Death City

Ok, I know there hasn’t been a good fight scene in a while, but not to worry. I won’t tell you anything more than to read till the end of the chapter to find out what I have planned for the next chapter. Now, read on ahead. (This entire chapter only took me a day to write and only a few hours, so I hope it’s good.)

Chapter 39 – Seeking Love and Loosing Loss

“Look at all these valuables!” Rarity yelled out, rushing over to see the beautiful, hoof-crafted sculptures and figures. They all had been priceless and took a great amount of time, effort, and money to produce.

“Surely you would find interest in something as dull as that,” Strife exclaimed.

“Just calm down, ok?” Twilight intervened. “Let Rarity have her fun for now.”

“Fine, if you say so,” Strife said to himself. “Hope she doesn’t get an orgasm from all of it.”

“Damn it, Strife!” Thunder snapped, turning around behind him while trotting simultaneously. “How do you even know this stuff?!”

“I do my research,” Strife responded, feeling proud of himself.

“But that... but you’re, uggg!” Thunder yelled.

“Hey, cool it down back there!” Ace shouted. “It’s hard enough to concentrate when we’ve lost two members of the gang already.”

“Make it four,” Rainbow Dash added. “Can’t forget Fluttershy and Dusk as well.”

“And we haven’t even confronted Chrysalis yet,” Ace mumbled to himself.

“Oh, look at this!” Rarity shouted from a far. “Twilight, come here!”

“I’m sure it looks magnificent and wonderful!” Twilight called back to her, not even looking at what Rarity wanted to show her.

“That girl sure does have a love for fashion,” Thunder said gently to Twilight.

“Oh, you don’t even know anything yet,” Twilight responded. The tow soon began chatting to each other. What started out as a conversation about Rarity and her obsession for all things glamorous soon turned into them talking about their lives as fillies and colts.

“So, wait. You’re Princess Celestia’s own student?!” Thunder asked, looking as shocked as ever.

“Yes,” Twilight answered proudly. “Well, was. I was her student.” Twilight began to hung her head low.

“Aww, don’t get that way,”  Thunder wrapped his hoof around Twilight and gave her a gentle nudge. “Princess Celestia is dead, I mean deceased.” Thunder tried to word the situation as nicely as possible. “So what? It’s an event in time that happened, and there’s no way to change it. It’s a fate that we’re all forced to take. It’s the circle of life.”

“Well, I know what you’re trying to say, but it’s just that the event you spoke of doesn’t work well with my heart.” Twilight spoke up, lifting her head a little higher. “It’s just that I miss her. I miss Princess Celestia. Not in a lovey dovey way, but as a mother and daughter type of way.” Lifting her head up even more till it had been right in front of Thunder, she continued. “My mother and father didn’t appreciate me as enough as I expected. They worshiped my brother, Shining Armor, more. He had been stronger, braver, smarter, everything. They just thought of me as, well as scum. They ignored me and put me aside and talked to me as if I were trash. But when the day came and I was enrolled in Princess Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns, they began kissing up to me. And for what? Just to meet the Princess of Equestria themselves. The ruler who lifted the sun in the daytime and moon in the nighttime.” Suddenly, Twilights eyes grew a little as she talked a little differently, in an inspirational tone. “But then, then there was Princess Celestia. She treated me as if I were a princess myself. She cared for me. She watched out for my safety. She was like the mother I never had but always wanted, unlike my own cruel, selfish mother.” Soon, Twilights head dropped to the ground like before. “But now, now that she’s gone, I feel like a tree without leaves. A flower without pedals. A soul without a heart. She had been everything I wanted in a mother, and yet it all slipped away so soon.” Twilight suddenly fell to the floor, crying. Her hoofs in front of her face to prevent the tears from coming out of her eyes. Apparently, the sudden action had been loud enough for everypony, including Rarity who had been far off exploring the room in the distance, to hear. They all looked at Twilight with both eyes of confusion and eyes of sadness. Nopony dared to talk or ask what had been wrong. Nopony, besides Thunder.

“I know you must feel terrible by now.” Thunder began patting Twilights back as she cried. “But like I said before: You can’t do anything about it. Not even magic can fix something as severe as this. The only thing you can do now is let it go.”

Suddenly, Twilight took her hooves off her face and suddenly dove towards Thunder and wrapped her front hooves around him as she continued to cry.  Thunder had been as shocked as to suddenly jump back, but he soon realized it would make Twilight even sadder. She needed something that would comfort her. Something that would alleviate the pain that she had been dealing with emotionally right now.

“Shh, shh. It’s ok. Everything’s going to be alright.” Thunder whispered to Twilight as he hugged her back. He began stroking her mane gently as he repeated the same words to her while Twilight cried on his shoulder.

“No, no it’s not!” Twilight chocked out. “She’s dead! How can anything be alright?!”

“Umm, I’m not one to invade personal privacy, but what the hay is going on?” Rainbow asked, staying suspended in air above everypony else.

“Can you just give us a moment?” Thunder whispered to Rainbow as he looked up.

There was a moment of silence between everypony as Twilight let out all her mixed emotions inside of her. Her crying began to die down as Thunder kept stoking her mane.

“Any day now.” Strife began to grow impatient. What he got as a response was a bone shattering slap from the back of his head from none other than Rarity herself.

“Ok, ok. I got the message. I won’t disturb them anymore.” Strife began rubbing the back of his head as he swore blood had been coming out of it.

“No, no. It’s alright. I think I’m all better now.” Twilight exclaimed, wiping the teas out of her eyes with her hoof. “Thank you, Thunder.” She thanked him.

“Thank me? What did I do? This was your fight and your problem and you overcame it by yourself.” Thunder mentioned. “So if you should be thanking anypony, it should be yourself.” He said, poking Twilight in the chest.

Twilight giggled a little from hearing this. “Well, it wasn’t all from me.” She told Thunder.

“Can we go now?” Strife complained. “I’m getting tired of hearing all of this.”

“Strife does have a point this one time,” Ace added. We’ve wasted enough time already with the, um, the incident.”

“Hey! What do you mean this one time?!” Strife waved his hoofs in the air angrily.

“Don’t push it,” Ace gave the colt a stern face before looking back at Twilight and Thunder. “We have to hurry up if we want to get back on track.”

“Got it,” Thunder confirmed. Getting back up on all fours, he lent out a hoof to Twilight who accepted it with great pride.

“Great.” Ace announced. “Everypony ready?”

“Since when aren’t we?” Rainbow Dash replied of the group.

“Wait, we’re leaving already?” Rarity asked saddened a little. “Aww, but I didn’t even get to see the vase collection yet!”

“Can it.” Strife told the mare. “I’ve heard enough of your complaining for the next century.”

“Ok, I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s roll!” Ace announced to the group as he galloped out of the long and wide hallway. At the end had been a light door made out of hollow gold and had diamond encrusted edges. Pushing it gently, careful not to damage it or anything, Ace, and the rest of the group passed through. Although, Rarity had a hard time leaving as she literally had to be pulled out by Rainbow Dash.

At the back of the group had been Twilight and Thunder as they walked aside each other, only this time they had been closer than usual. It had been a silent walk until Twilight spoke up.

“Thanks for everything.” With that, Twilight moved in and gave Thunder a quick peck on the cheek, making him blush intensely. Twilight giggled a little from this. It hadn’t been that this had been Thunder’s first kiss, or whatever it had been, but rather that it had been a while that they showed their affection for each other. If Thunder recalled, the last time had been somewhere on the Ark with Twilights horn, which already had recovered tremendously and began working a long time ago again.

“How long have we been traveling for?” Rainbow complained. “Seems like forever.”

“Keep in mind that this castle is the largest castle ever built in the history of Equestria that’s still standing.” Ace exclaimed to Rainbow and the others. “Lucky for me, before the crowning ceremony, they gave me tour of the entire facility and all its secrets, even the underground cavern and mine shafts down below. So, finding Queen Chrysalis and shutting down her army should be no problem for me.”

“Yeah, seeing that we’ve been walking in circles for the past hour really puts my confidence and faith in you.” Rainbow mumbled slightly to herself. Apparently Ace heard her and gave her a disappointed look. “What? It’s true.” She mentioned.

“Never mind. Just forget it.” Ace told her as he looked back in front of himself. He and the rest of the group had been traveling through the hallways of Canterlot Castle. They had been slightly wide, yet long as well, like the Ark. Except the only difference was this place had carpeting over the marble floors as well as a lot of light being provided through the enormous building, allowing it to be easier to see.

“Let there be light.” Strife mumbled to everypony. “Don’t know where that’s from, but I’m saying it.”

“Damn, this place is endless.” Thunder exclaimed. “Feels like the Ark all over again.

“The Ark? Do you mean the Ark Ark? The Ark in space built to keep the toughest and fiercest prisoners once the underground cavern was closed down?!” Ace blurted out.

“Yeah.” Thunder replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason in particular.” Ace responded, looking forward again as he trotted down the halls. “It’s just that I’ve heard of the place. How its organization and brutality make it impossible to escape from.”

“Don’t you mean almost impossible?” Rainbow asked, looking at Ace with a dark smile.

“Wait, what are you inferring?” Ace suddenly realized it and looked at her and the rest of the group with large eyes. “Are you saying you all escaped from the Ark?!”

“We were this close to having our necks split.” Rarity exaggerated. “But we barely made out out safe and well.”

“B-but how did you get into there in the first place?” Ace kept asking away, hungry for more information about the Ark.

“Oh, easy.” Twilight spoke up, no longer sad. “There was a teleported device at ground level just on the outskirts of the Everfree Forest. We used that thing to get into the Ark and we used escape pods to get off. Simple as that.” Twilight made it sound easy, even if it didn’t have.

“Wait, but now I have a question for you.” Rainbow turned to Ace once more. “You’re good with geography and history, correct?”

“Why do you ask?” Ace asked again.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Rainbow began. “You see, how come they have the underground cavern right below us here and also the Ark as a prison as well? Why did they have two super-jails if they couldn’t even fill one up fully? And why in different locations.”

“Oh, silly.” Ace laughed a little. “The underground cavern was built before the Ark was. It was used back in medieval times just right after the unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies made civilization together. Some of them thought a government run by three types of breeds wasn’t suitable and that everything would crumble in the future, so they formed a bio-terrorist group. They trashed buildings, blew up farms and fields, and even murdered innocent citizens. The gang began growing more and more until it had been too much for the guards to handle alone. That’s when the underground cavern came into play. It took all the gang members and sealed them off from the outside world, you know, like we were. But after the medieval times, and the gang died down, everypony soon realized that having a prison right under Canterlot Castle hadn’t been a good idea. What if there had been a breech in security and the prisoners escaped. Then they would make their way up to the castle and it would have been the first thing they would take over and destroy. After realizing that, Princess Celestia, with the help of her sister Princess Luna, formed together an new type of prison far away from any civilization. The Ark. It not only had been an inescapable prison filled with guards lurking though every single hallway, but also having been in space, there was a very unlucky chance of escaping out alive, having the depths of space everywhere and stuff. But then there’s you guys. You five courageous ponies who managed to escape that impenetrable prison. Surely you guys must be as worthy of a god if you were to do such a thing again.”

“Oh, you don’t have to say that.” Rarity looked away as she began blushing a little which had been extremely visible on her pure white coat.

“No, no. Don’t listen to her.” Rainbow Dash told him. “Keep talking.”

“You’re pushing it.” Ace snapped at the cyan Pegasus.

Rainbow chuckled a little sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“It’s ok.” Ace accepted her apology. “So, I think we might be getting close to Chrysalis and her army by now. I think now would be the best time to get everything ready for the final confrontation.

“Aww, yeah.” Strife began cracking his hooves. “I’m gonna break that bitched head open and let her blood spill right out.”

“Just what exactly happened to you?” Rarity asked, a very displeased look on her face.

“What do you mean, what happened?” Strife had been confused.

“I mean, were you dropped on your head when you were a foal or something?” Rarity complained.

“Why would you ever assume something like that of me?!” Strife argued back.

“Are you serious?! Haven’t you noticed yet?” Rarity gave herself a face hoof. “Everything that comes out of your mouth is more than inappropriate. Haven’t you got the slightest bit of realization before?”

“Well, Rarity does have a point.” Twilight agreed. “What you say most of the time isn’t really the cleanest thing ever.”

“Focus, you guys.” Ace announced. “We’re getting close. I don’t want anypony to be talking when we get there or she’ll notice us, got it?”

“Around how close are we to her by now?” Rarity asked, looking ahead of herself.

“Oh, not that close.” Ace mentioned. “Just um, I don’t know, around this corner!” HE whispered to them. “Now be quiet and stay quiet!” With that, Ace popped his head around the corner and looked around at his surroundings.

It had been an enormous throne room with pillars carved out of the finest of gold hanging against the sides. The roof had been the glass that would be found in church with the murals painted onto them as the sun flew directly in. In the center had been a carpet that rolled forward up a few stairs right towards the throne itself, made completely out of the solidest gold in all of Equestria. It would even make the entrepreneurs faint.

“Wow. Celestia must’ve been rich as hell when she built this place.” Ace thought to himself.

In the room, sitting in the throne had been none other than the ungrateful queen of the changelings, Queen Chrysalis. She sat with great poise as she communicated and argued with her subject changelings.

“What do you mean you lost the girl?!” Queen Chrysalis yelled at the two changelings in front of her. The had been standing up on the carpet as she yelled at them.

“Weepy.” Ace whispered under his breath. He knew she had been talking about the sweet, delicate mare that healed him and his wing with her magic more powerful than an alicorn.

All the two changelings did as a response was flap their wings. “It must’ve been their way of communication” Ace thought to himself. Never had he seen a changeling speak before, but that was because they didn’t. They only communicated through the sounds and motions of flapping wings.

“Well then, what are you doing here? Go find her!” Queen Chrysalis demanded. “Just because I’m a beautiful queen doesn’t mean I’m nice. I’ll chop you into bits and feed you to the alligators if you don’t hurry up and find her by midnight!”

Just like that, the changelings dashed out of the room. Lucky for the rest of the group, the hallway split in two, as the changelings both dove left, while the rest of the group had been pressed against the walls of the hallway to the right.

“She’s not nice, and she surely isn’t beautiful.” Ace told himself.

“So, what did you find?” Rainbow Dash had been the first to ask. “Anything interesting?”

“By intersection, do you mean severe? If so, then yes.” Ace informed her.

“So, does that mean we can go and beat the life outta her?” Rainbow Dash asked with pleading eyes. “’Cause staying out here, hiding against a wall while you observe the enemy isn’t really the definition of fun. I want more action and adventure, if you know what I mean.”

“I know, I know.” Ace said over again, still watching what Queen Chrysalis had been up to this time. She had been arguing with another changeling, although this one had a chef’s hat on. Must’ve been the cook. “You can have your fun as soon as the right time comes. But for now, we wait.”

“Oh, alright.” Rainbow Dash gave in as she went back to her position against the wall.

Looking closer, Ace could see the queen had been arguing at this changeling by now.

“Your food makes me want to barf, your plating techniques rethink why I’m even living, your staff is lazy as hell, and that hat makes me want to burn you alive, which I have no problem doing.” Queen Chrysalis criticized the chief changeling. Just like the last changeling, this one flapped it’s wings as Ace swore he apologized in changeling.

“Now, leave my sight and think about what you’ve done.” Queen Chrysalis ordered. Following the given directions, the chief pony dashed off like the other two, taking the same direction, not noticing the group of ponies along the other side of the wall.

“Now that that’s taken care of.” Queen chrysalis reached over and grabbed a little locket and put it in front of herself with her hooves, not considering that she could’ve just brought over the item with her green magic.

“Now what is she doing?” Twilight whispered, still against the wall like ordered.

“I don’t know.” Ace responded to her, still looking from around the corner. “But things are just heating up.”

Putting the locket to eye level, Queen Chrysalis ‘s horn began to lite up as a magical green aura covered her horn as well as the locket itself. Ace hadn’t gotten the slightest clue what she had been doing, but he knew this had been his chance.  This had been is only opportunity, his distraction that he had been waiting for.

Turning back to the group, Ace began to explain the plan. “Ok, here’s how it’s gonna flow. When I give the signal, Rainbow Dash, you dive out there and do a little spin around Chrysalis while she’s still distracted and venerable. Then, once you get her confused and dizzy, Thunder, Twilight, and Rarity. You guys go out and use your magic to hold her down. Rarity the arms and legs, Thunder the body, and Twilight the neck and head. Then, we tell her to spill the beans on what she’s really planning to do with the rest of Equestria and her army of changelings. If she refuses to tell or any of her changelings try and save the day, I give the signal, and Strife here gets the honor of snapping her neck. And down ges the Queen.”

“And you really think that will work?” Twilight looked at him as if he had done something wrong.

“Do you have a better idea?” Ace began grinning. “No? Well then, I guess we go with my idea.”

Popping his head back out to see if Queen Chrysalis still had been distracted, Ace stuck his hoof out, signaling for Rainbow Dash to go and do her part.

“Aww, yeah!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Time to make my move!” With that, Rainbow dashed off around the corner, a light rainbow trail following behind her tail as usual.

Right as she rounded the corner and headed directly for Queen Chrysalis and the throne, picking up more speed as she went, Chrysalis had detected her presence and stopped focusing on the locket and forced her magic upon Rainbow Dash, suspending her in mid-air. The light green aura surrounded her as she had been stuck and unable to move at all.

“Did you really think you can sneak up on me at this time?” Queen Chrysalis looked at Rainbow Dash. “At this time when I possess the throne?”

“Oh, give it up!” Rainbow yelled at her, trying to struggle out of the trap around her. “Once I’m outta this, I’ll blow you to bits!” She threatened her.

“Oh, that’s so funny I forgot to laugh.” Chrysalis mentioned. “But seriously, this surprise part isn’t fair. Why don’t we invite your friends in on it?” Suddenly, Queen Chrysalis activated her dark side as she called out some more orders. “Guards, bring in the prisoners!”

As on cue, tens of hundreds of changeling suddenly surrounded Ace and the rest of the group as they had no choice but to surrender. The changelings began ordering them to enter the room as they did so, not wanting to be hurt or anything.

As Ace and the rest of the group trotted on it, heads down, the changeling shad been surrounding them from left to right, in front and behing. Even some had been flying above hand.

“So much for a working plan.” Twilight mumbled to Ace.

“Ah, so good to see you all again,” Queen Chrysalis began, flying off her throne and onto the luxurious carpet in front of her. “It’s been a while since we last meant, hasn’t it.”

“B-but how did you even find us?” Thunder had been the first of the group to ask.

“Oh, how silly are you to think ou even have the chance of successfully sneaking up on me.” She told them. “I mean, really. I have guards around every corner of the place. They were watching you the entire time. So it looks like I was the one snaking up on you.”

“Doesn’t matter what position we’re in right now.” Strife explained. “I’ll still be the one to whop your ass!”

“Well, who do we have here?” Queen Chrysailis asked, observing Strife from a far. “I’ve never seen you before. Hm, I can see you’ve got a lot of self-confidence in yourself kid. I like that.”

“Wait, what?” Strife asked, confused. He didn’t know if he had been complimented by her, or just plain insulted.

“Now, onto bigger priorities.” Queen Chrysailis turned away and faced the other way. “Guards, all of you, leave my presence.” She pulled her arm and hoof outward, signaling for them to leave.

As commanded, the changeling all left at once, closing the door behind them. All that had been left were Ace and his group, as well as Queen Chrysalis by herself.

Marching slowly back to her throne, the aura around Queen Chrysalis’s horn soon disappeared as the one around Rainbow did too, dropping her to the ground and landing on herself.

“Hey, what’d you do that for?!” Rainbow snapped at her, rubbing her hoof on her head.

“You’ll see.” Queen Chrysalis turned back around till she was facing everypony else and took a seat back on her throne. “Things are about to get interesting.”

“What do you mean by interesting?” Twilight had asked. “And why did you order all your changeling guards to leave all of a sudden?”

All Queen Chrysalis did was grin evilly as she spoke back up again. “Just be patient my dear. For everything will soon make sense clearly.”

Suddenly, Queen Chrysalis’s horn began to glow again as the ends of the room lit on with the sparks of green flames. The entire edge and borers of the throne room had been covered with the eternal flames.

“What the hell?!” Strife shot out. “What are you doing?!”

“Oh, you know. Just setting the border line so there won’t be any interruptions or escaping.” Queen Chrysalis mentioned.

“Wait, what’s going on here?” Twilight asked, scared as to what the answer may be.

Queen Chrysalis’s horn stopped glowing as the flames across the room kept burning. Focusing back on the group of ponies, she resumed the conversation. “Just a simple fight is what I’m looking at here. It’s really simple on how it works. If you win, you can have my throne and my kingdom and banish me out like last time. But if you lose the fight, you lose your life.”

“W-what?!” A completely shocked Rarity stepped back.

“Just a simple fight.” Queen Chrysalis confirmed. “Just all six of you against me. You have the advantage in population and teamwork, and I have the advantage in magic and flying. Now that the rules are established, shall we begin?”

“Hell yeah!” Strife called out. “I’ll do this till the end! I won’t hold back!.”

Ace stuck a hoof out in front of Strife to calm him down. Once he and the rest of the group settled down, Ace spoke up.

“Alright, we’ll take on your challenge.” Ace announced.

“Perfect.” Queen Chrysalis had been adjusting her wings. Looking back at the ponies with one more glance, she spoke once more.

“I want all your love, even if it kills me. Let the games begin, ad let the best pony win!”

What do we have here? A battle for the next chapter, I assume. And this will be the first battle that I wil;l actually write, considering the last one had been written by a fan of the fic. I don’t really know what I’ll have planned out for it, but hey, what’s imagination for anyways?

Still accepting song requests (aren’t getting many lately) ut still n OCs for now. I also want to take the liberty and mention that Ace and Weepy are not going to be a couple in future chapters. It was just an experiment I wanted to see would work out. SO for, it isn’t going so well, and I might have to change my approach for that. Also, I don’t really know what happened at the beginning of the chapter with Twilight breaking into tears and stuff, but I needed to have something fill in the emoy gap of the beginning of a chapter. For those of you out there who write your own fics, you must also know how painful it is to write the beginning of a chapter as well. Take A LOT of effort, doesn’t it. Well, my back is pretty much killing me, so I think I’ll go take a nap. The time’s around midnight and it’s completely dark outside. I think a Creeper is outside my door, trying to compliment my house. I’m out of arrows and diamond swords, so I think I’ll just call it a night and get some sleep. After all, my bed’s looking comfortable right now. (not in a sexual way). So, I guess I’m going. Review, like, favorite, all that shit! Stay tuned as always for the next chapter with the Queen Chrysalis surprise, and even a little something shocking at the end.