End Of All
"No! Wait!"
Crystal didn't wait. A ring of green fire erupted from her as the crown touched her head, spreading out in a shockwave that sheared clean through Starlight's crystal barrier. The tree's magic protected her from the brunt of the recoil, but she was still knocked backwards, and from the cries behind her she could tell her friends fared no better.
The fire crackling along Crystal's scalp rose up into a pillar, burning twisted patterns into the ground as it rose in a helix around her, the mare's silhouette visible rising within. Starlight gaped as the fire trailed off, congealing around her and burning into her flesh, distorting and elongating her legs and neck and barrel. Gossamer wings were the first to emerge from the conflagration, and then her eyes pierced the blaze, the same emerald as ever yet now with a second, darker-green layer between her irises and pupils. Finally, the last embers drew into her, revealing an entire body that looked like one drained by moon glass... only it was twice as large, and Crystal was very definitely still in control.
"Ahahahahahaha!" The abomination landed with a cackle, to a backdrop of screams from the distant crowd. Her head was now graced by a jagged, pockmarked horn, twice the length of even Saffron's, and behind it sat the crown, still crackling with green and now fused permanently to her scalp. Her eyes scanned the ponies, griffons and sphinxes still arrayed to challenge her... some Starlight's friends, others her mortal enemies, yet each and every one now steadfastly siding together... and she threw back her head and laughed.
Gazelle didn't give her an instant. "Die!" he howled, rushing forward like a thunderbolt. Crystal didn't stop him. The black sword lodged point-first in her chest, driven by both his paws, and they hung there, the sword sticking and not passing through.
Crystal stopped laughing, her head still thrown back. She blinked.
Gazelle didn't let go of the handle.
Crystal licked her lips. "Tastes like sadness and regret," she remarked, voice sharper and crueler than it had been as a batpony, yet no longer twisted, perfectly enunciated and clear. She looked down at Gazelle, the sword still embedded in her up to the hilt. "Just one more voice added to the chorus."
"Die," Gazelle hissed, still clinging to the blade.
"Are you trying to hurt me?" Crystal grinned a seductive, predatory grin, lowering her head and brushing his cheek with her horn. "Your blade will have to cut a little deeper than that."
Then, with a spark of green light, she slammed her horn into him like a club, tossing him far away. It lit with an emerald aura, far too bright and smooth to belong to a normal unicorn, and a telekinetic grasp formed around the sword's handle, sliding it out of her body. The point left a physical hole as it withdrew, and that hole crackled with green, slowly knitting back together. Crystal tossed the sword aside like disinteresting garbage, Yulio instantly scampering after it. She didn't even care.
"Crystal already is dead," she proclaimed, stepping forward, wings spread. "What else can you call a mare who's had everything that makes life worth living ripped away? Your sentiment of vengeance is useless. I am vengeance. Hatred, greed, lust, injustice, hopelessness and despair..."
Her crown crackled with green. "From this day forth, I am no longer Crystal. I will be the queen and pulpit of Stanza, and we will be given the love we deserved... or I will take it for us by force. I will be... Chrysalis. A new, changing name for a new, changed queen. Now love us, or be added to the flames."
Garsheeva stepped up to meet her, her equal in height, and swept a wing out, signaling for everyone else to stay back. "This party is over! If you insist on threatening my empire, then I will have to intervene."
"How cute." Chrysalis licked her lips, lit her horn... and stopped, her eyes widening. "Dusk statues. I remember this feel. I can..." Her pupils narrowed to slits, and she started to chuckle. "You."
Garsheeva wasn't interested in talking. Her claws blazed with light, and she flew forward in a whirlwind, preparing to grapple Chrysalis from a position where Stanza's laser couldn't be used against her. Chrysalis stood still and let it happen... but the moment she was in Garsheeva's grasp, she fought back, rolling and trying to pin the sphinx to the ground. "You're her! So this is where you were hiding? Why didn't you help me every time I prayed to you!?"
Her demands were met with a roar, Garsheeva slicing heavily into her side with sharpened claws. Chrysalis responded by digging her horn into Garsheeva's shoulder, stabbing mightily and throwing her opponent off her. "You..." Chrysalis sprang back, hovering again as the wounds in her side crackled and repaired themselves as well. "I can taste it. All the love and faith they put in you. All that belongs to me!"
Her horn erupted with a dark aura, shrouding the air around her and Garsheeva with a field like oiled water. Garsheeva's flanks immediately blazed, the Night Mother's cutie mark manifesting boldly.
Garsheeva roared, another spiky plume of energy lancing forth, but Chrysalis lazily dodged, her eyes glowing bright with greed. Green energy crackled around Garsheeva's cutie mark... and it vanished with a wink, pried from her body, and a mote of light appeared in her crown.
Chrysalis threw back her head and cackled. "Ahaha! Yes! There's so much-"
With a metallic thump, Meltdown landed between Chrysalis and Garsheeva. Her armor whined and boiled with energy, and an inferno of crimson flames blasted forth, engulfing the ascendant queen. "Everyone, attack now!"
Starlight didn't need to be told twice. As Chrysalis screamed and everyone else charged, she pointed her horn and fired, pouring every bit of magic at her disposal into an attack. A bright teal laser flashed from her horn, interlaced with red as the tree's blessing came to her aid. Starlight threw aside every concern for herself she could, sustaining the attack beam of raw, unformed energy as Saffron fired as well and even Wallace staggered forward.
Flash! Meltdown's plume of fire trailed off, and her armor immediately crackled and fired again. Chrysalis writhed in the flames, and a poorly-aimed Stanza laser returned fire, hitting the ground near Meltdown's hooves and blowing a crater in the rock. Meltdown rolled to the side and fired again.
"Return Her Majesty to normal at once," Wallace growled, balling a talon for a punch.
"Stop this!" Maple cried, a burst of red firing from her chest as she unleashed her pocketed energy from the harmonic flame, her irises gleaming red.
"Fools!" Chrysalis shrieked, a shockwave of energy billowing out and knocking everyone off their hooves. She looked partially melted from the blasts, and was tingling with red and teal energy, but immediately launched Stanza's laser at Meltdown in retaliation. Meltdown tried to dodge, but the beam formed instantly without any travel time at all, and it grazed her shoulder, reducing a large chunk of her armor to slag.
Starlight winced, her horn burning already. She had thrown ever last bit of magic she had into that, save for the crystal chunk Maple was pocketing. That had been their best chance, and they might not get another...
Chrysalis hovered, already repairing her carapace and knitting herself back together with green energy. Her eyes unfocused. "Leave me be," she commanded. "There's so much I can feel now... So many ponies... They don't deserve their happiness. All of it should be ours!"
Across Mistvale, the night sky shone, regardless of the time elsewhere in the world. Cities graced mountaintops, glowing with luminescent blue moss powered by conduits of pure crystal. The crystals pulsed softly, inlaid in rivers along streets and down walls, each and every inch constructed over a thousand years by the sarosians who stepped their ways through the cities, going about their lives.
Then, the conduits flickered. A single word crossed the network, audible in the minds of every last batpony: RUN. Then the crystals flickered again and went dark.
Everyone looked up. Everyone stopped what they were doing. Some hesitated, and some spread their wings to flee. And then the conduits blazed again, their blue light swirling and draining before being replaced by billowing green flames.
Screams filled the air, ponies falling to the ground wherever they were and clutching at their flanks as their cutie marks burned. Flashes of green rose as one mark after another left their hosts, drawing away into the deadly crystals and leaving only transformed shells in their wakes. Some held on longer than others. Families clutched each other as one transformed after another, but pleadings and last wishes and whispers of love only seemed to quicken the process as the flames stole each and every one away. And for those who resisted the longest, a dark light lit the pupilless eyes of those who were already gone, and they got to their hooves, ready to help the souls along.
A blinding sphere of midnight-blue light erupted around Chrysalis, like a second moon in the sky. Hundreds of thousands of cutie marks winked into existence inside it, flowing and spiraling towards the center of her crown. Marks flew in from outside the sphere too, several drawn in from the stands around the arena as every dusk statue in the world activated to collect their new master's dues.
Starlight felt an inky sensation bathing her that she knew terribly well: moon glass. Only instead of the pure loneliness contained in the crystals from the sky, this was a whole new flavor: hatred, revenge, sickness and despair, Stanza's aura instead of Luna's, flooding over her and the entire world.
But she didn't succumb. A spark welled up in her chest, fighting back like a shield of color that wasn't toxic green. She gritted her teeth, feeling her horn's power battered but not extinguished, but she still had no idea what she could do.
Then Maple's voice cried out behind her, "Valey!"
Starlight's heart nearly stopped, and she jumped backwards to see one friend bent over the other, Shinespark there as well. Valey was shaking, green flames licking at the mark on her flank, red energy crackling from her cutie mark as it fought to stay attached.
"Bananas..." Valey hissed, eyes streaming with tears. "Gimmie moon glass... Not gonna be her that gets me..."
"Watch your backs!" Yulio shouted. The battered stallion leapt through the air, and with a flash of black, he swung the sword, once again bonded to his own mark. An empty sarosian shell had been streaking towards them from above, and he sliced it clean in half, the insectoid monster exploding in a shower of ash that drifted down from above. Two more flew, and met the same fate, sending down a flurry of flakes that sent Starlight's mind reeling to a vision of death, empty shells and falling ash.
"What have we here?" Chrysalis asked, stepping over to the huddled party, the light of a continent's worth of souls and brands shining trapped in the center of her crown. "Someone doesn't want-"
With a battle cry, Wallace Whitewing charged, slamming into her with his shoulder and still steaming with energy. "No you don't!" the heroic griffon declared, sending her flying into the spectator bunker and demolishing it in a cloud of rubble. Saffron growled in assent, following him up with another attack laser.
Chrysalis snarled, her horn igniting and sending another laser straight at Wallace. Thunder roared as it connected with his offending shoulder, and soon his entire leg was gone, and part of its socket as well. Wallace collapsed, his torn shoulder exposed, but instead of blood, it trailed with torn endings of blue rune magic interwoven with his muscles.
Saffron stepped forward, shield glowing and face torn in a snarl of her own, but Chrysalis's horn pulsed again, and a boulder torn from the field by an earlier shot collided with her from the side, sending her flying. She stalked towards Valey again, a wave of gravity from her horn pinning everyone tightly to the ground.
"You," Chrysalis said, her voice growing sweeter as she lifted Valey from the ground, draped over a single long leg. "I remember-"
She was interrupted again as Gerardo barreled into her side, somehow standing despite her magic, and Yulio plunged the sword into her back from above, trying again even though it had failed the first time. "Enough!" Chrysalis shrieked, seizing the sword in her magic and overpowering Yulio's control, using it to run both him and Gerardo through.
As in his fight with Wallace, Yulio had bonded again to the sword, and the slash phased right through him, leaving him unaffected. "Run, you idiots!" he called, clinging to her back. "I'm buying you as much time as I-"
Chrysalis spun, grabbing him in a hoof and thrusting him downwards, pinning him against the ground. "I'm not interested in a loveless fool like you!" Then she angled her horn and fired Stanza's laser at him point-blank. Yulio was gone.
"Help..." Valey rasped, her cutie mark flickering in and out between her flank and the air an inch above it.
Maple, Amber and Shinespark all struggled back to their hooves, staring Chrysalis down defiantly. Starlight knew they would be next.
Chrysalis activated her horn again, knocking the trio down with a fresh wave of energy. "I remember you," she crooned, holding up Valey. "You showed me kindness when no one else could be bothered. Why couldn't everyone have been like you? You stayed with me, took me into your home... Things could have been different. But you will be rewarded. The rest of the world can burn, but I will keep you and cherish your soul gently. Come."
Valey was wreathed with an aura of green power. "No, you..." she croaked, before being able to fight it no longer. Her body flashed, transforming into an empty shell, as her cutie mark drifted into the multitude in Stanza's crown.
"NO!" Amber screamed. Starlight didn't have breath to echo the sentiment. Her world was ending, and her imagination boiled with everything that was about to happen. Maple still had energy from the flame, she would try to fight back. Amber would try to keep Valey's body. Shinespark would interfere, and Chrysalis would shoot to cripple, not kill, because she wanted love and servitude instead of dead bodies...
Chrysalis laughed, and Valey's body got up, spreading its insectoid wings with a mind of its own as it lifted off to join the swarm already circling in the sky.
Amber wasn't having it. She ran past Chrysalis and jumped, the ascendant queen looking on with amusement and canceling the gravity spell. "You're chasing a husk? She's gone, you know. But still connected to my network. Caring about that thing only feeds me..."
With a flying leap, Amber grappled the shell's legs, hanging on with a yell. But Valey's body was strong and well-toned, and it buzzed its wings harder, still managing to gain altitude. "Help me out, here!" Amber cried.
Maple set her teeth. Starlight felt the missing chunk of her magic react as Maple's cutie mark flashed, almost glowing in the darkened world, and a pillar of crystal burst up beneath her, propelling her into a leap. "Valey!"
Her aim was true, and she latched onto Amber and Valey's body midair, living up to her nickname and weighing the body down. "This is for every time you've called me Ironflanks," she hissed, the trio coming into a rough landing next to Wallace's fallen form. "You had better call me that again..."
Wallace's remaining talon stretched out and slammed down, pinning Valey's tail to the ground. "You're not going anywhere," he managed with a pained grin. "Not while I have anything to say about it..."
"Hmm," Chrysalis mused. "You care that much about it? So strong... I could use this..."
"The way you can use it," Shinespark threatened, "is by giving our friend back! Fix everything you've done, right now!"
Chrysalis gave her a cross look. "Fixing things? Oh, I'm fixing things. I'm fixing the hole in my heart called nobody loving us!" She seized Shinespark in her aura, lifting her until they were face to face. "You can help. I can feel how much you care... I see it all. You practically glow with it! Ironridge! Everyone in this field... Valey? You love her. You love her, don't you? Ahaha... And you're not even a sarosian. You poor, star-crossed lover... We could have been such good friends, if only you had cared. It's not too late. Love me. Love me!"
"I hate you!" Shinespark retaliated by overloading her horn, a blast of magical energy hitting Chrysalis squarely in the face and knocking her away.
"You little..." Chrysalis hissed, lifting her head from where she lay in a heap on the ground. "Clearly you don't need that horn of yours!"
Shinespark tried to dodge, but Stanza's beam was too fast... for her. Starlight had seen it coming miles away.
The energy beam formed, crackling green and black in a perfectly straight line between the tip of Chrysalis's horn and Shinespark's. Shinespark's horn glowed dangerously, cracks began to form... but before it could shatter, Starlight threw herself into the beam, blocking it and cutting it off from her friend. If this was what her future held, she would sacrifice anything to keep them safe.
But she didn't die. The energy rolled over her like living tar, violating, invading, just as negative yet far more violent and hateful than moon glass. Moon glass was emotion that had been hurt. This was emotion that intended to hurt, yet was equally negative... and somehow, her body reacted differently to it all the same. She clung to herself, blocking and absorbing the beam, until it faded away, leaving her covered in clammy waves intent on taking every inch of her body and defiling it with foreign emotions.
Chrysalis blanched. "What are you supposed to be?" she asked, brushing Starlight aside with her telekinesis like a broom. "Get out of my way."
Starlight landed in a heap, her muscles refusing to react as the effects of Stanza's beam continued swirling through her and crawling up her spine. The spark in her chest pulsed feebly, continuing to fight it off, but it wasn't enough. Starlight felt sick, and not just because of the energy: she knew exactly what was coming next.
"You just shot my filly," Maple said, eyes flashing with the ruby flame's stored power.
"Maple, no!" Starlight cried weakly, her muscles working enough to move her mouth. "Don't..."
She could imagine everything as Maple stalked toward Chrysalis, and the monster looked up from Shinespark to meet her. Maple, pierced by Chrysalis's horn. Maple, thrown into a wall at full telekinetic force. The pony she cared about most, annihilated by Stanza's beam... and there was nothing she could do but yell to save her.
Maple wasn't listening, ruby crackling around her cutie mark. "We took you into our home!" she snarled. "And you're killing us in return!"
Chrysalis curled her lip, the inside of her crown vibrating with stolen light. "Which one of your friends have I killed? The filly was Gazelle's friend, not yours, and nobody cared for that stallion. I've spared you all."
"Valey!" Maple yelled back, taking up a fighting stance. "And look what you've done to everyone else!"
Chrysalis chuckled and tapped her crown. "Safe and sound with me, where she belongs. And so what about everyone else? As long as they can love me, they're perfectly serviceable. As are you." She leaned down and sniffed. "I can feel something very powerful in you... Feed me willingly, and I will spare you further pain."
"You attacked my filly," Maple replied. "You stole my friend and are killing my others. I'd rather die than kneel to you. But I'll see you dead first!"
She leapt at Chrysalis, who stood and took the blow willingly. Maple grabbed onto her side, reached for her head, and punched her squarely in the eye, ruby flames channeling out from her hoof as she released a second round of stored-up energy, billowing straight into Chrysalis's head.
"Ahahahaha!" Chrysalis laughed as the flow began. "Yes, feed..." She winced. "Stop that! That burns!"
"Oh, you want some more?" Maple drew back and punched again, landing another blow squarely on Chrysalis's face. "Stop hurting my friends!"
Chrysalis howled, bringing her head down and slamming Maple against the ground to get her off. Snarling, she drew back and stabbed forward, her sharp, jagged horn piercing straight through the offending hoof. Maple screamed as Chrysalis withdrew, unused to dealing with combat injuries and now sporting a bad one.
"You fool-!"
Maple kicked upward, lashing out desperately with her legs, and a final plume of fire reached upward, knocking Chrysalis off her as her magic store ran out and her eyes returned to normal.
"Maple!" Starlight dragged herself forward one hoof at a time, the clammy energy not abating. Her body felt like it was rejecting her, but she hung on, desperately wishing she could run. "Maple, look out!"
With a snarl, Chrysalis's aura formed around Maple, flinging her like a missile over Starlight's head and into the arena wall behind her. Maple cried out in pain, bounced off and rolled to a stop shortly behind Starlight, unconscious before she landed.
"Maple... No, Maple..." Starlight managed to turn around, crawling back toward her fallen mother. "Maple! Maple!"
She heard Chrysalis approaching behind, and turned to face her, laying incapacitated before the pony she cared most about like a useless, broken shield. Everyone was down, dead or dying. There was no one left who could save them save Amber, and she stared helplessly from beside Wallace and Valey's body, painfully aware there was nothing she could do.
"I told you to love me," Chrysalis announced, her horn crackling with green. The laser would be next. If Starlight could even stand, she could block one more shot, but her spark was waning. She got a single hoof beneath her, and that was all she could do.
"Why won't you love me!?" Chrysalis insisted. "No one would before, no one will now! DIE!"
Starlight's prayers weren't going to be answered. No one could hear her. She couldn't move... and then a faint wisp of memory rose in her mind.
"We dream of becoming that power, of becoming so indispensable to everyone that We will be loved..." a dark alicorn said, standing with her back to Starlight in a ruby corridor in a fragmented memory of a memory. "But should that quest ever cause us to lose our love for those We wish to be loved by..."
The memory faded in and out along with the waves of Stanza's darkness crawling beneath her skin, the world seeming to slow to accommodate them. "The Nightmare Modules are tools of loneliness and jealousy, but We crafted them to protect those We care about with everything in our heart..." The memory flickered again. "...should we ever lose ourselves, our Nightmare Modules will lend their strength to protect ye from us..."
The crown on Chrysalis's head glowed with the light of every one of Luna's children, crying out from their new master's grasp. Starlight's friends were dying, she was helpless, and a god stood in her way. But she had been given the weapons of an alicorn, designed to kill a god for this very purpose, and Glimmer was nowhere around to tell her to stop fighting and learn to let go. Even if she had been, Starlight wouldn't have listened.
Stanza's negative energy wasn't moon glass, but it was close enough. Starlight reached inside herself, found the spark that saw fit to protect her, and blew it out.
FLASH!
Stanza's laser lanced over Starlight and Maple's heads, impacting the aqueduct wall behind them and chipping a large crater into the stone. It had flown at an angle, and hovering dully in the air where it had refracted was a shield made from dull, gray hexagons: the same kind that had blocked the beam in a demonstration long ago when Chauncey showed off the machine in a lab in Izvaldi.
Black energy from the earlier strike still crackled over Starlight, but it was increasingly flowing toward her horn, bathed in a veil of gray. Her legs worked again, and she stood, facing Chrysalis down with a frown.
"What...?" Chrysalis bared her teeth. Another laser flew, deflecting effortlessly off Princess Luna's shield. The light of the marks in her crown grew all the brighter, Starlight's senses changing and recognizing it for what it really was: the worth of hundreds of thousands of ponies, who were trapped and would never be able to laugh or smile again. Who would never be able to share that light with her.
"Give those back," Starlight warned, her voice echoing, standing aggressively in front of Maple. "My friend is in there. Those don't belong to you."
Chrysalis spat. "What do you think you're doing?"
Starlight let the Nightmare Modules answer for her.
Her horn burst with darkness, Luna's magic radiating around her and seeming to draw in every shadow for miles around. Grayness flooded down and enveloped her until her hooves were the same color as the rest of the world, and each module rose in her mind, reminding her of what it could do. Jealousy, which made moon glass. Deception: her shadow cloak, which also freed her from magic fields. Cowardice: the shield. Cruelty, which erased memories. Treason, the memory of Garsheeva and Nightmare Moon. And Tyranny, which could shift her own form...
The last Nightmare Module activated, Starlight calling on it to make herself something stronger and better-able to fight. Her mane immediately flared up in a starry mist, wrapping around her and leaving her bigger... the size of an adult, or a little more.
"Give those back!" Starlight called again, standing over the fallen Maple, everyone who was still conscious staring at her with wide eyes. The light from the crown pierced her heart like a knife from its goodness and intensity, but it was okay because Chrysalis wasn't going to keep it. She was coming, and she was going to make all this right. "Those cutie marks belong to me!"
Chrysalis took a step back, looking legitimately shocked by Starlight's challenge. Then she snarled, angled her horn, and Stanza's laser erupted again.
This time wasn't like the others. Instead of a thin beam, Chrysalis called on everything she had, an umbrella of devastating light fountaining forth. Starlight's shield reacted instantly, colliding with the beam and forcing her back a pace as the attack spread out behind her, Maple and Shinespark protected in her lee.
Starlight dug in her heels as Nightmare Moon's magic and Chrysalis's fought, the shield calling on her in return. It was a force of jealousy and loneliness, a force that protected, a force that functioned in the absence of friendship to keep her from losing more, but Starlight still had her friends. And she was about to lose them. She strained the remnants of the darkness from Stanza's beam, then dug into her own memories, forcing in every bit of fear and confusion from her visions of the ashen future and her wishes for protection, her parents and care. Light umbrellaed around her, and she snarled, the attack finally fading away and leaving her shield without a scratch.
Behind her, a hole the size of two houses had been blown through the wall, stones crumbling and falling and the windswept plains visible behind. Chrysalis sagged from the force of the blast, and Starlight charged, racing towards her in her moment of weakness.
"What are you!?" Chrysalis demanded, her crown flickering as the swarm of shells in the sky wheeled around, preparing to defend their queen. "Get away from me!"
Starlight answered her with a primal scream. The sarosian shells dropped, striking the ground like missiles, and Starlight rolled to avoid one before slipping through another by momentarily turning into a cloud of mist. "Give me my friend back!"
The shells flew towards her friends, too, and for a moment Starlight hesitated... and then Wallace flew through the air, striking two away from Maple. "Everyone who is able, on your feet and rally! This battle isn't over yet!"
"Aye aye, Wallace!" Amber crawled towards Saffron, dragging Valey's pinned shell with her.
Starlight's eyes flickered between Chrysalis and everyone else who was down, Wallace fighting to defend Maple and Shinespark with his remaining weakened arm. Another drone was heading for Gerardo...
She couldn't use her horn and didn't have crystals, but she had something else that functioned just the same.
Starlight stomped down, a line of black energy crackling along the ground before erupting near her friend in a spire of moon glass. The sharpened spike struck the drone through the wing, earning a hiss and a screech and immobilizing it before it could bite him.
Suddenly, she knew another laser was coming, and whirled and raised her shield... but Chrysalis fired at her feet instead, blowing a crater in the ground that Starlight immediately dropped into. Before she could get to her hooves and climb out, the queen was flying away.
"No-!" Starlight called, but didn't have time to finish. A snarling, normal-pony-sized Garsheeva streaked through the air, her blank flank still crackling, latching savagely onto Chrysalis's neck and mauling her face with her fangs.
Chrysalis screeched as Starlight climbed free from the pit, twisting and blasting Garsheeva back to the ground. She hovered, restoration magic knitting her face back together, but Starlight had been bought the time she needed.
With a yell, moon glass formed beneath her hooves, launching her upwards in a pillar just like Maple. Chrysalis tried to swerve, but Starlight read her perfectly, jumping at an angle and catching the queen's hind leg as she rose through the air.
"Hressshhhh!" Chrysalis spat, beating at her with a hoof to knock her off. But Starlight was bigger and stronger thanks to the Tyranny Module, and the holes in the queen's legs provided excellent purchase. She took one hit, but punched away the next, hanging on and dragging herself upwards onto Chrysalis's back.
The crown was right there... Chrysalis was about to gore her with her horn, but Starlight was more interested in the light just above, countless souls including Valey's just within her grasp.
"Those are mine!" Starlight screamed, swinging around a powerful foreleg and grabbing Chrysalis's horn before it could stab her, holding her head in a lock. "Mine!"
The queen's horn surged, and Starlight felt a searing burst of energy, but it wasn't enough to dislodge her. Her own horn fired back, summoning the one material she had been given that was designed to capture and safeguard cutie marks from everyone else: moon glass.
Black crystal bloomed from her horn, forming into a shape her thoughts vaguely guided: a sword, not unlike the corrupted crystal one she had called on against Hemlock. Faceted and chunky, it hovered in a dark aura next to her even though her horn had no telekinesis to give, longer than she was even with her enlarged size. She raised it high, high over Chrysalis's crown and stabbed.
Chrysalis screamed.
The light in her crown pulsated, the sword's tip sinking all the way through it and piercing her welded scalp below. The sword pulsed in return, and the crown dimmed... it was absorbing the marks. Everything Chrysalis had stolen, Starlight could steal back. What she would do from there didn't matter. All that mattered was that there were ponies who were real and could care and she would save them, and maybe, just maybe, some of them would thank her in return.
Chrysalis lost control of her flight, crashing into the ground and knocking Starlight off. They landed together in a circle of dust, flashes in the background as Garsheeva, Wallace and Gazelle fought to draw everyone together and towards the hole in the wall, trusting that Starlight could stand up to the queen.
"What. Did. You. Do?" Chrysalis hissed, her horn flickering wildly, holding a hoof to her crown as it danced and burned with chaotic light.
Starlight brandished her moon glass sword, starting to circle... and almost tripped on Gerardo's old sword, discarded on the ground nearby. She flipped that one into the air, catching it in her teeth and arming herself doubly. "Stopping you," she retorted. "There are ponies in this, and they don't belong to you."
"You'll pay for that!" Chrysalis opened her mouth and snarled, charging straight for Starlight's sword.
Starlight swung it out of the way, bringing Gerardo's slicing down on her back instead. Stanza had been able to withdraw cutie marks from moon glass, she remembered. She might have the upper hoof, but this fight was far from over yet.
Chrysalis screamed, kicking her into a wall faster than her reflexes would allow. Starlight shielded herself from the impact and landed shakily on her hooves, readying herself to go again. It felt so much more natural to fight with a sword that could float than one in her mouth, though...
A rapid-fire succession of Stanza lasers flew at Starlight as Chrysalis charged again, thoroughly berserk and not about to back down. Starlight shielded all of them with ease, swinging at the charging queen, but Chrysalis pulled up, looping towards her gathering friends instead. "If you won't get out of my way...!"
Starlight instantly ran, seeing Chrysalis's horn charge, snarling as she realized there wouldn't be a way to reach and shield her friends again... when a massive crimson laser dropped at an angle from the sky, wider than the queen's entire body. Chrysalis swung on instinct, firing Stanza's beam back into the attack, but it was canceled effortlessly, blazing through her body and slamming her into a deep trench in the ground. Starlight looked up.
WHAM! The metal dragon Aegis landed behind her friends, curling its neck around them protectively, conical tail generator alive with ruby light. Energy flowed down through veins on its body, and it extended a lethal claw, scoring the ground in a crisscross before scooping out dozens of finely-carved stone darts, launching them where Chrysalis had landed in a barrage of covering fire.
"Glimmer!" Starlight yelled, charging toward the dragon in relief, both swords in tow and not caring who heard. A crimson aura was congealing around every downed pony, griffon and sphinx in the arena...
There was a pop of light, and everyone, Aegis included, appeared on the deck of the Immortal Dream. The harmony comet was blazing with far more intensity than usual, and the dragon instantly spread its wings, soaring and hovering inside the comet, seemingly amplifying its effects.
Glimmer, Harshwater, Slipstream and Grenada were all waiting on the deck. "Get everyone inside!" Harshwater barked. "Now! Hurry!"
Ponies carried ponies, and no one wasted time in complying. Amber still held Valey's struggling shell, the fallen sarosian's hat clutched in her teeth, and Garsheeva roughly shoved Gazelle into the door. She briefly shot a glance at Glimmer. "Whatever you're planning, you had better have planned well. I have a continent to see to."
With that, Garsheeva leapt off the deck, streaking away. Nobody had time to protest or complain, Wallace dragging himself along and somehow carrying Meltdown, bringing up the rear.
"We're good! Go!" Glimmer called frantically through the open door to the bridge the moment only she and Starlight were left on the deck.
"I've been looking forward to it!" Jamjars grinned back, then swiveled in the pilot's chair and punched a lever.
The engine roared, and the harmony comet strained against its wireframe, trying to tilt straight upward like it had when Starlight overloaded the engine to kill the windigoes in Ironridge. But this time, the ship followed suit. Its prow rose, the floor tilted, and suddenly Starlight was skidding along the floor, catching Glimmer by the scruff of her neck as the deck went vertical and the Aldenfold became the new horizon. Soon, she was standing on the stern, the doorway to the rear staircase part of the floor beside her. She didn't let go of Glimmer, cautiously sticking as close to the deck as she could... and the engine fired, and the ship rose like a rocket.
Wind screamed around them as the ground disappeared, the arena falling away into a petal on the aqueduct walls' four-leaf clover. But the weather shield empowered by the harmony comet held, and they weren't blown off.
"This isn't good," Glimmer remarked, dangling from Starlight's mouth.
"You think!?" Starlight set her down, exasperated. "What's happening, what are you doing, and where are we going!?"
"Aegis says the daydream network has been taken over by a hostile agent," Glimmer replied. "Fortunately, she is fine, and safely monitoring Chrysalis's communications. This system doesn't have the capabilities to compromise her. But the rest of the continent likely isn't. You are now being chased by her, correct?"
Starlight swallowed, staring down. She could see the swarm following at a distance.
Glimmer sighed. "You're committed to doing whatever it takes to see your friends through this, no matter the cost to yourself?"
"I'm already using the Nightmare Modules," Starlight replied, squinting as Chrysalis and her shells drew nearer. "If I say yes, will you help me?"
Glimmer nodded.
"Then help," Starlight demanded. "Help however you can."
Glimmer put a hoof against her flank. "Eylista administrator external access protocol..." She took a deep breath. "Unless."
User password recognized, Starlight's Nightmare Module voice said. Access granted.
"...There." Glimmer nodded and stepped back. "To put it simply, your body will listen to you more. Now, Aegis is projecting a shield around the ship protecting this area from Chrysalis's influence, and making herself available as a network access point. The first thing I need you to do is to give yourself back the power I lent you when we were in Mistvale. Do you remember?"
"When I was talking with the other batponies in their heads?" Starlight blinked, wondering how she was supposed to do that.
Daydream socket privilege level updated to match new user permissions. Pony-to-pony broadcasting system online.
Starlight blinked again. "Once you've done that," Glimmer continued, "try to talk to Aegis. There's a lot of noise on the network from Chrysalis, and if you use it, she'll hear you, but Aegis's defenses will keep you safe. From there, I need you to access the generator again in the Tree of Harmony."
"Okay..." Starlight swallowed, looking away from the advancing Chrysalis and up at the harmony comet as they sailed up the Aldenfold's cliff face. "Hello?"
"HELLO," Aegis replied, the words registering as sound yet ringing in her mind. "I AM WORKING..."
Suddenly, a cacophony of dark wind surrounded her senses, like she was in the middle of a tornado. Most of it was wordless voices, until Chrysalis blared in her head, "You! What are you doing in my mind!? I'm coming for you, Starlight! And your friends, too! Give me back my love!"
Starlight winced heavily from the noise. "Tune it out," Glimmer urged, putting a hoof on her back, "and find the generator. Please."
Suddenly, another laser of red flared from inside the harmony comet, Aegis blasting down as Chrysalis and her swarm continued giving chase. Inside the network were countless voiceless screams and Chrysalis snarling, but it was overridden with Aegis warning, "PLEASE STAND BACK."
With the energy expulsion, the harmony comet had grown noticeably dimmer, yet still more vibrant than usual. Starlight winced. That attack was burning through precious fuel, wasn't it... Where was that generator?
A new voice entered her mind, cool and smooth. Aldenfold core energy suppliant systems. Verifying access level... Transitional Emotion Trinity Research Automata version 4.0. Full system administrator access granted. Welcome.
"Okay, now what!?" Starlight looked again. Chrysalis had fallen back somewhat.
"You found it?" Glimmer's ears rose. "We need two things. First, find the master power production scheme and change it to stress testing overdrive."
"What?" Starlight narrowed her eyes. "But didn't you just have me lower it?"
Glimmer sighed. "That was before I knew this would happen. Starlight, you don't get to the places I've been in life without knowing how to fight rogue, upstart gods, and hitting her with this generator at full blast is definitely something we want to do."
Too many questions pressed in on Starlight's tongue for her to parse, not least of which the sudden realization that Chrysalis's fire and the harmony comet weren't gray. She felt like there was a significance to that... but Chrysalis was coming, so she shut up and willed the generator to do what Glimmer asked.
Warning. Systems are in a maintenance cycle for overuse. Stress-testing may cause core components to become damaged. Only proceed as a necessary part of testing reparations.
Starlight insisted, and the generator complied. She couldn't hear the rumble, but was sure there was one, a ruby glow intensifying at the bottom of Grandbell's city pit.
"What now!?"
"Now..." Glimmer suddenly grabbed onto her. Around them, the cliff face fell away. With only a few minutes of rapid acceleration, they had crested the initial wall of the Aldenfold, and the ship slowly leveled out, still speeding upwards at an angle as snow-capped peaks and forested wilderness soared by below.
Behind them, Chrysalis rose into sight, the rest of her swarm having been unable to finish the climb but the queen herself undaunted. She shrieked, blazing toward them and building speed.
Glimmer nodded. "We're in the mountains? She is too?"
"Yes!" Starlight shook her. "And she's gaining! I'm getting ready for a fight." She set Glimmer down and grabbed the black sword again, hefting her moon glass one in its unusual aura.
"Turn on emergency weather ventilation mode," Glimmer instructed. "The storms in the mountains are caused by power runoffs through special equipment used to keep the spell at a proper power balance. We're going to send everything to that ventilation equipment."
Starlight nodded and sent the command, silencing another warning when it came.
Immediately, every mountaintop reacted. Snowcaps turned red and exploded, storms of red lightning arcing far into the air. One bolt struck the ship's shield, which vibrated intensely, protecting it from the chaotic, untamed blast. Another soared over Chrysalis, and the queen surged, darting beneath it and chasing the ship with lust and panic in her eyes.
"Now what!?" Starlight had climbed the stern, and looked back, meeting Chrysalis's eyes as the ship put on a burst of speed, barely staying ahead of her.
"Close your network connection before she gets too close and hope she gets hit!"
"That's your plan!?" Thunderous clouds were rapidly spreading across the sky, brewing a storm to end all storms as Chrysalis and the ship raced on through a tunnel of lightning. "Just hope she gets hit? You don't have anything better than that!?"
"I'd like to see you do better!" Glimmer retorted. "I'm blind, have no horn and no powers whatsoever! Cut me some slack!"
Behind them, Chrysalis grabbed the stern, clinging on and scowling.
"No time for that," Starlight replied, balanced on the woodwork as Chrysalis pulled herself closer and straightened up. "She's here."
Glimmer ran to the bridge, and soon the intercom was blaring. "Anyone who feels like fighting an evil queen, Starlight could use help on the deck!" Jamjars warned.
Chrysalis scoffed at the announcement. "I won't give them the time to reach you."
She angled her horn down, preparing to fire into the ship, destroying it and everyone inside. "No!" Starlight yelled, jumping forward and tackling her at the edge.
If she had fallen off and taken Chrysalis with her, it would have been worth it. But the queen had other ideas, more concerned about the red lightning storm than taking Starlight down with her. She grappled the edge, clawing her way into a better position, and kicked at Starlight, preparing to fire again.
"Stop that!" Starlight growled, clubbing her head with the telekinetic moon glass sword. Chrysalis winced from the impact, and Starlight crawled further along her, keeping both of them prone as she reached her neck and swung the black sword, chopping at her twisted horn.
It took three hacks and a desperate struggle to cling on, but Chrysalis's horn severed, cut down to a sparking, crackling stub. Chrysalis howled in pain, trying to regenerate it, but the process seemed slower with such a magical part of her body. She lunged at Starlight with her teeth instead, too close-range to effectively block with the shield, opening a painful double-gash in Starlight's side.
Before she could sink deeper, Starlight misted, remembering the module that let her turn to fog and swirling behind the queen. She reverted to a pony, stomped Chrysalis's neck, and slammed her head into the boards, leaning forward and stabbing Chrysalis's eye with her horn.
It was intentionally the same eye Maple had stung earlier with her stored harmony, and she felt herself meet with success. Before she could summon more moon glass to finish the job, Chrysalis tore her away with a roar, flinging her against a railing and hissing as her eye rebuilt itself too. "Curse you..."
Starlight couldn't shield. She knew if she used the Nightmare Modules to lessen her impact, she risked breaking through the railing and plummeting off the ship, and so she took the blow against the ship instead. It left her head ringing, and she hissed back, unable to capitalize and hit Chrysalis while she was down.
She rubbed her head, vision spinning... Chrysalis was going to recover first.
"Oh, no you don't!" Wallace Whitewing's voice boomed from below.
Starlight gasped as Wallace hurled himself up from the deck, streaming energy and missing his leg and looking utterly terrible, yet somehow retaining his grin. "Hello there, so-called queen."
Chrysalis growled, her eye healed and her horn halfway through the process of rebuilding itself. "How are you still alive!? Nobody should be able to survive that!"
"Speak for yourself," Wallace replied, standing shakily. "I fight with the powers of heroism. My devotion to my cause is my strength!" He shuddered, steaming and crackling with energy. "And you are a threat to the whole world. There is no higher cause than saving the world from the forces of evil! Against you... I will not fall!"
"You'll fall like everyone else who doesn't give me my love!" Chrysalis opened her mouth and screeched, preparing to charge him... but Wallace charged first.
"FOR JUSTICE!" Wallace bellowed, taking Chrysalis's broken-horned stab to the chest and closing his remaining talon in a death grip around her barrel, pinning her gossamer wings uselessly. Not even a mountain could stop his momentum, and he carried them both off the side.
"Wallace!" Starlight leapt to the stern, staring as they were both carried away.
POW! Wallace drove Chrysalis face-first into an exposed mountaintop, punching her against the pointed rock. The mountain erupted with light, a pillar of red lightning linking its summit to the roiling clouds above, running both of them straight through.
Chrysalis screamed, and Wallace's pained grunt could be heard too, but the griffon didn't let up, holding his nemesis against the raw contact point even as lightning surged through his body, illuminating his lopsided frame and charring all his feathers to a crisp. Both of them burned, and Starlight stared as the ship sped on, and neither of them moved before a new mountain peak finally obscured the sight from view.
Wordlessly, Starlight stared, counting by mountain peaks instead of minutes. Three, four, five... seven. Wallace didn't catch up. Neither did Chrysalis. The mountain lightning soon cut off, and the storm drifted north, ready to give the Empire the worst weather they had ever seen, and no giant goddess to fight it off.
Then, the sound from the harmony comet changed. The shimmer faded, the ship started to wobble... and it slowly drifted downwards as the mountain line receded, coming to rest on a high foothill with the snowy peaks only in the background. Starlight stared around, and to the southwest, she could see the sea.
Glimmer climbed up beside her. "We've stopped."
"Are we back in Equestria?" Starlight whispered, letting the Nightmare Module's transformation end as her body shrank back to a normal filly. The two swords sat on the deck before her, Gerardo's old one and the moon glass one she had sealed every cutie mark and soul Chrysalis stole inside... including Valey's. Maybe there was a way...
"Probably," Glimmer replied. "Since you turned all the power to the exhaust system, the spell itself wouldn't have been powered." She stopped, then hesitated. "Starlight, are you alright?"
"No."
"...I'm sorry," Glimmer said. "If I had known this would happen, I would have stopped it."
Starlight didn't want to ask why she didn't know. Either there wouldn't be an answer, or it would just hurt more. She stared at her sword, at everything she had done and how it didn't even start to make up for what had happened, and sat down and cried.
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Well, this is one hell of a chapter. Pat yourself on the back, this is the right 'A' word.
Are bat ponies extinct now?
Welp.
Alright, this made me chuckle.
Well, RIP Yulio I guess—ya died not being a dick. And maybe a big ol' F for Wallace, too.
Whatever they end up accomplishing now, I guess we know they don't manage to revive all of the sarosians, since Chryssi still has an army in the present.
Empire is gonna get reeeeekt. Giant storm coming down from the Aldenfold, hitting the capital city first, (most of?) the sarosian population is bugs, and unless Team NFI manages to accomplish something super-quickly all those bugs from Mistvale are gonna come a-callin' too.
Oh, crap, wonder if any of those bugs that got dusted were Felicity or sisters.
Interesting that Glimmer didn't know this was coming. So much for her claims that she'd take care of everything. Seems even if she really is future-Starlight, this timeline has already significantly diverged from whatever horrible future she came from. Gotta wonder if the visions from the flames are even the same.
On the bright side: Hey guyyyys, we made it to Equestria! Woooooooo.
What's our status now anyway?
So, hale and hearty we've got...Starlight, Harshwater, Grenada, Jamjars, Amber, Slipstream. Go team? Did I miss anyone? Is Aegis still with us?
Hell of an end to an arc. We've got a second apocalypse under our belt now! Is there like, a punch card for a free milkshake or something?
I wonder what we'll try now? Do we get help from Equestria? Tia's probably gonna be pissed we broke her reactor. Go on a quest to the land of Indus? ...We'd probably end up blowing it up. I guess canonically (maybe just comic-canon?) Chryssi ends up down south of Equestria in the Badlands, so maybe that's where we're headed.
Time for an interlude? Sporkle's gotta be losing her mind at this point.
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Wow. Just wow. What a fantastic chapter!
The more Glimmer shows up the more questions I have about her. If she is from the future, she's changed so much of the past that she doesn't recognize it any more.
11/10 this was one of the most epic things I have read. Bravo!
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Nyala might be a bug too! They just put her back in her original sarosian body, after all...
...I have a really, really bad feeling that the one who got dusted was Nyala's body.
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Hmm...I think I'm assuming the ambient harmony from the Dream's flying would have protected Nyala (shields from weather and insane gods!) Guess we'll find out.
...I mean, that or maybe Garsheeva put a few extra staples in when she put her mark/soul/memories back. No takesy-backsies from a Wish.
...Holy damn that was a crazy chapter.
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I was under the impression that it was only those sarosians near enough to Chrysalis or the dusk statue network.
Does this imply that Starlight is Tetra, or somehow related to it?
Ok.
Ok.
I... Wow. I actually had to set the book down. So, recap. Starlight is a sysad, somehow, the changeling hivemind is hijacking an older system, several people may or may not be dead, the Aldenfold might have gotten borked, the Empire is in tatters, and the crew has several new quests in an environment we really hadn't thought we'd be in yet. Oh, and we've significantly diverged from Glimmer's timeline, so that's fun.
So that was a chapter.
Well that was insane.
On the one hand, Crystal was one of my least favorite characters in this story. On the other, I love Chryssy to death, and I thank you for making her such a badass villain <3
Valey has been buggified, which does concern me, but I’m 90% sure we’ll get her back (whether by fully restoring her or by restoring her personality in her Changeling body) because of later chapter titles. Which might be cheating, but whatever.
We’ve made it to Equestria! Very exciting, and the only thing preventing me from being completely sure that we’ll meet Celestia soon is that she didn’t seem to recognize Starlight in the present. But there’s a lot that could explain that, so I’ll hope we see her anyway.
this is kinda unsatisfying. chrysalis was more a force of nature than an actual enemy, she just showed up and pushed the "kill half the cast" button. there was nothing anyone coulda done, no actual way to prevent any of it. its like unavoidable insta kill moves in a game, a load of bullshit. (its not badly written necessarily, just feels exceptionally shitty to read).