Everything around her burns
Celestia beat her wings steadily as she scanned the foothills beneath her. It was a rough patch of land that Chrysalis had chosen for their meeting. Sandy dirt covered the ground, broken up by the occasional gnarled tree. She could see one small river, but it was clear that this was a desert, and the beating sun overhead left no doubt. There wasn’t a sign of civilization around for miles. Hundreds of miles, to be precise. The only point of reference was a long chain of mountains going from horizon to horizon.
No wonder Chrysalis had chosen this place to hide.
The Princess of the Sun looked back at the two pegasus guards who had accompanied her. The heat was making them both sweat, but they stoically ignored it and continued to scan the ground below, looking for threats. Celestia slowed to a hover. “Thank you both for accompanying me here. Remain vigilant; Chrysalis has betrayed our trust before.”
The guards both nodded and said, “Yes, princess.”
The trio came down for a landing amid the desert brush. A few small lizards scrambled away from them, but all was calm otherwise.
Her guards did a remarkable job of appearing relaxed and professional, but Celestia could see the slight tension all over their bodies. They were afraid, as any reasonable creature should be when confronting a foe like Chrysalis. The two of them couldn’t possibly defeat her if she chose to attack. It would take unbelievable luck to even annoy her.
Celestia could have brought several legions of guards with her, but she knew numbers wouldn’t make a difference. It would only give Chrysalis more victims to drain. Besides, Chrysalis had sent that letter begging for a chance to surrender and show that she was ready to be reformed. Arriving with an army wouldn’t exactly send the right message.
And so Celestia stood among the dirt and plants, with a mere two guards, tossing the dice yet again that an old foe could become a new friend. “Chrysalis,” she called, “I’ve come as you requested. Allow me to be the first to welcome you as a citizen of Equestria.”
“A mere citizen?” a voice echoed around them, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. “Is that really the kind of honor a queen deserves?”
Those weren’t the words of a repentant villain. Celestia wasn’t surprised. “And what kind of honor did you have in mind?” She asked. “I am certain we would be able to grant you what you deserve.” Like a future as a petrified lawn ornament.
There was a flash of light, and Chrysalis appeared in front of the group. Green energy surrounded her like a sickly halo, so powerful that the plants around her began to wither. “A queen deserves respect,” Chrysalis said, her lips pulling back to reveal sharp teeth. “Such as all those of lesser rank bowing in her presence.”
Definitely not the words of a repentant villain. “Respect for a title must be earned or it is meaningless. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Chrysalis smirked. “Then allow me to earn it.” Her eyes began to glow. “Bow.”
The word slammed into Celestia and her guards like a physical thing. Both guards buckled under its weight, dropping to the ground. Even Celestia felt her legs tremble slightly.
“I believe I’ll remain standing,” Celestia said as casually as she could. Showing any weakness would be a dangerous mistake. “You seem as though you’re eating well. Was it anyone I would know?” Chrysalis could never pass up the opportunity to brag, and any information about her victims would help when it came time to rescue them.
Chrysalis glared at her for a moment, then her anger evaporated back into that smug expression she’d been wearing before. “A whole town of your precious little ponies about a day’s flight from here.”
Celestia wasn’t familiar with any towns in the area. She made a mental note to seek it out with an army of relief workers as soon as things were finished here.
The queen’s smile turned feral. “Do you know the best way to bring out the love in ponies? Feed off one of them while the others are forced to watch. Their love grows so strong as they watch their friends and family scream in pain.” She licked her lips. “It makes them all the more delicious to consume next.”
The two guards slowly pushed themselves off the ground, glaring daggers at the changeling queen. They were too disciplined to speak up or break formation, but Celestia could see the muscles standing out all over their bodies as pure hatred flashed in their eyes. She knew they’d gladly attack Chrysalis right then, even knowing she would defeat them both.
Celestia extended her wings and touched each of the guards on the shoulder. “Return to the outpost as quickly as you can,” she said. “I will meet you there shortly.”
“But princess,” one of them said, “we can’t-”
“Go,” Celestia said firmly. “I will be fine.”
The guards exchanged unsure looks, but then they bowed.
“As you wish, your highness.”
“Please be careful, princess.”
They took to the sky, flapping hard.
Chrysalis watched the whole display silently, her eyes narrowed in thought. “What are you planning?” she asked at last.
“It’s clear that you have no intention of being reformed,” Celestia said. “That letter was just an attempt to isolate me from my allies. I thought I would cut to the chase.”
“By falling into my trap of your own free will?” Chrysalis asked. “Or did you send your guards away so that you could beg for your life in private?”
Celestia laughed. “Hardly.” She shook her head. “No, I walked into your trap because you finally managed to outmaneuver yourself.”
“And what do you mean by that, oh wise and mighty one?” Chrysalis asked with a frown.
“I mean that you now have precisely two options. One, you can surrender and come peacefully.” Celestia closed her eyes and drank in a tiny bit of the sun’s power, a fraction so small as to be insignificant, but it was still enough to make the plants around her burst into flame. “Or two,” she opened her eyes, “I take you back by force.”
“Oh, come now,” Chrysalis said like she was scolding a foal. “You expect threats to frighten me? I’m far more powerful now than I was when I defeated you in Canterlot.”
“I am aware.” Celestia smiled in a way that was very different from her usual, motherly grin. This expression had more in common with Chrysalis’s feral sneer, but laced with something akin to hunger. “It would be my pleasure to repay you for that.”
“As you wish,” Chrysalis said, widening her stance. “Perhaps your sister will see reason and surrender when I drop your withered husk at her hooves.”
Celestia’s smile grew larger. “Force it is.” She spared a glance at her retreating guards. They were still too close. She would have to hold back a while longer. Her glance served the double purpose of giving Chrysalis a seemingly clear opening for an attack.
Chrysalis didn’t disappoint. She lunged forward, covering the distance between them in a single leap. It would’ve taken Celestia completely by surprise if she hadn’t been watching out of the corner of her eye.
She swept her wings forward and then back, creating a stream of wind as powerful as a hurricane that pushed diagonally back from her in either direction. Chrysalis’s own forward momentum just made things worse for her. She flew past Celestia and smashed into the dirt beyond, sliding face-first through a gnarled tree before she ground to a halt.
Chrysalis pushed herself upright, spitting dirt and wood fragments to the ground below. “You’ll pay for that.”
Celestia kept quiet and brought her wings up again.
The sickly aura around Chrysalis pulled up into her horn. Celestia barely had time to cast a shield before the attack spell hit her. Or rather, the spell hit everything in front of Chrysalis, Celestia included. It was less a beam of destructive energy than a tidal wave of it, shredding and dissolving everything in its path.
Chrysalis hadn’t been kidding when she said that she was even more powerful than when they fought in Canterlot. Celestia’s shield nearly buckled, and she knew only a fraction of the spell’s force was even hitting her. She narrowed her eyes and poured more magic into her shield.
“Have you had enough?” Chrysalis yelled over the roar of her magic. “Surrender now, and I might be satisfied with only kicking your teeth in.”
Celestia didn’t dignify that with a response. She just focused on strengthening her shield.
The wave of magic abruptly cut off, revealing a very smug Chrysalis standing at the end of a wide trench that had been burned into the countryside. “Actually, don’t surrender. It’s more fun this way.” She whipped her head forward and released a thin beam of power.
Celestia’s shield shattered when it hit. There wasn’t even a struggle; the beam simply punched through her defenses like a rock going through glass. The magical feedback hit like a buck to the forehead, snapping her head back as a gasp escaped her lips.
Then she felt pain light up her side. It went from her chest to her flank, like someone had stabbed into her with a knife and ripped it down the entire length of her body.
Something slammed into her, another tidal wave of green energy. She didn’t have time to create a shield before it hurled her backwards, tumbling over and over again through a sea of biting energy until she hit something solid. The air was forced from her lungs at the impact, and the rumble of breaking stone rose over the ongoing hiss of magic.
Through the pain, Celestia reflected that she’d underestimated Chrysalis yet again. This kind of magical strength was leagues above anything the changeling queen had shown in the past. She grit her teeth as the spell continued to pound into her, crushing her ribs even as it tore the hair from her skin.
The magical assault suddenly cut off, and a dark shape blurred toward her, horn lowered.
Celestia ducked at the last possible moment, kicking up with all four legs so that Chrysalis was knocked up into the mountain Celestia had been resting against. Or what was left of it after Chrysalis’s assault. Some part of Celestia’s mind appreciated the irony of Chrysalis making a rock wall only to fly head first into it. A quick teleport brought Celestia to a safe distance. She poured magic into her horn and jabbed it forward.
A radiant beam of power shot from her horn in response, pulverizing rock and smashing Chrysalis farther into the damaged mountain. Celestia held still, brow scrunched in concentration as she poured out even more magic, tearing away at the mountain’s base until the entire front half of it collapsed.
There were no words to describe the sound, if it could even be called a sound. It was more like a force, a solid wall that grabbed hold of Celestia and shook her like a rag doll. Even the ground seemed to dance like water as the overwhelming noise of the collapse filled the area.
But Celestia wasn’t stupid enough to believe that it would finish her opponent off. She spread her wings and prepared another shield spell.
A blast of green came from the mountain of rubble, hurling stones and dirt in all directions. “I’m going to enjoy making you beg for mercy,” Chrysalis said, emerging from the crater she’d just made. Powdery dust covered her, but otherwise, she looked absolutely fine. Not even a scratch marred her chitin. She turned to Celestia and grinned cruelly. “Now then, time to stop playing around.” Her horn lit up once more.
Celestia didn’t know what was coming next, but it was safe to assume that it would be something bad, and the burning pain along her side reminded her not to underestimate Chrysalis’s magic. She jumped to the side as her shield sprang into existence.
It was a good thing she did both, because Chrysalis disappeared in a flash of green magic and reappeared just above where Celestia had been standing a moment earlier. Her hooves slammed into the ground with such force that it threw dozens of stones into the air, leaving them to rain down on the already devastated battlefield.
Another wave of green energy followed less than a second later, this one even stronger than the last. Celestia felt herself sliding backwards as her shield slowly buckled from strain.
Then something crashed into her from above, crushing her overtaxed shield and hitting her in the back so hard that her legs gave out.
“Surprise,” Chrysalis said.
Celestia looked up and saw the changeling queen standing over her, both forelegs resting on Celestia’s shoulders and a smug look on her face. That was all she had time to see, though, because one of Chrysalis’s hooves slammed into the back of her head and knocked her face into the rocky ground beneath them.
Something pulled one of her wings out straight. “I think I’ll start with these,” Chrysalis cooed. There was a wrenching sound, and everything dissolved into agony.
Celestia’s back arched, her vision blurred, and a raw, primal scream tore its way out of her throat.
“One dislocated wing.”
The agony doubled, but she couldn’t scream. There wasn’t any air in her lungs.
“Two dislocated wings.”
Something crunched into her side, knocking her onto her back and jarring both wings. Celestia’s vision swam. She didn’t even have the strength to resist when Chrysalis sat down on her stomach and pinned both of her forelegs with magic.
“Let’s see,” Chrysalis said. “Should break off your horn? Knock out your teeth? Gouge out your eyes? So many options.”
Celestia blinked to clear her sight. Over Chrysalis’s shoulder, she saw two specks in the distance. Her guards. They were finally out of range.
A smile worked its way across her face, in spite of the pain, and she called out to the sun. Heat exploded from her body in response, so intense that the air shimmered and plants all around the area burst into flame. Even her mane and tail changed, becoming pieces of living fire.
“That’s the best you can manage?” Chrysalis asked with a sneer. “Did you forget that changelings are almost immune to heat? A bit of fire is nothing.” She lifted a hoof and brought it crashing down at Celestia’s face.
But it didn’t hurt her. In fact, she barely felt it.
Chrysalis pulled her hoof back with a wince. “I always knew you had a thick skull.”
Celestia couldn’t help it, she laughed. “You really don’t understand, do you?”
“Understand what?” Chrysalis lit up her horn. “That you’re about to die?”
Fire and magic exploded out from all over Celestia’s body, hurling Chrysalis into the air. Celestia rolled over and pushed herself up. She winced a little as her wings popped back into their sockets and the cut along her side stitched itself back together. She flexed her wings experimentally. The pain was gone, and everything seemed to be in working order.
Chrysalis snarled, hovering in the air above, and released another beam of magic.
A shield appeared around Celestia, easily holding the attack at bay. She pulled in more of the sun’s energy, more than she’d let herself taste in centuries. The golden jewelry she wore melted into slag, dripping off her body to mix with the molten rock forming beneath her hooves. Fires burst into existence all over the countryside, pouring black smoke into the air.
Celestia smiled as she felt the magic roaring through her veins. Goosebumps appeared all over her skin in spite of the heat, and her smile became a laugh. She felt so alive! It was like her body had to laugh just to use up some of the overwhelming power that filled her.
Another beam of magic roared down at her. Celestia let the attack wash over her, doing little more than disturbing her fiery mane.
“H-how?” Chrysalis sputtered. “How did you suddenly become this powerful?”
“What you don’t understand,” Celestia said, “is that I have always been this powerful.” She lit up her horn, and a flat shield appeared over Chrysalis, swatting her down like an enormous fly.
The changeling queen splashed down in the partially melted rock around Celestia and kept going, plowing through layer after layer of stone until she disappeared completely.
Celestia reared back and stomped, shooting earth magic into the ground. She ripped her forelegs apart and tore a deep fissure into the earth. Chrysalis lay at the bottom, covered in molten rock. Her body had withstood the heat surprisingly well. Even her mane and tail had survived.
Another teleport brought Celestia down to her level. Her empowered limbs grabbed the changeling queen and slammed her into the stone wall, which was already melting from Celestia’s body heat.
Chrysalis gasped in pain, her eyes filling with fear.
Celestia was past caring. Her lip curled back into a sneer. “I feel like I live in a world made of matchsticks. I can never lose control, never use my true power, even for a moment, or everything around me burns. Everyone around me burns.” She delivered a blow into the underside of Chrysalis’s chin, smashing her up through the wall of the fissure and into the sky beyond.
Celestia pushed off, shattering the stone beneath her as she closed the distance with her foe. “My whole life, I’ve watched monsters like you attack the ponies that trust me with their safety!” She delivered another uppercut, and a sonic boom shook the air as Chrysalis was knocked even higher.
“My whole life, I had to avoid fighting them, because I would cause more destruction than they ever did!” Celestia’s pegasus magic reached out, creating a storm more powerful than any hurricane. The smoke from below was swept up into the black clouds, blending everything into a sea of ash and dust.
Chrysalis was almost invisible against the omnipresent darkness. Almost. Her bluish mane and tail told Celestia exactly where the changeling queen was. She was falling back to the earth.
Celestia didn’t know why her opponent wasn’t flying, and she didn’t care. The hurricane lit up with a display of lightning that few could imagine. Blinding light filled the countryside, and the air shook with deafening thunder.
Chrysalis somehow managed to bring up a shield and protect herself from the worst of the onslaught, but it also distracted her long enough for Celestia to teleport above her. A blast of magic sent Chrysalis careening into and through the nearest mountain, spraying dirt, rocks, and burning plants into the air.
Celestia teleported again, laughing uncontrollably as her foe rolled end over end across the valley before grinding to a halt at her hooves. “I can’t use my power without destroying everything around me for miles, but then,” she laughed harder, “you asked me to meet you where there wasn’t anything around for miles!” She gripped the queen’s mane in her magical aura and pulled her up so they could look each other in the eyes. “Finally, finally, I had the chance to stand up and protect my subjects with my real power.” She drank in more of the sun’s power, so much that even Chrysalis’s chitin began to crack and burn. “Finally, I could stop holding back!”
“P-pl-please,” Chrysalis gasped, trying to shield her face behind a quivering foreleg. Cracks and fractures covered her chitin, seeping rancid smoke that Celestia knew was her evaporated blood.
“… And you couldn’t even make this interesting for me.” Celestia sighed and dropped the changeling queen into the molten earth beneath her. She paused and looked around at the destroyed land that had been her battlefield, if only for a few moments.
The sky was completely dark, a mixture of storm clouds, ash, and the constant flicker of lightning. A dry, scorching wind howled across the land, bringing the stench of fire and the steely taste of electricity. Somehow, the land itself was even worse, a marsh of glowing red lava, broken up by shattered rock and the blackened husks of trees and plants. Small rivers of molten rock flowed into the fissure she’d made. Perhaps it was just the angle, but to Celestia, it looked like a bloody mouth, open in a silent scream.
Last of all, she looked down at Chrysalis. The changeling queen looked dead, or very near to it. Most of her body had already disappeared into a pool of lava, but the chitin across her chest and forelegs was cracked, shattered, or missing entirely. Her mane and tail were burnt beyond recognition. The tip of her horn had been ripped off at some point. Her jaw was obviously broken, and the teeth within all chipped or missing. Three of her legs were bent at unnatural angles, and the tattered remains of her wings fluttered weakly against the lava that she was slowly sinking into. Only her eyes remained untouched, and bits of steam lifted from the corners of them.
Tears. The once-great conqueror was sobbing quietly, too injured to even wail.
It should have felt good to hurt Chrysalis, to make her pay for all the suffering she’d caused, but it didn’t.
Slowly, mournfully, Celestia pushed away the sun’s might. Her heartbeat slowed. The goosebumps on her skin calmed. Even the fire of her mane and tail disappeared, replaced by the gentler shades her ponies knew. She felt … cold, less alive, but more in control.
“I don’t suppose you can understand,” Celestia said, approaching the broken queen, “but I would let myself be defeated a thousand times over to protect my ponies from this.” She waved a wing at the destruction she’d caused.
Chrysalis’s eyes slowly focused on her. The lava spread over the top of her chest as she continued to sink. “H-hel-p,” she choked, weakly lifting her one good foreleg toward Celestia.
“Why?” Celestia ignored the limb, her expression hard. “Countless ponies have begged you for mercy, and yet you showed none. Give me a single good reason to save your life.”
Real fear filled Chrysalis’s eyes. She choked out a sob, then another, and another as her neck sank into the lava inch by inch. But she never offered a reason that her life should be spared. Celestia could see in her eyes that she didn’t have one.
The lava had reached Chrysalis’s jaw. She gave one last burst of energy, barely more than a flop, and then lay still, too weak to do anything other than weep steamy tears as she sank into oblivion.
Celestia stared down at her. It would be so easy to turn and leave now, ending the queen’s threat for good. Or she could blast off Chrysalis’s head, a mercy killing to keep her from having to drown in molten rock. Yes, a mercy killing. Celestia was even sure that she’d be able to look at herself in the mirror afterwards.
Except that she wouldn’t be able to look at her subjects.
Twilight, Raven, Kibitz, and countless others. Even those two guards whose names she didn’t know. None of them would let Chrysalis die like this. They’d be horrified if they knew that anyone was willing to do such a thing.
Celestia slumped in defeat and lit up her horn. Magic surrounded Chrysalis, gently lifting her into the air.
The sound of her crying changed, going from hopeless to relieved, perhaps even grateful.
Celestia walked past her captive without looking at her. “Don’t misunderstand,” she said quietly. “I didn’t save you just now; my subjects did. The same subjects you’ve assaulted time and time again.” She finally turned to Chrysalis, and her expression softened. “That eternal willingness to forgive seems so foolish at times, but without it, they wouldn’t be the ponies I love.” She shook her head. “Perhaps one day it will touch your heart as well.”
Then she took to the air, carrying Chrysalis behind her as she flew toward the guard outpost in the distance.
