Author's Note

BTW this takes place after the Season 8 Finale and before the Season 9 Finale.
Thanks for Reading!

Chapter One: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

There was little light to see through when her eyes slowly opened. Pitch black. The ground she lay on was cold and hard, what had to be rock. The air was cool and musty. The only sounds were her breathing and the dripping of water from the ceiling.

Starlight Glimmer had been unconscious for the past two days, and awoke lying on the ground of a cave, hidden away in a place few others knew of. Thoughts gathered slowly as her consciousness returned. The first feeling she had was a strong aching in her muscles from inactivity. The lack of light and memory of how she got to this mysterious place disoriented her mind, she was already dizzy. She tried to cast a spell for some light, but found herself unable to concentrate hard enough. She felt dehydrated and distracted, as if she had been drugged. Desperate, Starlight jolted her head back and forth, searching for anything recognizable to put her at ease in this strange void. But there was nothing. Only blackness. When she tried to move her aching body, she found a new pain in her wrists and ankles. The sound of rustling chains and the sharp pain of metal on her skin alerted her she was tightly bound by iron chains. The shackles dug into her skin so far her hooves turned a paler color, veins peeking underneath the skin. Her hooves were so sensitive she couldn’t risk putting any pressure on them. She grunted as she pulled herself along using her elbows to where her chains originated from, dragging her sore body. Unable to see in front of her, she accidentally smashed her face into a stony wall.

“Ow!”

She reeled back in surprise and instinctively raised her hooves up to comfort her aching nose, and accidentally pulled on her shackles, sending a new wave of immeasurable pain through her body. She fell back and writhed, beginning to tear up from the pain. She prevented herself from screaming, for fear of who else was there with her. She decided to just sit there and think things through. The last thing she could remember, she thought, was strolling along a path with Trixie back towards Ponyville, after a successful mission to help a family of Yaks settle an inheritance dispute.

‘What a great time that was,’ she thought, rolling her eyes.

Her tears fell down her face, and she let them, remembering not to move her hooves in any way. She just laid there, face up, her limbs sprawled out, frozen. She continued her reminiscing. On the way back from the mission, Trixie saw something off the side of the road and went to check it out, while Starlight waited. Then when Trixie had taken too long, Starlight impatiently went after her, and then she couldn’t remember anything more. She tried to find any light source anywhere around her, but found nothing. She tried to listen for any air vents or openings, but found that the only sounds came from within the space she was in, which she reasoned must’ve been about seven yards wide and ten yards high, based on how long it took a drop of water from above to reach the ground.

‘That’s not too high, maybe I can climb,’ she thought, until remembering her chains were bolted to the floor and her hooves couldn’t bear the pain.

She went back to thinking. The room had to be four closed walls. One might be a closed door of some kind, otherwise how could she had been put in here? She squinted her eyes and looked around, and lo and behold, one of the walls looked a bit darker than the other ones. She decided to just assume that she was right and it was a door, rather than go through the pain of physically testing that.

‘If there’s a door, and I’m in shackles, then somepony did this to me intentionally. But who would do something like that?’

She glanced over at her weakened limbs. These shackles were on far tighter than they had to be to just restrain her. Whoever did this wanted her to be in pain. This sent fear into her heart. Whoever this was could probably hurt her really bad, and what had they done to Trixie? Was she ok? She tried again to cast a spell, but was still unable.

‘There must be some kind of barrier preventing me from using it.’
So whoever was doing this to her had to be smart. More thoughts ran through her mind, until she decided she had enough, to stop thinking about her situation and just lay there.

It was a good three hours before anything happened. The pain in her hooves still hadn’t gone away, and she was awake the whole time. Then, behind her dizzy head, she heard the rapid jangling of keys and the jostling of keys in a keyhole. Her eyes stayed fixed on the source of the sound, which initially startled her into jumping a little. The jostling stopped when she heard a click, and what she had correctly guessed was a door finally opened, a blast of light flooding the room and frying her eyes. She shut them instantly, as the footsteps of a quadruped began slowly approaching.

“My apologies, Starlight, I know you must be sensitive to the light...I know how that feels.” The voice chuckled to herself. Whoever it was had a smooth, low voice that came out almost like a tune, words flowing into each other. But what Starlight was really worrying about under her tightly shut eyes, was that her captor knew her name. This wasn’t any accident.

“Oh my, it seems those shackles were a little looser than I would’ve preferred, hopefully you still can’t walk.”

Her captor kicked Starlight’s side, hard, shattering one of her ribs. Starlight groaned in sharp pain and opened her eyes a little, burning them. Tears began to flow again. Her captor walked in front of her.

“Stand up. I want to see.”

Starlight was unresponsive, lying on her side with her limbs strewn in several directions, frozen, moaning in pain. Her captor sighed in impatience.

“Stand up now. Or else.”

Starlight’s mind began racing. She obeyed out of fright, and began pushing on her hooves to try and lift her weakened body. Her muscles could barely do it, especially after the pain of a broken rib. Her hooves burned, they felt like they were about to snap off. There was so much pain she gained an adrenaline rush that allowed her to stand up for a good five seconds, eyes still shut, her whole body shaking. Sweat dripped off her body before she collapsed. Her captor nodded in approval.

“Hm. That took longer than I expected. You’re a resilient one, I’ll give you that.”

Her captor began chuckling, before landing another kick, this time straight into Starlight’s face.

“And I’ll give you this.”

Starlight gasped in shock, as blood began pouring out of her nose. She spat out some blood that had gotten in her mouth, terrified and in agony. She mustered up some strength to try and open her eyes, and succeeded, squinting up at her captor. The kick to her face gave her a black left eye, which she could still partly see through. She could just barely make out who it was, and wasn’t too surprised. It was her second guess.

Queen Chrysalis laughed maniacally as she paced around her broken foe, who lay motionless on the floor, occasionally shaking uncontrollably in fear and pain.

“So, you know it’s me now, right, Starlight? I was beginning to get bored with you taking so long to realize.”

She stepped on her tail and pulled a little as she walked in circles around her, like a shark orbiting its prey.

“And you were supposed to be the smart one…”

She laughed a little to herself. Starlight began panting heavily, anxious.

“At last, I have you all to myself...finally, I’ll have my revenge for what you did, for ruining my kingdom with your...friendship” She gagged a little at the last word. Starlight felt a little more at ease now that the fear of the unknown had passed, enough to speak.

“Let me go! Please!” she begged.

Chrysalis cocked her head back as she cackled with glee.

“But you’ve only just arrived, Starlight! That’s not very polite of you, as my guest…”

She magically undid Starlight’s shackles, giving her a brief relief, picked Starlight up with her magic and brought her at eye level. Chrysalis found Starlight’s body to be so weak, it was as if she was picking up a rag doll.

“You humiliated me, Starlight, you ruined my life and took away everything I had. You really thought you could get away with that? And pretend to be some hero?”

Chrysalis began walking out of the cave, still holding Starlight in the air as she walked along outside, into a larger cave. Starlight’s tired eyes were drawn above, where she saw numerous green cocoons, some empty, some with ponies inside. She gasped in shock at the sight of not only her dearest friend Trixie, but also her father, her oldest friend Sunburst, and nearly everypony from her old village, unconscious inside a collage of green egg-like sacks. Chrysalis was delighted to see Starlight’s look of absolute terror.

“That’s right. I’ve been busy these past few weeks. You think I had forgotten about you? Every second of every hour since the day you destroyed my kingdom I’ve thought of only you, and seeing you suffer, the way that I have suffered.”

She brought Starlight towards the ground, beneath her chin.

“And make no mistake, you will suffer.”

A smile returned her face as Starlight stared at her in shock. Everypony she loved was at stake. Chrysalis had all power over her.

“Face it, Starlight. You are mine now. And I have so many plans for you.”

Starlight looked up, paralyzed.

‘What does she mean by that?’

“Don’t worry, dear, I’m not going to kill you...not for a while, at least. But you need to learn your lesson, don’t you? That actions have consequences.”

She strolled into another corridor, this one also pitch black. Chrysalis cast a spell that lit a series of torches positioned around the room. Starlight’s attention focused on a large brown work table placed in the center of the room, with iron cuffs attached to each corner. The table was hinged so that it could move from being parallel to the ground to upright. Starlight just knew that something very bad was bound to happen to her here. She was too exhausted to fight back against Chrysalis’ binding spell, and even if she did somehow get out, her magic didn’t work!

Somepony help me, please!

She remained silent in her magical holdings as Chrysalis fiddled in a box of things. She placed some metal tools on a table near one of the walls, each one more evil and twisted than the last. Without warning, Chrysalis threw Starlight onto the table at a high speed, knocking the wind out of her. Not being able to breathe, she gasped for air and crouched on the table, which was rough and splintery. The force of her impact threw her into some of the upright splinters, which now buried themselves into her legs and chest, small spurts of blood dropping out. The pain was relentless. She was begging for a rescue in her head.

‘They have to know I’m gone! They’ll look for me!’

As if reading her mind, Chrysalis spoke.

“And your friends will look for you, of course. But they’ll never find you. Not here. Nopony knows about this place, so get used to it.”

She used her magic to pull Starlight’s limbs towards each corner of the work table, spreading her body in an eagle position. These shackles were just as tight as the last ones, and fit right into the deep, blood-stained indentations the previous ones left. Another tear fell out of her eye.
“Oh, poor Starlight. As if you don’t deserve all of this. And you know you do.”
Her expression changed to be serious, which shook Starlight to the core. Chrysalis got closer.

“Say it. Say out loud that you deserve it!”

Starlight stuttered through her sobs, but managed to choke out: “I...I d-deserve it,,,”

Chrysalis backed away, seeming content. Starlight realized Chrysalis must be insane, which meant she was in more danger than she had thought. Chrysalis finished placing her tools out on the table, and turned again to face her helpless victim.

“Now, I know your friends must be worried sick about you, but we don’t want them thinking you’re just out having a good time someplace, right? They deserve the truth.”

She cast a spell that created some kind of portal-like window, positioned right in the door frame, facing Starlight, whose eyes widened in confusion.

Chrysalis picked up a bright red ball gag with her magic and stuffed it between Starlight’s soft blood-soaked lips. She hung her head in defeat, submitting to her captor. The window portal shook in static for a few moments.

Meanwhile, in a more familiar location, Princess Twilight Sparkle and all of her friends were gathered around the Map of Friendship in her castle in Ponyville, discussing the possible whereabouts of Starlight and Trixie, who were due back two days ago.

“Maybe they ran into a new friendship problem that required their attention,” said Rarity, who was half-interested in the conversation. Twilight and Applejack were more concerned, as both had a feeling something was wrong. The others thought little of this lateness.

“Girls, I’ve been late after friendship missions all the time, I doubt it’s a big deal,” said Rainbow Dash.

“You maybe, but Starlight? She doesn’t seem like the type to change plans in the middle of a mission,” said Applejack.

“Well, um, she did change plans from being evil halfway through her life,” said Fluttershy, who tried not to be too aggressive towards Applejack.

Twilight remained silent as the others bickered, thinking.

‘Starlight said she would be back two days ago. Which means why ever she is late is because of something that happened in the last two days. There weren’t any weather issues or major conflicts that could’ve swept her away, and the road she said she was taking doesn’t pass through any populated areas. Which means it was a straight route back home, with Trixie.’

“Everypony, I don’t feel good about this. And you’re right, Rainbow, it might be nothing. But if it is something, we can’t afford to wait around and find out. We should go back on the trail they were on and look for clues.”

The others all agreed, some more energetically than others.

“Twilight!”

Her determined gaze was interrupted by Spike, crashing through the doors into the room.

“Come quick!”

Twilight looked at him, who was out of breath, in confusion for half a second.

“It’s Starlight!”

Her eyes widened and immediately she followed him, the others trailing behind, now all concerned. Spike led them into the spire library, where a strange window-like portal sat. Twilight looked inside it in utter disbelief at what she saw. The others all gasped in shock. There, in the portal, was Starlight, gagged and shackled to a wooden table in some sort of torch-lit cave. She seemed unaware of them looking in at her. Twilight ran towards it and got as close as she could.

“Starlight! Can you hear me?”

“No, she can’t.” Chrysalis’ face popped in on the screen, making Twilight jump back in fright.

“Chrysalis!”

“Hello, Twilight Sparkle, we meet again...you see, I’ve cursed your little friend here so that she can’t hear or see anything that comes out of the portal, it’s just you and me.”

“What are you doing to her?! Let her go immediately!”

She paused, and then remembered something else.

“And if you have Trixie, release her too!”

Chrysalis laughed.

“I haven’t even begun yet, Twilight. Your pest of a student is finally going to get what she deserves. And I want you to see everything…”

Twilight gulped, her friends behind her looking on in fearful anticipation.

Back in the cave, Starlight was trying to make sense of what she was looking at. But there wasn’t much sense in it at all. She saw Chrysalis, talking to someone in the portal, yet all she saw in the portal was a static blur, and she heard no sound come out of Chrysalis’ mouth.

‘She must’ve cursed me, that witch.’

She figured that her devious captor was either talking to another villain or one of her friends, and based on how excited Chrysalis was, she bet on the latter.

“So, Princess, let’s start, shall we?”

“Whatever you’re doing, stop! You won’t get away with this!” yelled Twilight, desperate and afraid.

Chrysalis ignored her and picked up her first instrument from the table.

It was a metal blade, razor sharp. She raised it up above the fire of one of the torches until it was blazing hot, and approached her victim. She removed the gag.

“Please! Please! I’ll do anything you want! Don’t hurt me! Please!” Starlight was crying ferociously now.

Looking on, Twilight’s heart sank at the sound of Starlight’s desperate cries.

Chrysalis had an expression of eager excitement as she brought down the blade towards Starlight's arms, and made a sudden, deep incision into her inner elbow. A blood curdling screech sounded off as tears sprayed across the room, as Chrysalis messily hacked into her elbow, but left it attached, just about one-fourth split off. She moved to the next leg, and continued through all four, as Starlight begged for mercy. Now all of her limbs completely useless, the weight of Starlight’s body dragged down on all of them, tearing muscle and skin fragments. Chrysalis snickered as she raised the table to be perpendicular to the ground, forcing all of Starlight’s weight down on her broken limbs. Her screams continued, until Chrysalis got annoyed and gagged her again. Starlight shook her head and yelled as loud as she could. Fluttershy couldn’t bear to look anymore and ran off, while Rainbow and Applejack stood, frozen. Twilight too was unmoving, fixated on her friend’s deformed body. Chrysalis put the gag back in, as Starlight breathed deeply, after each exhale a deep groan followed, her eyes tired and her body soaked in sweat. Chrysalis now brought out several small metal stakes, about the length of a pencil each. They were sharp on end and flat on the other. Chrysalis galloped over to Starlight, who made eye contact through her wheezes.

“I’m taking the gag off, but if you scream this time, I’m cutting off your arm, okay?”

Starlight’s eyes darted around the room, unable to process this all. She hesitantly nodded her head.

Twilight stared at her.

“Please Celestia, don’t scream.”

Chrysalis slowly undid the gag, and waited. Starlight hung there, trembling, clenching her teeth in pain and anger, refusing to let any sound out. Chrysalis smirked and pressed her leg onto Starlight’s leg wound. Starlight’s eyes popped and her mouth hung open, as she made a series of disgusting choking noises followed by a gasp for air, fighting the need to scream. The pain was unequivocally unbearable. Starlight’s veins popped out as Chrysalis increased the pressure, yet Starlight remained silent, using all the strength she had left to not let any noise out. Chrysalis backed away, mildly impressed.

Twilight sighed in relief.

“Fine, I’m not one to pull tricks, you get to keep the arm,” said Chrysalis.

Starlight didn’t smile or give any form of response, panting and sweating, spent. Chrysalis went back to being determined and again picked up the iron nails.

“Now, this is going to hurt.”

She brought one close to Starlight’s face, her eyes crossing in the middle at it. Starlight was panicking, her whole body trembling at the sight of the needles, which she had a phobia of. She wrestled with her cuffs to no avail, only able to grunt in pain and whine through her tears.

“And by the way, you can scream.”

Chrysalis grinned a sinister grin.

“You will scream.”

She held out Starlight’s tongue with magic and shot the nail straight through it, blood exploding all over her chest. She gurgled most of the blood that fell back into her throat, giving a shrill scream that was muffled by her inability to use her tongue and the presence of blood in her throat. Every time she moved her tongue, just a little, the cold rod that was stuck in there would bash into some more of her tongue matter. She felt like she was drowning a few times with all the blood in her throat.

Now Pinkie Pie could only handle so much, and threw up into a nearby trash can, before leaving the room also, deeply regretting staying at all. The others considered it their responsibility to be there for their friend in spirit while she suffers. Twilight most of all, though it was becoming difficult.

Chrysalis took some more of the needles, and stuck them through her nose, all four hooves, the skin on her neck, her hips, and her shoulders. Starlight realized she might actually die from all of this blood loss and the pain, and began thanking Celestia for her friends, her life, and her loved ones. But she wasn’t going to die anytime soon. Chrysalis would ensure that. Now Starlight’s body was a disgusting mess of punctured skin and broken limbs. Still, one last instrument of tortured awaited her, though, perhaps the worst. A large, metal, spiked club, that weighed a good forty pounds. Starlight looked at this, moaning and crying over dried tears, and saw it as her executioner.

‘Make it quicker than the others, please.’

Chrysalis waltzed up to the portal to see a dejected Twilight, who hadn’t moved since first seeing her friend strewn up like a test subject.

“Well, we’ve had a lot of fun today, haven’t we, Twilight. This is what life for her is going to be like from now on. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Maybe sometimes, I’ll let you see. She’ll be suffering day in, day out, all because of you. Your first and only student, reduced to...this. You must be so proud…”

She looked back at Starlight, who still couldn’t hear Chrysalis speaking to the portal.

“I’ll leave you with this, then maybe you can reflect on how things ended up, okay?”

Twilight stared blankly and waited, she was almost crying now, as if she could feel some of Starlight’s pain.

Chrysalis wound up the club behind her, and aimed right towards Starlight’s chest. Starlight gaped in horror, shut her eyes and moved her head to the side, awaiting impact. Chrysalis waited, to build up the anticipation and fear in Starlight’s half-beating heart.

‘Quarter-beating after this,’ thought Chrysalis, before pulling back and slamming the club straight into Starlight’s thighs, stomach, and crotch.

The spikes dug in snugly inside her skin, pushing skin cells against each other and tearing strings of muscle out. Chrysalis tugged at the club, swishing the spikes into each other. Starlight sobbed and made disfigured sounds of pain, pleading for help from an imaginary savior. Finally, Chrysalis tore the club out, leaving Starlight riddled with triangular holes that seeped crimson blood. Starlight’s once pink coat was now a dark, crusty red, as her blood dried. Chrysalis removed every needle in one spell. Starlight immediately pulled her tongue back into her mouth, and felt the sensitive hole in the middle of her tongue with her teeth. She couldn’t quite comprehend everything that just transpired, all she understood perfectly was how much it all hurt. And it hurt a lot. Chrysalis admired the mutilated Starlight, who began to fade into unconsciousness from the pain and blood loss. Starlight was almost happy as her mind faded, thinking she would die and it would all be over. Chrysalis was too busy congratulating herself to care.

“Look what’s become of you. The most powerful unicorn in Equestria? Very impressive.” She said sarcastically before turning to address the portal one last time.

“Have fun living with yourself, Twilight.”

She shut off the portal and turned to her victim.

“Well, well, well...you did better than I expected, you put on a great show…”

She released Starlight, who collapsed in a heap on the ground, smashing open one of her leg wounds. Starlight gave a sharp groan and whimpered as she tried to hold herself up, but couldn't, her limbs completely useless. She let her head slump down on the cave floor, defeated. She lay there and cried. Chrysalis looked down on her.

“Good. Know what you are. A pathetic plaything, who’ll live out the rest of her days here, in a dark, cold cave, living through the most painful things anypony could dream of.”

Starlight continued sobbing and whimpering, and looked up at her conqueror, but had nothing to say. She simply hung her head, communicating her admission of defeat.

“Yes, that’s right. You’re mine now, Starlight Glimmer. Forever.”