The first thing Celestia noticed when waking up was the pain… Her entire back and flanks ached… Wait, her flanks ached… She turned, kicking out with her hind legs, her hind legs! She could feel them again! She got to her hooves and tried to prance around for the first time in what felt like, and may have been, days. It was impossible to tell time in this stark white box, she couldn’t even feel the movement of her sun in here. She barely managed a stumble, her legs felt… Weird, not quite right, there was a feeling but it was oddly dull, like she was still somewhat asleep. She turned, looking at her flanks… What?

Her hind legs and wings, they weren’t covered in fur, down, and feathers, nor was there the pale pink skin that would have been expected beneath the coat, instead, smooth white, black, and red material, almost like porcelain or bone, covered her flanks down to her hooves, and her wings were now significantly larger, she was stunned she didn’t realize earlier, but her entire hindbody felt heavier, and her wings were now coated in metal, as if she had armor on, but this wasn’t the same as a pegasus legionnaire's wing-plates, these were taking the place of her old feathers, long blades of silvery metal that were seemingly woven into… No, outright replacing her old feathers, and her wings, there were small ropes made of metal and some black and white material, connected to strange hinges and gears nestled between articulated plates of silver.

None of that was anything compared to a single thing that shocked her most of all… Her flanks… Her cutie mark, it was gone! Replaced by that same three-pronged symbol. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe… Her mark, it was… Replaced! Who would dare do that to her! She felt rage building up inside, had she the power, she would have melted a hole in the box and escaped to find whoever defiled her body in this way, ripping off what made her, what defined her, her destiny as the solar princess!

She got to her hooves, and marched to the wall, the one with the large three-pronged symbol and alien words that she couldn’t understand and slammed her hooves against it with all her might, there was a bang of metal and some small cracks in the wall. She reared up and smacked down again! And again! She turned and bucked with her limbs, it sent a painful shock up her legs but it also left a much bigger dent in the wall, the black and white paint chipping away, and whatever that bone-like material that covered the wall splintering apart, revealing dull metal underneath, covered in small glowing lines in intricate and confusing geometric patterns connected to glowing points and circles all red and blue.

Then, there was another shock, but not one in her legs… A sudden searing pain in the back of her head caused her to collapse and shout in pain, it vanished for a second, long enough for her to get her breath back, and then returned with double the intensity. She squirmed in pain which seemed to last an eternity before vanishing once again. She reared herself back up and prepared to strike the wall once again, but another shock to the head caused her to fall back down again, worse than before.

Once the pain vanished, she stood still and looked around the room… If she had her magic she could detect an invisibility spell, but no… She was sure there was nothing in this room with her, she never saw an opening, nor felt the telltale flash of light and wave of energy that followed a teleportation… Whatever was causing her this pain was outside the room, outside of this box prison! “Where are you!” She shouted “I know you’re out there, watching and listening, aren’t you! Are you a servant of Grogar! Your dark spells and biomancy cannot avail you forever!”

There was no reply, not even an echo. Then, a few moments later, there was an odd pop from the wall, Celestia turned and noticed something had protruded from a hatch that the mare had failed to notice, some kind of device, made of the same metal and bone-like matter that the rest of the walls, and now part of herself, were made of. The mechanism moved toward her on some kind of arm, Celestia braced herself, pointing her horn at it, she still didn’t have the power for even basic telekinesis, but she hoped whoever enchanted the machine did not know that.

An image, much like the magical holograms unicorns could produce, but somewhat cruder, being projected by some metal device on the armature, displayed an image of an apple. “An, apple?” Celestia responded.

“Apple” A voice came through the device, speaking in perfect ponish, yet sounding nothing like any pony.

“Yes, that’s what I said! What trick is this?”

Another image appeared, projected by the machine, this one an image of Celestia herself… She did not respond, but the machine did it for her, following a beeping sound that came from the back of her head, followed by the same beeping on the machine, “Celestia.”

“Yes, I am Celestia, to whom am I speaking?”

There came another beep from the back of her head, and then another beep from the machine… There was a strange pause, and another image was projected from the machine, this time an image of a strange two-legged creature similar in build to a diamond dog or abyssinian, the mare stared at the image confused, then another twin-beep sounded and the machine spoke before Celestia could “Human”

“Human?”

Then another image was projected, this one of a blank outline of a pony, “Why are you showing me this pony?”

“Pony,” The arm device responded.

Then another image was projected, it wasn’t anything Celestia recognized, something made of metal and the same bone-like material, “What is this?” she thought to herself, not speaking out loud. Two more beeps and it responded.

“Gun”

That was when Celestia realized what it was doing, either through some spell cast upon her by it, or by some enchantment either within the metal arm or within the metal planted inside her, it was reading her mind, pairing words to thoughts and intent, comparing them with the images… In other words, interrogating her. She tried to clear her mind, she knew how to stop magical mind-reading, but it didn’t seem to help, the metal arm would always successfully pair her thoughts, even subconscious ones, to the images.

She needed to know why…

It was dark… The moon was red in the sky, slowly drifting through Celestia and Luna’s heavens. The ponies were in the shadows, waiting for the chimeras to pass, each one searching… But they would not let themselves be found by those monsters.

Quickly and silently, the thestrals flew into every building, picking the locks with ease, using spells cast by crystals on the end of pendants and wands to silence the voices of scared and crying foals, making sure that their voices did not summon the monsters. A mother drew a knife she had stashed away, “Stop, we do not want to hurt you,” The thestral said in a whisper, “We are Luna’s Night Guard, we are here to evacuate the town.”

“We can’t go, the monsters-”

“Will not spot you, we are not unicorns, but we know magic ourselves… Now, if you wish to survive this night, we must move quickly… Grogar’s army is already marching east as we speak, we have orders to get every pony still alive in Equestria safely to the land of Griffons.”

“The pony-eaters?”

“The Griffons do not eat ponies, but the chimera do…”

The same scene was repeated across the village as the patrol of Night Guards evacuated everyone they could convince to leave… By morning, the Chimera would find nothing but a few old fools who refused to trust the guard, and not the haul of young slaves and test subjects Grogar had order them to take.

By morning, the caravan was already in the northern tundra, the first snow of autumn beginning to fall as they passed into the Crystal Empire, and from there, they would take a ship to the Griffons’ land. As they began the trek up the Crystal Mountains, somewhere in the caravan, a foal, a young stallion, asked his mother “Do the guards know if Celestia will save us?”

“We do not know, young Stygian,” The foal’s mother replied, “But she must, without the Alicorns, I do not know if the Crystal Empire, or Griffonstone, can hold back the Goat King’s horde…”

Author's Note

Sorry that this chapter's shorter than normal, this marks the end of the chapters that I've written ahead of time, finished this right as I uploaded the fic itself. From now on expect chapters a little less frequent.