Chapter Seven

A biting chill swept through the darkness which had consumed Twilight Sparkle. Her head throbbed with a terrible ache, but her thoughts were a little less foggy. She slowly raised heavy eyelids, bleary and dazed. The world was hazy and indistinct for a few moments, but soon her vision sharpened.

She was no longer out in the ravine. Instead, she and the others were inside the cave which sheltered the Tree of Harmony. The Tree itself looked as it always had, glittering and crystalline and flawless. Silvery mist hung in the air here as well, though not nearly as thickly as it had outside. The ethereal vapor maintained even now the spell which prevented Twilight from using her magic and kept her friends unconscious.

The buzzing of wings from the cave mouth alerted Twilight first. She tried to push herself up, to stand and face the changelings before they descended on her friends again, but the pervading mist sapped all strength from her limbs. Twilight Sparkle was only able to achieve a sitting position, but she held herself upright with all the dignity befitting a Princess of Equestria.

The black form of Queen Chrysalis appeared, flanked by a pair of changelings. She alighted nimbly on the stone floor before the Tree of Harmony. Her eyes retained that unnatural black glow, those streaming shadows. Chrysalis regarded the Tree with a faint smile upon her lips, and then she turned to Twilight.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked the Changeling Queen. “I expected more of a challenge, really. I never thought getting here would be so easy.” She chuckled darkly.

“You won’t succeed,” Twilight countered.

“But I already have,” responded Chrysalis. Then she tilted her head to one side, as if a thought had just occurred to her. “Oh, that’s right… I nearly forgot.” Her sickly green aura pulsed around her twisted horn, and a ray of magic struck the Tree.

The air shimmered, blurring the Tree. When the mirage fell away, the healthy, pristine Tree of Harmony was no more. Instead, there now stood a Tree whose crystal was dull and swimming with shadows. Veins of black and red clawed up the trunk and along the branches like poisonous spider webs, pulsing. Cracks like wounds had split across the carvings of the moon and sun, bleeding acrid smoke.

The Tree of Harmony was dying.

Horror, terror, pain, sorrow—they all flooded Twilight’s heart at the sight. She wrenched her gaze away, forcing herself to remain calm. She would not give Chrysalis the pleasure of seeing how truly shattered and hopeless she felt inside. “Don’t you have better things to do than gloat?”

“But of course,” replied Chrysalis, walking over to Twilight. She looked haughtily down at the fallen princess and crooned, “Tell me where you hid them.”

“What?”

Chrysalis scowled darkly, sneering. “Don’t play coy with me! I know you’ve hidden them somewhere!”

“Hidden what?” asked Twilight Sparkle, completely bewildered.

Queen Chrysalis’s magic blazed to life as she took a threatening step closer. “You try my patience, princess,” she warned, voice low and venomous. “Answer me! Where are your precious Elements?”

Comprehension flickered amidst Twilight’s muddled thoughts. She felt a confident smile tug at her lips and a new strength rise in her heart. “The Elements of Harmony are everywhere,” stated Twilight boldly, meeting Chrysalis’s black stare unwaveringly. “If you cannot find them, you are not meant to have them. Only those with friendship in their hearts will ever know the true power of the Elements. You will never know it.”

Chrysalis bared her fangs in a snarl, her magic spitting and sparking almost as much as her own fury. “Fine,” she hissed, summoning new waves of mist. “I do not need the Elements to claim what’s rightfully mine. By dawn, your precious Harmony will be nothing but a withered dream.” Queen Chrysalis buzzed into flight and departed, her changeling guards following close behind.

Twilight Sparkle glanced up at the tainted Tree as the fresh mist swirled around her, drawing her deeper into the folds of unconsciousness. There was no doubt that Chrysalis’s new, evil power was killing the Tree of Harmony, but Twilight did not feel fear or despair now.

She felt hope.

*

Queen Chrysalis hovered in the starry sky far above the Everfree Forest. The land was spread before her like a canvas beneath the shadowed dome of night. From this height, she could see across the Everfree treetops to the castle reigning over Ponyville, and beyond to the rolling hills and mountains. Canterlot was an indistinct smudge on the horizon, barely perceptible but there nevertheless.

She turned to her subjects, sweeping her gaze over the hovering ranks of the changeling army she had rallied for this very moment. They looked upon Chrysalis with worship in their eyes and devotion in their hearts. The buzz of their beating wings and the rasping of their whispers drowned out the normal nighttime noises of the forest below, replacing fiddling crickets and hooting owls with a changeling symphony.

“The time has come, my subjects,” announced Queen Chrysalis, voice ringing through the night. “We have waited in the shadows long, but we shall wait no more. We found Equestria’s greatest defense and shattered it! It’s time to take back what was ours so long ago! It’s time to feed on these pathetic ponies’ love, feed like we never have before! These are their final hours! Tomorrow, the dawn shall break upon a new empire—the Changeling Empire!”

The changelings roared in response, cheering, frenzied.

Queen Chrysalis summoned an emerald bolt of lightning from the clear sky. The air itself trembled with the force of the jagged bolt’s screaming crack. The changelings unleashed wild howls and screams of delight.

Chrysalis smiled. Equestria’s end had begun.