Within the bounds of ponyville, I could see what became of canterlot, within days it became a changeling hub, thousands of them seething around the city, much like a wasp nest or a colony of fire ants. Within a week I saw the first bit of hive forming, and within 2 I saw massive clumps of resin like hive structures forming all across canterlot... I dared not look at it any longer, and left to tend to the survivors for today, all had been taken in to one house or another by the inhabitants of the town, or had been set up in hotel rooms... At least friendship still lived on.

After a quick check in with the most in need of help I turned my attention to Nova, she had taken a lot of damage, several new scars on her arms and body, a few lingering cuts and some slowly healing bruises and magic burns, after a quick scan with my magic, even though seeing through the magic resistance was hard, I managed by passively scanning in quick bursts. My scans showed that her body, however it worked, was ruggedly persisting, the many implants and organs were all slowly but surely rebuilding themselves using what little magical energy was left behind to bolster their efforts. To help the process along luna had supplied her with small magic transfusions into her horn every few days, up until now I had never realised how much Luna cared about Nova, now it was pretty obvious, as she probably saw much of herself in the somewhat wayward alicorn; lost, confused, angry, lonely, and also expiriencing a new world to get used to and likely many other feelings as well, the fact that she was related by Dna to her probably heightened the feeling.

She had only awoken 4 times for brief periods in the last few days mostly mumbling about needing to fight back or suddenly talking in some gibberish language that sounded similar to old draconish or griffish, and unfortunately nopony knew when she would wake up again, or what she was saying, so I left her to rest more.

By the time I set the sun, I had lifted my spirits a little bit, a local griffin by the name of Sarah who was probably about 20 years old had adopted a 10 year old colt we brought along, his Father died several days after we escaped the city due to an infected bite wound he had gotten while fighting our final push out of canterlot, his mother was missing and we had suspected the worst. But once we finally reached the little safe haven Sarah had decided to take in the unfortunate colt as her own son, it warmed my heart to see it happen and to see the colt eventually become accustomed to having a griffon as a mother and I retained hope towards winning this ordeal, or that we could at least adapt.

Twilight POV

Over the past few days I was terrified for my life, Chrysalis had invaded canterlot again, but this time she succeeded. The whole town watched in awe as the changelings invaded, all of us were dumbfounded by the defeat of Nova, after a battle on the scale of that of Celestia an nightmare moon, she was defeated and thrown out of the sky as if she was nothing. The day the survivors arrived was the worst by far, seeing the inhabitants of ponyville stare in stunned silence at the broken and badly injured parade trudge into town, I heard the telltale alarm of the hospital staff arriving and then I blacked out, I awoke on a hospital bed with a soft beeping behind my head, after a few days of observation, visited my friends, Unfortunately Rainbow Dash had gotten the worst injuries.

"Hey Twi..." Rainbow sounded raspy and tired, and her face spoke volumes about what she saw. She was bandaged across her stomach, back, arms and her left wing...It broke my heart to see her like this.

"Hey Dash....How Are you?"

"Alive... And feeling Not Awesome...."

"I hope you get better soon...I was just dropping by to say hello"

"Thanks Twi....I...really appreciate it" I said a quick goodbye and left...She seemed....weary, as if she had the weight of the world put on her shoulders, I decided not to press the matter and went to go find the rest of my friends.

2 Weeks Later

I awoke with a huge cramp In my back and a migraine...although it was better than previous attempts...I could think like a more rationally capable person, rather than a derranged rabid spider monkey smoking crack, or a sloth that smoked a bunch of joints, (both of which happened), I looked at my surroundings...I was In a basement...a furnished basement of someones house, next to my bed was a heart rate monitor and a few of the strange equestrian medical instruments I knew all too well from my first few weeks in equestria, My horns were lightly charred but still intact, and my wings were still useable although it would he hard to fly with so many feathers pulled out. I had no idea where my stuff was so I decided to just go upstairs

"Eh...fuck it...I dont give a shit if someone is offended..." And I got up and groggily stumbled up the stairs onto the main floor, I was immediately greeted with a very haggard looking Celestia jumping back in shock.

"Y-you're awake!? Oh Stars...I..I think you should see luna...Ill fill you in with the details once I round up everyone.

"How long was I out?"

"Just over a month...."

"Thanks...uhmm is there anything I can wear for now?"

"Luna Probably has something, Ill tell her to bring it to thd meeting"
****
1 hour later, living room of small house

I sat down in an empty spot on the couch next to a very relieved Luna, I had On a baggy hoodie and a pair of torn up and blood stained Jeans and as of nowa Luna...as she seemed very reluctant to let go now that I sat down.

"Just to ask the million dollar question, what exactly happened after I fought Chrysalis?"

"Although I have No idea what a dollar is, The rest of us evacuated canterlot with a couple hundred others and we trudged here for refuge." Dash said flatly.

" What happened to the rest of the city?"

" Ta put It simply....They're prolly turned inta changelings or dead..."

" Damn....Can't Imagine the aftermath. On the way back from escaping I passed through Horseshoe Prarie...it....wasn't pretty..."

"How many survived?" I heard Twilight ask to my left.

"None....the whole town was dead... Demolished buildings....bodies in the streets.... I left a makeshift headstone for the town and torched it... If you remember the lab invasion, Imagine that 100 Times worse....none of you were there but you probably saw the news..." A quiet wave of internal cringing swept across the room...at least that's what everypony (save mine) looked like.

"You hath fought valiantly... We thank you for that... But we must formulate a plan to retake the castle... Doth thou have any ideas?"

"Uhhmm, Lulu? Dont you think it's a bit premature for that?, She just woke up an hour ago and you're already making plans for a counter attack? Wouldn't it be better for all of us to save that for later?."

"We are sorry we only wished to expedite the, as Nova would say, "beating Chrysalis to a bloody pulp"

"Im all for giving her a boot up the ass but I would have to agree with Celestia, We are still recovering, dash can barely walk, Twilight needs therapy, and Pinkie is uhh...Depressed? So...maybe we should postpone that for a few more weeks.

"By the way Twi...since you have a hard on for lessons, lemme tell you what I learned from fighting Queen Chrysalis,"

"Ooh, Is it something profound?, I once heard that Clover the clever learned something like that!..."

"Its probably not profound but it'll probably keep you alive, I learned that she is a bitch...obviously...and that when you get the chance to kill or capture someone as crazy as her, Do it....If you did that after you defeated her a second time, it would have probably saved a lot of time and casualties.

"Ehhhhh, My bad..." Twilight gave an awkward frown and tried to shrink into the couch a bit.

" We all make mistakes but sometimes you need to accept the consequences of being dumb." After a few more minutes of talking about the tragedy, everyone went off to their business and I was left inside to do the simpler tasks, like helping fluttershy do chores. Celestia proposed an Idea to me before she left to go do something in the market... She wanted me to become part of the family, so that she could keep an eye on me...she also posed the Idea of marrying Luna...I said I would think about it before she left, I didn't like the posh stuff of royalty...I was more for working for my money and doing things myself, and it felt weird to be waited on...somewhat unnerving... What would I even do? Equestria is pretty peaceful save the odd monster or random magic problem...which would make my ability to be a weapon pretty overkill, on the order of killing a Turkey with a Surface to air missile, overkill.

Author's Note

Pretty heavy chapter nut it does have its better moment(s)