Ugh. This one's late. Sorry.
Eeyup.
Celestia, we praise thy Sun, and art most grateful for its warmth...Luna, we admire thy Moon, and beg its light to guide us through our shadows...
The Early Equestrian prayer pounded desperately through Twilight's brain as she struggled in vain to pull herself off of the pillar that the tentacles of magic held her to. She had never prayed to the princesses before. Growing up under the wing of one of them and becoming one of the closest friends of the other had made it difficult for her to actually see them as goddesses. And maybe it wasn't appropriate to pray to Celestia, when she was the one Twilight needed to be delivered from...but surely seeking divine help here couldn't hurt. She understood now why prehistoric Equestrians had made up deities-everypony needed to believe they could call on some higher power for protection.
But even if Twilight had really believed in gods before now, she would have believed that they had forsaken her. She planted her three remaining hooves on the stone floor and tried to heave herself forward, but all she managed to do was scrape them backwards with a hideous sound. She tried again, and again, until the muscles of her legs burned with fatigue and the air smelled like singed mane. Twilight's horn buzzed automatically with magic, but she knew that anything she tried would be useless against Celestia's spell. Her mane hung in her eyes, matted with sweat, blood, and the damp of the dungeons she had naively walked right into. She could see the faint smears of lavender dust that her hooves left on the floor.
A flutter of stiff gossamer brought her head up and made her glance at Chelicera, whom she had totally ignored in order to be able to put more effort into trying to escape. The transparent material of her wings was flushed a faint green with the blood that was holding them stiff enough to fly for quite awhile, but she hadn't taken off yet. Instead, she paced, wings twitching and fangs bared, even as a red glow appeared at one end of the hallway. Twilight watched her, panting, unable to stop a wave of bitterness from rising in her chest as she remembered that the changeling had refused to help her. And maybe it was just her imagination, but Chelicera seemed to flinch.
"Get out of here, Chelicera," Twilight said, her voice dull with exhaustion and anger. Not to mention the unthinkable agony throbbing up from her ruined leg. "There's no sense in both of us getting caught by her."
"Don't hate me, pony," the changeling mare almost pleaded. "There's nothing I can do for you. And I have tasted enough dark emotions to last me a lifetime."
Twilight dropped her eyes from Chelicera and lowered her head, suddenly realizing just how tired she was. From all the horrifying things, and running so far away from them, and struggling to get free from the bondage of the tentacles. She lowered the front half of her body to the ground (the tentacles held her haunches aloft, and forced her to support their weight with her remaining hindleg) and folded her forelegs underneath herself. She was afraid, restricted, depleted, and didn't know what to do. Giving up seemed to be the only logical option right now.
"Twilight Sparkle!" Celestia's voice sounded much closer now. Twilight gritted her teeth and suppressed a little shudder. She was so, so afraid.
"Twilight Sparkle." Chelicera turned her ghostly gaze on the captive unicorn. "That is your name, then, pony?"
"Well. Yes." Twilight couldn't imagine what difference it would make, and the intrigued, urgent tone in Chelicera's voice confused her.
The changeling made a sound that resembled a sigh. Chitin clicked against stone as she walked rapidly towards Twilight. "The abomination has spoken of you as she worked. Especially when she turned her attentions to the moon-goddess."
Twilight looked up at her blankly, still confused.
"I cannot leave you to her." Chelicera's voice was emotionless. "Not knowing her plans for you."
Morals and ethics, some part of Twilight's battered mind babbled excitedly. Loyalty to somepony besides this 'Hive' and 'Queen' she keeps mentioning. Has anypony ever written a formal report on the moral capacity of changelings? It's-
Her admittedly-surreal thoughts were interrupted when Chelicera took the crest of her neck in her jaws. Gently, not sinking in those massive fangs-but Twilight squealed in instinctual fear all the same. It was hard to override her natural response to feeling the teeth of a predator on her neck. The fact that her adrenal glands were still dumping excess hormone into her bloodstream in light of Celestia's approach didn't help.
"We must work together," Chelicera growled into Twilight's filthy mane. "Plant your hooves and pull forward, Twilight Sparkle. If the horror reaches us before you are free, I will be forced to leave you. Do you understand?"
"Yes-yes, I do," Twilight gasped, climbing to her hooves. Hope was beginning to stir in her barrel, helping to push away the unbearable exhaustion. She might actually be able to make it out of here alive. She might be able to put a stop to the unspeakable things happening underneath Canterlot.
Chelicera maintained a grip on her crest, and Twilight arched her neck, trying to make things easier for her. She dug her scraped and aching hooves into the stone and leaned forward, straining against the tentacles. She felt the tendrils of magic that went up inside her twitch and pulse, and nausea rose in her throat as she realized just how deep some of them went, but she pushed it down. Her changeling hauled on her neck, much stronger than her small and desiccated frame would suggest. Her fangs were actually dull, Twilight realized in the part of her brain that wasn't completely hay-bent on escaping. They would leave bruises, but they wouldn't break the skin.
"Twilight?" Celestia's voice was sharp, and terrifyingly near. The burst of adrenalin that the sound triggered made Twilight's hooves scrape backwards an inch as she heaved her body forward, just a little. About an inch of the tendrils of the princess's tainted magic was wrenched out of her, glowing through a slick coating of blood, and she cried out. Chelicera hissed in sympathy. "Is there somepony else down here with you?"
Chelicera adjusted her position, spitting out Twilight's mane and wrapping her forelegs around the unicorn's torso. Her chitin was icy against Twilight's fur as she braced her hindlegs and heaved. More magic slid out of Twilight, writhing angrily, and she screamed as her flesh was torn ragged, but she was that much closer to being free.
"Twilight Sparkle!" The red glow was so bright now, and Celestia's voice sounded almost exactly like it had when she'd had to clean up Twilight's mess after the 'want it need it' spell. "Answer me when I speak to you, young mare!"
Chelicera made a clicking noise as Twilight was dragged further away from the tentacles holding her to the column. It took the larger mare a moment to realize that it was a sound of disgust.
"Magic so far up inside a pony, twisted around her workings and burrowed into her guts like a hagfish," the changeling muttered, still pulling on Twilight. "Wrong."
The sharp edges of the holes in her hooves caught on Twilight's fur. She twisted her haunches, cried out in pain as more magic was ripped out of her. She could feel the ends of the tendrils curling around her organs-kidneys, intestines, uterus-in an effort to stay inside of her.
"Your magic-can't you use it to-" Twilight panted, tears leaking from her eyes and softening the salt-crusted fur on her cheeks.
"I would have to become a unicorn to grip you with magic," Chelicera replied grimly. "But I would prefer to preserve my energy." A tendril popped out of Twilight, flailing angrily, and she thought of parasitic worms that nested under the skin and had to be removed inch-by-inch over a matter of months. "Will you be able to run on three legs, Twilight Sparkle, or must I carry you?"
Twilight felt the pain in her mutilated leg throbbing at the edge of her mind, and the deep-seated sting of the holes the magic tendrils had left, and the shakiness that losing so much blood had left her with. But she nodded anyway, and said that she could run. If she made it out of here alive, she wanted it to be on her own hooves.
That was when she heard metallic horseshoes chime cruelly against the stone, and the rustle of razor-sharp feathers. Celestia was here.
Chelicera must have heard it, too, because she suddenly wrenched both herself and Twilight forward with a massively-strong pull that must have left her exhausted. The remaining tendrils were torn out of the unicorn. She screamed raggedly as blood and bits of flesh spattered the pillar and the wall nearby, and felt the tip of the very last tendril catch her lower intestine as it left. She felt the lining tear wide open. And then sickening agony flooded her belly, and she stumbled away from the thrashing magic, and almost collapsed when her changeling let go of her.
"We must go, Twilight Sparkle!" Chelicera screeched. "The abomination is almost upon us-"
Twilight dumbly shook her head. How could she explain to the other mare that her intestines had been ripped open and their contents were spilling into her abdominal cavity? She could feel her body's sewage pumping out of the internal wound. She would go into septic shock and die within hours.
And then there was a field of red magic around her, and Chelicera snarled viciously.
"Twilight," crooned Celestia, stepping into her field of vision. Blood, bile, and worse oozed from the wounds on Twilight's flank and haunches, and foul-smelling droplets of the mixture floated in the magic with her. "You've been hurt...I suppose I'll have to remedy that."
Twilight heard the buzzing of wings next to her, and turned to see Chelicera hanging in another cloud of glittering magic. The changeling snapped at nothing with her huge fangs and beat her wings futilely. She swung towards Twilight, all of her teeth bared and her eyes full of hate-maybe. Her eyes were so blank it was hard to tell.
"And now we both die at the hooves of the monster," she hissed. "Your fault, Twilight Sparkle, entirely yours. We will suffer for months in this Queen-cursed place because you were too weak to run and too proud to accept help."
"I'm sorry." Twilight's tongue felt numb and thick in her mouth. She would die fast, with perforated bowels, but for Chelicera, the agony would drag on and on, for as long as she could survive. Twilight was willing to be that that would be a very long time indeed, just judging by how strong the changeling had seemed while helping to free her.
Chelicera didn't answer. Her horn flared an acidic green, and a bolt of magic shot from it, but stopped only a few inches from her face in Celestia's magical field. It solidified into a blob of iridescent green goop that Twilight guessed had been meant for her. Or perhaps Celestia. The changeling's aim had been vague.
"But you've brought me a gift." Celestia walked forward, to examine Chelicera up close. The changeling hissed at her. "A First-Hatched? Oh, Twilight, you shouldn't have. I've never had the pleasure of slicing open one of them..."
"To Tartarus with you, monster!" Chelicera screamed, beating her wings so hard that the breeze ruffled Twilight's muck-encrusted mane. "I am a daughter of the cunning and magnificent Chrysalis, and I stand strong and unafraid before you! May the Old Queens fill your belly with burning hate and strip you of-"
Suddenly, her jaws slammed shut, fangs locking together. Unfortunately, about half of her greenish tongue had been outside of her mouth with the silencing spell took effect. The razor-sharp row of little fangs between her two larger, useless ones effortlessly sheared through the spongy tissue and the corded muscle beneath with a gout of emerald blood. That half dropped through the alicorn's magic and bounced wetly on the floor, twitching a little, while green blood trickled from between the changeling's clamped fangs. Thick gray tears gathered along the bottom edges of her eyes, and a strange, alien keening noise struck up in her throat, but she didn't drop her amber gaze from Celestia's violet one.
"Rather rude, isn't she?" the princess commented. "I simply had to shut her up. Changelings are all the same, really. They rave about their Queen and their Hive right up until you rip out what passes for their lungs."
"Please let her go," Twilight whispered, feeling tears sting her eyes yet again. "Please let her go, Celestia."
"Why? So she can buzz out of here and incite her mother to war?" Celestia asked skeptically. "No. As much as I would give to have the opportunity to rip dear Queen Chrysalis apart from the inside out, I would rather not have a changeling army on my hooves." She shook her head, and began to walk back to the torture chamber, Chelicera and Twilight drifting along behind her. The former howled and spit in a language that barely even sounded like Equish, and the latter floated in numb silence. "This one will do nicely as a sacrifice."
"A sacrifice to who?" Twilight couldn't stop herself from asking.
"Why, me, of course, Twilight," Celestia said, shooting a benevolent smile over her wing. "It's so important to appease our old gods."