Chrysalis couldn't help but feel so intimidated by the name the figure introduced himself as, and never in her life had she felt this way before.
"Dark...Shadow?" Chrysalis anxiously repeated.
"That's right." said Dark Shadow, "And from here on in, you will address me as 'Lord Shadow.' Understood?" He says the last word in a threatening tone.
"Y-Yes, Lord Shadow." answered Chrysalis.
Dark Shadow glared at Chrysalis who seems confused yet frightened. She felt a nudge on her leg and noticed Azerrad getting her attention.
"You must kneel or bow to your new master when you address him so," whispered Azerrad, "otherwise he won't go easy on you. Trust me, I know that experience far too well."
Chrysalis is conflicted about what Azerrad told her, and looked back at her Changelings. They look at her in concern and doubt. But then, one of them took a step forward which surprised Chrysalis, and Dark Shadow noticed this. The Changeling that stepped forward looked at Chrysalis with an apologetic smile, and kneeled to her while keeping eye contact, and nodded once. The other Changelings soon do the same thing. Somehow, such a sight brought a new feeling to the Changeling Queen, one she never thought she would feel. To her she feels...moved. Moved by the Changelings being okay with whatever command Chrysalis ordered, even bowing to a being more powerful than she.
Chrysalis then turned back to Dark Shadow, and kneeled. "I mean, yes, Dark Shadow. Whatever you command, me and my Changelings will obey...until you see me unfit for your services, or when I have betrayed you."
Dark Shadow smiled at this. "I doubt that I will regret it. Rise, Azerrad and Chrysalis."
Chrysalis and Azerrad got up, the former feeling a bit agitated that Dark Shadow didn't address her as Queen, but since Chrysalis decided to obey him, she will have to get used to it, otherwise she'll regret it.
"It is amusing that you decided to join me on this day in particular," said Dark Shadow, "for I have sensed a powerful presence being born into this land, one whose energy matches that of the princesses of the sun and moon."
"A powerful being, as strong as Celestia and Luna?" asked Chrysalis.
Azerrad raised his eyebrow at the mention of Luna.
"Yes." responded the dark being, "It took me a while, but I broke the spell Celestia cast that renders any outsiders from taking a look at what happens around Equestria."
Dark Shadow raised his hoof, and a black orb appears out of thin air. "Take a look at what will be revealed, for this information will be vital for one of our many plans."
The orb expands, and it magically shows a view that Chrysalis recognizes, the Crystal Empire. It zooms in to the inside of the castle, in one of the halls where Chrysalis sees the six figures she knows all too well...
The Mane Six walk down the hallway to the room the baby is kept under care. Twilight notices Shining Armor standing on the far side of the door, but it seems his mane is a little messed up.
"Shining Armor!" Twilight called. Shining Armor sees the Mane Six and smiles as they approach him.
"Hey, Twily!" Shining and Twilight hug for a bit. "Hey, girls. Glad you made it here. Uh, where's Spike?"
Twilight and Shining break the hug. "He stayed behind at the Castle of Friendship to help Starlight with the chores." Twilight answered.
"Huh, that's a shame." Shining said, "though there's always next time. Oh, and sorry for keeping the news under wraps 'til now. Cadance is still a bit tired when our filly got born and-"
"Say no more, sugarcube." Applejack interrupted, "Pardon me cuttin' in line, but we understand how stressful it is for mares to go through that experience. Ah know that from mah young days pretty darn well."
"Well, most of us don't." Rainbow Dash said.
Rarity gasped a bit at the sight of Shining Armor's mane. "By the stars, Shining! Your grand mane!"
Shining Armor notices and blushed at the statement. "Uh, yeah, pretty bad, huh? The filly is a pretty big hoof full so far, so Cadance sent word to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna about our little trouble."
"And Princess Celestia sent that letter to us about the news, right?" Twilight asked.
"Bingo." answered Shining Armor.
"I could think of plenty of reasons how your mane got so untidy," Rarity said, "concerning which type of pony your precious baby is, but we'll get to that eventually."
"Can we take a look at the baby now, please?!" Pinkie said quickly while bouncing in her excitement, "Sorry, but I just can't handle being this excited that I might break apart, which I already did since I had to keep a secret that Princess Cadance and Shining Armor are having a baby-!" Pinkie gasped and clasped her mouth with her hooves. Everypony's eyes are on Pinkie, having a mixture of surprise and suspicion.
"What do you mean 'secret'?" Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes at Pinkie in close space, "You mean you learned of the baby and kept it to yourself?!"
Applejack pulled Rainbow Dash by the tail with her mouth. "Give her space, RD!"
"Pinkie, is that true?" asked Twilight.
"I'm sorry!" Pinkie blurted out, "I learned from Mr. and Mrs. Cake about the baby and tried to hold it in, even when Twilight's brother told me to keep it up a little bit longer! It was so stressful I couldn't take it, so much so that I might explode!"
"At ease!" Shining Armor called out, getting the Mane Six's attention. "It was unintentional that Pinkie learned of the baby too soon, but that is in the past, and everypony knows about it now."
"Still, I am sorry that I kept it a secret," Pinkie bowed her head in regret. She feels a hoof being put on her shoulder and sees Rarity giving a forgiving smile.
"That's quite alright, dear," said the white unicorn, "blurting out a secret is certainly no fun, but having to hold it in against your will is definitely not relaxing. Trust me, I have once been on that kind of stage, and I bet that everypony you know has been there too."
Pinkie sees her friends nodding while giving understanding smiles, except for Rainbow Dash who still looks confused, until Applejack nudges her shoulder and she chuckles a bit. "Well, I guess that's understandable," Rainbow Dash mumbled, "But keeping your mouth shut like your life depended on it? That's twenty percent cool, no doubt about it."
"Aw, it was nothing." Pinkie blushed while raising her hoof behind her head.
"Um, so, shall we come in and meet the baby, if you don't mind me asking?" Fluttershy asked.
"Of course you can. Wouldn't want to keep the baby waiting." Shining Armor replied, "Though...I should probably tell you. Seeing the baby might be a...bit of a shock."
Twilight, being amused a bit by Shining Armor's quick concern, uses her magic to open the door and enters it as her friends and brother follow her. "Come on, big brother. I met babies before. I expect meeting this one won't be any different."
When they enter the room, the Mane Six see the three Alicorns present standing around a baby bed, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna standing beside it, and Princess Cadance standing at a distance, who's mane is as messed up similarly as Shining Armor's. They bow to Twilight as she and her friends come in. Twilight takes a good look at the baby while making room for her friends to see.
On that bed, wrapped in a bright cyan blanket with a gold pin holding it together, is the newborn filly of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor. She has a white coat with very light pinkish hue, a light purple and pink mane, and a horn, thus making her a Unicorn. The baby filly's eyes start to open slowly, showing her bright cyan eyes to everypony and looks up at Twilight with eagerness. Twilight and her friends couldn't help but be in their own state of, as they say, 'd'awwwwww' emotion while looking at the baby, including Rainbow Dash. Then, the baby immediately moves out of the blanket, though her hooves are in place, and as it is completely out...
The Mane Six are shocked.
While the baby is wearing a bright cyan diaper, the major focus on her are the majestic wings as large as her head attached to her back. This baby isn't a Unicorn, she is an Alicorn! The baby giggles while the Mane Six are still in shock.
"Of course, I could be wrong." Twilight says anxiously.
Then, the baby starts to feel a little tickle in her nose. The tickling gets stronger as she takes quick breaths. Princess Cadance and Shining Armor get panicked faces, which Twilight notices. But then the tickling is gone as the baby breathes comfortably, which makes Cadance and Shining Armor sigh in relief...
"AH-CHOO!"
But the baby sneezes. In that split second, her horn shoots out a magic blast, which alerts everypony in the room. The blast bounces off the floor, ceiling and walls while mostly everypony attempts to dodge it.
"EEP!" Fluttershy yelped as the blast bounced off the floor beside her.
"Yikes!" Pinkie says as the blast whizzed past her.
"Whoa, nelly!" Applejack jumps back before the blast reached her face.
"Ah! Not again!" Shining Armor jumps out of the blasts way.
The blast zooms past between Celestia and Luna as they look surprised.
"Hey!" Rainbow Dash ducked the blast from behind.
Rarity makes a somewhat dramatic yelp as she dodged the blast and makes a fainting stunt, only for Fluttershy to catch her before she fell.
"Ah!" Princess Cadance puts her hooves over the baby to shield her from the blast. "Celestia!"
"On it!" responded Celestia. She nods to Luna, which she responds with her own, and both of their horns glowed, making the blast being surrounded by their glows. The blast jiggles and sways about like it will explode, so Celestia and Luna move their heads to an open window which makes the blast fly out of there. As Celestia and Luna release their hold on the blast...
BOOM!
It explodes into a display of fireworks. The Crystal Ponies notice this and cheer proudly. Everypony in the room on the other hoof, besides Celestia and Luna, look pretty surprised and startled as they get back up, and Cadance removes her hooves off of the baby bed while the baby giggles some more.
"Okay, what in the hay just happened?" Rainbow Dash asked.
Before anypony could answer, a male honeyed voice's laugh echoes in the room, and a flash of white light appears in a second to reveal a creature who is laughing.
The creature has yellow eyes with crimson pupils, white eyebrows, a small dark mane, and a part gray part brown coat. His snake like body has a random assortment of body parts consisting of a goat's beard, one long fang in his mouth, a snake's tongue, a lion's paw, an eagle's claw, a lizard's foot, a goat's hoof, a dear antler and goat horn on his head, a bat and Pegasus wing on his back and a dark red dragon tail with a white tip. The creature catches his breath.
"What a priceless sight!" the creature says, "I've seen a lot of shocked faces in my lifetime, but the ones Fluttershy and her friends made certainly takes the cake!" With a snap of his fingers, a piece of chocolate cake appears in the creature's paw, and he quickly throws it into his mouth in one gulp. "Mm, chocolaty."
"Discord!" Fluttershy happily flew up to the creature and gave him a hug which surprises him. "I didn't know you would be meeting the baby."
"Well, that's part of the reason I came here." They break the hug and everypony exchanges their greetings with Discord.
"Greetings, Discord." Luna bows her head a bit to the creature, "What brings you here to the Crystal Empire?"
"Yes, it is unexpected of you to, as they say, 'pop out of nowhere.'" Celestia added.
"It's simple, really," Discord replied, "I was in my dimension thinking of some new jokes for my stand alone comedy act, when all of a sudden I sensed a big- no, GIANT magical surge of power all the way over here."
"You can sense magic?" Twilight asked.
Discord leaned in to Twilight's side. "Duh. I take it you don't?" he asked back.
Twilight shook her head, "I never read anything about that kind of magical power."
"Why am I not surprised?" Discord said with an unamused face, "Alicorns can do that, but only Princess Celestia and Princess Luna here are able to do so. You and Princess Cadance, I'm afraid, are not."
"Sounds more extreme than my Pinkie Sense!" Pinkie chimed in, "And even more amazing than a victory party!"
Discord then disappears and reappears beside Cadance. "But I'll tell you about that another time. Now, where was I? Ah, yes. When I sensed it, the magical surge had me intrigued, so I took my time flying over here. As I got close, I sensed it again and saw the grand display of fireworks erupting near that window." Discord pointed to the open window. "And what do I find?"
Discord then reappears on top of the cover of the baby bed, "Those surges came from this baby! And an Alicorn one at that!" He laughs a bit while everypony else smirked at his antics. "I take it this baby caused a storm of mischief?"
"Not exactly, and not on purpose either," Shining Armor walked up to Cadance and put his foreleg on her shoulder, "When Cadance and I took care of it for some time after birth, our baby made that kind of sneeze you all saw, and shot out that magic blast."
"The blast that was bouncing all over this room?" Pinkie asked.
"That's right," Cadance nuzzled her husband, "it was very startling. After settling down our baby, I contacted Celestia and Luna about it and they came here as fast as they could."
"Wait a moment!" Discord called out, "Before somepony else explains something, I'm sure they'd like to know the name you gave to the newborn Alicorn."
"Oh, yeah, nearly forgot about that." Twilight chuckled a bit, "So, what's the baby's name?"
"Yes, please tell us." Rarity said, stroking her mane, "We are just dying to find out."
"It was hard to come up with a name," Cadance explained, "but seeing our daughter hugging me and offering hugs a lot, we decided on one."
"Then what's the name?" Rainbow Dash asked, pumping herself up like waiting to see a major stunt finale.
Shining Armor and Cadance looked at each other, and back at everypony and said together, "Flurry Heart."
The Mane Six went 'aww' at the name. "That name sounds so lovely." said Fluttershy.
"That sounds as cute as mah sister's little drawing of me and her under an apple tree." Applejack responded.
"It is so splendid and divine." Rarity claimed, "Why, I just had an inspiration of making a little dress gift for the baby."
"Speaking of gifts," Discord reappeared in front of the baby bed looking at the baby, "I already thought of one for this filly," He snapped his fingers and a cyan pacifier appears in his claw as Flurry Heart looks at Discord curiously, "because what I have here, is a sucker for the little sucker," Discord puts his paw under the baby's chin and moves the pacifier close to her mouth, "here you go, you just-"
CRACK!
Flurry Heart grabs Discord's paw with her hooves so hard he yelped loudly at the pain. Everypony is surprised at this as Discord tries to pull his paw out of the baby's hugging grasp. Eventually he pulled his paw out, while Flurry Heart giggles at Discord. Rainbow Dash laughs at what happened to Discord until Applejack knocks her shoulder to stop it, and she chuckles sheepishly.
"Yeesh, pretty strong for a filly." Discord mumbled as his paw swells a bit in pain.
"Oh, dear," Fluttershy flew up to inspect Discord's paw, "Your poor paw. I hope it isn't hurting too bad."
"Kind of stings, but I will take it easy on it." Discord replies reassuringly.
"I don't mean to be blunt, Flurry Heart here is twenty percent cool, and cute, but what were the chances of her being born an Alicorn?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"I'm still surprised about that myself!" said Twilight.
"That's a good question," Celestia said, "Never in probably more than a thousand years had an Alicorn been born into the land of Equestria until now. Even when I rewarded Cadance for her great deeds by transforming her into an Alicorn, I doubt that it had anything to do with the birth of Flurry Heart."
"So, Flurry Heart is born normally, like you and Princess Luna were?" asked Twilight.
"Exactly," Luna replied, "And since she is as powerful as me and my sister, Flurry Heart is still young. So teaching her to control her magic is a difficult task."
"So, Twily, if it isn't too much trouble," Shining Armor said as Twilight turned her attention to him, "would you like to teach Flurry Heart how to keep her magic under control when we call for you or when we come to visit you?"
Twilight is surprised, and a little nervous. "Gee, that's a pretty big request." she said, "I may have to look up a book on raising a baby," Twilight turned to her friends, "and ask my friends for some help if they're up to it."
Twilight's friends smiled warmly at her generous offer. "Of course I'll be up to it!" Pinkie yelled happily, "Mr. and Mrs. Cake depend on me to look after their twin babies, so if you need advice on how to make them laugh and smile, and of course clean up after them, I'm your gal for the job!"
"We'll be glad ta help ya, sugarcube," said Applejack, "There's nothin' in Equestria we can't handle when we have friends ta help out."
They nod in agreement, and Twilight smiles at this. "Thanks, girls."
"So, that's a yes?" Cadance asked.
"Yes, we'll certainly help Flurry Heart with her magic." Twilight responded.
"Wonderful!" Discord said, "I'll provide the entertainment, for the baby's tastes, and grip, that is."
Mostly everypony laughs, even Flurry Heart giggles without a care in the world. But, that could change and bring in more than what Twilight and her friends bargained for...
The black orb disappears, and the shrouded pony smiles. "So, a young Alicorn is born into this world. Such a miracle never occurred in the last thousand years."
"What's the plan then, if I dare to ask?" Chrysalis asked.
"It's quite simple." Dark Shadow responds, "To prove your worth and allegiance to me, you are to go to the Crystal Empire, ponynap that little Alicorn and bring it to me, alive."
Chrysalis is surprised at this order. "But, Lord Shadow, there is no telling what magical outburst that baby will unleash even if I try to nab it while taking on somepony else's form."
"I didn't say you will do this alone," Dark Shadow replied, "my apprentice, Azerrad, will aid you."
"Yes, my master." said Azerrad.
"Forgive my rudeness, Lord Shadow," Chrysalis interjected, "but I usually work alone and have my pets come in to finish the job."
"It is common for villains to work alone." Dark Shadow said, "But during my imprisonment, I came to learn the concept of 'teamwork', and if I want the whole world under my iron hoof, I expect my, companions to work together.
Chrysalis is taken aback by his words. A villain like Dark Shadow, believing in the meaning of 'teamwork' and 'companion', much less say it like it's no big deal? This is unheard of, even for her.
"Now, go forth as I commanded." ordered Dark Shadow, "Do take your time coming up with a plan. I expect favorable results when you return."
"Yes, Lord Shadow." Chrysalis bowed to the dark pony.
"As you wish, my master." Azerrad did the same.
Chrysalis and Azerrad turned around and headed for the exit. "Changelings!" Chrysalis barked out, and the Changelings stood at attention. "Those of you on my right, stay here and get acquainted in your new home! Those of you on my left, follow me and Azerrad! Tonight, we will achieve victory over those ponies under their very noses!"
Chrysalis then took off flying for the exit as Azerrad and half of the Changelings follow her. Dark Shadow then looks at the Changelings that are left behind who look at him in fear. He smiles evilly, for another plan is brewing in his mind.
In a large open grassy area in the northern part of Equestria, Zenith the hooded stallion walks to the Crystal Empire. He comes across a large river, so he gallops and then makes a big jump over it. Zenith lands neatly on the other side. He looks up at the mountains ahead and sees a castle behind them.
"That must be the Crystal Empire." Zenith let out a sigh. "It would probably be night by the time I get more closer to it."
Zenith looks behind him to see the mountain where Canterlot resides. "I may not know what you've been doing all this time," he said, "but it will be sometime before we reunite and catch up on the old days..." He turned back around, "...Twilight."
Zenith then gallops towards the forest, to where he sensed the presence being born.
To where Equestria will soon witness an event beyond comprehension.
TO BE CONTINUED...