The War of the Mark

by Wise Cracker

The Queen's Dream

It took Chrysalis about two minutes to get to the chamber Bastion was in. It was a large cavern, still littered with crystals all over the ground and walls. This was where she’d hid Cadence the first time, and it had served her well then. The place was big enough to get lost in, high and wide enough for a Wonderbolts derby.More importantly, entrances and exits were difficult to see in the dim light, and the giant crystals had unpredictable effects when coming into contact with magic.

She took off flying to get to the middle of the room.

Stretching out her senses, she knew Bastion was here, at least. The crystals still carried her detection spell, but unfortunately they provided no detailed information as to his whereabouts, thanks to Sunburst’s scrambling influence. She looked down, eyeing the ground for any movement. Nothing showed. She went up higher, to where more crystals hung, in case he’d had the bright idea to hide up top. Nothing there, either.

She concentrated on the tracking spell she’d cast after the Unicorn boy had fallen. Even that hardly worked now.

She’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.

“I know you’re here, Bastion!” she called out. “Come out now. Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be. You belong to me, and you have something I want. The longer you wait, the more ponies suffer!”

She saw a flash come up from below. Several flashes, even.

She ducked out of the way of the incoming spheres.

Biting ice impacted on her flank, chilling her hip joint and sending pain rocketing up her spine. She growled and shook that leg. “You arrogant…” She looked down again.

That shot came from below. Let’s see, left, right?

Another flash. She saw it coming, it was a slow-moving projectile, easy to dodge at this range.

It splashed the back of her head with some kind of irritant. She coughed and spluttered, and quickly wiped off the remains of the acid ball.

“Prismatic spells, really? That’s the only trick you have now? Basic light show and annoying little ball games?”

The next flash was blue. Again, she tracked it with her eyes.

Electricity hit her in the stomach before she realised what was happening.

He was using the crystals. This whole chamber was like a hall of mirrors: send one light source up, it’s reflected all over. Her eyes couldn’t track these spells, because the reflections threw her off.

Still, she could take a wild guess, and he couldn’t hide forever.

She dashed down to the ground level and crushed a crystal rock with her bare hooves. The Pegasus’s strength flowed through her, and she could feel some traces of resilience as well.

That boy was quick on the short range. No wonder he lasted so long.

An electric orb clipped her right wing.

There!

She dashed again, to the other side of the chamber, smashing through more crystals. Nothing, again.

How?

The crystals flashed again. A green smoke bomb made her cough, as before. Her eyes watered.

No matter. I can still make my eyes stronger, even without changing shape.

She rushed over to the source, and this time she cast a spell, though she was loath to do it. A prismatic sphere, mere child’s play, that’s all she could manage with Sunburst’s accursed cutie mark corrupting her power. She sent more crystal flying across the cavern floor, then perked her ears.

It was vague, but she could hear breathing. She fired again at the source.

Gotcha.

She was on him before he could blink. Slamming her hoof down on his throat, she pinned him to the ground, making sure to tighten the grip immediately. There would be no room for error now.

“I’ve got you now, little boy. Very clever, using the cave like that. Did you really think that would stop me?”

He croaked. “Actually, I thought it’d make you blink.”

Five glowing spheres rose up from the ground. These were bright white, and growing brighter.

He delayed his spells to set a trap.

Clever boy.

The light pierced through her eyelids, and the thunder rocked her eardrums. She put up her hooves to block out what she could, but his plan had worked: she’d sharpened her senses to find him, and now she was blinded, and deaf, for a few seconds.

He took the chance to slip away, then unloaded on her while she was in no state to dodge.

Unfortunately for him, he was still only a child, and a changeling Queen did not fall to children. She chuckled when he slapped her with a fireball, she smiled when another solid ice sphere cracked against her joints, and she scowled when he got in a head-shot with a ball lightning.

He panted when he was done.

She snorted. Her chest itched from flying around so much. “Are you just about done now? You know it’s pointless. I’m stronger than you. I defeated both of your friends, and it cost me nothing. I can still take you.”

“Why do you keep trying to take everything away from me?” he cried out.

“Because it isn’t yours in the first place, Bastion. You are mine. Everything you own is mine. It’s mine by right. And soon, every pony I want will be mine as well. Just accept it already.”

“No, I’m not. I don’t want anything to do with you. You don’t own me. I have a family again, why can’t you let me have that?”

“Blame your uncle,” she retorted. “He’s the one who kept me from what I needed. He had a magic in him, one I need. It’s the final piece of my spell, and I know he put it in you. The griffons told me enough.”

He stopped backing up.

Good boy.

“So that really was you,” he said. “You sent the griffons.”

“Not directly, but yes, I had a small part in that. I had to make sure you have the magic I need. I needed to know where Faux Pas put it. And now I know: he hid it… “ She pointed at him as she licked her lips. “Starting from your neck joint, a smidgen to the left, and then it’s, oh, let’s say two scoops of brain matter to dig through.” She grinned. “That’s where we get our dreams from, the old ones. Every changeling dreams of the swarm, it’s one of those little parts we never changed. But it’s meant to fade once you learn how to speak.”

He shivered. “But… they said it was normal.”

“It is, up to a certain age, but griffons don’t really know about that part. The swarm dream is part of our magic, like a cutie mark is to ponies. It’s unusual to see it in older children, or adults, but not unheard of. It wouldn’t raise any suspicion even if they did know, but it told me enough. I know you have those dreams, I know no one would think to look there, and I know Faux Pas would put it right there. So either give it to me the easy way, or I will make sure that after I’m done, every pony you’ve ever loved will regret the day you entered their lives: your mothers, your friends, that little filly Apple Bloom…”

He lowered his head. “You’re lying. If my uncle really did have magic you wanted, why did you kill him?”

She chuckled and threw her head back. She had to wipe away a tear from laughing so hard. “Ahahahaaa! Oh, of course, I forgot. This is just rich. You weren’t there. None of the Council was. You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“I didn’t kill your uncle: he killed himself. He abandoned you, just like everyone else you’ve ever loved.”

---

Celestia was overwhelmed. The Treeguards swatted and punched the air with the drones moving in full speed again. She noticed a few on the far end of the garden try to fire some spells, but those fizzled before anything could reach, thankfully.

“Sunburst was quite proficient with prismatic spells. Still, where is this power coming from?”

She ate something weird just now. Very young, very pure, but I don’t know what it is.

Once of the drones closed the gap and punched Celestia in the face. She winced, and a point-blank fireball dispatched the thing. Wiping her snout, she commanded her forces to stay closer together.

She’s going to get you eventually, Celestia. I still don’t see what you’re waiting for.

“Patience, Discord, I keep telling you. There’s only one way to win.”

She’s in the caves underneath Canterlot now. I think she’s chasing something, or someone, maybe?

“Bastion,” Celestia concluded. “She needs Bastion to complete her spell.”

Then why do you keep stalling? Blast her already. Teleport out, she’s got this many drones keeping you busy here, she’s probably defenceless now!

“I can’t teleport while I’m in the middle of my Treeguards, remember? Besides, I can still hold out. She has no heavy projectiles.”

Five of the drones came in for a swoop. One slashed at her side, two of them knocked the legs out from under her, the other two struck her in the throat. She was knocked unconscious for a second.

They all fell once the Treeguards got a hold of them.

She’s too fast now. I think she ate an artifact or something, to be honest.

“Or an artificer,” Celestia concluded. “And there are not many of those in Equestria.” She stood up again, and let a wave of healing seal her wounds and ease her throat.

What’s the plan, Celestia?

She sighed. “There is no plan. This fight is already over. It’s only a matter of time.”

So you’re giving up? You’re just going to do nothing?

“Don’t worry, Discord. This will all be over in a few seconds. Treeguards! Defensive formation.”

She closed her eyes and gathered power into her horn. A blinding phosphorescent light started to grow at the tip while the cohort of conifer colossi formed a canopy around her.

“Alright, then, Chrysalis!” she shouted. “You want me to spend my strongest spell? You want to see what leaves me exhausted? Feast your eyes on this!”

---

Neighsay landed in the Royal Guard Academy, brandishing his spectral hands as he went. His fur singed from the sudden teleportation, but he was otherwise unharmed, save a few scratches.

“Chancellor Neighsay,” one of the guard ponies greeted. “Glad to see you are alright.”

No enemies in sight. No signs of panic.

Oh, thank the stars, the Academy’s not overrun.

“Captain Brick Wall, good to see you, too. How are things going here?”

“Not good, I’m afraid. The drones attacked our quarters this morning. They got to our rookies. Right on family day, too.”

Neighsay nodded. “Any particularly skilled ones they targeted?”

“Not like what you’re thinking, no. They were drained of their energy, standard changeling feeding only. The drones came as relatives and friends, but they didn’t change shape like they normally do; it burned off of them like paper. They drained like normal, though. A lot of my boys are down for the count.”

“Yet I do not see nor hear much fighting.”

“We’ve managed to fight them back to the perimeter,” Brick explained. “They were pelting spells first, then they retreated, and now they’re just throwing themselves at us. We’ve had to dig ourselves in. We can handle speed and strength like this, I’ve seen this before, but never in these numbers. This kind of high level is supposed to be rare, not army-wide.”

Neighsay let out a grunt and rubbed his neck. “I noticed. I barely got away from the ones in the museum. Had to choke one with my cape just to survive them rushing me.”

“Do you have any intel we should know?”

“None you do not already have, I fear. Chrysalis is draining ponies with powerful talents, stealing their cutie marks. But more than that, she is broadcasting them, sharing and copying power through her army.”

“And this new speed of hers?”

Neighsay bit his lip. “I know where she got it. I failed, and now we have to gamble. I only hope I was correct in my analysis. Chrysalis is targeting one of the changeling refugees, named Bastion. She seems to believe he has some magic hidden within him that will finish this spell. I shudder to think what that will look like if this is the incomplete version.”

Brick Wall nodded. “We’ll try to get a search party out as soon as we can. It’s going to be tough, though. These things have us pinned down. Even if we teleport, they’ll know where to find us.”

A shiver ran up the Chancellor’s spine. “They are keeping you contained, as well. What news of Princess Celestia?”

“Oh, she’s burning them by the dozen, last I heard.” Brick whistled, impressed. “Her phoenix and her roc came swooping in a while ago, gave us the shots we needed to gain some ground. But we can’t approach her now. There’s an anti-magic field around her, and if we try to approach from afar, there’s any number of drones we’d run into. Between that and keeping the shelters safe, we don’t have the numbers to make a move.”

“And you said they made an incursion early on. You repelled all of them?”

The Captain nodded. “All of them.”

“How far did they get? Did they breach the vault?”

“They did. We got them out before they could steal anything important, but they did make off with one of our practice weapons.”

“Which one?”

“One of our Dragonslayers. They didn’t even get the ammo.”

That shiver became a chill. “They probably brought the ammunition themselves.”

Neighsay squinted, and Brick Wall followed suit. The light in the windows started to grow lighter, whiter, almost.

“Is it just me, or is the Sun getting hotter?” the Royal Guard asked.

“Oh, no. Brick Wall, I’m going to need you to prepare for a rapid deployment. Wait for the signal, we’re going to have to get to the Princess as soon as possible.”

“But we can’t get through the anti-magic field,” Brick protested.

“As close as we can, then. I know this spell. Celestia wouldn’t use this if she wasn’t about to end the fight. We have a little while longer, a few minutes, but once that spell is done, she’ll be vulnerable. We need to get to her before any changeling does.”

The sunlight started to warm their hides, more than normal.

“And the ones right by her when we get that far? Even if she’s firing a massive spell, we’ll be fighting the survivors, and they might outnumber us by the time we get there.”

“Take it from an academic,” Neighsay said. “If she has timed it properly, there will notbe any survivors.”

---

Bastion felt his throat tighten, his heart pounding. She was still at a safe distance, she didn’t grab him yet, but he couldn’t believe his ears. “What?”

“I didn’t kill Faux Pas,” she repeated. “He killed himself. He wouldn’t respond to manipulation. He didn’t fall in line in front of the swarm, he defied me, so I defeated him in battle. I had him. And then he destroyed himself.” She groaned. “He destroyed himself so thoroughly I couldn’t even extract anything from the remains.”

“You’re lying.” Bastion bared his fangs, eyes watering with anger.

“Why would I lie about that? Right now, really?”

He took a step back. “Because you’re insane. Because you just want to take everything away from me.”

“Insane?” She chuckled. “Well, I suppose that’s a fair point. But I’d like to see you keep your sanity after reincarnating a hundred times over.” Staring down at him, she had to admit: she’d produced a fine specimen, if not directly. She could see it in his eyes. “You really think you have it figured out, don’t you? Even now, you’re still trying to find some way out, think of some grand scheme to kneecap me. You don’t even know what you’re dealing with.”

“I know enough. You’re a bully, and a thief.”

She snorted. “I am the progenitor of our species. I was the first changeling to form. I made your ancestors, and those of every changeling alive today. You, all of you, were planted for me. Today is harvest day. I’ve lived through countless lives, seen empires rise and fall, made a few rise and fall, even. Those were fun times. You think I’m insane? I think I’m the only sane soul in the world sometimes.”

Bastion lowered his horn.

“Oh, put that thing away, you’ll only hurt yourself.” She chuckled. “Do you really want to know why your uncle died? Do you want to know how his last moments were spent? Would it make it easier?”

“Yes,” he breathed.

“Fine. He stood before the whole of the swarm. He explained himself, he defied me. He wanted me to believe we should form our own kingdoms instead of feeding on others.” She sighed. “I suppose I should have seen it coming. I hadn’t made one like him in too long, he was resistant to simple manipulation. But then he attacked, and he overplayed his hand.”

The boy tensed.

“He had mastered a spell, you see, one I used to have, in the old days. He could turn himself into a swarm of insects, divide up his consciousness, split up his form. It’s a wonderful spell, but it takes a very particular mind to cast it, and if you get it wrong, well, even I wouldn’t survive that failure. He did it, though, he did it perfectly. He kept it a secret from me right until the end, who knows what he was thinking. I’m still not sure if he knew what I was. He knew what I was planning, though, he must have. It doesn’t matter at this point, anyway. He fought me, almost managed to drain me from behind, and then I grabbed him. He was spent, he had nowhere to go. Then, one by one, those little bugs of his swelled up and he exploded in a big green cloud of acid. The great Faux Pas took his own life.”

“No.”

“It’s the truth. He abandoned you. He loved you, I made sure of that. He had to love you, unfortunately, I couldn’t rely on him and all the others if they didn’t have real emotions of their own.” She pawed at the ground and threw her head back. “Oh, if only you knew how long I’ve had to work at this, trying to hold on to my memories from one life to the next. Equestria was such a violent place before those ponies arrived. The things that have hunted me… you have no idea what real terror is. I doubt you even know what real magic is, if the ponies have gotten so deep into your head. Faux Pas knew I needed the swarm form, I know that much. He realised I would seek it out before even I did. And given how long it took for me to fabricate a changeling who could learn that spell, I couldn’t afford to risk another incarnation. I can’t tell what I’ll lose every time, it’s so unpredictable, not like making others. Making more changelings is mostly predictable.”

“Stop lying,” he insisted. “If you made all the changelings, what about the other Hives? Why make drones like me and… my family? Why did you have to do that to us?”

“A necessary evil,” she replied calmly. “I’m not sure you’d understand if I did explain it. But think of it this way: evolution happens because the world around changes. Trees grow taller, giraffes get longer necks. Food shortage in the forest, deer become smaller. Did you know there’s a flower that can only grow on a dragon’s corpse? It’s very special, very rare because of that. The best way to get one, you can probably guess, is to either kill a dragon, or start breeding a few. Some forms of magic can only grow under stress, so I created a bit of stress in select drones to grow it. That’s why you are the way you are: a mindless drone cannot create, it has no ideas. But a free will like yours? That can get inspiration, creative ideas, new thoughts, dangerous thoughts I couldn’t risk experimenting with myself. I thought you already knew that.”

“But why? If you can do all that, why did I have to lose my mom? Why didn’t I even get to know my dad?!”

“I thought a smart boy like you would understand by now,” she mocked. “It’s not a perfect process, soul magic. You always lose pieces, and when your ingredients include experiences and memories, well, repeating results becomes a little complicated. I am trying to evolve into something greater. I needed to develop the ultimate spell, and I had to calibrate my magic for it to work properly. Having to gather up pieces of my old selves between lives didn’t help anything, either. Your mother wasn’t the first failure, and not even the most spectacular one, really.” She chuckled. “You should have seen what happened to the ones I used to develop our communication magic back in Star Swirl’s day. Those were fun, if a little too loud in the end.”

His mouth hung open from the shock.

Chrysalis smiled in approval. “Deny it all you like, the truth is still the same. Every changeling that’s ever lived has an ancestor created by me. Every dynasty that didn’t have me in it was programmed and destined to grow one little piece of my ultimate power. Once they were ready, it was harvest time, and those wars gave me War Engineers fit for the purpose I needed them to fulfil. The other civilisations? The pandas, the naga, these ponies?” She gagged. “They were good to keep some knowledge intact, but they never got far enough. They weren’t ambitious enough to try what I was trying, too ignorant of how the world works to even attempt to find real power. I couldn’t rely on them to find the answers I needed, and I couldn’t risk any changeling finding out the truth and try to usurp me. Those dark days in the past took their toll on me. It’s taken a long time just to get back to my old self, and I am almost ready to be a new, perfect self. I have everything I need now, except one thing.”

She closed her eyes and sighed, before glaring at him. “Faux Pas was designed to love you, you see. I made him. He would never have left you alone without some way to defend yourself. I know he slipped a sliver of magic into you, I know where it is and I know how to get it out of your body. So, Bastion, dear boy, now that you know the whole truth, are you finally going to behave? All you have to do is give in and submit. You were mine from the start. Your mother, your father, even your flawed uncle, they were all mine and they all had a purpose. All I’m asking is you fulfil yours. Just think: you get to be a part of perfection, my perfection. It doesn’t have to hurt.”

He gulped. “But how? My mom… the other drones… the Council?”

“All just bags of meat I tossed together from a primordial soup and some magical wood centuries ago, just like you, after enough generations and ripening, of course. It’s meat that could produce more meat, but still just meat for me to play with. The real trick is in how much you let it think for itself, actually. You remember me showing you the bottles, don’t you?”

He shivered. “No.”

“Of course you do. Those bottles contained little bits of soul, tiny specks of experience and personality. They contained bits of changeling, like your mother. How much of you do you think is unique and how much is leftovers? Do you really believe you’re that different from the other drones? There’s more of you to bottle, but in the end you can still be bottled. It’s the things you lose in the bottling process that’s the real issue.” She growled. “But it’s all the same. Everything they are, everything you are, is the result of my will. You belong to me. Your ancestors belonged to me generations ago. You… are… nothing. Everyone who’s ever loved you, did so because they had to.”

He clenched his eyes shut, whimpering. “Stop.”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t believe it, you know it’s true. Your birth mother, your uncle? Engineered by me. Your new mothers? Drafted into it by pony politics. And all your so-called friends? They’re only nice because they have to be, because that’s what ponies do, that’s what they are told to do. You’re not supposed to be cared for, Bastion. You were meant to be abandoned, and to gain power and knowledge from the pain. The only one who’s ever shown you kindness she didn’t need to was me. You missed your mother so much, I was willing to give you three more of her. I would have, if it had made you happy. You’d probably have grown a little faster, win-win all around, really. But you were too young to accept the truth, so I left it at that and kept it our little secret, even from Faux Pas.”

“They weren’t the same,” he sobbed.

“You say that, and maybe that makes you feel better, but I know you understood it from then, you clever boy: the only difference between you and a mindless drone is how different I let you be. The only reason we’re having this conversation is you and your uncle got away before I could bottle what I needed from either of you. Now I’m going to ask you for the last time: do you give up?”

Rage welled up in his body, heating him underneath the carapace. White light erupted from his horn and fanned out, forming a rainbow of beams.

“A Prismatic Spray, not bad. A little young for that spell, aren’t you?” She didn’t bother dodging. The red beam singed her wings, the blue one crackled through her from head to tail, ice bit into her shell and acid flowed through the wounds.

Bastion’s eyes were closed, his jaw clenched, his whole body tense with the exertion. He didn’t need to see the damage he was doing. He felt the resistance against the beams clearly enough.

He screamed in fury, he cried, he flared his wings out and dug in his hooves to try and push against her a little harder.

When it was over, he stumbled. His left front leg buckled, but he kept his eyes on where the Queen had stood.

Chrysalis stood in a small crater, wiping off the residue. She nodded at him. “Kneeling at last. At least your uncle taught you some manners before he croaked.”

A hard blow against his throat sent him sailing up, then a hard crystal wall stopped him, and the noose was not far behind. Chrysalis pinned him to the wall by his throat. Judging from her face, she had been damaged by the prismatic spray, but she was already healing.

I couldn’t do it.

I’m not strong enough.

He gasped for air, and kicked feebly as he was held aloft by the Queen.

“There we go, there’s that despair we needed. Just a little while longer and this will all be over.”

“C-Cel…” he stuttered.

“Celestia? Hah. I planned well ahead to deal with her.” She closed her eyes and grinned. “In fact, I’ve got her on the ropes as we speak. She’s in my sights right now.”

---

The Daybreaker was not a commonly known spell. Only one creature in the world was known to master it, and even then it was mostly lost to history.

Chrysalis knew her history well enough. The two drones flying swiftly and stealthily over Canterlot had been on a simple mission: smash and grab. Specifically, smash the Royal Guard Academy, and grab one functioning Dragonslayer arbalest. After that, all they had to do was wait for the right time.

The Daybreaker spell, in those circles that were aware of its existence, was commonly referred to as ‘the nuclear option.’ Princess Celestia of Equestria had been forced to resort to it on only three occasions. All three occasions were grand battles that determined the flow of history for ages to come. All three occasions were battles where large numbers and massive casualties were involved.

All three occasions had left survivors, and reliable witnesses to interrogate.

Celestia kept that spell as a last resort for good reason, Chrysalis knew.

For one thing, it took a long time to cast. The process of the casting involved congealing the light of the Sun itself into a volume large enough to create one pinpoint missile per soldier in the opposing army. At the same time, it required a divination element as the targeting mechanism for said solar missiles. The focus necessary to even attempt it was an anger, the intensity of which historians and storytellers alike dared not speak, save for hushed mentions of a searing red rage. Some witness records even claimed Celestia changed shape during the casting, and that she became a different pony altogether, one with a more monstrous aspect. Given her sister’s track record, that seemed likely enough.

The second problem the spell had, though, was that it was, at its core, still only a projectile spell firing missiles, and as such it could be dodged like any missile could. Chrysalis had made sure to never surrender her speed advantage for that exact reason.

She wondered idly, through the web of her consciousness, if Celestia had really planned to wait out the assault. A war of attrition might have gone in the pony’s favour if she’d played her cards right.

Now, though, Celestia was busy casting her trump card, and standing perfectly still in the process. The two drones set down and loaded the ballista with a poison-tipped arrow. It was a little something her last batch of Council members had cooked up, and no doubt they’d forgotten all about it by now.

Chrysalis afforded herself a grin through the drones.

“I do have a way with Alicorns, don’t I?”

The arbalest itself was carefully chosen. The Dragonslayer model was the upgraded version of the Dragonblinder, after all, that old favourite of the Pegasus artillery. An arrow shot from one of the old models was fast enough to catch a dragon in the eye at top speed. An arrow from this newer one could afford to miss and go through a dragon’s skull.

Celestia had no such protection now, standing still and shouting inanities to hype herself up and intimidate the drones around her.

The Queen took aim. The Treeguards around Celestia made it a difficult shot, but from a higher vantage point it wasn’t impossible. The things kept swaying left and right, and the drones in the field were creating enough a distraction to get the inner circle of giants to move. One poison-tipped shot to the neck would suffice. It would be enough to kill a normal pony, defeating the purpose, but Celestia’s body would probably be okay long enough to take her power.

One drone lunged at the Treeguard blocking the shot. The drone soon fell, but the Treeguard was out of position for a split second.

“Sweet dreams, Your Majesty.”

She pulled the trigger.

---

It was finally done. Chrysalis had her prize in her grasp, squirming and wriggling feebly though it was.

Bastion’s eyes were watering, both from hearing the truth and the acute lack of oxygen.

Slowly, surely, his struggles slowed down.

He looked up, his arms fell to his sides.

She could sense the pulse of magic in him. It was right where she’d guessed it would be: in that little spare nerve in the brain, where dreams of old lurked.

She’d almost failed, she realised. There was always the chance the despair wouldn’t take, that he could shut off his body somehow. His eyes closed, and the pulse came again.

Just a little further.

She bared her teeth, and it took all her self-control not to bite his head off right then and there. He knew now. He still remembered the bottles, when she’d shown him the true nature of all changelings, free-minded or not. It was a risky move, but it had paid off. Him knowing the truth had ripened his soul, opened his mind to new ideas, and given magic a chance to take root.

Her mind wandered. How far she’d come. She only barely remembered her own power at its prime, but the drive for perfection had stayed with her through the ages.

Moulding more changelings, shaping their flesh, then their minds and souls, the memories started to feel more tangible, more recent.

Clarity was her greatest strength, to see things like free will and destiny for what they were: simple commodities that could be brewed, bottled, stored and re-used. She still remembered the first time she’d honoured a true hero of her Hive, by ending his existence and feeding his essence to the next generation of drones. That had started her glorious purity cycle.

She’d never gotten past that one requirement, death. All she could accomplish was a moment’s snapshot at the time of expiration. She had perfected the capture of that moment now, though.

The boy’s arms went limp. His legs stopped kicking. His eyes drifted closed.

Then the disappointment came to her mind, the risks involved in tampering with soul magic, the need to let changelings develop their own thoughts, to have fully functioning souls in the first place in order to create new magic. So much inefficiency, so much difficulty in making perfect copies. Isolation from the outside was the only way to ensure that.

And now she’d broken her isolation fully. She was finally ready to come out of her proverbial cocoon and change the world as she pleased.

She released her grip, letting him slide down the crystal.

Finally, the reason why she needed that perfection came to mind. Weakness, fear, and the mere existence of terrors far beyond mortal understanding.

I’m doing you all a favour.

Bastion gasped for air, and in the moment he exhaled, she stole it.

She heard a wheeze.

No power.

No magic.

She tried to steal his breath again, another wheeze.

That sound was coming from her.

Bastion took in greedy gulps of air, getting back on his hooves. Weakness took over Chrysalis’s body, a lightness in her head that turned to a pounding agony. Her chest burned, her back itched.

“W-what?” she stammered.

Bastion winced and rubbed at his throat. “You don’t sound so good, Your Highness.”

She locked eyes with him, and tried desperately to breathe. He was back up, and the shaking in her limbs did not bode well. She could barely move. “H-how?”

“Could be a lot of things. Maybe you shouldn’t have chased me so far. Maybe, when you share your power all over, you feel the weakness all over, too, when you run out of breath.”

He snarled at her, and grinned.

She realised then that, much like his uncle, he’d been bred too well for his function. The soul pieces she’d used to create him, the experiences she’d allowed him to have, she had improved upon the process that had created Faux Pas.

He had only rudimentary training, but he still had his uncle’s talent.

He planned this.

He tricked me.

How? When?

“Or maybe, just maybe, it was something you ate.”

Chrysalis felt her hearts skip a beat.

The Pegasus.

“No magic, no super speed, no super strength.” He snorted. “No escape. You can’t breathe, and I’m still ready to go.”

Author's Note:

So, yeah, here's what y'all knew was coming. This whole 'twist' to the story has been at least five years in the making, it was set as soon as I decided Doldrum and Bastion would meet. Well, sort of.

In the original concept, Sapphire Gaze had to meet some ambassadors at a summit, and one of them would be Chrysalis in disguise. Bastion would sense it, then hide away in fear, saying "Don't... let her... get me." Which clues Sapphire in to the boy's plan: don't intervene, let her get him. She boobytraps Bastion, and the notion that she could is still hinted at in Changeling Blood, but dismissed in the stories after. The actual result of that boobytrap is also mostly intact, but placed upon a different character. It was gone from the story in a lot of versions, mind you.

At the time of writing, I still need to write the ending to this story. It's been a tricky one.