It was a beautiful morning in the Crystal Empire, and that black dot in the distance was not getting bigger.
It was certainly not, and it didn't take an expert to realize that it wasn't slowly beginning to assume a more recognizable shape, that being a pirate ship, as it rocketed through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour. It had never appeared on the sky without warning, and even if it had, it certainly wasn't going to collide with the tallest castle spire, no sirree.
Cadence smiled and sipped her coffee, content with the knowledge that, if such a dot existed and were growing bigger, it would certainly be polite enough to speed right by her without hitting anything and not force her to think about it any further.
It slammed into the peak of the castle, impaling itself directly in the center of its underbelly and hanging there, miles above the ground, teetering precariously as it balanced on a crystal spike about the width of a dime. Seconds later, swarms of changelings fell off the bottom and fluttered to the streets below, chattering like gremlins.
Cadence sighed, downing the entire coffee in one swig and spreading her wings. It was one of those days.
The vessel could only be called a pirate ship when the term was heavily deconstructed, which is fitting because the ship was too. It was 10% ship and 90% pirated; everything the builders could get their hooves on had been slapped and glued together to make the frame. Wood, Metal, Gems, A Whale Corpse, Carriages, Furniture, Machinery, and Live Changelings Duct Taped To The Side, Looking Very Pleased With Themselves. It was a ship that could either make or break the Theseus debate, assuming it could make it through without breaking. The castle spire had dug deep into its belly, and as she watched, even more spare items that had been slapped on cascaded off to the ground below as entropy and poor craftsmanship fist bumped.
Cadence came to a landing on the "Deck", which mostly consisted of wooden planks stapled to the whale corpse, which seemed to make up the core of which everything else was built around. Up at the bow, a familiar face decked in a flowing red patchwork vest sung loudly and out of tune while fiddling with what Cadence could only assume was the boat's "Wheel", which mostly consisted of two N64 controllers taped together with their handles facing away from each other, a hole dug into the nintendo symbol on one, allowing the wheel to hang and spin on a peg jutting out of the deck.
"He takes me deep sea fishing in aaaaaa... Submarine, we go to drive in movies in aaaaaa... Limousine!" Chrysalis sang, button mashing with no rhyme or reason as Cadence approached her.
"He's got aaaaaa.... WHIRLEY BIRDY and a twelve foot yacht! Ah, but that's a-not all - Ah, Cadence, your beloved majesty! To who do I owe the pleasure?"
Chrysalis suddenly whipped around, grinning like an idiot and taking an extravagant and fake bow.
"Wondering why you suddenly made an illegal park." She replied, struggling to keep balance as the ship depressingly swayed and sagged beneath their combined weight. Once she was on all four legs again, Cadence tossed her empty paper cup at Chrysalis in annoyance.
Turns out it wasn't empty.
Cadence waited for her to stop screaming before continuing.
"I feel like your invasion attempts have been getting more and more... Stupid as they've gone on."
"Celestia, it seeped under my exoskeleton... Oh! You misunderstand me dear! I do not wish to invade! I simply saw your castle from afar and thought 'It would be fun to fight her right now'. And I acted on that thought!"
Chrysalis picked up a pair of scimitars, tossing one at Cadence. They didn't fit the pirate aesthetic at all, or even the homeless person aesthetic, both of which her ride and outfit carried in spades. Cadence caught hers, fumbling with the handle.
"Wait, what about the changelings who just jumped overboard?"
"They're grabbing lunch. Gathering by the hundreds under a ship and chucking it miles into the air without breaking it to hit a castle two countries away then immediately flying up onto it without dying is hard work. They deserve it."
"Love?"
"Pizza. Face it Cadence, it's only me. Now fight!"
Chrysalis lunged, and Cadence quickly parried. The two fast fell into a rhythm, and although it was clear neither had any skill or experience with such a finely tuned weapon, the battle was sort of like giving a pair of guns to a pair of babies; eventually, one was going to hit their target, and it wasn't necessarily going to be the other.
Even more parts fell off in what was more of a deluge of liquid than a shower of solids as the two spun and whirled across the deck, only occasionally clashing swords. The last thing Cadence caught notice of before her attention was forcibly redirected to the loud creaking beneath them was just how happy Chrysalis looked. She was nowhere near winning, and still her tongue was hanging out of her fangs from just how wide her smile was.
The ship teetered backwards, and both parties tumbled off onto a high balcony, sliding across the crystal. Chrysalis hit the railing first and swung her sword up to parry Cadence as she tried to use her momentum from the impromptu power slide to land a hit. The two scrambled to their hooves, carrying the fight backwards into the castle just as the spire broke clean through the ship above them, causing it to slowly begin sliding down. A spare gargoyle fell off the ship, hitting the balcony and collapsing it just as they entered the castle.
They swung and dashed through more and more rooms, crossing through the highest wing of the castle and leaving scars and cuts in the crystal and flooring as they did. A glass statue of Spike was shattered as Chrysalis was swung into it, sliding out a balcony opposite the one they had left.
Just as she righted herself, a porta potty fell off the boat, colliding with her. The bottom shattered, encasing her inside like a coffin. Cadence leapt at it, jutting her hindleg out to kick the front door, toppling the entire thing backwards. Chrysalis broke the door down as it began to pick up speed, flying up away from it. Cadence folded her wings and leapt off the balcony, letting gravity carry her hoof firmly into the Changeling's face.
The two collapsed into a freefalling ball of feathers for a second before all four wings began flapping in unison, miraculously carrying the ball up against all odds. The ball broke as it busted through metal into a room hanging off the back of the ship, constructed from a small boxcar. Changelings inside screamed and dived to save the figurines in the elaborate game of Warhammer 40K they had been setting up for the past hour inside the boxcar, only to watch in horror as the endless war suddenly ended with a grim reminder brought about by two idiots breaking the battlefield through their own brawl.
Chrysalis and Cadence were completely oblivious to this up until the point when the chains holding the boxcar snapped, both yanking the door open and jumping out as it plummeted off. In it's absence, they two flew through an open window on the castle, both deciding it was better to fight on solid ground than an infinite sky.
However, both agreed fighting on an infinite sky was much preferable to fighting in the room of a sleeping child who could destroy magical artifacts with her tantrums.
"Don't wake Flurry!" Cadence hissed, shortly before tearing a Spongebob mobile off the ceiling and attempting to choke Chrysalis with it, charging her attack with the psychic power of a voice box loudly demanding who lives in a pineapple under the sea into Chrysalis's ear.
Chrysalis stumbled around the room, stepping on numerous Legos before slipping on a plush duck and toppling out the window. Cadence dived after her, determined not to lose this fight. It was way too important, clearly.
Chrysalis slammed into a flagpole, tearing it off along with a chunk of the wall it was attached to and hitting the road below them sliding down the street on a slab of crystal with a flag blazing patriotically alongside her. Several crystal ponies raised their hooves in salute as she screamed by.
Cadence hit the same patch of road Chrysalis had just left, looking around wildly before her gaze settled on a baffled looking kid with a skateboard.
"I'll replace this!" She yelled as she snatched it, and his baseball cap for good measure, which she threw on as she took hot pursuit.
Unfortunately, wheels on crystal had about as much friction as crystal on crystal, leading to Cadence quickly imitating her opponent as she screamed down the road at speeds previously unknown to pone.
Both parties began slowing next to each other, each reaching over to swipe with their swords whenever they could as their vessels continued to skate across the kingdom, Finally hitting a crystal ice cream shop, crashing through the glass front.
They both landed on a set of tables, flag pole and skateboard becoming lost during the confusion, although the hat dutifully stayed on Candace's head. Momentum carried them across the tables through a young child's birthday party, swords skewering slices of cake, ice cream cones, and pretty much everything that wasn't each other.
The boxcar collided into the building seconds after, forcing everyone inside to retreat as its great weight crushed tables and servers alike, bearing down on the two royals as they rolled down the tables. Both of them hit the back wall, slamming into the brick hard, saved only by their natural endurance- although it still hurt quite a bit when the boxcar sandwiched them against the shop and collapsed the wall.
Cadence thought she might've blacked out for a second. Pushing up through the rubble she was trapped under, she emerged to the sight of a sword slashing down at her. Her magic worked independent of her higher brain functions, instinctively throwing a brick between them that the sword became lodged in, then pushed her wings against her side, propelling herself backwards out of the pile of dust.
Chrysalis bit the brick off with her fangs, spitting it away. "Nice going with your sword, fool!"
Cadence looked around wildly, trying to find where it had landed before jumping back to avoid another wild slash. She was in a street square behind the ice cream shop, and took quick peeks behind her, wondering if a sword shop had opened recently.
Ice Cream Shop was down for the count. Pawn Shop might have useful materials, but she wasn't sure she wanted to deal with the kind of person who owned a pawn shop. Strip Club was a no. That left Stuffed Animal Shop, which seemed out of place.
Like the regal princess she was, Cadence ran away, teleporting inside and shedding excess magic to create a spectacle of neon pink hearts fluttering down in a blanket where she was, both to distract the love hungry creature and also just because it looked pretty.
She reappeared back behind a counter inside, looking around in a vain hope for any plush heavy weaponry that wasn't actually plush and contained high explosives. Sadly, none existed, but something else did catch her eye, stuffed between Plush Thoraxes.
Chrysalis stumbled through the doors, wheezing pink smoke and coughing up tiny neon hearts. "That was cheap!" She growled inside.
Something settled next to her, and she rounded on it, glaring down the rows of plush animals before catching a glimpse of pink. Grinning wickedly, she whipped around, lashing out and skewering-
"Oh fuck, I killed her! I thought she was a real Alicorn!" Chrysalis exclaims, growing woozy as she took in the pink horse impaled on her sword, bleeding...
"Wait, were you always filled with stuffing? I thought your kind had skeletons." She looked Cadence in the beady black eyes and realized her mistake just in time to whip her sword in an arc at the rush of air behind her.
"HA-! Fuck, it's an inflatable sword." Cadence sighed, looking down at the wad of latex she held that had been easily popped, even with the plush alicorn hanging off of Chrysalis's sword.
Chrysalis raised her sword, and Cadence's horn went into overdrive, scrambling around for the longest and thickest thing it could find.
With little exertion, she ripped the entire counter out of the ground and parried with it, accidentally clobbering the changeling across the face with it.
Chrysalis raised her head, glaring in annoyance, and Cadence quickly backed out the doors to the wider outside, accidentally shattering two glass doors by carrying the counter horizontally.
Their sword fight continued outside, swayed much further in Cadence's favor as a successful hit from the counter would completely daze Chrysalis, while a successful hit from the sword would lodge it in the wood. Chrysalis finally gave up on the sword, leaving it impaled in the desk like a nail in a bat and going instead to tear up a nearby street lantern.
Their sword fight seemed to evolve into a very dramatic stargazing event as they stared intensely up at their levitating weapons, slamming into each other, both seemingly forgetting the idea of a sword fight.
But the wood couldn't hold against the metal forever. One good swing splintered the counter into two pieces Cadence quickly put her magical energy into diverting away from her as they fell, leaving her open for the street lantern to come down on her. The lantern's bottom was punched inwards by the alicorn's sharp horn, and Cadence was lifted off the ground with her head caught inside the metal lantern as Chrysalis awkwardly tried to shake her off, getting more and more zealous until she eventually sent her flying into a nearby wall for the second time that day.
Chrysalis approached slowly, dragging the street lamp behind her as Cadence struggled to lift herself. Raising the lamp in an arc over her head, glistening light from the shattered glass, Chrysalis brought it swinging down.
It rushed to a stop just before making contact, and gently booped her nose.
Chrysalis dropping the street lamp behind her with a resounding thud as she danced between hooves. "I win! I win, I win!"
"That's... That's really it?" Cadence coughed as she pulled herself up. "You come over, challenge me to a sword fight, win, and then just gloat over it?"
Chrysalis stopped, still balancing on one leg. "Well, yeah. I mean, if I killed you, what's gonna happen? Everyone's gonna get really ticked, I'll probably have to beat up the other princesses, it'll be a whole thing. This is much better; I still get to feed my superiority complex, and I still get to fight you. Now I win, and you have to be my slave and cuddle me until I get bored!"
Cadence groaned, resting her head back on the wall. "Can I at least take a bath first?"
"Nope! I won because I'm a pretty princess, and I say-"
A low grumble emanated over the entire country. The two looked up at the source, high over the rooftops.
The ship had been completely stripped clean. All that remained was a single dead whale, suspended in air atop the highest peak of the Crystal Castle, looking more bloated than ever before. And as the entire kingdom watched it in wonder, it took that moment to do what had been a long time coming.
It's stomach exploded.
Waves of entrails soared into the sky, forming a blanket of red that just as quickly spread out to eclipse the sun. For a second it seemed they had dyed the sky, permanently blemishing the heavens with the corpse of Equestria's second mightiest mammal after the Whale Pony.
Then it began to fall.
Chrysalis whistled, kicking at the ground and bowing nervously.
"Alas! You have defeated me. I'll just... Be... Somewhere else."
She teleported away zeptoseconds before the ocean hit the earth.
