Chapter Six - The Oldest Trick
The tactical suit really was amazing. A little activation of the magic in the seams, and it had resized to fit Chrysalis’ new form, and it was light and thin enough that with the cultist’s robes over it you couldn’t tell she - or rather he, in this form - was wearing it at all.
“Hey!” Chrysalis turned slowly, giving the yelling pony a dumb look, like the gormless earth pony she was pretending to be. A unicorn mare with hair like graying fire stalked up to her, glaring. “Hayseed, you’re supposed to be at the East entrance!”
“I am?” Chrysalis said, tilting her head. “But he said I was supposed to go check on the prisoners.”
“He?” The unicorn frowned. “He who?!”
“Um… you know?” Chrysalis frowned, as if trying to remember a name, hemming and hawing. “Everypony sort of looks the same when the light’s not so good and we’re in uniform. But he sounded like it was real important.”
“Hayseed, I’ve told you a dozen times,” the pony sighed. “You can’t just go and do what everypony tells you to do. Nightmare Moon wants us to think for ourselves.”
“And obey her will,” Chrysalis put in.
“Well obviously. Total freedom, as long as we follow her every whim.” The mare nodded to herself, as if that made perfect sense. “Walk with me, Hayseed. I know you’re just in this for the whole… 'worshippers-with-benefits' thing, but this is important work we’re doing. Do you know why my husband and I joined the Midnight Club?”
Chrysalis shook her head.
“For almost my entire life, I served Celestia. I didn’t get tenure as a teacher in the School for Gifted Unicorns, but there are a lot of small towns across Equestria that needed a unicorn to come in and teach foals for a month or two at a time. The pay was excellent, but it meant I didn’t have much time to spend with my own daughter.” She sighed and looked at her hooves. “When Sunset was accepted into the school, my first thought was that at least she’d have somepony looking out for her all the time. When I learned she was going to be Celestia’s personal student, well, it made it all seem like it was worth it.”
She smiled a little, shaking her head.
“Things were going so well. For Sunset, at least. We grew somewhat distant, but I can’t blame her. She was starting to find her own path in life and I thought Celestia was going to be the pony to help her with that. But then, three years ago…”
“What happened?” Chrysalis asked, curious despite herself.
“I wish I knew. Sunset vanished, and the Princess refused to ever tell me why. Worse, she had a new personal student before I even heard the news. She replaced my daughter just like that! She can raise the sun, but she can’t even give me the time of day enough to tell me where my daughter went!”
“I’m sorry,” Chrysalis said, softly.
“It’s not your fault, don’t apologize. I’ll do whatever it takes to knock her off of her little throne. I’ll scrape and dig my nose in muddy, frozen dirt, I’ll bend knee to Nightmare Moon, I’ll work with the griffons, all in the name of revenge.”
“The griffons?” Chrysalis asked.
“Their aims aren’t so different from mine,” the unicorn shrugged. “They gave us the weapons you’ve been using, and the airship. Our leader cut some kind of deal with them. She didn’t give me the details, but she’s getting results. We’ve already bagged ourselves Celestia’s adopted daughter. Or niece. I’m not entirely clear on what their relationship is...”
“Oh, that’s right,” Chrysalis said. “I was supposed to check on the prisoner. She’s still doing okay, right?”
“Well of course,” the mare said. “We can’t go and permanently damage her. Not if we want to use her for the sacrifice.”
Cadance panted, exhausted. The restraints on her legs were bad enough, keeping her pinned upright to a stone altar in a terribly unnatural pose, spread-eagle and with most of her weight on her rear hooves.
That wasn’t the worst of it, though. She hadn’t even had a horn for long, but she’d very quickly grown reliant on magic for a lot of things, and having it blocked off by the heavy restraining ring locked onto her was more than just uncomfortable, it was terrifying. She felt helpless in a way she never had before.
“You’re pretty tough,” her tormentor said, as he walked around her. “But I guess it wouldn’t be much fun if you broke too easily.”
“Mister Shimmer, why are you doing this?” Cadance croaked, her voice weak.
“Celestia took my daughter away, it’s the least I can do to take hers away too,” Silver Shimmer said. “One of the last letters we ever got from her was just a tear-stained mess about how Celestia had all but abandoned her to take care of you. We trusted Celestia to do right by our daughter, and what happened? She’s gone!”
“Princess Celestia didn’t have anything to do with that!” Cadance whimpered, tugging at her restraints. “She tried to get Sunset to take lessons with me, but instead Sunset refused to take them at all if she couldn’t have the Princess to herself.”
“Don’t talk about it like you’d understand!” Silver Shimmer yelled. “Sunset was a wonderful, loving foal! I’ll never even get to know what happened to her.” He picked up two glowing rods. “But I bet you know.”
“I already told you, I don’t know anything. She was just gone one day! Celestia wouldn’t even talk about it with me but…” Cadance looked down. “She looked so upset. I know something happened between her and Sunset. Maybe Sunset ran away, or did something to hurt herself-”
Silver Shimmer cut her off by touching her side with one of the glowing rods. Cadance immediately felt a wave of awful, twitching itchiness spread out from where it touched her, like he’d found the most ticklish part of her body and assaulted it.
Her breath caught in her throat and tears poured down her face as she choked on breathless laughter, unable to control herself.
Silver Shimmer pulled the rod back, watching her.
“Alicorns are largely immune to common physical harm,” Silver Shimmer said. “But not some relatively common and harmless charms. These rods are enchanted with a laughing charm, the kind of thing a foal might know, but with far more power. It’s actually quite terrible, wouldn’t you agree?”
Cadance looked up at him. “You’re going to regret this when my bodyguard shows up to save me.”
He replied by touching the rods to her left wing, and the spell surged through her, laughter driving the breath from her lungs and making it feel like she was being torn apart from within.
“Silver!” Snapped his wife as she walked in, Hayseed in tow. “Did you tell Hayseed to leave his post?”
“No, dear,” Silver sighed, putting the torture tools down. Cadance looked over at the mare, still trying to catch her breath. If she had been mortal, she would probably have been knocked unconscious by now.
“T-Tequila Sunrise,” Cadance coughed. “You were never like this before. Why would you do something like this?”
“I hope you haven’t damaged her permanently, Silver,” Tequila said. “You know the plan. We have to make her a suitable host for the Nightmare, and then Equestria will fall. We can’t give our new Mistress a damaged body.”
“That’s insane!” Cadance whispered. “Nightmare Moon was banished forever.”
“Not forever,” Tequila corrected, dropping into the lecturing tone she had been using with Hayseed. “According to the prophecies of Star Swirl the Bearded, the wards would weaken and buckle over time. They’re so weak now she’ll probably be able to free herself within a few years, but if we can make you a suitable host, she can escape right now.”
“But what about the money and the whole… Republic… thing?” Hayseed asked, speaking up.
Silver sighed. “You really do only get what you pay for with minions. We don’t care about the money or the land. When Nightmare Moon is freed, we’ll be able to conquer all of Equestria!”
“Of course, if we didn’t make demands, they might actually try to figure out what we’re doing instead of just arguing with each other about if they should pay up or not,” Tequila Sunrise added. “They’ll probably be deadlocked for days.”
“Not that there will be days for much longer. We should go ask our leader about just what she wants us to do with the prisoner,” Silver muttered.
“Hayseed,” Tequila said sharply. “Just stay here and watch her. No matter what she says, don’t listen to her and don’t touch her, understood?”
Hayseed nodded slowly. “Don’t listen to her and don’t touch her.”
“Good,” Tequila nodded, then walked out of the room with her husband.
Hayseed waited for the door to close, then walked over to Cadance. “Well, that took them long enough.”
“Look, whatever they’re paying you, it’s not worth selling your soul!” Cadance said, softly. “If you let me go, I can make sure you aren’t punished like the rest. T-there can even be a reward!”
“A reward? Don’t be silly.” Hayseed laughed, stepping behind the altar. There was a flash of green light, though Cadance couldn’t see quite what he was doing.
“I’m already being paid for this,” Chrysalis said, as she walked the rest of the way around, back into Cadance’s field of vision, returned to her usual disguise. “Kept you waiting, huh?”
“You- but- how?!” Cadance gasped.
“Disguise spells,” Chrysalis said, muttering ‘sort of’ under her breath afterwards. “Now let’s get you out of here. How do these restraints work?”
“There’s sort of a key thing. It looked old.” Cadance nodded. “Over there.”
Chrysalis walked over, her steps silent, and looked at the pedestal. “Okay. That’s not great. This is some kind of magic lock. I don’t know if I can pick it. Did one of those two have the key?”
“Silver Shimmer did,” Cadance muttered. ‘It was sort of this, well, silver thing.”
“Of course. Are you going to be okay while I try and get it? What did those idiots do to you?” Chrysalis looked at her, worried.
“Torture, and things worse than torture,” Cadance whispered.
“Worse than torture?”
“They were reading me poetry. It was… it was so awful. There were hundreds of poems, and they were all about the moon!” Cadance sniffled. “I-I didn’t crack, though. No matter how awful the rhymes and imagery became!”
“I’ll get you out of here,” Chrysalis assured her, stepping closer. “Just hang in there for a little longer.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Cadance joked, weakly. Then Chrysalis did something she didn’t expect. She leaned in and kissed her cheek.
“I’ll be back soon.”
Cadance watched her sneak over to the door, and there was a wave of green fire. For just a moment, Cadance thought she saw something awful, but it was replaced with Hayseed’s gormless look before she could even really process what she saw.
Chrysalis looked back at her one last time, then slipped out.
Cadance sighed. “I really hate being the damsel in distress.”
“Sir! Ma’am!” Crysalis yelled, as she ran down the hallway, still in her Hayseed disguise. “Something really bad happened!” The two unicorns were standing in a larger room, some kind of storehouse, or at least it was a storehouse now. Crates were stacked in pallets with narrow paths between them. If not for her ability to sense emotions, Chrysalis might have missed them entirely.
“Hayseed, this isn’t a good time for something bad to happen,” Tequila Sunrise whispered. “And we left you there so you could guard her, not so you could run off!”
“You don’t understand, Ma’am!” Chrysalis looked back, trying to sound afraid, as if worried she might still be followed. “It’s real bad. Not just regular bad.”
“What happened?” Silver Shimmer asked, sighing.
“She started laughing real funny, then she was crying for a while, then she started talking to herself but it wasn’t really talking. It was all poems and stuff. About the moon!”
“About the moon?” Tequila Sunrise blinked. “This could be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for! If she’s really started to crack, she could be a host for the Nightmare before the end of the night.”
“You two are idiots.” A voice hissed from behind them. Chrysalis blinked in surprise, taking a step back. She hadn’t sensed another pony there. And the voice was the same one from when she’d infiltrated the dock.
“What do you mean, Ma’am?” Tequila asked. “Do you think the Princess is faking it so we’ll release her? We weren’t intending to let her go until after the Nightmare consumed her.”
“Either way, it’s a good thing that Hayseed came to get us,” Silver said. “I don’t think he could really manage to deal with it himself.”
The cloaked figure stepped forwards, not leaving the shadows. Chrysalis saw a slitted eye, almost like-
“You two can’t even see through a simple disguise. There’s nothing going on with Princess Cadenza at all,” the figure said.
“But Hayseed said-”
“That is not Hayseed,” the figure corrected.
“But then who is it?” Tequila asked, turning around in alarm. Chrysalis didn’t have much time to react - she needed her magic and she needed it now. A wave of green fire washed over her, and she felt the tactical suit reshape itself to match the longer limbs of her usual disguise. Before the corona of magic from the disguise had even faded, she fired a sleep spell at Tequila Sunrise, only for it to hit a magical shield and dissipate into nothing.
“Naughty, naughty,” the cloaked figure chuckled. “You two take care of this. I have other arrangements to make.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Silver said, covering her as she left. Chrysalis jumped backwards as he launched a bolt of flame at her hooves, almost catching her. She threw a blinding illusionary burst of light at them to give her time to run for cover behind some of the crates.
“You’re not getting away that easily!” Tequila Sunrise yelled. She grabbed some of the crates and flung them at the doorway, blocking it off with debris. “You’re trapped in here with us, now.”
“Look,” Chrysalis said, using a quick charm to make it sound like her voice was coming from a dozen paces away. “I understand what you’re going through-”
“No you don’t! You’ve never lost a daughter!” A fireball blasted through the crates, right through where she would have been if she’d actually been where her voice was coming from.
“Celestia crippled my mother before I was even born,” Chrysalis yelled. “Tore off most of her wings. They’ve been enemies for longer than you’ve been alive.”
“Then you should be helping us!” Silver hissed. The light spell cut off as the illusion finally failed. It had actually lasted longer than Chrysalis had expected. Maybe seeing Cadance again had given her a little boost.
“Your plan is stupid. You’re going to sacrifice a pony I actually like and for what?” Chrysalis snorted. “Just for revenge? To destroy the world? Even my mother would never do that, and she was a bitter old nag.”
“Then she’s weak!” Tequila yelled. Another fireball crashed through the crates, revealing that nopony was there. “Where are you?”
Chrysalis considered her options, then tried a simple illusion, just a shadow moving on the other side of the room. At the same time, she crept around the crates, trying to work her way behind the two unicorns.
“You must be the bodyguard she mentioned,” Silver said. “You weren’t there to protect her before. What makes you think you can save her now?”
“So you were the ones who took her?” Chrysalis asked, keeping the ventriloquism charm up.
“We had some help from ponies on the inside,” Silver replied. “Don’t bother looking for them. Their pay included a little something extra to make sure they wouldn’t be telling anypony about their part in this.”
“Poison?” Chrysalis guessed.
“A curse,” Silver said. “Far harder to trace. It’ll just look like a series of unfortunate events that take the lives of a dozen loyal guards.”
“You know, I think that’s what I dislike most about you cultists,” Chrysalis said, readying herself. “You kill ponies when you don’t have to. It’s such a terrible waste.”
She jumped out from behind the crates, firing a bolt of force down the narrow path. Tequila spotted her, returning fire. The two bolts clashed in the air for a moment before Chrysalis’ spell shattered, only serving to deflect Tequila’s enough to make it miss and knock over a stack of boxes.
Chrysalis swore under her breath and got back into cover. This wasn’t going well.
“If that’s all you’ve got, you’re not much of a bodyguard,” Tequila said. “I’ve known foals that could put up a better fight than you.”
She was right, and Chrysalis knew it. She didn’t have nearly enough magical strength to actually beat her in a straight fight.
But she didn’t need to beat her fairly, either.
Chrysalis looked at the ceiling. Like most of the temple, the room was lit by magelights, long-lasting magical light sources that didn’t put out heat or smoke and didn’t need any wiring run for electricity or complicated diagrams. They might have been there for a thousand years, just running off of the ambient magic in the room.
Chrysalis tossed a globe of darkness around the lights. She couldn’t make it big enough to cover the room, but she could make it big enough to cover the lights, and her spell would last at least a few seconds before the magelights collapsed it.
She focused on a new disguise.
Silver Shimmer blinked as the darkness flashed back into light, dazzling him for a moment. Fighting this bodyguard was getting tiresome.
“What happened?” Tequila asked, from near him.
“A fake!” Yelled another voice. “She’s using a disguise!” Silver recognized that voice. He spun around to see Tequila, and past her… another copy of him. It looked panicked.
Tequila Sunrise looked between Silver and his double, confusion evident on her face. “But- another trick! Which one of you is real?”
Thankfully, Silver Shimmer was very quick on his hooves. “We met in Trottingham! When Sunset was born, the first thing she did was set the doctor on fire for spanking her flank! You hate olives because they have a ‘creepy hole’ in them!”
Tequila relaxed and turned on Silver’s double. “Blast him!” She ordered.
“Wait! This is just a tr-” the double yelled before Silver’s blast of force sent him crashing back into crates.
“That got her,” Silver said. Tequila stepped aside to let him through. He walked up to his duplicate. “This is a pretty awful illusion spell,” he noted, looking at the disguise. “I’m amazed you didn’t see through it on your own. It’s rough around the edges.”
“Well, I only had a few seconds to put it together,” Tequila Sunrise said, at the same time the illusion failed, revealing that the mare lying unconscious at Silver’s hooves was… Tequila Sunrise.
Silver’s eyes went wide, and a crate smashed into his head a moment before the sleeping spell hit him.
“The double-reverse-disguise trick always works,” Chrysalis smirked, as she dropped the disguise. Resuming her normal, much more graceful appearance, she searched through Silver Shimmer’s robes. “Now where’s that key…”
“Okay, so I have good news and bad news,” Chrysalis said, as she walked back into the interrogation room.
“The good news had better include getting me down from here,” Cadance said. “I have to go to the bathroom!”
“Okay, well, I have the key.” Chrysalis said. “Sort of.” She levitated three carved silver trinkets up. “Don’t panic! It’s not broken. Not exactly. It’s just sort of a combination lock. But a combination key. I have to get them in the right order, and they’ll unlock you.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Cadance said. “There are only a few combinations.”
“Right. Exactly,” Chrysalis hesitated. “But, um. This place is sort of full of traps, and if I was a trap-setting kind of person, using the key incorrectly is exactly the kind of thing I’d have as something that would set off said traps.”
“You’re kidding,” Cadance muttered.
“I wish I was,’ Chrysalis said. “But there has to be some kind of clue, right?” She looked at the key parts. “I mean, cultists managed to get this thing working, and we’re smarter than a bunch of cultists.”
“Chrysalis, some of those cultists were tenured professors for colleges from across Equestria!”
“Okay, right, but you’re a Princess, so you probably have a great education.”
“I was home-schooled until I went to Canterlot High!”
“...Okay. Well, I… didn’t qualify for officer's school. And my home-schooling wasn’t really focused on academics.” She started trying to fit the key parts together. There was something about the carvings…
“I believe in you,” Cadance said. She almost sounded like she meant it.
“Okay. I think I’ve got this thing right,” Chrysalis said. Most of the lines sort of lined up. “I’ll have you out of there in two shakes of a hornet’s stinger.”
She levitated the key over the pedestal and took a deep breath.
“Don’t!” Yelled another voice, as Daring Do flew into the room, tackling the key away from Chrysalis. The pegasus rolled, clutching the key in her hooves as she came to a halt. “That was way too close.”
“So you finally showed up,” Chrysalis said. “Cadance, meet Daring Do.”
“...Daring Do is real?!” Cadance blinked.
“Real and just saved your life. Probably. You’re immortal, right? It still wouldn’t have been pleasant.” Daring Do held up the key. “You assembled it wrong. Look at the carving on the front. It’s shaped like a monkey, and you have the head on upside down!”
“...And you could tell that from across the room?” Chrysalis was impressed.
“No, I just assumed you had it wrong. Felt it was a safe bet.”
Chrysalis was less impressed than before. Daring Do started reassembling the key. After a few seconds she had it looking nearly the same, except for the head. With confidence, she slid it into the pedestal, and there was a faint click.
Cadance slumped to the floor as her restraints released.
“Oh thank Harmony,” Cadance groaned. “My back is going to be sore for weeks!”
“No need to thank me, Princess. Just doing my job.” Daring Do tried to look humble. “But you know, I wouldn’t mind-”
Cadance pulled Chrysalis into a kiss.
“Never mind,” Daring Do sighed. “I guess I’ll just be over here, saving everypony’s life from ancient deathtraps, while you girls make out.”
“We probably should actually escape,” Cadance said, after a moment. Chrysalis just nodded, not quite able to speak. “Do you have a plan?”
“The Defiant is waiting not too far away,” Chrysalis said, after a moment to compose herself. “You and Daring Do should be able to fly there. If you feel strong enough, you can carry me, or I can swim to shore and signal you.”
“That’s a surprisingly simple plan,” Daring Do muttered. “No rescue mission, or a giant balloon to carry you away silently on the wind, or a teleport circle?”
“I didn’t figure I’d need one,” Chrysalis shrugged. “If Cadance was too weak to fly, I was just going to lie low and wait for Thunderbolt’s attack in the morning. If nothing else, I could keep her safe until he gets here a few hours after dawn.”
“Really?” Daring Do rubbed her chin. “Good to know I wasn’t just relying on you for the rescue.”
“You know any good secret passages out of here?” Chrysalis asked, expectantly.
“I think I know just the thing,” Daring Do said.
“I specified a good secret passage,” Chrysalis groaned.
“What’s wrong with this one?” Daring Do asked.
“We’ve been going up these stairs for ten minutes!” Chrysalis still couldn’t see the top, and it was too narrow for Cadance or Daring Do to fly.
“I’d try teleporting us out, but the inhibitor ring won’t come off,” Cadance sighed.
“It’s a magical lock,” Daring Do said. “We’ll need time to pick it. And maybe a better unicorn.”
“I’m a great unicorn!” Chrysalis huffed, lifting her chin. “You should have seen me fighting those two cultists.”
“Right, sure. So, we’ll need a better unicorn,” Daring Do continued. “It’s not ancient like the stuff downstairs, so we just need somepony skilled in enchanted and cursed objects. SECT should have a bunch of ponies like that in the area.”
“Miller should know somepony who can help,” Chrysalis nodded.
“Miller?” Cadance blinked. “Grain Miller? He’s a-”
“A secret agent, apparently” Chrysalis sighed. “And he loses the fake country accent really quickly once he’s serious about something.”
“When we get back to Canterlot I am going to have a very serious discussion with Celestia about all this,” Cadance grumped. “I bet he was just here to keep an eye on me, as if you aren’t more than enough.”
“Since you got kidnapped, I’d say that even with both of us, you needed more protection,” Chrysalis retorted.
“Well, if you’d been in my room with me~” Cadance started, the edges of her mouth pulling up into a smile.
“Please don’t start flirting,” Daring Do groaned.
“I’m sorry,” Cadance apologized. “When we get back to civilization, I can try to set you up with somepony of your own. Then you can flirt shamelessly in front of me and I’ll take notes on how you do things.”
“I don’t date,” Daring Do said. “It always ends in betrayal. Made me realize I should always be thinking about what kind of ulterior motives my dates had.”
“You’re right,” Chrysalis agreed. “I need to be careful around Cadance. She’s probably planning on having me around as a trophy wife to keep all the stallions at bay.”
“And here I thought you were planning on seducing me so you could sleep your way to the top,” Cadance smiled. “It wouldn’t work very well, by the way. Celestia’s the one in charge of the Royal Guard.”
“I’ll have to figure out how to seduce her, then,” Chrysalis teased. “Maybe I’ll dress up like a cake.”
“I was wrong,” Daring Do said. “This is worse than the flirting.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll stop soon,” Cadance said. “I think I see the way out!” She started running up the stairs, and as Chrysalis followed, she spotted it too, a doorway leading outside into the snow.
“Wait!” Chrysalis yelled. “We need to make sure there aren’t any cultists around.”
“Good idea,” Daring Do said, just before she was enveloped in a wave of green flame. Chrysalis froze. “It would just be terrible to fail at the last moment.”
A bolt of green psychic energy slammed into Chrysalis, knocking her off her hooves and into Cadance. The energy tore at her disguise, peeling it away like tearing off a band-aid, painful and sharp. The tactical suit shredded around her unable to accommodate the rapid change to her form.
Chrysalis could see the terror in Cadance’s eyes. She covered her face with her hooves, unable to even look at the Princess.
“C-Chrysalis?!” Cadance asked, frightened. “What did you do to her?!” She looked up at Daring Do.
“I just removed her veil.” The flames faded, and Cadance was looking at a monster. A monster almost identical to the one in her hooves. “I was hoping she would prove that she hadn’t forgotten her roots, but I’m really quite disappointed.”
“Her roots?” Cadance asked, quietly.
“At least she managed to avoid revealing herself. I thought she was a little soft in the way she was dealing with the guards, and I even had to step in to keep her from dying a few times.” The changeling shook her head. “How pathetic. Changeling royalty should be stronger than that… sister.”
“Sister?” Chrysalis croaked, feeling something twist inside her. That psychic blast had done more damage than she’d expected. “I don’t have a sister!”
“Mother tried to keep you secret from me, too,” the changeling said. She pressed a marked stone, and the doorway slammed shut, a boulder dropping down to cut off the outside world. “I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Chrysalis, but you’re just pathetic. You’re supposed to make ponies fall in love with you, not the other way around.”
“Let her go,” Chrysalis coughed. “If you’ve got some kind of problem with me, we’ll settle it between us.”
“See? That’s even more pathetic,” the changeling scoffed. “Sacrificing yourself for her? You’re supposed to take more than you give!” She stalked over and kicked Chrysalis’ prone form.
“Who in Tartarus are you?” Chrysalis hissed.
“I’m you,” she said. “I’m your shadow.”
“What?” Chrysalis blinked.
“Ask the mother that you killed. I’ll send you to Tartarus to meet her!”
A ring of fire surrounded Cadance and Chrysalis, and they sank into the rock like they were falling into a pit of quicksand, darkness rising around them until it closed over their heads.
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Glad to see more of this. You write some of the best cultist dialogue. I was going to quote a few of the funnier lines but the list kept growing until it was unmanageable. Everything involving Hayseed or Chrysalis disguised as Hayseed is great.
Cadance watched her sneak over to the door, and there was a wave of green fire. For just a moment, Cadance thought she saw something awful, but it was replaced with Hayseed’s gormless look before she could even really process what she saw.
Here I winced on Chrysalis' behalf.
I said not getting a steady diet of love was probably weakening Chrysalis' magical power in one of my earlier reviews, good to see I was right.
Nice twist. I was suspicious of Daring Do when she first showed up but she was just helpful enough that I had pretty much dismissed that as paranoia right before she sank in the knife. It also recasts her line about dating always ending in betrayal in a new light. I originally took it to indicate the kind of dating life any book series protagonist might face, but instead it was about being royalty (and with her being a changeling, I have to wonder if it was her who was doing the betraying most of the time). And I see I was right about Changeling involvement but wrong about it being her mother. Now I suppose Chrysalis and Cadance are going to have to have a Talk, if they have time wherever they're sent.
Oh no its Liquad!
And diplomatic logic isndead again
I love this story so very much. Finally got to see SISTER and that crazy logic (interesting that the claim that Chrysalis' mother is dead, is this the first Chrysalis heard of this?). I look forward to Cadance and Chrysalis' heart to heart.
Don't expect Daring Do is another Changeling.
She said it! She said the thing!
BROTHER!!!
"Sister! It's not over yet!"
"Pony... Die...!"
Cya
Raziel-chan
Oh no, It's Liquid Chrysis! or Liquisalis! or Chrysaliquid! or whatever her name is. I love the metal gear dialogue.
Uh why did it suddenly stop is are you having a writers block or is RL getting in the way?
Ah, I gotta say I'm still looking forward to more of this story being written. I just rewatched all the cutscenes of Metal Gear Solid (and the remake of it), and the complete over-acting really has me looking forward to this story's take on it. Also, re-reading this chapter, I gotta say:
Was the best kind of foreshadowing I didn't notice but can definitely appreciate. What better disguise than a character who is (supposedly) fictional but everyone secretly wished was real?
aww, I'm a little disappointed this isn't gonna be in the same 'verse as Witch of the Everfree, seeing as Sunset actually has parents.
Beyond that though, Loving it! Your style is very easy on the eyes and has me laughing every couple of paragraphs. Can't wait to see what you've got!
You sure have author.
6858346
IT"S BEEN TOO LONG!
Without an update
For a "Twin Snakes" semi-parody there is a disturbing lack of Anime-esque/Devil-May-Cry riding on rockets and flipping off slabs of airborne concrete going on.
I mean that was the point of "Twin Snakes" right? To see David "Solid Snake" acting like Dante, instead of the exceptionally tough and well trained "everyman" soldier up against psychic abominations, people with superpowers, and advanced sci-fi gadgeteers.
Oh man, I need more of this.
Will this ever be finished?
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Please?
Love it! More pls! :)
I really, really hope this isn't as dead as the date of the last update suggests it is. Because this is glorious.
Edit: Apologies for the deleted comment; it looked like Fimfic had eaten my first attempt.
Aww, still love this story on a re-read.
Was it much of anything more than a story-bunny borne from Twilight of the RG?
Yep, still quite funny on reread. The Metal Gear stuff meshes surprisingly well with the pony setting, there's no tonal clash at all.
why is it always when I find an interesting story it is abandoned in the most interesting place? :(
Hopeless
That is a dick punch of a cliffhanger to end on.
If this story is really dead and there are no plans to continue, please check the "canceled" box. Why give readers empty hope?