Chapter 1: In the Beginning...

In the beginning, there was only Nothing. The Nothing was the keeper of Everything, and it held onto Everything greedily. However, one fateful moment in Eternity, a piece of Everything escaped. This piece, free from Nothing's control, split to form two independent entities: Chaos and Order.

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BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Rose, wake up! You're going to be late!"

A tan mare rolled over, grimacing as sun from the window shown in her eyes, interrupting her dream. Shielding her face with her wing, she rolled back over to get just a few more minutes of peace.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Rose Dawn, I swear to the sun, I'm not covering for you if you're late again! You might get Chosen by default for 'resisting an order'!"

At the mention of the Choosing, Rose's blue eyes shot open, remembering the importance of today. She bolted upright, getting to her hooves so fast that she hit her head on the low ceiling and dropped back down, stirring up a cloud of dust from the dirt floor.

"I'm coming, Forest, I'm coming," Rose said, a slight hint of annoyance bubbling up past her panicked tone.

She stood back up, more carefully this time, and shook out some of the dirt that was trapped in her peach mane. She then shoved the door open with a wing, hitting a dark grey stallion in the process.

"Oops, sorry! I..."

Dark Forest rubbed his horn, which had received the majority of the blow.

"It doesn't matter right now," he said, cutting her off. "We have to hurry, the Choosing is about to start!" With that, he galloped off, with Rose Dawn following close behind. She tried to comb through her messy mane with one of her wings, but it was a hopeless thing to do while galloping, so she quickly gave up the futile act. Keeping pace with Forest as they galloped through the village, she glanced at the empty homes around her.

"Everypony must already be at the Corral," she thought to herself. Noticing how far the sun was from the horizon, she realized just how late she had overslept. She was lucky that Forest had woken her up, or the consequences might have been very bad. She shivered at the thought, and continued to keep pace with her friend.

Approaching the Corral, she could see the rainbow of ponies crowded in a large, fenced in area with a stage in the very center. Noticing a line of ponies at the front waiting to get in caused Rose to sigh in relief.

"So we're not that late," she thought, and a weight she had not noticed before felt like it had been lifted off of her chest. Now all she had to do was not get Chosen.

======

"ID?" asked the pony in front of the Corral.

"BB-3132," Rose said, without having to even think.

The pony looked down at his papers briefly, checked off her ID number, and nodded for her to go along.

Rose made her way into the Corral, stopping to wait for Forest.

"HG-4098," he said, before trotting up to Rose. "Glad we weren't the last ones," he whispered, nodding to the ten-or-so other ponies that were still waiting in line.

Rose giggled. "Yeah, thanks for waking me up, by-the-way."

"Hey, what are friends for?" Forest looked around." Let's get a spot over there." He nodded over to an opening at the back of the crowd.

"Sounds good," she replied, leading the way.

Once safely hidden within the rest of the crowd, Rose began to take in her surroundings. Forest was by her side, and another group of mares were on her other. Up ahead, the black stage was at the center of everypony's attention, even though everypony seemed to be refusing to look at it. They had a good reason to, with its sleek, black, polished surface, it ominously stood at least seven feet taller than the tallest stallion in the Corral. And on top of that, it had a hologram of Emperor Tirek staring down at the assembled ponies.

"Mommy, please," cried a small voice behind Rose, distracting her from the stage. She turned around to see a small filly crying as her mother tried to soothe her.

"Honey, it's going to be okay," the mother said. "You're going to be alright." However, this did not seem to help, and only made the young filly cry even harder.

Rose turned back around, remembering her first Choosing. She had desperately tried to convince her father that she was fatally ill and couldn't go. However, she was still made to go, and was terrified the whole time.

Forest nudged her, pulling her out of her old memories. "Hey, did you hear what those stallions were talking about over there?" Rose shook her head. "They said that the number of Chosen has increased to 14 this year."

"14?!" Rose hissed under her breath. "That's almost double last year's!"

"Yeah, I know. I wonder what caused the increase? Maybe..."

Suddenly, a loud horn played, cutting off what Forest was going to say. Everypony in the Corral went silent, the tension almost unbearable. Finally, a voice spoke.

"Presenting Drone 76589, representative of the Queen of the Changelings!"

At those words, the hologram disappeared, revealing a large ball of green flames. Slowly, the flames resided, revealing a black bug-like pony, a changeling. It showed no emotion, its green, bug-eyes slowly examining the herd of ponies before it. It took a deep, bored breath, and spoke:

"Ponies, as you know, today a special day. Some of you will have the privilege of serving the Queen, providing her with love to honor the agreement between her and your emperor. 14 of you," at this, he waited for the shocked murmurs to quiet down before continuing," have been selected at random. If your name is called, please proceed to the back to be collected," Rose shivered at his wording, "and sent to the Queen. And please remember, any attempt at fleeing will result in punishment. Now, let us begin."

Rose nervously looked at Forest, and he tried to give her a positive smile and a nod. She returned the weak smile, and took a deep breath.

"UI-2319, PR-6542..." the changeling began listing off the ID numbers of the ponies to be "collected". Rose was tense the entire time. Occasionally, she could hear cries of distress from the ponies called, but that didn't matter to her. What mattered was that her name was not on that list.

"HG-4098, and finally, FD-3517," the changeling finished. Rose breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Forest, smiling.

"Thank goodness!" she said, relaxing. However, she was not met with a similar face. "Forest, is something wrong?"

His eyes were wide in shock, and his knees were trembling slightly. He slowly turned to her, and with utter horror, she recalled the second-to-last number.

"HG-4098." She felt the color drain from her face as the realization hit her. That was Forest's number.

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading! I'd love if you would take the time to ask questions/critique/comment/ect... at the bottom. Thanks again!