The Changeling Invasion

Queen Chrysalis
Canterlot, Equestria

Queen Chrysalis grinned as she trotted back and forth on her hooves, as Princess Cadence struggled futilely to escape from her sticky bonds.

"You won't get away with this!" the Princess shouted angrily. "Twilight and her friends will-"

She was interrupted by the sound of doors slamming. Emerging from the door was Twilight Sparkle and her pony friends, escorted into the room by her loyal subjects. She raised an eyebrow at Cadence.

"You were saying?", she asked mockingly. She turned her attention to Twilight. "You do realize the reception's been cancelled, do you?"

As the ponies glared at her, she gestured to the changelings that guarded the trapped ponies. "Go!" she shouted. "Feed!". Her subjects obeyed eagerly, flying out into the streets of Canterlot to wreak havoc and feed on the citizens of the city, and Chrysalis slammed the door shut behind them with her magic. Twilight glared at her, and, Chrysalis decided to mock her some more.

"It's funny, really." she grinned, lifting the purple pony's chin. "Twilight was suspicious of my behavior all along. Too bad the rest of you were too caught up in your wedding planning to realize those suspicions were correct!". Unable to contain herself, she began to laugh heartily. One of the ponies, the orange one with the apple cutie marks on her flank, walked up to Twilight and apologized to her.

"It's not your fault." she said. "She fooled everypony."

"Hmm, I did, didn't I?" she gloated. She walked out to the balcony overlooking the city, observing the chaos across the city, courtesy of her own subjects. She noticed several of the royal guards tied up and otherwise incapacitated as ponies fled in fear, chased down and cornered. Immersed in the chaos before her, she did not notice what was happening behind her.

Twilight Sparkle crawled across the floor, hoping not to attract the Hive Queen's attention, or wrath. She successfully crawled onto the stage, where Princess Cadence was trapped. "Quick!" she urged. "Go to him while you still have the chance!". Twilight pointed her horn at the sticky substance that bound her feet to the ground, and cast a spell onto it, magically erasing her restraints.

Cadence gave her a thankful look, and walked over to her hypnotized fiancé. Tearing up, she drew him into a hug, and send out a spell to him. The hypnotism was washed away, and Cadence let go of him as he shook his head. "Wha– where... huh? Is...is the wedding over?" he asked in confusion.

Queen Chrysalis turned away from the window, and noticed that Shining Armor's hypnotism had been erased. She jumped from the balcony, and in front of the captive ponies, startling them. "It's all over!" she gloated.

"Your spell, perform your spell!" Twilight shouted.

Chrysalis laughed. "What good would that do? My changelings already roam free.". She gestured to the chaos outside, where the screams of civilians emanated into the room.

Shining Armor desperately poured what little energy he had into his spell. However, with his hypnotism having drained him of energy, the effort was proving futile. He hung down his head in despair."No! My power is useless now. I don't have the strength to repel them." he mourned.

Princess Cadence walked up to him and hugged him once more. "My love will give you strength!" she said.

Chrysalis scoffed audibly.

"What a lovely but absolutely ridiculous sentiment." she gloated, watching her civilians, uninterested at what seemed to her to be a feeble attempt to repel her.

Princess Cadence and Shining Armor looked into each others eyes, and put their horns together, summoning the power needed for their spell. Their most powerful spell. The one that would expel the changelings from Equestria forever. Their horns began to glow, and they were levitated before the captive ponies' presence.

Queen Chrysalis turned to the ponies, and her jaw dropped at the sight of the two ponies summoning their power through, in the irony of ironies, the very force she and the changelings fed on. Shining Armor and Princess Cadence glowed as bright as the sun, and seemingly exploded, with the magical force rapidly expanding, ready to consume her.

"Noooo!" the Queen screamed, before she, and the rest of the changelings across Canterlot, were absorbed by the force of the spell. In less than ten seconds, all the changelings, along with the Hive Queen herself, had simply vanished.

Darrell Parker
Interstate 70, between Buckeye Lake and Columbus, Ohio
April 6th, 2019

Darrell Parker sipped from his shitty homemade coffee as he drove his Honda Accord through the Interstate, and dreading the workday ahead of him. He worked as an insurance executive at Nationwide in Columbus, and he hated his job. Sure, the pay was fine, but the work was tedious, he had to deal with whiny customers and his perpetually angry boss, and the workday was so long he rarely got to see his husband.

"Get out of the way!" he shouted abruptly, passing a slowing car that looked like it was on its last legs before breaking down permanently.

Out of boredom, he turned on the radio, hoping to listen to something interesting. However, he would be out of luck, as Despacito began to play for the millionth time. "If I have to listen to this song one more time, I'm breaking this radio.", he thought to himself. Thankfully, the song finally ended, and a woman's voice spoke from the radio.

"Now, for the news at the top of the hour. Allen Maddox has pled guilty for a series of robberies in the Franklin Park neighborhood last fall, and sentencing will be on May 7th.The White House has announced it would begin negotiations with congressional leadership on a new infrastructure package it plans to unveil to the public today. Breaking from Germany, we have received scattered reports of a large meteor shower striking just south of Frankfurt. We will keep you posted as this story-"

Darrell turned off the radio. The news bored him to no end, and without any good music playing this morning, he continued driving in silence. He was so focused on the road ahead of him that he barely noticed the streak of light hurtling towards the ground until it struck in front of him.

"Shit!" he yelled, swerving to avoid it. He slammed into the car in the lane beside him, severely damaging both cars. "No, damn it!" he cursed further.

With the wreck he caused, and the crater in the road, cars behind him began to stop, with nowhere to go. Just then, more streaks of light hurtled on and around the Interstate. Darrell watched as one car swerved straight into a ditch after one "meteor" struck it.

Darrell began walking to the crater that had caused his own wreck. To his shock, what seemed to be a strange alien creature was sitting in the crater, disoriented but otherwise okay.

"What in the-" he muttered, however, the creature looked to him, and hissed.

He stepped away from it. Now, where he could see the places the "meteors" had hit, he saw the same creatures crawling out of their holes. People behind Darrell emerged from their cars in wonder. "What the heck are those ugly-lookin' things?"
he heard someone comment behind him.

The aliens looked upon the large crowd. People who had walked out of their cars crowded at the scene, watching as the large group of creatures gathered close together. Darrell lost count of how many there were.

The strange reptilian creatures looked to the crowd. People were taking pictures on their Iphones, and Darrell could hear the sound of sirens as police began heading to the scene. The creatures hissed, and attacked.

"Shit!" Darrell screamed. He started running with the now panicking crowd, running before one of the aliens tackled him to the ground.

"Get off me!" he shouted. The creature pinned him down, and with it's (horn?), it began to suck the energy right out of him. "What the..." he muttered, too weak to do anything else. He lost control of his senses, and fell to the ground, as darkness surrounded him.