"You screwed up."

Twilight stomped a newly chitin-encrusted hoof, raising her voice slightly. Not too much, though—she would prefer that this particular factor would stay exclusively Equestrian knowledge, and the walls in the hospital were probably thin.

"My magical senses are junk. Junk!" Twilight whispered. "There's no way my magical reserves are this big. I don't even think reserves this big are physically possible."

"And how do you know?" Chrysalis replied, her voice a little less breathy. "I've felt it too, growing ever since I got here. It may be some property of this world—all the magic isn't being used, so it's going to us."

"There is no magic in this world," Sparkle responded. "None. Do even the most basic scanning spell and you'll see that."

"Some other explanation then," Chrysalis responded, with an impressively convincing dismissive tone. Internally, of course, a thousand voices screamed that at her for being so stupid as to ruin the princess of magic's magical ability, but she kept them in check. She was biologically suited to acting, after all.

"There is none," Twilight muttered. "My senses aren't working properly. They can't be!"

"Well," Chrysalis muttered, gritting her teeth, "have you tested it?"

"Tested it?" Twilight asked.

"Tried to use the new power," Chrysalis said. "Tried to cast a high-level spell."

"Of course I haven't!" Twilight exclaimed. "Without proper power regulation almost anything could happen!"

"So you don't actually know," Chrysalis said, slowly, "because you haven't tried to see if that power is accessible."

"Well..." Twilight stuttered. She stomped a hoof. "Technically, yes."

"So try it," Chrysalis said. Perhaps continuing to be cavalier about this whole thing was the right course of action. Maybe it would have a retarding affect on Twilight's panic.

"I can't!" Twilight exclaimed. "It would be dangerous!"

"Not if you cast a ridiculously large spell," Chrysalis replied. "Something that has no chance of succeeding unless you truly have access to the reserves you sense you do."

Twilight glared at her, but didn't say anything. Chrysalis smirked. She was thinking it over.

"If that's what it will take to prove it to you," Twilight said. Her voice still had an edge to it, but Chrysalis detected a hint of curiosity as well. Magic nerds. So predictable. So adorable, too.

"The only question is what spell to cast," Twilight continued, sitting down. She brought a hoof to her chin and tapped it, lost in thought.

Chrysalis suppressed a smile. Sure, her original plan of diffusing the situation by exuding confidence hadn't worked, but this was an equally good outcome. It had no bearing on what the final result of this debacle would be—if she had truly ruined Twilight's magical senses she would probably die of guilt, even if the Princess was forgiving—but it was a temporary success.

Twilight stood up, a smirk on her face. Chrysalis inhaled a bit faster than usual. After seeing that look, she was beginning to question her earlier relief.

"I have a good candidate," Twilight said. "A portal spell."

Much like a rubber ball on pavement, Chrysalis' mental state instantly rebounded into panic. "What?"

"A universal transport spell," Twilight said, still grinning. "With the amount of magic it feels like I have, this should be as trivial as a simple illumination spell."

"Are you—are you serious?" Chrysalis stuttered. "What if it works, there'd—"

"It can't work," Twilight replied. "But it's the only spell even remotely complicated enough to require this kind of power. That is how screwed up my senses are."

Chrysalis felt her panic rise. She had expected Twilight to feel a doubling of her power, at most, but not anywhere near the amount of energy required to perform an inter-universal transport spell without any kind of magical amplifiers. If it was that extreme than she had to have screwed up. It figured, of course—pretty much everything she touched over the past few weeks had been ruined. Why not this?

Confidently, Twilight turned to her left, facing an empty wall. She took a deep breath. Then, like a light bulb, her horn flicked on.

A beam of bright purple magic flew into the wall. The light was so bright it seemed almost solid, the magic so intense it gave off physical heat. Chrysalis staggered a step backwards as Twilight's face widened in horror. Chrysalis struggled to stay on her hooves. This was actually happening, with no preparation or enhancement.

This realization was similar to the one Twilight had, somewhere in the back of her mind. The forefront of her consciousness, of course, was primarily concerned with the repetition of curse words and the concentration required to prevent the spell from leveling the hospital and surrounding area. Some part of her was vindicated. She was right, Chrysalis' transformation had completely ruined her magical senses. Of course, she had thought there were too high instead of too low, but that didn't really matter. Either way there were inaccurate on several levels.

Twilight took a deep breath. Or, well, as deep of a breath as she could get from her rapidly contracting chest. Okay, just smooth it out, Twilight. You've handled the elements before. This is... a bit extreme, but the core concept is the same.

She closed her eyes tightly. No need to dedicate brain power to senses. All of it had to be focused on finishing the spell and cutting off the flow. That's all that mattered.

Slowly, she felt the energy subsiding. There was still a huge reservoir behind her horn, of course, but the flow was slowing. For now, at least.

With one final burst Twilight finished off the spell. She held her head low to the ground, panting. Normally a spell like that would leave her physically exhausted from the effort of casting it. This time, however, she felt drained from stopping it.

"Twilight?"

The alicorn froze. Even when it sounded this ragged and hollow, she could recognize that voice. She'd heard it on a daily basis for almost all of her life.

Slowly she lifted her head upwards. A purple portal swirled in front of her, the wall giving way to an entirely new universe. Through the hole she could see Celestia. She was lacking her regalia and had a chain around her neck, but it was her.

She was in some kind of stone-walled room, most likely a cell. Behind her were the other two Alicorns she'd left in Equestria, in a similar state. To Twilight's discontent they didn't look relieved at all—more horrified than anything. Why would...

"What has she done to you?"

Luna's voice didn't serve to clarify anything. What the hell was she talking about? Who was "she"? Hadn't—

"OH!" Twilight shouted. Right, the entire reason they were there in the first place. "I—Uh, I, uh—I burned myself out, and s-somebody didn't learn about basic magical theory, so she..."

"Close it!"

Twilight whipped her head to the side, trying her best to kill the Changeling with a look. Then she saw that Chrysalis was entangled with a broken heart rate monitor, and her gaze softened a bit. Okay, so maybe she hadn't fully contained the spell.

"You have to close it," Chrysalis repeated. "Those things can't know what's happening!"

"And it won't ma—" Twilight started, before quickly closing her mouth. No, displaying that particular advantage was a terrible idea. Sighing, she turned back to Celestia. "She's done nothing to harm me. Nothing intentionally, anyway."

"Then why are you..." Luna continued. Celestia shot her a look, quickly cutting off her sister's question.

"Twilight, you seem as if you have little time," Celestia said, her voice low. "Why have you contacted us?"

Twilight bit her lip. The truth—"I wanted to guilt-trip Chrysalis and got more than I bargained for"—definitely wasn't satisfactory. Then again, neither was lying to her mentor. In this particular case, however, she had to chose the easy route. Especially since the Secret Service agents assigned to protect her were no doubt seconds away.

"I wanted to make sure you're okay," Twilight said. "All of you."

"We are," Celestia said. "But you cannot come here, Twilight. You must stay as far away as you can."

"Celestia, I—"

"No," her mentor continued, in a tone Twilight rarely heard. "You must flee. Those of us here are lost. Whatever plan you and Chrysalis have, it is not going to work. Nothing can surpass that army. We are doomed to subservience. There is nothing you can do about this, Twilight. Not even you."

Twilight suddenly found her vision quite blurry. It's hard to see through water, after all.

"Get as far away as you can," Celestia continued. "You must keep the dream of ponykind alive. It's a horrible burden, but it is one you must carry."

Twilight heard some kind of metallic noise, reflected off the back wall of the cave. Celestia looked past the portal. "Guards. Twilight, close the portal. Never contact us again. I know it is hard, but it is what you must do. For your own sake. We will be fine here."

Twilight closed her eyes. She had half a mind to pick up Celestia and bring her through the portal, along with the others, damn the consequences. Celestia had told her many things, but she had never told her to give up. Never. If she was doing that now, she must have truly lots all semblance of hope.

But that action would be rash. Right now she needed to lead. So, as much as it pained her, she extinguished the portal.

Sniffling, Twilight sat on the floor. She had hoped to snarkily demonstrate Chrysalis's mistake, but, in doing so, had made a huge mistake of her own. She knew it had to be bad back at home, but the princesses in chains? That was...

Twilight felt something like sharp plastic on her shoulder. Looking up, she saw the face of her old enemy.

"You did the right thing," Chrysalis said, softly. "That must have been difficult, but we couldn't let any information about us leak."

Twilight couldn't come up with a response, opting instead to just hang her head again. They stood there for a few moments.

Chrysalis desperately wanted to say something more, but she couldn't. Sensitivity wasn't her strong suit. It never had been. As was usual, all she could do was make the situation worse.

Thankfully, she was relived of the responsibility when several Secret Service agents swarmed the room, screaming about defense. Twilight stood up, shrugging of the Changeling's hoof, and walked towards them.

Chrysalis watched her explain the situation to the guards. This pony was at least twenty years younger than her, but Chrysalis couldn't shake the feeling that she might already be a better leader.

Oh, who was she kidding. Half her hive was dead. Of course Twilight was better. Most Elementary School class presidents were probably better. Just a month ago she would have relished seeing Celestia, her sworn enemy, in chains. She'd even picked out a nice set of shackles back at the hive. Now she was almost looking forward to seeing her foe's face when her student stormed the country with hairless apes and did the impossible. Weak. Pathetic. Useless. She should have been laughing over Celestia's defeat, trying to start her hive anew on this planet. Instead she was feeling sympathy for an Equestrian princess, and actively working with her enemies.

Chrysalis sighed and hung her head. No, she couldn't even convince herself of that anymore. Choosing to work with Twilight was probably the best decision she'd made in her whole life. Sure, she was giving up the chance to see the look of horror on Celestia's face when Changelings won their final victory and placed ponies firmly under hive rule, but she was gaining the chance to see the relief on that same face when Twilight did the impossible and saved Equestria once again. Perhaps that would be worth it.

Author's Note

H E L P

M E

It's been a third of a year. Sorry for not writing for so long. I've basically left this fandom besides this story. Not that I was ever really involved aside from Fanfic, but I've actually stopped watching the show. I feel like I owe you guys to try and finish this shit anyway, but it's going to be hard. Expect updates to be even more sporadic.

I should probably edit this more but it's 2:15 and I'm exhausted. If I don't submit this now I'm afraid I'll disappear for another 4 months. So hopefully it's good enough.