheets had been put up over the windows and not a hint of light shined from within.

Opening the door, letting the reddish midday moonlight in, revealed a mass of changelings. They did not skitter away from the light like insects, nor did they shy away from the Alicorn of Love and Prince of the Crystal Empire. Instead, every changeling in the room immediately turned and stared at them.

The room was packed with changelings. Every square foot of floor was packed with changelings, every wall was almost completely obfuscated by changelings hanging on. They even hung down from the ceiling, filling every possible place with either a changeling or an injured changeling in a hammock, so that seemingly, they all could fit inside this one building. Every one of them was staring at Shining and Cadance.

Both of them flinched back at the sudden gout of attention from hundreds of pupil-less eyes. Using her last bit of courage, and likely undoing months of therapy, Cadance spoke up:

“Who is in charge here?” Her voice displayed far more gumption than she felt as everybody in the room turned ever so slightly to look specifically at her.

“I am.” A changeling in armor skittered across the ceiling and then dropped in front of Cadance without hesitation, in a manner clearly meant to intimidate.

“We’re going to need your help finding Twilight Sparkle and your queen.” Shining stepped in to physically block some of the stares aimed at Cadance.

“Well then, we have something to negotiate with. I am Mattar.” spoke the changeling, meeting Shining’s glare with one of equal ferocity.

----------------

Forty five minutes later, Celestia acknowledged the changelings leaving their camp for the Everfree, but beyond that, she didn’t bother to count them, or send anypony to see if there were any of them left in the camp itself.

Fifteen minutes after that, Celestia was frustrated, more than anything. She could swear somebody was following her around, but whenever she looked, she could see nobody except the guard detail she was spearheading through the city. It was making her jumpy and agitated, and it was beginning to show to her subordinates.

It did not help in the slightest that their progress was stymied, and their early nearly uninterrupted march was seeming like a distant memory. The uphill slog of increasingly disturbing and resilient monsters only seemed to increase, as fatigue began to set in for all, including Celestia. The only thing that helped, the only thing that kept the guards under Celestia’s command going at this point, was the promise that Luna would be here soon with reinforcements.

Celestia was half considering contacting Luna again, but the last time she did (a mere five minutes ago) Luna made it clear that she was currently dealing with the logistics of getting the thestrals moving AND heading to Canterlot under her own wingpower, and now was definitively NOT the time to be bothered for an up-to-the-minute ETA.

Then the flares started coming up.

Guard emergency flares started flying up almost in unison across the entirety of the guard’s front line in Canterlot, and there was no way Celestia could reach them all. At the moment, it seemed like everywhere except her immediate vicinity was hit at the same time.

Just as Celestia was about to take wing and begin supporting the guard from above, she heard a voice from further up the street that was at the same time familiar and alien.

“You can’t leave right now Celestia. We haven’t talked yet.” The voice was an odd mix of many voices and the distinctive booming voice of Nightmare Moon. She was holding something in her hoof.

Looking down the street, Celestia couldn’t pick out where the voice was coming from. The myriad shadows that littered the street seemed to have almost taken physical form and become as impenetrable as a wall. And then she stepped out of the shadows.

“Chrysalis?”

It was Chrysalis but... not Chrysalis. While clearly still the changeling queen that crashed the wedding some months ago, she had changed. Her skin had gone from a uniform black to having splotches of purple and blue in it as if she had been caught halfway between a transformation. Her hair and wings were almost completely gone, but behind them were a ghostly image of pony wings and starry hair. And, poking through Nightmare Moon’s armor, was the stump of a horn broken off at the base.

Celestia unconsciously put her hooves up to her mouth when she noticed the broken horn. No matter how much she didn’t like Chrysalis, she would never wish for anybody to suffer a broken horn.

“Oh, dear. I don’t know what happened to you, but I am genuinely sorry for you now.”

“What happened to me?” Chrysalis’s voice exuded danger.

“YOU DARE, YOU DARE TO ASK WHAT HAPPENED TO ME CELESTIA?” As Chrysalis shouted, Nightmare Moon’s features shadowed themselves over her own, as if given form by her rage. “You ponies happened to me. More concerned with appearances than lives, your eternal xenophobia ends today.”

“What are you even talking about?”

“I went to your ‘changeling prison camp’ and what did I find? I found it EMPTY!” It was impossible to tell the difference between Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon at this point. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CHILDREN?”

“I haven’t done anything to them!”

“Then explain THIS.” Chrysalis threw a changeling prayer stone at Celestia’s face. “Where is my daughter, Celestia?”

“I don’t-”

Her fury finally boiling over, Chrysalis leapt at Celestia fangs barred, roaring deviance.

Only to dissipate into shadows on Celestia’s shield.

Desperately looking around to see where she landed, Celestia saw only lengthening shadows all around her. She attempted to summon the power of the sun, but they remained as solid as ever, even under the direct scrutiny of the sun itself.

The shadows only grew taller, mocking the light, shaping themselves into cruel mockeries of ponies she knew and loved.

“You never loved me!” Shrieked a facsimile of Princess Luna, as it lunged for her with teeth bared.

Celestia’s expression remained stoic even as she shattered the shadow creature back into nothingness.

“Ever the violent one, never taking diplomatic options. It’s such a shame you’re immortal.” A shadowy griffon king mocked as he paced about her.

Celestia dispelled the long-dead griffon king and turned to face the next apparition, desperately searching for a hint as to where Chrysalis was hiding in the impenetrable mass of shadows.

“Is this the daughter I raised? Letting xenophobia and injustice run wild within her country, while she sits upon a throne insulated from the ponies who need her?” This time, the image of an all too familiar alicorn scoffed.

“Is this the best you can do? To mock me with doubts I have long since conquered?”

And then out of the shadows, a unicorn popped up. Even in monochrome, it was clear she had cut her bangs with the aid of a ruler and had a colored streak in her hair. The phantom Twilight sparkle began to speak. It was a pitch-perfect imitation of Twilight’s voice, but Celestia imagined an accusatory tone to it.

“Dear Princess Celestia: Today I learned that it is hard to accept when somepony you like wants to hang out with-”

“No.”

Another Twilight popped up, and another, a veritable forest of Twilight clones staring at her with that self-deprecating expression she always used when trying to take responsibility for somepony else’s actions.

“Never judge a book by its cover. Someone may look unusual, or funny or scary-”

“Face me, you monster! Stop throwing words that are not your own and FACE ME!” Celestia shouted in her royal voice, but the Twilight Sparkles kept appearing, mocking her with her guilt and reminding her of her all-too-recent failure of Equestria, and of Twilight.

Why did she come second? Celestia thought to herself. After all she’s done, does she truly deserve to come after Equestria?

“But you should never be afraid to share your true feelings with a good friend.”

Celestia took to the air in an attempt to escape the phantoms, but their voices chased her higher and higher. They were no longer necessary, though; her conscience was pushing her now.

“ENOUGH.” Celestia’s royal Canterlot Voice boomed out, as she forced sun out from behind the blood moon. In that moment, it shined with all the brightness and warmth of bleached bones. The harshness of the light alone was enough to cause the shadows to smolder.

In a staggering burst of power that left every unicorn in the city disoriented, she dispelled all the shadows in the city with the full might of the sun, which flowed through her veins like wildfire. The spell, in a form of magically infused sunlight, passed through walls and buildings alike, burning the nightmares to tatters.

Celestia, breathing heavily now, having seriously depleted her magic and the magic of the sun itself, scanned the city. She could feel behind her the blood moon slowly inching its way to cover up the sun once more. She found nothing. The City was empty of both shadows and nightmares alike. It still came at a cost: the sun itself looked noticeably dimmer than it had before.

And then she caught, out of the corner of her eye, the wake of somepony breaking the sound barrier. Celestia’s wings screamed in agony as she attempted to force herself out of the way.

But Chrysalis was faster, and hit Celestia dead-on, riding her down into the cobbled city streets. Afterward, ponies swore they saw them land before they heard them scream past.

There was no crater. Celestia landed on the stairs leading up to Canterlot Castle, and the enchanted stone proved far stronger than the bones in her spine, which shattered with an ear-splitting CRACK that echoed across Canterlot.

The changeling queen, unharmed by the landing, kicked Celestia down the steps and into the street. Ponies could only stare in shock as they seemed to be the only things in the entire world.

Celestia groaned, unable to feel her back legs. She looked up as Chrysalis approached.

“Good. Look at me, I want to look into your eyes while I do this.” Her stump of a horn was exuding an unsightly shadow.

Chrysalis loosed her spell, and suddenly Celestia couldn’t feel her front legs either. Panicking, she looked down to find them already turning to stone, as she watched helpless. Looking back up at Chrysalis, she attempted to plead with her but the spell had already reached her mouth, and there she remained: Frozen on the ground, broken and pleading, a proud ruler shattered and set in stone.

The last thing that went through her mind was a singular lonely little thought:

I never got a chance to apologize to Twilight.