• Published 10th Sep 2022
  • 1,362 Views, 35 Comments

A Kindled Beginning - Darkevony



Changeling Princess Chrys undergoes the biggest trials of her life... School, making friends, and living in the world above. For a small girl never having known life outside of complete darkness, this is a hard task!

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Chapter 7: With Fate's grand design,

Chrys felt an immense wave of exhaustion while digging for what felt like hours in the direction of her friends with all the might afforded to her by her child-like constitution and the magic fueled by desperate panic. The paws she used to cleave at the soil in front of her were now grimy and covered in layers of dirt, struggling to stay in the shape of the sharp claws that allowed her to rend apart the underground with ease.

Keeping the form she had adopted wasn't easy. Changelings could easily shift their form if the size and complexity of the creature were one-to-one with their own body. But in her quick thinking, she hastily took the form of the biggest of the dog-like creatures in that pack believing that it would allow her to dig faster. The size difference meant that she needed to substitute the empty space in the transformation with a layer of magic constantly, and the bigger the transformation, the more mass of power required to keep it consistent.

Occasionally she would begin to slow down from the physically demanding task of constantly digging and outputting magic, but every time she did so she could feel her friends’ presences slowly inch further away from her threatening to disappear forever within the pitch-blackness of those tunnels. It was a gruesome cycle that would repeat several times before the movement of those souls had finally stopped, and she was making real progress in reaching wherever her friends were being held now.

Chrys' form dissipated almost instantly in her tiredness as she reached the first real room of the cave network where those dog-like creatures had made their home. She could sense the Crusaders right down the hall from where she had landed. Like some horrible stroke of luck, her limbs were not responding to her in the way she wanted. The fatigue in her body that she had staved off throughout the digging process had now set in all at once, and she found she could not move an inch.

Her struggle against her own body was only met with weak writhing. How she loathed her powerlessness. So many times she'd been rendered unable to move. So many times had she been plagued by something or other. She absolutely hated the feeling of not being in control. It reminded her of when she'd fallen prey to exhaustion the first time like she'd been nothing more than a pair of eyes left to spectate the world.

Her mind filled with anger for herself.

It was an opportune moment for these feelings to surface, as her panic for her friends had begun to sway now that they were at a standstill and their own panicked feelings had begun to die down now that the shock of the event had waned. In this strong emotion of anger and hatred, she found the magical strength to replace her physical one and got up again. The glow of her power circled her as it traveled downwards, grasping violently at her muscles as the jet-like ferocity of this magic forced its way through her.

"Scoot! Sweetie! Bloom!" She yelled out into the corridor, not fully understanding the danger she was in. She was traveling slowly due to the struggles of maintaining her deeply troubling feelings of anger.

"Chrys?!" The three girls yelled out with pleasant, relieved surprise from a distance out of her direct sight.

"How did you get here?!" Sweetie Belle was the first to ask.

"Never mind that! Watch out Chrys, the Diamond Dogs are still around! Hide!" Scootaloo had said all too late before Chrys even had the chance to reach midway through the corridor. The Diamond Dogs had reared up behind her through the tunnel as her shouting and her coursing magical power had alerted them to her presence.

Chrys could sense their madness from a league away and was expecting them before they had even appeared before her. These types of feelings were all too familiar to her... They didn’t feel like the natural thoughts of those dogs. Around their souls, she could see a black-green tint around their fires. Something was manipulating them. Something Chrys recognized from long ago...

The Mistress. Not Queen Chrysalis, but the monster that lay within her.

They were under the same hivemind effect as her kin had been. Just like the changelings from before, all they could do was hiss and growl nonsensical hatred, anger, and fury. Their eyes were dulled, dead, like they could see nothing in front of them save for what the hivemind wanted them to see. How could this have happened? She’d been with the Queen the night before...

Her body still lay dormant within her deep, unbreakable sleep. How could she have done this? How had her magic manifested this far? Maybe her being asleep had been a lie?

She didn’t have a lot of time to think about it before the Diamond Dogs lunged in her direction, pinning her down to the ground in a restraint. She shook them off by quickly transforming in and out of the bigger form she’d taken earlier, allowing her room to escape and run over to the Crusaders. But in getting to them, she finally saw why they hadn’t escaped or gotten to her earlier. They had been jailed.

Seeing her friends panic for her safety and get angry for her sake as the dogs pinned her down again right in front of them, she felt the surge of her fury spike.

In the wake of those thoughts, Chrys was angrier than she had ever been in her life. She felt betrayed. Like all her goodwill had been turned upside down. Had the monster finished taking over the Queen entirely? Had she done this as revenge? Not just in the Diamond Dogs before her, but back in town and even with Twilight... She knew all of the ponies’ emotions hadn’t been all natural.

All the trouble she’d gone through had been for nothing. For whom had she toiled and sludged through every day? Why was she putting up with all of the mistreatment and false rumors?

What did she owe any one of them?

This was a dark feeling she held for both the changelings and the ponies for a while now. Even Chrys could not deny how ungrateful they had been in her service to them. She did not feel this way for her friends and Twilight of course, but the feelings of anger that she was consuming to fuel her magic were making her blind to see the obvious.

For the first time, she did something she never thought she would do.

Harm another.

She hadn’t meant to. Chrys understood that these manipulated feelings of madness were not their fault. The spell she cast had been the same one she’d always used to calm such feelings, but magic was a beast she hadn’t learned to control entirely. Especially the kind of magic fueled by angered emotions.

Immediately the little changeling was horrified by what she had done. Her spell had erupted out of her with such violence and force that it had sent the three dogs flying to a nearby wall, knocking them out cold. The volatile strength of the spell had sent shockwaves of power all around her, pushing back the Crusaders too as they yelled out in fear at the sudden, blinding blast of energy they were met with. The force had even been enough to bend the rusted and weak metal bars enough for the Crusaders to fit through.

Thankfully, none of them had been seriously injured. The Diamond dogs had only passed out due to artificial madness inside of them being erased so quickly and suddenly, and the Crusaders had only been pushed back a moderate amount due to the bars taking the brunt of that power. None of them could know this truth, especially Chrys who was mortified at what she’d done.

She cried and she cried as she apologized with all of her heart in the direction of the dogs for minutes on end, her magic from her anger having gone away altogether and leaving her stranded in front of them powerless to get up.

It had taken the Crusaders a bit of courage to get up from the scare and walk over to her to comfort her, but even without words they could all sense how sincerely she meant that apology and eventually pooled next to her as they comforted her in whatever way they could.

“It’s okay, Chrys. You were just tryin’ to save us. If anyone should be sorry, it’s us for having you do this with us. If we’d been more careful from the start, we wouldn’t have been taken like this...” Applebloom tried to comfort her, failing as she devolved into quiet tears herself and wept into her hair from her side.

“We should’ve been more attentive. We should’ve just said no to this plan. We should’ve stayed at Sugarcube corner with my sister.” Sweetie Belle said in-between sobbing as she too fell into Chrys’ hair from her other side to cry her heart out.

“I... Well... If anyone should be blamed... it’s me. It’s like you two mentioned. I’m the one who made us do this. I just wanted to help Ponyville. But instead, I caused this. I’m sorry Chrys. Not just for this, but from the start. I had this dumb feeling that something was not right with you. Like there was a voice in my head telling me all these awful things I didn’t want to believe. I couldn’t help to be suspicious of you because of that. Now I got my two best friends and my new important one in danger. This is all my fault. Please forgive me, you three...” Scootaloo said as she got in front of the three girls and bowed her head to the ground until her forehead touched it. The soil beneath her was becoming damp as her tears fell into it.

Golden motes like the ones they’d seen before appeared before all three of them. Although this time, they were far dimmer and weaker, struggling to stay alight. Even in her overwhelming guilt, Chrys’ love for her friends was strong and she didn’t want them to suffer like this. The spell was working only at a fraction of its effectiveness, but the group of friends didn’t need its effect to follow what naturally came next to them all.

Scootaloo felt her front legs be swept under her as she dropped to the floor where her friends were lying next to Chrys. The other two Crusaders had pulled her to a laying down position like they’d done to be together with Chrys who was still on the floor, her physical strength drained from her. The four of them hugged it out in the quiet emptiness of that cave, all regretting what they’d done.

Chrys was beginning to understand her magic a little better. In her anger, her magic had acted like a violent fire. In crying along with the girls, she remembered a time from long, long, long ago. During the tragedy of the Formless.

More precisely, she remembered the dream she always had of that time. Of a burning landscape and struggling to breathe through the heat and smoke of the flames all around her. Of how the fire swayed with such sporadic turmoil in some form of furious dance. And finally... how the fire had eventually consumed her very sight as the flames flicked at her eyes.

Anger, hatred, and fury... Those emotions were like that rampaging fire. She had allowed them to consume her as she’d always done with every emotion until now, and what she was now realizing was that in doing so, she’d become susceptible to their effects in more than just her magic’s potency. Perhaps somewhere deep inside those feelings, she truly did mean to hurt them...

That thought alone terrified her from the very reaches of her soul. The image of the Mistress appeared in her head at that moment. The monster within the Queen...

Perhaps to the average pony, they could temper those feelings better with age and wisdom, but to a changeling whose purpose was to feast on those emotions, it left them vulnerable to their power. Chrys hadn’t had to face this type of scare before, as almost all of her magic had ultimately been fueled by panic, which had served her well in dire situations like this, but also by love which was softer and kinder than everything else in her heart. She had also felt the magic born from sadness, fear, and regret when she’d first faced the Mistress in earnest, and they had shaped her overly sensitive nature. She was feeling them now as she cried alongside her friends at the prospect that she might’ve heavily wounded those Diamond Dogs. She was remembering what she’d done to make Twilight angry, and all the hate that everyone around Ponyville felt for her...

In the mixture of those feelings... she was sensing a crack. A rift in her mind, like a split of who she was deep down inside. The magics born from these emotions seemingly had their own will and were pulling her mind in every direction now all wanting to take control.

Then, Chrys broke yet another promise and did something she didn’t think she would ever do again...

In her fear of what was happening to her, she put a lid on all of these emotions and bottled them up. She’d begun to lie to herself again. To protect her from... that rising madness within her.

Suddenly, several sounds echoed throughout the cavern in the direction of the hole she had dug to get into the cave. Just down the hall, she saw Rainbow Dash dart out of the entrance and almost smack into the wall in her haste. Even with that quick maneuvering, she was still pinned to the wall by a far more panicked Fluttershy having collided with her after surfacing, sending them both to the ground and shakily pulling themselves up.

“Rainbow Dash! Fluttershy!” Scootaloo was the first to exclaim as she brushed away her tears with speed not wanting to be caught in a moment of weakness with her idol.

“Oh! Girls! You’re safe!” Fluttershy flew over to them even faster than Dash had in her relief, and she hugged the four with a strength none of them knew she had. “You must’ve gone through something horrible... your eyes are all red. You’ve been crying haven’t you?” She said gently and tenderly, bringing her head into the group to comfort them as the other girls tried to toughen up.

“It’s a huge relief that we were able to find you thanks to that hole. We took quite the gamble following it. I’m glad you’re all safe.” Rainbow Dash said trying not to show her immense relief but failing miserably. “It’s great that we found you, but jeez, what would compel you to be out with all the stuff going on in town?!” She hadn’t meant to sound so irritable, especially seeing how shaken up the girls were, but she, herself had been a bottle of anxiety ready to burst since the moment they found out the Crusaders had been kidnapped and Chrys had gone after them.

“It’s... I...” Scootaloo was having trouble confessing her mistake and error in judgment to her role model after seeing her burst out like this. Her tears were beginning to well up again.

Before she could say anything, Chrys got up off the ground with the little strength that had returned to her and she bowed her head to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash.

“I am, sorry. Not quick, enough. Not able, to save, in time.”

“It’s not her fault! It’s mine. I was the one who suggested we leave Sugarcube corner when we were with my sister!” Applebloom called out before the two grown mares could respond.

“It’s mine as well! I should’ve known better and should’ve gone straight to the library like we said we would...” Sweetie Belle added.

“What?! NO!” Scootaloo just about exploded at this. She would not allow them to take the fall, especially after everything she’d put them through. “I’M the one who told them to go crusading with me. I’M the one that directed them to go investigate the tunnels around town so we could save Ponyville. And I’M the one who should be in trouble! Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and especially Chrys are not at fault!” She yelled out with everything in her lungs.

Before the three Crusaders could get into a heated argument about whose fault it was, Fluttershy cleared her throat pretty loudly and became a lot more commandeering in an uncharacteristic display of confidence. “You’re all equally at fault for going along with this reckless plan, girls. You were in serious danger! These are matters that you should leave to us. And you really should learn from your mistakes here.” Her voice boomed through the halls. It had made all four of them shrink down as they contemplated her words. “But...” She said a lot more gently now. “All that matters now is seeing that you’re safe. We’re not going to punish you girls. I understand your heart was in the right place, but think for a second about how you’d make us all feel if something were to happen to you. That’s worse than any mistake you could’ve made.”

“What Fluttershy said. You girls have to learn to leave the heavy lifting to us! WE’RE the Elements of Harmony bearers, not you pip-squeaks.” Rainbow Dash said as she lightly bonked the four on the head with a hoof. “Only glad that we were flying around the area trying to find the source of these tunnels for a while on Twilight’s ask. Snips and Snails clued us into what happened to you.”

“Oh my...” Fluttershy’s voice trailed off as she finally spotted the group of Diamond Dogs lying on the floor unconscious and the metal bars of the jail bent by some explosion that had gone off. She flew over to them to begin inspecting them for any wounds.

“Did you girls do this?” Rainbow Dash asked as she noticed it shortly after Fluttershy had while looking at the metal bars and the cave walls opposite the jail that’d been pushed by that mighty force.

“I did. Could not, handle, magic. Sorry. So sorry.” Chrys bowed her head, her voice almost to the point of tears again as she recited her sorries not to Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash, but to the dogs.

Before any of them could try to comfort her again in her misunderstanding, Fluttershy spoke up after she finally finished giving them a glance over.

“There’s no lacerations, minor cuts, or even bruising. Their thick hides likely cushioned any impact. This is just a guess, but they’ll be entirely fine once they wake up from whatever is happening to them. It seems to be a magic-induced coma from a dispel. I’ve been seeing similar symptoms from a lot of the sick animals around town.” She said as she opened their eyelids to check for any signs of damage from the magic’s effect, concluding that there was nothing to worry about.

Chrys let out a sigh of relief as she said so. It had been a huge weight off her back, but the damage had already spread across her psyche and her repression of emotions withstood.

“Wow ‘Shy, I didn’t expect you to know so much about Diamond Dogs considering we’ve only seen them once before.” Rainbow Dash mused out loud.

“W-well um. They’re pretty close to normal dogs like Winona so it’s not difficult to diagnose them. Whatever happened to them must’ve been what happened to the cattle herd too when they became spooked. It looks like they’ve been affected for a lot longer than them so the dispelling effect was a lot stronger in their case. U-Uhm, if I remember correctly...” Fluttershy thought for a bit as she tried to parse it in her head. “Twilight mentioned this to us after she finished investigating the cause of the stampede with Applejack. The smaller animals and even more recently some of the ponies have become drained of their emotions with this type of magic.”

“Really? I wasn’t listening to that part when she told us. But why would they kidnap the girls if they were being affected by this? Some sort of mind control?”

“Not likely, none of the animals that were afflicted showed any signs of organized thoughts. They were all boiled down to their instinctual natures. Even the ponies acted out in a form of self-perseverance before they fell into their drained emotionless state. As though they were mad...” She thought about it a bit. “Diamond Dogs are pretty greedy in nature, so I think they must’ve seen the girls once and tried to steal something precious from them but kidnapped them as a result of their madness.” Fluttershy looked them over again and spotted the Crusader’s capes, pulling them off their unconscious bodies.

“Our Crusader capes!” Sweetie went over to collect them from Fluttershy who was looking at them up and down. “They had the nerve to take them away from us! I mean, I did go through a lot of trouble to make them so I’m flattered that they thought they were precious, but these are ours!”

“They were not necessarily after the capes, Sweetie. It looks like they wanted the gem that was pinned to them.” Fluttershy said as she pointed at the crystals that Chrys had gifted the girls and they’d adorned the capes with since.

“Even worse! No way we’re letting those go.” Sweetie Belle brought a hoof to her eyelid to make a face at the unconscious Diamond Dogs.

“Uhh, so you think this is all connected to what happened back then Fluttershy? The Diamond Dogs and the cattle herd I mean.” Rainbow Dash interjected.

“These types of symptoms first started appearing even before then. About a month ago, I started seeing it happen to all sorts of animals. Dr. Fauna and I were really concerned but thankfully all the critters got better on their own.”

“Wait, so what’s going on?” Scootaloo had been the one to ask as the two adults talked amongst themselves and Sweetie returned to give them their cloaks back. “Is Ponyville in real danger?” She said more worriedly.

“N-no! No, not at all. We’ve got it under control girls.” Rainbow Dash said unconvincedly. She sighed and tussled her mane in frustration as they stared at her. “Okay, I’ll tell you what’s going on, but promise you won’t be doing this crazy hero stuff again okay? You’ll just make it harder on us if we have to go rescue you again.”

The three crusaders nodded.

On the other hoof... Chrys made no such promise. She could feel it. The premonitions and how it all connected to her and her kind. This was something she was feeling like she had to fix. Thankfully, Rainbow Dash didn’t press for her to agree as she likely glossed over her lack of response within the group.

“Okay so, from everything we’ve gathered lately from around town... it seems every pony is being pushed to the edge by something. We can’t say what because everyone is being so vague about it. We think this is Discord’s doing due to Bertha’s testimonies of what they saw when the cattle herd got spooked. No one has seen him lately and it’s likely he’s the only one with this type of magic to cause such a mental shift in every pony in town. We wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt since it was only recently that he became reformed but well... It seems all the signs are pointing at him.”

All four of the girls were feeling a sense of déjà vu. Especially Chrys. They could all see the patterns again. The scapegoating, the easy outs, the simple answers... The blame was being shifted onto someone else with little connecting evidence again...

“It is, us!” Chrys yelled out to everyone’s surprise. “Changelings, fault. Formless! Recognize, magic. Feelings of, hate, sadness.” The little changeling walked over to the Diamond Dogs to place a hoof on them. Chrys swallowed all the conflicting emotions in her heart. She was deathly tired of hearing all these ugly speculations and accusations. She empathized so strongly with the creature being blamed for this. This Discord. Without knowing him at all. How terribly sad and hurtful it was to have someone not believe in you.

Of course, Chrys couldn’t have known the history of the ponies with Discord since she was a newcomer to their lives, but she hated the prospect all the same of someone being blamed for something that was outside of their control. And even if she had to oust herself and her kind to protect this unknown someone, she would do so by spelling it out to them.

“This magic. Similar. Same feeling. Same anger. To my, mom’s...” She became silent at this.

Chrys was now shivering with sadness. She looked down at the ground to keep from having to look into the eyes of her friends. In her mind, she believed that they would immediately cast her out and abandon her at this revelation. She’d spent her whole life believing that changelings were dangerous, and nothing she’d been through had diswayed her from that idea. It had been reinforced if anything. Every time she saw the fear in ponies... or when she remembered the past with her confrontation with the Queen... or even much further back in the time of the tragedy, Chrys could not shake off the image that if their freedom meant the destruction of someone else’s...

Perhaps it wasn’t worth being free after all. All over again, that moral obligation in her heart began to shackle her again as she thought about these things. Were the changelings truly deserving of freedom especially now after they’d caused harm once again to the world of ponies and directly after betraying her goodwill? Even if the Mistress was the one to have caused all this, they’d all been complacent to her command in their madness. Even Chrys herself had done nothing to stop their invasion the first time around, incomplete as she was.

Chrys was only a child. She couldn’t handle these heavy topics of who should get to choose whose guilty or not and whether being manipulated meant that you could be absolved of your mistakes. All she could feel was that she, herself, was guilty for not having stopped something like this sooner like she promised she would. And by what Fluttershy had said, she’d already failed in this task way before she had ever surfaced from her cave...

She fully expected her friends to turn away from her in disapproval of her actions. She was ready to be shunned for being the same kind of creature that had once again brought harm to their world. This is what she felt she deserved.

Instead, however, they all crowded around her to comfort her again.

“Your mom... you mean Queen Chrysalis, right?” Fluttershy asked as she petted her again.

“Mm...” The changeling princess fell into Fluttershy’s gentle hug.

“And you’re feeling like this is your fault, aren’t you?”

Chrys hesitated to answer and quietly nodded after a while. Fluttershy was mighty perceptive. “We were all there when you got sealed back into the cave all that time ago too, you know. Twilight let us know it afterward as well. About your responsibilities as a changeling princess. I don’t think any one of us can tell you what your obligations should be, Chrys, but I don’t think you’re the one to blame for all of this. You shouldn’t feel this way either. You’ve been trying so hard after all.” Fluttershy spoke very gently as she stroked her hair.

“Yeah, you even saved every pony in town from that herd! There’s no way you should feel like you’re the one at fault. If it really is your mother’s doing, then that’s that. We’ll just confront her all over again and this time we’ll be better off with Twilight’s new power, so you can leave it to us this time!” Rainbow Dash said trying to cheer her up in her unique way by messing her hair up a bit, successfully lightening the load on the changeling’s heart.

“Wait huh? Err, what’s that about Chrys’ mom being Queen Chrysalis? Chrys was the one that saved the town from the stampede?” Sweetie Belle chimed in, the two adult mares having entirely forgotten the Crusaders were still there. “And you said, Princess?!”

“I knew you weren’t a normal changeling!” Stumbled Scootaloo forward in her surprise.

“Sorry. The truth, I not, said earlier.” Chrys bowed to them a little afraid of having hidden this fact from them, but the Crusaders didn’t seem at all downtrodden by it.

“Are you kiddin’? That’s awesome! Our friend is a magical Princess!” Applebloom’s excited exclamation looked like how they were all feeling. Young girls didn’t seem to mind what that title meant at all. They were just excitedly happy at the prospect of having a princess as a close friend. Which was a blessing in disguise for Chrys as she indulged in their momentary happiness.

“But wait, err, Queen Chrysalis is your mom, right? Then the invasion at Canterlot...”

“It’s as you can guess, girls. Chrys’ situation is a bit difficult. We thought we could make it better for her if she could go to school to make friends... but I can imagine it hasn’t been easy.” Fluttershy sighed as she’d been more keen on the rumors going around town while investigating the sickness of the animals and the ponies, having heard all sorts of whispers herself. “If this is the work of the Queen again, then things are going to become that much harder from here on out. Ponies already believed that Chrys as a changeling was the one causing all the issues around town... Chrys, are you sure this is changeling magic that we’re seeing?”

She nodded again quietly.

Rainbow Dash put a hoof to her temple to think. “Then it’s likely that the Diamond Dogs and the Parasprites are no coincidence. This might be the start of a large attack like the one we saw in Canterlot. We have to let Twilight know. Right now she’s still trying to deal with the sprites. We have to gather the rest of the group too and ready the elements. Fluttershy, I’m gonna fly on ahead and get word to her that the girls are safe. If Pinkie’s sense was correct, then I think we should call for an evacuation. What do you think?” Rainbow Dash was already formulating a plan of action as she’d heard it.

“R-right. It’s better safe than sorry especially if we’re looking at a repeat of Canterlot’s invasion. Get everyone to go towards the northernmost part of town near the railway. I’ll take the girls there and look for the rest of us.”

“Things really are looking grim...” Scootaloo’s voice trailed off as they were seeing the urgency in their voices as the adults prepared for the worst.

“Don’t worry girls, we’ll do something about this whole thing. You worry about staying safe, for yours and our sake too.” Fluttershy reassured them.

Rainbow Dash had already left back through the tunnel that Chrys had dug, trying to get back to the surface as fast as she could. Chrys lowered her head once more to apologize to the three dogs. She was the last to follow up the tunnel behind the rest of the girls.

Back up through the climb, Chrys could think of nothing save for the image of the moment her magic had gone out of control. The rift inside of her was getting larger and larger. Her heart ached as she struggled to keep in mind that they had not been seriously injured. Fluttershy had to reassure her again after they’d made it back to the surface that they were okay, and if it really concerned her, that she would personally go to visit them to make sure they’d come out fine.

From a distance and towards the town, Chrys could sense the wave of panic from the fleeing ponies as Rainbow Dash started making her rounds letting everypony know they needed to evacuate. There was an increased sense of fear from everyone as evacuating meant something truly disastrous was abound. To make the panic worse, while traveling through the town towards the railways, Fluttershy and the girls could see what had everyone even more stricken with fear.

The Parasprites were wide awake, with hundreds upon hundreds of them staring in their direction now.

They still had not moved from their perch, but they were fully awake and vibrating their wings with intensity. Every one of them in unison sounded unreal. It was a buzzing sound so intense, it pierced through their head with a maddening screech of everything awful. It penetrated their very soul as the noise shook their insides into a sickening, overwhelmingly disorientated mess. It was causing such a nauseating effect that the girls had trouble staying on their hooves as they kept tripping mid-run, eventually having to hold onto each other just trying to take steps forward.

A rush of strong magical power suddenly swept through the air and the streets of Ponyville in the form of a purple mist that wrapped around every one of the numerous parasprites. The power of this magic was trying to induce them back into sleep. It was successful in stopping the buzzing, but the parasprites were resisting the lull. Much like the bovine herd from before... Chrys could sense the madness that permeated within them now.

“This is Twilight’s magic! It’s coming from near the library!” Scootaloo said tracing the streams of visual mist down the road.

At this, the earth began to tremble and the magical mist from Twilight’s magic grew thicker and stronger almost as if she was trying to fend off... something. There were rushes of air sweeping through the ground, impacts of a battle sending shockwaves in every direction. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good, and Chrys could feel the emotions from all of the five adults gathered in one location, struggling against something for dear life.

Struggling against a mass of magical energy... Magic born from the emotion of madness. Changeling magic.

She wasn’t fully recovered yet from her physical and magical exhaustion, but Chrys ran as fast as her legs could carry her toward Twilight’s direction. She could hear Fluttershy’s and the Crusader’s voices shouting at her from behind to return to them but she would not be stopped. It was vital that she should be there for this confrontation.

This was her duty as Changeling Princess. This was her fight. It should have never been theirs.

Finally, as she reared the corner towards the library and caught a direct line of sight to Twilight and her friends, she noticed the battle that ensued. There was a strange creature that was a mix of many different animals shooting at Twilight green magic. Chaotic magic at that. It was not like the magic ponies wielded or even that of the changeling’s emotionally driven one. It was twisted and looping in every manner of direction, making a mess of the things it touched when it’d be reflected off of Twilight’s magical barrier that she was using to shield herself and the rest of the group of friends.

Even the fire in the soul of this creature was twisted up and chaotic in a way, unlike anything she’d ever witnessed before. But even in its strange pattern, Chrys could see the dark-green hue of madness from changeling magic embedded in it. It was being manipulated too.

From what? Well, Chrys could only guess that it was the work of the magical cloud that was hovering around it, feeding its power into that amalgamed creature. It was an unholy mixture of the darkest colors Chrys was ever witness to. A vile, sickening green that looked darker than even darkness itself. And she knew she’d seen its familiar appearance before... within the crystals that adorned the cave that had sealed them in all that time ago. The further into the center of the cloud, the darker and blacker it became, and inside she could see an eldritch shadow of everything awful.

“Twilight!” Chrys yelled out to her as she was rapidly approaching her direction, narrowly dodging some of the streaks of chaotic magic being reflected in her direction.

“Chrys?! What are you doing?! It’s not safe! Gah!” One of the blasts from the creature sent her reeling backward. Twilight was strong but she was focusing on keeping the parasprites contained while putting up the barrier. She was being overwhelmed with sheer power alone. “Rainbow Dash! Applejack! Secure the girls!” She shouted between gritted teeth. The rest of them had been fending off the parasprites that were actively trying to disrupt Twilight’s spell concentration. Rarity took the helm to swap out the two that left to go follow Twilight’s command.

Rainbow Dash immediately flew past Chrys. The changeling princess turned around to see what she was going for, only to see Fluttershy trailing behind her with the Crusaders in tow. Between the two Pegasi, they managed to haul all three of them over to the barrier quickly, with Applejack slinging Chrys over her back and rushing her to safety. Finally behind Twilight’s barrier, the attacks suddenly stopped as the cloud next to the amalgamed creature began to stutter and shake in waves at the sight of Chrys.

“Twilight, what in tarnation is happening to that thing?” Applejack asked her in this strange cease-fire.

“I don’t know... but the energy signals inside of it are increasing by the second. It feels like it’s becoming angrier and angrier...”

“Not good, not good! My sense is going crazy.” Pinkie was trembling up a storm. “It’s telling me... um. Watch out for falling rocks?”

Just as suddenly, all of the parasprites began to drop like flies straight out of the sky and from their perch atop the houses. All of them were fast asleep in emotionless exhaustion. The cloud of magical mist began to tremble with power, twisting and contorting with violence. It was consuming their madness. Mindless creatures as they were, in the thousands like this they were a massive whirlpool of emotion.

Chrys could hardly stand within the surge of energy that was amassing on that cloud. She walked over to Twilight who had already stopped her initial spell of putting the parasprites to sleep in the wake of these events, and she clung to her leg to hold herself up.

“I’m so glad you’re okay, Chrys. Don’t worry. We’ll protect you.” Twilight said noticing the small changeling princess at her side, unable to directly look at her from her concentrated barrier still being up. Twilight could feel her trembling touch. “Discord... so this was your doing?!” She shouted up at the amalgam. It didn’t respond. It just looked directly at them with dead, dull eyes. The same eyes the dogs had. The same the changelings of old wore as well. Consumed by madness.

“Twilight! Not fault, Discord! It is, moms!” Chrys shouted back at her, the magical cloud becoming more irritated at her words.

The cloud shot out in every direction hundreds of pitch-black spikes from its center that didn’t reach far from where it floated. Then each of them began to wiggle and coil around itself like a ball. Each spike a familiar tendril of dark magic. Chrys and all the adults had a chill run down their spines at the sight of them.

“Your mother’s...” Twilight’s voice trailed off. She turned to look at the coiled-up ball of tendrils giving way to show the cloud had shifted and refined itself into the faceless form of a grand and powerful figure. “Queen Chrysalis...?”

“No. Not mom. It is, the Mistress...”

Twilight could feel the little changeling girl shiver in fear as she hid behind her leg.

“What do you mean, Chrys? What is this thing?”

Before Chrys could answer, the mane of the cloudy figure took a hold of Discord by the neck and split off from the main body. The piece of mist that was left behind seeped into his fur, integrating itself more deeply into Discord’s soul from what Chrys could see. The draconequus brought his lion paw to his chin and craned his neck.

“Ah, that’s better. What’s a little madness without chaos? It’s been a long time, girls. I take it you’ve been doing well?” He spoke. Discord laughed cruelly as he could see the visible confusion in every pony. “Oh pardon, I forget you’re not looking at me over there, but the me here when I speak through this thing.” He said as he pointed his appendages at the cloud.

“What are you...?” Twilight asked slowly and carefully, trying not to incite it further. She was slowly starting to understand it herself. She’d heard of a similar thing happening to powerful figures in history before. Of magic, desires, and emotions so powerful, they grew a mind of their own...

“I don’t have a name. At least not yet. And I don’t want to associate with that worthless husk witling away the rest of her life worried for her sorry lot. What was it that you called her? Yes, I remember. Mom.” Discord wagged a finger in the air and conjured an image of Queen Chrysalis with intricate smoke patterns and shot it in Chrys’ direction. The cloudy figure tilted its head backward, with Discord following suit and laughing as he did so at the sight of her cowering further. “Or you know, Chrysalis or whatever. Same trash, different smell. You have no idea how happy I was that we finally got separated. A physical body is so weak.”

“Mom...” Chrys had begun to cry. She was feeling a wave of remorse now that she understood what was happening better. Even she had incorrectly assumed that this had been the work of the Queen. She’d allowed herself to feel anger over the thought that maybe she’d been betrayed by her kind, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. It was why their souls seemed so weak and tiny the night before. Why even the Queen looked like her flame was close to becoming ashes. She finally understood now.

The Mistress. Queen Chrysalis’ monster, born from the overwhelming grief and hatred of the past during the tragedy. The embodiment of madness. It had split from her body and taken over a physical form. All the animals that had become sick, all of the changelings, and the Queen who had been affected... she’d been feeding off of their emotions to grow her strength all this time. It had been injecting that awful feeling into every pony in town since the moment she’d arrived, preying on their natural distrust and further augmenting those feelings of turmoil to amass her power and likely seeking revenge.

“Twilight. It’s, Mistress. Mom’s monster. In her, mind. Awful feeling, grown from magic. Changeling magic. Madness!” Chrys spelled it out for her and every pony present.

“Wait, what does this mean, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, not fully understanding what was going on the way Twilight did.

“It’s a magical manifestation of Queen Chrysalis’ insanity. And it’s the real culprit behind all of this.” Twilight put it in no uncertain terms for the rest of them.

The ground began to crack with power underneath her as the last of the parasprites fell from the energy she’d consumed.

“Mistress... It’s a fine enough moniker. You’re allowed to use it if you wish to address me.” Discord's voice mused. “Oh but enough speculation, please, do that thing you were going to do from the start now that you’ve got all six of you gathered. I’ve been meaning to show you just how powerless you really are. For real this time.”

The cloudy figure of the Mistress stomped her hoof as her pitch-black tendrils expanded out towards them like a hundred arms all looking to sap their strength again. Twilight reinforced her barrier spell at the start of the impact when they lunged at it with eager anticipation of consuming their magic. The waves of energy shook everyone within, and Twilight grunted from the sheer strength of the Mistress's magic. The Crusaders screamed in terror at the events unfolding before them.

“Get behind me girls! You’ll be okay!” Rarity yelled at them as she cast an extra barrier around them to be safe.

“We’re out in the open this time! There’s no way we’ll fall for the same trick.” Rainbow Dash yelled out as she flew high above the air where the arms couldn’t reach her and dive-bombed the cloud. The Mistress split her form in an instant before Rainbow Dash connected a hoof and sent her crashing into the ground only to quickly compose herself before the arms could grab at her. “I can’t get a hit in!”

A blast from Twilight and Rarity’s magic shot toward the Mistress only to be deflected from an invisible barrier that was already shielding her.

“No, no, not this hullaballoo. You know what I meant, stop playing dumb with me, ponies. I want to see some real magic. I want to see you despair again. Show me those shiny rocks of yours.”

The tendrils amassed into a single massive spear. It lunged upwards and fell onto Twilight’s barrier with a thunderous roar that ripped at her barrier’s magical layers. Cracks began to form on it and small strips of black-like little snakes from that cascading power slipped through them, falling onto the adult mares and sucking at their energy like leeches. Yet strangely, they were leaving Chrys alone. Twilight’s barrier began to dim as multiple of them fell on top of her.

Chrys could only watch as Twilight and the rest struggled against the Mistress' magic. Her exhaustion had prevented her from being able to fight back, and even in deep panic, she could not muster the magical energy to do anything.

The rift inside her had grown.

She was strongly denying herself the ability to feel hatred, anger, or fury. Even outside of those emotions, ever since facing the dogs her emotions had felt stunted by her fear of using her magic again. She feared harming everyone present, even as she watched them slowly being subdued like this. There was a chance it could backfire and hurt everyone she loved. But if she didn’t try, then they’d all be done for either way.

Chrys could sense the intentions of the Mistress. Her hatred was so blindingly powerful, it felt like it could blot out the very sun. She intended to see everything and everyone in ruin. Chrys was becoming ever more desperate as the seconds ticked by.

She forcibly undid her shackle again. Yet it was not like any of the other times she'd overcome her fears like when she undid her magic. This was not in service of something she wanted to do. Quite opposite of that.

In allowing her anger and hatred for the Mistress to seep back in, the rift inside her grew once more.

Chrys used her magic to transform into the smallest of the Diamond Dogs and buried underground at that moment, much to the surprise of the mares save for Twilight who had full attention on keeping the barrier up. She appeared behind the Mistress and transformed back to her original form to cast the spell she had always been using up until now with every ounce of magic in her, reciting the words to perform it over and over in her head.

Her horn lit up with a powerful saber of light that teetered like a flame in her anger. She thought more and more about how this thing before her upended all of her efforts and all of the lives of every pony and the changelings just for its cruel goals. She could not stand it.

From the reaches of her heart, Chrys was desperate to find some semblance of good in the Mistress. However much she wanted to believe that this awful creation was a separate being from her mother, the horrible truth was that it wasn't. She understood this now, as her own anger had brought about that troubling realization. It might have split from the main body, but it was still a part of her soul, as twisted and ugly as it had become.

Chrys hesitated to finish the chant in her head at the very last words. With Fate's grand design... Her magic struggled to keep alight.

She couldn't say it.

"Chrys?!" Twilight said from the opposite side of the Mistress, finally noticing her and what she intended to do. The Mistress, however, hadn’t even shifted her stance to see Chrys. She only looked on ahead at the group of mares, seemingly unconcerned by what was transpiring behind her.

Suddenly, the vitriolic womanly voice of the Mistress when she had reigned over Queen Chrysalis spoke to her from within her mind.

"You'd be mad to think this would play out like last time. You think you can save anyone the way you are right now? Think I can't notice it? Your truth is mine. And mine is yours. A manifestation of the Queen's mind? Hardly. What can she do amidst her endless dreams? It seems you don't rightly know yourself as well as you wish you did. I originated from the Queen, sure, but I was given shape by you."

Chrys' magic left her altogether at these words. She became petrified in fear of what they meant. She tried refuting this claim as loudly as she could with her own internal voice, but to no avail, drowned out by the maniacal laughter of the Mistress.

"Why do you deny me so? Is this not what you intended from the start? Did you not read the fine print for what you are? I've been with you for quite a while you know. How far back do you think I've existed within you? Let's see. Maybe when you were shocked at what you'd done to those mutts? Maybe when everyone started to spread rumors about you? Or maybe it was when Twilight got angry with you and you cried your heart out. Boohoo."

Chrys shook her head as hard as she could, somehow believing that doing so would shake the Mistress out of her mind.

It might’ve been what that little filly, Diamond Tiara, said to you. It could’ve even been when you first entered school! Or maybe the first time you walked through the town of ponies only to hear and see their horrid thoughts. Woe is you.

Chrys had fallen to the ground and draped both of her forelegs over her head, trying her best to force that voice out with no success.

Perhaps I was already with you the moment you saw Twilight again after so long, and your unsettled mind made you believe that Twilight was the only one with that lingering darkness in her heart out of the two of you. We both know you wanted to believe you were better than this. That you could overcome anything. Getting drunk off of a single victory is the folly of any foolish foal after all.

Discord sneered cruelly at the imitation of the Mistress’s cloud doing so wordlessly.

No, the truth is that I’ve been with you for a very long time now. From the moment you decided to open up to me to get a hold of something you used to fear almost all your life. The irony? If you’d only kept to your fears, your doubts, and your chains, I would’ve never made my way into you. I thought I was done for when the Queen managed to almost extinguish me with your help. But to my surprise there you were, a ripe vessel for the taking far more powerful and naïve than the rest of your lot. Oh, how sweet your loneliness was after that cave had closed for what felt like ever. How delicious that desperate brooding of anxiety and worry were. But alas, good things didn’t last forever. Eventually, these ponies found you again, and you learned a rather troublesome party trick that’s kept me at bay. Still, it was just a matter of time until you cracked and the tiny bit of me I planted inside of you would grow to this extent. But now, we’re both ready for me to take what’s rightfully mine.

Chrys cried out in pain as she could feel the rift inside of her mind crack open all at once, separating her mind in two and pushing her further and further away from the control of her own body.

Aren’t you happy? Aren’t you glad? You’re going to be free.

"No... No! NO!" Chrys yelled out with the last of her right mind.

“You fiend! What are you doing to her?!” Twilight’s voice screamed out at the sight of this almost wordless exchange between the two and seeing Chrys’ turmoil becoming increasingly more intense as the little changeling yelled out her troubled refusals, the purple alicorn struggling to stay standing from the mass of black leech-like tendrils on her back draining at her strength.

“I thought I already said this once before, my dearest most faithful Twilight. It’s not about what I’m doing to her. It’s about what she is doing for me.” Discord said as his eyelids closed and his body limply fell to the ground unconscious and unresponsive.

Twilight’s heart sank to its very depths as she could only watch what happened next.

The cloud of energy swirled around the little changeling princess smaller and smaller until it disappeared altogether into her body. As she opened her eyes again with newfound malicious intent in them, Twilight tremored all over at the truly awful truth.

The Mistress had overtaken Chrys entirely.