MLP Short Shories #2

The Hunger (Dark/Drama)

  There must always be a Queen. If that queen is no longer Chrysalis, then someone else must wear the crown...  

=The Hunger=

Starlight flinched, seeing and feeling a streak of emerald magic miss her nose by centimeters. She ducked under another blast, rolling behind a large tree and struggling to catch her breath.

The magic's source, Queen Chrysalis, didn't pause in her assault, and an explosion collided against the bark, eliciting a sharp crack from above Starlight's cover. The unicorn looked up to see that the tree had been impacted so ferociously that several branches of the tree she was hiding behind had snapped off and were falling right on top of her.

Starlight hurled herself to the side, landing painfully on her backside with an oof. Scrambling back, she soon found herself up against another thick tree. Before she could dart away, Chrysalis landed right in front of her, cutting off her escape. She was trapped.

"Finally, I have you," the changeling ex-queen sneered. "I knew that spreading a rumor that I was hiding in the Everfree would get you to come out looking for me, and here you are."

"Chrysalis, you don't have to do this!" Starlight shouted. "We only want to make peace with you!"

"Peace is for the weak!" Chrysalis shrieked. "That traitor Thorax is only going to lead the changelings to destruction and disgrace! You have doomed them all, Starlight, and whether they are loyal to me or not, they are still my subjects, and I will do everything in my power to make the changelings strong!"

"Please!" Starlight pleaded. "Just listen to reason!"

"The time for reason ended when you stole my kingdom from me!" Chrysalis charged her horn with a green glow. "You'll pay dearly for what you've done, Starlight Glimmer!"

Starlight covered her face with her hooves, hoping her hidden ally wouldn't attack too late.

The unicorn felt a hot beam of energy sear past her and, a moment later, heard Chrysalis yowling. Opening her eyes, Starlight looked to see Chrysalis staggering backwards, her left foreleg steaming and smoking.

Seizing the opportunity, Starlight charged up a spell of her own, striking the changeling queen with a blow to the torso and knocking her back into the branches she'd severed earlier. Flipping back to her hooves, Chrysalis growled as Princess Luna walked over to stand beside Starlight Glimmer.

"You dirty rotten cheater!" Chrysalis seethed. "This was a setup!"

The Princess of the night snorted. "If I heard you correctly, you claimed that luring Starlight to the Everfree Forest was an ambush, so if you take offense to such a strategy being used against you, perhaps you should not use it yourself, hmm?"

The changeling's horn ignited, sending a spray of emerald darts towards the two ponies. Luna lifted a magic shield, dissolving the projectiles into harmless particles.

"Please, Chrysalis, we don't want to hurt you!" Starlight called out. "If you just surrender, nopony will fight you!"

"Never!" Another beam of green deflected off of Luna's magical defenses, sending several birds flying as it ricocheted into the treetops.

Starlight aimed a spell at one of Chrysalis's undamaged hooves, trying to knock her legs out from under her, but the spell missed and shot past her.

A tremor rocked the ground as a deep, resonant boom echoed through the forest. All three equines stopped cold, and looked up.

The tree that Chrysalis had damaged earlier had gotten hit again, and the second spell was too much for its roots to bear. Thousands of leaves rustled and snapped against each other as the trunk collapsed forwards, thundering down to the ground.