Chrysalis (part1)
It was slightly after noon, and Twilight took a deep breath of fresh air as she walked down the streets of Canterlot. She had managed to finish her work for the night early enough for her to get to sleep before dawn, and though she might have enjoyed a trip down to Ponyville, or a bit of time in Discord's company, she had a purpose for the day.
Although she tried her hardest to keep up with all of her friends and family, there were times when somepony would fall through the cracks for a bit. Through schedule conflicts and bad luck, Twilight had been unable to check in on her own brother for nearly two weeks, and it was high time she fix that. She had appropriated his schedule, found the next day he had off, and ensured that she would have the day free as well.
Twilight reached her family's city home and knocked on the door before promptly teleporting past it. It was still good manners to knock, after all. She popped back into existence right in front of her brother as he was trotting to the door. Shining Armor fell back with a yelp of surprise, landing hard on his rump.
"Can't you ever use a door like a normal pony, Twilie?" he muttered. Twilight just grinned from ear to ear.
"Hey, it's not my fault you can't get used to it, oh brave Captain of the Royal Guard," she taunted at him. "Besides, it's worth skipping the door just for your reaction every time."
The both of them smiled, and they stepped into a hug. It really had been too long for both of their tastes. Even when Twilight was off on some excavation or something, she was seldom gone from Canterlot for more than a week, and most of the time, they were able to at least find a few minutes to talk in the castle. For the past week though, Twilight had been in diplomatic talks along with Princess Luna, and the week before, Shining Armor had been away to check on one of the further-out military outposts.
After a long moment, the two of them separated, and walked into the sitting room. Shining sat on a cushion, and cast a critical eye over his sister. "So... the Gryphons treated you and the Princess well I hope." he commented.
Twilight nodded. "It turns out that Rainbow Dash had a gryphon friend back in flight camp, and she was able to tell me a lot about their culture ahead of time. If Dash hadn't mentioned how horrible their table manners were, I might have lost my lunch that first day. Turns out that some of them like to kill their food at the table, although I'm fairly sure that they were trying to be even worse than normal for us." Luna had watched the display with little more than a lifted eyebrow, while Twilight had needed to use a bit of magic to prevent herself from feeling too sick to eat. Even a daisy sandwich could be hard to stomach when someone was ripping a squirrel to shreds across the table.
Twilight shook her head to clear out the memories. "What about you?" she asked. "Anything interesting to report?"
Shining looked to one side for a moment, coloring slightly. "Well..." he said, "I might be... getting married soon?"
Twilight blinked at the comment, and then looked for any signs that her brother was joking around, trying to get a reaction out of her. No smile, no ear twitch... nope, not joking. He looked fairly serious.
She sat there for a moment, letting the sudden silence stretch on before she finally asked the obvious question. "Alright, can I have some more details than that? What does might be getting married mean? Who, and since when?"
Shining Armor took a moment to compose himself. "Well, Twilie, you remember Cadence, right?"
Twilight's good mood returned full force at the mention of her favorite foalsitter. "Cadence, eh?" she asked, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Now how long has that been going on, I wonder. No no, don't answer that, I can probably guess." Shining's face turned slightly pinkish. It was so fun to tease him at times.
"So," she pressed, "what happened to bring about this happy event? The two of you weren't caught doing something... inappropriate with each other, were you? Did you propose to her yet?"
Shining drew upon all of his training to force his face straight and, if not totally back to white, less pink at least. "We've been considering it for a while now, but the time just never seemed right. Even now, we can't tell anypony about it for another week or two, at least until she get's back to Canterlot from her trip to the frontier. She insisted on going without any guards to straighten things out with the buffalo down there, and we want to make sure that she's here when we make the announcement."
Twilight distinctly noticed that he hadn't confirmed or denied her claims of them being caught together. Considering that it hadn't shown up as a scandal in one of the newspapers, she figured that it had been one of the Princesses who'd caught them together. She'd save that for another time though.
"This is great," she exclaimed as she jumped to her hooves. "You're going to be marrying Cadence, and that will put you in a position to help counter Prince Blueblood!"
Shining chuckled slightly, and patted her on the head. "Don't you think you're excited for the wrong part there, Twilie?" he asked playfully. "This means that Cadence is going to be your big sister, and that you might get to be an aunt sometime soon. Besides all that, Cadence wanted you to help plan the wedding, and I want you to be my best mare. Things are going to be getting exciting once Cadence gets back, you know."
Twilight looked up enthusiastically at Shining. "Of course I'll help out. I'd say that you didn't have to ask, but I'll note that you didn't bother. This is wonderful news! My news about Rainbow and me raiding the tomb of an ancient Gryphon king, right under the noses of their rulers, hardly seems worth mentioning next to that."
Shining smiled down at his sister for a moment. Then the last sentence registered for him. "Wait, you did what?" he shouted.
---Canterlot Castle Library, that night---
Twilight set down her most recent book, one on political marriages, on top of a stack of newspapers and tabloids. Even if she did already like Cadence, and already approved, she wanted to make sure that she knew everything that she might have to deal with once her brother was married.
So far though, it was as if there weren’t any strings attached anywhere. Cadence's parents were both dead from a freak accident years back, and Cadence had been brought up in the castle by Princess Celestia along with a small army of tutors and servants. She was a cousin of Prince Blueblood, but they were never really seen together since an incident in their foalhoods. Other than that, it seemed that there wasn't a single speck of dirt to be dug up.
Not that Twilight was hoping for any dirt, of course. She had just expected some small scandal here, a long time enemy there, membership with a not-so-secret secret organization on the side... but no, there was nothing. It was, actually, almost frightening how few ponies seemed to have any sort of dislike for her. Everypony had some enemies, even if it didn't make logical sense.
Still, it would be nice to not have to deal with any extra messes on her plate from the marriage. With this, she could just see the wedding done with a smile on her face, and start calling Princess Cadence her big sister.
Twilight could still recall so many fond memories of the times Cadence foalsat her for her parents. Now, though, she could appreciate the time Cadence had made for her even more, since she knew just how much effort must have been involved in getting her free time.
Cadence was a Princess, a member of the royal family, and even if she would never need to worry about inheriting, she had still been trained for the possibility of running a country. She had guards on her whenever she left the castle and servants keeping an eye on her every action inside, along with constant lessons on etiquette, politics, and everything else under the sun. Even as a teenager, Cadence would have had to go through constant tutoring, and would have needed to fight tooth and hoof to get any sort of free time. Yet, she always made time to foal sit for little Twilight Sparkle.
Instead of sneaking out and going on dates, she would stay with Twilight and play with dolls with her when her parents and brother were out. Instead of reading romances and watching plays, she read with Twilight, curled up together under a blanket. Instead of going to visit potential royal and noble suitors, she gave Twilight baths... and taught her a secret dance that involved... waving her flank... in Cadence's face...
Huh. Come to think of it, looking at those fond memories in the wrong light, and without knowing the type of pony Cadence was, a pony could be forgiven for getting the wrong idea about their relationship. But this was Cadence after all, and she just loved ponies. Her special talent was even spreading love with magic! Spreading love, mending relationships – how many ponies could do that?
...Wait a minute.
Twilight forced herself to pause in her train of thought. Hadn't there been some issue in Ponyville recently, where some fillies had used a love potion on their teacher to try to 'help' her with Hearts and Hooves Day? The fillies involved had been given quite the stern talking to according to Rarity, and were only let off as easily as that because they had actually helped fix the mess they had made. Even so, they were forced to swear never to dabble in love magic again, because of the moral issues with forcing feelings onto other ponies.
Twilight levitated over an old book on magical ethics and legality and flipped over to emotional magic, like her own 'want it, need it' spell. There, in front of her, was a full fifty pages devoted to historical abuses of the magic, and all of the laws and ethical decisions that ponies had come up with in response. The law, as always, left plenty of room for small, harmless pranks and honest mistakes, but it was quite clear that full-out love magic was only to be used on ponies with their consent.
Twilight let her mind drift to one of the times she had seen Cadence use her magic: Two ponies were arguing loudly in public, disrupting their walk, and Cadence had used her magic to 'fix' whatever problems they had been having. Forcibly, and without asking for any consent. She hadn't even seemed to pause and consider things before hoof either, and Twilight, young as she had been, didn't think twice about it.
Now though, small memories like that one were surfacing in Twilight's mind, feeding strength to a sudden and disturbing train of thought.
Why the buck didn't anypony bat an eye at a member of royalty using love magic all the time? Had she ever used her love magic on Twilight? Or Celestia? And come to think of it, hasn’t she been avoiding Luna like she had the plague since her return? Twilight had just assumed that it was because of the whole Nightmare Moon thing, but perhaps it was more an issue with Luna's seemingly paranoid tendency to always keep magical protections up on herself. Even if Cadence had managed to work her magic on Celestia, Luna was more powerful, and ever more on guard around other ponies.
What if the only reason Cadence was so universally liked, was because she was using her magic to keep it that way? A lot of things would be overlooked if nopony could help but love her, after all. And love magic was closely linked with spells designed to affect other aspects of the mind, too. If she was good enough with her magic, Cadence could probably keep ponies from remembering anything that would be too likely to make them dislike her.
This is ridiculous. Twilight put the book down along with the others. I know I have tendencies to blow things out of proportion once in awhile, and I don't want to ruin my brother's wedding by going crazy on him. Besides that, I'd like to keep Cadence as a friend, assuming she isn't secretly a horrible pony.
There was that nagging thought again, though. Twilight grimaced, but now that she had let her paranoia out of its cage, there was no putting it back before it was assuaged. Of course, it had served her well when dealing with Equestria's movers and shakers before, and Princess Cadence did count as one of those.
On the plus side, it wasn't like she could think of any malevolent reason for Cadence to be marrying her brother – Cadence was already a princess, even if she wasn’t one of the ruling ones – so she couldn't be looking for power. That was the main motivation of most members of the court, and Cadence was outranked only by Celestia, Luna, and Twilight herself. And she was looking to marry Twilight's big brother, and re-integrate herself into her life after years of little-to-no interaction.
Ugh. Stupid paranoia. Twilight rubbed her temple with a hoof, trying to fight off a sudden headache. Cadence could already just use her old connection to Twilight if she wanted to. Still, if she was using her love magic so freely, and felt the need to avoid the one pony who could be guaranteed to resist it... Twilight owed it to her brother to at least find out if he was about to marry a snake.
There was a simple enough way to find out one way or the other, though. All she needed to do was ward her mind from any sort of mind magic, and then talk to Cadence for a bit. If Cadence was just used to using her magic to ensure everypony loved her, regardless of how she acted, she'd likely not have the best of social skills. She'd be used to ponies making allowances for her every flaw, and so she wouldn't have learned to hide them properly. Quite frankly, she'd probably either be easier to read than a basic algebra textbook, or she'd simply be a bitch.
If Twilight noticed absolutely nothing wrong with her before the wedding was done, then she'd be able to convince herself that her old foal sitter really was a good pony. Or at least not horrible, and after seeing as many nobles as she had, that would be enough.
There, problem solved. Now shut up brain. Twilight would need to review magical protections, particularly ones that were hard to detect and ones that would guard her thoughts and emotions, but that was familiar territory for her. She levitated the reading she'd already finished back to where it belonged, and started scanning the shelves for what she needed. It was going to be another long night.
---Canterlot Castle, a couple weeks later---
Twilight fidgeted slightly from in the stone hallway, double-checking her spells once more. She both did and didn't want to see Cadence right then, and the reasoning was convoluted, even by her standards.
On the one hoof, she liked to be right about things; it was nearly an obsession of hers to be right. There was little that was more cathartic than the sense of being correct in one's assumptions. On the other hoof, however, if she was right, she'd be proving not only that one of her favorite ponies from her foalhood was actually a terrible pony – she'd be proving that she had been hoodwinked for around a decade by somepony.
As much as she loved seeing proof of her reasoning prowess, Twilight was hoping that she was wrong about something, and that was a more alien sensation than that time Discord had made her two-dimensional. He had said it was to help her see how most of the ponies in Equestria felt, although she could hardly imagine why losing her depth was supposed to help her connect to ponies.
She checked over her spell work again. It was flawless, of course, as was to be expected after being double-checked for the seventy-eighth time. No spell even remotely resembling mind-altering or emotional manipulation magic could possibly touch her. Even spells meant to be more passive, designed to pick up on her thoughts and emotions, would register nothing from her; her magic was keeping all of her thoughts and emotions close to her heart, as it were.
As Twilight reached number eighty, a trumpet fanfare signaled Cadence's return to Canterlot, a pair of guards greeting her as Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Twilight plastered a smile on her face that was, by her estimate, only thirty-eight percent fake, and then opened the doors to greet her old foalsitter, side by side with her brother.
Cadence stood at the gates with a carefully bored look on her face, trying to ignore the two guards that had opened the doors to admit her. She was obviously still in 'regal diplomat' mode, not letting her emotions reach her face, but she wasn't exactly expecting to be greeted by her fiancé and his sister. A calculated move on Twilight's part, as she would get the most reliable reaction with surprise.
Shining and Twilight stepped out into the light so that Cadence could see them, and her eyes locked onto Shining Armor's so quickly that they nearly made a clicking noise. Within a second, he had Cadence wrapped in a completely undignified hug, and her face jumped first to surprise, and then melted into a look of intense pleasure. She looked about ready to moan out loud as her eyes fluttered shut momentarily, and Twilight chided herself slightly. This was the pony she had been worrying was evil? Regardless of anything else, she obviously loved Shining Armor... though perhaps a bit too much, given her reaction to a simple hug.
Twilight's smile lost all traces of insincerity as the two of them separated, and she bounced forward in a Pinkie Pie inspired manner. “Cadence!” All of her paranoid thoughts fled for a single perfect moment as she looked up at her favorite foalsitter. It had been too long since they had had a moment out from under the scrutiny of the nobility, and there was really only one thing to do.
“Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake,” Twilight chanted, hopping up and down in their old dance. “Clap your hooves and do a little shake!”
Cadence just stared for an awkward moment. “...What are you doing?” she finally asked, a look of confusion and slight disgust coloring her features.
Something was wrong. That was not the happy greeting that Twilight had been looking forward to, and her doubts from earlier came crashing back. Even so, Twilight turned herself back to face Cadence, slightly embarrassed that she had gone back to waving her flank in the Princess's face. She wasn't a little filly anymore, after all.
“It's me, Twilight,” she said, searching Cadence's face for any hint of recognition or the warmth she remembered seeing. There was none.
Cadence stepped back away from Twilight, closer to Shining Armor. “Uh huh,” she muttered.
Shining put his hoof back around Cadence's back, smiling carefully at Twilight. “Maybe I should take Cadence and help her get settled back in, alright, Twilight?” he asked. “I'm sure that she's tired from her trip. Tell Princess Celestia that she'll be up to report in about... an hour or two from now, okay?”
“Sure,” Twilight nodded, her smile now more than a little forced. “Well then, I'll be seeing you two in a bit, right?” she asked. She looked at Cadence again, and received a glare that sent shivers down her spine.
“Absolutely,” Cadence all but purred out, leaning against Shining before prompting him to move.
As the two of them made their way inside, Twilight stood in shock, staring after them. That's Cadence? That horrid little bitch is my beautiful, loving foalsitter? She thought to herself, watching as they turned a corner out of sight. Holy bucking Celestia, I was right. Without her love magic influencing me, she's a horrible pony.
Twilight mentally probed her protective magics, looking for any evidence of... anything really. She was expecting it at this point, but she felt betrayed all over again when she found something. There was a slight residue of some sort of magic on her mental shields – not much, and hardly noticeable, but enough. It was the final nail in a coffin.
Princess Mi Amore bucking Cadenza's coffin, if she had anything to say about it.
She teleported herself straight to her room, startling Spike as he stashed a drawing of Rarity he'd been staring at. Flopping onto her bed, Twilight stared blankly up at the ceiling for a minute, breathing deeply. She would need to be calm if she was going to be plotting somepony's doom, after all.
Spike recovered from his shock, and climbed up next to her. “Sooo, that bad, huh?” he asked. At Twilight's curt nod, he fidgeted slightly. “Does that mean that you're going to be doing something drastic now?” Another nod. “Right then. If you don't need me for anything, I'll be hiding in a cave somewhere, just in case.”
Twilight sat up and leveled a look at him. “Spike, take a letter. In fact, take several.”
Spike sighed, walked over to the desk, and picked up a quill and a stack of paper. Cadence had no idea of the terror she had called down on herself. Twilight Sparkle, Royal Advisor to Princess Luna, wielder of the Element of Magic, personal student of Princess Celestia, and close personal friend of Discord, had just put her on the top of her enemies list.
---Several Days later, in the Canterlot dungeons---
She sat at a large wooden table, the oppressive darkness of the stone room pressed back only slightly by a pair of candles. The iron door opened with a creak, and five cloaked figures of roughly equal height walked in, sitting around the table, leaving only one cushion empty. The six hooded figures glanced around briefly.
One of them cleared her throat. “Twilight, dear, while I appreciate your desire to adhere to the old standbys and such, must I wear such a drab cloak? I'm sure that we could hold this conference just as well in stylish, color-coded robes rather than these... brown abominations.”
At the head of the table, the first cloaked figure lifted a lavender hoof to her face. “Rarity, the whole point of this is that we aren't supposed to use our names or show our faces. Besides, the book was very specific about the robes: Brown or black, full face coverage, and slightly threadbare. They go with the dark underground dungeon we're meeting in.”
A bright pink hoof shot into the air, accompanied by a high pitched voice. “I'm Pinkie Pie!” the figure shouted. The rest of the ponies looked over at her. “What, it's not like we even need the cloaks. The dungeons don't have any prisoners right now, and Twilight checked the place out herself for magical bugs and stuff, not that I'm sure how insects could give away our identities or anything, especially ladybugs. Unless they were magic talking bugs or something, but that would be silly! Unless they could turn into rocks or something, in which case this table could be listening in on everything we were saying, but Twilight checked for bugs, so I'm sure it's fine. We've already broken at least a couple of the rules for these cloak and dagger meetings by not having daggers in the first place, so I vote we stop being such silly fillies.”
In the silence that descended, the other five looked at each other. “Ah'm going to say, if Pinkie Pie thinks we're being silly, it's bad.” At a few nods, each of the ponies took off the cloaks.
Rainbow Dash looked down at hers sadly. “I thought it was a cool idea. All the villains in Daring Do used cloaks in secret meetings, or kept hidden in the shadows and stuff.” With a sigh, she tossed the cloak behind her. “So anyways, Twilight, what's up? You promised to explain things when we were all here.”
Twilight nodded, shuffling some papers in front of her with her magic. “We're still waiting on Luna, but I've already filled her in on some of this. Girls, I've called you all here for a very serious reason: My brother is about to be married to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza-”
Rarity's eyes went wide as she shot to her hooves. “Oh, a royal wedding!” she squeaked out. “That's wonderful, dear. But then why the cloaks? And why don't you look happier?” she asked, her face going from ecstatic to worried and concerned in mere seconds. “Oh dear, this isn't going to turn out to be one of those scandals where you secretly are in love with your brother and want to keep him to yourself, will it?”
Fluttershy turned bright red and let out an 'eep' at the question, while Twilight just closed her eyes in frustration. Seeing her look, Rarity chuckled and waved her hoof. “Never mind, you'll explain things yourself I'm sure. Do carry on, dear.”
“Thank you, Rarity,” Twilight responded. “Now then, Cadenza, or Cadence as her friends tend to call her, used to be my foal sitter when I was young – younger than Sweetie Belle even. At the time, I practically thought she walked on water, and I loved her. No, Rarity, not like that, so sit back down. The thing is, everypony loves Cadence. Everypony loves her, because her special talent is love magic.
“She uses her love magic to ensure that nopony can even think about disliking her for any reason, and I suspect that she might even be able to tamper with pony's thoughts and memories. After I heard about the wedding, I had been looking into her background when I realized just how wrong that sounded, and I began questioning some of what I felt about her. Before the next time I saw her, I used my magic to shield my mind and emotions from any sort of magic I could.
“She was, in a word, horrible. She wasn't even remotely like how I remembered her, and when I checked my spells, I caught traces of a passive emotional spell of some sort having brushed against me. I still don't know why she's wanting to marry my brother, but considering that he's the Captain of the Royal Guard, as well as being my brother, there are plenty of ways she could use this. That alone would be enough to warrant me bringing this up with Celestia, but there's more.”
The others leaned forward as Twilight visibly composed herself, searching for the words to use.
“She foalsat me several times for my parents before I got into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, choosing that over all sorts of other things that a teenager might use her time for. I always felt special for the way she seemed to love me so much. She read with me in my bed at night to help me sleep, she gave me baths... and she taught me a little dance that I was supposed to do for her a lot of the time. One that I never mentioned to my parents. I'll show you it, and let you draw your own conclusions.”
Twilight stepped back from the table, and plastering a smile on her face, started hopping and singing. When she turned and shoved her flank in the air, though, giving it a 'little shake', she heard a sharp collective intake of breath from her friends. She turned back around to see her friends staring.
“Oh... oh my,” Fluttershy whispered. It summed up everypony's feelings fairly well at the moment, and nopony else felt ready to articulate their opinions.
Twilight nodded at Fluttershy's response. “Yes, that was my reaction when I thought back on that. I still tried to give her the benefit of the doubt when she got back, and even did my little dance for her. She was dismissive and fake at best, and didn't seem interested in me now that I'm grown. That's the pony who's trying to marry my big brother. A pony who abuses love magic for her own ends, using it freely on anypony she wants without restraint, and a potential foal molester on top of everything else. Girls, we are here to plan no less than the destruction of Princess Cadenza's public image, self worth, and all of her life's ambitions and plans. This is a political assassination. This is personal.”
Once more, silence descended on the ponies gathered. The door then opened again, and Luna stepped through, garbed in a black hooded robe. “Hello everypony,” she said, “did I miss anything? I'd have been here sooner, but I could not find a robe in brown.”
---Canterlot Castle Kitchens---
Twilight watched as the kitchen staff ran about, working to finish the tremendous amount of food that was required for the wedding. Applejack hurried to and fro, working like a madmare, perfectly into her role as supervisor of the catering services. Twilight held up her checklists, first one for each thing that needed to be done in the kitchen; cake, ice sculpture, mini-fritters and so forth... and then one for Cadenza's disgrace. First step: Prove to friends and Luna that Cadence is evil.
Luna had argued that, even if things looked bad so far, if they were somehow wrong about their assumptions, then Twilight would feel terrible. She'd also alienate her brother and an old friend of hers, and make a political enemy at the same time. There was a possibility, no matter how small, that Cadence was just very tired when she returned to Canterlot, and that all the things Twilight remembered from her foalhood had perfectly rational explanations.
Even she had admitted that it was unlikely to be anything other than what Twilight and her friends were assuming, but it was better to be sure. In order to allow for the best chance of finding any proof, Twilight had pulled some strings to get her friends involved in the wedding planning. The fact that this would leave them in place for after they had proof was just the icing on the cake. And speaking of cake...
Applejack finished putting some finishing touches on a ridiculously huge wedding cake – apple-flavored, of course. “Cake, check,” she called over. Twilight marked off a check box on her first list, and Applejack rushed back to the ice sculpture she'd been working on while some of the food baked. With a few last adjustments, she stood back to admire her work, and told Twilight “Ice sculpture: Check.”
Twilight smiled despite herself. Everypony was sure to enjoy helping on the wedding even if Cadence did fix up her act. Her smile faded as she caught a glimpse out of the window, at the huge shield spell her brother had covered the city with. Right after Twilight and her friends had met, the shield had been brought up due to a 'threat to Canterlot' that Celestia had received. The timing was too perfect for Twilight, and it left a bad taste in her mouth-
Applejack shoved an apple fritter in her mouth, interrupting her thoughts, and dispelling even the thought of a bad taste. They were delicious. “Best darn bite-sized apple fritters you ever tasted?” Applejack asked, smiling. She knew darn well that they were.
“Check,” Twilight admitted, savoring the treat.
Twilight stood up and stretched, looking around. All the preparations in the kitchens were going fine so far, but Twilight was expecting Cadence to show up sometime soon- The door opened suddenly, and Cadence walked in proudly. Twilight all but growled in her throat just looking at her, and had to step back so she wouldn't say something she'd regret. Somehow, she hated Cadence even more, just from looking at her. That couldn't be healthy.
“Hiya, Princess!” Applejack called. She was, of course, warded with all the same spells as Twilight had been, along with a few more that Luna had shown her. All of their team was.
Cadence gave a bored look, as though she thought even being in the kitchen was a waste of time. “Please,” she droned, “call me Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.” Suddenly, Twilight could believe that this was Blueblood's cousin.
Applejack's smile gained a hard edge, but she re-greeted the royal pain all the same. “Hiya, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza,” she drawled back, forcing her face a bit close to the Alicorn. “You come to check out what's on the menu for your big day?”
Cadenza suddenly forced the most phony smile Twilight had ever seen onto her face, looking slightly nervous. “I have.”
Applejack searched her face for a moment, and then turned to reach for the fritters. Cadenza didn't even have the grace to keep her fake expression on her face for a second after Applejack had turned around. Twilight narrowed her eyes as she watched.
Applejack held up the fritters for her, and Cadenza levitated one up to her mouth, taking a tiny bite of the treat. “Delicious,” she stammered. “I love, love, love them!”
Twilight checked off a box from her mental checklist. Easier to read than a basic Algebra textbook indeed. Applejack lifted an eyebrow, and reached under the table for a brown bag. That's not something I remember Applejack mentioning. Twilight thought to herself, cocking her head.
“Aw, shucks,” Applejack said smoothly, “why don't you take a few to go.” ...And Twilight was treated to the second most fake smile she'd ever seen, this time from one of her friends.
What's she doing?
Cadence looked at the bag like it might contain cockroaches or something, and gingerly took it. Applejack pressed forward. “Why not try another bite of these, too? I've had them sitting for a bit, so I need to know if they're still good, and all.”
With much hesitation, Cadence took another fritter out, and took the smallest bite Twilight had ever seen, before shoving it back in. “They’re good too... but I'll eat them later,” she said, backing up, and then all but running to get out of the kitchen. The second she was out the door, the bag was tossed as far as she could send it.
Twilight walked over to her friend, looking at her slightly malicious grin. “Applejack, what was that?” she asked.
“Laxative-filled fritters. I'm convinced she's a complete fake. She doesn't have an ounce of decent manners, and she's a bigger fraud than Flim and Flam mixed in a blender and poured over Trixie. Everything about her is fake or Ah don't bear the Element of Honesty.”
Twilight stared at Applejack for a moment, and then took a step back. She hadn't been expecting her of all ponies to pull something before they were ready to set off the plan. Not that Cadence didn't deserve it and then some, but she had obviously been able to tell something was up. Twilight prayed that this wouldn't interfere with anything down the road.
---Twilight's room---
Twilight looked around at her friends, now all sitting in her room, most of them slightly sheepish. Pinkie and Rainbow, of course, were the exceptions to that, but the others looked sheepish.
“Alright, I kind of expected Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash to pull some sort of prank,” she told them. “Using Poison Joke powder in her bath was even rather inspired, I have to say. It's a shame that the bridesmaids were the ones caught in it instead of Cadence. Applejack's laxative filled fritters were slightly unexpected, as was the itching powder filled dress that Rarity attempted to get Cadence to wear. However, you two should probably leave that sort of thing to others from now on. She knew something was up with both of you two the second she walked in the room.” Rarity and Applejack cringed slightly under Twilight's stern glare, but as she turned to Fluttershy, the normally timid mare kept her head up. “However, Fluttershy, you having your birds attack her came completely out of left field. What happened?”
Fluttershy picked up a hideous little red bird on her hoof, and started stroking it. “I don't know what you're talking about Twilight. My birds simply didn't like her when she insulted their singing. I may have told them about our suspicions of what Princess Mi Amore Cadenza did to you as a filly, and about how rude she's been being, but I never told them to maul her.”
The room just looked at Fluttershy for a long moment. Finally Rainbow Dash piped up. “So, re-read Iron Will's self-help book yesterday or something?”
Fluttershy grinned. “After I heard about what we were doing, I decided that normal Fluttershy wouldn't be able to be helpful enough, so I dug it out for a read. I made sure to only read parts of it though, and I've been keeping close tabs on my anger levels. Don't worry, girls, I remember how bad I got last time.”
Twilight cringed as Pinkie and Rainbow held up their hoofs to congratulate Fluttershy. “You all do remember that we were hoping to catch her off guard to ruin her life and stop the wedding, not just make the week leading up to it miserable for her, right?” she asked. “Also, even if we're all fairly convinced she's horrible, and we've found traces of emotional manipulation magic on all of your shields, Princess Luna still wants a bit more concrete evidence. That way, when we have to tell Princess Celestia all about what we did and why, she'll support our decision instead of having us all locked up.”
Applejack raised a hoof. After Twilight glared at her, she asked “But don't ya kind of, unofficial’ like, rule Equestria at this point, Twi?”
Twilight blinked, and looked at all her nodding friends. “Uh... that's besides the point,” she muttered, ducking down slightly.
“So,” Rarity started, “If Cadenza isn't going to be around to marry your brother, the dashing captain of the royal guard, will that mean he's free for me?” Somewhere in the background, Spike started coughing heavily, while several ponies rolled their eyes.
Twilight's eye twitched. Why do you think I never mentioned him around you before, you shallow, melodramatic, starstruck noble-chasing floozy? Twilight had to make a conscious effort to not say what she was thinking, reminding herself of all of Rarity's good traits. “After this mess, Rarity, I think he'll need some time before he considers dating again. Ask again in a year or two.” Or never. Never works too.
Deep breaths, Twilight, deep breaths. Rarity looked disappointed, while Rainbow Dash seemed highly amused. She had probably read Twilight's mental tirade word for word from that twitch and her expression. She'd done as much in that gryphon tomb, after all.
Twilight forced herself calm. “Alright, look, I've set up a spying spell in Princess Cadence's rooms, and as soon as Luna gets back from talking with Discord, we'll be using it. Now, I don't expect her to incriminate herself the second we turn it on, so we'll need to have shifts watching for anything we can use against-”
The door flung itself open, and Princess Luna staggered in. Her wings were pink, her hooves were neon orange, and her mane was covered in cotton candy. She was also grinning ear to ear and giggling.
“So,” Twilight asked, “is Discord with us on this plan?”
Luna giggled again before collapsing on Twilight's bed. “Yes, he most definitely is willing to be there,” she said, finally quieting her laughter. “He looks forward to seeing what you have planned, and will be ready to intervene if needed. Or if he thinks it would be humorous for him to do so.”
Rarity, eye's wide and jaw open, pointed at Luna in disbelief. Luna finally noticed, and, with a roll of her eyes, dissolved into sparkling mist and reformed next to Twilight, perfectly clean and regal looking once more. Twilight's bed, of course, was a mess as a result.
Twilight levitated a mirror onto the table in the middle of the room, forced her mind to the task at hand. “Alright, Princess, would you care to do the honors?” she asked.
Princess Luna responded by closing her eyes and summoning her magic. Her horn began to glow a deep blue color, and the surface of the mirror clouded over, before clearing again. Everypony leaned forward to see what Cadence was doing in her private room.
Deep in the mirror, Princess Cadence was wearing her dress, ready for her upcoming wedding. However, she appeared to be... singing. Evilly.
“This day is going to be perfect,
The kind of day of which I dreamed since I was small.
Everypony will gather 'round, say I look lovely in my gown,
What they don't know is that I have fooled them all!”
Rainbow Dash looked up across the mirror's surface. “Is she seriously singing about her evil plans? Doesn't she know there are guards like, right outside her door?”
“I could care less about the dress, I won't partake in any caaake –”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Did she just smash a fruit basket? Oh, she is evil, isn't she?”
“Vows, well I'll be lying when I saaaay,
That through any kind of weather, I'll want us to be together,
The truth is I don't care for him at aaaaall!”
“ Nice set of lungs she's got on her, though,” Rarity commented.
“No I do not love the groom,
In myyyy heart there is no rooom.
But I still want him to be all miiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!”
Pinkie rubbed her chin with a hoof. “You know,” she said, “I think this could make a great duet somehow, but I'm not sure how.”
Luna and Twilight both stared at the mirror with their jaws open. They looked at each other for a moment, and Luna shut off the spell. “Well, I think we have all the evidence we could possibly need,” Luna said. “I don't think even I ever went around singing about how evil I was. In fact, even Discord never broke into song about how evil he was. Chocolate rain, he sang about, but not about how perfect his evil plans were.”
Twilight coughed, cleared her throat, and sat down. “She sings about her evil plans, at the top of her lungs. Opera style, almost.” Disbelief finally gave way to amusement. “I do believe we have just witnessed something truly unique, girls: the single dumbest villain in Equestrian history.”
Fluttershy kept quiet, but she reached over to one side, and started stroking her bird again. The bird puffed out its chest in pride. It had done good, and it knew it.
Twilight levitated the mirror back to the wall, pulled out her huge stack of complicated, foolproof plans to ruin Cadence, and promptly tossed them to one side. “Don't need those anymore. This has just gone from a delicate operation to a simple mercy killing. All we need...”
Twilight pulled an old toy box from the side of her room and started digging through it. A hideous doll was lovingly set to one side, as were some old picture books and letter blocks. Some tacky, gaudy fake jewelry was tossed to one side, and finally Twilight came up with some more tacky and gaudy jewelry – The Elements of Harmony.
Levitating the necklaces and the tiara above her, Twilight turned back to her friends. “All we need is raw brute force, backed by a hoof-full of emergency contingencies.”
---Chapel---
Twilight stood at the dais, overlooking her preparations as the guests started arriving. Luna had re-donned her Nightmare Moon form, and was standing behind a curtain off to one side while Discord floated above the cloth coverings near the ceiling. All of her friends were wearing their Elements of Harmony under their bridesmaids outfits, and Twilight's own tiara rested snugly on her forehead, in plain open view. Nopony would recognize it after all, except maybe Discord; the last time the Elements were seen, they were large, round orbs, not gaudy jewelry.
Twilight had been studying all of the previous night, going over the spells she needed for her current plan. It was simplicity itself, now that they knew just how bad Cadence was at this whole 'being evil' thing. She had placed a crystal up at the dais, designed to disrupt any currently active magics in the room. After she activated that, Cadence's love spells would fail, and then Twilight would hit her with a combination truth spell, and something that Discord had helped her come up with: A dramatic monologue spell. After Cadence was hit with those, all she'd need would be one tiny excuse to start talking, and she'd dig her own grave, unable to stop.
Then, as Cadence was technically an alicorn, they would have not only Celestia, but also Nightmare Moon, Discord, and the Elements of Harmony all ready to smash her if she decided to try anything drastic. Twilight believed in overkill. Besides, she hadn't gotten to use the Elements of Harmony yet, and was eager to see what they would do to Cadence. They seemed to enjoy ironic forms of banishment, so maybe they'd force her to go to villain kindergarten for the next thousand years.
Really, this day was going to be perfect. Just not for Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.
The guests finished settling into their seats, Celestia took her place at the dais, and Twilight channeled her vengeful glee into the most sparkling smile imaginable, right as Shining Armor walked in to take his place next to her. Twilight glanced at her brother and just stared. His eyes were unfocused and glowing green; he looked like he hadn't slept in ages, and he didn't seem to be all there.
“Hi, Twi~light.” Even his voice sounded like some sort of blatantly mind controlled puppet.
Twilight looked over to Celestia, hoping that she wasn't blind enough to miss something like this. She just kept on smiling, apparently oblivious. And there goes any faith I had left in Princess Celestia being able to handle the country on her own. I've got to wonder how she survived before I came along to help.
She was broken out of her train of thoughts by the blaring of trumpets, and the sounds of bird song. Cadence stepped into the room, and slowly advanced to stand in front of Princess Celestia.
Showtime.
Celestia began her speech, and Twilight shifted next to the disrupting crystal. “Mares and Gentlecolts, we are here to celebrate the union of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and Captain Shining Armor. Shining Armor, do you promise to love and to cherish this mare, to stay by her side in sickness and in health, for the rest of your natural life?”
Shining Armor jerked his head up and down in some semblance of a nod, and droned out the words “I do” in a complete monotone. Apparently happy with this, Celestia turned to Cadence, just as Twilight activated her crystal. The hum of the crystal was covered by Celestia's words, but Twilight could see the crystal work, as Shining Armor's eyes slowly lost their green glow.
“And do you, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, promise to love and cheri-”
Celestia's speech was interrupted, as Cadence suddenly went wide-eyed and staggered back from the dais, her horn suddenly cracking. Huh, what's going on? A ring of green flames appeared around her, and a pillar of neon-green magic suddenly formed around her as she screamed in sudden rage, shocking gasps out of all the ponies assembled.
As the magic cleared, Cadence had been replaced by a large, black pony, with a long jagged horn and insect-like wings, with holes running through both her legs and wings. As she drew a rasping breath, staring down at herself, Twilight remembered to turn off the crystal, and cast her monologue spell.
“No!” the former alicorn shouted. “How did you destroy my disguise?”
Disguise? Twilight motioned for her friends to not say anything; this was getting weird.
The monologue spell had obviously taken hold, for the bug-monster-pony thing kept going without waiting for any response. “My plan was perfect, my disguise flawless! How was my deception discovered?” She turned to face Twilight, who was now whistling 'innocently'. “YOU!” she shouted. “This is all your fault somehow, isn't it. I should have known you would be trouble from the moment I met you! Where every other pony I encountered all but radiated love for their dear Princess, you were devoid of any positive emotions at all. I had simply thought you to be some sort of enemy of the pony I had replaced, but you must have seen through my disguise from the start, knowing I must have been a changeling!”
Twilight carefully schooled her expression as she responded. “Of course. I knew Cadence for years, and you couldn't imitate her to save your life. The second I saw you, I suspected something was wrong.” So glad I'm not the one with the Element of Honesty.
Not-Cadence started chuckling. “How very clever you must think yourself. Yes, I am a changeling, and not just any, but the Queen of the Changelings. You see, we feed off of the love of other creatures, and Equestria has more love than I've ever seen before! By taking over this land, we shall have more power than we’ve ever dreamed of. And while I've been here, I've feed deeply from Shining Armor's love for his dear Cadenza, weakening him and his spell. Even if he were not under my complete control, he could not hold his shield for much longer. Soon, my changeling army shall break through your barrier, and we shall rule all of Equestria! Even though you have revealed me, you are too late to do anything!”
Shining Armor cleared his throat, stepping beside Twilight. “Actually,” he said, “I'm not under your control anymore. I figure I can hold the shield for another four or five minutes easily enough.”
Not-Cadence recoiled slightly from Shining Armor, and then recovered herself. “...As I said, it matters not. In five minutes, Canterlot shall be mine!”
Princess Celestia stepped forward. “Did you forget about me? You don't really believe I'll just be sitting by as you attack my city, do you?”
A curtain on the side of the room was flung open, and Luna stepped out in her Nightmare Moon form, her mane billowing and eye's glowing white. “I too, should not be forgotten fool. I am she who brought Eternal Night to the world, and had logic not prevailed to make it a particularly short Eternal Night, the world would have been frozen over by my wrath. Do you think yourself capable of standing against me on my own? Let alone with me beside my sister?”
Not-Cadence blanched as she was stared down by both of the rulers of Equestria. She had probably figured she could fight Celestia, and that she would be able to recover before Luna was awake. That, or she'd just forgotten all about Luna's presence. Too bad for her.
Before she could even find something to say, maniacal laughter rang out from the room, and Discord appeared beside Not-Cadence, draping an arm over her neck. “Oh, this is simply wonderful entertainment. By the way, I should also probably mention that I'm here, too, just as a side note. Allow me to introduce myself; I'm Discord, the spirit of chaos, disharmony, and unusual food stuffs. I run a nice little business these days.”
Discord vanished and reappeared next to Twilight. “I also happen to count Twilight Sparkle here as my very dear friend, and she happened to ask me to be present for things here. It has been far too long since I was able to enjoy a good fight too, so that puts you up against three gods at once. Let me ask you now, are you feeling lucky?”
Twilight's friends stepped in behind Twilight, discarding their dresses to reveal their Elements of Harmony. As they stepped into position around Twilight, the necklaces and her tiara began to glow ominously. Twilight smirked at the Changeling Queen. “Oh, and we've also got the Elements of Harmony here, just in case everything else wasn't enough. Based on first hand accounts, your options, if we hit you with these, are banishment to the moon, or theoretically-permanent petrification. You really picked the wrong target here.”
Not-Cadence's rear legs seemed to just give out, and she sat with a thud, eyes wide as she assessed exactly what was arrayed against her. Celestia walked over to her, and placed a hoof on her back. “So,” Celestia drawled, “feel like surrendering, or do we just take turns humiliating you? Your pick.”
The Changeling queen looked over the forces arrayed against her, measuring her recently strengthened powers against them, and found herself lacking. Her entire army would probably fall to Nightmare Moon alone, and she would be near powerless against Discord. Being tag-teamed by the both of them along with Celestia was a recipe for pain. Lots of pain. Also, the Elements of what? Lunar banishment and permanent petrification?
She held up her hooves in defeat, intelligent enough to realize when there really wasn't any point in fighting. One mental command to her changelings, and her army began dispersing into hiding.
Celestia stood regally in front of Not-Cadence. “Well then, all that leaves is getting my niece back, and determining your punishment. Tell us where Princess Mi Amore Cadenza is, and we shall be lenient.”
All but growling, the changeling queen glared at Twilight. “I imprisoned her in the crystal caves beneath Canterlot. You should be able to find her simply enough with that knowledge.”
Celestia looked over to Shining Armor. “Captain, send out some soldiers to retrieve your real bride, if you would. Luna and I shall discuss the appropriate punishment for our prisoner with Twilight.” Shining Armor saluted and dashed off, still tired from the events of the day, but unwilling to stop until he was sure that Cadence was safe.
Celestia glanced around at the wedding guests. Wordlessly, she teleported herself, Twilight, Luna, and the Changeling queen all to the lower dungeons. She picked a room with a good sized table in it, and a good, heavy metal door.
Discord tapped Celestia on her head. “Pardon me,” he said, “but don't I get to have a vote here?”
“Hadn't you decided that you wanted nothing to do with politics, Discord?” Luna asked, arching a brow.
Discord rolled his eyes. “There's a world of difference between ruling and thinking up ironic punishments, Dear.”
Celestia donned her most serene smile, and levitated her crown off her head. “This is really just silly. We all know what we're going to do already, and I'm eager to secure my vacation time once more. Twilight, I trust you already have the perfect excuse for this by now?”
Much to the Changeling queen's confusion, Discord's face lit up like the sun. He smiled rather wide, too. “I'll need some popcorn to properly enjoy her lecture. This should be fun; she softened the blows for Luna and myself when she picked our logic to pieces, but I expect this time we'll get quite the show. Eternal Night and the Spirit of Chaos trying to rule a country almost make sense next to this level of stupidity.”
Before Not-Cadence could even look properly offended, Twilight stepped in front of her, a stern frown on her face. “First off, what's your name? It'll be easier if I don't have to keep thinking of you as Not-Cadence or by your title.”
The queen reared back dramatically. “I am Queen Chrysalis, Ruler of the Changelings! All cower before my might...” She lowered back down. “Or they did until now at least. Why am I getting a lecture as part of my punishment? Is it not enough that I have failed and am powerless before my enemies? If I am to be imprisoned for ages, simply let me go to my cell to rot. If I'm to be executed, tell me so, that I may make my peace.”
Twilight summoned a stack of papers, which she started shuffling. They were blank, but they helped her organize her thoughts regardless.
“Chrysalis,” she started, “you obviously failed to do your research before planning this invasion. However, as bad as that is, it's your logical fallacies that are earning you a lecture. Quite frankly, you're the worst villain I've ever seen – You're not going to be executed, because you're so bad at this that you aren't even a threat.”
Chrysalis glanced over to the immortals in the room, who were all now sharing some sort of snack food. “You're not serious about this, are you?”
Three synchronized nods.
Twilight continued. “First off, you mentioned that you feed on love, and yet you brought an army to try to invade us with. Hostile takeovers don't generally endear you to ponies. The whole reason why Equestria has so much love in it in the first place is because the citizens feel that they are fairly treated and respected by the government. Enslaving them wouldn't allow you to keep that love intact. All but the most powerful love magic can be broken by enough raw hatred, and love magic powerful enough to force ponies to ignore slavery would consume more energy than you could get from their love.
“It's called conservation of energy. If the only love being produced is created directly from your magic, then any magic you take from that love is the same magic you used on them in the first place, minus any lost in conversion and to spell decay and imperfect energy transfer. Something on a smaller scale might be doable with dream manipulation magic on ponies who were kept asleep or something... but that is entirely too much trouble for far too little net gain. And that's not even going into the amount of power you'd have needed coming into this fight to take out Celestia by herself, let alone Luna as well. I doubt that every single pony in Equestria put together would make up for the amount of power you would have had to expend to take over, at least once you factored in all of the energy costs for whatever method you presumably had for keeping them in check and capable of producing love!”
Chrysalis seemed to shrink into herself a little during the verbal assault. She hadn't thought her plan was that bad.
“Then,” Twilight growled, “you decided that your best course of action was to replace Cadence, and try to marry my brother?! You didn't think of attacking Celestia while her guard was down and then replacing her? You could have had another changeling take Cadence's form after you disabled Celestia, and they you'd have had the love of everypony in Equestria who so much as looked at you. That's what happens when an entire population has been raised on the idea that their immortal ruler is perfect, and anything wrong in the world is the fault of corrupt nobleponies.”
Discord lifted his claw, causing the table to turn into a gravity defying upside-down chandelier. Made of bright yellow rock candy and angry red pineapples, of course. “If I may interject?” he asked.
Twilight waved for him to go on, while Chrysalis backed away from the former table. It was like she'd never had her furniture randomly turned into painfully colorful food or something.
“Now, if you really wanted to take over Equestria,” he said, “you should have tried to replace Twilight Sparkle here. She already practically runs the place by herself, and Celestia and Luna both love her for having reconciled the two of them after a thousand years. It's not even a secret that Twilight's the one calling the shots at this point.”
Chrysalis finally found her voice again, though she seemed unable to form much more coherent than a simple “Wait, seriously?”
Luna turned her head up, seemingly deep in consideration. “That sounds about right to me. Sister, would you agree with Discord on his assessment?”
“Oh, certainly,” Celestia agreed happily.
Chrysalis opened her mouth, closed it again, and then lifted a hoof while opening her mouth again. “And you're okay with this?” she asked, disbelieving.
“Why wouldn't we be?” Celestia simply retorted. “She's mortal, in case you forgot, and we aren't. Besides all that, she's highly competent – a trait I find to be in rare supply, no matter where I search. You're a shining example of that fact.”
“You mean I'm an example of competence?” Chrysalis asked, her voice pitched as dangerously as she could make it. Her company was unimpressed.
“Yes, let us go with that,” Celestia responded. “Thanks to Twilight, the last two hostile takeover attempts upon my country have resulted in allowing me to cut my workload to a third of what it was a few years ago, and even take a month of vacation without any harm to Equestria. Quite frankly, I recognize a good thing when I see it, and I do not feel like interfering with a good thing. I am not a fool, Chrysalis.”
With a sigh of defeat, Chrysalis sank to the floor. “What is my punishment to be then? I am clearly too dangerous to be allowed to walk away, so I'm assuming imprisonment somewhere unpleasant? It would be fitting after I imprisoned your Cadenza underground.”
Luna chuckled. “Oh, your punishment shall be somewhere unpleasant to be sure. You shall face boredom and tedium beyond anything you have ever imagined, surrounded regularly by creatures with so little love in them that is shall hurt you to be within the same room as they.”
Chrysalis's eyes grew wide. She couldn't be about to be sent to Tartarus, could she? Anywhere else they locked her up, she had been confident she could escape from, but even changelings couldn't infiltrate such a place as that-
“Sister, you are frightening her,” Celestia scolded Luna playfully. Chrysalis snapped her head back up, a questioning look in her eyes. Celestia nodded to Twilight. “If you would be so kind, my faithful student?”
Discord jumped in before Twilight could say anything. “They mean you're going to be forced to rule Equestria. That's the standard punishment for trying to take over Equestira at the moment. I never thought I could actually love a law before.”
“You’re all crazy, aren't you?” Chrysalis asked, dead serious.
Discord laced his talons between his claws, and rested his head on them. “Guilty as charged.”
Twilight cleared her throat, causing all three of the immortal creatures of nigh-unlimited power to immediately give her their undivided attention. Chrysalis felt the beginnings of a headache, and turned her attention to Twilight as well. She was starting to question whether or not she had actually been blasted into a comatose state, and if this was all a feverish dream forced upon her by Nightmare Moon.
“Technically, we're not going to be giving you control over the country, Chrysalis. We're going to be forcing you to help deal with the aspects of ruling that nopony actually wants to bother with,” she explained. “You'll be using your shape-changing abilities to pose as Celestia and Luna at events and meetings that require their presence, but don't actually need them to be there. This will free the Princesses up to be able to work on more important matters of state, as well as giving them some free time for personal pursuits.”
Twilight looked over to Celestia for confirmation. She appeared to consider, and finally reach a decision. “I believe it would suit us best to force her to try to take care of the country on her own for at least a week or two before moving to your idea. Luna and myself will take a short vacation once more while she takes both of our places for everything during our absences, with Twilight here to help keep things running. After that, I believe she will be far more manageable.”
Chrysalis decided in that moment that, yes, all of these ponies were just as insane as Discord himself. “You do realize that you would be giving me the perfect opportunity to take over fully in your absence, right? You'll return to find Equestria crushed beneath my iron hoof!”
The entire room erupted into uncontrolled laughter, Discord the loudest of them all.
Luna was the first to recover enough to speak. “I give her a day before she's begging for our return.”
Celestia chided her. “Now, Luna, that's not very generous of you. I'm sure she'll last at least a day and a half.”
Discord popped to Chrysalis's side, shaking his head in sympathy. “My dear, by the time those two are back, you'll be willing to follow Twilight to Tartarus and back. Your loyalty will be unshakable, and you won't even have a thought of betraying her. It's just what she does. Fight it as long as you like, but it won't help.” He then leaned in closer, hissing into her ear. “However, harm one hair on her, and I might be inclined to turn you into a cactus and drop you in the frozen north. I could then – theoretically of course – make sure you would feel every moment ticking by as you froze to death, but even then, I wouldn’t let you die. You'd know nothing but pain for the rest of eternity... in such a hypothetical scenario. I’d suggest playing nice.”
Chrysalis didn't move as Discord patted her on the head and leaned back, vanishing into the air. Nopony else seemed to have heard his threat, and Chrysalis most decisively did not want to test his sincerity.
Twilight stood and walked over to her. “Well, I guess that settles things. I'll have a list of information you need to know ready by the end of the day, as well as a list of things I'll need to know about your changelings. You'll be staying in Princess Celestia's room for now. You know where that is, right?”
She fixed her face in a mask of mild annoyance so as not to betray her thoughts. “Of course. I'll head on up there in a moment.”
Even if she couldn't hurt the horrible little unicorn, Discord had said nothing about manipulating her, imprisoning her, or any one of countless other things she could do. She would have to tread carefully, and the day had hardly been perfect, but she might yet salvage things.
---Part Two soon to come---
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1950426: No, I wasn't hit by a bus, and It is now posted... or at least the first part is.
Turns out that Twilight's even better at stealing the story than Discord was, and this update has nearly doubled the word count of the story overall. 
I hope that you and everyone else enjoys reading this.
As always, feel free to point out mistakes to me.
Edit: Right, before I forget, thanks go out once more to whatthemoo for helping on proofreading.
Also, if anyone is interested, this story COULD use a picture of some sort. So if any of you are artists and happen to have something that you think would work just lying around, and you don't mind me using it, I would appreciate the help. I would, of course, give credit to the artist. I'm not really sure what sort of picture would work, myself.
"I hope you enjoy this after the long wait." Enjoy? this is one of my favorite comedies on this entire site!
>>>Even so, they were forced to swear never to dabble in love magic again, because of the moral issues with forcing feelings onto other ponies.>>>
Sillt Twilight! Alicorns can do whatever they want! Because they're superior to you primitive mortals! Why, you're rather like mice to them! Scurrying about in your short lives, eating and breeding as fast as you can before you die. Such worthless little things, really. I mean, if somepony were to just kill you all, the universe wouldn't even notice!
Now stop thinking and obey the Princesses. Thinking is for EVOLVED creatures, silly Twilight!
this is a horrid chapter. everything here was more along the lines of the author speaking about how much they hated the wedding episodes and every event was made to hardcore retcon every part of it.
THE POWER OF LOGIC COMPELS YOU!
Seriously, this story is pure joy. Magic ain't got nothing on the power of logic!
1966142: Always a pleasure to get praise.
1966192: Ouch. That wasn't my intent, so I'm sorry if it came across that way. I actually did like the wedding episodes even. I was just trying to see how the differences in the previous chapters would have altered things for it. You'd have probably preferred the original script I had for this, but still... ouch. I hope you give the second part a chance for me to redeem myself in your eyes.
Goddamn I love this story, But only one more villain- what'll you do, then? Wait for the obligatory season 3 end and season 4 start villains?
You know, now that you mention it, there is some thing funny about how cadence just love, love, loves little foals. *shudder*
1966235: I've got some extra projects to start work on once I'm done with this. I'll edit the status on this to 'complete' until a new villain comes up, assuming that I'm done with everything before I have another one to work with.
I have to say this is one of the best comedies on this site.
Also I want to see how it plays out with the real Cadence.
>>>Luna chuckled. “Oh, your punishment shall be somewhere unpleasant to be sure. You shall face boredom and tedium beyond anything you have ever imagined, surrounded regularly by creatures with so little love in them that is shall hurt you to be within the same room as they.”>>>
*Alondro shudders* Reality TV stars... Luna, that's just TOO cruel!
1966220
I'm sorry if it did come out mean but that is what happened. this isn't an original idea of how the episode should have gone like how the other chapters were. this was a chapter based solely ripping at the parts of the finale that damaged fandom ideals from main characters disagreeing with twilight to celestia's defeat and even to the absence of luna. i will keep reading and i do hope i'm wrong and that there will be something hugely groundshaking in the next part.
I can't wait for Sombra.
I suspect it'll be a very short chapter, though.
He doesn't have any sort of plan to foil, or any intellect to speak of for that matter. All he does is mumble and bash his head against stuff.
Actually, I'll think they'll feel sorry for him, what with his severe brain damage. And the brain damage. And the brain damage. And the brain damage...
Another wonderful chapter.
I love everyone's critiques on Ms. Changeling's Evil Takeover Song. It was a wonderful breath of humor, in an otherwise... still insanely amusing story. Keep it up!
1966285: I'm actually kind of making his chapter more of a *Bonus content / joke chapter rather than anything else. You'll probably like it, as will anyone with a properly warped sense of humor. Unfortunately, Celestia will disapprove of it almost as much as she did of my discord chapters.
This isn't actually a continuation of the concept of the earlier chapters. It used to be "let them win, convince them to actually try to be an effective ruler, and drive them nuts with the job", which worked pretty well with Luna and wasn't as convincing with Discord. This is closer to what Inkblot said. To actually continue the concept of the story, this chapter should have been more along the lines of controlling the damage of Chrysalis's invasion and making her learn how suboptimal her love-gathering strategy was through experience instead of through a lecture delivered at gunpoint.
What was the original plan?
1966299 Well, it can't be like Forrest Gump, I'm sure. Forrest was about 50 times smarter than Sombra.
1966333: I know, and that's why I'm not being more annoyed by the complaints. Part two still has the 'convince them to try being an effective ruler' bit, as well as the 'drive them nuts' part, ending with a 'integrate them properly into society' sort of thing. It's just that, with the continuing of the same continuity, things get changed a lot. I had originally suggested I could do a 'from canon' version of each villain episode, as well as the 'alt universe continuation', which would have actually been a series of non-contiguous one-shots. I might still do those, if people want me to. I can't think of any other way to keep everyone happy, although it would require some serious work to have Discord's episode work any way but how it did in the show without having the alt universe continuity.
Maybe I should just do a second version for Chrysalis's episode, with a proper one-shot starting from canon... What say ye?
The original plan for this chapter (before Twilight's paranoia) involved keeping more to the show up until the reveal, only with Twilight having been more integrated with some of the planning from the start. Chrysalis wound up finding out just how Important Twilight had gotten, and made sure to keep up her nice act for Twilight too... and then things started getting less funny and more dark until the actual changeling reveal. I let it change because I was hoping to keep the humor intact. There were other ways I could have done it, (some of which are only now popping up for me) but I didn't want to force everyone to wait another two weeks to a month for me to rewrite again.
About the changelings feeding on love vs hostile takeover argument, I have something to say to counter-act your claim. Yes, what you said could very well happen, but from a sociological and psychological viewpoint, when faced with an oppressive situation (i.e. not well liked leader with foreign army), families and loved ones will cling together and become closer, allowing for more love to be had. There is also the possibility of Stockholm Syndrome taking effect after a few years.
The invasion wasn't a stupid plan, it was merely a desperate gamble.
This deviates from the standard formula of the previous two villains, and I think that's a good thing. It's easy to get stuck on one idea, but that one idea is not always the best thing to do. The story here follows this version of Twilight's logic and character perfectly.
I also liked the way she got caught flat hooved and had to make up her lecture on the spot. I wonder if she will ever tell Celestia that she was just as suprised as anyone when Chrysalis transformed.
I, for one, really enjoyed this chapter. Actually, I have liked each chapter better than the last. I hope this trend continues!
1966389: I did think about that... But would Twilight be telling Chrysalis about how an armed invasion might still work, when she's about to try and integrate the changelings her way? Also, even then, the ponies would KNOW about the changelings, potentially causing paranoia and fear even among family members. It was definitely desperate, and the method could have been improved, too.
I hate writer's block and I feel your pain there. All is forgiven.
How am i just reading this.
1966389 That's a valid point, but I have to wonder if the amount of harvestable love from such a situation would even compare to a free, open, and simply loving society? After all, before the changeling invasion I think it's fair to say that ponies show affection even to complete strangers (with certain exceptions, of course), welcoming them on sight. In the situation you describe, affection would be closely guarded and held only for the ones that it is directed toward.
I can't help but think that it would take exponentially more effort to harvest from a repressed society that a giving one.
It.... Its..... Its so Beautiful.....
Keep up the amazing work!
Also Protective Discord is the Best Discord.
I'm interested in seeing how Twilight handles the changelings themselves. Even when their leader isn't plotting to take over Equestria, they present a unique challenge when it comes to fitting them into society.
Absolutely wonderful, this has got to be one of my favorite wedding situations I ever read. I love this Twilight you created for this series, she takes no nonsense and has more or less gained the loyalty of the most powerful forces in her world. I also really like the tidbits that show how her and Rainbow seem to be really good friends, the tomb raiding and reading her facial expressions expertly.
This story is really entertaining in that it has Twilight go super paranoid, make many crazy jumps in logic and severity, and then turn out okay in the end. She even listens to her close circle of friends to reign herself in. No sad everypony abandoning Twilight here.
1966366
I don't think the "from canon" bit is really necessary. There are a few ways you could have had Twilight think "not Cadance" instead of "asshole Cadance", from which point you might have Twilight learn Chrysalis's motivation and decide to take a more subtle approach. Alternatively, you could have had Chrysalis actually win.
I would have liked to see more changes to the episode than generally increased paranoia and hate. Things like letting Applejack give Chrysalis laxatives, when Celestia and Shining Armor aren't in on any of the mental protection or information, make Twilight seem overly focused on hating Cadance instead of keeping Cadance unaware of her suspicions or keeping her loved ones safe.
Conclusion-jump will commence in five... four...
Well written as usual, the picking apart of Chrysalis's plan was very amusing as well as describing her new punishment and Celestia and CO sitting down for snacks to watch Twilight work was incredibly amusing and the mane cast having a super secret meeting where Pinkie of all ponies proves they are being sill was great. Oh and I loved that line about robbing the Griffons.
I did have some issues with this chapter, Celestia's portrayal in this chapter was mostly better than it has been in other chapters, but the line about "raised to think she was perfect" and Twilight doubting Celestia's ability to run the place come across as somewhat mean spirited, this also happened last chapter, when the Discord story was wrapping.
I will admit that I can be sensitive to issues with Celestia & Cadence partially because they tend to get a very raw deal from the fandom.
As for Cadence I found many aspects of this amusing, the implied pedophilia hasn't quite crossed a line into character bashing, so it will mostly depends on how she is written when we see her next chapter. As for the love magic... no one seems clear on how that works so who know's if it's moral or not
Taking apart Chrysalis's plan in this verse was very amusing, but I had two issues with it, considering this takes place in an alternate verse, it seems odd Chrysalis didn't alter her plan at all, so in this verse she probably does qualify as the dumbest, but within the canon series she's the only villain that more or less managed to completely out strategize Celestia, as where Celestia played the other three villains like discount store kazoos in the normal series. That and NMM was willing to kill everything on the planet because she felt unappreciated and Discord within canon, wasn't exactly that bright.
Still I found this chapter very amusing and well written Twilight's paranoia, Celestia and Luna planning vacations and intending to stick Chrysalis with the chump jobs as punishment all hilarious I do wonder how they'll deal with the army though, order chrysalis to send them away maybe? OH and Chrysalis general reaction to everything falling down around her was also hilarious, "these ponies are crazy!" indeed
Anyway I will be looking forward to the next chapter and sorry if this review come across as mean spirited or rude that is not my intent.
1966527: The mean spirited pranks weren't part of Twilight's plans, and technically, none of them except for Fluttershy's worked out. I will, however, consider strongly how I might be able to do things... differently. I know I can't actually keep everyone happy with me at once, but if I get a large number of comments requesting an alt version of the changeling chapter to be posted, I'll try to post a second version after the second part of this one is done and posted. Sound good?
1966366
Sorry couldn't resist commenting on this post.
I personally still love the idea of the alternate one shot idea, though i do feel it could really only work for Chrysalis... it occurs to me writing Sombra would be hard and does Trixie qualify when driven crazy be evil amulets?
I'd be quite curious about those notes for the original chapter, this is a comedy so going the comedic route works best but i'd be curious about those notes just as a stand alone matter.
1966586
Sounds good.
1966220
Like I said, no doubt about it, my favorite comedy on this site.
1966445>>1966411
the invading army was probably a fallback plan. She probably would've slowly replaced more and more ponies with changelings over time. The reason she chose Cadence was because she was the highest ranking individual who didnt command a celestial body (it'd be suspicious if Luna or Celestia suddenly could move the moon/sun)
1966389>>1966445
I always figured Chrysalis was going to stick everypony in enchanted Lotus Eater cocoons and eat their love that way. Easier to maintain all of them that way, just slip in some nutrient pasts at pre-programmed "meal times," give them headaches whenever they start to question things, and soak up the love they have for whatever their subconscious plasters on the inside.
Like Fast Food meets The Matrix.
Oh geeze, I love the idea of Twilight being the one really ruling Equestria by the sheer fact that she is the only sane intelligent one there.
Also, the reaction to Chrysalis' song were just great. It had me laughing hard!
LOL. Good luck with that, Chrysalis. You're screwed.
...
Oh God, I'm going to DIE LAUGHING when we get to Sombra. It will be GLORIOUS.
That's what I've come to love about this story or any story/show I've come to deal with. That moment when the villain thinks everything is going to plan and then the dawning realization that there was never a plan in the first place. Everything they had done was to the tune the hero had been playing the entire time. Please, when you bring her down make it spectacular that'll leave us laughing for days to come.
1966655
that could work, but those capabilities are not confirmed cannon in this version of Equestria. So, I give the McMatrix(C) scheme a B+ in effectiveness, and a C in plausability
Also, when you get to him, I hope Sombra's chapter takes into account how he very nearly succeeded by planning everything out beforehand.
Well, I just read this whole thing in one sitting, grinning like an idiot throughout.
Love this, and can't wait to see more :D
1966093
If you are taking suggestions for what to request for the picture, how about Nightmare Moon wearing Celestia's crown. being forced to do paperwork by Twilight, who is sitting next to her with a squirt bottle? You know, the kind you use on pets to teach then not to get up on the furniture.
This is like snippets of a version of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality...not as in depth but still the trace is there.
Three paper lunch bags now lie at my feet, having broken while keeping me from hyperventilating from laughing so hard at this story. In case you hadn't noticed, I just finished reading through it for the first time.
As far as the story seeming to veer from the original concept (as others are saying), while that is the case, I think it makes sense as a natural evolution of the story. Twilight's paranoia makes sense given she's spent her life in Canterlot politics instead of in Ponyville's relaxed atmosphere. Everything else is a natural evolution of everything else.
Even the bit about Chrysalis' plan in this situation not changing makes sense, as given how carefully she executed it, she probably has had it in place since before Luna's release (since it would take a long time to move that many changelings in secret) and so could only take into account anything new with minor corrections to the plan, and when she had to take the fully empowered Nightmare Moon and Discord into account, it's pretty easy to overlook one little pony.
Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing Cadence's explanation of the dance and other things. In the case of the love spell, my thoughts are her talent let's her sense the ties between ponies and she just works to repair damage to bonds that are already there, in essence smoothing out the molehill before it becomes a mountain. Given how many marraiges that likely saved, that completely explains her insanely high approval rating as well, both with parents and children. The dance and her attatchment to Twilight is the only thing that might be questionable, although imagine it might just be that she just always wanted a little sister, and Twilight was just so adorable as a filly that she snagged that spot in Cadence's heart. Now she just needs to explain why she wasn't supposed to tell her parents about the dance.
1966655>>1966679
Actually - even assuming that the plants were perfectly effective, that's a suicidal plan for the changelings. It would last exactly one generation, then no more ponies. And if they let enough of the population escape to maintain the species, it would spark a genocidal war. I cannot even begin to imagine ponies not fighting to the death to free their friends and family from such imprisonment. Or if ponies significantly outnumber changelings, then I cannot imagine them allowing such a threat to remain.
Wow, that turned the most cunning villain of the show so far into... the most stupid villain I've ever seen ever in any show. Good show.
"If you don't take the time to do something right, when will you find the time to fix it?" I forget who said that, but I think it's an appropriate response to your apologies
1966472
Actors. Just have the changelings join the theater. They have absolutely no problems when it comes to getting into character, have no need for costumes or makeup, and a show good enough could create enough admiration, affection, and love (of the story and how it was performed, and not them directly, true, but still.) to feed the entire cast for a month.
Not to mention the fangirls. A disguise like Leonardo De Capricorn, Fawn-y Depp, or Orlando Flowerbloom could feed them all for a month per fangirl!
1966894 Ah, of course. That makes sense I suppose. But then you have another problem. What do you do with the actors and such that are replaced by the changelings?