Kaboom, then silence. A pink bubble explodes outwards, pushing changelings away and protecting the city.
Everything goes dark, the sun is blotted out as hundreds of thousands of changelings are forcefully thrown from Canterlot. South, they involuntarily fly. Towards the badlands, towards their doom.
The sun returns as the changelings fly into the distance into parts unknown. Equestria is saved once more. Everypony cheers, their heroes have protected them against yet another threat and that is a good thing. Ponykind partied like never before, this threat was very close to winning. They dare not think about what could have happened, they don't like to think about such things.
Queen Chrysalis POV
I awoke, dizzy and confused. One moment I had it all, the next, nothing. One moment I stood above them all, next I was flying, flying and falling. What happened to me? I open my eyes and see darkness. No, not darkness, there are stars above me, it is night and I don't know where I am. I will find out what happened, How did they defeat me?
How could they have defeated me? Last thing I remember is her crawling towards her fiance, but just that should not have did what happened to me. Did they cast a spell of some kind? If so, it was not any that I know off. My mind works at a mile a minute
I can't move, my legs are not moving. Nothing is moving. My head, my body, nothing. I can barely feel my children, they are hardly there either. I should be able to feel all of them, no matter what, they should be there. Why can't I feel them? Our connection should be unbreakable, so why can't I feel them? I'm worried, this is wrong. There are not many either, and they should not be barely there, I can sense what direction they are in, but I cant monitor anything else.
I fall unconscious, I harvested enough love from the invasion to heal me, but I cannot be awake for it for the pain will be too great.
'I can feel my body' is my first thought upon awakening. I can move, I can search for my children. I get to my hooves, ready to search. My legs are weak, but they work for now. My wings are gone, torn off. I don't feel any pain from it. I don't need them either, my legs can carry me. My chitin is heavily cracked, I am covered in dry blood and can see my flesh in some places. I can't feel any of it, but the lack of pain does not bother me.
It is brighter now, so much brighter. The sun is high in the sky, allowing me to see everything around me, My surroundings are bland, grey rock, grey dirt, everything is grey. There are no trees or water or signs of life.
I open my mind, searching for my children. They are there, but only five of them, that is less than last night. I lock onto them and turn myself in the direction they are in, it feels like they all landed together and I somehow flew off course. It is quite the distance, but I am confident that I can run it in a few hours at a gallop.
I start running towards them, making great distance in great time.
My surroundings change so fast that I hardly register, I know this is a race against time.
I pass a small body of water in this grey wasteland, I can only sense four of them.
I run across a bridge spanning a gaping chasm. The bridge creaks beneath my hooves. Three.
I come across a grassland. Its inhabitants look at me confused at my hurry, still three left.
When there are two of my children left, I see it.
It looks like a sea of green and darkness. There are bodies everywhere, I just stop and stare in horror. It was a mass graveyard, containing all of my children.
All my children are dead. No, not all. There are two. NO! there is only one left! I hurry, jumping over the bodies of my dead children to find him.
I can hear the crunch of chitin as I run, I am damaging their bodies further, I suppose that I should feel bad about it, but I will worry about it later.
There he is. I see him, he can sense me too. His eyes are gone but he knows his mommy is here. I walk towards him, he crawls towards me. He is so damaged. His chitin is mostly gone, revealing pale green flesh and dark green blood. we reach each other and I collapse next to him. His left foreleg is gone, torn off at the base. He is bleeding heavily. He crawls to me and nuzzles me. His jaw is partially gone and the right side of his face has collapsed on itself. He is going to die here and we both know it.
'Mommy' I hear through the link 'I love you'.
"I love you too, my child." I say to him as he lies dying in my forelegs.
I can feel the link close and he goes limp. My last child is dead. Hundreds of thousands and not a single one lives.
For the first time in my memory, I break down crying.
I don't know how long I cried, but many times did the sun and moon change.
My appearance also changed, my chitin cracked and fell off, it was replaced by newer, thicker chitin, it looked more rugged and it was light grey. This colour is normal after a moult. What was not normal is that a moulting is very painful and I had gone through a period of sensitivity while the chitin forms, Also the chitin is affected by markings in your flesh. I raise my hooves to my face and feel under my eyes, yes, tear tracks. The rugged appearance of my chitin means it must have rained quite a bit.
As I sat there, amongst the dead bodies of all my species. I made a promise.
Cadance took away what I loved the most.
I will do the same to her.
Author's Note
There we have it, the start of hopefully a new series titled Darkest Timeline.
