"We could use your… spiders… to borough into Canterlot and take Solaris by surprise." said Starswirl hopelessly. He had been sitting, pouring over the war map, trying to decide what course of action to take since the day before. While the other ponies went to bed, Starswirl got to stay up until after 3 in the morning, discussing plans on how to infiltrate the castle. He had a few ideas, all of which had been confounded by one single detail.

"We won't be able to get past the shields without Solaris knowing. Stop suggesting stealth. It's pointless." said Chrysalis for about the thousandth time.

"I don't see you coming up with anything, Chrysie." said Starswirl irritably. Chrysalis had not been contributing much to this planning session.

"I gave one good plan!" said Chrysalis annoyed.

"Casting a detonation spell on Twilight and then giving her to Solaris to explode is not a good plan." replied Starswirl in disgust. She had suggested this about five times.

"Maybe not practical, but it sure as hell would be entertaining." she replied, relishing in the idea.

"First of all, Twilight is my friend. Secondly, we are trying to save Celestia. Do I have to go through what happened again?"

"Oh, yes! I would love to hear this riveting tale once more!" she said sarcastically.

"Celestia was hit with the dark magic that was within me. She is now the evil Queen Solaris, who is trying to kill me and my friends. You are needed because we have nowhere else to turn. You should have helped us out of the kindness of your heart. The slightly less moral thing was to help us to protect your people. I thought you were going help because you owed me. The real reason you helped is for your own personal gain. Very immoral, but good strategy nonetheless." said Starswirl, completely aware Chrysalis was not listening.

"So back to the topic." said Chrysalis. "We still need an idea. Unless you want Solaris to destroy us all, of course."

"Let's review what we have to work with." said Starswirl. "What do we got?"

"We have 2 pegasi, 2 Earth ponies, a unicorn, 2 alicorns, 3 counting me, and about, say, 600,000 changeling soldiers all willing to give their lives in the line of duty. What can we do with that?"

"What to do with that indeed? Let's see. We need to get into Canterlot." said Starswirl, beginning to pace back and forth. "Solaris will stop at nothing to kill all of us. She is ruthless, sneaky, intelligent, and about, say, 5 times stronger than she used to be. She will not forgive me for my betrayal. She may be Solaris, but she still has Tia's knowledge and memories. She knows me and the others so well that any plan we could possibly come up with, she will be prepared for it."

"So give up strategizing and go into hiding?"

"No, no, no. Not at all. I never give up." murmured Starswirl, pride and courage in his voice. "I just need to think outside the box. She can predict our moves because she know's our character."

"We already know that Swirly." said Chrysalis with Starswirl still mumbling to himself. "Try to give us something we don't know. What can we do about it, change who we are?" That sentence sparked an idea, a beautiful, simple idea.

"That's it! That is brilliant! Chrysie you might have saved us all!"

"What?! You thought of something?!" exclaimed Chrysalis.

"She knows how to guard herself because she knows what we would do. So, we should do what we don't."

"I don't understand. What do you mean 'do what we don't'?"

"You've known me longer than she has. What would I normally do in this situation?"

"You would probably try to talk her down. If that didn't work, you would sneak in there and make her see reason." said Chrysalis, unaware still of where he was going. Then realization dawned on her. "So do the exact opposite of that!" she shouted, filled with excitement.

"Exactly! So what is the opposite of diplomacy and stealth?" asked Starswirl, equally excited. Chrysalis paused, considering what those might be. When the answer came to her, she replied.

"Violence and brute strength. And those are two things I know very well."

"We have 600,000 soldiers to work with. We can put 100,000 to the north, south, east, and west of Canterlot, and 100,000 above as air support. We can rush in, take out any guards we encounter, and with our combined strength we should be able to defeat her and remove the magic."

"So, the plan is Step 1: Place our troops. Step 2: Something exciting happens. And Step 3:-"

"Profit." finished Starswirl. "We can do this! It's going to work! I would never do this for any reason at all! She'll never see it coming!"

"You don't often rush into things head on like this, do you Swirly?" asked Chrysalis.

"The last time I ran into battle head-first, without a real plan, was when I helped you murder your father."

"Ah. Sweet, sweet memories. We had a lot of fun in those days." said Chrysalis, reminiscently.

"You would call murder fun? On your own father no less." said Starswirl, disgusted.

"If you were me, you'd understand."

"I understand that you have no morality or remorse.", whispered Starswirl with contempt.

"You think I don't feel bad for what I did?" asked Chrysalis hurtfully. "Not a day goes by where I don't think back on that day, wishing it could've gone differently."

"You obviously don't or you'd have thought of something. You didn't try hard enough."

"He enslaved my people and left them to starve! He killed my sisters! Did you know that? I had 3 sisters, 1 older, 2 younger. He tortured and killed them in front of me. I still hear their screams at night. Not to mention what I saw him do to my mother. Or as he liked to call her, his 'mating wife.' Completely different from his 'cooking wife', his 'cleaning wife', his 'pleasure wife' and the 30 other wives he had." said Chrysalis, anger in her voice welling.

"I-I'm s-sorry." said Starswirl, dumbfounded. "I-I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't. There is a few things I didn't tell you about my father. Ever wonder why I picked the specific date we killed my father on? It was my 18th birthday. The significance of that, you ask? That was the day I was supposed to become his new 'pleasure wife'. I would have lived with that, I really would have. But that day, my youngest sister was to become his 'mating wife'. Let me put that into perspective for you. She would have been impregnated over 5,000 times a day. Every day, she would would have had to give birth to new life, thousands of new lives. I couldn't let that happen, so I did what needed to be done. I thought I would save her from her horrible fate. In a way I did. I never told you exactly the casualties of that attack. You know a lot of changelings died. My sister was among them. You remember when my dad whispered into my ear before I killed him?" Starswirl did indeed remember. It was odd, to say the least. There they were, the Hive burning around them, when Morphis trots over to Chrysalis. When he got to her, he leaned in and whispered into her ear. Whatever he said infuriated her to the point where she killed him. Brutally. She beat him to death with a combination of torture spells and her bare hooves. Starswirl didn't understand why until now.

"He killed her." muttered Starswirl solemnly.

"Not just killed her. Brutalized her. Ravished her. Broke her, physically and mentally. What he whispered to me was the story of what he did to her. When we went in there I planned on giving him a trial, at least, but when he got to the part where he ended her life, I lost it. I wanted him to die. I wanted it to be by my hoof and I wanted it to hurt. I got my wish. So don't talk to me as if I am some sort of barbaric creature who kills for the pure pleasure of causing pain."

"I-I'm sorry." said Starswirl, tears welling in his eyes.

"You wanna know exactly what he said to me?" asked Chrysalis, tears flowing down her face.

"N-no. Please d-don't." begged Starswirl.

"He said, 'So my daughter comes forward to try to usurp me. You were supposed become my pleasure wife today. Tragic. You would have been excellent. Too bad you will have to die here. I'm going to kill you, slowly and painfully, just like your sister. She put up a lot of fight before she was ready to lay any eggs. It seems she was too defiant, because as soon as her eggs hatched they attacked. I killed them of course. But I'm droning on here. Say hello to your sister and her children in Tartarus when you get there'. I lost it. He murdered my sister after killing the children that they had together so, yeah, I lost my shit. I regret what happened but, if I had to, I would do it again, 1,000 times over. I will do it all again for the well being of my people." finished Chrysalis.

At this point, silent tears ran down Starswirls face. Never before had he heard this story, this dark nugget of his old friend's past. He had always thought Chrysalis killed Morphis for pure political power. That's why they stopped being friends, he thought Chrysalis was a cruel, evil pony who deserved no pity. He now saw he was wrong.

I hope she will forgive me, thought Starswirl to himself, After this thing with Tia is sorted out, I will have to make up with her. He looked to his right, out of the wall-sphincter that acted as a window. He saw the sun was a little higher in the sky. It seemed to be about 6 o'clock in the morning. The mares should be waking soon. "We should get ready to attack." said Starswirl, wiping his eyes.

"Yeah. I'll tell my soldiers to get into position. Today we take Celestia! We begin the Second Changeling Invasion of Canterlot!" said Chrysalis, her usual vigor back in her voice.

"That's the Chrysalis I remember." said Starswirl. "My best friend, Chrysie."

"Don't get used to it Swirly." said Chrysalis grumpily. "After we're done, I won't stick around. I won't get in between you and your precious Tia."

"I don't want it to be like that. I want to become friends with you again, Chrysie."

"I'm not sure that's going to work, what with your wife being the princess of the opposite faction of creatures, whom I just cheated out of a very important resource to them. And what-not."

"First, Tia is not my wife. Second, she will give you another chance. And finally, you didn't cheat us out of anything. You had leverage and you used it to put you and your people in a better position. It hurts me, but it was a wise move. We really should get ready."

"Right. I will alert my children. I know I said they would gladly give their lives for the cause, but let's not let it come to that. But before we go, I need you to promise never to tell anypony what I told you just now."

"Of course not Chrysie." said Starswirl, who seemed to be concentrating.

"No, I need you to swear, swear on something you care for." said Chrysalis seriously.

"I swear on my life."

"Your life is in shambles. You could die right now and you wouldn't be upset. You'd be glad you don't have to deal with this world anymore. Try again."

"I swear on Equestria."

"You attacked Equestria with the intent of enslaving it's people. So, not quite."

"I swear on Twi, her friends, Luna, Tia!" said Starswirl, with only one more thing he cared about in mind.

"You just met Twilight Sparkle and her friends a day or two ago, Luna still resents you for your crazy spree, and you are planning to kidnap Celestia as we speak. I'm not buying it.

"I swear." sighed Starswirl, upset he had to say this. "I swear on you. My best friend. I would never tell anyone. I swear."

"Fair enough, but only because I know you don't know anypony else. Well, I have to go tell my chil-"

"But, you might want to make Luna swear not to tell anypony as well. Why don't you shed your guise and come join us." Then, out of the nowhere, Luna appeared. She appeared to melt out of thin air.

"How the hell did you know I was here?" asked Luna.

"When I swore not to tell anypony I heard you snicker." said Starswirl, matter-of-factly. "Apparently, you don't think I could keep this secret."

"Actually, I don't" retorted Luna. "You were never really good at keeping your mouth shut."

"This is different. I take it you heard the whole story?"

"Yes. And I am so sorry for what happened to you. I was wrong to judge you without knowing anything about your past. Please forgive me." said Luna sincerely.

"I don't need your pity, you privileged princess of the moon! I don't care for you at all. I would kill you know if it wouldn't piss off Swirly." said Chrysalis poisonously. "So, I will cut you two a deal. Luna, you will not tell anypony what you have heard of my past. If you do, Starswirl will allow me to kill you. Slowly. Painfully. Inhumanely. Deal?"

"I agree. I will never tell anypony." said Luna, no hesitation. "Starswirl?" He said nothing. "Starswirl. agree to these terms."

"I can't. What if you let it slip?" asked Starswirl skeptically.

"I would never! Just agree to it! It's the only way she might begin to forgive me. I would like to become friends with her. Please." begged Luna. Starswirl, still silent, considers. He knew Chrysalis would use this threat as more leverage for more love. Somehow. He wasn't quite sure how, but he knew Chrysalis well. She was crafty and would find a way to work it into her favor.

"No. I refuse." said Starswirl sternly.

"You owe me this Starswirl!" shouted Luna. "You owe me this friendship! It was your fault I never had any friends when we were younger! All I had was Tia and she was often too busy to deal with me! So do it! Give Loony Luna a chance to make just one more friend!"

"I thought you hated that name." said Starswirl.

"Well, maybe it's growing on me. In fact, I like it. You know why? Because I understand now. I am loony. Loony in all the right ways. I was loony enough to try to protect you, loony enough to fight Tia and loony enough to be in a room, right now, with Queen Chrysalis, one of the most powerful beings in Equestria, and try to be friends with her! Loony indeed! Agree to her terms, or Loony Luna will kick your ass until you do!" said Luna hysterically. "Just do it!"

Starswirl looked between his two friends, Luna looking insane, Chrysalis looking concerned, a complete opposite of how it normally is. "You really want this, don't you Luna?"

"Yes!" said Luna.

"Alright. I agree. If Luna tells anypony about your sister, Chrysalis, you may kill her and I will not interfere." said Starswirl finally.

"Thank you Swirly." said Luna, drawing out the last word.

"Whatever you say Loony." said Starswirl mockingly.

"Well, now that we're done here, let's get the team together." said Chrysalis, voice filled with anticipation. "We have a princess to save!"