Strange Bedfellows

I am preforming the last day of my personally prescribed physio-therapy when I heard the Mind buzz with excitement, I can't make out what is being said, but it seems to be about a "High Value Target" and/or "the Defiler". I splash my face with the water from the pond and head into the hive structure, only to be extremely surprised when dozen of Changlings came flying out of the entrance and took to the sky. "I wonder what that was all about..." I ask no one in particular as I enter the caverns, I try to find Chrysalis through the Mind... But it was so full of activity it made me sick to try for longer then a few seconds. I wander the caves aimlessly for a few minutes, trying to come across her by chance, then I realize that I'm sweaty and hungry. So I go have a short shower and head to the Mess Hall to grab something to eat, which was a nice big mushroom that tasted like an apple. As I chew on the appl-room I head to the Throne room to see if I can catch her there.

I turn the corner and walk into the Throne room and proceed to run right into a Changling, they don't even bother to look at me. I look up and notice the entire room is full of Changlings, the ground was covered and the air was swarming, and they all were looking straight at the Queen, who was standing in front of her throne. It seems like I came in half way through a speech, "... I need you all to do your part, be the Hive's eyes and ears, so we may continue to survive and one day prosper as we once have!" Okay... more like then end, The Changlings erupt into cheers and, after a minute or two, swarm out of the exits.

"Nice speech, too bad I missed it." I call out to Chrysalis as I wave at her and walk towards her in no particular hurry.

"Too bad, it was quite motivational, I've been working on it for a long time..." When she finishes she has a far off look in her eyes, but by the time I actually reached her it was gone.

"I couldn't understand the Mind at all..." I tell her simply, then I ask "So why is everyone so excited?"

Chrysalis didn't respond for a few moments, I could see she was struggling with something, but I couldn't tell what it was. Then she says quietly, and in an oddly monotonous tone, "It's the Princess... She is visiting Ponyville for the Summer Sun Celebration, and to see her student..."

I let the oddness of her reply slide, I remember her defeat at the hands of Celestia's niece and nephew-in-law in Canterlot; had that memory just a day before the one where she saved me. "Well, this makes a perfect opportunity for me to say hello."

Chrysalis' reaction was not one I expected, because she slammed her hooves and shouted "NO!" in a worried voice. I look side to side in confusion before she regains her composure and says less... emotionally "No, It's too dangerous."

I raised an eyebrow at her as I stated calmly "Actually, it is probably the least dangerous time: with their diarchs in town, the ponies will have to be on their best behavior and I can have a little chat with them, and maybe clear up some misconceptions... Like the one where they see you as demons."

She looks around helplessly as she says "You remember everything, and you still want to do this?"

I could feel my face twist into a puzzled look as I tell her, "Yeah... just had the latest memories a few days ago... remember the really sappy moment?"

Despite her continued distress she blushed and said with an air of defeat, "If you feel you must... But please be careful."

I rub the back of me head as I ask nervously "Can I have a ride?"

*-*

Chrysalis personally escorts me through the Everfree, pleading the whole way for me to reconsider, which really struck me as odd and left me thinking that maybe I was missing something... but all of the memories were in chronological order to the best of my knowledge and I didn't remember there being any inconsistencies. We land just out of sight of the edge of the forest and she says one last time, "Please comeback with me... I... I'm worried you won't comeback otherwise."

By this point my previously heightened spirit had been dampened somewhat by her plain-as-day fear and I just say to her quietly "I have to do this, Okay... I have to say I tried." I pat her shoulder before walking out of the forest, I hear a rapid buzzing that stays in place for a moment before disappearing quickly. I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding and walk towards the now-quite-foreboding brightly colored town. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..." I tell myself quietly, almost connecting to the Mind and asking Chrysalis to pick me up before I got interrupted.

"Halt!"

I look at the source of the sound and catch sight of five of Celestia's golden attired guards coming towards me... Then I realized I didn't speak Hoovian. "Umm... Hi?" I say in English as an attempt to communicate. The guards looked at each other for a moment uncomprehendingly before moving towards me with their spears lowered. Smooth, me... smooth I think to myself as they reach me.

"Do you understand me?" Asks the guard I assume is the leader, because of his slightly more fasionable armour, in a gruff tone. I nod at him, then He asks "Can you speak Hoovian?" I shake my head. He looks at the other guards and says "The Princesses need to see this." and they took up a pentagon formation around me and walk towards the center of town. The foreboding feeling only got worse.

*-*

We march down the main streets, slowly making our way to the center of town, when I notice one of the ponies lining the streets turn to another and whisper "Isn't that the thing that burned down Fluttershy's house and got those ponies killed?" The second pony looked over and narrowed his eyes at me, I recognized him as the pony that nearly broke my jaw. My hand clenches as I think of the things I've wanted to do to him, then I let out a long breath and calm down.

Your anger will only get you killed here. I think to myself calmly, and I lift my hand and wave at him timidly.

"Guards, that thing got my friends killed," Jaw-breaker yells out angrily, "And that's the thing that burned down Fluttershy's house!" The guards look at him, then at me as I make frantic No-I-Didn't gestures.

Then the guards say to him, "Come with us then, we were taking it to the Princesses as a precaution anyways, you can make your case there." Jaw-breaker fell in behind the guards and glared daggers at the back of my head.

We march for a few more minutes and I see a small bridge a head of us, about fifty or sixty yards, and then I hear some one shout, "Look out!" I turn my head to the source of the sound and see a cart barreling towards us from down a side street. The guard between me and it panics and rears up, he is a dead pony if I don't do something. I watch his legs and time my kick so my foot hooks around his closest leg when it was at it's lowest and into his chest before I heaved with all of my strength, all I managed to do was cause him to stumble out of the way... then I notice it's too late to dodge the cart. Fuck me. I think to myself as I hop back and plank, and as I drop to the ground the axle scrapes some of the skin off of my head before I even make first contact with the ground. I stay on the ground until I hear the cart smash into a building behind me, then I stand up and survey the damage.

One of the guards didn't make it completely out of the way and was hobbling around on a broken leg, but beyond that there were no injuries. The building the cart slammed into was decorated to look like a carousal, it had run right through the front door and dashed itself against the opposite wall, covering everything inside with crust and apple filling. Even the sign above the door, which depicted a pony with a very stylized dress, was tilted... the building looks like it should be condemned.

"I feel sorry for Rarity..." I mutter to myself as I brush the dirt off of, then the guards move back around me, with the injured member in the center of the new square formation beside me. We continue our march over to the center of town, which had a tall, brown building I hadn't noticed before.

The guard I saved leans over and whispers to me, "Thank you." before resuming his previous posture, then we march over the bridge and through a large crowd. When we reach the center I see the back of a large white horse, with wings and a flowing rainbow mane that moved in a wind that wasn't there.

"My lady, We have intercepted the creature that has been suspected of being responsible for the arson that involved Ms. Fluttershy's home." The lead guard states to the white horse with an air of deep respect as he drops to one knee... which is really weird to see a pony do.

"Yeah, and he got my friends killed!" Jaw-breaker shouts out from behind us, earning a scathing look from the guards.

"I really hoped he had got hit by that cart..." I think to myself irritably as the white horse turns and faces the lead guard, then I notice the horn on her head and felt a vague sense of recollection, and the foreboding feeling becomes almost unbearable.

"Is that so?" the white horse asks Jaw-breaker in a light, joking tone as a small smile spread across her muzzle, then she turns to the lead guard and asks him, "What do you think, Shining?"

The lead guard stands up and looks straight forward as he states, "It does not speak Hoovian, but it seems to understand it... and it saved one of my guard from a run away pie cart on the way over here."

"Really?" she says in the same tone as before tone as her eyebrows raise slowly and she turns her head to look at me, Then our eyes lock and a headache blooms, my hand flies towards my head before-

*-*

I feel pain, suffering, and death as the images flash before my eyes in the swirling gray mist. I see fires, blood, and the corpses of my brothers and sisters as they litter the ground in my Hive and home. I see my mother fall before my very eyes as a bolt of magic rips her in two and splatters my face with her blood, and I see the one who did it all... all the death, all the pain, all the suffering.

She stood before me now, in her royal glory; Her horn alight with raw magical power, her wings unfurled and extended like a demon about to strike, her mane blowing in a wind that could not exist this far under ground, her white coat spattered with the green blood of my kin... and her eyes alight with a manic glee as she levels her horn at me, only to be tackled by one of my brothers as he shouted "Run, Chrysalis, RUN!" as the vision faded and I was deposited back into my own body.

*-*

My hand hits my face as I drop to one knee and my breath comes out in a raged stutter, I look up at the creature before me through my fingers: The creature who wore the face of a god and committed the acts of a demon; as all of her subjects catered to her whims and wants, blissful in the fact they were graced by her presence and ignorant of her sins. I stand up slowly, then I rocket my leg out and into the side of the guard who's life I saved and send him sprawling, Then I pluck the spear he had dropped out of the air and throw it with all of my might at the demon in front of me as I bellow at the top of my lungs in English:

"DEFILER!"