Evil's return

This was new. The girls had faced many things, and overcome them. From dragons, to a chaotic spirit. But how do you deal with an enemy that appears to have come back from the dead, and at the same time another who has undergone a dark mutation. What you do first is actually quite simple. Scream, very loudly. So that’s what they did. As the shrieking reverberated around the room, causing a few rocks to fall from the ceiling, the insect smirked. That, however, didn’t last long.

“SILENCE,” it shouted, smashing its clawed hoof against the ground with a crack.

Thankfully the screaming stopped to be replaced by intense curiosity, although mostly on Twilights part. “What are you?” she asked.

“I am Chrysalid Tyrant, soon to be next ruler of Equestria,” said the now named foe.

“Ok then, and how is he here? He blew up,” asked Twilight, pointing to Sombra.

“I helped with that. It’s amazing what you can find just lying around,” said a stalagmite next to her.

With a rustle of feathers the top of the rock revealed itself to be a raven. It bowed to the girls and, slightly mockingly, said “A pleasure to meet such famous guardians of harmony. Unfortunately you can’t win here. The plan is foolproof and there’s nothing you can do to stop it”. During this little speech Rainbow had snuck up next to the bird and with an innocent look on her face smacked it into a wall. As the raven slid down the wall the group turned their attention back to the bigger threat, ignoring the crumpled heap.

“So what is your plan then? Care to tell us?” asked Twilight.

“Why should I tell you?” said Chrysalid.

“Who else can you tell of your brilliant master plan before it succeeds and you rule Equestria?” The blatant flattery was eaten up by the overconfident Changeling.

“I suppose I can grant you that request before I defeat you,”

Much eye rolling from the mares, this was just too cliché. Oblivious, Chrysalid continued.

“Using Sombra’s dark magic and crystal powers I have managed to find a very rare gem called Magizite. With it I have made this,” She dragged her claws down the midnight gem causing horrible screeching but not cutting the surface. “This will give me unlimited power and allow me to overthrow Celestia!”

“Like that’s going to happen,” said Rainbow defiantly.

“Yeah, there’s six of us and only two of you,” said Applejack.

“Oh, really? Well, I’ll have to change that,” Chrysalid reared up “MINIONS, ATTACK!” she shouted.

There was a grating sound from above them a hidden trapdoor opened and Changelings swarmed out. As the horde prowled toward the ponies, the Mane Six got into battle stances. Just as the first row was about to pounce, Chrysalid screamed out.

“YES! Destroy them, kill them now”. The Changelings all stopped, including the ones in mid leap. They turned to each other in silent communication. This was not their Queen. She would never have ordered them to kill, only to capture. They followed her in this mad plan only out of loyalty, but no more. The queen they loved had been replaced by an uncaring monster and they were having none of it. As one they turned and flew back through the trapdoor. After the last one disappeared and the trapdoor slammed shut there was a shocked silence as everyone tried to work out what just happened.

“Well Chrysalid, it looks like your back to square one,” said Twilight mockingly “Come on, girls. Let’s use the Elements, quick”.

“Right,” said the determined ponies. While the Elements charged Chrysalid got scared, she had no idea what was about to happen but had a bad feeling it wouldn’t end well for her.

Growling, the Changeling said “I’ll just have to kill you myself”. Just as she was about to leap at the unaware group she froze. Her muscles seized up. “What’s happening?” she thought “Why can’t I move?”

Fighting to make herself do something she glanced over to Sombra. Judging by the look of horror on his face, it seemed he was having the same problem. Chrysalid could feel whatever was stopping her lessen slightly but it was too late. The Elements were ready. Eyes snapping open simultaneously to reveal blazing light, the Elements of Harmony fired. Time seemed to slow for Chrysalid as the rainbow beam sped towards her, the last thing she saw before it engulfed both her and Sombra was a glowing red eye of the raven glinting at her.

The Elements had different effects on both of them. Sombra let out one final scream of pain before disintegrating into ashes. Chrysalid fared only slightly better. She had to endure agonising changes to her body. Claws and armour growing back into her, hair burning away and being replaced instantaneously, bones shrinking, moving, breaking, organs rearranging themselves. When it was all over she collapsed unconscious on the podium. The Mane six cautiously approached the Queen.  As they got closer the raven swooped in and landed next to her.

“Your mistress has been defeated, you can go now,” said Twilight.

The bird chuckled.

“You think I was working for her? Ha! Foolish pony, she may not have known it but she was working for me. Just like you”. With a sweep of its wing it pushed the sleeping Queen off the podium.

“What are you talking about? We weren’t working with you,” said Twilight in confusion.

“I told you, you couldn’t stop the plan and you didn’t. In fact, you played your role quite nicely”. The girls were starting to get unnerved.

“Our role?” asked the alicorn. Something strange was starting to happen to the crystal. Multi coloured lightning was beginning to play across the surface of it.

“I bet you’re wondering what’s happening,” said the raven gleefully. Dumbfounded confusion was written all over the ponies faces. “I’ll take that as a yes then, so I’ll tell you what’s happening,” it said. “This crystal, which Chrysalis and Sombra were so kind to make for me does not produce power. It converts it. More specifically, it turns positive energy into negative”.

“You caused all the bad stuff in Canterlot, didn’t you! You wanted to make sure we came down here and not Celestia!” said Fluttershy, the pieces of the plan starting to come together in her mind.

“Yes, indeed yellow one, very clever. I needed the Elements, the most powerful source of positive energy there is. You didn’t realise it but you hit three targets. This crystal will now give me enough power to-” it was interrupted by Rarity.

“You mean those two where bait, cannon fodder?” she said in shock.

“Of course, I needed you to shoot at something,” The magical lightning jumping through the crystal was now starting to darken turning the same colour as the crystal itself. The raven’s eyes seemed to glow even brighter “Now I have enough energy to claim this planet as my own once again. Tremble ponies, as soon you will face my true power and experience the wrath of-” the bird didn’t get a chance to finish, dark energy all shot out at the raven who absorbed it all. And exploded. Into a gooey black tar.

As the six stared at the small puddle Rainbow said “What a crazy bird, now can we leave?”

“We still need to deal with her,” said Twilight pointing at Chrysalis. Before the alicorn could think of what to do there was a creaking above them. The group jumped back as several Changeling fell between them and the Queen. But once again the Changelings didn’t attack.

Instead, an armoured one stepped forward and said “We thank you for releasing our Queen from the darkness that controlled her, we will take care of her. We surrender and retreat.” with that the Changelings picked up their fallen leader and flew back through the trapdoor, which then shut for a final time.

“Well, our work here is done, let’s get back to Canterlot to tell Celestia of our success,” said Twilight. The only problem now was getting out. While Rarity and Twilight tried to pick the lock with their magic the others sat down exhausted. “I’m glad that’s over. Your twitchin’ was right once again Pinkie, that was scary,” said Applejack.

“I think we’ve nearly got it girls, we’ll be out of here soon,” said Twilight as something in the door clicked and clanked.

“Do you think we could have a ‘beating bad guys’ party?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“Sure, why not,” said the tired earth pony.

“We would have cake and streamers and balloons ‘cause everypony likes balloons and music and dancing and-” the party planning was stopped, because one of Pinkies hooves suddenly seemed to spasm and hit her in the face.

“What was that?” asked Rainbow.

“Pinchy knee,” said a confused Pinkie Pie.

“But something scary already happened. Not that I was scared, of course. What else could possibly happen that would even compare to that?” said the speedy Pegasus with her usual cocky attitude.

Fluttershy suddenly went wide eyed “Maybe it has something to do with that,” she squeaked, pointing to the other end of the room. They all turned to look. The remains of the raven had started to bubble. The black goo began to froth up into the air forming an egg-like shape growing larger all the time. The ponies could only watch. It was now half the size of the door and slightly translucent. The six where starting to get really scared, “What’s happening?” they thought. Something was moving inside the egg, something big. The liquid inside was staring to take shape. Everything stopped for a moment. Then four red glowing orbs ignited in the depths of the darkness.

Crack

Something hit the inside of the egg.

Crack

And again, stronger this time.

SMASH

A clawed hand broke through, cracks appearing all over the surface as the thing tore itself free, roaring in fury. The shards hit the ground and disintegrated. The creature was free. The nightmarish creation fell to the floor. It began to climb to its feet, bones snapping into place. The girls didn’t scream. They were too scared. This was worse than Chrysalid Tyrant. As well as looking absolutely terrifying this thing seemed to radiate fear.

But what was this creature?

They had never seen anything like it, like a black hole given shape. With eight strong spider-like legs clicking against the floor it rose up. Muscled chest and arms with sharp dark grey raven claws flexed. Its head still looked like a raven but now had thirteen red tipped feathers like a buffalo’s headdress, four blazing dragon eyes and a razor sharp beak with two fang-like parts near the end. As the creature stretched a pair of small dragon wings spread from its shoulders, nearly touching the walls. But possibly the most worrying thing about this creature was its tail. A massive scorpion tail that looked ready to slice down into a victims flesh at the drop of a hat. As the black hided creature examined itself a deep chuckling echoed around the room. It spoke, its voice similar to earlier but now much lower and with a growly undertone to it.

“ I've finally done it, it took seven thousand years but I finally did it. Ha ha ha HA HA!”

The creature looked over at the shaking ponies and bowed “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Malum, spirit of evil.” The spirit continued to stretch, knocking over the crystal with its weaving tail. The crystal hit the ground and shattered.

“Now that the formalities are out of the way, it’s time I disposed of you,” said Malum.

This jolted Twilight into action “Q-quick girls use the Elements, NOW,” she ordered.

The Elements started to charge up very quickly indeed but Malum had other ideas. He waved a claw at them. “I don’t think so,” he said and fired six streams of darkness at them. They hit the Elements, coating them with a film of shadows. The magic faded out. The Elements now lay dead on the necks and head of their wielders.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” screamed Twilight.

“I shut them off, didn’t want you to do anything stupid,” the evil spirit grinned as the ponies began to freak out. “Now you’re just sitting ducks,” he summoned a ball of darkness in his hand

“and I could use some target practice”.

Malum threw it straight towards them. None of girls could move as they watched their deaths flying towards them. Twilight was really panicking now. In all her adventures imminent, realistic chances of death had never happened. “No, not like this, not like this. I have to get out NOW” she thought.

A useful little survival instinct with Unicorns and Alicorns is that when they get really scared their magic goes on auto pilot. The ball was inches away from Twilights nose when her horn suddenly flared, teleporting herself and her friends away.

“How has your day been, sister?” asked Luna. The two of them where standing in the entrance hall by the window.

“Tiring. There’s so much paperwork. And I still don’t know what’s been causing trouble in the city,” said Celestia wearily.

“Maybe you will have better luck tomorrow,” said the night princess. There was a silence for a moment before Celestia asked “So, what have you been up to?”

A look of excitement spread across Luna’s face. “I’ve been designing new consolations. There’s this rather good one with-” Suddenly there was a flash of light and the, slightly singed, Mane six fell into the room. “Oh my stars, are you lot ok? What happened?” asked Luna as she and Celestia ran down the stairs to them. Standing up groggily Twilight hurryingly tried to tell the Princesses about the danger below Canterlot. “The rumblings under the city where caused by Changelings’ mining, they created a crystal. But we defeated Chrysalid,”

“Chrysalid?”

“Really evil bad version of Chrysalis, anyway we defeated her and Sombra,”

“Sombra?”

“Yes and when we defeated them it turned out that a raven,” at this Luna seemed to pale “was behind the whole thing and used the crystal and the Elements to transform into a spirit of evil”. Rainbow took over from the breathless alicorn.

“We need to get ready to fight this thing NOW!” this puzzled Celestia.

“Why didn’t you use the....” she trailed off, noticing the blackened Elements.

“We tried to but it cast a spell on them and now we can’t use ‘em,” said Applejack. Celestia didn’t need any more evidence. She called out to the guards by the door “Get Shining Armour here now.” The guards ran off to find the captain. Five minutes later the stallion came charging through the doors, skidding to a halt and saluting the Princesses.

“What’s wrong, your majesty?” he asked.

“You must prepare the guards, we have an evil spirit to fight,” said the sun princess.

“Discord? I thought he was good now,” said Shining, slightly confused.

“Not him, an actual spirit of evil,”. Pinkie suddenly started looking around fearfully, her leg twitching. “He’s coming,”

Being the only one facing the window Shining was able to see a shadow growing on the glass “EVERYPONY GET DOWN,” he shouted just as the window exploded. Deadly glass shards and chunks of brick flew everywhere. Thankfully none of them hit anypony, they all ricocheted off a shield wall Shining had been able to create in the nick of time. However when Malum hit it, it shattered under the force and the spirit flew over their cowering forms. The spirit had barely come to a stop before guards immediately tried to attack it. But their efforts were futile. With a few sweeps of his tail he sent them flying into the walls. One guard managed to throw his spear before losing consciousness. The evil spirit just caught it, bent it out of shape and threw it back, clanging against its owner’s helmet. Grunting in satisfaction, he turned to face the remaining ponies.

“Found you.” He smirked.

The princesses quickly retaliated by shooting their most powerful attacks at the spirit, hoping to distract, or even wound it so they could all make their escape somehow. The beams hit hard but Malum’s only response was a half-hearted “Ow”.

It took a step towards them.

“What do you want?” said Celestia, stepping in front of the others.

“What do I want? I’d have thought that was obvious.” Another step. “I want to rule this planet once again; I want to shroud the land in evil.” The spirit came to a stop when he got ten feet away.

“What I want now though is to eliminate any potential threat to me.” His voice became very sinister. “Starting with you.” Celestia’s face hardened. She was not going to let this thing scare her.

“But here’s the problem, how do you kill an immortal being?” said the Spirit with a philosophical air. “The answer is quite simple really.” He grinned “Take away what makes them immortal.”

Malum suddenly flung out his hand, twin beams of darkness springing from his palm. Moving so fast they didn’t even have time to dodge the streams hit, enveloping both Celestia and Luna in a cloud of darkness. The Ponies could hear them screaming inside but were powerless to do anything to help. They could only watch in horror as the forms of the Princesses shrank. When the darkness cleared they all gasped. Luna was once again the little filly they had first met after defeating Nightmare Moon. Celestia was in a similar state, as tall as Twilight and with pink hair.

Malum now had two small gems hovering in his hand, one glowing light blue, and the other dark blue.

“How pretty,” he said admiring them. His fist closed over them “And how fragile. But I think I’ll hang on to these for now,” Tucking them into his feathery sleeves. The fear that had been holding the others in place was replaced by unbridled fury. How dare he do that to the Princesses! How dare he steal their power! HOW DARE HE! Their anger blinded them and made them do something incredibly foolish.

They leaped at him, with every intent to rip him apart till they got those gems back. Malum did the same. Just before they collided the spirit turned into a gas. As the ponies where swallowed up by it they felt like they had just fallen into an icy lake. Freezing, suffocating, it sapped at their strength both physically and mentally. The feeling didn’t last for long but felt like an eternity. When the ponies shot out the other side they fell into a big heap.

“Well that was stupid,” said Twilight, rubbing herself to try and get the blood flowing again.

“You’re telling me,” said Malum. They turned to face him and their eyes widened in horror. Malum was now standing by where the window had been and he had Applejack. He was holding her by the tail over the city. She didn’t even struggle, knowing full well that was a bad idea, instead trying to keep hold of her hat and put a brave face on.

“Any funny business and I’ll drop her,” the spirit threatened. As the others stared in shock Rainbows mind quickly thought up a plan.

Step one: fly at that thing and hit it in the stomach.

Step two: while its winded grab Applejack and get away.

Step three: watch as it goes flailing over the edge.

Step four: pray to Celestia its wings don’t save it.

As plans go this wasn’t actually that bad, so Rainbow did it. Covering the distance between them before it could even blink, the pony missile smashed into the spirits stomach, just as planned. She winced in pain; it was like hitting that door again. Malum rocked backwards a little. Looking down at the Pegasus pushing into his belly he said “Do you know one of the great things about having spiders’ legs?” Rainbow shook her head fearfully. “They have excellent grip,”

using his free hand he grabbed her by the wing and flung her back down the stairs. Luckily she had a soft landing. Not so lucky for Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy as it involved them. The spirit chuckled wickedly as it watched the ponies detangle themselves. “Oh by the way,” he said, an evil grin starting to spread across his face, “In my book attacking counts as funny business.” The girls started to tear up. “Well done, you’ve just doomed your friend,” the spirit’s grip loosened, but then he hesitated. A spark of hope danced in the hearts of the ponies, maybe it was just a bluff, maybe he wouldn’t–

“It would be a shame to waste that hat,” he said, ripping it from Applejacks grasp. Everyponies’ hearts skipped a beat. The spirit perched the hat on his own head. “Very nice,” he said and looked down to face the terrified Earth pony. “Goodbye.”

He dropped her.