Part 1 - The Hour of Twilight, Chapter 1 - The Falling Darkness
Twilight Sparkle, formerly the student of Princess Celestia, sat next to her foal-hood mentor in a reverent melancholy. She was only back in Canterlot for a few days, staying at her father's home for the brief time she would be there. Her birth mother, Queen Chrysalis, sat next to her opposite Celestia, the pair of rulers quietly chatting about random minutia that didn't involve their young companion for the evening. They had both told the changeling princess that they understood her need to have some time to her thoughts periodically. After all, one does not simply let go of the loss of one's mother, especially when visiting their hometown where said mother had raised them.
"Twilight," the voice of the Sun Princess cut into her introspection, "What are you doing?"
She blinked automatically, a less dramatic action than a head shake would have been to return her full consciousness to the here and now, "Hmm? Oh, just thinking of mom."
"No, daughter, she means what magic are you casting?" Clarified Chrysalis, concern tinging her voice.
"Huh?" Grunted Twilight in confusion. She glanced about to see what they might be talking about, only to discover the beginnings of a magic lattice in the shape of an isocagon forming around her. "This...this isn't me!" She gasped in alarm.
"Guards!" Snapped Celestia, "Isolate and track! Find the source of this spell!" After the recent...problem with Blueblood, the guard had implemented several new training programs to deal specifically with high-level magical threats.Pegasiilaunched into the air in a well-coordinated formation to provide maximum visual coverage and to be able to strike at any threat as quickly as possible. Unicorns began active scans for traces, attempting to locate the source of the magic and (if at all possible) what the spell was meant to do before it could finalize.
Chrysalis didn't even need to vocalize. A mere pulse of thought and emotion caused a score of cloaked changelings to appear in the throne room, seemingly materializing from thin air. Of course, they'd been there from the moment their queen and princess entered the room, they were simply in stealth mode, as was their habit and training.
The one changeling that hadn't been cloakedbesidesChrysalis and Twilight boldly declared, "The GRRRREAT and Powerful Changeling has got this!"So saying, she powered up her horn and charged the lattice still forming, only to get summarily bounced off with extreme force. She arced across the room and slammed into the far wall hard enough to leave a crater. She stood from the collapsed slump she had fallen into and muttered, "ThanneweBaltimare,yoovbin a grate audience..." And then dropped back to the floor unconscious.
"Your majesty," barked a unicorn guard, "The magic...I can't detect a source!"
At this, Celestia lit her horn, using the same spell for detecting magic as the guards, then switching to another, a more ancient spell when that one didn't work. The one the guards were using was a "lowest common denominator" spell, after all, designed to be taught to the rawest of recruits regardless of magical talent. She closed her eyes, shutting off her sight so she could concentrate on the feedback from the spell. "Hmmm..." She uttered, "I recognize some of this, it's like..." She gasped, her eyes popping open as wide as possible, "SUMMON MY SISTER!"
"Celestia!" Snapped Chrysalis, "What is happening to my daughter?" While the two regent's relationship was healing, the changeling matriarch tended to allow anger to be her default response when dealing with her pony counterpart.
Celestia was igniting as much or more magic than she had summoned in centuries as she replied, "We have an artifact left over from Starswirl's experiments, a mirror. It allows travel to other universes, parallel realities. This magic isn't quite that, but it's close enough that, combined with the lack of a local source...it can only be an attempt to summon Twilight to another world!" Thediarchhad formed a globe of magic around her student, sigils flickering across its surface, splattering apart as quickly asCelestiacould form them.
Chrysalis gasped, the thought that someone who she couldn't even reach was attempting to abduct her only queen daughter. Wordlessly, she joined her magic to Celestia's, doing as changelings do and reading and copying the alicorn's spells flawlessly. This, unfortunately, meant that she was having just as little success.
"What...what should I do, Princess?" Gasped Twilight from within the magical cage.
"Disrupt the spell!" Gasped the solar diarch, "We'll do our best to cut it off from its source."
With a surge of shadow, Luna emerged into the throne room from her unique brand of teleport, "'Twill be a challenge without knowing the source." She commented as she began casting scanning and diagnostic spells.
"Thank you for your quick response, sister." Gasped Celestia as she poured more energy, some of her sigils finally taking hold to form runes alongside Chrysalis' mirror images on the opposite side.
Twilight was jabbing raw magic at the junction points of the lattice surrounding her. While she was able to succeed at breaking individual points, overall, she could tell she was losing the battle. For every two she disrupted, three would reform around her.
"I've found the vector, but not the origin!" Exclaimed Luna, "Attempting to trace the spell back to the summoner...wait, something is being pushed through to this side!"
"What is it?!" Growled Chrysalis in frustration as the complex rune she'd finally assembled to mirror Celestia's was shattered by an outside force they couldn't see. Without hesitation, she restarted the shield sigils.
"I know not," hissed Luna, struggling to continue her probe and fight the inbound inverse summons. "It's almost..." She recoiled in shock as her magic was forcibly rebounded back to her, followed shortly by the other two rulers being blasted away as their shielding spell exploded in mana feedback.
The three immortals scrambled back to their hooves, "Amaryllis!" Gasped Chrysalis at the same time as the royal sisters called out, "Twilight!"
Where Twilight Sparkle, adopted daughter of the late Twilight Velvet and the widower Night Light, Most Faithful Student of Princess Celestia, bearer of the Element of Magic, had stood was now a scroll. The three warily approached the scroll, Chrysalis reaching out a tentative hoof and poking at it gently.
Tentatively, Celestia levitated the scroll and unfurled it to read.
Chrysalis' patience wasn't what one could consider legendary, "What does it say?!" She snapped.
Celestia's brows knit together in confusion, "It...seems to be addressed to you." She said as she passed the scroll to the changeling queen.
Chrysalis took the scroll in her magic and began reading aloud, "To Queen Chrysalis, I have need of the Element of Magic to confront an ancient evil that is threatening my hive. If at all possible, I will return your changeling to you unharmed at the earliest opportunity. Signed...Queen Chrysalis..." She trailed off in confusion as she read the signature line.
Twilight felt as though her head were being danced on by a herd of elephants at one of Pinkie's parties. She didn't know exactly how long she had been unconscious, but it couldn't have been long, given the lack of bodily symptoms of time passage that she had learned to pay attention to during her marathon study sessions in the Canterlot Archives. Lips aren't chapped, my bladder isn't complaining, muscles haven't cramped up...can't have been more than an hour, obviously more than a minute, but I can't be sure beyond that.
The thought was accompanied by the awareness of sound. She heard a gentle, low thrumming. It was almost organic, but on a massive scale, like she was listening to the pulse of an ancient dragon as it slept. Overlaying that background susurration was the sound of breathing. Low, steady, and at least five others in the room...one of which was obviously Rainbow Dash from the sound of snoring that anyone who'd had the misfortune of going on a sleepover or camping trip had to learn to sleep with. At least she knew she was with at least one of her friends.
"Mm..." Her mouth seemed gummed shut, which changed her estimate of how long she'd been unconscious,OK, at least half an hour. She smacked her lips, working her tongue to increase the flow of saliva until she could speak unimpeded. "Rainbow...please turn over or something."
Not waiting for a response, she pushed herself up to a sitting position and opened her eyes to examine herself. Huh, changeling...this explains the lack of sore muscles, her self-examination was quick, allowing her to take in her surroundings. A cursory glance at the others in the room yielded the manes of her friends, so she moved on to the room itself. She appeared to be in a changeling hive, though not one she had any familiarity with. For one, it was far more organic all over compared to her mother’s hive. Also, there were subtle architectural differences, little things that weren’t obvious but nonetheless made the room just a little bit alien, like the door being a touch taller than she would have expected, or the shade of green in the organic light being a touch off.
A snort and a groan interrupted Rainbow Dash’s snoring, "CHRYSALIS! What'ryou...huh?" The rainbow maned figure launched herself up to hover in place a few hooves off the ground, and Twilight gasped in shock. Instead of the cerulean coat and rainbow cutiemark she was expecting, the rainbow mane and tail were on a small changeling queen, about a hoof shorter than Twilight herself, and her dragonfly wings were shimmering with rainbow iridescence.
At Twilight's gasp, the rainbow-themed queen whipped around and gasped as well when she saw Twilight. "What?!" She yelped, "Another queen? How many of you am I gonna have to deal with?!"
Now thoroughly poleaxed, Twilight was saved from having to respond when they heard a groan from one of the other forms in the room. "Rainbow, darling, please...not so loud. As pleased as I am that I have a friend here with me, whatever magic our unknown assailant used has left me with a terrific head...ache...?" Another changeling queen, this one with a purple mane and tail, purple eyes, and gleaming carapace blinked owlishly at her other two awake companions. "Oh, dear. I must say I wasn't expecting this." She paused for a bit, looking the other two up and down, "Although...Rainbow, I presume?" At the rainbow-maned queen's perplexed nod, she continued, "I must know how you get that sheen to your wings! It is simply dazzling!"
A fourth changeling queen got to her hooves, her orange mane bound near the end and her tail twitching about to dust herself off as she doffed her hat with a hoof, "Well, changlin' er not, you're Rarity, that's for plum sure."
"Oh, indeed," replied the purple maned queen, "And the hat is a dead giveaway that you would be our dear Applejack."
Any further conversation was interrupted by a comically loud yawn, the source of which was a pink and poufy maned queen, stretching all of her limbs and wings in place while somehow defying the laws of gravity. Smacking her lips, she clopped all four of her hooves back down on the floor at once and said, "What'd I miss?"
By this time the final queen in the room had roused, took a look around, then retreated against a wall and into her long and flowing pink mane.
Having watched this, the queen version of Rainbow Dash landed and hesitantly approached the retreated changeling, "…'Shy? Is that you?"
Fluttershy nodded, peeking out from behind her bangs, "Is that really you, Rainbow Dash?"
Rainbow gave her childhood friend a confident smirk, "The one and only, of course!"
While this seemed to reassure Fluttershy a bit, Twilight spoke up, "Actually, I don't think that's the case," at the confused looks the other changelings in the room gave her, she clarified, "When...whatever summoning spell was used to bring me here, Princess Celestia said she recognized the magic as a spell that could reach across universes. I don't have any personal experience in this, but I'd say it's safe to assume, that these alternate universes also have alternate versions of ourselves. In my universe, I'm the only changeling among my friends." At this statement, she could see a realization play across the faces of the other queens, "And I'm guessing that, since we were all surprised to see each other as changelings, that this is true of each of your home universes as well." The others glanced at each other, a hint of suspicion clouding their expressions as they nodded.
A dark pause followed as the six queens looked deep into each other's gazes, all of them attempting to get a gauge on whether they could trust the others, given how similar they all were to the ponies they knew and loved. Applejack snorted, "Well, I don't know about the rest of y'all, but if'n I have to watch my back around my friends while I'm thick in the soup of some alternate dimension..."
"Universe," interrupted Twilight.
Applejack rolled her eyes, "Whatever, (and that just proves to me yer Twilight enough to be her in any universe) and that all don't sit too well with me." She turned to the rainbow-maned queen, "RD, you still the fastest thing in the sky and th'Element of Loyalty?"
"Heck yeah!" Replied the confident flyer.
"Then that's good enough for me. Put 'er there, partner!" She reached out a hoof, to which Rainbow bumped hers with a grin.
"Flutters," Rainbow turned to the changeling version of her long-time friend. "You still got more animals than Cloudsdale's got clouds?" Fluttershy giggled and nodded. Rainbow hugged the gentle queen, "Then you're just as good as my Fluttershy in my book."
Rarity started tearing up, "Oh, my stars! It's just so beautiful!" From apparently nowhere she pulled out a hoofkerchief with an embroidered, "R" on it and started dabbing her eyes.
Twilight smiled warmly, "Well, you're definitely Rarity, no doubt about that."
As one, the five of them turned to the remaining queen, pink mane puffed out in a riot of curls that was very, very familiar. "Oh-my-gosh, you guys, you know what this calls for?" Pinkie said with her trademarked smile.
The other five queens traded happy, knowing glances, then replied as one, "A party!"
Pinkie dramatically teared up as well, "Awe, I love you guys!" So saying, she swept them into a group hug as the six of them started laughing.
"Ah, yes, so good to see the spell selected the six changelings I needed and that you bonded so readily," a familiar voice interrupted their pseudo-reunion, "Although I did not expect you to be queens; that is a surprise."
They broke their hug, Rainbow and Applejack immediately landing in a defensive stance. Pinkie gave the newcomer as exasperated a look as Pinkie was capable of mustering, and Fluttershy simply did as Fluttershy's throughout the multiverse did when surprised with new people, she shrank behind the others and hid behind her mane, mewling quietly. Twilight Sparkle and Rarity both noted the reactions of the other four, somewhat confused and wary, but clearly much more comfortable with the newcomer than the others.
"It seems I am in need of the Elements of Harmony..." Said Queen Chrysalis, "And the six of you are bearers of the Elements in your respective universes. I need you to meet a threat that my changelings and I are unable to defeat that's a leftover from the previous nation that occupied the city where this hive now stands."
As soon as she said this, the gentle thrumming that had become background noise suddenly picked up in pace and volume, as though a giant heart was reacting out of fear, and a massivethump shook the chamber, followed quickly by the sound of a mana-initiated explosion.
It was clear thatChrysalishad been dealing with this, for the only acknowledgment she made was to flick an ear back.
After recovering from the startle, Twilight composed herself and asked for the group, "What threat could cause that?!"
Chrysalis merely cocked an eyebrow at the smaller, foreign queen, "'That' would be Nightmare Moon."
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Huh, the multiverse. I should of kept my options open often for more aspiration.
this looks intesting
8735865
I can't help but think your icon might just kill me in my sleep look at it plotting buying its time
I like it.
You have piqued my interest.
8735865
...I'm not sure what that means.
8736418
The adorableness is full of surprises
8736560
It's nothing much really. Jumping between alternative universes has now really given me an idea
8736652
indeed it is but at least death by cuteness isnt the worst way to go
Oh it's crazy but I like the Idea
Sucker that I am for multiversal shenanigans, I look forward to seeing where you go with this. That said, you may want to give the chapter a good once-over. You have some missing spaces here and there.
8736686
Sonova...I scrubbed through the thing three times trying to catch all the clipped spacing. (It's an artifact of copy-pasting from MS Word, it seems)
Hopefully, other fans *cough* will help out by pointing out the specific places that need spaces.
8736691
Sorry, currently on a smartphone at work. Reading stories is one thing; scouring through them while wrestling with iPhone copy-pasting is another.
Ok so twilight is from mirror image, what universes are the rest of the mane 6 from?
8736804
Pretty sure Applejack is from 'Irony of Applejack' by Mister Friendly, and Rarity is from 'The Three Sisters' by Wanderer D.
Not sure about the others though.
8736830
Excellent deduction! Actually, it's surprisingly hard to find a highly rated "Fluttershy is a changeling queen" or "Pinkie Pie is a changeling queen" fic. There are lots of "Fluttershy has secretly been a (non-queen) changeling the whole time" fics, I guess it's just a perfect trope fit, but only a couple of fics where she's a queen. Similar for PInkie.
I can see I've stumped you with Rainbow Dash, and honestly, it's my second favorite of the referenced fics, coming in only after Mirror's Image.
the only rainbow dash fic's that I know is either "winds of change" by Masterweaver or "for the hive" by law abiding pony, and for fluttershy in "Nature of change" by postninja don't know what pinkie pie would be
I love these fics where au’s come together some of my favorite fics
8736893
I think RD is from masterweaver's "Wind of Changes", Flutter from
Fluttershy The Kindest Changeling Queen, and Pinkie from All I really need's a smile, smile, smile!. It's the only one where Pinkie is a Queen
I've only read half of the referenced story.
8739801
there their is the queen of parties its a little all over the place but a fun read
8736868
I would assume that this Applejack here is before her ascension, otherwise she would be too OP compared to the rest of her friends.
Quite an interesting idea here. Looking for the next development.
You killed two dragons who are members of the bucking and dragon high council and expect to get away with that shit, are kidding me? These diamond dogs are dumb.
8801311
I suspect that you accidentally posted this to the wrong story.
8803557
Yes my apologies.Do wish me to remove it?
8805344
Not chuffed one way or the other, but I figured you'd want to know so you could at least copy it over where you initially intended for it to go.
8807200
Thank you for telling me by the way. I'll leave it I guess so people won't be confused by the conversation.
8759458
Tell me about it, I know I made quite a mess of that story, lesson learned try not to put any ideas in without having a path for it
Great start to this story. Could you post in the description a list and link to the stories each Queen is from so everyone can find said stories easier given how many X is a Changeling stories there are involving each of the Mane 6?
8851258
As I finish each chapter I'll be linking to the relevant stories. Once I'm finished with the introductions, I'll make an appendix with a master list of all the referenced fics.
8854178
Sounds like a plan.
8854178
would be very helpful, thank you
it kinda makes me wonder when the next chapter because it has been a while
8872217
Never fear, I have this one plotted out nearly start to finish. The delay is actually with LLW, the latest chapter is taking an unexpectedly long time to complete. Once that one is done, I'll be posting a Fanfiction Friday poll for my fans to select the next story I work on. If you follow my horse-blog you'll be notified as soon as the Fanfiction Friday poll is ready.
8873817
Alright I do look forward to what happens next for better or worse most likely better
loving
the story so far which will earn you a fav and a thumbs up. Keep up the good work and i look forward to future chapters. 
8854178
I'm going to guess that Rarity is from 'The Three Sisres' stories by Wanderer D
my only problem with mirrors image is that it ends on a cliffhanger, and 'the kindest changeling queen' was never finished....or is this the version of flutershy from the fic 'right' or 'flutterling' [seriously flutershy and twilight have the most changeling varients.]
I'm intrigued, looking forward to see where this goes.
8736691
I feel your pain regarding editing, and there are still more missing spaces. Stupid microsoft.