Chrysalis got up from the hotel bed which she shared with Aria and looked at the sleeping former Siren. She both liked and hated the girl. She was deadly, brutal, and vicious. She was every bit like Tirek. Which was also the reason she hated her. Aria was like a club, yes deadly and all that; but also blunt, crude, with no finesse. Adagio on the other hand was like a rapier, every bit as deadly but far more graceful and requiring much more skill. If the two had met in another time, another place, she would have loved to taken the girl under her wing.

Chrysalis then laughed to herself. She wouldn't have taken Adagio as a pupil; she would have killed her as a potential rival. She suspected Adagio would have done the same. Oh Adagio, Chrysalis had such high hopes for the girl (at Chrysalis' age, even being fourteen hundred years of age was still considered a child); but, in the end, she had let her down by falling in love. That was what she was most disappointed in. In villainy, betrayal was an expected course of action. You never trusted anyone. But love? - that was a weakness. Love was a food source to be devoured, nothing more. To love anything was to be weak and stupid. She had expected better out of Adagio even though she had seen into the girls' alternate timeline.

Chrysalis' thoughts then turned back to Aria. Aria respected, even worshiped power. Not surprising. Show her someone who didn't. What was different with Aria was not only did she worship power and crave it for herself, she worshiped it in others as well. It's why even though she hated Adagio and sought to overthrow her someday; she still followed her because she respected Adagio's power. It was a useful trait for a minion to have.

The sexual aspect was nothing Chrysalis cared about. Aria simply offered herself up as a means of pleasing a higher power. Chrysalis had accepted only out of boredom and to see how far the Siren was willing to degrade herself. Sure the bodies she had responded as they were biologically programed to so there was some physical pleasure but it was nothing that particularly caught her interest.

What did give her great pleasure though was how she was able to torture Flash with it. She would allow him to see what she was doing with his body, sometimes she would even allow him to feel the climax. He would whimper and cry, curse her, and beg for Twilight to forgive him as though he were somehow responsible for his own rape. Torturing him gave her far more pleasure than anything Aria was doing to her physically. She then decided it was time to have a spot of fun as a horrid smile crossed her lips.

"Boy, Boy, are you there Boy?" she said inside Flashes mindscape. There was no response. She smiled even more as she sent out shock waves of psychic pain. She heard him scream and asked spoke again, "Will you answer me now Boy or do I have to prod you a little more?"

"I'm here," Flash answered back; tired and bitter.

"I was thinking of getting some early morning delight from Aria; care to watch?" Chrysalis teased Flashed malevolently.

At first there was just silence. Chrysalis thought she would have to shock Flash again but he answered just as she was about to do so. "Do whatever you want. I can't stop you. I've tried and I can't so just do whatever." Flash was truly broken. He had no fight left in him. All he wanted now was to die.

"Well you're no fun today." she mocked.

"It is what it is. As I said, I can't stop you; but she can. Twilight will stop you."

Chrysalis laughed. "Foolish boy, do you honestly believe that? Oh, but that is good. It shows you still have hope; hope I can rip from you and torture you with. Oh we have a lot more fun to be had together." She then left the mindscape and returned to the outer world. She bent over and shook Aria awake.

"Get dressed and get the others; it's time to go," she ordered.

***********************************************************************************

Chrysalis walked across the field with Aria and her men to where the pyramid stood. After over a month of searching, her she was finally. The end of her journey, indeed, the end of everything, was about nigh. As she got to the forest line, she stopped and smiled.

"What is it my Queen? Savoring your victory?" Aria asked a bit confused and proud at the same time.

Chrysalis turned to her and just smiled. Then she turned back to the forest and said, "Come out , come out, I know you're there," she said happily. Nothing happened and Aria looked at Chrysalis confused and then back to the others who were equally confused.

"Oh please," Chrysalis sighed in disappointment. "It does you no good to cower behind trees and bushes. Just come out so we can get this over with."

Slowly the girls started to come out. They were already powered up for battle but looked confused. How did she know they were there? They were unnerved at having lost the element of surprise and not knowing what was going to happen next.

"Well, well, the gang is all here and let me say, I love the new fashion accessories you all have. I'll get right down to it. As much as I'd love to kill you all in horrible and painful ways; I have a mission to accomplish. So, if you just move to the side and let me do what I need to; I promise you a quick and relatively painless demise. So how about it?" Chrysalis spoke.

Sunset stepped forward. "We know what you're trying to do and we can't allow you to do that."

Chrysalis laughed. "Allow? ALLOW?" She turned to her followers, "Allow?" she said laughingly and her followers laughed as well. Chrysalis turned back to the girls. "Oh honey, you're not allowing anything. I am doing this. I'm just giving you the choice not to die in vain."

"Uh, hi," Shimmer spoke up. "I'm Sunset Shimmer, this worlds' Sunset Shimmer. And I just got one question. You do realize by unleashing the big nasties in there, you'll die too, as well, also? I mean, you do get that right?"

"Oh, I know," Chrysalis answered unfazed.

"Ah, ok. Um, second question then, WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Shimmer followed up.

"Nothing. Everything dies eventually. There really is no such thing as immortal. Life, existence, is temporal. This planet is what, four billion years old? It has what, another five billion left? That's nine billion in total. Longer than I or any of you will be around. But what is that in actuality? Huh? What's nine billion years in eternity? In forever? A second, a millisecond, a nanosecond? Not even any of those.

"Life is a joke. A bit of steam in the breeze. Barely visible and quickly dispersed. Think about. What is life really worth? This planet, this solar system, this galaxy, eventually this entire universe will be gone - dead. All your hopes and fears, loves and hates, victories and defeats are meaningless. Nothing you matters. You don't even qualify for forgotten memories. By unleashing The Black Gods of Death, I will be doing something no one else has ever done or will ever do again; I'll be directly and permanently effecting and changing the very nature of reality itself. I will be a forgotten memory but that is more than any of you will ever be.

"You, you are fighting me for what? That is the question; not why I am doing what I am doing but why are you? What, to save lives? Every life that doesn't get extinguished today will be eventually. As we speak, thousands, millions, billions, trillions, of lives are being snuffed across the multiple dimensions and universes. You're not saving anybody; you're just postponing the inevitable. You are saving no one, you are saving nothing. You are merely acting out of an inbreed biological drive for self-preservation. There's no nobility or righteousness in what you are doing. Today, tomorrow, ten thousand years from now, it doesn't matter; all turns to dust and ash. In the long run, does it really matter if all these people die now or later?"

The girls looked at each other not knowing what to say. Their was a grim reality in what Chrysalis had said. Even Rainbow Dash who had been consumed by vengeance now began to question. It burned to have lost Soarin so soon but what was the alternative? Date, marry, have kids, grow old together, experience a life of love and joy only to have one mourning over the grave of the other? It seemed so futile, so pointless.

"Yes it does," Adagio said as she stepped forward and faced Chrysalis. "With the exception of you, I'm not only the oldest person here, I'm the oldest person on this planet and I can tell you, with all that I've seen, all that I've experienced, it's still not enough. I can't think of one day, one second I would want to give up. All the places I've been, the people I've met, I love, the sunrises and sunsets, The cold of winter, the heat of summer, the fields of blooming flowers and the frozen, snow covered forests, and everything in between; all of that, I would never give that up. To deprive a person of even one second of life is an injustice. Worse, it's blasphemous."

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow in skeptical disbelief. "And you're one to talk about this Adagio? How many people have you killed? - directly or indirectly? And what about the pain of life? Each new day a day to experience violence, disease, hardship. I've seen in your mind, I know what you've been through and what you've done. Is the risk really worth it? Especially since there's nothing at the end except for a privileged few? Look at a place like North Korea. Any baby born there is born into slavery and oppression. They know only fear and hunger until they cease to exist. Tell me, would ending their lives be blasphemous or a mercy killing?"

"I'm sure for some it would be a mercy; but that's an individual choice one makes on their own. It's not one that you get to make for them. Also, even in the most horrid of situations, there is still hope."

"Hope is an illusion, death is an inevitable reality."

"Yes, but so is life. Matter and energy can never be created only transformed. We, you, I, all of us, we inherit life for a time but then we must pass it on to another generation, another universe. Yes, everything dies but something is always being reborn to take it's place. A life, a universe, may not be eternal; but life itself is."

"And what good is that if you won't be around to see it?" Chrysalis asked coldly.

"For me, it isn't. For those that will inherit my matter, my energy, it'll mean everything. We can't live forever but it's not about us. It's about the untold future that has yet to be. I may not be remembered but I won't be around to be offended by that either. What I do know is others will live because I have died. Unleash those things and nothing will be born again and everything truly will die."

"Enough," Twilight said. Any doubt, any reluctance, any hesitation was now gone from her. "Chrysalis, tell your followers to leave and come back to Equestria with me to be imprisoned in Tartarus forever with Tirek or die today. Either way you shall not succeed. The choice is yours."

"Well, I must thank you, Adagio, Twilight. All your talking allowed my men to take positions. ATTACK!"