You cannot escape from the black hole (the gravity will always pull you in)
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Night strikes back (with a nightmare)
You cannot escape from the black hole (the gravity will always pull you in)
This time, Chrysalis had a perfect plan.
The fiasco in Crystal Empire wasn’t her fault at all. How was she supposed to know that the Princess of Love can actually manipulate love? No creature could have predicted that! She considered this to be one more example of universe being unfair. In a fair world, her plan would have easily succeed!
But since that plan failed, and with attacking Crystal Empire out of question, she needed a new ideas. And as luck would have it, she already found a much better target. One rich in love, somepony she easily could capture to weaken Equestria significantly and immensely strengthen herself.
Luna was a perfect target, Chrysalis concluded.
She fulfilled all the necessary criteria; the alicorn was definitely full of delicious love and power. Capturing her would throw Equestria into panic and chaos, and prove to the citizens that not even their rulers are safe from Chrysalis and her vengeance.
At the same time, she was easy to ponynap. She always worked alone, in the middle of the night, with only some sparse royal guards around. With Celestia and every other pony asleep, there would be no one to spot the infiltrators and their Queen as they approached Luna’s chambers.
What’s more, the alicorn had a tendency to spent most of the night lost in the dreams of others. Chrysalis was sure that in this state, she would be obvious to any danger and easily subdued; after all, if reports from her spies were correct, Luna actually slept through her wedding invasion somehow! How can somepony like her be actually dangerous?
And in addition, since she was hit by the Elements, she was small and adorable. Gone was the ferocious warrior of the night, one who protected Equestria and dealt with monsters and dark magic threatening ponies. She grew soft, which made sense; not only was she stripped of much of her dark power by the Elements, but today’s Equestria was so peaceful and safe there was obviously no need for a warrior Princess anymore… or at least that’s what Chrysalis wanted them to believe.
After all, good is dumb. Ponies who think they are morally superior are just trying to hide their weakness, and Chrysalis could see nothing but weakness in Luna.
Chrysalis conveniently ‘forgot’ about her last meeting with ‘weak’ Cadance, as she put this plan into motion. This time, it would work perfectly, she was sure of it.
Chrysalis and her infiltrators reached Canterlot without any problems. After all, she had a (different then previously) team of experienced infiltrators with her, and she herself managed to impersonate a Princess once; getting safely into Canterlot was a piece of cake.
They spent two days in the city, making sure nothing changed that could ruin their plan. Luna’s room was in the same place as it always was, the amount of thestral guards remained the same, and nothing else changed in the meantime. Celestia still slept during the night, while Luna worked, lost in the dream world. Everything went according to the plan for now.
Chrysalis woke up in the middle of a night and stretched with satisfaction. Rise and shine, she sarcastically thought, looking at the moon. She and her changelings did her best to adapt to functioning during the night, and they were all wide awake. Unlike Luna, who was probably already lost in somepony’s dream. Chrysalis scoffed at the thought of it. Oh yes, this will be a nice awakening for somecreature. She will enjoy seeing this naive ‘princess’ waking up from her sweet dreams only to face harsh reality.
Getting into the palace was even easier then expected. Guards were taken by surprise one by one, and soon Chrysalis quietly peeked inside Luna’s room. Ugh, so much black and blue; was she still in her rebellious nightmare phase, or what? Disgusting colors. And there in the middle of the room, Luna herself sat, oblivious to the world and lost in some dream.
Chrysalis quietly sneaked up upon the alicorn, and charged her horn. It was almost too easy. “I hope you had nice dream, ‘princess’, because now you’ll live in MY dream!” The Queen of changelings declared with a sadistic chuckle, firing a stun spell and observing with satisfaction how the alicorn instantly went limp and helplessly fell on the floor. “And in my dream, you are nothing but a nice meal for me and my brood!”
Chrysalis observed her prisoner, properly cocooned and drained, in her hive as Luna slowly regained consciousness. “Rise and shine!” The Queen mocked the prisoner.
“Who?” Luna asked groggily, more sleepy then surprised for now.
“Me! The one and only!” Chrysalis declared triumphantly. “You thought you got rid of me that easily, didn’t you? Well you were wrong, and with you here my power will only grow. Soon I will rule entire Equestria!”
“And who are you again?”
There was a long moment of silence.
“You are joking. You are kidding me.” Chrysalis deadpanned, too surprised to erupt with anger. “I am the Queen! The ruler of the Vesalopolis Hive! Every creature in the world fears me!”
“Do you have any idea of how little such speech narrows it down?” Luna answered, looking around with slight curiosity. “I have seen many bug-monsters in my life, and even more in various dreams of my subjects. Is this the hive you mentioned earlier?”
“Yes!”
“I am not too impressed by its architectural design.” Luna commented. “I must say that of all the evil hives I have visited in the older days, this would place above average, but only slightly. As far as feeding chambers go, I would even go further and say it would place slightly below average for the lack of either artistic vision, or nightmarish aesthetics that you can so easily achieve as a hive mind.”
“I think my spell must have damaged something in that tiny pony brain of yours.” Chrysalis hissed angrily. “You are my prisoner, and you will stay here until you are so drained you’ll become an empty husk! And with your power, I will take over Equestria, and then the world! Your sister, your friends, all will bow before me or be destroyed!”
Luna contemplated the threat for a moment before speaking. “Alas, this speech does nothing to help me identify you. Are you, per chance, one of the descendants of Queen Arachnia and her legion? Your lack of temper and inability to formulate complicated plans makes it unlikely, but it is the closest approximation I can find in my memory when compared to you.”
“Inability to… are you mocking my plans?!” This time, Chrysalis almost roared in fury. “I managed to capture you, and I did so easily!”
“And yet you are still here, bug queen whose name still escapes me, and not conquering Equestria. I take it that you encountered either a serious issue, or an unexpected problem that your plan would not solve.” Luna pointed out.
“I AM CHRYSALIS!” This time it was a full-blown roar, shaking the walls of the feeding chamber. “And my plan has no problems at all! My agents are already placed in Canterlot, and soon we will strike Celestia down and bring her here, to suffer the same fate you did!”
Chrysalis, impersonating a member of the Royal Guard, observed an exhausted Celestia as the alicorn slowly walked back to her room. The search for mysteriously missing Luna, combined with being forced to take care of both sun and moon and also both Royal Courts was just too much even for the mighty ruler… which made her an easy target.
Chrysalis struck her so fast Celestia didn’t even know what hit her. The huge pile of changelings piling on top of her moment later proved totally unnecessary.
“Impressive.” Luna said, her face still more curious then afraid. “And what about the Elements of Harmony?”
“Those? Pffft!” Chrysalis scoffed. “My agents can deal with them even without my help!”
It was pitifully easy. Applejack trusted her family so much, that once replaced by changelings they could easily subdue her in moments. Rainbow Dash? ‘Wonderbolts’ inviting her to a training session was enough. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rarity were no fighters and required no special plan to capture them, leaving only Twilight Sparkle; who, after being invited by her ‘friends’ for a meeting, was also taken prisoner.
“And Cadance?” Luna asked this time.
Chrysalis was never going to come close to that alicorn again. Instead, she created a non-changeling army to deal with the nuisance. Ponies told to capture Cadance or their families would die proved to be good enough solution; an army of ponies marching into Crystal Empire subdued it quickly, especially since Cadance wanted to avoid bloodshed.
“Very impressive.” Luna commented as Chrysalis stood in front of her cocoon. “A great feat of planning and preparation. You truly are a worthy ruler of Sixleggia.”
“That is not how my country is called!” Chrysalis hissed angrily. “Seriously, how much brain damage do you have, you stupid pony? You’ve been here for so long, and you still can’t even remember my name!”
“Of course I do!” Luna protested. “Your name is… Bugqueen?”
“That’s ENOUGH!” Chrysalis shouted, her Hhive shaking as her horn lit up with all her power and might. “I have enough of you! Now that I have all others, I no longer need you to be my source of power. I will take great pleasure in vaporizing you so thoroughly there will be nothing left!”
“You are correct, that’s enough. The night is coming to an end.” Luna said, suddenly much more focused and awake. “Now, do me a favor and try not to think about the location of your hive.”
Chrysalis laughed. “A valiant effort, but it is for nothing! My hive is protected from your puny pony magic!”
“I see. And where is it exactly?” Luna’s eyes flashed with power for a moment. ”Ah, there it is. And such a fascinating anti-magic defenses. Thank you, Chrysalis, I believe I have everything I need now.”
“You’re bluffing!”
“10,047.” Luna said, and Chrysalis instantly shut up. “That is a lot of eggs. I must say that, while your process of reproduction is not something I expected to learn today, it is nevertheless fascinating. I may share it with some scholars, who have vast interest in your race. Tell me, what would happen if you had a male ruler? Would they also be able to lay eggs? Oh. That is a fascinating answer.”
“What? How did you get all that?” Chrysalis demanded. “You can’t use your magic here! It’s impossible!”
“Where is ‘here’, Chrysalis?” Luna asked, sitting comfortably on her chair. Chrysalis was standing in front of her, in the middle of the black and blue room.
“What?” Chrysalis looked at Luna in shock, only to scream in fright.
Princess Luna, Mistress of Dreams, Ruler of the Night, Protectress of Ponies and the Slayer of Monsters, had her eyes wide open. Inside them, Chrysalis could see stars, planets, galaxies. The Queen of Changelings didn’t even know that so many existed! And they were so powerful, the stars burning with eternal fire so hot that even incalculable distance away they could still be seen.
And between these white-hot stars, among the black holes in reality itself so deep one could keep falling into them for eternity, was a tiny planet. And on it, was a tiny insect, trembling next to a creature of such vast power the difference between them was impossible to imagine; it was as if one was an ant, while another was a mountain so high it could reach the sky.
“NOW YOU LIVE IN YOUR DREAM.” The nightmare in front of Chrysalis repeated her own words from earlier. “HOW DO YOU ENJOY YOUR VICTORY?”
And the monster in form of a pony smiled. But instead of teeth, she had…
“NO!” Chrysalis woke up, screaming in terror. Her infiltrators woke up as well, jumping up and grabbing weapons.
“Are you alright, my Queen?” One of them asked.
“No. Yes!” She corrected herself. After all, she was a Queen, she could not show weakness. “We must move, Luna knows we’re here. Get to it!”
“But my Queen, we cannot leave.” The guard protested.
“You dare disobey your Queen?!” Chrysalis turned to the disobeying changeling with fury born from fear, only to freeze in terror.
“But you cannot leave.” Luna said, still smiling. And then her shape became darkness, and Chrysalis could only watch a black hole slowly sucked in her changelings. And moments later, she could feel the pull herself. She took to the air, but it was not enough; the hole in reality only grew in power, fueled by her fear, and she was falling… and falling… and falling… until even time itself lost any meaning.
Chrysalis could only scream for so long before her lungs gave out.
She woke up, screaming.
“My Queen…” One of her drones started, only to be blasted by Chrysalis the moment she spoke. She would not be tricked again!
“My Queen…” Blast!
“My Queen…” Boom!
“My Queen…” Crash!
And so it repeated herself, until Chrysalis finally calmed down… only to see where she was. She was back in the hive, surrounded by her loyal changelings. She was home!
And she was standing knee-deep among the slain bodies of her entire race. In her blind rage she killed her entire hive, save one. Mortally wounded, Pharynx looked at her with mix of betrayal and loyalty. “My… Queen…” The last drone whispered, resigned, as life left him.
Chrysalis was alone.
Alone!
She woke up, screaming.
“My Queen…”
This time, she didn’t wait for anyling to finish. She just flew away, as far as she could, as fast as she could, ignoring everyling and everypony. She needed to get home, she needed to be safe, she needed to escape this nightmare! She couldn’t stay here!
She dismissed all the drones who were asking her questions. She went straight to her beautiful, anti-magic throne, ad hugged it with all her strength. She was safe, finally! The nightmare was over!
Unless… was she? In the dream, she was in her Hive, but it was not safe. It was all part of a dream. But this was real, right? Right?!
“Hello? Anypony here?” Chrysalis asked quietly, shaking heavily on her massive throne.
Her only answers were silence and darkness.
The Queen wept in fear.
She was real. This was real. She was real. This was real.
She was real…
Luna looked at Tantabus with fury. “How dare you leave my dreams!” She demanded. “I forbid you from ever moving into anypony’s dreams!”
“And I have heard you, Luna.” Tantabus, the nightmare personified, answered with sadistic pride. “It was not a pony I visited, but a wicked creature who wished only ill upon you.”
“Who was it?” Luna demanded.
“Oh, Luna… you may never know.” Tantabus answered wickedly. “It is part of your punishment. You created me, and now I used your own power to torture a creature. It may have been evil, but it was still torture. Once again you hurt others through your actions, as you tend to do.” The manipulative spirit smiled with glee, as all fury slowly drained from the pony who created it.
“I… I forbid you from ever leaving my dream, for any reason.” Luna weakly said, her head hanging down, and all anger forgotten. It was her fault, again. She did this. She hurt somecreature again.
“Do not worry, Luna. I am here… to punish you for your sins.” Tantabus moved onwards, darkness spreading. “You deserve it.” For now it was trapped in here, but one day it would escape. One day, it would know the satisfaction of tormenting other creatures once again; it would save a special nightmare just for Chrysalis, on that day.
But for now it had a different job to do, as it brought nightmares most horrible upon the pony who desired them.
The Princess wept in shame.
She deserved it. She hurt so many ponies. She deserved it. She hurt so many ponies.
She deserved it…
Author's Note
Poor Luna.
