Starlight Glimmer, a young, recently reformed, and (at times) crazy unicorn, was finished. Her last-ditch rescue attempt ended in a bust. Queen Chrysalis had won.
An unlikely team of four heroes (kinda), led by Starlight, had attempted to save Princess Twilight Sparkle, the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony, Spike, and the Princesses, who all had previously been captured. With D-I-S-C-O-R-D being part of the team, this normally would have been a simple matter. Very simple. Unfortunately, all non-changeling magic was negated in and near the changeling hive, rendering even the Lord of Chaos powerless.
While the ~~suicide squad~~ rescue team wandered through the changeling Hive, Discord and Trixie Lulamoon – another of the four heroes(?) – were taken.
Now, deep in the hive, two changeling guards had Starlight pinned to the cold, hard floor. Thorax, the last member of that improbable team, had his hooves adhered to the floor with a strange green glue-like substance.
With the rest of the changelings surrounding them, Queen Chrysalis, oozing utter domination, towered over a frowning Starlight while wearing a condescending smirk. She was going to enjoy this, and even Starlight understood how *bleeped* she was.
“Wow. I knew ponies could be stupid, but not THIS stupid! Did you really think you could destroy my throne with a rock?”
With pleading persian eyes, Starlight begged, “Please, Chrysalis! You don’t have to end things this way! Changelings and ponies can still live together in peace! Thorax does!”
“Peace?” Chrysalis asked with a huff. “Ridiculous! The only thing we need is your kind’s love to feed ourselves!"
Starlight forced an uneasy smile and countered, "But this kind of love has too many empty calories. Wouldn't you instead like some–"
"Friendship? I'll pass." Chrysalis's glare darkened, yet her ice-cold green eyes squeezed out a drop of mercy. “However, I’m not pure evil. So, have any last requests before I seal you in your new life-long cocoon? And in case your feeble mind thought of it, don’t ask something like ‘Can you let my friends go?’ or something so predictable.”
Starlight closed her eyes. There had to be something she could do! If only Twilight were free, who could formulate plans for anything. If Starlight could at least ask her for help...
Wait, ask. A light bulb lit up over Starlight’s head. Literally, because this story takes place in a world of a so-called "little girls' cartoon". You know the one.
It was a crazy plan that she thought of, even for Starlight. But, at this point, the desperate pony would attempt any back-up plan she could conceive. Besides, she was curious about a few things anyway.
‘Well, here goes nothing,’ Starlight thought to herself. She took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and said out loud, “Yes, I do have a request. I want to ask some questions.”
“Then ask them fast. I’m hungry.” Chrysalis leaned down and poked Starlight's ribs. “Wish I had time to fatten you up, but whatever love you have will suffice.”
“Okay. My first question is, what happened to your voice?”
Chrysalis cocked her head, now with a puzzled frown. “Uh, what?”
“When Twilight was bragging about how she defeated you one-on-one and saved the Crystal Empire, she told me how your voice echoes or something, but it sounds normal. Almost like a friend of mine.”
Inside one of the green cocoons dangling from the hive’s ceiling, the semi-conscious Applejack weakly pointed a hoof toward the cocoon imprisoning Twilight. She followed up by slightly curving the hoof up, as if she instinctively gave the pony version of the middle finger. While also semi-conscious, Twilight instinctively shuddered.
Chrysalis stared up toward Twilight. 'Hmm. Never thought of you as somepony to make up stories to show off. I’m impressed.' Chrysalis lowered her gaze back to Starlight and said out loud, “Well, I had a slight throat infection back then. This is how I normally sound.”
“Cool. What’s the deal with the legs of changelings? They look like somepony drilled holes in them!”
Chrysalis looked down at her legs. “It’s just how our legs grow. Are you d–”
“How does love taste?”
“It tastes like chicken.”
Starlight gasped. “My love would taste like chicken?! Why?!”
“I’ve been wondering about that myself. Why do ponies’ love taste like chicken?” one of the surrounding changelings asked with a genuinely intrigued frown.
Chrysalis groaned, flinging a foreleg in the air. “I don't know! I just eat–”
“I’m a pony, not a chicken, even if I had run from my fears a...few times.” Starlight bit her lip as her ears shamefully flopped to the side.
“Okay, it’s not my fault if ponies’ love–”
Starlight blew a disgruntled sigh. However, she could feel sorry for herself later, if she even could. “Fine, I’m a chicken. Wait, how did you catch my friends and the Princesses anyway? Twilight said she alone could defeat all of you!”
For a second time, Chrysalis gazed at Twilight. ‘You should be the Princess of Lying.' Chrysalis lowered her head back down to Starlight. “First, we snuck up from behind, knocked them out, and brought them here. Second, your Princess of Friendship has been lying to you: she never defeated me at all. Now–”
“She what?!” Starlight yelled with a fierce scowl. “I KNEW IT! No wonder she wanted me to keep her stories between us! That lying–wait, nevermind.” She shook her head to help her refocus on the task at hoof. She could yell at her teacher later. “Since we’re talking about Twilight, who’s cuter: her or me?”
Chrysalis blinked twice in rapid succession. “What?”
“I asked, who’s cuter? Her or–”
“I heard what you asked, but why are you asking me?” Chrysalis pointed at herself. “I’m a changeling!”
“Because you asked for last requests, and my requests are questions! Remember?”
Thorax nodded in agreement. “She’s got a point, Queen Chrysalis. You literally asked for it.”
One of the two changelings still restraining Starlight said, “Yeah, I hate to agree with Thorax and this pony, but they’re right. She’s just following your orders.”
“Really?” Chrysalis asked in a deadpan voice, staring at the guard questioning her. “You’re siding with them?”
“Hey, at least one of us has to play devil’s advocate for fairness.”
The Queen raised a hoof, mouth agape, but growled and set it back down a second later. "Touche." She focused her attention on Starlight again. “But still, why didn’t you ask a stallion this? Buck, even Thorax would be a better choice than me!”
“Well, every time Twilight and I asked stallions and even other mares, they always ran somewhere and I think Big Mac is still running. Thorax said his body would explode if he answered and Spike, Trixie, and Discord told me they Pinkie Promised to never answer for some reason. We even tried asking an owl and he always answered with ‘whoo’, so at this rate, we’d be asking you this anyway.”
Chrysalis surveyed the pods containing Spike, Trixie, and Discord, muttered, “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” then scowled at Thorax. He gulped at both the glare itself and its reason.
“I caught some liars today. Guess one of us has to show some guts.” She turned her head to Starlight yet again. “Now, this is just my opinion, but if you must know who’s cuter between you and Princess Twilight, I’d say it’s you.”
Starlight grinned, her eyes lighting up in the joy of winning a long-time argument. “Ha! I knew it! I knew I was cuter, but Twilight wouldn’t believe me! Can you let her out, so I can tell her 'I told you so'?”
“I’m tempted to release her if it will get you to be quiet,” Chrysalis said in a half-sarcastic voice.
“Oh, what can I do for you to let the others out? Dance?”
With a roll of her eyes, Chrysalis answered, “As much as I could use a laugh, especially right now, there’s nothing you can do, so stop–”
“But what if I–”
Chrysalis stomped her hooves. The scream that followed was heard all the way in Ponyville. “Okay, that’s ENOUGH!” She gritted her teeth, her horn glowing green. “Either shut the buck up, or I’ll have you rest in the other world, not in a cocoon!”
“Wait, you can send me to other worlds?” Starlight asked with, unbelievably, a curious smile. “I didn’t know that! Is it–”
A huge green beam fired from Chrysalis’s horn. Narrowly avoiding the changelings pinning Starlight down, it slammed into Starlight, forcing an ear-piercing scream from the mare. Her anguish-filled scream faded as her blank eyes limply closed. Her body, heavily coated in black singes and masking the grave internal injuries within, grew still. Her heart battled to force out one final beat.
“Starlight! No!” Thorax yelled, tears flowing from his eyes.
The two changelings still constraining the now-deceased unicorn released their grip on her. One of them pityingly shook their head and muttered, “Alas, poor big mouth. She should have listened.”
“Ah, much better,” Chrysalis said with a relieved smile, as if she just swatted an annoying fly, not killed a sapient creature. “With her finally quiet, I–”
A blue spirit popped from Starlight’s motionless body and floated in the air. It was in the image of Starlight herself. A yellow halo levitated over her head.
Chrysalis's vocal cords emitted a shameless (for a top-tier villain) high-pitched scream. Half of the other changelings in the hive fainted, including Thorax, though he remained on his hooves with them still being glued to the floor.
In her pod, a semi-conscious Rarity judged Chrysalis's scream a "7" out of "10". The semi-conscious Pinkie Pie rated it two Pinkies out of five.
The ghost of Starlight gazed down at her fatally injured physical body, then at her new spiritual form. She waved a hoof while staring at it. “Hmm. So, this is how it’s like to be dead. Save for the excruciating pain of that magic that hit me, dying really wasn’t that bad.”
Chrysalis pointed a quivering hoof at Starlight. “W-w-what’s going on?! What are you?!”
Starlight tilted her head to the side. “Isn’t it obvious, pony-killer? I’m a ghost! Sheesh, and you call ponies stupid!”
With willpower, Chrysalis forced her hoof to stop shaking and set it back to the floor. “But why are you here? You should be in the other world!”
Starlight moved a hoof to her chest, which phased through her ghostly body. “Oops. I forgot I can’t touch myself anymore.” She pulled the hoof back out while bearing an awkward smile. “Hehe, sorry about that, but I’m still getting used to being a dead mare. Anyway, I told Faust and Big ‘J’ that I didn't want to depart to the afterlife yet, so they let me return as a spirit. Now, where were we before I died? Oh, right.” Starlight pointed toward the cocoons still overhead. “What would I have to do for you to let my friends go? I would do it myself, but I haven't mastered the supernatural powers I can tap into now.”
Chrysalis blinked twice, then blinked twice again. “I was not ready for today.”
Starlight huffed in annoyance. “Well, I wasn’t ready to die, but you don’t see me complaining!” Her lips curled into a mischievous smirk. “If you still won’t free my friends, then tell me what is the cutest thing about me? Or...*giggle*...was the cutest thing about me?”
Chrysalis gawked at the late Starlight Glimmer with a blank stare. This was officially enough. Feeding on love wasn’t worth THIS much.
“You know what? If you’ll shut up, I’ll free your friends!”
“Yay!” Starlight motioned to the huge, foreboding, dark-green throne-like structure in the room. It was the source of what sealed away all but changeling magic in the hive. “Oh, and destroy your throne while you’re at it.”
“What?” Chrysalis stared toward her throne. “That's not part of the deal!”
“it is now. Or you can leave it up if you tell me how–”
"UGH!" Chrysalis covered her ears, even though Starlight's voice was still drilling into them. “Okay, I'll destroy it too! Just, stop with the questions! Guards, free her pathetic friends.”
Chrysalis’s horn glowed brighter and brighter. With the light rivaling the brightness of the sun, she launched a massive green beam of magic with a sharp yell. On impact, the throne shattered into chunks of rock.
At the same time, the half of the changelings still awake looked at one another. Some shrugged their legs in “I don’t know” motions before some of them flew to the ceiling to free the pods overhead. They laid them on the floor and tore them open, the green liquid inside gushing out, allowing the barely twitching prisoners inside to wriggle out.
“Okay, we’re done here. My subjects, I don’t even care if this is our home. Let’s get out of here and away from that ghost!”
The conscious half of the changelings picked up the still-unconscious half, save for Thorax, who was left where he was. With Queen Chrysalis leading the way, the love-feeders flew to the nearest path from the room and fled their hive.
The ex-prisoners slowly forced themselves to stand; many rubbed their heads, some moaned, still others did both. Discord, after his own moan, spotted Fluttershy and flew to her, embracing her in a tight hug. A tear shed from one of his eyes.
Aw!
Twilight was one of the last to gain her bearings and groggily turned to the left and right. “Oh, what happened?” Twilight’s half-open eyes and mouth widened as she caught sight of Starlight and her new spiritual form. “S-Starlight?! Are...are you dead?!”
“She’s WHAT?!” Almost all in the room shouted; Thorax remained unconscious and Flurry Heart cooed.
Starlight smiled and blushed, despite not having blood to warm her cheeks. “Uh, you could say that, but at least you all are free now.”
Discord set down Fluttershy and floated to Starlight, wearing a knowing smirk. “You pounded Chrysalis with questions, didn’t you, Starlight the friendly ghost?”
“Yep.”
“Thought so.”
Save for Discord, all in the room, including Flurry Heart, facehoofed/facepalmed. Even the out-cold Thorax found the strength to free a still-glued hoof and perform the move subconsciously.
Twilight groaned. “Starlight, didn’t I tell you to never do that?”
“Yes, twenty times, but why do you do it then? Wait, are alicorns immortal?”
“We’re not, but if somepony kills me over asking one too many questions, an auto-life spell I had cast on myself for that purpose would revive me on the spot. Now, I have to invent a resurrection spell to bring you back.” Twilight’s frustrated frown softened. “From the books I read about them, Faust and Big ‘J’ won’t allow you to remain in Equestria as a spirit for long, and I'll miss you too much if you stay dead.”
The others agreed. In truth, they expected Twilight to resurrect her student, which was why they weren’t grieving for her.
Starlight looked down to the ground. If she was alive, she would have scraped the floor sheepishly with a hoof. “To be fair, this was a back-up plan. Dying wasn’t part of my first plan.” She glowered at Twilight and pointed a hoof at her. “Oh, and not only did Chrysalis say I was the cutest between us, but YOU LIAR!”
"Eep!" Twilight yelped and jumped back. “Why did you call me a liar? I wasn’t trying to lie about being cuter, and I am!”
“It’s not about how I am cuter. Chrysalis told me that you didn’t beat her all by yourself in the Crystal Empire! She said you two never even fought! I knew it!”
Rarity asked, “Um, didn’t Chrysalis kill you, Starlight? Why aren’t you angry at her?”
“That’s because if Twilight blows it and can’t bring me back to life, I will ask Faust and Big ‘J’ to let me haunt the Tartarus out of Chrysalis as payback. But, Twilight is too nice a pony, so I can’t torture her like that, or I risk losing my halo,” Starlight explained, ending with a pouty frown.
Twilight’s ears woefully flopped to the side. Deep down, she enjoyed showboating when she made up the stories of decisively defeating Chrysalis, but it wasn’t just because of that. “Okay, maybe I...stretched the truth, but I wanted you to think that I was holding back in our fights in the past. I couldn’t risk you relapsing into stealing Cutie Marks again.”
Spike laid a paw on his cheek, eyes widening. “Uh-oh.”
Twilight turned toward Spike with a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Spike. Starlight’s halo proves she’s a good pony that has redeemed herself, so it’s safe for her to know–”
“You miiiiight want to get out of here, Twilight, fast,” Pinkie said, stepping back while wearing a fearful frown.
“Why?”
“Because of me, sugarcube,” a serious voice from behind Twilight answered.
Twilight’s ears pointed straight up, her eyes shrinking to pinpricks. She spun around to see Applejack stretching her legs, as if warming up.
“Remember what Ah said would happen if ya lied again about beatin’ Queen Chrysalis all by yourself?”
Twilight gulped. With a pleading frown, she looked toward Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadance, the latter cradled Flurry Heart in a foreleg.
Princess Celestia glanced toward Applejack, gulped, and said, “I-I forgot to...make my bed. I should return to Canterlot at once,” before galloping to the path the changelings fled down.
“And I, uh, have a date. Mustn’t keep him waiting!” Luna dashed behind Celestia.
Cadance set a hoof near her ear. “I think I hear Shining Armor calling me. Be right there, dear!” She levitated Flurry to the top of her head and zipped away, following Luna.
“Goo-goo,” Flurry gurgled as she was carried away. In the foal language, the heir to the Crystal Empire really said, “You cowards.”
“Don’t look at me,” Discord preemptively said, his paws/talons up in a “not my problem” gesture.
Out of options, Twilight turned toward Applejack again.
“Yer one of my best friends, Twilight, so ya can have a ten-second head-start. Start runnin'." Applejack cracked her knuckles and harmlessly cracked her neck–not Twilight’s neck.
Twilight’s ears drooped even more, now pressed against her head. Running or even teleporting would be pointless. Applejack WILL track down and catch the marked Princess if she tried to escape. When this furious, Applejack is stronger than alicorns.
“Starlight, if she gets carried away with me, I might be joining you soon. I didn’t think to set my auto-life spell to work on death by angry Apples.”
Author's Note
Darn. I probably will, but if I don't make it, I'm going to miss you guys, even the ones that don't like me.
Although I won't miss how you refuse to let me live down how I...fell apart when I thought I was tardy! It happened years ago! Stop picking on me about it!
-Princess Twilight Sparkle
Sorry, Twilight, but that's not happening anytime soon. It's still too fun.
-ThePinkedWonder
