Queen Chrysalis Queen of the Changeling Hive, now Major Chrysalis of the Equestrian Defense Force, though still Queen of the Changelings walked down the halls of Canterlot Castel. The castle was a buzz of activity as servants ran to and fro or stood and talked about what was going on as it wasn’t everyday an entire wing of the castle was locked down by the EDF and everyone within that wing detained for questioning, including the Nobles who had been going to meet with Commander Sparkle.

News of the Commander’s disappearance had reached the EDF Officer while she was overseeing a shipment of Equestrian Gunships to Fort Zandar. The gunships were still relatively new as it was less than a month ago the Equestrian Military Science Division had figured out how to actually make the flying machines so most of the EDF bases didn’t have them yet as the Liston Complex had to build them and then pilots had to learn how to fly them before they were sent to bases.

The last gunship had landed when the Major received word of the Commander vanishing in a flash of light and that the Canterlot Garrison had locked the wing of the castle down, While in route the Major had placed all other EDF bases and garrisons on yellow alert and for them to check in with their soldiers and report if any of them were missing immediately.

Soon Chrysalis reached the main entrance to the castle wing and saw two Rifle Teams, made up of pony and changelings, guarding the door. The soldiers saluted her as she walked through the door. On the other side were more soldiers in defensive positions and a ways down the hall an area was cordoned off with yellow tape to mark where Twilight had last been seen.

A hoofull of EMSD researchers where already on site taking various scans in an attempt to figure out what happened and the Major could see the Commander’s personal sentries floating a little ways from tape, Celestiabot was just sitting quietly while Lunabot moved back and forth as if pacing.

When Celestiabot saw the Changeling Queen she beeped and both of them rushed over to her. “Major, it’s good to see you” Celestiabot said in greeting while Lunabot pushed into the officer face.

“Do you have any idea where the Commander is?” Lunabot asked sounding worried. That always unnerved the Changeling Queen, the bots sounded so life like that you could make out emotions in their voices but yet she felt no emotions from them.

“I don’t know, I just got here, I haven’t even spoken to anyone yet.” The Major said.

“Right, sorry!” Lunabot said and moved to flank the EDF officer while Celestiabot took up position on her other side. Twilight had programed them to protect the Queen if something happened to the mare as Twilight had already arranged for Chrysalis to take over as Commander in the event something happened to her. Though the major doubted anything could kill the small unicorn and she seemed to have a talent for avoiding death, always joking that she was unkillable.

Even now the Major was sure the mare was just missing and not actually dead and she wouldn’t really believe otherwise till she saw a body. Till then she was acting commander of the EDF. The Major approached the EMSD science team. “What can you tell me?” She asked.

The lead researcher, a light blue unicorn stallion with a dark green mane looked up from his notes. “Well so far we have been able to identify the spell as a teleportation spell but the magical signature is odd and we can’t tell where she was teleported to as there is some sort of unknown energy interfering with our scans, it seems to be all over the hall though as well as mixed in with the spell and magical signature.” The researcher said.

Chrysalis nodded. “Well at least we know it was a teleportation spell and not a disintegration spell or something.”

“She could have been teleported into a volcano.” The researcher said absentmindedly.

The Major glared at him. “Yes that is possible, but let’s go with the more optimistic approach and assume she is still alive shall we?”

The researcher looked up from his scanner. “Oh…yes let’s do that.” He said noting the glare he was receiving.

“Is there anything else to report?” The Changeling Queen asked.

“Um….not at this time.” He replied.

“Then I’ll leave you your work.” She said and turned around and walked away, the two sentries following behind her.

“Phew, that’s a relief.” Lunabot said. “You owe me twenty Credits sister.”

“What? I do not, I never agreed to that bet and I never said the Commander was dead, I just said it was possible.” Celestiabot said.

“Close enough and you still owe me them anyways.” The other bot replied.

“Get your own Credits.” Celestiabot said.

Chrysalis sighed and questioned how Twilight put up with these two, she found them annoying. She left the hall and made her way to another entrance, with the hall cordoned off there was a detour through one of the servant passages to get to the rest of the wing she needed to use. As she walked and ignored the bickering of the two sentries her mind drifted to the Commander. She was concerned for her, not for her safety as she had no doubt the mare was alive, but for anyone she came across.

She knew first hoof how dangerous Twilight was and had eventually learned what she was, heck it was one of the corner stones of their friendship, if one could rally call it that. Granted the Queen did enjoy speaking with the mare, even though it could get very disturbing at time, and she knew Twilight trusted her now and was no longer holding a knife to her throat in case she tried to tell anyone what the mare was, but that didn’t change the fact she knew the mare would have no problems killing the EDF officer if she needed to, though she would hesitate do to the fact she’d need to kill the hive as they would all know what happened through the link and currently a third of the solider and half the workers within the EDF were Changelings so it would drastically reduce the combat readiness of the army. And that was the only thing that would give the mare pause, a moment before she tore the Queens head off.

The Major heard a sloshing sound next to her and when she looked she saw one of the Flame Troopers walking alongside her, the fuel in the tank on his back sloshing with each step they took. Looking closely the Queen recognized the Lieutenant in charge of the Flame Troopers by the rank insignia on his shoulder; it was the only way to identify the stallion as he never seemed to take off the protective suit he wore or the gasmask and helmet.

The Queen shivered slightly, out of all the different units within the army the Flame Troopers bothered her, though considering five dozen of them burned half her hive alive back before she joined the EDF she had a good reason to be uncomfortable around them as she knew very well what it felt like to burn. She felt every single one of her Changelings die through the link.

She knew why the Commander had ordered it, and she knew why she took so long to call off the soldiers after the Queen surrendered, while she couldn’t agree with the second reason she did agree with the first. The queen had been beyond arrogant back then, and that arrogance had sentenced half her hive to burn.

But it had made her better, she was now thinking what was best for her hive without an ego and it allowed her to make better decisions that actually payed off for her Hive in the end, granted Twilight was there whenever things went wrong if it had to do with a racist pony, the mare had an extreme hatred for anyone who had issues with another based solely on the fact they weren’t a pony.

That was one of the things the Queen had come to learn about the mare that lead to her not being as afraid of her. Whether they be pony or changeling, no one messed with her soldiers. The queen still remembered what happened a few years ago when Equestria learned no one “fucks with the EDF” as Twilight put it when three changeling workers had been assaulted while going to pick up supplies for the Canterlot defense bunkers. Twilight had questioned the only worker who was conscious and found out about where they were attacked while the three were attended to by the medics. The Commander had rounded up a team to go after the group of ponies and once she confirmed it was them the EDF had stormed the bar and arrested the lot of them.
Unfortunately one of the worker succumbed to his injuries as he didn’t get medical attention in time as the Canterlot hospitals drove the changelings away so the worker had been forced to carry the other two all night to get them to Camp Mendez near Ponyville. The two survivors were left permanently crippled as one lost his wings while the other had lost an eye in the assault.

The commander had called for the execution of group and the arrest of all the hospital staff that refused to admit the changeling seeing them all as murderers though Celestia had chosen to sentence the one group to ten years in the dungeons and had explained she could arrest all the hospitals staff but she would speak to them.

The commander had spent two weeks “taking a walk” in the Everfree Forest after that and it was the first time the Queen had seen that there was more to the mare then a psychotic killer and what prompted her to actually try to get to know the mare. And from there their friendship was born.

The Major supposed she should speak to the stallion as he wouldn’t be here unless there was a reason. “Weren’t you on maneuvers in the badlands Lieutenant?” The stallion nodded, he had a way of unnerving those that were not used to him do to the fact he rarely spoke, it had taken Chrysalis a while to get used to the fact his emotions were usually neutral unless he was using his flamethrower, then he felt pride, a lot of pride. “You heard what happened?” Another nod. “And you came here to….”

“Support.” He said, voice muffled by the gasmask.

Chrysalis nodded. “Ah yes, I suppose that makes sense.”

“Seeing the command staff working on this will calm the others.” He said.

Chrysalis had to agree, she could sense the nervousness of the soldier all around though they controlled it, but that didn’t change the fact their leader just vanished into thin air.

The two of them trotted down the hall, Chrysalis was needing to speak with the Nobles as they were probably getting agitated being held for questioning. This was going to be the first time the Changeling Queen would speak to the Nobles as usually Twilight handled them and the Major was curious if it was as bad as Twilight made it sound.

Author's Notes:

Well here is the first Interlude that will be following Chrysalis as she runs the EDF while The Commander is away and we see how Equestria has changed in the three years since Tirek was killed by Twilight.

I should mention that dimensional shifts also have a temporal shift, as in you can be gone for a single day from your home, while to you it had been a month.

That's how despite the fact it's been three years since Tirek's attack on Equestria the Commander is in with Princess Twilight shortly after the events of the Season 5 Finale.