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.
Svyatoslav Pavlovych
Odessa, Ukraine
Svyatoslav Pavlovych drove his police car through the streets of Odessa. He knew that he would have a long day ahead of him when he saw what looked to him like missiles striking the heart of Odessa. With the war in Russia ongoing, Svyatoslav believed he knew the culprits of the attack.
As he drove closer to Primorsky Boulevard, where the missiles had struck, he watched as a large crowd of people running away from the site. He could see smoke rising as he parked his car at a nearby sidewalk. He stepped out of the car, and started pushing through the crowd.
"Get out of my way!" he yelled. "Move!". To his shock, he saw some of his fellow police officers running with the crowd. He spotted his friend running and grabbed him, pulling him to the side.
"What is going on, Anatoly?" he urged. "What have the Russians done to us?"
Anatoly's face turned white. "It is not the Russians." he trembled. "It is Lucifer, and her demons.". Before Svyatoslav could ask him more questions, Anatoly ran off, joining the ever panicking crowd.
Svyatoslav pushed on to Primorsky Boulevard. He finally reached the street, and what he saw horrified him.
A large, alien creature, flanked by several of her demon-looking reptiles, walked calmly along the street as many more wreaked havoc. He saw many of the creatures flying into buildings, starting fires spontaneously, and otherwise working to destroy the city. The large alien creature, which seemed to be the leader, began to speak.
"I do not know where we are, but I believe we can certainly make the best of things." the creature grinned to her minions.
Svyatoslav dug his finger into his ear. He could have sworn he heard the Queen speaking in his native Ukrainian.
"Our forces seem to be scattered across the world, your Majesty." one of the creatures said. "They are disorganized, but causing chaos worthy of Discord himself."
The alien queen chuckled heartily. "Good.." she said. "Make sure these primitive two-legged creatures know who is their new ruler."
"Of course, Queen Chrysalis. All will fear you in this new world." another creature said as he bowed down.
Queen Chrysalis looked around. Finally, she seemed to lock eyes with Svyatoslav, who fell over in shock.
"Seize that creature!" the Queen ordered. Svyatoslav stood up, and began to run. However, the effort would be futile, as the demon creatures grabbed him and flew him to the Queen.
"You and the rest of your kind will bow down to the Changeling Queen." she sneered, as one of the changelings began to morph before his eyes as a mirror image of himself.
"No! I would rather die than serve you!" Svyatoslav shouted.
Chrysalis grinned. "As you wish." she said. The police officer looked in horror as the changeling that had assumed his appearance walked up to him and punched him in the face. Knocked to the ground and disoriented, he was unable to see when the changelings began to, quite literally, suck the life out of him.
Amy Elliot
2 miles south of Medford, Oregon
Amy Elliot, a ground correspondent for a major national news service, rushed with her camerawoman to the scene building up at the edge of the forest. With a virtual invasion in Ohio by an alien species, it frustrated her to be focused on a wildfire in Oregon.
"Let's get up closer, Sarah." Amy said. They moved to the side of the road as a fire truck zipped past them. They saw the roadblocks up ahead, and stopped, preparing to set up.
Sarah pulled the camera out of its case and began turning it on while Amy mentally practiced her lines. "The wildfire, which started in the early hours of the morning, has spread rapidly." she muttered to herself.
Soon, Sarah waved her hand to grab Amy's attention. "Ready when you are." she said cheerily.
She handed Amy her microphone, and walked in front of the camera. Sarah waited for the signal from the studio as she listened to the broadcast through her earpiece.
"-an emergency meeting at the White House has been called as the situation in Ohio has escalated, as Governor Cordray mobilized National Guard to defend Columbus. Out of Oregon, a massive wildfire has struck near the city of Medford. Correspondent Amy Elliot is at the scene. Amy?"
Amy took a deep breath, and began. "Yes, Ali. The fire started at about 5 am this morning, and has spread remarkably fast. Authorities at the scene have-"
She was interrupted by what sounded like a large explosion behind her. Sarah picked up the camera and rushed with Amy as they walked to the roadblock.
Amy turned to the camera as she looked out, trying to find the source of the explosion. "It seems that a large explosion has taken place in the neighborhood somewhere." she said. "We don't know what is going on, but we will keep you posted as-"
She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence. More explosions emanated beyond the roadblocks. Getting a closer look, it appeared that the fire trucks were exploding, spontaneously. Silhouetted in the distance were what looked like menacing shadows. Amy gulped as she looked past, and realized what she was looking at.
"If you are with me now, it looks like the same creatures attacking across the globe are here, right here in Medford. It is no longer safe for us to be here, but we will keep you posted. Back to you." Amy shouted into the microphone in a near panic, as the creatures came out in force. Their horns glowed, and vehicles continued to explode in their path.
Sarah dropped the camera and ran with her. Getting to their news van, Amy jumped in the front seat. "Hurry, drive!" Sarah shouted frantically.
Amy hit the gas. They drove past the crowd now running and screaming. She watched through the mirror as the creatures descended on the crowd. Horrified, she watched as many of them flew to her van.
"Do you have the gun?" she asked Sarah. She nodded shakily, and pulled a pistol out of the glove compartment, handing it to her.
"Take over!" she shouted. They struggled to trade seats, but when Amy managed to climb into the passenger seat, she aimed her pistol as some of the creatures.
She fired, missing her first shot. "Shit!" she muttered. The creatures seemed a bit disoriented by the shot, perhaps not expecting it. She gathered her nerve, and fired again.
This time, she managed a hit. One of the creatures howled in pain, and hit the ground hard. Amy didn't think she hit it critically, but it seemed to be enough to take it out of the sky.
Sarah motioned to Amy. "Look!" she pointed behind them. The creatures in pursuit weren't following them anymore, instead hanging back, perhaps apprehensive of being shot unexpectedly. Perhaps they didn't have guns where they came from, Amy thought to herself.
"Let's get as far from here as possible." Amy said. Sarah nodded, and drove the van out to the Interstate.
