Rough Shod gasped as he woke up. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt to think. It hurt to feel. The cloth over and under his body was smooth, silky, but it sent his nerves into overdrive all the same. He coughed, and he heaved, and he sobbed silently as his body tried its best to recover from the sudden shock of consciousness. The sound of a chair clattering on the ground and hard hooves scampering towards him barely registered.

He was finally offered some reprieve as a cold, moist towel was placed over his eyes. It wasn't much, but it brought some much needed clarity to the guards mind. He could feel somepony hovering over him, and it brought him some comfort to know he had help. His breathe never stopped being laborious, but with great effort he slowed it down. The rapid and erratic sounds coming from his throat turned into even, scratchy wheezing, and his heartbeat began to follow.

"What..." Celestia he sounded terrible. "What happened...?" He heard his visitor take a deep, steadying breath of their own before speaking.

"Princess Chrysalis, uh, resisted arrest." Damn. The last thing he remembered was a pink unicorn and a flash of green.

"Did we... ugh. We get her?"

"Um. No... you, uh. You didn't quite get her." You?

"Your not a- a guard, are you...?" He heard a sharp intake of breath above him. A wince.

"Sorry. No, it's me, uh, Dawn Rise? The changeling?"

"... The sex worker?"

"Sheets are clean! Promise. I have standards." He didn't even think about that. Time to continue not thinking about it.

"Where- where are-" A rough cough interrupted him, but Dawn Rise seemed to have an idea.

"Well... you are in my apartment, one of your unicorns is passed out on my couch, and the other went out to report in with the Princesses. Its-"

"The Princess?! But-" The next thing he was aware of was a glass of water being tilted away from his lips as his coppery throat settled down. "Chrysalis is still..."

"At large? Yeah. So, it doesn't look like she actually left the building? I mean, it's walls are trashed but I think that they think she holed up in a basement. Set up a whole perimeter around the ruins and everything, but nopony has, you know, knocked yet or anything."

"... Why would she... Didn't Beta Knight tell you to hide?" He heard hoofs awkwardly scuffing the floor.

"Yeah. I didn't, obviously, but I didn't think... you know."

...

"... No one else made it, did they?"

"... I think I saw the Beta dude escape, but other than you and the two medics crashing here with you... I... I don't know. It didn't look good..."

... Somehow, that wasn't even the question Rough Shod was dreading to ask the most. So he decided not to.

"... Dawn Rise... I can't see." And he didn't just mean the towel.

...

"... I'm sorry."

...

"... Hmph. Guess retirement came early."

Princess Celestia dismissed the medical officer after he told her everything he could remember from the attack. She didn't move or say anything until he left the tent and his hoof steps faded away. Then she let out a very weary, very wet sigh as she brought a naked hoof to rub at her temple.

"Looks like you were right Luna. Princess Chrysalis..." She was interrupted by Captain Armor kicking the map table and storming off, curses under his breath. "... Princess Chrysalis is the guilty party. Intelligence says that witnesses report her as having executed and/or abducted the guards, pulling the bodies back into the ruins. That being said, smoke, fire and panic mean that reports are scattered and not entirely reliable."

"... Intelligence?"

"Spies Luna, spies." Celestia took another deep breath, though it did little to calm her. "Okay. Three blocks around the battle have been evacuated, we have Shining and his personal squad, thirty-five guards in total, and two alicorns. How do we want to approach this?" She let the silence stretch for awhile, but the lack of sisterly input concerned her. "...Luna?" She lifted her head to her nighttime counterpart to see her biting her lip something fierce. "... Are you-"

"Sister, we have to wait."

"... I appreciate your opinion. You have always been much better at warfare than me."

"... Thank you?"

"Please explain to me why you want us to wait." Luna blushed before frowning in thought.

"I think we have incoming. Elfilis found out before us, and he created something or someone that collapsed his dream. The last time he did that-" Celestia scoffed as she realized what her sister was getting at.

"Last time he made Toby, a creature capable of defeating our entire guard, changeling spies and all and still have time to come home for dinner. Which... I suppose, makes him potentially on par with Chrysalis" Luna nodded, but her sister could tell she wasn't going to like what she said next.

"Yes, but whoever or whatever is likely on its way isn't a Kirby or a Toby or what have you. They are, in his words, friends. The Meta Knights he described as protectors. This one is conviction. We don't know what creature he dreamed up, and he was most definitely not in his right mind when he did so."

"...Luna, don't take this the wrong way, but your friend sucks sometimes." Thankfully, her sister took it in jest, merely giving a sad smile in response.

"Yes. He is a bit of a hoofful isn't he?" Her lips dropped as she moved on. "While we wait, do we have any theories on why, out of all the changelings Beta and the guard encountered, only Carina and Chrysalis seem to have grown?"

"... I want to say sex. Rather, the sex of the changeling."

"Hmm... So female changelings metamorphosize while males merely become healthier? That doesn't account for the many females they had seen outside of disguise. It seems most of them work in brothels and the like, we should be seeing far more ceiling-height horns if that's the case." Celestia said nothing in response, simply summoning a roll of parchment and a quill. "Tia?"

"Vinyl Scratch in Ponyville is a mare, right? By this point, Twilight already has all the tools she needs to do a genital evaluation, or at least the means to convince her to go see a gynecologist."

"... I don't know what that is?"

"A vagina doctor." Celestia stopped scribbling for a moment, before continuing with a soft curse. "Fuck, when was the last time I saw mine?"

"Sister... Are you having... issues?"

"Hm? Oh! No, no. Nothing like that. We are supposed to see one regularly at our age."

"... According to whom?" Magenta eyes peeked over the letter in progress and made contact with a very red princess of the night.

"...Luna, you should see a gynecologist-"

"This is very suspect! I suggest-!" And then an explosion occurred, strong enough to create winds that lifted the tent right off the ground and into the window of a nearby building.

"... We aren't done talking about this. Come on." The solar alicorn sent the letter with burst of magic and quickly entered a quick canter towards the source of the blast, alongside Shining Armor and several other guards kicking their way out of collapsed tents. Luna watched her go for a moment before putting her head down against the table and letting out a nervous breath of relief.

"Thank the stars. You are getting a medal of honor after this Elfilis."

Galacta Knight had barely 'knocked' when a dark blur had rushed at him through the smoke he created. Regardless, he idly flapped his feathered wings as the illusion passed through him. He only raised his shield as he felt the wind shift away from the space directly to his right, slamming it against invisible chitin. The floating warrior steadied his lance as his true opponent came into view, cloaking spell shattering like so much fine china.

"I see you creature. Your magic would better serve you offensively." She hissed, and then took his advice by sending a beam of caustic green energy at him. The tip of Galacta's lance caught the laser and sent it into the ground as he swung it straight down onto Chrysalis's head. A weapon clearly made for thrusting, it nonetheless served well as a blunt instrument and grounded the changeling princess at terminal speed. The earth cracked and splintered from the impact, and was then bombarded by an array of magical beams in the shape of blades. The warrior lightly touched upon the ground as the attacks kicked up dust and debris, but his shield remained raised. "It appears I was mistaken, your magic shall not serve you against me. Your power is negligible and your skill is lacking."

"How dare you..." He was wondering if he would get the chance to hear her speak. "I am the future Queen of Equestria. YOU WILL KNEEL!" Another blast of green emerged from the crater, but Galacta Knight twirled around it and swung his lance with force. A wave of energy parted the screen of destruction and narrowly missed Chrysalis as she came charging out, head first and horn aimed for the center of her opponents mask. Unfortunately, she was committed to her charge, and was unable to recover as Galacta Knight used his wings to meet her mad gallop early. She screamed in both pain and surprise as a creature that couldn't even stand at her neck bodily tackled her chest with a sickening crunch. The horns that extended from his mask punched divots into her natural armor, spraying bubbly pink life liquid across the greatest warrior and staining the ground with it's unnaturally saturated color. "Gah... You... You are nothing... You will not win... I will not let you!"

"Hmph." Galacta Knight wiped the blood off his mask with his shielded mitten before answering the downed princess. "You are lucky my current... benefactor wishes for this to end with your capture. I have much to do to get used to my current power, and you would do well as a target for my more powerful techniques. Weak, and unwilling to stay down when it would suit you." His taunt was more than effective, and he spun his body as Chrysalis threw herself at him, covered in sweltering neon flames from tail to muzzle. Unaffected, he nicked each hoof with the point of his weapon as he passed under her with his pirouette, landing solidly on his two feet as the princess fell to her knees, fires extinguishing as quickly as they came to be.

"No. I'm not done yet. It isn't done yet." Whatever she was going to say was lost as she was skewered by a quintet of spears. One for each leg and one through her abdomen, pinning her to the destroyed floor. And yet, she would feel no pain from this mockery of entomology. Each spear was ethereal, spiritual in nature, and merely kept her locked in place as the heart-topped weapons slowly grew a crystal shell around their prisoner. Soon enough, Galacta Knight's Heart-Spears had encased Chrysalis, turning her into an inert crystal chrysalid in the shape of a cartoon heart.

"I find it hard to believe that a worm like you had managed to strike a warrior like Beta Knight so decisively, though I suppose all it takes is one moment to end a fight. You must have truly surprised him." Galacta Knight didn't turn to look at the crystal as he spoke, barely lowering his armaments from his combative stance. "That being said, had he been at our original potential, you would not have managed to even scratch his mask. Even now I can feel that my body is not as strong as it once was. The price of starting again..." The warriors thoughts were broken by the flapping of wings heading towards him. His mask raised only enough to spot the two alicorns as they landed and buffeted his armor with the winds of their flight. "The rulers of this land, I presume." The taller white one spoke for them.

"Yes. I am Princess Celestia. And this is my sister-" The purple princess took her que before letting Celestia continue.

"I am Princess Luna."

"-And we rule Equestria together. May I have your name, Sir Knight?"

"... I will be leaving now." A push of limbs against the air removed Galacta Knight from their sight, leaving only feathers and an echo of his bass voice in his place. "Tell Elfilis my debt is paid... I am finally free..." The sisters watched as the feathers fell to their hooves before disappearing into motes of light. They then spent many moments looking at the beaten changeling frozen in her prison until the guard began to trickle in, discussing with Shining Armor on how to transport such an oddly shaped cage.

"... Tia, we should leave them to it. We still have much to do."

"You are correct sister. Come, we can discuss what we must do after a meal. We do not want to spoil our appetites with talk of casualties, and you will undoubtedly be checking on Elfilis soon as well."

"You are correct. That being was powerful, and I can only imagine how tired his creation made our friend."

"So... Carina. I know I'm not the first guy you slept with, so how do you think you managed to avoid growing taller until we started 'doing the deed?'"

"Bah. All those times before were hardly sex. A blowy or a hoofy here and there before my partner chickened out or my stricter family caught on before it could go anywhere fun. You and your teleporting trick was the first time it seemed like I was going to be able to do what my body had been telling me to do for so long without my sister coming in and screaming at me. And then, of course, it turned out you were a big sap and you went and melted my heart by setting up a whole-ass picnic on a hill for the first date. You know how the rest went."

"Wow. You hold yourself as much more... Experienced than you actually are."

"That's a nice way to put it."

"Oh hush. I like being nice. Let me be nice, damn it."

"Stop being nice and pass out. You haven't gotten enough sleep yet."

Author's Note

not the authors note i originally intended to put here. i have to take a new medication for like the next month. Who knows what crap itll put me through. Story is not done, still working on it, yadda yadda. feel free to point of problems and mistakes. tired author makes for sleepwriting mishaps