Starlight flinched, seeing and feeling a streak of emerald magic miss her nose by centimeters. She ducked under another blast, rolling behind a large tree and struggling to catch her breath.
The magic's source, Queen Chrysalis, didn't pause in her assault, and an explosion collided against the bark, eliciting a sharp crack from above Starlight's cover. The unicorn looked up to see that the tree had been impacted so ferociously that several branches of the tree she was hiding behind had snapped off and were falling right on top of her.
Starlight hurled herself to the side, landing painfully on her backside with an oof. Scrambling back, she soon found herself up against another thick tree. Before she could dart away, Chrysalis landed right in front of her, cutting off her escape. She was trapped.
"Finally, I have you," the changeling ex-queen sneered. "I knew that spreading a rumor that I was hiding in the Everfree would get you to come out looking for me, and here you are."
"Chrysalis, you don't have to do this!" Starlight shouted. "We only want to make peace with you!"
"Peace is for the weak!" Chrysalis shrieked. "That traitor Thorax is only going to lead the changelings to destruction and disgrace! You have doomed them all, Starlight, and whether they are loyal to me or not, they are still my subjects, and I will do everything in my power to make the changelings strong!"
"Please!" Starlight pleaded. "Just listen to reason!"
"The time for reason ended when you stole my kingdom from me!" Chrysalis charged her horn with a green glow. "You'll pay dearly for what you've done, Starlight Glimmer!"
Starlight covered her face with her hooves, hoping her hidden ally wouldn't attack too late.
The unicorn felt a hot beam of energy sear past her and, a moment later, heard Chrysalis yowling. Opening her eyes, Starlight looked to see Chrysalis staggering backwards, her left foreleg steaming and smoking.
Seizing the opportunity, Starlight charged up a spell of her own, striking the changeling queen with a blow to the torso and knocking her back into the branches she'd severed earlier. Flipping back to her hooves, Chrysalis growled as Princess Luna walked over to stand beside Starlight Glimmer.
"You dirty rotten cheater!" Chrysalis seethed. "This was a setup!"
The Princess of the night snorted. "If I heard you correctly, you claimed that luring Starlight to the Everfree Forest was an ambush, so if you take offense to such a strategy being used against you, perhaps you should not use it yourself, hmm?"
The changeling's horn ignited, sending a spray of emerald darts towards the two ponies. Luna lifted a magic shield, dissolving the projectiles into harmless particles.
"Please, Chrysalis, we don't want to hurt you!" Starlight called out. "If you just surrender, nopony will fight you!"
"Never!" Another beam of green deflected off of Luna's magical defenses, sending several birds flying as it ricocheted into the treetops.
Starlight aimed a spell at one of Chrysalis's undamaged hooves, trying to knock her legs out from under her, but the spell missed and shot past her.
A tremor rocked the ground as a deep, resonant boom echoed through the forest. All three equines stopped cold, and looked up.
The tree that Chrysalis had damaged earlier had gotten hit again, and the second spell was too much for its roots to bear. Thousands of leaves rustled and snapped against each other as the trunk collapsed forwards, thundering down to the ground.
Right on top of Queen Chrysalis.
The tree's collision with the ground threw pounds of dirt and plants into the air, and Starlight and Luna covered their eyes, coughing as the cloud of detritus settled around them. Eyes watering, Starlight peered through her tears to try and catch a glimpse of where Chrysalis had dodged.
A head and two hooves poking out from the side of the tree told her that the changeling hadn't dodged.
"Chrysalis!" Trying not to inhale too much of the kicked-up dirt, Starlight made her way to the downed queen, Princess Luna close behind. Starlight grabbed one of her hooves, shaking it and trying to think of a way she could check whether Chrysalis was still alive.
A low whimper came from Chrysalis's mouth, and she cracked her eyelids open, looking up into Starlight's face.
"Heh," Chrysalis said, "this was anticlimactic."
Starlight didn't know what to say. She looked towards Princess Luna, who stared back before shaking her head.
"Listen," the changeling said, her voice croaking, "I need to tell you two something. Something important."
Starlight nodded uncertainly. "Wh... What is it?"
"Come closer..." Chrysalis whispered.
The two leaned in.
"Closer..."
The two bent down so that their faces were only inches away.
"There must always be... a queen..."
In one quick motion, Chrysalis swiped her black crown off of her own head and shoved it on Luna's.
Both ponies flinched back, horns blazing in preparation for defensive spells, but Chrysalis didn't do anything else, flopping back to the ground. Green goop began to ooze from beneath the tree and pool around the changeling.
Chrysalis's mouth twitched, and Starlight could have sworn she was trying to smile. "Thank... you..." Her eyes glazed over, and she fell limp.
Starlight blinked in confusion, turning to the Princess and opening her mouth to ask what that was all about.
She never got it out.
Her eyes bugged, and she staggered away. "Luna, w-what's happening to your wings?!"
Princess Luna, seemingly still shaking off the shock of Chrysalis's last act, whipped her head back to see her coverts molting. Eyes widening, Luna's hooves shot up to the crown that the changeling had placed on her head.
"I can't remove it!" Luna said, worry and panic mixing in her voice.
Starlight activated her magic again, trying to pull it off, but only succeeded in earning a "Yowtch!" from the Princess. The alicorn's wings were now bare, and looked like they were starting to shrink.
"What's happening?!" Starlight asked, alarm leaking into her own tone.
"I don't know! I've never seen this kind of magic before!" Luna hunched over, grunting in pain as her fur darkened. Starlight reached a hoof out towards the princess before she realized that it wasn't her fur that was darkening, it was the skin underneath, and that the fur was actually shedding. Hundreds upon hundreds of midnight blue hairs fell in a ring around Luna, leaving her with a black skin surface that looked as if it was growing thicker by the second.
Realization struck Starlight. "There must always be... a queen..." She glanced at Chrysalis, who hadn't budged an inch from where she'd stopped moving from underneath the tree.
Another cry from Princess Luna shook Starlight Glimmer from her epiphany, and she turned back to see that Luna's back had grown a large green plate across the back, with an abdominal stripe running underneath her stomach. Her mane had stopped flowing in the aether, and was tinting to a queasy sea-green.
Starlight took a step towards the alicorn only for Luna to thrust a hoof into her chest, shoving her to the ground.
"Run, Starlight!" Luna ordered, fangs beginning to show inside her mouth. "Run!"
"No!" Starlight yelled back, getting back on her hooves. "You need help!"
Luna opened her mouth to reply, but only another scream of anguish came out as her legs began to lengthen, pushing her taller. "No, Starlight...! You must run!"
"I won't!" Despite being adamant about staying, Starlight was at a loss for what to do as she watched Luna's mane grow limp, falling down past her shoulders; her tail followed suit, stiffening into points at its end.
Starlight tried to telekinetically remove the crown from Luna's head again, but a couple of moderately strong tugs only added to Luna's screams, and Starlight was afraid of what would happen if she tried to outright sever it.
Luna had grown as tall as Celestia now, her hooves and neck lengthening even as her body and legs thinned. Her wings had become fine enough to appear translucent, and holes were ripping themselves in the membranes as they were in her mane and tail. Her horn warped, growing long and jagged as her ears rotated their auricular joints backwards and began lengthening.
It was too much for Starlight to take. "OK, OK! I'm sorry, I'll go get help!"
She had already pivoted to gallop away when a feeble plea entered her ears. "Please, wait..." Twisting her neck back, Starlight watched as Princess Luna took a clumsy step forward, her legs growing so long that holes had begun to split open in them as well. "Don't leave me..."
Starlight froze, her heart pounding in fear and indecision as Luna's mane unfurled completely, leaving stringy hair that hung limply around her neck. Her muzzle pushed back against her face, leaving her with a shorter, more angular jawline. Her carapace shone as if freshly lacquered. She finally stopped growing, towering over a head taller than Starlight Glimmer.
The transformed princess collapsed to her knees, her head drooping and her breaths coming in ragged gasps. Starlight took a hesitant step closer. "Princess Luna?"
"Hnngnn..." Luna whispered.
Starlight turned her head, perking an ear. "Sorry?"
"Hungry..." Luna looked up at Starlight, tears running down her face. "So... hungry..."
Starlight stared, uncomprehending.
Luna's eyes widened. "You... You have food... You have love!"
Starlight's heart skipped a beat, and she started backing away, not breaking her gaze as Luna's pupils began drawing into slits. "Wait, Luna, it's me! Starlight!"
She was seized in a sickly green glow of magical energy, and brought up to Luna's face. Unable to turn her head away, she watched as Luna's sclera discolored and her irises brightened to a greedy green.
"I need food!" Luna shouted. There was no reason in her eyes. No coherent thought. Only instinct.
Only hunger.
The new changeling queen opened her mouth wide, and a pink stream of energy began to escape from Starlight's body. Panicking, the unicorn tried to break free from Luna's magical grasp, but she'd expended too much of her reserves fighting Chrysalis to overpower Luna, and the uncontrollable princess had her in a death grip. She struggled anyway, trying to wrench herself out of Luna's hold, but after several moments, her efforts combined with the draining of her energy exhausted her.
Feeling her life force slipping away, Starlight didn't notice at first her fur curling up and dropping off her body. Fighting to stay conscious, Starlight watched as her hooves began to harden and darken just how Luna's had. No way... Starlight could barely move any more, so tapped were her magical and emotional stores. But Luna kept sucking her energy away, from some source deep inside her she'd never known about before.
That's when she felt it.
The Hunger.
It started as an insistent poke, the sensation Starlight regularly got around lunchtime whenever she skipped breakfast, but this time she didn't want to eat anything... or at least, not the kind of food she usually ate. She felt a void growing in her, an empty, ravenous vacuum whose demands for sustenance only grew louder the longer Luna siphoned away her energy. She watched the pink streaks of her soul fly into Luna's fanged mouth, barely registering that her own hooves were completely black now, and filled with holes. She hardly even noticed when her vision flickered before bursting into many more colors than she'd ever been able to process before. The feeling of delicate wings on her back flicking open escaped her.
Compared to the Hunger, everything else happening to her seemed unimportant.
Slowly, Starlight's pink stream slowed to a trickle, and finally became mere droplets as Luna finished devouring every ounce of love in Starlight's body. The two collapsed to the ground.
Starlight's hunger pounded in her ears with every beat of her heart, demanding that she feed or die. Clutching her altered stomach, Starlight unsteadily got to all fours, struggling to think clearly. So hungry... So, so hungry...
"Aaaaaagh," Luna groaned, cradling her head with her front hooves. If Starlight Glimmer hadn't seen her transformation firsthoof, she would have mistaken the princess for Queen Chrysalis; she was a carbon copy of the late changeling, down to a voice that always carried an undertone of cruelty no matter what was said. "I just devoured a great amount of love... so why am I still so famished?"
Between her throbbing headache and the needles sinking themselves into Starlight's gut, Starlight remembered something Queen Chrysalis had told her during a separate confrontation. She swallowed nervously and said around her new fangs, "The hunger of the changelings can never be sated..."
The new queen wailed, a long, torturous cry that sent chills down Starlight's spine. She looked up at Starlight before flinching and glancing away from her. "What has happened to us...?"
Starlight, still fighting to ignore the painful gnawing inside her, helped Luna back to her hooves, and the two stared at each other, queen and drone, standing in the middle of the Everfree.
"What do we do?" Starlight asked, wanting nothing more than to find the nearest pony and get something in her stomach. Her emptiness was the angriest agony she'd ever endured, and she didn't want to suffer it for another second if she didn't have to.
Luna looked back at the fallen tree, and the body of Chrysalis. "I do not know... but we must decide quickly."
"Ponyville," Starlight said. "We can tell Twilight Sparkle what happened."
Luna licked her lips. "Would she believe us? Starlight and Princess Luna disappear after pursuing Queen Chrysalis into the Everfree forest, and Queen Chrysalis and a drone emerge. I'm not sure if we could convince them otherwise before things got ugly."
Starlight pointed to the tree. "We could take Chrysalis's body to confirm our story!"
Luna nodded, and trotted over to the corpse, but the moment she placed a hoof on it the chitin crumbled into dust and ash, leaving nothing but heaps of crumbly black solids floating in viscous green fluid. The two stood there, stunned. Luna looked over at Starlight, her mouth working but no words coming out.
The hunger raked at Starlight's sides again. "We should go to Ponyville anyway! Fluttershy lives on the edge of the forest, we can try to convince her!" And if not, she'll still have plenty of love for me to feast on! "I'm going to go crazy if we stay here one more second! I'm so hungry! I need to eat, now!"
The queen exhaled slowly through her nose. "I suppose now is the time for action, not planning. Let us go."
The new changelings quickly moved off into the wilds, leaving the area silent once again. A breeze flitted through the branches, scattering the remnants of Chrysalis, and as the wind blew her remains every which way, they seemed to sigh out a message as they flew through the boughs:
"The old queen is dead. Long live the queen."
