What Comes Before a Butterfly

Chapters

Villains Reforming Villains
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Nopony You Can Save (That Can't Be Saved)

Villains Reforming Villains

A butterfly lies in a hidden cage
Wandering along an unseen stage
Unknown to any time or era
Located in the realm of chimera
Not a chimera in its usual role
But a chimera of mind, a chimera of soul
Yet deception does not last for long
And in order to be faithful, in order to be strong
To defeat one thought vanquished long ago
Our heroes, minus one, must look beyond the rainbow.

****

Peace can be as deceptive as any war when its cornerstone is based on giving those who care most the blissful ignorance that they so seek. After all, when the last world-shattering invasion happened only weeks ago, nopony would have possibly expected another threat to occur simply because they basked in their victory. There is no risk simply because they wished to believe that there wasn’t one. They were certainly aware that another evil would regenerate eventually, as is the nature of the world. However, they never would have thought it would have happened so soon.

That victory, looking back on it, was likely the worst thing to have happened to them. It lulled them into a sense of security that knew no bounds. Other than the fact that a giant castle appeared out of the blue like a phoenix rising from that ruined library, nothing had changed. They could just go back to their normal lives.

However, their rude awakening began to come when everypony discovered that, only a week after the attack, Fluttershy had clearly suffered the consequences.

It started out just like any other sort of illness; though it was a bit odd that she never really seemed to have a runny nose or anything of the sort, I could tell that her entire body was growing weaker by the hour. It came completely out of nowhere; one day, she was fine, and the next, she fainted while caring for the animals. She used to be able to go at her job for an entire day, from Celestia’s sunrise to Luna’s dusk, but the amount of time she was able to spend with them grew shorter and shorter until I had to do her tasks for her.

Yes, I know that a chaos spirit trying to work with animals, especially ones with such an attitude towards me as Angel, seems rather far-fetched. But that wasn’t the most unbelievable part about the whole deal; it was rather that I didn’t do it out of force or for the sheer reason that I care about Fluttershy.

For once, I felt guilty. I couldn’t help but feel that at least a small part of this had been my fault, and I couldn’t help but hate the whisperings in my heart for making me feel this way. It was true that I had changed—if what Tirek had said about me would’ve been right, a creature like me wouldn’t be capable of showing such emotion, and especially towards a mere pony. It’s something that I had trouble comprehending at times, myself. But somehow…I began to notice that there was something about Fluttershy that made me feel satisfied with being reformed. Not just satisfied, but fulfilled. And of course, with all that Rainbow Power mush about “spreading your spirit throughout all of Equestria!” that had just taken place, I somehow decided that I wanted to return the favor. Not that I really know why or anything, seeing as I had nowhere near the talent she did with the furry creatures, but it made me feel useful regardless. Of course, I felt the need to help Fluttershy herself as well by tending to her needs, helping out around the house, or at least, most of those things.

I really don’t want to tell the story about why embodiments of chaos always order takeout, as it really isn’t that funny. If my dear house mate thought it was, then she had no idea of the scope of other things I’ve done throughout the centuries! Compared to those, it was only a drop in the pond!

So anyway, things always catching fire when I so much as lift a claw to cook. How utterly boring! Let’s just pretend I never mentioned that and get to the point, shall we?

When Fluttershy’s ailment snowballed into something that lasted not just for a week, but almost an entire month, I became convinced that something terrible had happened during the battle, and that was when it hit me like something you would more likely than not punch me for referencing: something was most definitely not right about that box. Sure, it had saved all of Equestria, but there had to be more to it than what it had seemed to do at first glance. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have inflicted illness onto one of its own bearers! I’d managed to hide it from Twilight and the rest of Fluttershy’s friends somehow, but no longer. Surely they had to be suffering from the same Rainbow Power curse, considering the fact that they too had opened it? But what came next was something that not even I could have predicted.

Twilight, Applejack, all the rest were in absolutely perfect condition as I saw them cantering across the city. At the moment, I had only been watching them from afar, not even telling them then what had happened, and when I saw this strange sight, I almost never told the truth to begin with. Fate itself was playing tricks on me, and I quickly grew enraged. Why did they get to continue on with their lives while Fluttershy withered away? The concept itself made my draconequus blood boil.

Somehow, though, after a while of trying to reason with myself, telling myself that a good friend doesn’t keep important things like this hidden, I ended up deciding to tell them. Needless to say, their reactions were much more passionate than I had expected.

I couldn’t help but laugh about Rainbow Dash’s, though. She automatically jumped to the conclusion that all along, the magical power lying within the chest had been remnants of an ancient and unbelievably powerful magician, and that if you were to disturb his spirit, you would gain powers beyond your wildest dreams that would simultaneously eat your body away until you reached a slow and painful death. After all that had happened, she claimed, the magic would go back into the chest once more, ready to tempt another victim when crisis struck and there was no other way of saving Equestria.

Twilight quickly dismissed the theory, telling Rainbow Dash that life does not, in fact, work like a Daring Do book. When Rainbow retorted that the events in the books were in fact real, the noble princess shoved the issue aside and insisted that such a theory was preposterous, using the wonderful logic that if there really was a ghost haunting the chest, surely Celestia would not have them give up the Elements of Harmony and left them to face such a threat. And, as Pinkie usefully pointed out to support Twilight’s argument, if there really was a tomb in that area, then there surely would have been booby traps, and since there were no booby traps, then clearly the box was safe.

Regardless of the petty arguments that ensued after the discovery, everypony tried their very best to uncover just why Fluttershy had been the only one negatively affected by what may or may not have been a result of the new abilities they had gained. It had taken its toll on Twilight especially, who did everything in her power to solve the mystery. She had gone back to the Castle of the Two Sisters despite having never found a book specifically addressing Rainbow Power there and scanned through the tomes for days, even though she had a stinging feeling that her efforts would likely be in vain. Afterwards, she went to every doctor in the area and even a zebra healer in the forest, figuring that they would know of any strange magical illnesses that might exist. Finally, after having even consulted Celestia herself about the matter, she angrily acquiesced to the strange occurrence and asked if she and her friends could stay at Fluttershy’s house to monitor her condition, to which I eagerly agreed by adding several new rooms to the cottage with a snap of my claws.

Why, you may ask? Because I could, and not because I’m what some ponies may call a “Gary Stu.” Accuse me of being one and I’ll gladly make each of your hooves grow horns and a mane. Though I may be reformed, you would have walked right into that one, and I would therefore be completely justified in doing that to you.

Anyway, it had been several days since Twilight and her friends had begun staying with Fluttershy and me over at the cottage when I ended up finding the answer late at night. My ill friend had gained a slight bit of mobility that day, giving me at least a sliver of hope that, as Twilight would put it, “everything would certainly be fine.” However, as the evening went on, she ended up fainting on the couch after the seven of us had all had a delightfully amicable discussion that betrayed the situation we were currently facing. Her head faced the back of the sofa, and I decided to let her stay there, pulling up the other couch directly beside her so that I would be alerted to anything strange that might happen throughout the course of the night. I’d never thought that only a few years after having faced her, corrupted her in battle, I would be the one protecting her. But you never know how much a short amount of time can change everything.

That very fact became even more relevant when I noticed a strange light blocking my sleep. Groaning in annoyance, my initial reaction was not to wake up at all, having exerted myself incredibly on a day full of friendly bonding. However, something within me told me to blink, and when I saw the strange vision, I was glad that I didn’t just let it pass. What resulted was something so mind-bogglingly odd that not even my own twisted mind couldn’t have imagined it, so incomprehensible that it drove perfect little Twilight, who also happened to notice it in the night, to completely down an entire bottle of hard cider which she not-so-kindly asked me to summon for her.

When I looked back to the couch, I quickly noticed that the light I had been seeing was a strange sort of green flame that by some loophole of physics did not burn the fabric at all. However, it did manage to completely cover Fluttershy, who still had not moved a single millimeter. Out of a curious sort of concern, I tentatively poked it with my paw, only to find that, while it did not burn sofas, it did manage to burn fur. Taking all of these details into account, I did what any mature chaos entity would do.

I ran screaming across the room in hopes of waking the (now fiery and not so yellow) pegasus, but to no avail. My mind began to toggle through various options of what could have gone wrong before coming to the realization that I could have said something in my sleep that would have caused this to happen. After all, I’m the only one who could even think of creating something as nonsensical as that picky little flame that only burnt through certain objects! And it was green, at that! It was nopony’s fault but my own, I suppose.

In defeat, I trudged up the stairs to what was now Twilight’s room, banging on the door in a manner so furious that it would have woken anypony up. She initially sighed in annoyance, as what would be expectable for somepony who’s just been woken up in the wee hours of the evening by somepony they found to be especially annoying, but once I frantically explained matters to her, she uttered to me in the most sincere and lilting voice:

“Go to bed, Discord! Fluttershy did not just spontaneously combust!”

“But I didn’t see Princess Luna sneaking up on me while I watched it!” I answered back, making sure to use the most utterly ear-shattering, whiniest voice I had available. (Sometimes, when I have nothing better to do, I do so enjoy practicing it.)

“Fine, I’ll get your stupid fire extinguisher,” Twilight groaned as she went down the stairs.

“That’s not my stupid fire extinguisher,” I shot back. “It’s Fluttershy’s stupid fire extinguisher, which she clearly uses for stupid fire emergencies when somepony is obviously being too stupid.”

“The sooner you quit being such a smarty-mule about everything, the sooner I can get back to bed. So please shut it while I solve your frivolous proble—“

She then trailed off, having realized several minutes too late that I was, in fact, telling the truth.

“You do remember what Princess Celestia says?” I gloated back to her. “’You should take your friends’ worries seriously.’ And right now, I haven’t been seeing somepony who does…”

Twilight shoved off my remark with a particularly loud groan and went off to the kitchen to fetch the extinguisher when I noticed that somehow, Fluttershy just stopped spontaneously combusting. So now that fire makes absolutely less sense, and yet I was too relieved to even complain about it. What I saw next, on the other hand, made me even more delighted.

While I do concede that Fluttershy was incredibly adorable before, she had blossomed into an even more enchanting figure. The first thing that I noticed was that she had a horn, and while I would’ve thought that she would remain her current color upon ascension into alicorndom, her fur was now an even more attractive shade of black and her mane a shadowy green. Her color scheme had improved vastly, in my opinion. And her appendages were now covered in holes. How wonderfully chaotic!

I gazed upon the utterly alluring sight for several minutes, losing myself in what an ethereal princess of chaos she had become. I now knew that I had not been the cause of the occurrence. But whoever did it, in my current state of mind, had made me the most grateful being in Equestria. I was undeserving of such a gift, but somehow it came.

She was just perfect now.

When Twilight came back into the room, she swore she could hear me muttering, “You’re my ethereal princess of chaos~,” complete with the little swiggle at the end. I immediately told her that I said no such thing, only to be answered by a quick bonk to the top of my head.

“What…just…happened?!” she immediately retorted at me. “One moment, I see my dear friend covered in fire that doesn’t even burn the darn couch, I go to get the fire extinguisher, and the next thing I notice, the fire just up and vanishes and you’re making googly eyes at Celestia-forsaken Chrysalis!”

“Oh, but you’re wrong,” I replied. “I know not of a Chrysalis, but I do know that this is most certainly not her. This is Fluttershy, who’s just become an alicorn princess.”

“Oh, for the love of—can’t you even tell an alicorn from a changeling?! Do you want me to use the stupid fire extinguisher on you?! You’re being a complete idiot!”

Rather than deciding to be condescending about how friends ought not to call friends idiots, I instead added fuel to the stupid fire by very intelligently repeating…

“Change-ling?”

In hindsight, I should’ve seen that groan coming.

“Well,” I defended, “I’ve been trapped in stone for a thousand years. How should I know whatever the heck that word means?! I’m no different from Luna, except I at least knew what the word ‘fun’ meant.”

“Here’s a quick lesson,” she muttered in intense annoyance. She then gestured her hoof towards herself and continued, “I am an alicorn.” She moved it back to the figure whom I insisted was Fluttershy and added, “That is a changeling.”

Before I could say anything further, she just facehooved at me, shaking her head for several minutes, and, as previously mentioned, goaded me for a bottle of hard cider.

As she walked away, wishing to escape the strange incident, she sighed, “Let’s just hope this is all one really weird dream…”

****

The next morning, Twilight refused to acknowledge what had happened and went through the daily motions of life, or at least as far as you could get on those by breakfast, when Pinkie Pie and Applejack walked down the stairs and also noticed the still-unconscious figure on the sofa.

“Morning, Discord!” Pinkie happily chirped at me. “Morning, Chrysalis!”

“Why, a very good morning to you as wel—“

To my incredible dismay, I found my polite greeting most impolitely interrupted by Applejack, who had suddenly noticed the strangeness of what Pinkie had just said.

“What in Celestia’s name are you blathering about, Pinkie?” she questioned. “Why in the name of Equestria would Chrysalis be here?”

“Oh, I think I finally understand now!” I yelled. “Clearly, ‘Chrysalis’ is your cutesy little nickname for Fluttershy, isn’t it! You know, because butterflies come out of a chrysalis and…”

I then trailed off as soon as I saw Applejack’s hoof hit her face.

“Let me see the couch,” she muttered. After kindly scooting out of her way to show her the figure lying there, she immediately trotted out of the room mumbling, “Twilight needs to see this, Twilight needs to see this, Twilight really, really needs to see this…”

After having gathered Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity from wherever they were in the house, she immediately returned, trying her best to explain the situation to the others.

“Actually, I saw it happen last night, I think,” Twilight answered. “But the whole incident wasn’t making any sense, so I just asked Discord to summon up a bottle of hard cider, because it was clearly just one of those ‘I really need a drink’ moments.”

“Let me get this straight: that was your response?!” Rainbow retorted. “You were about to just shrug off your friend being replaced by a changeling?! By the queen of the changelings?!”

“Well, she wasn’t acting any different! Last time, she acted nothing like Cadance, so it wouldn’t make any sense for her to be able to do a complete Fluttershy impression!”

“I guess we’ve advanced our magical levels since then, so I suppose she’s improved hers,” Rarity reasoned. “If that makes any sense, that is.”

“It’s not making a lick of sense to me,” I confessed. “All I’m getting out of this entire situation is that apparently Fluttershy technically outranks you now, Twilight. I didn’t even know you could earn the title of queen in Equestria!”

In response, Twilight sighed as she had throughout most of last evening, but I could tell that it wasn’t one of annoyance as was usual. For some reason or another, she pitied me.

“What you’re about to hear isn’t going to be good,” she finally whispered. “It isn’t going to be good for any of us, but thankfully, earning the rainbow magic has weakened the dark magic that she would normally have. Otherwise, things would be a lot harder for all of us. She isn’t a threat for now, but if we take too long…we could have another catastrophe on our hooves.

“To make a long story short, that isn’t the Fluttershy you think you know. I should have seen the green flames as a sign from the beginning, but it’s too late for regrets. My point is that there are magical beings out there called changelings, and while you don’t know about them…we had trouble with them shortly after we defeated you. They take ponies and put them in remote locations so that they can take their place, and when their disguise comes off, they emit that same sort of green flame we saw last night. With unicorns, it’s a lot easier to detect them, since their auras don’t match the ones that the real unicorns have, but I suppose that with pegasi, it’d be a lot harder to notice stuff like that. Also, I’ve noticed that you’ve been starting to feel attracted to Fluttershy, am I correct?”

I was too shocked to even blush. To have been outconned by some creature that I didn’t even know existed was just too much, even without having lost a dear friend in the process. Before that…I’d always thought I was the master of deception and confusion.

That figure I found enchanting last night was starting to grow less and less attractive.

“Well, that’s an effect of changeling magic, too. They feed off of love, so for all we know, she could have influenced you so that your feelings for Fluttershy grew and so she could get more powerful. All this time, she’s used you like the parasite she is. She’s no better than Tirek in my eyes. I’m sorry, but…you’ve been betrayed again.”

Thoughts began to whirl through my head, but somehow one began to overshadow them all. At that point, I could care less about being humiliated. There was only one thing that truly mattered now.”

“Where do you think Fluttershy is?”

“What haunts me even more is the fact that the real Fluttershy might never have been the one to reform you in the first place. She might have been gone even since then. Who knows how long this has been going on? For all you know, you might’ve been reformed by somepony who never wanted to reform herself, somepony even worse than you.”

Then, all of a sudden, she began to tear up, barely able to speak.

“As for your question, Discord…I-I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

“Good morning, Discord.”

It had been a day after the incident, but surprisingly, nothing really happened except for that one fateful morning. For the rest of that day, everypony else just went back to their rooms, pondering all that had just happened. Trying to take it in. Wondering how it could’ve been avoided, why they didn’t notice it sooner. But most of all, grieving. Nopony knew what would happen next. For all they knew, she could have been lost forever, despite being an Element of Harmony and all. None of this ever should’ve happened, especially so soon after Tirek’s attack. I didn’t know what this new enemy had up her sleeve, but I forced myself to continue doing what I would’ve done had she really been the pony she claimed to be.

Just as if she were the real thing, I sat beside her, stayed by her side. This time, however, I was doing it not out of concern for her safety, but rather so that she didn’t end up hurting anypony that she hadn’t already. She had stayed unconscious for the rest of the day, still not even moving a muscle.

And, quite honestly, I had to try with all my restraint not to just take advantage of the opportunity and kill her then. All it would take were a few little blasts, a small amount of effort, and all the misery we had to face would be over. But I had to tell myself that, in reality, it wouldn’t solve anything. It’d be far more useful to have her as a captive so that that way, we could actually get information out of her about how to solve the real problem. It wouldn’t be easy, from what little I knew about her, but I was happy to concede to at least throwing a few punches against her to get her to cough up the information.

Now, I know being reformed means not going around hitting mares. But I know for sure that I would be completely justified in this case, wouldn’t I? Even though I’d never actually heard her speak or do anything outside of her little character act, I barely even considered her a mare anymore. She was the one who smashed my newborn dream to pieces right in front of my face only months after I truly realized it. She was already far, far worse than Tirek.

To me, at least, she was the devil incarnate. And, more likely than not, imagining what was likely unfolding far beyond my vision, I’m sure Fluttershy would have agreed.

I looked at the figure on the couch beside my own, now fully awake and aware of the world. What I immediately noticed was that she’d been sly enough to change her appearance yet again before I woke up. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that Fluttershy was right there on that couch, and not on some desolate, mysterious location that likely not even Celestia knew about. Worst of all, I wanted to believe the illusion. I wanted it to actually be Fluttershy, for things to have been completely safe, completely normal.

You never thought you’d hear me say I’d like things to be normal, huh? Well, I guess that just goes to show how desperate I am right now. I can’t even think of any jokes to crack to try to hide the pain! Chaos spirits aren’t supposed to be depressed, darn it! How should I have any idea of what to do?!

“Oh, I’m sorry,” ‘Fluttershy’ whispered yet again. “Are you even awake? I might not have been loud enough the first time I tried to get you up.”

As sacrilegious as this seemed to me, right now I really just wanted to punch this imposter, even if she did look like my friend. But now, I knew that what I had to do would be the hardest part of this whole ordeal.

Until the rest of the ponies came down, I had to act like nothing had happened. For the moment, I had to forget I ever heard the name ‘Chrysalis.’ I had to pretend that she really was Fluttershy, that she’d never blown her cover, for long enough to distract her. Once Twilight had told me what had happened, I could never imagine her as just being ‘Fluttershy’ ever again. But for everypony’s sake, I loaded my head with a single sentence, hoping that it would override all other thoughts.

This is Fluttershy. This is Fluttershy. This is Fluttershy…

“Good morning, Fluttershy,” I replied. “I’m glad you’re back. From unconsciousness, I mean. For a moment there, everypony thought they’d lost you.”

The best lies carry an element of truth…

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m fine now,” the impostor replied. “At least, until something like this happens again, that is.”

“You probably ought to stay on the couch just in case. We sure wouldn’t want a scare like that again.”

“Okay. I’m glad all of you care this much about me.” I could see her blushing at my words in the adorable little way the real Fluttershy would, but then again, she could probably do that on command, now, couldn’t she? In any case, it was now time to test just how gullible she really was. If this actually worked, there’d be no way she could get away and cause any trouble to Equestria again!

“Oh, Fluttershy, I’ve been doing some reading about the role exercise plays in curing illnesses. There’s this nice stretch that’s supposed to work marvelously. You just spread your body out on a flat surface and tie your limbs back to something. It’s vital that you not move your legs for it to work, so the ropes help you resist the temptation to do so.”

Swing and a miss! From the look she gave me, I could tell that she saw right through my act. As if I needed to be reminded of just how much this ‘Chrysalis’ figure could outwit me. No need to rub it in, lady!

“You’re right about the exercise thing,” she answered, “Maybe we could go for a walk or something. I heard about something in the Everfree Forest that could help.”

Of course, anypony with any sense would’ve been suspicious of this offer had they known of her true identity. I’m still well-acquainted enough with the villain code to know that, to her sort of devious figure, there is no true difference between ‘help’ and ‘amplify my magical levels to an insanely disastrous intensity.’ Besides, Twilight had already checked the Everfree, and if there was nothing she was willing to try there, then surely this item would be too dangerous for an intense rule-follower like her to try.

Unfortunately, while I was weighing my options, I let my guard down and the next thing I knew, ‘Fluttershy’ had grasped my claw and was pulling me toward the surrounding woodlands, cantering faster than I’d ever seen her before.

“I never knew you’d gotten over your fear of going in there alone,” I stated as she continued to drag me closer to the area. In this case, I figured that playing the suspicious card would be justified, seeing that her eagerness would have seemed off-character even had it been the real Fluttershy.

“Well, this time I have you here to protect me, so I’m not scared at all,” the mare beside me responded eagerly. “Nopony would dare go against you, and I can handle the animals. As long as we’re together, we’ll be safe. And besides, once I manage to find what I’m looking for, I can get back to work, and then you won’t have to be burdened so much. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You can just relax and know that you’d never have to worry about me again.”

“Taking on your duties isn’t that bad. I mean, I’d like to see you cured and all, but…”

“But what?” I could sense a tinge of bitterness that wasn’t there before, and I couldn’t help but notice the distinctive glare on the normally timid pegasus’s face.

“You aren’t trying to give me the Stare, are you?” I chuckled nervously. “I thought you trusted me more than that!”

‘Fluttershy’ blinked in shock for a few seconds in an attempt to process just what she had almost done. She began to turn her head about nervously, and while some would see it as her worrying about how I would react, somehow I had a feeling that it was more than that. She feared that she had just done the one thing that would unravel her entire act.

But it wasn’t time for the big reveal yet. Twilight had ordered me to go along with whatever ‘Fluttershy’ did today in order to lull her into a sense of security while she contacted Princess Celestia. Until Celestia herself made her presence known, I couldn’t get in the way, no matter how much I wanted to.

“I—I do trust you more than that,” she confessed. For a moment, she had the same hushed tone that I’d heard thousands of times, but she switched back to that stern, harsh, unbelievably strange voice only a few seconds later.

“What were you about to tell me?”

I gave a quick, thoughtful sigh and answered in the most sensitive way I could:

“Fluttershy, what is wrong with you?! If somepony like Twilight told you that there were no remedies in the Everfree Forest, then there must be a reason she hid this one from you. It must be dangerous. And as much as it’s not like me to say this, I don’t want to lose you to something as stupid as an untested cure!”

“It’s not untested,” she muttered. “It’s worked countless times throughout history, and I’m willing to become its next successful user. It’s more than just a cure, Discord. It’s something that could change Equestria forever. For the better. I’m not going to let anypony feel like they need to protect me anymore. I want to be the one in control.”

“But doesn’t that come at a cost? Surely it can’t be that easy.”

“You’re right,” she continued. “It isn’t that easy, but I’ll make it as simple as possible for all of you. There’s no risk that isn’t worth taking as long as it keeps me from being this weak shell of myself that I am now.”

All of a sudden, she finally stopped pulling me once we’d reached a hut deep within the forest. She gazed at the small, simple residence with yet another look I was familiar with: hungriness at the prospect of obtaining power. It was the sort of face I never would have expected to see on Fluttershy of all ponies, but I had to keep remembering that this wasn’t truly her. The real Fluttershy would never think of going to these lengths, whatever impact this mysterious object could have on Equestria. As an Element of Harmony, she was perfectly content with her position in reality. Other than overcoming illness, she never would have wanted anything more.

But, within my years both of committing villainous acts and observing them being committed, I’ve learned that the true trait of a villain is to transcend these rungs on the ladder of life, to break the lower ones so that nopony else could ever ascend to their level. At that moment, I could almost imagine Chrysalis banging on that ladder as Fluttershy struggled to climb in a weak attempt to stop her, a delicate floor holding up the entire structure.

Images flashed by. Glass broke. Fluttershy began to descend to a level so low that not only could she no longer be seen, but nopony even noticed she was gone. As if things weren’t already bad enough as is, a single sentence caught my immediate suspicion.

“Don’t come in here.”

I looked back to the false Fluttershy, still with that same odd glance towards the hut. The moment she noticed me, she quickly corrected herself.

“I meant to say that Zecora might end up being intimidated by your presence, as she isn’t used to you being reformed and all. You should probably wait here and stand guard in case any timberwolves or anything else tries to attack.”

It was a small detail, one that I would have missed had I not known about the charade, but as I was left alone and surrounded by rings of foliage, I realized that Fluttershy had just told me to harm an animal if it got in the way of her mission. Now, looking back on the whole situation, I couldn’t help but wonder how I’d been tricked in the first place. It was at that moment that Fluttershy’s foalnapping had stopped being shocking. By now, with all the clues gathered, it was nothing short of obvious.

As I absentmindedly watched for any beasts roaming about, that order remained on my mind. Even if it was something as violent and ruthless as a timberwolf, the real Fluttershy certainly would’ve been able to reason with it, and Chrysalis knew that. After all, if she’d been playing her role for this long, she clearly knew how to perform the Stare. There wouldn’t have been much of a point to outright killing it, then.

Fear was never something that I truly comprehended, being an immortal and all. It was always strange to me how ponies could be scared by something as frivolous as being stranded in a different environment from their usual surroundings. But I couldn’t deny that I was starting to feel it now, even though I knew I could’ve taken down most simple nuisances here. Minutes passed idly by, and my worst suspicions were confirmed. I continued to wait, wondering why my emotions were reacting in such an uncharacteristic way until a thought finally hit my mind.

If she would be willing to kill a simple forest predator for getting in her way, then what would stop her from harming somepony closer to her own kind? What if the real reason she didn’t want me to come in there was because—

Before I allowed my mind to fully process the situation, I rushed towards the hut like the impulsive figure most would likely see me as. However, when I approached the door, I decided to go for a subtler approach as to not stir up suspicion, quietly opening it to what was most definitely the most shocking sight of the day.

While I’d never expected somepony like Twilight’s description of Chrysalis to simply reason with the potion master who dwelt here, the sight of Fluttershy having the zebra brutally pinned to the ground with a livid look on her face wasn’t something I anticipated either. Most would choose to go for the subtle and much more pervasive approach. Surely Zecora wouldn’t just hand over the remedy now that she’d basically scared her to death, as the whole ‘scaring into submission’ technique is very overrated and rarely works in real life (or at least on the physical level). However, I could only watch in genuine horror as the scene continued to unfold.

“Don’t make me have to ask again,” ‘Fluttershy’ growled in Zecora’s face. “You know what I want from you, and if you simply give me the artifact, I’ll let you go free and we can forget any of this ever happened.”

“You know how dangerous that item can be!” her victim replied, still attempting to resist with the same look of shock on her face that I’d had once I discovered her true nature. “The unicorn that had it last only barely escaped free!”

“Please, you still rhyme even when you’re in mortal danger?!” the changeling queen scoffed. “Give me a break! And while you’re at it, the Alicorn Amulet would be nice as well.”

“There’s somepony at the door, thank Celestia!” Zecora yelled, having noticed my presence with a sigh of relief. “Grab that potion over there for the fate of Equestria!”

While ‘Fluttershy’ was too occupied with trying to beat the information out of a completely innocent healer zebra, I sneaked in and grabbed the aforementioned elixir, quickly shoving it over to Zecora. Taking advantage of her pinned position, she took the opportunity to force the potion straight into the pegasus’s mouth, causing her attacker to go limp and to fade back into unconsciousness.

“Is everything all right in here?” I questioned, already dreading what the answer would be. “What was she looking for that you were so against giving to her?”

“I know for a fact that Fluttershy is ill,” Zecora replied, “but allowing it to obtain it would not have been Twilight’s will. It is the only item that could cure her malady, but using it would have caused much agony.” Seeing that ‘Fluttershy’ was no longer a threat, she took out a box that she had carefully hidden and opened it to reveal an ominous-looking red-and-black talisman.

“It doesn’t look familiar at all to me,” I admitted. “She basically dragged me straight here just as I was about to restrain her. It’s a long story, but you see—“

“Threats most unlike her character did she bring,” she agreed, “could she possibly be a changeling?” I merely nodded in response.

“So you do know about them, I presume? Twilight told me that she’d been replaced by one called Chrysalis for quite some time.”

“Then the issue is much more than I could glean, for she is not just any changeling, but their queen. I’m rather glad, then, that you did come, for this amulet would cause all of Equestria to succumb. For if on someone so minor it had such a reaction, if it would have corrupted her…I can only imagine.”

“How did she even know about this artifact in the first place?”

“It took place about a year ago, I presume, when Ponyville almost reached its doom. This amulet attracts those with a desire for revenge, but on her own, its last victim was not much to contend. At first, she seemed like one wanting nothing but torment, but she suffered from nothing more than inner resent. In her heart, there was at least a small amount of honor, but that was replaced with a desire to conquer. She had been shown up by Twilight once before, but an amulet of this power made her a spirit of war.”

“What happened to its last wearer after that?”

“We got lucky that time, as jealousy is an easy emotion to bend. Once a better solution is offered, any threat will soon end. Now, the young mare is fine, no more envy in her mind, but the situation would have been much more dire if to greater standards did she aspire. She wished to beat an opponent, nothing more, but had she hungered for power, Equestria would have been rocked to its core.”

The events immediately following that incident were surprisingly uneventful now that Chrysalis was once again unconscious. As I carried her back home, I decided not to take any more chances, as I knew that as soon as she awoke yet again, she would try to obtain the amulet, and I suspected that this time, she would choose not to bring me along. I had a feeling that, in that brief instant before she weakened, she could see me impeding her efforts. I had broken the act only hours after she had done the same. Once she got enough strength back in her, I knew that she wouldn’t target her wrath at merely Zecora anymore. Now that she knew I was aware of her secret, she would consider me an enemy to be eliminated as well.

Night descended upon us once again, but this time was different from the other two that had preceded it. There was now a barrier between us, ties keeping her tethered to the couch in case she tried to escape again. Looking at them now, I could no longer continue to believe that everything was as it was before.

While I saw the events unfold yesterday and thought I understood them pretty well, today was when it truly sunk in. Denying the fact, keeping up an act just as she had, changed nothing about the situation. No matter how hard I tried, I knew that even if I could turn back time, my façade would unravel just as quickly as it had in that Everfree hut, if not even sooner. It wasn’t because I lacked the deception that the changelings were trained in. Being unreformed and untamed for thousands of years, I know that that part of me will never truly fade away. But somehow, when somepony else is the one to initiate the illusion, I don’t quite respond as well.

I’ve always been used to conning others, and never thought of how I would respond to the prospect of being conned myself. Looking back, I believe that is my true blind spot: I never thought the Elements of Harmony would end up defeating me, after all. I’m a chaos spirit, and yet I bask in the status quo to the point of never even thinking about what others could do to me to change that. It was something that had taken millennia for me to discover about myself, and yet Chrysalis here had taken notice of it in what? Barely a year?

I sigh to myself in annoyance as I, for once in my life, await Celestia’s judgment. There I go again, hoping for the status quo, hoping that things can be resolved in the blink of an eye. If there’s one thing I’ve taken from this, it’s that even my own character is a contradiction. A hidden contradiction that, for a mind as trained as Chrysalis’s, is all too visible.

You’re nothing less than the devil incarnate, even within that angelic face of yours, I repeat to myself as my eyes slowly shut, taking refuge in the one place she can’t infiltrate. And soon, everypony's finally going to see the truth behind your lies.

You’re a true devil, Chrysalis.

Nopony You Can Save (That Can't Be Saved)

Once again, I stood watch beside the couch, despite knowing that Princess Celestia was scheduled to arrive in mere minutes. The scene hadn’t changed much within the past few days, with much of the same furnishings still intact, but the emotional detachment between its occupant and myself had undergone an irreversible transformation. Two days ago, slight suspicions arose. Yesterday, I had to try with every fiber of my being to pretend things would ever be what they were before. Now, the restraint was complete in more ways than one, and no matter how hard she could have tried, she could no longer approach me, or anypony else, for that matter. It only took a few days for her to be seen as a major and looming threat, but once it did, that image could not be so easily changed.

Change, as always, is the key word here. No matter what species of being she is now, it is not something that Fluttershy can experience now without complete opposition. And, as it turns out, it was that very weakness that kept me from realizing what she was in the first place.

In a way, neither of us can adapt to change. Another similarity between us, I guess. I admit it only begrudgingly, wanting to further myself from this monstrous mare as much as possible.

When you see the peaceful-looking yellow pegasus unconscious on the sofa, it’s hard to imagine her in the place she was yesterday, in a mad rush for an arcane artifact of unbelievable power. And indeed, I would have to agree; Fluttershy would never have done such a thing.

But, from the minute she pulled that stunt yesterday, she wasn’t Fluttershy anymore. The secret that she’d worked so hard to keep just ripped away as her instincts presented her with an opportunity that nopony with her ambitions could refuse. She’d left it so that yet another pony in town—or, to be more accurate, another zebra—knew that the real Fluttershy was gone.

The strangest part of the whole situation is that, at the crack of dawn on this fateful day of judgment—Applejack’s brother, Big Macintosh, appeared. I’d personally never seen him and didn’t recognize him when he came to the door, but when I found out who he was, the reasons for him coming seemed logical enough. After all, Applejack had been staying at Fluttershy’s house for days for no reason apparent to him, so I assumed he’d come in telling Applejack to get a move on with her work, a metaphorical whip-cracking, if you will. When she tried to explain the inexplicable situation to her brother, nopony expected him to buy it. We all thought he was going to write it off as some sort of excuse or, worse yet, think we all were delusional. (Well, I’ll admit to being a bit delusional, but that really should explain itself.)

But no, he just had to respond in the one way nopony expected.

“I know.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “Let me get this straight: we’re telling you this whole crazy story about Fluttershy getting abducted by changelings, how the one we thought was her the whole time is their queen, she tried to steal the Alicorn Amulet yesterday, for Celestia’s sake, and your only response is ‘I know?!’”

“Well, I didn’t know about the amulet part,” Big Mac admitted earnestly. “But I’m glad nopony else was able to get to it. It’s still a mite too sensitive for me to think about what that thing can do to ponies, though.”

“He was under its control, too?” I wondered. “I wouldn’t think it’d have any effect on earth ponies.”

“Nah, it was just his marefriend that got involved,” Applejack scoffed. “He couldn’t bear to see his crush goin’ all wild and crazy on the town, turnin’ into a tyrant, all that.” Turning to her brother, she continued, “And I’ve seen how you get about those magic shows, Big Mac. You’re supposed to look at the tricks, not the pretty mare doing them. Frankly, it couldn’t be more obvious.”

“Anyway, now’s not exactly the best time to talk about that, knowing that we might have a nationwide crisis on our hooves,” Big Mac said bluntly. “There are many more important matters at stake than who I might or might not have a crush on. Though I will say, my being without a special somepony at the moment does actually play a large role in how I ended up discovering the truth about Fluttershy.”

He turned to his sister, already sweating from the confession he was about to make. I could tell from my own years as a villain that this was the face of somepony who had already threatened to reveal the underlying deception of it all, but was kept from doing so by outside sources. Oftentimes, small players like him weren’t even a real concern to us; I at least preferred blackmail solely as a means of getting a rise out of the victim. Spreading the truth to a few other minor parties wasn’t too much of a problem, especially when that reality seemed so far outside what was accepted as the norm. Even somepony from a family as known for honesty as the Apples could be trapped within a power play like this, spending nights wracked with guilt over not being able to even imply something was amiss, while we just stood back knowing that even if a minor slip were to be made, nothing would become of it.

“Do you remember that one night, Applejack, when the Pony Tones decided to set me up on a date at the burger joint?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it until recently, actually. You did kind of slip it under the rug, from what I remember. You went straight to your room afterwards, and it wasn’t even that late. You never said anything about it since.”

“Well, that’s because I saw something there that I really, really shouldn’t have seen. Even as the brother of an Element Bearer, I like to keep myself out of this sort of drama as much as possible. I won’t pretend I’m some sort of action hero who’s cut out for this thing. As such, I didn’t really suspect all that much about Fluttershy at first; after all, I was more focused on the moment, of keeping up my day-to-day business and not really worryin’ about the state of Equestria. And the changeling queen did keep up a pretty good act up until then, a lot better than what you guys filled me in on with the Cadance incident.

“But basically, a lot of my friends, especially my bandmates on the Pony Tones, would always try to set me up with her, and I never understood one lick about it. Maybe it was because we were both quiet or enjoyed nature or some other odd thing, but they’d always go about teasing us about it—that is, when they weren’t whispering about the same sorts of things with Cheerilee. I thought it was mighty awkward at first, the idea of going out with my little sis’s friend, but I figured if they were going to keep heckling me about it, I might as well give it a fighting chance. So the Pony Tones set up a time and location and all that, figured it shouldn’t be too formal with it being a first date, and it was set.

“The night wasn’t so strange at first. We were just eating and making casual conversation, not really bringing up anything about romance. I got the feeling that Fluttershy wasn’t looking at it from a serious angle either; she was just trying something out like I was. Then stuff happened and—“

He cut himself off, blushing.

“What kind of stuff?” Applejack prompted. “We need to know everything. It’s not like we’re gonna use it for gossip or anything, so stop bein’ so darn embarrassed.”

“Well, you know, a b-blue pony showed up at the register, nothin’ really that special—“

“Was it that blue pony?”

“Okay, fine, yes, I like Trixie and no, it wasn’t her. But she looked like her, I swear. Same coat color and stuff. When you love somepony like that, you don’t really pay attention and basically think anypony with a slight resemblance looks like your crush. Or at least, so I’ve heard. Anyway, Fluttershy noticed me looking at the mare and whispered into my ear, ‘I know you don’t like me. Not like you like her.’

“Understandably, I was spooked as can be. I tried to get myself out of it, tried to change the subject, but she just said the same thing again. When I asked her how she knew, her eyes glowed for a second and she just said she had ‘ways.’ After that, I just started getting tired and everything felt like a blur for a while. All I knew was that she wasn’t acting like herself, but I just assumed this was one of my unicorn bandmates’ idea of a joke, that they’d put some sort of sleep spell on me. But then I saw this…vision.”

“What sort of vision was it?” Twilight asked for the first time in the entire conversation. She had been listening intently, trying to take the whole issue in as usual. “You could’ve had a spell put on you, but not any that a regular unicorn would be able to do.
Making somepony with no previous magical abilities have any sort of out-of-body experience, even a simple dream, is far beyond what most can do. Even I’ve only done it a few times when the situation absolutely required it.”

“Far beyond what most ponies can do,” Big Mac corrected. “But that Fluttershy was no pony. Anyway, when I finally got my bearings and came out of my daze, it felt like I was in another world, like I was in both that place and still at the burger restaurant. I can only imagine how it must’ve looked to the other ponies. What’s weird is that somehow I wasn’t the only thing that was transported there; the rest of the environment looked just like it was before I woke up, except outside the window, instead of the shops that were usually there, I could see this castle and tower, huge enough that you couldn’t see anything else beyond. It looked familiar for some inescapable reason, but then I recognized it from when I’d helped Apple Bloom study once; it was in her history textbook. It was from the Crystal Empire, I think, but I’m not entirely sure—“

As if she knew that this was the absolute most inconvenient time to appear, fluttering sounds could be heard from outside, too loud to be from a pegasus’s comparatively small wings. After Big Mac’s revelation, I thought there was no way my jaw could drop any lower than it already had that day, but as I saw the figure from outside the window, I had the slightest suspicion that nothing would go according to plan today. It was, in fact, an alicorn, which I had to give the Canterlot authorities credit for; at least they put in the effort for the mission. But alas, it wasn’t enough: apparently despite the fact that they lived on completely opposite ends of Equestria and looked absolutely nothing alike, it was easy enough to confuse the name “Celestia” for “Cadance.”

“I can’t believe this,” Twilight muttered. “This has got to be the only time in my life I’m not completely overjoyed to see her. She is the absolute last pony in Equestria who should be tangled up in this! And they took her out of what was probably something very important, left Shining Armor, somepony who knows as little about being royalty as I did when I first started out, to rule a kingdom for Celestia knows how long, for this?! Out of all the ponies they could’ve picked—“

“Pardon my intrusion,” I interrupted, “but even if she isn’t quite as powerful as Celestia, can’t Cadance help us just as much? It is, after all, still reporting the issue to an authority, or at least somepony who technically, albeit slightly, supersedes you.”

“Except Cadance’s major magical capability happens to be in the very thing that’s guaranteed to give Chrysalis more power!” she retorted, pointing at the false yellow pegasus. “If she wakes up and sees Cadance, it might be enough for her to regain her full magic and we’ll have plenty more issues on our hooves! Plus, well…”

“Well?”

“Chrysalis kidnapped Cadance the first time she invaded,” Big Mac added. “Now, I may not know as much about it as the other ponies here who were actually there, and I certainly don’t know the princess well by any means, but I’ve been around ponies long enough to know that she could still be scarred by something like this. Sending somepony to face the one who hurt them most—it’s not something very many ponies can do. I know I couldn’t.”

As we were planning our course of attack for how we would deal with the unexpected guest, we could all hear a knock at the door. However little we may have distracted her by showing her we were clearly busy, it wasn’t quite enough to break Cadance’s motivation to know what was going on here. And indeed, she had every right to find out, knowing not how grave the actual issue was or how it would affect her.

“Okay, let’s just act natural and try to get out of this as easily as possible,” Applejack suggested. “Just don’t let Cadance and Chrysalis get too close to each other, blindfold the enemy if you need to. Most important of all, make it seem like just a regular issue and don’t bring up the changelings, just talk about it in general terms about somepony attacking or something.”

However hesitantly the act actually occurred, however much we dreaded the moment, we knew that we had to eventually let the princess in before she began to suspect something—that is, if she didn’t already. Twilight did her usual cutesy song and dance with her sister-in-law, trying her hardest not to show that her spirit wasn’t really in it. Big Macintosh retreated to the kitchen, knowing that his presence as a pony outside the usual group would make him rather suspicious. While Cadance was distracted, I found a small sleep mask to place over Chrysalis’s eyes to make it look as though she wasn’t a changeling that we were doing everything to restrain to a certain area.

“Out of curiosity, Cadance,” Twilight said with that certain trembling she got in her voice when her nerves were at their limits, “what brings you to Ponyville today?”

“Celestia sent me over here,” Cadance replied. “She thought I’d be more suited for this work than she would.”

“But why did Celestia send you here?”

“Because you sent her here, Twilight? She said something was wrong that I needed to help with.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, it was a total false alarm,” Twilight chuckled, trying her best to appear ditzy despite the fact that literally nopony thought that about her. “I kind of overreacted again. You know how often that happens to me.”

“So Queen Chrysalis hasn’t infiltrated Ponyville after all?” the princess questioned, narrowing her eyes in confusion. “Seriously, how would you even think that if it weren’t true, if you didn’t see it for yourself?”

Utter silence ensued, which in retrospect was probably the worst thing we could’ve done to keep up the act. No, scratch that, probably the worst thing we did in that moment came when Rainbow Dash whispered the least subtle, most suspicious thing to say in that situation.

“Celestia darnit, she knows!”

“Of course I know,” Cadance answered in embarrassment. “Seeing as my husband is captain of the royal guard, do you really think I’d be foolish enough to go into a situation that would require battle without briefing of some sort?”

“Then, if that’s the case, why did you even decide to come here?” her sister-in-law asked. “You know how dangerous it is for you to be around Chrysalis. You know how that affects your magic, and after what she did to you, I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to see her again.”

“It’s because…oh, I don’t know how to explain it without revealing how weird and convoluted the Crystal Empire royal line is right now. No explanation would probably be anywhere near good enough, for all I know. But what I can say is that somehow…I need to see her again. If she becomes a threat, it’s my responsibility to handle, a responsibility that I wasn’t able to fulfill when Chrysalis invaded last. One that Celestia knew I needed a second chance to accomplish.”

“And what might that be?” Twilight asked. “Look, I know you might feel guilty about your wedding causing the first attack, but if it’d been somepony else, the results would’ve been the same. There still would’ve been a changeling invasion regardless of whether they would strike at a wedding or some sort of royal summit or whatever.”

“Except it had to be then. Not just because I’m the Princess of Love but also because, well…changelings find it easier to impersonate somepony if they already know them somehow. It can take several years, or even just a glance. But even if Chrysalis wasn’t able to do a perfect imitation of me, it’s certainly a better one than if she would’ve chosen somepony else. I had a feeling about why that was, and after the wedding, I researched everything I could on changelings to try to disprove it. Unfortunately, my theory proved to be true. While most of the changelings are self-sufficient and only need love-induced nourishment to survive…Chrysalis is different. She needs a host, a vessel to possess, so to speak, and the particular one she’s chosen this time around is of Crystal bloodlines.”

“How could that even be possible? I mean, I’ve heard of certain creatures gaining immortality through those sorts of spells, but I didn’t think it could actually be anything but a theory. Besides, the Crystal Empire had to have been long gone when Chrysalis last manifested into another body. The hosts don’t gain the same sort of immortality as the parasites do, so when they die, the beings have to seek out another. There’s no way even a changeling queen could make a regular pony live a thousand years.”

“Except for one thing, Twilight,” Cadance replied. “Somehow, for reasons that remain hidden to history itself, the royal line managed to escape their disappearing empire. Currently, I am the sole survivor of that line, but there was another: Crystal Princess Amore. My older sister, who never even got the chance to learn of her potential.

“While most of Equestria knew nothing of the truth behind Nightmare Moon’s defeat, the select few who did believed in a curse—that whenever two royal sisters of any descent are born, one is destined to fall into evil. I am not entirely sure if that is true, but that’s what happened to Amore. We were both taken in by Princess Celestia from a young age, but Amore began to feel that ponies were plotting against her, that I was the only one she could trust. She was scared, but that soon turned into resent as she began to believe that Celestia had the worst of intentions with us. One night, she couldn’t take it anymore and ran off from the castle, never to be seen again. Several years later, I found out that Chrysalis’s spirit had found her when she was off her guard and just like Nightmare Moon—“

“They became one and the same,” Twilight murmured in disbelief. “I never even knew you had a sister.”

“Amore disappeared long before I met you. Something tells me that if she would’ve had you for a friend, fate might’ve been different. But this is precisely why we can’t take chances with trying to kill Chrysalis. For all we know, she could die in both body and soul, stringing along the innocent pony within her.”

“So how are we supposed to save Fluttershy, then?” Rainbow Dash questioned.

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet,” Cadance admitted, “but I have an idea on how to begin. It might be a dead end, but it’s worth trying.”

“I’ll do it then,” Twilight replied, stepping in closer to Chrysalis’s sleeping form and preparing her horn for whatever might come next.

“Actually, it’s not really something that your magic has control over. I know this is going to sound weird, but…this is something that Discord has to handle.”

“Me?” I questioned in shock.

“Him?” Twilight asked, just as stunned.

“Well, from what Celestia has told me, Discord has the ability to bring out a pony’s opposite from inside with a touch. She believes that, if he can use this magic on Chrysalis, she’d be willing to tell us the information we need without realizing we’re not on her side. Then, when it comes time to defeat her and try to pull Amore out, he can reverse the magic and turn her back to the way she was before.”

It wasn’t so much that I had anything against this plan as it was—oh, who am I kidding? I hated the very sound of it. Yes, this magic was once my signature attack to the point where Equestrian scientists were so kind as to name any sort of reversal magic “discording,” but somehow, I didn’t get the feeling it would be quite so fun or so successful if I used it for good. I hadn’t even thought about trying it yet after being reformed; somehow, I’d just gotten tired of it after centuries. But, being one of only two occasions I’ve ever been recruited as a hero, and considering how terribly I screwed up the last one, the satisfaction I got from having another chance was simply too much.

So I smirked at Twilight, teasingly shoved her away from where she was still standing beside the couch, and hesitantly poked Chrysalis to start the process. That was basically all that happened for a few moments, and needless to say, I was impatient enough to wonder if it was doing anything. Just as I was about to completely give up, however, her former disguise as Fluttershy disappeared and, strangely enough, she shrunk.

“That…is not supposed to happen,” I muttered to myself in probably the biggest understatement of the day. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

Thankfully, I hadn’t messed up too much and the tiny figure still resembled a changeling—if, that is, changelings were about the size and shape of Breezies. We’d barely had a moment to regain our composure before the weird green-and-black microbe started talking.

“Presenting Pretty Cutie Breezie Chryssie, your ultimate guide to all things magical questing! I greatly love to help my fellow Equestrian denizens and—“

“Can this thing please shut up?” Rainbow Dash sighed.

“I can sense that you need help, so I will kindly ignore your inquiry and choose not to shut up.”

“Are we going to need to put up with you for however long it takes us to find Fluttershy? Because you’re already trying my patience.”

“We is not a matter. My new draconequus friend has already requested to accompany me to the mirage world alone, and as his magical helper, I have dutifully accepted.”

“I said absolutely nothing about that!” I protested. “What in Equestria is a mirage realm, anyway?”

“It is like a dream world, but it is not a dream world! It is something you will not understand until you see it with your own eyes. And I am the only one who can take you there. But there is one consolation to the matter.”

I silently hoped it meant something along the lines of “Pretty Cutie Breezie Chryssie” being nowhere near as insufferable along the journey.

“Since we’re friends now, you can just call me ‘Zizi!’”

At that, I placed my lion paw into my face and muttered under my breath just low enough for Zizi not to hear.

“Oh Celestia, no.”