Chapters Cadance blinked the stars out of her eyes and sucked in a breath. She may have been told at one point that she didn't technically need to breath, but she wasn't really willing to test that theory.
Oh, and Nightmare Moon was in front of her.
She looked just as surprised to be there as Cadance was to be directly in front of her. Separated by nothing but a long table. The split second it took Cadance to recover from reality shifting was all it took for Nightmare Moon to grin a wide toothy smile that could have put any shark to shame. "OooohhooOOO~ Well, now... ," She leaned over the table to leer at Cadance, "This is fascinating. "
"Uh- Luna?"
Nightmare Moon tossed her head back and laughed a villainous laugh. At the tail end, she tossed her head and threw the table into the wall with a flick of telekinesis. "I was going to antagonize Twilight when she came through, but me and Luna both know we won't be getting that scroll." She idly trotted forwards, growled from somewhere under her chest and then said, "Killing you seems like a fair alternative."
Cadance twirled out of her seat as a twisting ball of stars and black speared the chair she was sitting in to the wall.
YIKES
Cadance flew for the door, only to be blocked by Nightmare materializing in front of her. "Where do yo-OOMPH"
Nightmare Moon counted on being intimidating and definitely wasn't expecting Cadance to turn her dash for the door into a flying, rotating kick into her barrel. A sword of midnight black metal materialized and swiped down as Cadance kicked off and pulled her body into the most ball shaped she could, fired a blast of magic into the stone, and exited cannon ball style.
A fresh gust of wind graced her features as she uncurled and took flight. She looked up to see the state of the moon then spun her gaze around as Nightmare blasted a bigger hole through the wall and exited with more villainous leering.
"You'll pay for that."
Cadance took wing. "We can talk about this Luna!"
"I AM NIGHTMARE MOON!"
Oops! I made it worse!
The midnight monster launched herself into the air fast enough to leave a streak of magic behind her. The sword swung down and Cadance responded with a shield that shattered after deflecting the blow. She spun, diving down towards the ground and spotted Twilight and Spike running across a bridge towards the castle.
Already running on empty, Cadance was struck with inspiration for a hilarious course of action. The wind on her back signaled for another dodge, and Cadance barely ducked passed the sword, the hoof, and the blast of magic that followed in tandem with one another. Twisting in the air with triplicate flaps of her wings spinning her this way and that, Cadance was functioning more off of feel than actually knowing where she was.
WEEEEE-
She was having fun .
After buffeting Nightmare Moon in the face with her wings, Cadance love-ported over to Twilight.
"Waa!" Twilight jumped
"Twilight!" Cadance smiled
"Cadance?!" Spike shouted
"Sword me!" Cadance hopped forwards with her hoof and wings outstretched.
"What? "
Cadance internally snapshotted Twilight's face. "No time! I need a sword, can you conjure one?"
"Uh-UH." Twilight tried , and half a blade, mostly just the blade part without a hilt appeared in a flash.
"Thank you!" Cadance caught it in her telekinesis, jumped forwards and swallowed Twilight into a hug. "Love you!"
Nightmare roared somewhere behind them.
"That's my cue!" Cadance jumped away and launched herself into the air, briefly calling back, "Good luck saving the world!"
Using the shard of metal, Cadance wrapped it in the Love she felt for Twilight, the humour she found in that moment, and a comical level of determination and the spark of creativity. The metal length turned an exciting shade of pink and white in time for both her and Nightmare to clash in the sky. Pink and white met blue and black, and there was an ear splitting shockwave of force among the twisting sound of metal on metal.
OH. YEAH!
Cadance hit her second wind. Reached forwards with her spare hoof, and booped Nightmare. She turned into a cloud of smoke and tried to strangle Cadance, who swung the single sided blade around herself and then followed by twisting herself, making a tiny tornado of metal and kicking hooves.
Nightmare reformed, a snarl of irritation already plastered over her face as she dove in. "Gah! Hold still!"
Joy filled her.
Finally, a real challenge.
Time slowed down. Angles etched themselves into her head. Cadance knew enough about physics to know the theory of blade work, applying it in practice? This was her first go.
Two blades met in the air before the Alicorns did. Two swipes happened in the interval as Cadance pirouetted in the air and caught the back end of Nightmare's tail in her aura before twisting, blocking another swipe of the black sword, lunged, feinted, dove, block, flap, buffet, spin, block into a sliding stab, turn, adjust momentum, drop-duck-slide-slash along a wind current, until the air become a maelstrom of magic and dance that Cadance owned.
Two slashes that Nightmare had to block, and suddenly she was on the backhoof.
"Come on then! " Cadance yelled, rising the emotions in her head and driving her to another height of speed and viciousness. Twisting the air currents with her wings to send Nightmare flapping off balance, using magic shields to block Cadance's swipes and beams, ducking and rolling as Cadance tried kicking, biting, and punching in every order and configuration she could think of while she turned the environment into a hazard.
Meanwhile, Cadance rode the sky like a beast of burden. She was barely flapping to stay aloft, spinning in the air off wind currents she had started creating on instinct, constantly orientating herself to face Nightmare Moon. Cadance laughed, slowly turning it into her most evil laugh possible, Nightmare Moon got the look of realization that she was way out of her depth.
Unfortunately, Luna, and by proxy, Nightmare, had a far deeper wellspring of magic to pull from.
"ENOUGH. " Nightmare's horn lit a blinding deep blue that swallowed Cadance's vision. Gravity itself inverted, and Cadance flew backwards on the wave of force, twisting in the air to try and regain momentum. Nightmare blasted a tripart attack into Cadance made of fire, ice, and lightning. Cadance rose a shield as she orientated herself, untethered the matrix, and love-ported herself behind Nightmare.
Nightmare, still trying to collapse Cadance's shield, didn't notice.
Cadance tapped her on the shoulder.
Oh, so that's what that feels like.
Cadance stabbed Nightmare in the shoulder. Nightmare yelled in pain, then ripped the blade from her shoulder with her hoof and tossed it away. Starry smoke wept from the wound and the Nightmare doused her horn.
A silent moment passed between the two airborne Alicorns. Cadance was trying to quietly breath through her nose, attempting to not give away how her body was screaming for her to heave as much air as possible. Her horn burned from the rapid fire telekinesis, only slightly abated by the cool wind of the air they were flying in.
"You're a better combatant than Luna thought." Nightmare begrudgingly admitted.
Cadance, now wordless from the lack of air, was also very aware of how little she could do now.
Is my vision blurring?
"Thanks." Cadance responded loud enough for Nightmare to hear her over th- oh yeah, he vision was definitely getting blurry. Taking that as a cue for her body's screaming, Cadance turned her hover into a falling glide for the ground. Nightmare followed and they both landed in short order.
Seeing as that Nightmare was done trying to hurt her, Cadance collapsed onto her side in victory.
Nightmare looked completely unamused with the situation.
Cadance started to breathlessly chuckle.
Nightmare stared, confused, and slightly concerned.
"So, how were the last two loops for you?" Cadance tried conversationally.
Nightmare deadpanned, "I've been trapped in the moon. Again. "
"Oh. Well, here's hoping for something better next loop."
Nightmare took a tentative step closer. "You have no idea what I am, do you?"
Cadance... obviously did not, but she also didn't care. Not because she didn't 'care-' care, but because it didn't matter. "You're you, aren't you?"
Nightmare furrowed her brow. "Yes. You could say that, despite the idiocy of it."
Cadance shrugged from her spot on the ground and dismissively waved her wing. "Honestly? That's good enough for me. Hello Nightmare, I'm Cadance."
"You're..." She frowned, "You're completely insane."
Cadance laughed, it hurt, of course. Except the irony was too funny to pass up. Time travel, who knew it could be this much fun. Speaking of, Cadance felt reality twist over itself. She laughed even as her existence was wrenched out of causality and very gently pushed through a cheese grater into Somewhere Else.
Cadance was admittedly not relaxing. It was a slow day in the 'office' which amounted to Cadance sitting around the office a few floors above her bedroom and a short jog away from the palace kitchens. Stretching out her paperwork until Celestia lowered the Sun, and Cadance could pretend like everything was normal and the paperwork didn't dictate the functionality of civilization.
Then reality exploded.
Like, all of it. All at once.
A simple thing, something Cadance would not have had a viable verbal explanation for. Like an out of body experience, Cadance watched Eternity fold over itself as her mind and soul found a new home in a new place, in a new Time. It was instant, jarring, and the sudden lack of being pregnant caused her to vomit onto the angry, purple crystal flooring of the prison cell she ended up in after reality calmed down.
The first two things at the forefront of Cadance's mind:
Sombra's Crystal Curse, decorating her horn, and sapping at the magic inside her.
And the fact that her baby was missing.
Silently, Cadance turned into a ball of light, the crystals around her horn shattered and exploded into atoms. The bars, if they could even be called that, also turned to dust as Cadance channeled however much power was necessary to find what she'd lost. There were no thoughts past escape and rescue, nothing other than the near ritualistic thump of her chest as she blasted a hole through the Spire.
And then Discord hobbled out of the cell from her side shouting "Freedom!" Clanking with the ball and chain around his ankle, a solid addition to the pinstripe coat and hat he was wearing.
All Of The Things Happening All At Once came to a screeching halt, to which Cadance tried to vocalize something akin to 'What in the ever lovin-' which ended up sounding more like: "Ahuffizhzigmbuwhaut?"
Discord's head peaked around the corner of the cell, "Aren't you coming?"
Cadance shot a beam of blue magic into his face. He took the hit, and a noise came out like if a noodle was actually a dog that was really a balloon being strangled by a river. Two flops, and Cadance got her hooves under her and stomped up to him.
"Rud-"
"WHAT DID YOU DO!?"
Of course, the real question was 'where is my child', but she didn't have the voice to outright claim her unborn foal was missing. That would have been making it too real for her to handle. Having your soul torn out and shoved into a body mostly resembling yourself was an experience to say the least, and Cadance's day of extending paperwork had suddenly gone from the normal ambient levels of stress that come with not ruining an entire culture to The World Ending levels of stress.
Discord, apparently catching onto his incoming vaporization, lifted his hands and tried to wave her off as he used his tail fur to tip-toe walk further away as she loomed. "Nothing! Calm down firecracker! Really! Relax, give me a second to explain!"
Discord offering to explain anything was equally jarring, and Cadance held her assault off for another moment.
"Sparkle." Discord clasped his hands together and pointed forwards with a silent 'boi' before continuing, "She got into a fight with someone who got their hooves on world bending time travel magic. Harmony is at work, and some things became more real by accident." He let off a nervous smile, "Everything will be fine in roughly thirty minutes!"
Cadance closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her zen was interrupted by a weighted blanket appearing over her shoulders and an upside down cup of gravity defying hot coco appearing in her hooves. She opened her eyes to look at a sheepish Discord, "Better?"
Another breath. "Everything will go back to normal?"
Discord's face morphed, literally, into something that could have been considered serious. "Yes. Everything."
A sigh of relief, and melting into the ground. Cadance's heart remembered what it meant to pace itself, and Cadance did her best attempt to recreate a balloon deflating.
"Don't look so glum Empress, the-"
"Please." Cadance interrupted, pressing a hoof to the throbbing in between her eyes. "Give me... I don't know. What even happened?"
Discord put on a pair of reading glasses and Twilight's mane. "Well, if you must know, Time is a fickle thing. It's impossible to change it, until it isn't, something I know plenty of." A whiteboard and a stick appeared, "Thing is, ritualistic relativistic time loops are just about as possible as the rest of reality, and because things have already happened, technically all of this is over already; with a self closing loop, no magical potential was expended, leading to a simple but utterly exciting folding of reality over itself to compensate for the sudden sense of Meaning altering along with a new false future functioning as a narrative focus for the-"
"Okay. I get it." Cadance didn't, "But why are... you here?"
"Mwuah?" Discord floated up, talon to chest, "What? You think something as little as Time would change who I am?" Discord crossed his arms over his face, which didn't matter, since his eyes were on his chest now, "I'm offended."
Cadance rolled her eyes, "Then why am I here, shouldn't I be... different? Different memories? Why is everything the same? Besides the obvious."
Discord shrugged. "Dunno, but you are a functioning part of reality that can't simply be erased, even by Time." He lowered himself upside down to be face to face with his rotated body parts. "Anyways, go have some fun with it. Nothing you do here is permanent, I came to check on you, but I'm also about to go turn The Moon into cheese like I've always wanted to. Ciao!"
Discord slithered his way out of the hole Cadance blasted in the wall. Cadance sipped the upside down coco.
Huh. Okay.
Another deep breath to further calm her heart led her to hear the stomping and far away shouting of 'the princess is escaping!' The precursor to a bunch of guards flooding a room. Sombra's Crystal Curse being present at all, among the new visual mood of the Spire, and the fact that there was a dungeon at all gave Cadance a pretty good idea of when she was.
Nothing's permanent.
A pair of guards wearing horrendously gaudy suits and helmets rushed down into the tiny dungeon hallway. "Stay where you are!" - "Halt!"
Cadance briefly considered chucking them both out of the hole, but it was a long drop, and they were covered in magic sapping crystals anyways. Instead, she followed Discord's lead and threw herself out of the hole and into the air. There was a certain limit Cadance had when it came to dealing with stress. Normally the threshold included a dose of her husband to keep her sane, or a breathing exercise. Something.
The world, maybe Fate itself, seemed intent on pushing that limit. Recently Cadance had, with the help of a friend, developed a new skill for dealing with stress. A more accurate term would be discovering, but in the brief moment Cadance hung in the air after jumping, the moment in which she saw the state of the Empire, the twisting black crystal, the chains, the hurt.
She saw use for an application, after all, for the next thirty minutes?
Property damage was a-okay.
So instead of spreading her wings, Cadance lit her horn with half of her husband's shield spell, twisting the matrix at the tip of her horn as she fell, she tugged at the magic and pulled the solid force down over herself for the sake of thematic. A tweak of the shape, a little more power, and then-
Boom.
Cadance came crashing down like a wrecking ball into, what looked like from the air, a patrol of more garish guards. The shield swallowed the impact of her hooves sinking knee high into the crystal road, and the explosion that followed after she released the spell with a wave of frustration into the ground turned the road into broken glass and set anything on the road not directly attached to the bedrock beneath it loosely into a trajectory facing up .
Cadance smiled. She remembered how this felt. It was hard to push past the act of destruction, but that was okay. This wasn't her Empire, this was a mess, twisted by some insane pony they hadn't yet saved. Someone, probably one of the guards that had hit a wall instead of the air, threw a spear in her direction. She caught it in her telekinesis, flipped it around, and sank it into the crystal next to the pony's head before they could blink.
She chirped, "I wouldn't!" and then pranced down the street, looking for something else to destroy.
She definitely didn't appreciate the creeping purple crystals crawling up over everything. So she lit her horn again, and a pair of ideas crossed through her mind as the bubbling cascade of dark magic fell from her eyes and her horn. The vibration spell she used previously was pretty effective, but what if it was just a little bit more...
Elemental.
The magic in her horn didn't die, it sank down into her skull as black flame lit behind her eyes. This was her Empire. Her home. Sombra had twisted it into a monstrosity once, twice, but no longer. Frustration, revenge, hatred, and a dash of the Royal Canterlot Voice spell turned into a roaring shockwave of twisting black fire and reverberating air that turned any black crystal near Cadance into dust and ash. Chains fell away to nearby slaves, and in one case, a building propped up by black crystal collapsed on itself.
woops
Cadance felt the wind on her back shift, and she spun a wing and twisted through the pressure wave from a beam of magic full of fear, pain, and the intent to harm. She half danced through the air on the gust of wind before daintily setting her hooves back on the crystal ground as Sombra landed in a cloud of smoke, solidifying back into himself in a split second to glare contemptuously at her.
Finally. A challenge.
That was the thing about release . You could scream and rant and bash your head into a wall until it or the wall broke, but after expelling all of the energy, the stress and the emotion would always still be there. It only really mattered if someone else could see, if someone else knew. At least for Cadance, that was the part that mattered. It used to feel strange to think inflicting someone else with her stress and pain, her fears for the future, would work for stress relief, but it really only mattered who it was.
Sombra? Not even a little bit guilty about what was about to happen.
The King snickered, "Yo-"
And then got body slammed by Cadance in the split second he blinked. He simply didn't have the reaction time to respond to a pegasus in her prime with eighty years of experience, not to mention an Alicorn. She twisted into the air, bringing them both above the airborne property line and kicked off of him when she felt magic growing.
He fired a blast of magic at her that she loop'de'looped past, turning in the air to fire her own beam his direction. He blocked with another ray, but wasn't prepared for Cadance's follow up of body slamming him again. Sombra was an umbra turned unicorn. He wasn't used to air combat, nor hit and run tactics. Immediately after she slammed into him again, she spun around and let him fall, following down as he fired another beam of decrepit fearful magic at her.
She filled the air with Love, drawing on her divinity until her eyes blazed white and the charred purple magic sprouting on her horn turned pink. A simple rectangular box shimmering with the Love Cadance was channeling into it slammed into his spell, and as Sombra landed and tried to move, the box slammed down into him too. He poofed into smoke, and Cadance drew down and pressed harder, using a mix of telekinesis and physical strength to force the conjured object down over the tyrant as he tried to escape.
A simple twist of her intentions and a spark of creativity turned the rectangle, irregular. Quickly reshaping it, she brought the border down and turned the box of love into a prison. She used a quick burst of telekinesis to launch a piece of rubble into the air at what looked like mach one; then she jumped away, into the air and started charging her horn again.
Sombra roared, and the inside of the container turned pitch black as crystals started to spear their way through the interior. It took him four seconds to burst the conjured object, long enough for Cadance to load, aim and fire a specialty beam spell designed to turn a regular crystal ball into a disco ball, only turned up to the point where the air around the white beam ignited.
Sombra, currently surrounded in crystal, disappeared under the blazing crisscrossing lines as each individual facet of crystal redirected the beam and turned his explosive exit into just exploding. Cadance was blown back by the pressure wave, but kept her wings flapping.
The dust settled.
Cadance let herself fall three stories onto the ground, sailing through the air in a dive, dragging the wind down with her so that her landing cleared the crater she'd just created of rubble and dust. Sombra was revealed, dazedly trying to stand as his smoky form pulled itself back into a pony while he tried blinking the lights out of his eyes to return to a fighting stance.
Cadance punched him in the face. Her hoof went through, revealing once again, his true umbra form, and Cadance reached out with her telekinesis, flared her wings and pulled . The bottom half of Sombra, the part Cadance had gripped in her magic, went flying, whereas his head, the part she'd just turned into smoke, blew forwards from the magic in her flap as they both separated. Sombra's horn, the only thing that didn't turn into smoke, clattered against the crystal as his body turned to smoke too.
A spear of black crystal rose from a broken building from her side, and time slowed down as Cadance calmly stepped out of the path, and returned fire by ripping the crystal from the ground Sombra was standing on, flipping him over, and then slamming it back down on him.
Cadance exhaled and sagged her shoulders. Relief flooded her, and she blinked contentedly as Sombra pulled his smoke from under the ground. "Goodness, you can't believe how good this felt." She pushed her mane back over her head with her hoof, trying to smooth it out a little.
Sombra glared at her, but he apparently accepted the pause in the beat down.
Cadance pulled out her 'Princess' voice, and mixed it with as much snark and 'higher than thou' she could manage. It came out relatively similar to the normal way the Canterlot elite talked. "It's a shame you're not any stronger. I bet Silver could have given me a way better fight."
Sombra seethed, his eyes flashing red, "Bet-"
He was interrupted by the piece of rubble Cadance sent into the air. It was sheer luck he hadn't moved after she threw him to where she thought it was going to land, but the hilarious ecstasy of not only landing a shot like that, but the comical nature of interrupting the mad tyrant again led Cadance to giggles and snorting.
Sombra fired another blast of magic that Cadance flipped under, taking to the air and just... leaving , laughing all the while as she flew up towards the border of the Heart's shield, twisted, as it was. As the adrenaline faded, she could tell she'd be feeling the mana burn from that little exercise later, but in her eyes, it was worth it.
It took her a minute to get high enough to breach the shield, and then the cloud layer, where she flapped one more time, dropping onto the soft and bouncy substance. While audibly saying 'boing' to herself like a school filly.
She had a minute or so to catch her breath, so she searched the sky, spotting the giant ball of cheese Discord was waving around as a constellation just as reality warbled again and Cadance was swept up in an omnidirectional wave of light.
The feeling of her soul being shoved down into another body, and this time, coughing the dust out her lungs.
Cadance's first impression of where she was now consisted of being blind, so she lit her horn to see crystal.
Now, Cadance has lived in the Crystal Empire for nearing two years. She lived in crystal, ate crystal foods, drank things named 'crystal' ect. The moment she looked at more crystal, that spark of contemptment filled back into her nose and exited with a snort of disapproval.
"Not a great track record for this."
Her voice echoed, and she looked around.
These are the crystal caverns underneath Canterlot.
It was an obvious observation, as she had once spent two weeks staring at the walls down here. Luckily, there was also a way out. Cadance took flight, and trailed down back the way she and Twilight had taken to escape the prison previously.
Call it strange, but there was some nostalgia for this prison. Cadance hadn't been 'captured' like a theoretical fictional princess would face routinely, but there was that hostage situation in Minos which she was technically a part of. Nonetheless, this was special, especially because Twilight was here, so she took the focus out of her flight to hum the song she sang when they were originally making their grand escape.
That being said, she was happy to see the marble of Canterlot Castle, which was saying something for how tired she was of looking at glittering crystals all the time. She heard buzzing, and a few moments later, Cadance saw the line of changelings flitting down the servant hallway she'd stepped into.
Loud last time, if I'm going to do this...
Some of the changelings stopped what they were doing and openly gawked at the pink Alicorn that had just wandered out of a cave. None of them seemed to know what to make of her nonchalant expression.
~Let's go silly~
She started trotting, one of the changelings hissed and stepped forwards.
Cadance inclined her head, "Evening." and kept walking. The changelings in question were distracted long enough for her to turn the corner, more guards in blue keratin. "Excuse me, sirs?" One of them dropped their spear in surprise, "Could you- oh." The other one took off down the hallway, leaving a comically shaped cloud of smoke behind them.
Cadance turned to the other changeling, still fumbling over their spear as the changelings that she'd gone past poked their head around the corner of the hallway to see what in the world was going on.
"Could you take me to Chrysalis? Please? I need to speak with her about the structural integrity of the caves beneath Canterlot." Cadance held back a laugh as the changeling's face went from fear to confusion to consternation and then back. As the changeling tried to figure out whether it should try to stab her or not, Cadance decided to go in a little more.
She put on a sickly sweet smile that was mostly real, and let the amusement sparkle in her eyes. "I'm the new inspection agent, and Canterlot is in a lot of trouble with the CSNSCA if we can't get these things straightened out."
After taking a moment to really hear the audacity of what she had just said, the changeling spoke. "CSNSC?"
"Well," Cadance let herself laugh, she'd never been a realtor before, but this must be what it feels like, "The Canterlot Stable, Neighborhood, and Street Construction Association of course!"
The changeling wilted under her enthusiasm. "Uhhh-"
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!"
Oh good!
"WE'RE MINUTES AWAY FROM STAMPING OUT A RESISTANCE AN-d you're..." Chrysalis' yelling tapered off as she turned the corner and spotted Cadance. A look of shock mixed with bafflement followed, "Didn't you starve to death in a cave?"
Cadance's realtor act dropped in a heartbeat she opened her mouth in shock, "You let me starve to death?! "
"I just assumed!" Chrysalis returned, moderately with worry, and ever growing confusion, which switched to rage on a dime. "What in Tartarus is going on here?! Is this some kind of prank? I'll have you dismembered for-"
Cadance shrugged and blasted Chrysalis through the wall.
The changelings around her got halfway through a dog pile rush before the ones at the front felt the menace radiating from the pink Alicorn, glanced at the solid marble their queen had just been projectile'd through, and thought of a better plan that specifically included not being within touch range.
"Uuuugh" Followed the shifting of rubble.
Cadance poked her head through the hole, "Did that feel like a prank to you?"
"No. " More rubble shifting, "Do not do that again. "
In truth, Cadance probably couldn't. She was running strictly on empty after letting loose on Sombra. She could already feel the mana burn headache coming on, and despite perpetually being in her prime due to her Alicorn nature, she still didn't exactly exercise as a princess.
Chrysalis wrapped whatever rubble was around her in the sickly green aura of her own magic and lifted it out of the way, drawing herself up and dusting off her chitin. "Who are you?" She asked, far more amicably.
Better.
"I'm me. Cadance, there's no trick."
Chrysalis flicked her tongue, "You taste the same too, what is going on."
"Time travel."
Chrysalis made a face. Her mouth opened, and Cadance visually watched the queen put the pieces together. "Oh no." Of all the responses Cadance was expecting...
Chrysalis fell back onto her rump and shoved her hooves over her face. "Not again! " She wailed, and then yelled a non-decipherable yell of frustration into the air. "You're JOKING" The hooves came down, and Chrysalis glanced at Cadance, "Please tell me you're joking."
Cadance shook her head.
Chrysalis closed her eyes slowly, very reminiscent of something Cadance would do, and then fell backwards and started burying herself in the rubble again. There was cursing, mumblings of someone's ultimate demise, and a fair length of other dramatics involved.
"Oh come on, it's not that bad is it?"
Chrysalis threw her hooves up from her half laying down position, half covered in rubble. "EVERY TIME." She raved, "This happens. EVERY. TIME. "
"Err..." Despite intending this level of shaboingery, Cadance wasn't sure what to do with herself now that she'd arrived in this moment. She also wasn't sure what was happening.
"Every time I'm winning! It's... AAAAAAAGH" Chrysalis tantrumed in the rubble turning it into more rubbled rubble. Cadance dodged a rock that flew past her head.
Oh... OOoooh... So that's what's happening.
After she calmed down a little more, Cadance asked "So you don't have your memories from before?"
"No. " Chrysalis grumbled back in response. "Despite being immortal, I'm not Eternal, I don't get to barrel through the rules of the universe like you do."
"Oh. Sorry about that."
"How far back?" Chrysalis asked, "I'm assuming whatever time travel spell altered history fairly recently. I only took over... barely a year ago. I'm uncertain."
"It's close to that, yes."
Once again, Chrysalis, at least after the initial display of brief insanity, continued to display how normal she was. Conversationally, a least.
"Ugh." Chrysalis took another breath, "What happened? Celestia covering up another screw up of hers?"
Cadance, still not sure of what she was doing, answered honestly. "Not Celestia. According to Discord, Twilight is dealing with someone who cast the spell as we speak."
Chrysalis made a face like she snorted, but without the snort, "Who?"
"Uh- Twilight Sparkle?"
Chrysalis stared at her.
"Right, no memories. She's a filly I used to foal sit, I married her older brother?"
Recognition crossed over her green eyes, "Shining Armor's younger sister?"
"That's the one."
Chrysalis rubbed a hoof on her chin. "Can't say I remember much about her... At all... which is strange. Probably the spell altering my memory. Fan tastic." Her hoof went back to her face. "Ugh. This is so disappointing."
"For what it's worth, I'm really sorry about this."
Chrysalis sent her an 'oh, yeah, I totally believe that ' eyebrow raise.
"No really." Cadance argued, "I used to be pregnant before this. It... really freaked me out too, I turned King Sombra into a bucking bag."
Chrysalis 'snrked' "Now that , I believe. That old failure of a disguise could never fight for it All."
"So... What happens now?"
Another eyebrow raise, "Why are you asking me? In however long it takes for this to get fixed, I'll be dead. My consciousness doesn't continue when everything returns to normal. I'll just go back to being who I was supposed to be."
Cadance's ears folded down. "That's... Grim."
Chrysalis shrugged, "You get numb to it. Can I kiss you before I go? I've got thi-"
"Oh? Yeah!" Cadance hopped forwards, "I remember, your 'immortal' hobby. Silver told me about it, I've actually kissed you already."
Chrysalis's muzzle twisted in discomfort, "Never mind. I didn't think you'd be so excited about it."
"What... You don't too?" Cadance plastered her face with fake hurt.
"No." Chrysalis monotoned. "If I already did it, it counts, I don't want your... furry lips on me. No thanks." She shuddered.
"Sooooooooo~" Cadance tapped her hoof, and stepped into the rubble. "I don't suppose..."
"No. My lips are sealed." Chrysalis rolled her eyes, "And I don't even remember who you are. Mostly..."
"Well it's good to see you again anyways. Even if you won't remember. Do you mind if I talk to you about it later?"
"Probably."
Cadance rolled her eyes, "I know you're waiting to cease , but you really could be a more interesting conversation partner right now."
Chrysalis laughed at the hilariously insensitive accusation. "You've got some bite to you, Princess."
"I try!" The smile on her face could have melted a puppy at thirty hooves.
Chrysalis laughed again. "Seems like this future I'm about to head off to may not be so bad. Am I still a queen, at least?"
"Well, you lost at the battle of Canterlot, for one."
"You know what, never mind. I don't want to hear it."
Cadance shrugged and Cadance noticed the emotional absence and pressure of some incoming space. After a few moments passed, Celestia stuck her head through the wall, looking at the scene of Cadance and Chrysalis calmly sitting together in a pile of marble dust.
"Great. "
"Hi Auntie."
"Cadance, where is your baby?" She asked, without concern or curiosity.
Good to know that was the first thing on her mind at least.
The anxiety fluttered in Cadance's mind, "Oh you know," She waved a hoof, except she didn't have anything to say; her smile strained as she waved her hoof a few more times and waited for someone else to say something so she didn't have to think about it.
Chrysalis, probably sensing the deep unease, decided to make it go away. "Anyways, how'd you get here?"
"I exploded the throne room, and the pod I was in." Celestia stepped in through the hole. "I take it this is a time loop? I was just in a battlefield encampment less than nineteen minutes ago."
"That's what she told me. "
Celestia talking in a deeply monotone voice, perfectly enunciating every word without even the hint of an expression was incredibly unnerving, but still somehow fitting. "Unfortunate. I was looking forward to a relaxing stay in that pod. Once you repaired the throne room, of course."
"Relaxing?"
Celestia nodded, "They have deeply effective healing properties. Ask Chrysalis for one of the newer designs after you give birth, it'll do you wonders."
Cadance looked to Chrysalis, who pressed her hoof to the throbbing spot between her eyes and sighed deeply.
So much like me.
Cadance felt something in the air change.
"It's coming." Celestia said, and turned towards Cadance, "I'll see you in a few days, Cadance."
Before she had time to question the time frame of that, reality warbled as time pressed down over itself and folded Cadance's Everything into spaghetti, winding it down towards an unfathomable destination.
Author's Note
For reference in case you haven't seen the show in a while:
Tirek wins
In that order.
Lightning Round!
Cadance appeared in Tartarus this time, covered in a comically large amount of chains.
Celestia and regular, un-Nightmare'd Luna were there and both blinked away the sudden awareness of causality at the same time Cadance did. She frowned, "Why are you two only tied down with ankle chains?"
Luna and Celestia were mostly unburdened, like Cadance had said, they were only connected by their legs to the floor. Meanwhile, Cadance had to talk through a muzzle, which made her question sound more like: 'mmfem mfrited mfemrm mmfklmf chmfm?" Among the heavy chains around her back pinning her to the floor.
Celestia giggled.
Luna blinked a few times in Cadance's direction. "Having just seen you fight, your current situation makes a certain degree of sense."
"Not helping." or rather, "Mnf hrmphnm"
Celestia continued to giggle. "Oh, this is soo much fun! I wonder when I'll get to be evil?"
"Sister, the spell takes place some time after Rainbow Dash's rainboom."
Celestia waved a hoof, "Oh please, I could have turned evil in the past few years I'm sure."
Cadance looked on.
"My apologies, Cadance, for attacking you."
Cadance shrugged.
"Oh please, she enjoyed it, I'm sure. She certainly seemed to be having plenty of fun throwing Chrysalis through a wa-" Celestia straightened up. "Oh, looks like-"
White.
Cadance nearly fell forwards as the crystal she was suddenly standing on turned into bath salt as physics reasserted itself on her body. The sudden chemical change expanded, following up the walls, into the ceiling, and in a split second, the entire Spire itself was collapsing.
Uh-oh
Cadance had enough time to notice she was wearing a white, sleevless, open necked t-shirt; and that she had some weird metal smelling thing tapped to her back before the Spire came down in a fit of gravity, and a tide of salt.
...
Being buried in several metric tons of bath salt was not an enjoyable experience. She was nearly excited for the feeling of having her soul ripped out when it came.
"AAA" Followed Cadance clenching her eyes shut at the sheer amount of light that spontaneously decided that it needed to be inside of Cadance's eyes right that very second. She was in the Empire again, sans bath salt, thank it All.
Cracking an eye open, she glanced around at the bustling city center. The Spire was covered in... flat projections of lights, running movies, somehow. Everywhere around her, ponies, griffons, minotaurs were wearing or holding those flat projections, lights and sounds of ponies selling things and what sounded like adverts assailed her from every direction.
Okay! This is still better than breathing bath salts for thirty seconds!
"Is that Princess Cadance?" A pair of griffons noticed her and raised small rectangles towards her that launched beams of light at her. Looking around again, away from the griffons, every single unoccupied surface was covered in flat displays of light and moving pictures.
Cadance cringed from the flash of lights and raised a wing to shield herself. "Nope!" She flew up, only to tangle herself in a near invisible mesh of what felt like fishing wire immediately. "Ack!" There was a siren that started running, and flashing blue and red lights.
"Pegasi are not allowed above the property line!" Someone shouted through a megaphone, "Get down from there this instant!"
Cadance stopped struggling, giving up and letting herself hang loosely from the net as the sirens continued.
"Nope. I would've liked bath salts more, calling it now."
Another wave of white, reality shifting, Cadance's perspective being shown the boundless ends of infinity, and then she was gone, along with the rest of that horrible reality.
Cadance appeared in a crater.
The reality warping was getting a bit less physically jarring, or she was simply becoming accustomed to it. She was in the Crystal Empire again, only this time, the sky was dark. There was no snow, no shield, no Spire rising up to try and grab the horizon. Only ash, dust, the subtle smell of decay gone cold, and lightless chunks of crystal littering the landscape.
The wind was intense, from the major lack of anything blocking it. It looked like the world had burned down to the bedrock. Even the soil was ash, barely solid enough for Cadance to stand on.
Unlike the other times, Cadance didn't have an immediate solution to the question, 'what to do?'
It was an empty, barren wasteland, and if Cadance had learned anything from this sub-thirty minute exercise, it was that all the parallel worlds she visited were absolute. No villain winning didn't touch the entirety of Equestria, so not only was there already no point due to the world constantly changing around her, but by vision alone, she could tell that even if she flew for hours...
She probably wouldn't find anything interesting.
So...
"Huh." She huffed.
As interesting as it was basically materialize into a world devoid of life, it was only interesting because it wasn't permanent. That being said, after the last few heart pounding versions of Equestria, fighting three individual tyrants to a standstill, Cadance flomped backwards onto her flanks and took a load off.
She sat.
There wasn't much to look at, only the occasional flash of blue sky under the ash and smoke blanketing the world.
So she breathed in the air.
She looked at the sky.
She sat and just... was.
.
.
She wasn't thinking about anything.
There were plenty of worries in the back of her mind, vying for her mental attention. Sure, she could spend this time planning, thinking about everything and everyone and all the time and actions she'd have to take or avoid or this and that. She didn't want to.
If she was going to be in a totally empty world, all by herself, for the first time in so long... well... Cadance didn't like being alone, call it force of habit, but everything had gone by so fast, and in this particular moments (mostly for obvious reasons) Cadance decided that it was time to stop.
Time for a breather.
A rest.
Some sort of acceptance of everything changing, but All of it staying the same.
'Cause that was life, wasn't it?
.
.
.
.
.
Cadance chuckled.
"Needlessly poetic."
She didn't say it directed towards herself. It was a deeply subconscious irony. All this time she'd been told it wasn't a story, but it was just as much of a game as anything else. At least the narrative in her head made sense .
It used to, a least.
Cadance shrugged, smiling and shaking her head. Trying to get the over analysis of moments in her life out of her mind.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"Well."
Cadance could feel the light coming.
This one was different, clearly. She could feel the Harmony in it.
Another deep breath.
"Oomph"
Oh, that's better.
Despite the discomfort of being pregnant, at least it was her own body again. Each of the other Cadance's she was during the...
"Oh- Ew." Cadance raised her leg.
She'd hoped she would have gotten over the physical ripping of reality twisting over itself. Her first go involved vomiting, and embarrassingly, it seemed the last 'jump' between timelines led her to soil herself. She frowned and contemplated using a spell or walking through the castle to her bathroom to clean up. Figuring she'd have to stand for either, she tried to.
aaand was promptly explained to, by her body, that no , that was, in fact, not urine.
Cadance doubled over from both the gut-buck and the realization of what was happening as the gears in her head clanked to a stop.
"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Author's Note
Merry Christmas everypony!