There must have been at least a hundred pegasi of the Cutiemark Crusaders hiding in the trees. Now there were less than sixty. Having launched down from the canopy like birds of prey, they had the total element of surprise and swept into the milling masses of men both of beast and chaos before they could gather their wits. The warriors of the Crimson Hand cult didn’t necessarily reassess the situation, however, but merely acknowledged that there was even more to kill.

Vanga, Khornate Champion of the Crimson Hand swung his axe in a high arc, catching a Crusader and cleaving him muzzle to flanks in a shower of gore. Laughing maniacally, he roared, “More blood! More death! More glorious carnage!”

As he raised his blood-spattered weapon once more, he barely registered the sensation of something hard impacting his helmet. He cast a glance to the ground, finding the decapitated head of a pegasus staring back at him blankly with its expression frozen into a rictus of pain.

An amused grunt sounded from nearby, prompting Vanga to bring his head level with the battlefield once more. An enormous black-furred minotaur with at least a whole foot on him glared balefully in his direction, its hefty brass nose ring swaying as it gave an obviously derisive snort. Its four arms extended outward like the legs of a spider ready to pounce, each limb thick as a tree trunk and ending in a variety of vicious spikes and curved blades.

Vanga didn’t even bother with any sort of pre-combat formalities; instead, he gripped his axe tightly and charged straight at the beastman with a frenzied roar. His opponent grinned ferally, responding by quickly swiping a bladed limb in a vicious overhead arc—yet the weapon merely tasted dirt instead of flesh as Vanga deftly skidded aside, quickly planting a mailed boot on the blade before it could be pulled free. The chaos champion brought his axe down, creating a pop of sparks as it snapped the metallic portion of the limb clean in half.

Before he could ready himself for another swipe, however, the minotaur planted a powerful kick squarely on his chestplate and sent him reeling backward across the ground. Whereas most normal men would have been winded, Vanga felt a rush of euphoria suffuse his senses at the creature’s strength and audacity.

“Finally...” he uttered with murderous glee, focusing his eyes on his enemy once more. “A foe worth killing!”

“That all you got, little human?!” the beastman bellowed as it plodded closer, “Let Iron Will show you how it’s done!”

It threw forth its impaler, striking only air as the warlord rolled aside and charged again. Quick as lightning, Iron Will twisted to avoid Vanga’s swipe whilst simultaneously spinning about to bring both its deadly spikes to bear. Its first spanked harmlessly off of the khornate’s shield, causing another plume of sparks to erupt between the two combatants. The second impaler shot true for Vanga’s head, but he simply responded by deflecting the cruel barb with another sweep of his axe.

With the minotaur left open, Vanga prepared to sever its head with a return strike—only for the world to drop away beneath his feet, causing him to fall to a kneeling position. He lifted his head—just in time for Iron Will to drive his own knee straight into Vanga’s faceplate, sending him crashing hard to the forest floor.

The clever beastman had hooked its other sickle-limb behind his leg, nearly hamstringing him as he jerked it back. And now he was on the ground before his opponent, who even now pressed the advantage by stabbing both of its impalers straight down.

CLANG! Vanga brought his shield up just in time, deflecting the spike that drove for his chest. But there was nothing to be done about the second, which crunched through his armor and smote firmly in the thigh of his right leg, eliciting an explosion of pain. Vanga tried to roll away, but to no avail; he was pinned.

Vanga understood immediately. The creature wished to immobilize, and then butcher him, sever each of his limbs one by one and cut from his body until nothing was left but bleached and broken bones. It was toying with him, as a master would do to his slave. The thought filled Vanga with cold fury.

Vanga angrily swept his axe for the impaler, but to his surprise the minotaur simply pulled it free, apparently not willing to sacrifice it. Iron Will struck again before he could react, its other impaler aiming for Vanga’s throat.

Rather than raise his shield, Vanga twisted slightly to the side and instead took the spike in the muscles of his left shoulder, ignoring the pain as he clenched around the blade to hold it fast. He then struck out for the minotaur’s neck with his axe, causing it to instinctively pull back from the blade.

With the leverage exerted from the spike in his body, Vanga’s body rose with it.

Before the startled beastman could react, Vanga finally got his feet under him and carved a bloody furrow deep into his opponent’s midsection that weeped dark red blood. To its credit, Iron Will barely showed any reaction beyond a grunt and a brief grimace.

Vanga, however, felt an unspeakable surge of glee flood over his consciousness. The creature was bleeding. Bleeding. This close, he could smell it. And, just for the briefest of moments, he caught the unmistakable scent of fear exuding from his enemy as well.

Shrieking a battle cry that could come from no mere mortal, Vanga swept his axe at the minotaur in a frenzy. Again and again the gory blade sang a song of metal, flesh and blood, the khornate’s insane laughter mounting higher each time the weapon struck home. Still, Iron Will fought back with brutal force and calculated precision, never overextending himself too much or leaving a fatal opening.

“You, a beast without a master!” Vanga yelled out tauntingly, swinging his axe for an overhead swipe.

“You, a weak boot-licking man-thing, a slave of a single god!” Iron Will roared back, deflecting the strike with an impaler in a pop of sparks, and stabbing back with the other only for it to again spank off the steel shield.

“I am a Champion of Khorne, a favored of the Lord of Blood!” Vanga shouted furiously as he feinted right, bringing his axe around in a half-circle and managing to cut a shallow gash in the minotaur’s hide. “You’re nothing but a worthless mutated reject unworthy of even speaking Their names!”

“Hah!” Iron Will snorted derisively, apparently having not even felt the blow. “You sacrifice your freedom, your very soul, like a dog on a leash! I let myself be carried by the Gods’ wind!”

Seized in the throes of sanguine fury, the battlefield all around Vanga practically dissolved from his senses. All he could see or even consider was the creature before him, how its blood flowed so freely, how he wished to drink its life and offer its skull to Khorne.

Which was probably why he didn’t even think about why the minotaur suddenly backed away, or the odd footing in which it repositioned itself near a thick tree root and a fallen pegasi warrior. He simply pursued the beastman head-on for death and glory—and straight into the tip of the propped-up halberd blade.

The spike of the weapon skidded away from Vanga’s lower armor at an angle, but managed to find and bury itself into his previous thigh wound. With his forward momentum broken by the polearm, Vanga stumbled and nearly lost his balance yet again.

It was all the opportunity his opponent needed. The minotaur roared aloud as it swung its remaining sickle-limb in a great arc, crunching straight through Vanga’s chestplate, digging between his ribs and piercing his right lung.

That wound actually gave him pause for a moment. Vanga glanced down at the rapidly-reddening blade for a moment, his first thought one of grudging respect for his opponent. The beastman in question gave a snort and grinned, clearly believing he had struck a fatal blow.

He certainly wasn’t ready for what Vanga did next.

The khornate dropped his shield to the ground, earning a confused glance from the horned beast before him. Vanga brought his axe screaming down in the next instant, cleanly severing the sickle-blade from the arm it was attached to.

His opponent roared in pain and fury and stepped back, giving Vanga just the time he needed to grasp the polearm lodged in his thigh with his now-free hand. With a sharp twist he snapped the wood into jagged halves, coming away holding the vicious bladed end, which sucked free from the wound with a single strong pull.

His breaths coming raspy, yet steady thanks to his extensive physical conditioning and status as a favored of the Ruinous Powers, Vanga quickly brought his newly-acquired weapon—covered with blood, he noted with approval—into a ready position.

And not a moment too soon, as the minotaur abandoned all semblance of strategy and simply charged him head-on with both impalers forward. Eyes wide with anger, it shrieked, “Die, slave of Khorne!!”

Vanga planted himself on the ground, swinging both axes in forward angles just as the minotaur’s huge bulk crashed into him. Iron Will’s twin spikes split clean through his armor, one piercing both sides of his right lung whilst the other burst out the other end of his body entirely, dangerously close to his heart. Vanga struggled to keep his boots on the ground, but stubbornly held on.

The khornate’s original axe found purchase on the side of the beastman’s neck, the hooked end digging deeply into flesh and bone. His halberd-axe swept forward, the spike piercing just to the side of its throat.

The minotaur’s eyes went wide with pain and fear, giving desperate and strangling sounds as it tried to pull away from the blades; but to no avail, as its head was pinned on two sides. It grasped Vanga’s left arm with two brawny limbs and attempted to push him away, but the khornate simply responded by pushing closer, applying more and more leverage.

Vanga, heedless of the excruciating pain wracking his body and the blood rushing up his throat, grinned from behind his faceplate. He hissed triumphantly, “Another… skull… for… Kharneth!”

And with that, the champion of Khorne gave one final push. The spike of his halberd-blade burst with a crack through the beastman’s throat, digging firmly into its spine.

Its struggles gradually slowed, before finally ceasing entirely. All six of the minotaur’s limbs went limp as the light died in its eyes. Iron Will was no more.

Not yet finished, however, Vanga continued to press both his axe-blades into the dead beastman’s spine. Finally, with a cacophony of pops and the sound of flesh and cartilage tearing away, the head of what was once Iron Will came free.

Vanga dropped the halberd-blade to the ground and seized the head by the hair, baptising himself in the life of his enemy as he raised it above his head. Repainted in blood, much of it his own, Vanga raised his axe to the sky and intoned a strained yet fearsome roar to the Blood God.

A second later, a wall of living metal plowed into him like an avalanche.

The last of the Crimson Hand’s warriors were steadily being trapped and picked off. Their mindless, berserker mentality only went so far before it faltered against the teamwork and versatility of the Crusaders, especially after the hostile pegasi were killed and they had dominance of the air. Still, the khornates fought to slaughter as many as they could in one last tribute to the Lord of Blood before succumbing.

One of the last khornates on the field wasn’t of the Crimson Hand. The juggernaut swung her cannon-arm about wildly, pointing it at a few of the crusaders who were spreading out and watching her every move with extreme wariness.

“What did you do to Angel?!” she screeched. The bore of her hellcannon glowed white hot, as did her anger. The soldiers shared furtive and confused glances among each other, but none of them answered her.

She caught a shadow in the corner of her eye, running away into the forest’s fog with another limping figure. The first had long, flopping ears and what appeared to be a poofy tail. It paused for a moment to look back, and Fluttershy could almost see its eyes before it got to running again.

She raised a claw to wave in the vain hope that he might see it, but paused when she saw the blood staining her blades. Curiosity and confusion taking over for now, she looked back to the ponies around her and asked slowly, “W… What do you want? Who are you?”

One of the soldiers motioned with his halberd. “Join the line with the others. You’ll know soon enough.”

Fluttershy stared at him for a few tense moments, then cast her gaze to the side. Some of her friends had apparently given themselves up, as they were not visibly bound with ropes or any magical caprice like the others, and their captors appeared to be simply guiding them away from the fight rather than forcing them along at spearpoint.

“Fine,” Fluttershy snapped through gritted teeth, lowering her hellcannon reluctantly and walking to the back of the slowly-growing line, though she stared with hatred and suspicion at the group of crusaders out of the corner of her eye until she passed.

Twilight, who was getting a ringed trinket clasped around her horn flicked her ears in Fellblade’s direction after he said to a subordinate, “Shining Armor said minimum injuries. Don’t cut their heads off!”

Her head snapped up, staring at the captain in surprise. “Wait... my brother? You’re taking us to—”

“Don’t think this means you’re off the hook, Chaos scum,” he snapped, pointedly placing the edge of his sword between her eyes. “The Reiksmarshall has just taken a specific interest in you, nothing more. You’ll likely still be purged for your collaboration with the Ruinous Powers, unless the Goddesses somehow see fit to spare your accursed life. Now move!”

Twilight dejectedly joined the rest of the group, still casting glances around to piece together what was going on around her. Some of the others had to be subdued with a far harder hoof, as they had no plans to converse nor cooperate with their captors.

Vinyl removed her needlepoint fingernails from the swelling, then bursting face of a cultist, only to be met with a musket butt to the back of her head, throwing her on her plasteel claws. Soon, a tight gag was wrapped around her mouth, blocking off her hypersonic voice, and her arms were placed in similar restraints.

“Get up!” A Crusader barked as he picked her up by the mane and prodded her across the body-littered battlefield towards the others.

Vinyl nearly screamed when she saw Octavia lying on the ground, surrounded by the splinters and woodwork of her destroyed cello, but the mare was moving. Several tentacles slithered from her body and rolled her onto her back.

“Vinyl! No, get away from me, you bastards!”

She swatted her tentacles at the soldiers, snagging one’s neck and barely managing to start choking him before the appendage was severed by another’s sword.

She shrieked with a face-splitting smile, “Again!” and made another attempt, only getting those cut off as well. She floundered like a bleeding fish out of water, trying to resist the Crusaders as they tied a rope around her torso, holding her tentacle-bearing second mouth shut. They hauled her up, leaned her against Vinyl, and got her hopping on one leg.

Rarity was as jittery as a filly on a sugar rush, constantly jabbering in her nonsense language and twitching as if her nerves were on fire. Tying her arms proved useless as she just kept morphing them out of the bonds, so they chained her by the neck and hooked her to the others, a great distance from anyone in front or behind. Lyra was probably the most difficult to bring to heel, having to be beaten out cold and tossed onto Fluttershy’s back. The Apples were well under control as their bodies lay in one place, and their heads in a sack.

The soldier Fellblade reprimanded responded, “But sir, they're still alive. Look.” He inverted the bag and three rotting heads thumped out, rolling around a bit before they settled. The male silently flapped his gums, shouting curses he couldn’t voice. The one with a bowtie in her mane had crusty tears streaming from her eyes. The mare’s head just looked angry: the kind of angry where nothing seems to be going your way today.

Fellblade cringed his muzzle in disgust. “Right... Bring the bodies and put them on the juggernaut.”

“Which one, sir?”

“The giant one.”

The smaller daemon engine had his claw on Vanga’s throat, the chaos warlord lying beaten and bloody on the forest floor with several pieces of his armor broken or missing. Big Mac slowly pressed down upon his windpipe, savoring every one of his dying breaths.

“I go…” Vanga uttered weakly, “to drink… at the right hand... of the… Blood… God…”

SNAP!

And then he lay still.

The iron stallion stepped back, looking with a malicious grin on the crushed and mangled pile of flesh and crimson steel. As the thrill of the kill died down, he found Vanga’s axe snugly burrowed in his shoulder. He pulled it out with his teeth, liquid fire dripping from the blade, and the damaged foreleg suddenly went numb.

Just then, two heavy masses struck his back and forced him to the ground. He quickly discovered that he couldn’t move much in his current condition, if at all; his leg only shook and made a disconcerting grinding sound as he tried to raise it to strike the pegasus stallion who put a muddy hoof on his face.

“So, this is the mighty ’Foot of Khorne’?” the pegasus said snarkily, smearing the soil across his broken face. “This make you mad, cog for brains?” Big Mac snapped a bite at his hoof, just missing as he yanked it back.

“Clearly, it does!” he laughed, turning back to his comrades. “Let’s find something to tie it up with. It’s so damaged, it’ll fall apart if we make it walk.”

Elsewhere, Pinkie Pie laughed hysterically with black tears trickling down her face. Her claw had blood dripping between the pincers as it held the eviscerated stump of her right foreleg. It was a pain and pleasure she had never felt before, each heartbeat and spurt of blood bringing a ticklish coldness and thunderclap of sheer agony. Her needle-bearing tongue tried to start stitching, but her shaking laughter put it off aim and it only stabbed into the shredded muscle, making her explode into more pained laughter. She finally resorted to pinching it shut, then hobbled on her third foreleg toward the others.

“Somepony help me-hee-ha-ha-ha! Pleee-heee-ase! It hurts so muuu— aha-huhuha-haaa!”

Pinkie Pie saw a certain three-horned unicorn amidst the group and quickly walked closer, but stopped and flinched back before her madly-swiping arms. The mare snapped and screeched, staring with blind, bug-eyed hatred in her general direction.

“Rarity, please…” Pinkie hesitated for a moment, cringing as her friend didn’t even seem to acknowledge that she was speaking. “I need your help.”

Rarity simply continued to slaver and froth at the mouth like a mad dog, jabbering and snarling. She strained against her bonds, heedless of the metal chains which left raw marks as they dug roughly into the skin of her neck.

Just then, Pinkie got an idea. She held out the bone needle and Rarity immediately went silent, inflexibly transfixed on it. Pinkie stretched the tool to her and she took it in a skeletal hand. She slowly maneuvered it into position when Pinkie came closer and got the unicorn’s attention on her bleeding stump. Rarity immediately began sewing with quickness and precision, sticking the needle and weaving the thread across the gap in a silent, rhythmic pattern.

Fellblade looked over the train of his quarry, the unicorns securely fitted with magic suppressors, and all ending with Fluttershy, who had been surprisingly compliant to his soldiers’ orders.

“It’s a pleasure to met you all!” he said sarcastically. “We are the Cutiemark Crusaders, and we are here to see you all to your judgement before one of the highest authorities in the Empire. Any of you complain en route and you’ll have no rations, being whatever you find on the ground to eat. If any of you are blood drinkers, get it from your friends. Our employer said to bring you with minimal injuries, but he didn’t say ‘none’, so flogging is on the table for discipline. Do I make myself clear?” Some of them silently nodded, others grunted or were too tired or beaten to respond.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo shouted through the cloths tied in their mouths, hopping in their bonds for the captain’s attention, but were silenced by a merciless soldier’s hoof striking them both hard across the cheek.

“Flogging, huh? Sounds kinky,” Octavia smirked. “Make sure you do it twice as hard for me.”

“I've had experience with you Slaaneshis,” the captain spat, glaring in her direction. “You’ll just starve.”

“Heh, win-win.”

Another winged crusader touched down near Fellblade, speaking in a clear yet low voice, “Sir, the last of the stragglers have been picked off, and the rest of our forces are all accounted for. We’re ready.”

Fellblade nodded, his face taking on a firm and somber expression as he looked out over the remnants of his troops. “Take a good long look, everypony,” he said, “This is why we fight. This is why we die, so that the world can be spared another day from these mutants and heretics! We stand against the darkness to stop the horrors of Chaos and corruption from devouring our families and loved ones, to ensure a future for this world and all who live beneath the collective banners of order and freedom!

“Those that have died this day have become martyrs, and their names shall burn long in our memories for generations to come. Pray you share the same fate in the future, for in death, your future is in the Glory!”

“And we are content!” they shouted back as one, some rearing back on their hooves and hoisting their weapons to the sky.

Without another word, Fellblade turned around and pointed into the forest with a hoof. “Let’s move ‘em out!”

A heartbeat began, slow and weak. One by one, Chrysalis’ senses came back and soon she made out a light, a tiny green ball of luminescence that she took in her misty palm. She put a finger to it to pet it, but it suddenly jumped away, joining dozens, then hundreds of gathering lights.

“Oh, you wanted me,” she murmured, nodding.

The form came together, a miasma of changeling consciousnesses from the scrawniest worker to the strongest soldier drone. The mass was of a shifting globular shape, damaged and sputtering to carry its signal to Chrysalis.

“...”

“I understand. What is it?”

“...”

A smaller cloud of lights came before her, coalescing to form the image of a mutant changeling. It was covered in a heavier carapace, spearing forelances and several vestigial and useless other protrusions.

“You’re still not well, are you?” she murmured caringly, taking the design in her claws. “Still can’t come up with a new brood without my help.” Through her own manipulation, she took off the excess parts; a leg on its forehead, an eye on its underbelly, and added two mandibular pincers on either side of its mouth.

“...”

“Behemoth Brood?” Chrysalis spun the image of the creature around in curiosity. “How large is it?”

The hivemind put up the image of a pony for comparison, and it was easily dwarfed in size.

“Interesting,” she murmured, nodding. “But we’re not after ponies for the time being. This is where the mandibles come in, and...” she replaced the lances with closing claws, “...it needs armor-crushing power to tear into chaos warriors and giants.”

“...”

“Well, thank you.” she smiled.

The hivemind took back the new brood design with interest. “...”

“I... I don’t know...”

“...”

“Kidnapping ponies again would ruin our agreement with them. Hmm...” Chrysalis tapped a finger to her chin thoughtfully. “I suppose I could persuade them to hand over some prison inmates whose motivations were love-based...”

The antennae of her crown suddenly stood up, feeling a great energy nearby. “Cadence is at my door?” she said curiously. “What could she possibly want...?”

“...”

Her eyes flicked up, and she shook her head briefly. “It’s not a problem. Was that all?”

“...”

“Alright, then. Proceed as planned.”

“Come in, Cadence.”

The crystal princess’ hoof stopped just before it touched the ornate hardwood double-doors set into the wall. She took a quick glance to either side of herself, but found nothing except empty and mundane—albeit lavishly carpeted—corridor.

She stood gazing at the iron frame and stone arch a moment longer, before sighing in resignation and wrapping the door handles in her telekinetic grip, a slight creak of protest answering her gentle yet steady push inward.

Cadence, having had castles and palaces as her typical residence for much of her life, knew a standard guest suite when she saw one; although she didn’t miss the few subtle alterations that its occupant had made, such as several thick tables being conspicuously arranged lengthwise towards the door and several of the windows, as well as the priceless antique chandelier apparently rigged to a drop cord covering the central open space of the room in shifting shadows.

The Changeling queen herself was standing across the room and looking out the window on the verdant arrangements of the Königsgarten, rapping a clawed hand on the windowsill.

“What do you want?” Chrysalis asked, the ever-so-slight darkening of her bodily smog betraying her impatience even though her voice remained flat and steady.

Cadence cleared her throat, pausing for only a moment before she spoke. “I just… wanted to speak with you.”

That earned a somewhat irritated scoff from Chrysalis. “Well, obviously,” she drawled sarcastically. “So the question is: what did you want to talk about? Or better yet, what could you possibly want to talk about?”

The princess didn’t answer. After several moments, Chrysalis gave a sigh and folded her arms across her chest. “Cadence, I don’t have time for this foolishness. If you don’t have anything important to say, then—”

“I thought that we might want to better know each other,” Cadence interrupted, more confidence in her tone. “Since we’re likely going to be working together quite frequently in the future.”

Chrysalis spun on her heel and regarded her with open-mouthed disbelief, before she caught herself and sneered in response. “Why?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. “Why would you want to know anything about me? To you, I’m just a parasite; an insect to be stepped on if we survive the Storm.”

The queen’s icy look of suspicion bored into Cadence, causing her to swallow uncomfortably. “No,” she managed to say. “Look, I’m alone. No guards, no suspicion. I just want to talk, and...” she nodded towards a rectangular tray with a set of white porcelain cups laying on a nearby table, “...maybe share a cup of tea?”

Chrysalis’ only reaction was a single blink of her slit-pupiled eyes in her direction. Shrugging, Cadence enwrapped the tea set in her magical aura of azure blue, floating it with her as she walked over to a large fireplace on one side of the room which sat stacked with unused wood. Closeby was also a short yet sturdy hardwood table, which Cadence set the tray upon without even the slightest clatter, and then she plunked herself down in one of the accompanying large parlor chairs.

But the final act of brazen audacity which broke Chrysalis’ hard exterior was the warm, that’s-right-I’m-serious smile that Cadence threw her way.

“What’s your game, Cadence?” Chrysalis asked slowly, crossing her arms as a look of curious interest warred with her suspicion for control over her expression.

“There’s no game,” Cadence responded simply, giving a single shake of her head and only smiling even brighter. “It’s just what it sounds like. I only want to—”

“Now hold on, here,” The queen interrupted, huffing as she left her place by the window and walked briskly across the room. Her forearm opened with an audible crack, readying a bone sabre to be shot forth into her hand at a single thought. “I bet there are a dozen crystal guards waiting right outside this... door...”

Chrysalis blinked. The only things moving within the drafty hallway were the flames from the ever-present torches lining the cold stone walls, the closest things resembling guards being the odd statue or standing suit of armor. She glanced back into the room, finding nothing else out of place except that Cadence had already lit the fireplace and hung the pot of tea within the hearth to boil.

The changeling queen set her forearm back into place and slowly pulled the door to with a click, chuckling in amusement. “Alright, I’ll play along,” she said, walking back to the semi-circle of seats around the table and taking a cushioned chair directly across from Cadence, keeping the table between the two of them.

The two of them sat in awkward silence, Chrysalis idly tapping a finger on the arm of her seat and staring with an unreadable expression at Cadence, who returned her gaze with only the occasional flick of her ears breaking her statue-still pose.

“So…?” The changeling queen asked at last.

“Oh, I thought you would start,” said Cadence, a brief look of embarrassment crossing her face.

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. “I never wanted to talk,” she said flatly. “You came in here with this ridiculous idea, so you start it.”

“Okay, um...” Cadence glanced around briefly, then turned back to her and asked, “How is that, uh, bipedal body working for you?”

Chrysalis’ amused demeanor fell like a lead weight, a frown rising up in its place. “Honestly, I don’t very much like it,” she said, rapping a claw on her black shell which made a slightly hollow ring like a wooden bell. She sighed. “Sure, a harder carapace, and better versatility, but I never thought I’d feel so... far from myself.

“How about you?” asked Chrysalis, a slight grin returning to her face. “How do you cope with being a living crystal? You probably have to watch your step or you’ll shatter if you trip. Heh.”

Cadence shared the laugh. “No,” she said, adopting a more relaxed and conversational tone. “Actually, I was found to be harder than diamond, but I guess a bloodletter’s hellblade doesn’t care since I had to get a prosthetic... And, ah... your breathing smog turned a lighter color, I see. Probably because you've been in a lighter mood recently.” She smiled awkwardly.

“Wait a second,” the queen asked, inclining her head in curiosity. “Prosthetic what?”

Cadence inclined her head downward slightly, scrunching her muzzle in reproach. “Nothing. It must have been somepony else who got a prosthetic, I must have mixed it up,” she quickly sputtered.

Chrysalis glanced at the crystalline mare’s forehead, now noticing that her horn glowed ever so slightly when she spoke, and apparently pulsed in sync with her syllables. “Something about your mouth…” she muttered, “I’m sure of it.”

Cadence threw a hoof in the air. “Moving on!” she chimed with a bright smile. “Hey, just how close did you get with Shining Armor back in Equestria? I swear, if you—”

“The closest we got was sharing a bed,” Chrysalis interrupted, smirking knowingly. “Far from what you’re thinking.”

Cadence regarded her with narrow-eyed suspicion for a moment, then nodded. “Good.”

A low yet clear whistling noise attracted their attention to the fireplace, where the lid of the hanging pot was rattling and letting out short puffs of vapor. The crystal princess smiled as she took it in a telekinetic grasp, lifting it gently from the hook and bringing it over to the table. She took note of the three boxes of varying color and markings upon the tray, an easy smile gracing her face as she opened them one by one and scanned the teabags with the appraising eye of a connoisseur.

“You know, I always wondered,” Cadence said absently, her smile brightening as she levitated out a few packets of silverish-brown powder from a box she realized had come from the Elven Inner Kingdom of Avelorn. “Did you ever have a stallion in your life, before? Or, did the Changelings ever have a king?”

She placed the bags into several waiting cups, then again magically lifted the pot and began gently pouring the tea, not spilling a drop. She nearly raised an eyebrow when she realized that she had received nothing but silence to her question, but simply shrugged it off and decided to move on regardless.

“Anyway, I met Shining—”

CRASH!

A black fist came smashing through the table between them, sending hot tea and shards of pottery leaping into Cadence’s face. She yelped in surprise and flinched back, instinctively covering her face with her forelimbs, although her diamond-hard body made such a reaction unnecessary.

“What—” she began, but stopped and gasped in shock when she saw Chrysalis breathing deep and furiously, surrounded by the remains of the table and pottery. Her head hung low to the floor, a curtain of dark cerulean hair shrouding her face from view.

The queen eventually seemed to calm down, gradually slouching back into her chair and burying her face in her hands, her chest heaving as if she were sobbing. Before Cadence could muster enough wits to understand what was going on, Chrysalis pulled her fingers away to reveal reddened, teary eyes that stared at her with a look of deep pain and sorrow.

“So...” she muttered plaintively, reclining back in her seat with a sigh of resignation, “I suppose you want an explanation for that?”

Cadence blinked, releasing a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She settled back into her normal sitting position, beginning to gather up the shattered tea set and splintered pieces of wood from the floor.

After what seemed like an eternity, Chrysalis’ voice finally broke the silence. “Yes,” she said simply. “I had a stallion. It was centuries ago in, what you once called, the ‘Forsaken Forest’; right in the pocket between the Griffin Kingdoms, Germaneigh, and Equestria.“

A wistful smile crossed Chrysalis’ face, and she laid her hands back on the edge of her seat in a more relaxed posture. “I even had my own kingdom right next to another,” she said. “Tell me, have you ever heard of the Flutterponies?”

Cadence blinked in bemusement, but nodded. “Isn’t that just a bedtime story?” she asked. “A fairy tale?”

Chrysalis snorted in reply. “If they are,” she said archly, “Then explain how you’re talking to their... former queen.”

Cadence’s magical aura evaporated, dropping several shards of the broken tea cups back to the floor. Her eyes widened as she stared at the bipedal changeling, her mouth moving yet making no sound.

“Yes,” Chrysalis said simply, smirking at her shocked expression.

“B... But you look nothing like them,” Cadence said pointedly, frowning in consternation. “Even when you were normal—”

“I’ll get to that…” Chrysalis interrupted, sighing, “I’ll get to that.” She positioned her hands in front of her like a picture frame, clearing her throat before continuing.

“Our kingdoms were in a perfect spot, with three-way trade between the greatest countries of the Celestine Empire Pact,” she said, holding three fingers out in a triangle and closing them together. “I figured that if we combined our lands, we could become an even greater influence in the region. So I married their prince, Honor Bound, and our countries were merged.”

“Was Honor Bound a Flutterpony, as well?” asked Cadence.

“Well... no,” Chrysalis replied awkwardly, giving a small shrug. “But ours would have been the first marriage between our two races in centuries. The PR boost certainly didn’t hurt, either,” she added with a wry smirk.

Cadence met her eyes with a curious look. “So you married for the publici—”

“Hrmph; no, no,” The queen scoffed. “We truly did love each other. We just didn’t know of the rarity of our union until the day after the tower bells chimed.”

The crystal princess made a thoughtful humming noise, tilting her head as she considered the words. “And what was the…” she paused, searching for the proper term, “‘Fallout’, from this rare-but-not-altogether-unprecedented union?”

Chrysalis huffed a laugh. “Oh, the Flutterponies were as ecstatic as could be that I had found love and happiness,” she said with a smile, which gradually fell away to a flat yet amused expression. “But there were some more… prideful stallions from the normal ponies who didn’t take kindly to me. I had to look away from some displays of fly swatters with crude caricatures of my face smeared on them.

“Some counties started rolling out Jim Crow laws, after the Griffon warlord, without royal approval, and they effectively made the western half of the kingdom segregated. It wasn’t long before my husband and I put forth desegregation laws and had to enforce them at spearpoint against crowds shouting, ‘Nothing but dung beetles!’ ‘I don’t want to see fillies with a roach’s head!’”

“The world must have been a very different place then,” Cadence said.

“It was, but when they realized the world wasn’t ending, things calmed down. For a time after, things were quite good; but all it took was the inescapable destroyer called ‘time’ to start us downhill.” she said, her expression grim. “My husband and I started drifting apart. I wanted to save our marriage, so I created a love potion; something that would give us just the kick we needed to light the spark in our relationship again.”

Chrysalis paused with a frown, sighing deeply. “We drank without even testing it first, and it didn’t work the way I’d hoped. Love poison would have been a better name for it.”

Cadence blinked, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Why would you use the very first version of something like that on yourself?”

“Because I invented it! How often does anyone think that far?” Chrysalis exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. “‘Once I get up, how do I get back down?’ ‘Once it starts, how do we stop it?’ ‘What if something goes wrong?’ No one thinks ahead, and I’m no exception.

“Besides, I was young, in love, and too excited to even consider the consequences. For two whole years we were completely engrossed in each other; no one could separate us, and thus our duties went untended, leaving our collective lands to stagnate and decay. Attempts by ponies at coups and assassinations came from all levels of society to get rid of us, but our security and military barely managed to suppress them. The Flutterponies only added fuel to the fire by responding in equal or greater violence against the attacks on Honor and I. The kingdom nearly fell apart with countless riots and, with the attack of a particularly malicious and greedy dragon on our capital, it finally did.

“My beloved was slain that day. I watched him throw his spear into the dragon’s eye, just as its fiery breath burned him, and I just…” her voice became choked, and she wiped away a tear before continuing.

“I completely lost it. I remember what I felt... so much hatred, denial and sadness, and the effects of the poison only amplified it all. I turned into a monster, and since the Flutterponies were telepathically linked with our antennae, they felt all of the pain I did and followed suit. It was slow at first; my eyes becoming thinner, fur falling out in clumps, then I started waking up in cold sweats, finding this black slime hardening to my body that would be my shell, and my legs bent into knotty holes.”

“The Changelings,” Cadence muttered knowingly.

Chrysalis nodded. “Precisely.”

“But how did…” Cadence paused to look the queen over with a critical eye, “Well, how did that end up with you having to feed off of love the way you do?”

“Try to imagine, if you will, O ‘Goddess of Love’,” the queen replied sardonically, “The sheer amount of pain and despair you would feel if your beloved prince, Shining Armor were to meet with an untimely end.”

The eyes of the crystal princess narrowed dangerously at Chrysalis, and her horn flared with a bright red light that cast most of her upper body in a baleful crimson glow.

“That wasn’t a threat,” Chrysalis amended quickly, shaking her head. Cadence’s light dimmed to nothing almost as quickly as it appeared, though she still kept a wary eye trained on the clawed bipedal figure across from her.

“I can tell you firsthand what I felt that day so very long ago,” Chrysalis continued, laying a hand over her chest. “It was a feeling of absolute despair, a cold void of emptiness; as if a greater part of my heart, my very soul, had been ripped away.”

Chrysalis leaned back, folding her arms across her torso. “And all that was left was hunger,” she muttered. “A burning hunger, such as no ordinary mortal could ever feel, not if he were left to wander in a trackless, barren wasteland for days on end without food or drink. It was a hunger of the soul. I was bereft of that which I had treasured for so long, that which had become as much a part of me as life itself. Love.”

Chrysalis spared a glance across the room, finding the crystal princess looking at her with abject pity in her eyes. A brief pang of anger and revulsion flashed across the queen’s face, but she simply gave a barely-perceptible shrug of her shoulders and continued.

“Perhaps one could learn to... cope with such a loss, given time…” she paused, sighing heavily, “...but I was in no position nor mood to wait. I wanted him back, yet I could not have him again, so I became angry and hateful. I wanted everything to go back to the peaceful way it was, yet it would never be the same again, so I sank into despair. My wounds never healed; they festered and seethed, crying out to be filled, to be made whole once more.

“I forgot who I was. I forgot the kingdom I once ruled. I wailed aloud for the pain to end, for something, anything, to fill the cold void left within my heart. The hunger drove me mad, causing me to regress to my most primal desires and urges...”

The queen glanced back at Cadence, smirking thinly as the crystalline mare nervously flicked her gaze to the floor and returned her attentions to cleaning up the rest of the mess.

“I don’t remember when exactly it happened,” Chrysalis continued. “But yes; the hunger, aided by the effects of the love poison, eventually turned me and my subjects into creatures whose sole overriding purpose was to feed. Feed on that which was once so precious to us, what we treasured as a virtue and as one of the most beautiful, sacred things in the world. Love became little more than base sustenance to us; we could hardly even feel it anymore ourselves, since we had forgotten what it felt like. All we cared about was devouring it wherever it may be found, to soothe the savage hunger that threatened to consume us from within our very souls.

“I still hear—” Chrysalis’ voice failed her again, and she paused for several moments to wipe away the new tears running in rivulets down her cheeks. Finally, she shakily continued, “I still hear the screams of all the ponies of the kingdom as Tambledon burned, their faces as they were put in cocoons and sent to sleep with false dreams of peace and normality. And in one brief moment of clarity, I saw it all through my old eyes.”

Chrysalis’ expression grew dark, her respiration smog turning black. “They. All. Looked. The same.” she muttered slowly, her voice becoming choked with angry sobs. “Every single one. Every one of my precious little Flutterponies, mutated into monstrous shells of their former selves, doomed to a life of hunger and dearth, not even knowing nor remembering that they used to be full, hale and proud…”

She pulled at one of her chitin plates, hoping to find a layer of autumn-orange fur, but only slimy green muscle and hard tendons was under it, reflecting the light of the fireplace. She grimaced, biting back another tear, and let the plate slap back down.

“It was all my fault,” Chrysalis murmured, her voice barely audible. “Everything. All because I was too blind, too young and foolish to understand or think about the consequences of my recklessness.”

She gave a sad, sarcastic laugh. “Oh, how the Ruinous Powers would have reacted if they had seen so much delicious irony. A queen beloved and respected by her people, dooming her entire nation with the force of love. Love!”

Chrysalis’ laughter faded after several moments, her expression contorting into a vicious snarl as she took both arms of her chair in a grip strong enough to crush solid granite. “My entire race,” she hissed slowly, “My whole kingdom, everything. All of it broken, gone and forgotten to the winds of history, and it’s ALL. MY. FAULT!”

CRACK!

Silence reigned in the chamber, punctuated by the crackling of the fireplace and the steady tick-tock of a grandfather clock standing against a distant wall. The changeling queen’s breathing gradually calmed down, and she sank back into her chair with a sigh.

“I’m sorry...”

Chrysalis’ half-lidded eyes flicked open fully, and she finally noticed her chair with its splintered arms so bent and misshapen it might have been put there by a careless giant. Raising her gaze upward, she found a tearful Cadence sitting in a withdrawn slouch and staring dejectedly at the floor.

“What are you talking about?” the queen asked, scoffing. “You wanted to know, so—”

“No, I mean—” Cadence paused, wiping away a tear. “I’m sorry about everything that happened to you. And I’m sorry for digging up such painful memories—”

“It’s done,” Chrysalis interrupted, waving a clawed hand dismissively. “There’s no need to apologize for things that happened countless years ago. I’ve learned my lessons since then, anyway.”

“I… I have to know,” said Cadence. “Why did you tell me about all this? You could have just declined to comment.”

That question gave Chrysalis pause. The queen’s slitted pupils bored into Cadence’s own eyes for almost a full minute, causing the crystal princess to fidget uncomfortably.

“Because,” Chrysalis responded at last, her tone somber and wistful. “You remind me of myself.”

That statement caught Cadence off-guard, causing her to blink and move her mouth wordlessly for several moments before she found her voice. “Wh… what?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“Your aura is so rich, so pure…” Chrysalis murmured, “The kind of fresh and innocent love I believed in, and much the same as the last flickers I felt before my prince and I drank our lives away.”

Chrysalis leaned forward with an almost pleading look on her face. “Don’t do what I did.” she said, emphatically drawing out every word. “If anything happens between you and Shining, work it out, but do not try to manufacture a solution. I’d hate to see a crystalline version of myself.”

Cadence regarded the queen’s expression in silence for several moments, before nodding solemnly and laying a hoof over her chest. “I won’t,” she said. “I promise you that if things ever become strained between me and Shining, I will do my best to resolve the problem directly, without resorting to any shortcut or magical caprice.”

“Thank you,” Chrysalis murmured, nodding gratefully.

As silence fell upon the room once more, Cadence turned her attention back to the floor to finish cleaning up the rest of the mess. Just before she started, though, she looked back up at the queen, who sat with one hand propping up her chin and her eyes closed deep in thought. “I just have one question, though,” she asked. “What happened to the ‘Love Poison’?”

“Ah, yes,” Chrysalis said in a pained tone, sighing wearily. “I thought that I had every record of the poison’s recipe destroyed, every word referring to it burned so no one would ever repeat my mistake.

“Several years ago, however, these three fillies in Ponyville somehow found a copy and used it. Their victims, this ‘Big Macintosh’ and ‘Cheerilee’...” Chrysalis paused, grimacing, “I sensed the explosion of love between them all the way in the forest, and it pained me so much to feel it. I made sure to watch the drone I sent destroy that accursed book once and for all.

“And those fillies...” Her claw clenched into a fist. “If they still live, then when I find them, they will know not to mess with powers they don’t understand.”

Fellblade stood at the crest of a hill overlooking Middenheim, taking in the opening rays of morning sunshine and the blended layers of purple, orange, and blue on the horizon. He lowered his eyes to his destination, a sprawling fortress city standing tall and proud on a massive plateau, its walls and capped towers brandishing banners of a wolf’s head on a vibrant blue and white background. Just beyond its borders was a deep and wide ditch, the bodies and skeletons of long-dead skaven coating the bottom and hanging by nooses from the walls by the dozens.

“Have any of you ever been here before?” Fellblade said as he turned back to his prisoners, who were ragged and limp-headed after being put to forced march for the last leg of the route.

When none of them answered, Fellblade tipped Vinyl’s head up by the chin, glaring hatefully into her lantern-like eye. “This is where the first Storm of Chaos came to a screeching, devastating halt,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “This is where the Arch-Enemy nearly met his end.

“This is where a million of you monsters fell, and I hope you feel their corpses in the ground under every hoofstep from here to the wall.”

He let her go, her head flopping back down. Turning back to his troops, Fellblade cried out, “Sound our approach!”

One Crusader licked his lips and blew a long, deep note on a wide-mouthed cornu horn. A few moments later, another note, a half pitch higher, reported back from the city walls.

Fellblade nodded fractionally, waving his hoof in the direction of the looming White City of Ulric. “Onward!"

Author's Notes:

This is a Flutterpony
Geography of Equestria and beyond taken from the Where the World Ends Wiki. See if you can spot the Forbidden Forest and Tambledon: Link