Chapter Four – New Dark Ages

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Fluttershy

Four hours. That's how long she had. Just four hours.

Fluttershy trembled at that thought. It was such a short period of time. Too short. She couldn't be ready to go to war in four hours. She couldn't be ready to got to war in four years. How could her friends expect this from her?

A single tear escaped the yellow pegasus' eye. Two more followed. Fluttershy found herself sniffling as she cried. She couldn't help it… she was terrified.

She had been brave in the face of danger with her friends before, but war was… horrible. It was the single most awful, mortifying, disastrous thing that anypony could experience, and she was about to be put right in the middle of one.

The pink haired pegasus shook with fear. She was just thankful none of her friends were currently around to see her. Knowing they were causing her crippling fright would be counterproductive, and Fluttershy knew it. She had agreed to fight in the war and would not abandon her friends because she was feeling scared. Without her Element of Harmony, they may not be able to win.

At the thought of her Element, Fluttershy touched her hoof to the pink butterfly medallion around her neck. Princess Celestia had distributed them moments ago, before sending the each of the Mane Six off to prepare.

Fluttershy didn't have anything to prepare though. She wasn't going to research powerful attack spells like Twilight. She wasn't going to prime a party cannon like Pinkie. She wasn't going to create a camouflage outfit like Rarity. She wasn't going to exercise like Applejack. She wasn't going to warm up her flight muscles like Rainbow Dash. She wasn't... well, whatever Frostburn was doing she certainly wasn't doing it.

She had nothing to do and nopony to say goodbye to.

Wait a moment… Fluttershy thought to herself, her muffled sobs slowly dying away. He may not be a pony, but I do know who to say goodbye to.

Hoping to distract herself from paralyzing fear, Fluttershy left her room, and began following the route that she had become moderately familiar with over the last two days.

Eventually, the yellow pegasus found herself at the top of the old stairs that led to a nearly unused dungeon. She descended the steps, brushing aside a few abandoned cobwebs left by star spiders.

At the bottom of the steps she saw the amored white Earth pony who stood guard over the single prisoner of Canterlot Castle.

She silently nodded at him, and he responded by opening the door to the cells. That was all the interaction the two ever really had.

Smoking Dagger – the changeling prisoner – was sleeping when Fluttershy walked into the dungeon. That was abnormal. Every time the yellow pegasus visited him, he had been awake, and she had overheard some guards discussing how he never seemed to sleep. That fact that it was the middle of the day was only serving to add to the strangeness of it all.

He must be faking. Fluttershy thought to herself. Everytime she visited Smoking, he had always tried some sort of futile attempt to trick her into letting him escape. Already he had tried impersonating a guard, a helpless animal, and even Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy never fell for his tricks at least, and she was determined not to fall for whatever this one was.

"Hello, Smoking Dagger." She said. He didn't stir. "I'm not going to fall for it, Smoking." Fluttershy stated. "Stop trying to fool me already."

Smoking Dagger still didn't move. "Uh… Smoking?" Fluttershy tentatively asked. She tapped one of the metal bars of the changeling's cell, created a loud clang noise. Smoking Dagger finally started to move. The changeling made a soft yawning sound, rolled over, and stretched out his fore legs. His eyes opened and he looked around with his less than adequate vision.

"Fluttershy?" He asked.

"It's me." The yellow pegasus said. "Oh my… were you really sleeping?"

"Yes." Smoking said simply. He was an expert at short conversation.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were trying to trick me again." Fluttershy told him. He wearily shook his head. "I thought that changelings didn't need to sleep."

"Normally we don't." Smoking told her. "But I've been deprived of my main source of food for too long. I've begun sleeping just to conserve energy."

"I'm really sorry about that." Fluttershy told him. "I wish I could get you some love to feed off of but…"

"It's fine." Smoking told her. "I have been able to feed whenever you come here."

"Wait, what?" Fluttershy asked him. "How have I been feeding you?"

"Your happiness." Smoking explained. "It's very similar to love, but a much weaker form. In any case, I've been able to survive because of it." Smoking Dagger's face grew concerned.

"Your… not happy right now." He said. Fluttershy blinked in surprise.

"Oh… um… no. I'm not very happy." She replied.

"Why not?" Smoking Dagger asked. The yellow pegasus felt her eyes light up when he asked that.

He's genuinely concerned about me? Am I actually getting through to him? She thought hopefully.

No, he's just concerned about losing his food source. Another part of her thought. Fluttershy then realized that she needed to answer his question.

"I… I volunteered to go to war." She said. It was Smoking Dagger's turn to blink in surprise.

"Against my kin." He said. Fluttershy nodded. "And you don't want to, do you?"

"I don't." Fluttershy said after a brief pause. "I know I have to, but I hate the idea of fighting and war. It's sounds so selfish of me, but I wish I could just stay here and avoid it all."

"I wish you could too." Smoking Dagger suddenly said. Fluttershy looked at him, surprised.

"Really?" She asked. The yellow pegasus swore she saw his bug-eyes dart off to the side before answering.

"Uh… yeah. I just don't want to lose my food source is all." He replied.

"Oh." Fluttershy said. "Oh, that's right! If I leave, you'll end up starving to death! That's a good enough reason for me to stay here, right?"

Smoking Dagger shook his head. "I doubt Princess Celestia would risk losing the war just to keep one miserable changeling alive. Especially since I haven't been cooperative with anypony since arriving."

Fluttershy's heart sunk. She was going to war after all. Tears formed at her eyes again, and threatened to release.

"Don't cry, Fluttershy." Smoking said, genuinely trying to console her. "It'll be okay."

Fluttershy shook her head. "No it won't!" She declared, practically shouting. "I'm going to go to the frontlines and be forced to kill and probably die or watch my friends be killed!" Tears flowed from her face, and Fluttershy couldn't stop them. She stood there sobbing in front of a very stunned Smoking Dagger.

"What if…" Smoking Dagger began. Fluttershy muffled her sobs to hear what he was about to say. "What if I come with you." The changeling said.

"What?" Fluttershy cautiously asked.

"If I came with you, I might be able to help. If anything, I can at least protect you." He said.

Sniffling, Fluttershy asked, "You would do that… for me?"

Again, Smoking Dagger's eyes darted away before answering. "Well, I do need somepony to feed off of. If you died I wouldn't survive."

Fluttershy took that reason as a show of compassion from him, despite his clear attempt to hide it. "I appreciate your offer." She said. "But… you can't come. You're a prisoner, whether I like it or not.

Smoking kicked at the bars confining him to the cell. "I know. But if you leave then I'm going to starve to death. And I… I don't want you to go to war alone."

"R-Really?" Fluttershy asked. Smoking Dagger looked surprised for having said that, and immediately did damage control.

"Well… war is clearly upsetting to you. If you're upset than no happiness. No happiness means no food for me. So yeah, I want to be there for you."

Fluttershy gave a small smile. Despite his best efforts to hide it, Smoking Dagger was warming up to her. But could she really trust him?

"If I let you out so you can come with us," Fluttershy said. "What's going to prevent you from leaving as soon as you can?"

"I won't be able to go very far from you." Smoking replied. "I'd pass out before too long."

Fluttershy thought about this. Having Smoking Dagger along might be good for her. They both would need each other on the war front, and it would be nice to have somepony to talk to that would understand her. But getting him there would mean breaking him out.

She glanced around, even though she already knew that there were no guards on the inside of the dungeon. "Okay." She whispered to him. Fluttershy turned around and kicked the lock on the cell in a similar manner to AJ when she was bucking apple trees.

The lock didn't snap at first, but a few more well placed – yet reserved – kicks managed to knock it free of the cell. Smoking Dagger slid the door open and walked out of his cell.

Immediately, Fluttershy worried she had made a mistake and feared what the changeling might do. Relief flooded her when he remained calm and didn't make any move to flee or attack her.

"Wait, how are you supposed to get passed the guard?" Fluttershy asked, suddenly remembering that important detail.

"Him?" Smoking Dagger asked. "He won't be a problem." In a flash of green light, Smoking Dagger vanished. Fluttershy was confused for a moment before she saw a spotted salamander on the floor in front of her.

"Is that… you?" She asked, tentatively poking at the reptile. As she did, the salamander's body shimmered, and for a moment Fluttershy saw the real Smoking Dagger.

"It's me." The voice of the changeling said. "Just doing a bit of illusion magic, but I can't hold it forever so can we please go?"

"Okay." Fluttershy said, and started for the door outside. From the corner of her eye she saw the illusion of the salamander scuttling along after her. She opened the door to leave, and saw the guard. He gave a look in her direction, and she shyly grinned. "All done." She said.

The guard seemed to believe nothing was out of the ordinary and allowed her to pass, not noticing the small salamander scurrying after her.

At the top of the steps, Fluttershy stopped and watched as the salamander version of Smoking Dagger caught up to her. Safely out sight from the guard, the changeling returned to his usual bug-like state.

"I can't believe I just did that." Fluttershy said, feeling an unusual mix of giddiness and fear.

"I honestly can't believe that you did that either." Smoking Dagger said.

"B-but now what?" Fluttershy asked. "You can't be seen walking around the castle."

"I'll put up another illusion and join the army." Smoking said. "As long as you're nearby there should be enough energy for me to do it." To demonstrate, Smoking Dagger preformed another illusory spell to take an equine form, only this one took much longer than his simple salamander spell. Fluttershy guessed this was because ponies were more complex.

Green swirls of light coated Smoking's body, slowly transforming it. When he finished, Smoking Dagger looked completely different, and it sort of took Fluttershy's breath away. Replacing the flat-headed changeling was an Earth pony stallion with a cream colored coat, mahogany hair, and soft blue eyes.

"What's the matter?" Smoking asked as Fluttershy stared speechless.

"I-I just didn't expect you to look so…" Fluttershy felt her face flush. "… handsome."

"Did I overdo it?" Smoking asked, genuinely concerned with his appearance and thankfully oblivious to Fluttershy's red cheeks. "Because I can pull back a little."

"Better not waste your energy." Fluttershy said, regaining her voice.

"Okay then." Smoking said. "I'll catch up with you later. Now's as good a time as any to assimilate myself into the army."

"Bye." Fluttershy whispered. Smoking Dagger nodded and took off down a corridor to presumably join the ranks. As she watched him go, the yellow pegasus couldn't help but wonder if she had made the right choice.

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Chrysalis

It had been many years since Chrysalis had set hoof in the Crystal Empire, mainly because returning brought forth many bad memories. Even so, the Crystal Heart was providing enough positive energy to balance out her mood.

It was a shame that would end soon.

The changeling queen strolled through the abandoned streets with the stature of sompony who had somewhere to be. All the crystal ponies that used to live in the broken houses around her had been shuttled just outside the city in camps with only the bare necessities to survive. Those who had resisted were thrown in Sombra's dungeons with the surviving soldiers.

Halfway to her destination, Chrysalis halted. The two changeling guards who were on both sides of her paused as well.

"My Queen?" One inquired.

"Leave." She said simply. The one word command sunk in quickly, and the two guards turned around and walked away. Chrysalis waited for a moment to watch them go before resuming her path. She knew that in times of war it was best to keep her soldiers close by, but at the moment she preferred if no pony was around. It wasn't long before she reached the end of her walk.

The Crystal Heart remained in its original place, just as Chrysalis had left it a thousand years ago. Love radiated from its core and the changeling queen soaked up as much as possible.

She would need the energy for the headache that was about to come.

Turning away from the Crystal Heart, Chyrsalis saw her real destination. It was a parlor near the center of town that she had requested to meet Sombra in. She could already tell he was in there, and decided not to keep him waiting any longer.

Chrysalis walked through the remnants of what was once the shop's doorway. Sitting (or floating) at a table near the back was the shadowy mass of clouds the formed Sombra.

"I trust your trip here was pleasant." He asked in a mildly sardonic voice.

Taking a seat opposite of him Chrysalis said, "We had a run in, but it was handled."

"Care to inform me?" Sombra asked.

"Apparently Celestia had decided to move the city of Cloudsdale directly into our flight path." The changeling queen informed him. "To be brief, let's just say that one of the most impenetrable cities in Equestria is now no longer a problem."

"You tore it apart?" Sombra guessed.

"Hardly, the cities defenses were too great to penetrate. But the citizens were massacred. Without them, the bonds that holds the clouds together will fade. In a week, the great city of Cloudsdale will be nothing but empty sky."

Sombra grinned wickedly. "Excellent. That saves me the trouble of doing it later." He chuckled. It was a sound that made even Chrysalis shiver.

"And before you don't ask, my children all survived the battle." Chrysalis said.

"I wasn't going to ask." Sombra reassured her. "Because I knew your subjects would never have had a problem against the sniveling whelps that the pegasi have become." He chuckled again, unsettling. "Equestria's warriors indeed."

"Can we just shift the damned Crystal Heart and be done with this?" The changeling queen asked impatiently.

"Of course." Sombra said, he shadowy form rising. "But I do have one question." Chrysalis tilted her head slightly. "Why did I have to meet you here?" The dark king asked.

Chrysalis sighed inwardly. "I thought it would make you remember." She said. "I thought you would recognize this of all places."

Sombra studied the look on her face, and then observed the building he was in. "I suppose I do, now that you've mentioned it." He looked Chrysalis dead in the eye. "Honestly, I don't see the point. Bringing up the past is not healthy for you Chrysalis. It's only going to be a distraction from our goal." He began to move towards the exit.

"You can't just ignore it!" Chrysalis screamed at him. His mass of shadows froze. "I remember everyday what happened to us, and there is nothing in this world I regret more. How do you not feel the same way? Don't you care at all?"

Sombra was silent for a moment. "I don't care." He said simply.

"So that's it then?" Chrysalis asked. "You don't care about what we had before? And I'm just supposed to accept that the stallion I–"

"Just stop." Sombra said, not even turning around. "Stop deluding yourself. We've got a war to fight and you can't be stuck in remembrance of what's our past." Leaving Chrysalis behind, Sombra half-walked, half-floated out of the ice cream parlor. The changeling queen realized her hopes to bring back the old Sombra were pointless. He was gone, replaced by a heinous creature. If she didn't have her children to think of, Chrysalis would have left then and there. But she needed the love that Sombra had promised them.

Chrysalis followed him outside and the two met up at the Crystal Heart. He was staring at it with focused hatred.

"Your subjects have gotten their fill of it, correct?" He asked. Chrysalis nodded. Actually, her subjects needed some more time to fully feed the positive effects of the Heart, but telling Sombra this would not dissuade his choice. "Very well then." He said. Sombra's eyes glowed from the effects of dark magic as the shift began.

Tendrils of darkness shot from Sombra's incorporeal body, each striking the blue Crystal Heart. The sparkling air around the artifact suddenly held a much more dramatic tone. Sombra's dark magic piled greater and greater, overwhelming the remnants of positive energies inside the Heart.

The Crystal Heart looked very different. Its shiny zeal was replaced as the dark coils of magic retreated back to Sombra's projection. It was black now, with a haze of hatred surrounding it. Chrysalis felt a shiver run up her spine as the fear and hatred Sombra poured into the Heart rapidly spread over all of Equestria.

Feeding her children would be very difficult now. All feelings of love and happiness would need to be rationed. As long as Sombra kept his end of the deal everything would be fine.

But Chrysalis was not reassured when she looked into the mad eyes of the king.

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I kinda rushed to get this one up, so please be a little forgiving of errors. That aside I hoped you guys liked this chapter (here's a hint, you can show me how much you liked it by reviewing the story, following it, or favoriting it.). Now I've got some news. Handling multiple stories is actually very difficult if you can believe it, so I've devised a knew strategy. I'm going to take this one chapter at a time, one story at a time. It means that updates could be slower, but it will definitely destress me a little. Plus, the pace will pick up once Forbidden is finished.

Up next (because I have put it off for far too long) is a Shattered Glass chapter!