Chrysalis smashed headfirst into the snow. She bounced several times before coming to a grinding halt. She just sat there for a moment, in total shock over what had just occurred. All around her, her minions plopped down one by one, making craters in the freshly fallen snow.
Canterlot was lost.
All at once, Chrysalis scrambled to her feet and screamed into the sky.
“No…AAAAAAAAAAAAGH! NO! NO! NO!” She thrashed at the snow, spraying powder in every direction.
One by one, her changeling soldiers rose up, gathering around their Queen.
Slowly, Chrysalis got her bearings and started stomping out of the frozen valley where she had landed. She took to the skies and eventually came to a nondescript and not-so-frozen foothill with a few trees and a mineshaft leading inside it. She skulked inside and traveled through the winding, dripping passageways until they opened up into a cave.
“We were so CLOSE!” she hit the rock wall of the cave with her hoof. She enjoyed the stinging sensation, especially as it distracted her from the strange, fuzzy feeling swirling around in her head. She must’ve hit it badly when she hit the ground…
Compared to the majesty of Canterlot, Chrysalis’s lair was a hole in the ground. A pretty hole covered in emerald deposits, but still a dank, muddy, and miserable hole. She and her kin felt perfectly at home there. Her workers had cut and polished the exposed gemstones in the walls and ceiling, so the reflections caused what little light there was in the cave to dance over the walls as people moved around inside.
She should have been planning revenge, but all she wanted to do was throw herself onto her dirty obsidian throne and pout for a good few hours while her head cleared. She’d get them back, she vowed. It didn’t matter that she’d lost Equestria this time, she decided. She still had that…that…what was it? It had slipped her mind at the moment.
As she approached her throne, she noticed a number of changelings constructing a large, half-open cocoon suspended above the throne.
“Get off,” she barked. “Leave me!”
She picked up a cup of dirty water and drank it down with one gulp. If she had had some of that wedding’s party punch, she’d have downed a whole bowl of it. She curled into a ball of sulking rage on her throne.
“I said GET OUT!” she roared.
The changelings eyed her. A few of them proceeded to slink out of the room.
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “What are you looking at?”
Five of the changelings crept towards her…getting uncomfortably close.
Chrysalis started, but suddenly a wave of drowsiness fell over her. She dropped the water cup and waved the changelings away once more.
“Aaah...I said…” she whimpered, “What…what are you doing?”
They picked her up by the feet and lifted her into the cocoon.
“Wait! Stop!” she said, as a rush of adrenaline counteracted the sleeping drug for only a second.
The changelings started to close up the cocoon.
“No…Please. I’ll get those ponies back…” she begged.
“…Why…Why is everything so...off?” she whispered. She reached for the shrinking opening as the cocoon filled with goop.
A speck of light emanated from her extended hoof and slowly worked its way up her front leg, turning it a brilliant, snowy-white. In her peripheral vision, her translucent, membranous hair turned to shades of green, blue, and pink.
Her mind caved in on itself like a jackknifed train.
The last thing Princess Celestia saw before going out was the reflection of her petrified face on the inside of her cocoon prison…as horrible reality came rushing back to her.
It was too late.
=============================
--Hours earlier---
Celestia crashed onto the tile floor, her horn charred from Chrysalis’s savage attack. Her tiara tumbled from her head onto the floor a few feet away. Twilight Sparkle and her cohorts rushed up to check on her. She looked urgently into Twilight’s eyes.
“The Elements of Harmony—you must get to them, and use their power to defeat the Queen!” she implored.
The girls ran off.
“You can run, but you can’t hide!” Chrysalis shouted after them. With a barked order, Chrysalis cleared the other guests out of the hall.
A few minutes later, Chrysalis’s minions flew into the open windows of the Great Hall. The barrier had been broken.
Spike remained frozen in his place next to Princess Cadence, feeling completely helpless before the foe that had appeared before him. The only thing he could do was stay with Princess Cadence and wait for the girls to get back.
Chrysalis addressed her minions, gesturing to Cadence and Spike.
“Take these two out to the balcony. I want to have a word alone with Celestia,” she said with a hint of disdain. Her minions seized Spike and Cadence and took them out of the Hall. Now it was only Chrysalis, Celestia, and the useless Shining Armor.
He’s about as alert as a rotten turnip right now. He won’t be a problem, thought Chrysalis, reaching out to him with her magic one last time to make sure he was sufficiently sedated. It wouldn’t do to have him remember what he was about to see.
“You won’t…get away with this...foul creature,” Celestia said weakly. “Twilight and her friends are coming back, and when they do…”
“They’ll never get past my minions,” Chrysalis said dismissively. “I’ve already sent an army to secure your precious Elements!”
“You…know where we keep them?” Celestia asked incredulously.
Chrysalis sneered and paced for a moment as she talked. “…Yes. Twilight has quite the astute young mind, doesn’t she?” she mused. “It’s not often I get called out in my disguises. I should have done my homework on this Cadence of yours. What was she, Twilight’s babysitter or something?”
Celestia, still lying helplessly on the floor, looked silently and stalwartly into Chrysalis’s horrible green eyes. An anticipating smile flashed across Chrysalis’s face, and her whole demeanor changed and grew cold and quiet. Before, her words were lofty and theatric; now they were hushed and venomous.
“No matter,” she said. “For although I failed to do my homework on Cadence…”
Shining Armor walked over, and Chrysalis touched her horn to his, drawing a surge of magical power.
“I have…for so, so long,” she whispered hungrily, “been doing my homework…on YOU.”
Before Celestia’s horrified scream could leave her throat, she was blinded by a flash of green light that bound her tongue and seared its way into her mind. She flailed against Chrysalis’s magical onslaught, but all of her willpower had gone into her previous fight. She pushed back with everything she had…She couldn’t give in…She couldn’t lose… Her head began to burn and become blurry. A shooting pain went through her whole body. Outside her mind, she faintly heard Chrysalis’s wild, cackling laughter.
Then everything faded to black…and a suffocating cloud settled on her mind, drowning out everything…Strange memories, not her own, played out in her mind, pressing down on her…
“…Wake up, Princess. You have a conquest to carry out!” Celestia said, standing over Chrysalis. Her horn flashed as she lifted the drowsy Chrysalis onto her feet.
One last detail... thought Celestia. She winced as she lit a flame and carefully charred her own horn. Then Celestia’s eyes rolled back, and she collapsed. The changlings came and picked her up off of the ground.
The whole world spun around Chrysalis’s head for a moment. She blinked a few times, her mind too fuzzy to register what was going on.
Her minions pushed Cadence and Spike back into the Great Hall. Chrysalis turned around. Up on the ceiling, Princess Celestia sat suspended upside down in a slimy green cocoon. Upon meeting Celestia’s eyes, Chrysalis felt vaguely like she was forgetting something. Whatever it was, it could wait. She was sure she had seen to every aspect of this operation.
Chrysalis smiled at Celestia, then laughed and turned to Cadence while gesturing to Celestia. “How do you like the way I’ve redecorated, Princess?”
Up on the ceiling, unnoticed by Chrysalis or the others, Princess Celestia looked down and a smile grew on her face as the adrenaline slowly faded from what she had just done.
I’ve…I’ve done it. I’ve actually done it.
Equestria is mine.
