"Yes, until that SOW, Starlight Glimmer freed Twilight and her friends, corrupted my subjects with friendship, and stole my entire hive!" Chrysalis said bitterly to Cozy.

"You should both remember that those ponies have weaknesses. I used Discord's weakness to turn him against his own "friends" that he calls," Tirek said as he put 'friends' in air quotes.

Cozy Glow ate a s'more whole and savored the taste of it.

"Hm, Discord was really a powerful enemy to Twilight and the others, until he allowed friendship to ruin him," Chrysalis said.

"But what was really funny, is when you both should've seen Twilight's face when I had her friends trapped in bubbles all around me! She was all, (incoherent babbling)."

Cozy and Chrysalis giggled and laughed a little at Tirek's impression.

"Twilight's always so stressed out all the time when things get tough," Cozy said.

"When I posed as her former foalsitter at the day of her brother's wedding, I thought she was going to implode!" Chrysalis laughed. Cozy and Tirek laughed.

What the villains didn't realize, was that there was a hidden presence heading there way.

"I wish I could've seen Twilight's face when I nearly erased all the magic in Equestria into nothing," Said Cozy Glow.

"All the magic in Equestria seemed a little excessive, don't you think?" Tirek asked bluntly.

"Hey, you gotta think big. Besides, it would've been worth it just to see Twilight and her friends bow down to me," Cozy said with an evil grin.

"It would indeed. Who wouldn't to see all those pretty ponies realize that soon, they would lose everything?" Said Tirek.

"One who would want to see them bound to another's service," A voice answered in Tirek's head. Tirek looked around confused.

"Did you two hear something?" He asked the two females.

"No?" Chrysalis said in confusion.

"Hear what?" Cozy asked.

"I was certain I heard someone talking," Tirek said.

"Maybe it's the voice in your head," Chrysalis said jokingly, but Tirek only gave that thought.

"Actually, you may be right," Tirek said.

"I am? Er, I mean, yes, of course I'm right," Chrysalis said with a smile.

"Partially, Queen of Changelings, but the voice in the centaur's head was not his own," The voice said in Chrysalis' head.

Chrysalis looked around herself with confusion as well. "All right, now that I definitely heard in my head."

"You heard it, too?" Tirek asked Chrysalis.

"Yes, but it wasn't my own voice," Chrysalis said.

"What are you guys talking about?" Cozy asked confused.

"They speak of the one who speaks through their minds... As I speak through yours," The voice said in Cozy head lastly.

"Whoa! O-Okay, now I heard what you guys did," Cozy said a little scarcely.

"I shall set us all... free," The voice said to the three villains all together.

Suddenly, the three villains huddled together and prepared for combat.

"Whose there?" Asks Chrysalis.

"Show yourself!" Tirek demands.

"W-Wh-Who are you?" Cozy asks in a scared tone.

"The one who shall shatter the shackles of this world that confine you."

"Confined? We aren't confined to anything!" Chrysalis says.

"Your pain cannot be hid from an all-powerful deity."

"We are not in pain, whatever pain you're thinking of anyway," Tirek says.

"I shall unveil the truth unto you."

"What truth?" Chrysalis asks.

Then, a rustling came from the bushes in front of Cozy Glow. "Who's there?" Tirek demanded. The rustling got rowdier.

"SHOW YOURSELF, INTERLOPER!!" Chrysalis screeched.

"M-My good friend T-Tirek is gonna b-blast you if you d-don't go away!" Cozy said scarcely. Then out of the bushes came...

"A... rabbit?" Cozy Glow said in confusion.

Tirek and Chrysalis looked at each other, and then Cozy Glow. Then, they burst out in vile laughter, pointing finger and hoof at the pegasus filly.

"Stop laughing at me!" Cozy Glow demanded irritably, but the two continued to laugh their heads off. "STOP IT!!!" She screamed furiously.

Suddenly, these crystals came up and trapped their hooves, wings, legs, horn, and wrapped around the centaur's hands.

---

These crystals were garnet-red with very dark images of the cosmos, teeming with ruby-red stars and charcoal-grey galaxies. They let off this onyxian-black mist with cotton-white embers and shadow-grey flares of dust and ash burning off. They were cracked and spewed this tar-like liquid from them, and various parts of these crystals were covered in various amounts of this alien mold.

The mold was crimson red with cotton white fuzz and variously-sized jet black spores.

---

The trio gasped and they tried to free themselves.

Chrysalis tried charging her horn, but it sparked and sputtered out in an instant. "I-I can't use my magic!"

Tirek tried to form an orb with his magic, but nothing appeared. "Neither can I!"

Cozy tried to stretch her wings, but the crystal were very tight on their grip. "I can't stretch my wings! I can't fly!"

When Chrysalis continued struggling, she suddenly felt like she was getting... weaker. "These crystals... are... draining... my... energy..." Then she collapsed to the ground.

Tirek started feeling the same way. "That's not... good," He said before he passed out.

"Oh no..." Cozy Glow said. Then, she suddenly felt herself getting weary and cold, even with her coat on. "H-How c-c-c-can I g-g-get c-cold?" She said before she fainted as well. Before the 3, a figure came out of the bushes with the same crystals in his claws, except fur and blood was donned on them.

2 Hours Later...

Cozy Glow groggily and sickeningly opened her eyes, seeing that everything had gone blurry. She groaned and tried to get up, but she collapsed to the ground again. She felt so weak and felt as if a fever had come over her. She was shivering, but she was sweating as well.

"S-So... c-c-cold..." She moaned.

The figure turned to her and walked over. He lifted the filly's head up onto a small rock.

Cozy Glow blinked a few times before she regained her full vision. When she looked around, she saw Chrysalis' and Tirek's heads on rocks as well as hers.

"T-T-Tirek? C-C-C-Chrysalis?" She said to the two. The two moaned and groaned weakly.

"W-What... happened?" Chrysalis asked.

"I... I don't... know," Tirek answered weakly.

"Me," Said the same voice the trio heard earlier. They all turned their gazes to a creature that they had never set eyes on before in their entire lives.

---

He had a head similar to Spike’s, but a snout that was a little longer and a mouth that reached at the end of his non-pupil and non-iris, ashy grey eyes. His ear fins were blood red and thorny with holes, and he had 3 rows of forward-facing, double-fanged bloody red spines on top of thick, spiky scale plates from his forehead to a part of his tail, and 4 jagged horns with crevices.

His arms were long and slender-like with 2 foot long index and middle fingers, his pinkies and thumbs only 6 inches. His theropod legs had 2 7 inch opposable talons on the front and back of each foot. His body was long and salamander-like with a slim build and an average neck, also built with a tail twice his body length, the same spiky scale plates on his upper arms, and 8 long bony spines on his back.

But most unfortunately, he looked as if he were infested and zombified, for portions of his head and body were punctured with sprouting blood red crystals from his plates, spines and horns, and his eyes seemed to be bleeding this visible black fluid from the inside. His front and back torso along with portions of his forearms, feet and long tail, even his entire snout and cheeks down his neck were coated in this terrible bloody ooze infested with small pussy bulges and tapeworm-infested pimples with black and pulsating veins exposed with bones and limbs exposed from this terrible corruption, his teeth horribly exposed and black with a metallic black mouth and tongue, but they looked rotten and decomposed, parts of his fleshy insides eaten away and infested with blightful maggots, and his internal organs all eaten away and rotted with holes and parasitic worms that coursed through every vein of his being.

A corruption most vile and plaguing, indeed...

He was between the height of Luna and Chrysalis.

---

The trio looked at the creature weakly. They were too tired to scowl if not glare, and they saw the creature feeding on Chrysalis' Ophiotaurus meal.

"T-That... was mine," She said weakly.

"Yes, but changelings do not go unstable alone," The figure responded. His voice was comparable to an 18 year-old teenager, but it carried no emotion. He sounded dead and lifeless, had a deliberate speech, and his voice reverberated very strongly. However, his mouth didn't move once.

"How are you talking? Your lips didn't even sway," Tirek pointed out.

"H-He’s... p-p-probably a... m-mind-talker," Cozy Glow shivered.

"The pegasus is correct," The figure said, "You should know, Chrysalis. You have done it before."

"Controlling a victim is different from telepathic speech," Chrysalis stated. She tried to get up, but then she fell limp. She exhaled, "What did you do to us?"

"You are all ill and under grave fever... For now." Then, the creature turned to the trio, not looking at them though. His eyes were ash-grey with outward rims of an onyxian-black color, and they had no light in them either.

The trio looked at those eyes and saw that they had no pupils and no irises either, similar to a changeling's, but dead and emotionless. His expression was completely neutral and blank.

They also saw that he wasn't looking at any of them.

"He's... blind," Says Chrysalis.

"Indeed, but one learns to accept it."

"Then... how are you looking at us then?" Asked Tirek.

"Eyes that see only darkness and black, but the light and darkness of another's pure or vile heart."

"You m-mean you... c-c-can t-tell who is-s-s... g-good or b-bad-d-d?" Asked Cozy Glow as she shivered.

"Yes. The friends and caretakers are spared, the taskmasters serve. But the abusers die, and become my fuel for sustainability."

"You mean... you need fuel to not lash out, as well?" Asked Chrysalis.

"You should know. But my curse is far more dire than yours." Then the creature pulled out a small mug and filled it with herbal tea, colored sapphire-blue and golden-yellow. He walked over to Cozy on his hind legs, and presented the mug to her. "Drink."

Cozy could see soft steam and the colors of the liquid. "W-W-What is i-i-i-it?"

"Your medicine."

Cozy Glow grimaced a little at the liquid, but it was as flexible as water, and it was warm. She slowly and weakly raised a hoof to grab it. But by cruelty's bargain, the creature retracted it from her.

"For later."

Cozy simply shuddered with a weak breath. "W-Why?" She whimpered weakly.

"I know that I cannot just trust any of you unwittingly, but I would at least give some hope that we can reach an accord with each other."

"An... accord?" Asked Chrysalis.

"You all seemed to be creating one after your failures to climb the peak. I want my fair share of this villainous bond."

The trio only looked at each groggily, feeling too tired to even be cranky about being feverishly sick and ail. This creature may have put fevers and fatigue on them, but it does seem rather useful for someone like him. Not to mention that he could also pull off the same crystal nullifying spell that Sombra used to put on Shining Armor's horn once. But what really gets their attention, is that this creature somehow knows that they are in pain - not physically, but emotionally and mentally. If he knows about their pain, could he also possibly relate to them? If they were going to find out, they simply had no choice but to accede his wishes.

Chrysalis sighed, "All right, creature... thing. You have our attention."

"Where do you want to start?" Asked Tirek.

"I have sensed that Chrysalis was to do an impression of this Twilight Sparkle who seems more pathetically stressed than one should be," The figure responded, looking over at Chrysalis’ heart.

"I would, but I don't think I can do that if I'm sick," Chrysalis pointed out.

"You are the strongest of your kingdom, Queen Chrysalis. I would suspect to recognize how much your pride means to you."

Chrysalis groaned, "If you didn't sound dead, that would've sounded like a challenge."

The creature simply cocked his head in affirmation as his double-paired, secondary sandy-red eyelids blinked.

Then, the creature tapped his right toe, giving Chrysalis a small whiff of restored ability.

Once Chrysalis felt her changeling ability return, she transformed into Twilight Sparkle. "Oh, I'm such a pathetic, soggy little pony princess. I even made a very detailed list in all the ways that I'm an absolute failure," She pretended sob.

Cozy and Tirek only chuckled due to sickness, but the creature himself would have smiled at the impression. This caught the trio's attention.

"I thought you would've laughed at that," Chrysalis said.

"No emotions... No joy... No love." The creature seemed to have done his homework with changelings, even if he really didn't have any emotions.

Chrysalis was a little taken back. "Oh... noted."

"You know, working with you two, at least, may not be the worst thing in this world," Said Tirek, referring to Cozy Glow and Chrysalis.

"Perhaps... As long as it means the total destruction of our enemies," Said Chrysalis.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Said Cozy Glow with a weak smile. Then she looked at the blank hybrid. "N-No offence, but..."

"We haven't really met properly," Tirek finishes.

The creature simply blinked, "All in good time. But for now, would her gracious and deceptive majesty care to continue her impression?"

Chrysalis turned into Twilight again and started making sad and soggy faces again. Cozy and Tirek laughed softly if not hard.

Next Chapter: Reaching the Orphan Estimated time remaining: 44 Minutes