The Crystal Museum

by Miner

Friends and Foes

In the crystal mines underneath Canterlot,

A purple alicorn struggles on her chains desperately trying to break free. Sweat rolls down her face soaking the ground underneath, a testament to how long she has tried. Four guards stand in the circle formation around her weapons ready in case she somehow breaks free. She lunges forward trying desperately to get to the object before her. In a small glass display on a pedestal just out of her reach, is her cutie mark. She shouts curses at the ponies around her refusing to believe that this is the end for her.

Queen Opaline couldn't believe her luck. She thought things were turning in her favor when her magic mysteriously returned to her shortly after leaving Tartarus. When two days later she encountered a group of creatures she'd never seen before. Originally, she thought she could persuade them to follow her orders, but it turned out they were not there by chance. It turned out that they were changelings, and they had one mission. To capture the mare that freed Tirek and bring her back to Canterlot. At first, it looked like she was going to get away from her pursuers until a larger one came out of nowhere tackling her to the ground, before using a wooden staff with a pitchfork end, to remove her cutie mark from her very body leaving behind an ‘equal’ sign in its place.

At first, she didn't understand why or how her cutie mark was removed. But she soon learned why they would do such a thing to her. Without her cutie mark, Queen Opaline was weaker than a foul to her pursuers. And was helpless as they dragged her back to Canterlot. She's been down here ever since trying to get free, but it was a hopeless cause.

As her body tires from exhaustion, the door to the dungeon opens revealing the larger changeling that captured her in the first place, flanked by two smaller ones. The visitor leans on the glass case where her cutie mark resides smirking at her and tapping the glass lightly.

“Oh, still poor little pony all pooped out. Do you want a snack?” Queen Chrysalis says childishly like she is talking to a foul before laughing, “Because it's not snack time yet,”

“Let me out of here!”

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're not conditioned to make any demands here. Last I checked you are the one in chains and I'm over here free as a bird,” Chrysalis quickly changes into a bird flying around the room before returning to her original form in front of her, “So I'll be the ones making the demands,”

“I don't answer to lower life forms,”

“Maybe and yet it was this very lower life form,” Chrysalis transforms into a smaller version of herself mocking her prisoner with every word she says, “that reduces you to a state less than the lower life,” She says before turning back to normal and tapping the side of her head while looking up in thought, “So, what does that make you?” She smiles pointing a hoof at her, “Dirt?”

Rage follows through Opaline body as she stands her ground, “Insufferable creature. When I get out here-“

“And you won't!” Chrysalis quickly snaps at her almost biting Opaline's face off causing her to back up in shock, “Not if I have anything to say about it! This is all your fault!”

“My fault? What in the world are you talking about? Last I checked you are the one who put me in chains. I don't even know who you or your things are,”

“THINGS!” Chrysalis shouts with fury causing the guards to stand on edge, “Those are my children! You-”

“Chrysalis please restrain yourself,” One of the guards says as Chrysalis shakes with anger, “she's just that lashing out verbally. There is no reason to be angry, she can’t harm anypony. Please remain calm.”

“I am calm. Can't you see how calm I am?” Chrysalis puts on a monkey smile trying desperately to convince the guards that she is fine, “It's not like I'm planning to bite her throat out and drink what comes out with a side of toast.”

“I hope not,” Another voice says from the doorway. Everypony turns to see Princess Twilight entering the room, “I would hate having to tell my little ponies that you are eating ponies,”

“Oh, come on, Twilight I was just having a little fun,”

Twilight gave a deadpan stare at her old foe, “Chrysalis your idea of fun is changing into a cockatrice and running down the hallways of the castle scaring the guards senseless,”

Chrysalis chuckles remembering another time she caused a scare during Nightmare Night involving some firecrackers and paint, “Ah yes those were good times,”

Twilight shakes her head not wanting to deal with Chrysalis and an evil Alicorn at the same time, “And didn’t I tell you, I wanted to interrogate the prisoner together?”

“Why Twilight,” Chrysalis gasps while looking as innocent as possible with big eyes and a winning smile, “it sounds almost as if you don't trust me,”

To any other pony, this might have worked. But Twilight wasn’t having it. Not today, “You once foalnapped me in my sleep!”

“You left your window open! I mean come on. You had an arch-enemy roaming around and can transform into whatever they wanted, and you left the window open!” She through her hoofs in the air justifying her actions, “You were just begging me to foalnap you!”

“It was the middle of summer!” Twilight shakes her head wanting to get back on track, “Never mind. Let's get back to what we came here to do.”

“Right, we came here to have a Alicorn BBQ,” Chrysalis says before looking at one of her guards, “Fetch me my wine and BBQ essentials,”

Opaline looks at Chrysalis in alarm not sure if she is serious or not. Her concern increased as she saw one of the guards saluting before leaving the room. She believes she might have imagined it, but she could have sworn she saw some drool coming off Chrysalis's mouth as she stared back at her. Like a hungry timber woof to an injured pony. For some reason, Opaline felt exposed and tried covering herself from her gaze with her tail and wings. “Stop staring at me,”

Twilight groans putting a hoof on her face as the guard returns with a bag of what Chrysalis asked for. Opaline wants to believe that Chrysalis is bluffing but Twilight's reaction is not helping her confidence, especially when the guard starts setting up the BBQ. However, before anything else happened. Twilight used her magic to send the bag away in a flash of light,

“We are not eating the prisoner Chrysalis,”

“Oh, come on it'll be so easy,” She pleads while wiping some drool from her mouth, “just one small cut to the throat and she'll be gone in a few minutes,” She makes a motion with her hoof slicing a throat, “We can put a bucket underneath it so that she doesn't ruin the floor. You don't even have to look,”

“Chrysalis! Behave yourself!”

“You're no fun,” She sulks walking away before turning back pointer hoof at her, “but I reserved the right of first bite once she acts out,” She declares before walking away and taking a seat nearby.

Queen Opaline looks fearfully at the changeling Queen before turning to the Twilight hoping to dissolve some of her fears, “She's joking right?”

“To be honest. I'm not entirely sure,” Twilight says scratching the side of her head, “Last time I was in the changeling hive. They were serving smaller bugs and insects. So, I believe they are carnivorous predators by nature.”

If Opaline wasn’t scared before she is now, “I'm going to die!”

“I'll start warming the coals,” Chrysalis says before making a fire pit with another bag Twilight didn’t see from earlier.

Seeing the construction of a dead pit was the last straw for the Alicorn as she started screaming. Opaline tries with all her might to fly away from the pony eater, all the while smoke starts rising in the air. The guards stand confused as to what is happening before their eyes. On one hoof the prisoner is finally scared, but now they have the possibility of seeing how a changeling eats a pony. It both scares and intrigues them as they look to Twilight for guidance. Twilight shakes with anger, as the coals catch fire, Twilight screams at the top of her lungs,

“NO PONY IS GOING TO DIE!” Twilight channels her magic brightly in her horn, wings flaring high above her head crouching low to the ground making her look bigger and more menacing, “and the next pony that interrupts my original reason for visiting the prisoner is going get it!”

She breathes heavily angrily looking at any pony who dares challenge her. But no pony would dare challenge an angry Princess that could blast them off the face of Equestria. So, they decided that the best course of action was to lay flat on the ground and hope that puppy eyes would spare them from her wrath.

Once Twilight is satisfied that there will be no more interruptions, she composes herself and looks to the prone prisoner, “Can we start with who are you and where you came from?”

Confident that she can live for another ten minutes. Opaline got back on her hoofs but kept a watchful eye on Chrysalis, “My name is Queen Opaline. I come from the Skyros island home of Alicorns,”

Twilight could not believe what she was hearing neither could Chrysalis, “You mean there's more than just us?” Twilight says not sure how to handle this information. If there are more alicorns, then this is not something that can be taken lightly,

“I am really glad I surrendered when I did,” Chrysalis says before putting out the hot coals, “the four of you, are already hard enough to deal with. I can't imagine taking on a whole army,”

“I don't understand. If there are more alicorns, how come we never heard of them?”

Opaline huffs at Twilight's lack of knowledge, “Because Alicorns don't typically leave their island. Neither do they get involved with creatures outside of their race. Alicorns have more important things to deal with than worrying about the common folk. However, Celestia and Luna were the first Alicorns to leave the island in thousands of years.”

Opaline growls thinking about those two, “Those two think they're so special because they have the power to move the sun and the moon. While I am fire Alicorn, have mastery over fire magic like no pony else. And yet all the other Alicorns would only talk about was just how special those two sisters were. Well, that's all going to change. I will become the most powerful Fire Alicorn that ever was and ever will be!”

“Okay, but why did you free Terik,” Twilight asked,

Opaline growls as she admits the reasoning for her actions, “He was able to defeat an Alicorn that was given the magical power of three Alicorns. Even though you were young at that time, your magical power was second to none. And yet he was able to fight you in combat and was victorious. If anypony had the capabilities of giving me the power that I seek, it was him,”

“You wanted his magic stealing spell,”

“Never in history has there ever been any creature that could steal magic. Outside of a magical bell that's long been lost. Once I got my hooves on his spell, then all Equestria magic would be mine to control. And not even those two sisters would be able to stand in my way,” She grins thinking of her master plan before she frowns,

“But before I could even implement my plan. You defeated him with your power of friendship!” She gags at saying such horrible things, “Then to make matters worse before I even had a chance to find him in Tartarus where you locked him up. He escaped and made his own little merry band of misfits with up filly Pegasus for all things and-” her train of thought stops as she forgets the name of the third species that he was with, “I forget what the other one was,”

“That was me!” Chrysalis calls out from her firepit, “You numb skull of a pony!”

Opaline looks at Chrysalis in shock as everything comes back to her, “Wait! Your Queen Chrysalis?”

“Of course, I'm Queen Chrysalis,” She rolls her eyes at her, “Who did you think I was?”

Opaline looks confused. “But I thought the ruler of the changelings was male. You’re a female,”

“Of course, I am a FEMALE!” Chrysalis jumps to her hooves in anger, “Only females can become Queens, you dummy! I was the ruler of the changeling before Thorax took over,”

“Ohh,” She says realizing her mistake. She always found it odd that ponies would refer to the ruler of the changelings to be a male while the word Queen was in the name. Now she feels dumb, “That makes more sense,”

“You are a big dummy. What gave you the idea that King Thorax and I are one and the same?”

Opaline scratches the side of her head embarrassed, “Well, nopony I talk to called him King Thorax. All they said was that the ruler of the changeling was male but never mentioned his name. And when I did some research, you were the only one mentioned as the ruler of the changelings,”

“That makes even less sense!”

“Enough!” Twilight interrupts them, “It was a misunderstanding and leave it at that, ok?” They grumbled but reluctantly agreed, “Now then where were we? Ah yes, you wanted all the magic of Equestria for yourself, and you needed Tirak’s spell to do it. Correct?”

“Yes. But instead of telling me the spell. He gave me a counteroffer,”

“And that is?”

“Help me with gaining access to an ancient power that could destroy all of Equestria and he will give me the spell,”

“And that is where you two freed The World Eater,”

Opaline laughs at her, “FREED The World Eater? It was dead by the time we got there. Nothing but dust and bones last time I saw it.” She chuckled lightly before noticing how they were looking at her. As if she had said something very incorrect, “Why are you looking at me like that,”

“Twilight can I please eat her?”

“No Chrysalis,”

“Can somebody tell me what I am missing here?”

Twilight then proceeds to tell her what her actions had brought before Equestria. At first, her reactions were surprised before turning to a form of Glee.

“So, The World Eater did survive,”

“And now it's destroying everything in its wake,”

Opaline smiles and relaxes her body like she is going on vacation, “Okay. And that is not my problem,”

Chrysalis and Twilight look at her as if she has grown a second head. It took a few seconds before Chrysalis looked at Twilight in disbelief, “She can’t be serious,”

Opaline laughs, “I may not be able to get all of Equestria's magic. But letting The World Eater run rampant and destroying everything those two sisters ever built is second best,”

“You do realize it will destroy everything?” Twilight tries to reason with her, having a hard time believing that somepony can be so ignorant of their current situation.

“And like I said earlier. That is not my problem,”

Chrysalis eye twitches as she stares at the Alicorn before, “There is no way she can be this dumb,”

“I resent that,”

“Queen Opaline because of your actions all of Equestria is doomed,” Twilight tries to explain to her, “Not even Alicorns would be able to survive its wrath,”

“So long as it gets those two sisters. Then I don't care,”

“Was I like this?” Chrysalis asks Twilight, unsure if all villains have this kind of mindset or if she's a special case, “Because I hope I wasn’t,”

“No, I think she's worse,” Twilight cleared her throat and spoke proudly to the evil Alicorn, “Queen Opaline your selfish actions may have cost us much of Equestria and its citizens, but we will win this war,”

Opaline scoffed at her, “Don't give me that nonsense. There is no way you could even defeat such a powerful creature. If you could, you would have done it already and not waste your time telling me of such nonsense,”

“You're right I wouldn't,” Twilight uses her magic to summon forth a small chest before lifting a small black necklace out of the box, “do you know what this is?”

For the first time that she's been there, Queen Opaline is speechless as she stares at the relic in the Princess's magic, “The Dark Alicorn Amulet. Where did you get that?”

“That's not important. What is important is that after studying this artifact for a while, I learned how it was created. Did you ever wonder why it had the word alicorn in its name?”

“No,” Opaline says not sure where she is going with this,

“An evil Alicorn from a long time ago had his magic sealed and imprisoned into this gem. The amulet corrupts the user but amplifies their magic capabilities to that of an alicorn.”

“I'm already aware of that. Where are you going with this?”

“To finalize a project, I'm working on, I'm going to need to do some more experimentation. And you are the perfect test subject,”

“You wouldn't dear,” She states calling her bluff. But considering everything that's happened so far, she's hoping it's a bluff.

“You are correct. Normally I wouldn't even consider doing such a horrible thing to another pony. However, I'm willing to make an exception against you,” Twilight horns come alive with magic lighting the whole room in magic. Opaline backs away from Twilight until her chains keep her in place, “for your crimes against Equestria, against my family, and my friends. You shall help pave the way for us to defeat The World Eater. As the ruler of Equestria, I thank you for your sacrifice,”

Sometime later Queen Opaline lays on the floor motionless. Bruised and beaten but still very much alive. Her magic, however, has been removed from her. Twilight left her just enough for her to keep her cutie mark, but the rest were sealed away inside the Dark Alicorn amulet. She puts get back inside its chest before sending it away and finishes writing down some more notes. Once satisfied she sends them away as guards stand uneasy nearby as they watch the whole thing unfold before their eyes. Queen Chrysalis looks at the sorry excuse of an Alicorn before them before turning to her new friend.

“What did you do?”

“I forcefully removed her magic to test the limits of how much can be pulled from a living creature before it damages their bodies and then put it back inside her at various speeds and amounts. I repeated this process until I was confident in my ability to forcibly steal magic without damaging the host. However, this also allows me to know how much magic is required to kill a creature. The chances of finalizing The Unity Crystal have increased by 10%,”

Chrysalis looks back at the prone Alicorn while a nearby guard pokes her to see if she's still alive, “Is there any reason why you had never been this ruthless against me or the other villains?”

“None of you ever killed any pony I cared about before,” Twilight looks at the Alicorn with an emotionless face, “I said she got off easy,”

“What we're going to do about the other alicorns she mentioned?”

“At the moment nothing. Even if knew where they were, Opaline also mentioned that they don't get involved with the other races. So, there's a good chance they would just wait out this disaster in their homeland,”

“And I thought the two sisters were jerks. Turns out I was looking at the wrong bunch of Alicorns,”

Twilight uses her magic to release the chains on their prisoner, “Take her through one of the evacuation tunnels and leave her with one ration of food and water,” She orders the guards before turning to leave the room, “and make sure there is no way she can return, even if she does find the entrance to the tunnel.”

“You're not going to kill her?”

“There has been enough death already. Besides killing her would not bring back my friends,”

“Aren’t you a bit worried that she's going to come back?” Chrysalis insists, “I mean she is an Alicorn. Even if she can't use the tunnels. She could always get here the old-fashioned way,”

“No. I place a curse on her so that she can never find her way back to Canterlot.”

Both rulers leave the prisoner as Chrysalis gives Twilight a look of uncertainty, “You know you may be the Princess of Equestria. But you have better watch yourself. You're starting to sound like a villain,”

Twilight stops as she thinks about what she just heard. She sighs before quietly replying, “It won't matter,” Then before Chrysalis could get another word in, Twilight teleports away,

She shakes her head at Twilight’s actions, “Ponies can't live with them, but they are everywhere,”

The next two days were a blur for Twilight. From the tearful goodbyes of sending her parents away to the Crystal Empire. To the arguments with her closest friends. To see the despair of so many ponies and creatures having to decide whether to abandon their homes or stay behind. She lost track of time and before she knew it, she found herself heading to the Canterlot hospital. She's been here many times since the beginning of this madness. She walks past the waiting at the visitor's entrance, for who could stop her from seeing one of her closest friends in critical condition?

No pony asked her to do what she did, but she did it anyway. For she truly believes there might have been a way to stop this madness with just words. After all, she was able to talk down a selfish dragon to leave its new home and win over the Entity of Chaos itself. If any pony had a chance to talk to The World Eater and convince it otherwise, it was her. Her intentions were good, but she severely underestimated just how dangerous the creature she was going to face was.

Twilight enters the room as Discord stands over the prone body of Fluttershy where she sleeps soundly. Discord didn't acknowledge Twilight's presence, but she believes it's more the line that he didn't care. She moves to the opposite end of the bed as they stare at Fluttershy. Bandages wrapped around her midsection and parts of her face. Her breath is shallow and weak. If you could ignore the bandages on her body, you would think she was just asleep. But she's been asleep for a long time now. So long that the ponies around her are starting to wonder whether she'll ever wake up or not.

The Greatest Physician, Doctors, and Magic Healers of the Equestria had already come to give her aid and yet even they do not know why she has yet to wake up. Twilight fears that exposure to The World Eater might have caused more damage than they realized. Only time will tell whether Fluttershy will ever recover. Twilight looks up at Discord and asks the same question she always had since Fluttershy was admitted.

“Why can't you use her magic to help her?” He remained silent as he continued to look at his closest friend.

Twilight sighed before looking at Fluttershy again when Discord spoke,

“Because I promised her,”

“What?”

“Ever since the last time me and Fluttershy fought. I promised her that I would never use my magic against her or on her,” He clenches the side railings of the bedframe, “If only I didn't leave her side. I could have protected her from that thing,”

“Discord this isn't your fault,”

“Do not try to sugarcoat this Twilight,” Discord raised his voice startling her, “I let a small insignificant argument come between me and my best friend. And now here she lays on her bed, injured and helpless when I could have prevented this from even happening!”

His body shakes with anger, “If I had only listened to her. I might have even stopped Tirek from getting to Tartarus. Instead of throwing a small tantrum in the Chaos Dimension. But I was so focused on trying to protect her that I pushed her away when she needed me the most. So, I would appreciate it if you do not try to make me feel better because there are consequences to our actions and this is-” His voice softs as he brushes the side of Fluttershy's face moving aside some of her mane covering her face, “this is my fault,”

Twilight remained silent for about a minute before she could work up the courage to speak to him once more, “Discord I'll be beginning construction of The Unity Crystal soon,” she said but Discord didn't show any signs of paying attention to her, “once that happens. I will take on The World Eater and end this,”

“And you'll go with it,” Discord says as he gives her his full attention, “I heard that the other three are going to join you,”

Twilight looks away dejected, “I couldn't stop them,”

“And what about your other friends?” He raises an eyebrow at her, “last I checked. You have always fought every single villain of yours together?”

“No,” Twilight shakes her head, “Not this time. Things are different this time around. This time there is no mastermind behind an enemy attack. There is no friendship problem to be solved. And there is no coming back from this fight,”

“I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I let my friends decide whether they were to join me in this fight. They would join me and see this battle to the very end. But I have already lost too many friends to this monster. I refused to let it take them from me as well,”

“So, what happened to your friends?” Discord questions her,

“Let's just say they don't like me at the moment and leave it at that,” Twilight avoids question before steering the conversation back to its original topic, “If my math is correct. Then the blast radius will eliminate all life within a 100-foot radius. That is the most important part,”

Twilight uses her magic to summon a scroll before going through it, “After researching the original prison of The World Eater, I learned that it needs life to regenerate,”

“And if there is no life nearby then it will not come back,” Discord concludes, “But how are you going to make sure your magic bomb goes off the way you intended? It's a wild animal, so it doesn't exactly stand still while you are trying to kill it,”

“I'm going to have to let it eat me, and blow it up from the inside,”

“I guess that's one way to make sure it works,” Discord says scratching the back of his head, “but can't you like use some kind of cannon to send it inside its mouth? Or use your magic to shove it down its throat?”

“I can't risk The Unity Crystal getting damaged if it were to miss. And there's no guarantee that it will work correctly once it's inside The World Eater. To ensure that it doesn't happen, I'll have to manually set it off,”

“You know normally ponies would say that there must be another way. But after fighting the creature myself, I know better than that,” He sighs rubbing his arm, “So how are you going to make sure you lure it to a place without life?”

“Canterlot is mostly abandoned right now. Once the last of the residents have been evacuated, I will lure it here. Once The Unity Crystal has been forged, it will emit the largest source of magic in all of Equestria. There's no way The World Eater could resist such bait,”

“Sounds like a solid plan. But Twilight have you ever thought of what will happen to Equestria once the battle is over?” Discord pulls out a dry-erase board form out of nowhere. On it are little doodles of the Rules of Equestria and the other races on it,

“The power vacuum will be huge, once you go boom with the other princesses,” He rubs away the doodles of the four princesses, “Although your brother is technically a Prince. Not even he can rule a whole nation while raising his daughters without their mother,” He points to an out-number doodle Shining Armor surrounded by more doodles, “Not to mention that last, I checked you don't have any descendants,”

“And as much as I would enjoy seeing that kind of chaos. I don't think much help to him since your little Unity Crystal is going to make my magic act very differently. It will take me some time before I can get used to it. So, for the next give or take 100 years, I'll be useless to stop anypony from trying to become the new ruler of Equestria. And there's no guarantee that they will be happy to see Shining Armor and his daughters once they return from their banishment. So, what is your plan?”

“Discord once I am gone. You shall rule Equestria,”

“And I thought I was crazy. What gave you the idea this was a good idea?”

“It's the only way to ensure that no pony causes any problems. My friends and I will be long gone before the Crystal Empire returns. The ponies and the other species will need a leader to follow to restore order.”

“So, you think the Entity of Chaos is that leader?” He rubs his face with his claw before dragging it down stretching his face before it snaps back into place, “Did you already forget? My magic won't be working correctly afterward. If anything were to happen, I wouldn’t be able to stop any pony. Not to mention why would they listen to me?”

“Discord,” a small voice says,

Both Twilight and Discord down look to see Fluttershy slowly open her eyes looking at him, her eyes filled with tears, “I am sorry,” she says before falling back to sleep. They both moved in close hoping that she may speak once more but she remained sound asleep. The room was silent for some time before Discord spoke up,

“I don't think I will be able to help out with your plan,” he looks up at her tears in his eyes, “I can’t live on without her,”

“But Discord we need your help,” She pleads with him, “And even if she recovers. A pony has a very short lifespan compared to you. She'll die long before Shining Armor can return. Please Discord we need you,”

Discord looks between the mares deep in thought trying to see how we can help his friends in need, “There's a spell that ponies can use to Prolong their lives,”

“What spell?” Twilight says confused, “I never heard of such a thing,”

“You wouldn't. Celestia had long since banned the practice and removed it from history,” He clarifies, “By bonding their hearts with another creature, they tie their life force to it. So as long as the creature doesn't die, they can live on,” he grabs hold of Fluttershy hoof looking Twilight, “I want you to combine my heart with hers,”

Twilight was dumbfounded upon hearing this news. She struggles to speak trying to treat this topic carefully, “Discord, if you go through with this, she will live forever. I wasn’t given a chance to prepare to go through that when I became an alicorn. Are you sure you can put her through that kind of life?”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“Very well Discord,” Twilight reluctantly agrees, “what do I need to do?”