Queen Chrysalis dragged herself out of the mucky swamp she had been thrust into by the power of... love. That word alone caused bile to rise in her throat as she shook clumps of mud out of her mane and stretched out her now damp wings. She would make them pay for this. The changeling glanced to her side and saw her minions crawl out from the water. She glanced to her other side, a frown on her face though the same scene met her. Those ponies. They were the reason she was reduced to crawling out of some dirty swamp.

"We will not be defeated!"

The declaration met with cries of agreement from her surrounding minions.

"We will rise again! Equestria will be ours!"

"Now, now… how do you plan on going about something like that while you and your… partners are all stuck in a swamp like this?" A shadow of a long, slim figure flashed across some trees. It was surrounding them but Queen Chrysalis stood strong, hiding any fear she may have behind her piercing eyes. Her feet sank ever so slightly in the slimy, muddy ground.

"Who speaks?"

"Tsk, tsk, I asked you a question first m'lady."

"And I asked a question second."

"Ooo, that burns," the words slithered with the body as it passed a small sliver of light from the moon that had peeked through the moss covered trees. The Queen of the changelings took a step back, the muck sticking to her hoof as it moved. Her hoof print filling in quickly.

"What are you?"

"Who, what, so many questions," the creature chuckled as he stopped his movement. Queen Chrysalis lowered her head, her ears flattening as the figure came into view, lit dimly by the moon.

"I have heard of you, Discord."

"You have?" His voice rose in pitch and a smile crawled upon his face, "Oh how wonderful!"

"Yes. I have heard you were defeated with the power of friendship," she spat the last word, each syllable acid on her tongue as she spat. "And what had you accomplished? Chocolate rain? How impressive."

"And you? Got married? You aren't the only one who's heard things, my dear."

"Why are you here?"

"To make a deal," His hands met each other as he fell back onto the chair he summoned in a white spark of magic. As the spark dispersed and revealed his mismatched pupils he spoke again, "I have a plan."

"A plan? For what?"

"Revenge."

Queen Chrysalis titled her head to the side, a brow raised in contemplation, "revenge? On whom exactly?"

"Six little ponies." Each word rolling off his reptilian tongue.

"I'm listening."

Three hours and five ponies later, Queen Chrysalis and Discord stood outside of the giant tree library, hidden in the darkened shadows of the home at night.

"Without the Elements of Harmony, Equestria will be defenseless against me," Discord's voice was quiet and off to the side, but Queen Chrysalis' ears caught it.

"You? I thought we were working together," she seethed, her eyes narrowing.

"You are still easily defeated by love. To make Equestria defenseless against you, we have more work to do. But that is step two. For now, let's finish off the last of these ponies."

Both villains flew up right outside of Twilight Sparkle's window, peering in, hiding just outside of Owlicious' vision. Discord gave a low rumble of a chuckle as he snapped his fingers- and in a quick flash of white, Twilight Sparkle vanished from the warm comfort of her bed.

As this was going on, the Queen had flown to Twilight's balcony to implement her part of the plan. While the other ponies had been replaced by simply her minion changelings, she was to transform into Twilight Sparkle- which she did with ease- in order to maintain her control.

Spike snorted, the light awaking him and he looked towards the bed, "Wha's goin' on Twi?" the baby dragon rubbed his sleepy eyes, "Twi?" He sat up, but as he did so he realized his friend wasn't in the bed. He frowned, "Twilight?"

"I'm right here Spike," a voice came as the pony walked up the stairs to the bed, "I had just read about a spell that I wanted to try, but it wasn't working and I couldn't figure why out until just now."

"You study too much and sleep too little, g'night Twi," Spike curled up, falling fast asleep.

The now disguised Queen Chrysalis made eye contact with Discord, both letting themselves grin. Equestria was without the Elements of Harmony. The ponies were banished to a whole other world completely separate from this one. According to Discord, ponies didn't even exist there as they did in this world. There was no way of them finding a way back.

Equestria was as good as theirs.