Path up to The Ruler

The day after.

As it felt like things were becoming better, it weren’t. Unknown hooded figure arrived to Ponyville, it was a tall mare, taller than Celestia. The hood was covering mostly everything, but glowing green eyes and black hooves. With every horrific hoofstep squeak she brought fear to everypony as she was walking through Ponyville towards Princess Twilight Sparkle’s castle.

-

As she was searching the empty castle for Twilight, disturbing the silence with her hoofsteps, she was opening doors finding nothing.

Finally she reached the library door. The door was locked, unlike all others she opened. She tried to budge it open, but it gave no results.

Door unlocked, not because of the mysterious hooded mare’s efforts, it was unlocked from inside. As soon as door opened, Twilight grabbed the intruder with her levitation spell. “I’m not deaf.”

Twilight removed the hood tossing it away. The mysterious hooded mare was Chrysalis – Queen of changelings. But she was different than when Twilight last encountered her: bigger, stronger, crumbly – her bone joints were weaker, holes bigger.

Twilight released Chrysalis throwing her across the room. “What do you want? There must have been a reason for you to go through such trouble for me.”

Chrysalis stood up. “Please, I’m here to ask your assistance.”

“Why should I assist you?

“Because my castle – my hive will be destroyed if you don’t.

“Why’s it being destroyed? How’s it possible anyways? There must be countless numbers of changelings. I’ve been there with my friends before.”

“It was months ago. I was stupid then, my ego and ignorance wanted Equestria, perfect plan failed because of it. After it I wised up. It’s pretty empty there now.”

“How about the ponies you kidnapped to lure us then?”

“It was a follow up of my stupidity after the wedding. I let my emotions overtake me, consequently failing yet again.”

“I still don’t understand why would you need my help?”

“Look at me. How do I look?”

“Different?”

“Exactly.”

“What does that have to do with you needing my help?”

“You haven’t researched that yet? I’ll have to explain everything for you to understand, and really I can’t waste too much time on that right now.”

“Just tell me who is trying to destroy your castle?

“Celestia is trying to wipeout our race.”

“Why? What have you done to push her to this?”

“Nothing, she decided that on her own. It’s the best time to do so. After we declared peace, we were required to stay low. Because of that we were starving and couldn’t reproduce. I came here, Princess Twilight Sparkle, to ask your help. I offer you good, close connection with me and changelings – a friendship. If you agree to help, we must leave at once. Any questions you may have I’ll be answering on the way.

“Ok, I agree. Lead the way,” Twilight took no hesitations.

Twilight and Chrysalis left.

-

During the downtime while flying, Chrysalis as promised was answering Twilight’s questions.

“…Can you expand on your evolution?” Twilight continued asking.

“Ok. This stage of evolution is called an Elder, last time we met I was in a stage known as the Queen. Evolution stages are as follows: Hatchling, then a Kid, a Teen, an Adult, the Queen, an Elder and lastly the Ancient. We feed on love, that’s how we reproduce. When we starve, that’s what we currently are, we can’t reproduce. Starving changelings become weaker and can potentially die. Leaders, that’s currently me, when starving evolve faster and become stronger.”

“If you’re becoming stronger when starving isn’t it a better idea to starve yourself and feed your changelings to reproduce?”

“It’s not that simple, with every evolution my control over changelings differs: When I was a teen and a kid changelings were protecting me. I grew fast, because of the lack of food – love we had. During my adult days I learned to interact with my changelings, little games became real training. I felt a mother-children relation with them. I understood what condition we were in and that we had to do something. When I became the Queen I had full control over my changelings. Now as Elder I do not, changelings obey me only if it does benefit them as well. Currently I’m helping them defend their home – the hive with my warfare strategy lead. When I’ll become the Ancient I’ll lose all control and influence on changelings.”

“That’s sad, but if that’s true then there’s nothing that could be done.”

“There is a way I’ll explain it when we get there it’s not far anymore. But for now I suggest you looking below for any potential crossfire coming our way.”

Below there was a battlefield, changelings were clearly outnumbered by Celestia’s troops. There were no troops of Luna’s.

“Why aren’t changelings shapeshifting into enemies to confuse them or into stronger beings to overpower them?”

“There are limitations: they cannot use magic while disguised, of course it could confuse enemies, but it won’t be too effective, also changelings can’t transform into anything way bigger or way smaller than themselves.”

“There’s Celestia alone engaging a dozen of changelings. Shouldn’t we send all of the changelings to attack her? That way we could defeat their leader and win.”

“We are defending – holding our ground, delaying them. The top Elites are fighting Celestia. If I was to send all my troops against her it would be suicidal, we must prevent them from advancing towards our hive… And here we are.”

Twilight and Chrysalis arrived. The place looked horrible: dead trees, green polluted river, fungus overgrown on castle ruins, and a mist. Fresh air would had been ideal for Twilight after a very fast flight, but the air wasn’t nice, it was hard to breathe.

“Come,” Chrysalis invited Twilight into her hive.

Chrysalis was leading Twilight through sticky, stinky, maze-like facilities. They reached the heart of the hive. It was filled with changeling cocoons.

Chrysalis stopped near the biggest cocoon there was. “This is the only option for us to survive.”

“A mega changeling?” Twilight asked.

“You could say that. It’s my daughter. She’ll continue to rule after me. When she hatches I’ll become the Ancient – strong enough to defeat Celestia or anypony else and defend her. I never knew my mom, that’s also why I failed as a Queen. I won’t allow her make the same mistakes I did, I’ll raise her to become the best mother for changelings there was. Celestia knows this and wants her killed before she could hatch.”

“How can I help you?”

“One of your friends told me of your new powers, and how did you used them on Celestia and your friends. I need you to use it on the enemy.”

“That’s why you asked my assistance?”

“You are the only one who would understand me, that is why you’re titled Princess of Friendship.”

“There are limitations to my abilities. It’s fact that I learned a lot of very powerful forbidden magic, but I’m too weak to use most of it.”

“Just one – your fear control, I would like you to use it on our enemies. It would destroy their spirit or at least delay them.”

“I’m unable to cast it at such scale, there’s thousands of enemies. If I used it on some of them, the spell can be broken easily by others. If I used it on Celestia I’m sure she’s prepared a counter-spell to dispel it easily, last time it succeeded was only because she wasn’t aware of it, now she is.”

“So, it’s useless. What else can you do?”

“Teleportation, levitation, shield, variety of projectile attacks with my horn, melee.”

“So, the basics – nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Another hoof to the battlefield can make all the difference, and I won’t say you’ll be useless. I have something to gift you.”

Chrysalis leaned her head to Twilights, touched Twilight’s horn with hers. Twilight felt insane rush of electricity-like impulses through her whole body collapsing her off her hooves. Chrysalis gifted Twilight power, her eyes obtained chameleon-green shine indicating that.

“What was that?”

“More power for you. Now you can distinguish changelings even when they are disguised. It also enchants your current physical and magical abilities. However you can use it only as long as I’m alive and it also needs fuel – love, you’ll have to feed it, but don’t worry, knowing how much everypony admire you it’s not a problem at all.”

“I… Thank you…” Twilight was highly surprised receiving this from her. She matured and really changed for the better.

“Now let’s join the battlefield. We’ll go after Celestia, my elites could use some time out.”

“You haven’t told me how long do we have to delay them before she hatches?”

“You haven’t asked. Since we’re starving I’ll say three more hours.”

Both of them left the castle and went into battlefield after Celestia.

-

“Squad Alpha, regroup in the castle and hold that position until later order. We’ll take her from now on.”

Elites were severely injured, such orders were a blessing for them, and they hovered back to castle. Celestia was barely scratched, just as much as she was by Chrysalis before she left for Twilight’s help. Celestia seemed rested, as if fighting them was playing around while she was recovering from previous battle against Chrysalis.

“You finally returned and brought Twilight with you.”

Celestia burst into flames, in response Chrysalis emitted green, skin chafing, glowing smoke, and they both began exchanging shots with their horns in the sky. It was dangerous and pointless for Twilight to engage Celestia with melee attack or stick close to Chrysalis. Providing flanking attacks and backstabbing Celestia were the best options to take, but even then Twilight’s attacks won’t do too much of impact even if they hit. Talking Celestia out from attacking was also pointless—what to do—Twilight had no strategy.

As Twilight was deep in her thoughts Chrysalis and Celestia were deep into fighting and entirely ignoring Twilight. Both of them were equally matched: Chrysalis with her powerful flying skills was dodging all Celestia’s attacks. Celestia was nullifying all Chrysalis attacks with fire barriers and then counterattacking.

Twilight got behind Celestia, formed sharp and strong projectile knives with the same spell for shields. She threw these at Celestia, but they evaporated before they could hit her. Twilight tried to shoot some magic strikes with her horn, but these got consumed by the fire. Twilight felt completely useless.

Then Twilight remembered Chrysalis gift – power. That opened her more possibilities to plan her attacks. The plan was simple – break Celestia’s wings, if she succeeded it could help them win, if it failed, well at least it was worth a try.

Chrysalis began to pant, she was getting tired faster than Celestia was, that's obvious considering Chrysalis moved (flew) more than Celestia did.

Twilight flew to Celestia as close as it was safe enough to. She had to do that quickly, or else Celestia would notice her. It also was possible to get hit by Chrysalis crossfire, but Celestia was absorbing all Chrysalis attacks into her fire barriers so it was mostly safe from any of it.

Twilight concentrated all her focus into implementing her plan. In an instant she used most of her levitation strength on Celestia’s right wing joints. It didn’t break them, but it was enough to pull a muscle and send her falling to the ground hitting it with a boom. It wasn’t a big drop.

Chrysalis and Twilight followed Celestia to the ground. Her flames disappeared, she seemed hurt.

“You lost,” Chrysalis announced.

“Yes, it seems I did.”

Chrysalis was about to end Celestia with a hoof stomp, but got interrupted by Twilight giving Celestia some questions, and she backed off. ”Why are you attacking changelings?”

“Isn’t it obvious? They are weak. It’s the best time to attack them before they get any stronger.”

“But you had declared a peace with them, why destroy it?”

“You know nothing about being a good leader. Why share the land with some abominations that could potentially endanger my own well-being. Striking them when they are weak, just before they could become any stronger, is necessary. You, young one, don’t think about the future. Eliminating potential threats ensures safer future.”

“How can you speak of such words? You mustn’t view other races as potential threat, you must view them as potential allies.”

“Why are you defending them? They attacked us during your brother’s wedding. Unless you are here to use their power and conquer Equestria for yourself, I cannot let you.”

Celestia burst into flames once again forcing Chrysalis and Twilight to take cover. She spread her wings and dashed towards castle emitting toxic smoke trace behind herself, preventing Chrysalis and Twilight from instantly following her, and left them coughing.

When Chrysalis and Twilight escaped the smoke they saw Celestia heading towards the castle. “We need to spot her,” Twilight shouted.

“You go join the others in the battlefield, maybe you’ll be more of use there. I’ll go after her. When you and Discord both are done join me,” Chrysalis ordered Twilight in anger. She was angry at Twilight for letting Celestia trick them.

Both of them separated.

-

Celestia arrived to caste. She was devastated by it—how could anything live here—Alpha squad greeted her with an attack. She easily defeated and killed all of them.

An idea of destroying the castle and allowing it to collapse on itself crossed Celestia’s mind, but after several failed attempts – blasting it with her magic, she gave up, the castle stayed intact. Then she tried to fill it with fire and burn it inside-out, but that also didn’t work, inside was too humid for fire to spread. She had to proceed inside.

The castle was like a maze. Celestia wandered lost in it for some time cursing every minute of being there. Atmosphere was disgusting, everything seemed the same: colors, facilities, mazes within mazes, abnormal construction defying laws of gravity. Occasionally she spouted anger and unleashed fire, but again all of it was useless.

Celestia’s expedition around the castle hadn’t lasted for too long as Chrysalis found her. “Sunburns!”

“You filth!” Celestia exchanged insult with Chrysalis and marched into an attack.

The arena (the room) they were in was too small for any aerial combat. Celestia and Chrysalis both spread their dangerous spells filling the whole arena. Celestia’s fire and Chrysalis’s smoke mixed with each other and nullified themselves. Arena got filled with green-burning-smoke-mix covering most of the view within it. Celestia and Chrysalis jumped into melee fight beating the heads of each other with their bare hooves and shooting random missiles from their horns into every direction missing the target.

Both Celestia’s and Chrysalis’s melee skills were mostly equally terrible – failing to dodge or parry opponents attacks. Celestia however had better stamina and resistance to such attacks than Chrysalis did thus eventually turning tides in her favor against Chrysalis.

Celestia noticed that Chrysalis was beginning to lose her strength and her body began to crumble, she took more concentrated attacks into the areas where Chrysalis began to crumble thus delivering more devastated damage to her.

Chrysalis couldn’t bared any more of the pain and fainted. Celestia was victorious and not too badly hurt either: a few contusions from Chrysalis blows and a lot of minor bruises from rolling all over the arena during the fight, but she was very tired.

She looked at what was left of Chrysalis and then put a hoof into her face totally crushing the skull and killing her. “What a waste of an hour.”

Twilight with Discord teleported into the arena dispersing the green-burning-smoke-mix with the wind they dragged in with their teleportation. Celestia was tired enough for Twilight to be a match, and with Discord’s help – a guaranteed victory. Chrysalis was dead.

“You… You… You killed her!” Twilight screamed in agony and was just about to jump and attack Celestia for that, but managed to contain herself for the response.

“Yes, now get out of my sight while I finish what I’m here to do.” Celestia spoken as if she was in most perfect condition to continue fighting, she wasn’t.

“I hate you!” Twilight used levitation to push Celestia into a wall and then into the ground. Jumped on her and started beating Celestia’s head with her both front hooves with all the strength she was able to summon at that time.

Twilight could only kept it for roughly five minutes before she fainted and collapsed from exhaustion. Her front hooves were filled with blood, not Celestia’s blood, but her own, her hooves very bleeding. Celestia wasn’t too affected by Twilight’s weak attacks. She took these five minutes to rest.

Discord did absolutely nothing, not even reacting to what was happening, just standing behind Chrysalis corpse.

Celestia got on her hooves pushing exhausted Twilight off her. “This was pathetic, Twilight, you’re useless without your Rainbow Powers.”

That was true. Twilight could had planned a better attack than this, but instead she was consumed by anger.

“Now you, Discord,” Celestia gave Discord a threatening smile.

Discord snapped fighters three times: the first removing Celestia’s horns and wings, the second imprisoning her into a cell cage he created, with the third he disappeared.

“Just perfect,” Celestia was mad. She could dispel Discord’s magic and regain her wings and horns, but not it the state she was in. Discord clearly gave Twilight time to regain consciousness and delay Celestia more.

-

“What… I… What happened?” Twilight woke up.

Celestia was still in the cage. “I killed Chrysalis, you attacked me, hurt yourself doing so and passed out, Discord locked me in here and left.”

“Why did you?” Twilight was just about to stand and attack Celestia once again, but pain from badly hurt front hooves prevented her.

“I already told you why. I want to ask you, Twilight, why did you abandon me and everything I taught you? You read forbidden books, learned forbidden spells, used it on your best friends and me, now you’re helping an enemy fight us. You’re not the Princess of Friendship to anypony, especially not me.”

“This isn’t true I—”

“It is true, even now I see a green shine in your eyes, it’s obviously from her.”

That let Twilight to remember, that the power she gifted to Twilight will only work if she’s alive. It did work, she was still alive, but in no condition to move, or breathe. Twilight burst in tears of happiness.

For Celestia these tears seemed sad so she continued “hurting” Twilight’s feelings even more, “I had many students that failed me, you personally know Sunset Shimmers. You’re different than them, you reached the level that none of them did, that’s why you’re the biggest threat. Even now before my eyes you’re building relations with the enemy and gaining power. What’s your goal? Total control? Total destruction? Enslavement? Something else or everything and then some more?”

During her monologue she regained wings and horn. “I’m done.” She broke the cell. “Now onto finding and destroying that hatchling.”

“You’re quite too late.” Celestia got hit and pressed into wall by something massive and strong. It was Chrysalis: stronger, a whole head bigger than Celestia and twice the size of Twilight, crushing her. “You lost. You deserve to die for what you did.”

“Stop! Please don’t! Chrysalis, release her,” Twilight begged Chrysalis.

Chrysalis was hesitated to release her, but did so anyways. “Why? You know what she did, that’s what she deserves.”

“Yes I know, but killing her will only make her into hero, a hero that fought brave battle for the better future of Equestria. It would also encourage followers of hers to try and constantly attack you.”

“So what? I’ll kill them all.”

“You’re acting even worse than when you were the Queen.”

“I’m not, I… You are right… But that’s the only way. If I don’t kill her, she would attempt to attack again.”

“And every time she would you’re going to defeat her now that you’re this strong.”

“You’re right Twilight, I’m sorry.” Chrysalis withdrew from Celestia.

Celestia just laughed at what she saw and heard. “I haven’t lost. I failed to destroy the hive, but my plan succeeded – I have proof that Twilight is evil, she helped our enemy win, everypony is going to know this. You’re going to lose all respect and honor.”

“I’m going to kill you!” Chrysalis roared at Celestia.

“Even if you did it won’t change a thing, every soldier fought here will tell, and Twilight was right, if I die here I’ll become a hero.”

“There is nothing we can do,” Twilight teleported everypony in the room into the battlefield.

“Oh here you three are. You’re in time, I just finished my art.” It was big sculpture of Discord’s head made out of Celestia’s solders, exactly all of them.

“Release them, Discord. They are leaving,” Twilight ordered Discord.

“But I worked so long on it.”

“Now!”

“Fine. You’re no fun, Twilight.” Discord snapped his fingers and released everypony.

“Listen everypony,” Twilight was hovering in air. “This pointless attack wasn’t necessary and could have been avoided. I can assure there’s no threat of changelings invading ever again. Celestia herself destroyed the peace they declared with the changelings and attacked them. I want to declare peace between changelings and everypony else once again.”

“Peace with that monster? No way!” random pony shouted, others agreed with him. Then uncontrollable swarm of insults towards Chrysalis began.

“Shut up!” Chrysalis shouted bringing shivers and fear to everypony. Soldiers went mute. “If I was such a monster, I would have killed you all! Now leave and never return.”

Every soldier and Celestia left, they were injured, but nothing severe compared to changelings (or what was left of them anyways).

Twilight fell and collapsed on herself crying. “She’s right. There is nothing I can do. She won. We defended against her. I lost.”

“I’m sorry, Twilight, I brought you into this,” Chrysalis apologized.

“It’s not your fault, you didn’t know… It was her perfect plan succeeding.”

“At least our hive is saved. You should meet my daughter, I’m sure that would cheer you up a bit.”

“I suppose.”

“Let me get you all there in a first class.” Discord snapped his fingers and teleported all three of them to heart of the hive through chaotic theme park teleportation spell of his. Chrysalis was highly annoyed by it, Discord was happy and entertained, Twilight was sad.

They arrived. The biggest cocoon busted. Little hatchling was adorably failing to keep her balance on slippery surface she hatched into. Chrysalis levitated her higher, the little hatchling seemed to enjoy it like a game. She looked just like her mom: black, green eyes, green hair, but not entirely, her mane hair endings purple, her mane also reminded more so of Twilight’s style.

“Isn’t she cute?” Chrysalis asked Twilight.

“She is.”

“She looks just like you and me.”

“Yes she does… What do you name her?”

“Her name is Amethyst.”

“It’s pretty.”

-

Twilight and Discord returned to Ponyville. As they were hovering everypony gave them “the looks”.

“They know, don’t they?” Twilight asked obvious question.

“They do.” Discord answered Twilight’s obvious question.

“News spread fast.”

“Yes.”

“We returned a day later than Celestia and her troops did.”

“We did, but rest was needed, especially for you.”

“My hooves still hurt. I still can’t touch the ground with them. Bandages don’t help easing the pain.”

“They don’t, but time does.”

Both reached Twilight’s castle. There were six ponies waiting their arrival – five Twilight’s best friends and Luna. But they weren’t giving Twilight and Discord “the looks” that everypony else did, their expression was somewhat worrying and rather sad.

“Welcome back,” Luna greet Twilight and Discord.

“Hi Princess, girls,” Twilight responded.

Pinkie Pie jumped onto Twilight knocking her off hovering mode. “I know this isn’t true what Celestia said. I know why you did it. You wanted to save your friend, Chrysalis.” Other five agreed with Pinkie.

“Thank you all. But that’s only six ponies here thinking that way. The rest believe Celestia.”

“Seven,” Luna corrected Twilight. “Trixie is in need of your and my assistance with her nightmares. She was messing with unknown magic and brought unusual and dangerous nightmares upon herself.”

“Sure I’ll help her. But for now leave me alone until it’s nighttime. I’ll be in my library.”

Twilight entered her castle. Inside was destruction: everything what could be broken was broken, paintings and words in red and black cursing Twilight and what she did, trash and litter everywhere. Clearly somepony vandalized her castle. “I can’t bother. Spike will fix this, wherever he is again.” Twilight hovered to the library and locked herself in.