You woke up after - how long had it been? Actually, where were you? Wherever you were it was dark, damp, and smelled like decaying plants. Man, this is way weirder than the time you woke up in a Denny’s parking lot at 3AM. And you can’t help but think there was something important to deal with.

Moving around to get to your feet, something doesn’t quite feel right. Your arms feel… empty. Like they should be holding something but they’re not. As you get to your feet and survey the cold, dark, featureless cavern you found yourself in you noticed something else here with you.

Several feet away was an unmoving mass of dark grey, seemingly covered in some kind of silver-grey mist. It took a few moments to realize exactly what you were looking at, but after some time you realized that you were staring at another creature.

Another creature, dark grey… Who did you know that fit that bill? Man why was it so hard to think right now. You felt so exhausted in every possible way, it’s like you just wanted to give up. But something felt so very important about that thing you were fixated on.

And then it clicked.

You scrambled over to the lifeless husk that you realized was your beloved. As soon as you got close, you felt an overwhelming cold surround you, you knew it originated from her. You knew she wasn’t breathing. You knew…

“No. You can’t,” you cried, picking her up and holding her against you, feeling that cold seep into you too. “Please, Em. I can’t be alone anymore. I need you.”

You held her tight, waiting for any sign, any notice that she may be okay. When that didn’t come you just sat there. You weren’t an expert in medicine at all, especially not in magical talking pony land, but the prognosis was simple: either she survives or you hold her until you die too.

Then you heard it, a soft breath, so quiet and shallow that you’re surprised you even noticed it.

“Please, please, please,” you plead, holding her close and slowly rocking back and forth.

“Anon,” Metamora smiled, her voice weak, “you saved me.”

“Em!” you screamed, pulling her against you as tightly as you could, “Oh my god I was so worried. I thought you died.”

“Silly,” she chuckled, breathing sharply, “You’re not getting rid of me that easy. I lo-”

She grasped at her chest with a hoof as if something inside was missing, a look of shock suddenly coloring her face.

“Em, save your energy.”

“No Anon,” she panicked, her breathing rapid, “She took it. She took my love. She’s right, I’m just like the ponies… without that spark… without the seed… I’ll die.”

“But how? Cant I just give you mine?”

“No Anon, I’ve changed,” she explained. “I need my love too or…”

“Tell me what you need,” you asked, willing yourself to rise above the lethargy that was plaguing you.

“Your Highness, we have that situation report you requested,” a Royal Guard announced, cutting through the tense silence in the throne room.

“By all means,” Celestia encouraged, “Let’s hear it.”

“Yes, your Highness, right away,” the guard confirmed, “As we feared, Ponyville has been completely taken by the Changelings. It is our understanding that the entire hive has converged on the town. At this time we do not know the disposition of the Elements of Harmony or of Anon and Metamora, both known to be in Ponyville at the time of the attack. From our limited reconnaissance we know that they have total air and land control of the area in and around Ponyville. We can’t gain any situational awareness inside the city at this time. We have established an exclusionary zone surrounding the city and can confirm positive control over all attempts to enter or exit this area. It is the recommendation of the Royal Guard Corps that we engage the Unicorn Special Warfare Group for a targeted insertion ahead of a larger force deployment.”

“Thank you,” Celestia began, “How soon can we-”

“They think Ponyville is their beachhead,” Luna spoke, pausing to ensure that everyone was listening, “But sister, if Anon and Metamora are both there, maybe it is in fact ours. Given time it is most certain that they can diffuse this. ”

“So we let Ponyville burn until somehow the human and a Changeling we hope is on our side still manage to pacify this?” A random noble calls out, clearly off-put by the idea.

“No, we won’t let Ponyville burn, but Luna - that gives me an idea,” Celestia started, “How long would it take to amass the resources to drive the Changelings out of Ponyville?”

“Assuming that we can control for their Queen, we could have that operation staged inside of a week.”

“Right, sister,” Luna agreed, “they would then flee to the hive and no longer be a problem.”

“Not quite. Before we allow them to flee Ponyville, we’re going to destroy their hive.”

“But then the Changelings would simply disperse throughout our lands!” another noble objected.

“Exactly, and as they continued in smaller numbers, we could easily target small groups and teach them how to love. We can still bring this to a peaceful end.”

“Princess, with all due respect, we’re at war! We shouldn’t be trying to convert them, we should be trying to eliminate the threat!” the first noble called out again, drawing hushed agreement from the crowd.

“No. I will not allow us to eliminate an entire species because they’re simply misguided. Metamora has shown us that the Changelings are redeemable. We owe it to her and Anon, we owe it to ourselves to finally bring this long and bloody conflict to a peaceful end. This matter is not up for discussion any further. Guards, you have your orders.”

“Have a plan drawn up for this at once,” the leading guard directed his underlings, “I want this in motion by nightfall.”

“Em, come on. You’re gonna have to give me a bit more input if you ever want me to find my way in this god damn maze. I don’t understand how you navigate this nightmare of a hive.”

“Sorry,” she wheezed, hanging limply from your back as you jogged through the dim, empty halls of the hive, “Just… take a left at the glowing lichen and then another right after you pass the armory.”

“How about you tell me when, not where,” you direct, “I don’t even know what a lichen is.”

This continued for far too long, until you finally reached the chamber you were looking for. Inside were the stores of love the Changelings had for various purposes. In the middle of the room were three enormous translucent tanks filled with a roiling red liquid.

“Alright, Em. Found the war reserves. What do we do next.”

“You just need to release the stored love. Just activate the-” she paused, “activate-”

She slumped on your back, her grip loosening as she slid to the floor.

“Activate what?” you yell, scrambling to find some kind of lever or mechanism and finding absolutely nothing. “Come on Em, we’re so fucking close!”

She didn’t respond, once again a crumpled heap on the floor.

Fuck.

Well there was more than one way to skin a cat. Realization hit you just like that, if you couldn’t release the love however it was supposed to be released, then you’d get it out in a more destructive way. You knew the throwing things against other things magic would come in handy sometime soon. But as you channeled your energy into your hands in the only way that made sense, you realized that there was nothing. No magic came to aid you and, in fact, you felt that overwhelming hunger again too. Shit. Now you were both dying of weird pony land versions of starvation.

But you could feel some untapped power left. A darker, more primal force welled within you. It only asked one thing of you:

Be angry.

And you had a fucking right to be! What hadn’t tried to kill you in these past few days? Fucking sunhorse had a good crack at it, then you almost killed yourself because no one thought to tell you about magic death syndrome, and then that fucking other Changeling Queen. God you saw the smug look on her face and you just wanted to destroy something.

You knew exactly what you wanted to destroy. That black ooze once again came to your aid, pouring forth as the entire ground began to tremble. You watched as cracks formed in the massive tanks of love, the liquid inside agitated even further as the entire room seemed to vibrate.

You grinned as you clenched your fists, imagining yourself crushing those containers just like you would the bones of your adversaries. And just like they would fall, so to did the love reserves, emptying their red payload like freshly spilled blood.

As your quest completed, you willed that darkness back inside of you, laughing to yourself that Luna would caution you against such power. You felt awake, alive again. You weren’t afraid of that power, no more afraid than you had always been of the void inside of you. No, that was something you had well under control. You’d been hiding that since as far back as you remember.

Except just as you thought you had brought everything under control, you realized that the ground was still shaking. You could hear explosions all around. Was this… Was this what she meant to warn you against. No, this was something else. This was bigger. This was intentional, something was trying to destroy the hive.

“Em?” you ask, noticing that she had absorbed all the love and was in the middle of one of her characteristic light shows “Come on the light show is pretty and all but I think we have bigger problems here.”

As her fireworks display drew to an end, she sprung into action without a moment’s hesitation, flying at you and grabbing hold as she aimed for a hole that had appeared in the ceiling. She darted through narrow passageways, ascending through freshly made tunnels as she raced to escape the destruction. You held on tighter and tighter as th clearances between you two and instant death became smaller and smaller, not daring to so much as take a breath lest it

You could see the sunlight now, still clinging tight to Metamora as she flew as fast as she could through the crumbling structure around you, dodging falling debris and weaving between crags as you made it to the exterior of the hive around halfway up its former height.

“Looks like it’s my turn to save you, huh Anon?”

“Em,” you laughed, staring at her as she looked back at you. But out of the corner of your eye you saw something she didn’t, “Watch ou-”

There was nothing she could have done to avoid the house sized boulder above as it crashed into you two, combining with the stability of Metamora’s wings to eject you to one side, hurtling at twice the speed you previously were. Within moments of the impact, Metamora’s entire form went slack, her wings managing to maintain glide slope somehow as you both careened off into the distance, rapidly approaching the ground at a barely survivable slope.

As you got close enough to the ground that you could brush the tips of trees, you reached up to encompass Metamora, coaxing her wings to fold and wrapping yourself around her as best you could.

You felt the impact clear as day, skidding to a halt as you dragged along the unforgiving ground. You glanced off a tree, knocking Metamora loose from your grasp as you finally started to come to a rest.

The last thing you saw before your eyes shut was Metamora, lying peacefully some distance away in what seemed a very familiar forest.

Author's Note

I'm back in the groove, guys. This chapter felt right. And I think I'm going to be able to carry this momentum onto the next few chapters too.

I spent a great deal of time re-reading the first 3 acts of the story over the past few days, and kind of pretending the 4th act didn't exist. It really helped me get some of my mojo back because - whatever you say about the 4th act, good or bad - I really didn't feel like writing it at any point there.