Gamine reopened her eyes upon reaching the bottom of the lake. Immediately she leaned on her hind legs and swam to the surface. Once her head was out in the open, she looked around, while catching her breath. It was so dark that she resolved to use magic to light beyond the tip of her nose. "Kyndal?" she called, her incomprehension of her situation coming up against the hope that her mother would appear.

"Your mother? Have you already forgotten? She is dead," Pepper whispered in a neutral tone, noting that the body had returned to its true form.

Chrysalis couldn't believe it, yet she saw the mare alive and well. She hesitated for a second. Then, she grabbed the unicorn by the jaw and pulled her closer for a private conversation. Chrysalis bent her head down to whisper in the ear of her guest. She slipped the crystal shard she'd previously used to kill her against her throat, leaving no room for discussions. "Listen to me, Pepper, listen to me carefully. If my daughter ever asks you, you are cured of the bad blood that was in your head that you had sought treatment for. If you deviate from this simple line, I will kill you."

Gamine was looking at the queen, lost. "Who is she?" asked the guardian.

"Let me take control, you will learn by listening," Pepper suggested.

Gamine had no choice, her memory was muddled, she remembered the south trip, the bat ponies, the long tunnel... the rest was blurry. They switched places, the guardian giving control back to the monster. "I'll take control back if you try anything I don't like," she threatened.

Once the switch was made, Pepper resumed the conversation. "Given the situation, I am willing to get a little more wet," Pepper said. She magically covered the shard against her throat to wrap the edge and render it harmless before she grabbed Chrysalis by the paws with her telekinesis and threw her into the lake. "But why should I be the only one?"

Chrysalis didn't expect this, she plunged by force, the splinter broke in two under the pressure of the two opposing magics manipulating it, and the changeling came back to the surface as soon as the telekinesis released her. She found herself a few metres away from a monster who was holding an improvised weapon, her nervousness growing.

Pepper stared into Chrysalis' eyes. "I am not against lying to your daughter if this request comes from you, Chrysalis." Pepper looked at her before she looked at the shard she was holding by telekinesis. "You said that between predators, we could find common ground. These are my conditions: if you try to threaten my life like that ever again, you will regret it. I will play by your rules, just another predator who promises to behave, just requesting from you to answer a few trivial questions." She released the magical grip on the shard which then sank in. "Acceptable?"

"It's not like I really have a choice, do I?" Chrysalis said, before swimming back to shore.

Pepper also pulled herself out of the water. "I am in great shape, and the magic I was hiding behind is gone. How long has it been .... since I left for treatment?" she asked with a knowing smile.

"Forty-five days," replied Chrysalis with a predatory smile.

"What?!" screamed Gamine out of surprise.

"Forty-five days without feeding me, would you have me believe that?" Pepper said amused before her guts growled so loudly she held the belly with one foreleg.

"You were imprisoned in a cocoon on which we have the secret, the fluid it contains keeps you healthy, and can heal any wounds, but does not make amputated limbs grow back. On the other hand, you must be starving. There is only one remedy for this."

"I will have to eat then." Saying this, Pepper's eyes narrowed, devoid of emotion as she tilted her face slightly to the left, the monster in all its splendour, projecting the aura of the predatory she was in the room.

Chrysalis took a step backwards and raised a shield for safety. It was already cold in the room, but suddenly the temperature had dropped another notch. The queen could hardly tell if the shiver she felt was due to fear or to the freezing cold.

"You only amuse yourself. Stop it at once," Gamine grunted in a breath, exasperated.

Pepper cut the comedy short. "I am joking. From what I have seen, your ability to change shape is certainly better than my magic, but at the same time with those green flames, it is far too showy. You are excluded from my hunting list and that is final. I would settle for a little bowl of soup. But I have a feeling that you do not have that here," Pepper commented with a mocking smile, before hearing the sound of a gallop approaching.

Chrysalis lowered the shield, a furious desire to kill her a second time crossed her mind.

The young Aglowing arrived at full speed, but when she saw Pepper, she tried to slow down abruptly, skating for a moment before falling headfirst. But her fall ended up in a hand made of golden magic at the end of the false unicorn's hoof. More fear than harm, the child watched her for a moment. "Is that really you, Pepper? You weren't that tall before!"

"I have eaten a lot of soup," she teased. "Seriously, I used magic to hide my true appearance."

"Why?" chirped the little Caesar.

"I will tell you later, FaceHugger. At the moment I would like to go back to the surface, if that is possible. It is pretty cold down here."

"FaceHugger?" asked Gamine.

The monster didn't need to explain, the hybrid jumped in her face to give her a hug. "I'm so happy to see you again!"

"Oh, I get it now," Gamine said.

Pepper sat down on the floor and used her magic hands to unhook the child before placing her on her mother's back. "I am happy too. But I really need to get out in the sun to dry my coat," she said, turning her eyes to Chrysalis.

"Follow me," the queen commanded before trotting through the tunnel through which Aglowing had just arrived, the little Caesar giving her a hug while hanging on her neck.

As Pepper followed her through the galleries, Gamine whispered, "So it was from these creatures that the call came?"

On the way, Chitin appeared from the darkness of the corridor, and started to follow Pepper.

"They are the changelings, and the call came from this child," Pepper replied.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"What do you mean it came from the child? That's just not possible," replied Gamine.

"Why is that?”

"But think about it! If I could feel this child's distress from so far away, I should have felt the distress of others in this world within the same range, it's just impossible to have felt only her," explained the guardian.

Pepper hadn't seen it that way. "I do not care. As you can see, I have kept my word, so in exchange, you are going to give me control of my body for the day."

Gamine was speechless. She tried to counter-argue, but she only had one word. "Only one condition, and it has already been stated," she replied, resigned.

It didn't take long before they all reached the open air at the bend of a gallery. Pepper unfurled as much as she could, stretching every muscle in her body one after the other, ending with her wings. She took the opportunity to do a quick check-up to make sure everything was OK. She felt a gaze on her and turned to Chrysalis immediately. "What?" she said.

The queen had a smirk on her lips. "You remind me physically of a certain Sun Princess."

"Does she know?" Gamine asked.

"Is there a problem with that?" Pepper replied to both of them as she folded her wings. "No. better question, what happened while I was away," she asked, pressing that last word.

"Your departure present charged with your magic is very beneficial to us. A tree that offers us love in the form of fruits. You truly have spoiled us," Chrysalis explained half-words.

Aglowing Shell jumped from her perch and landed in front of Pepper. "I've made a friend! Nightmare Moon is her name!" she said in a chirp "Oh, and I'm a Cæsar, that means Queen with a princess heart!"

Pepper was frozen both physically and mentally by the first wave of information.

"What?" whispered Gamine.

"For all I know, Luna became Nightmare Moon when she grew jealous because of Celestia. But when you went to see her, she was herself," Pepper explained.

"She was herself? You expect me to believe she used to be like that?! She tried to kill us!" screamed Gamine.

"It was a poor attempt, then," Pepper replied with a smile addressed to the guardian before turning her attention back to Aglowing. "Remember how you know a potential friend when you see one? Have you noticed any of those signs?"

"Honesty, Loyalty, and Laughter!" Aglowing chirped.

Pepper raised an eyebrow, surprised, but still smiling. "That's a lot of them."

"Oh, by the way," said Chrysalis. "Your mane ornament, I gave it to Nightmare Moon. She was so eager to search for you that I asked her to give it back to you if you two were to cross paths. But it seems like she didn’t find you."

Pepper hadn't noticed until then, how heavy was her wet mane.

Gamine was horrified. “We have to recover my Mother’s gift!”

“Calm down, Gamine, I will take care of that, since it seems to be so important to you,” she said to the guardian before her attention focused on Aglowing Shell.

"Say, Pepper, will you stay and play with me?"

"Well..."

"Accept or I'll do it," Gamine threatened.

Pepper sighed. "Okay. What do you want to play to? I do not know many games, and the only ones I know would not please your mother."

"Usually I sword fight with my friend, but you don't have one."

"Indeed, I do not have any." she replied, grinning.

The child could not find an alternative. So she asked the question that had remained unanswered. "Say, why did you hide your appearance?"

"I did something very bad to the Sun Princess, and now I look a lot like her. So I am hiding it, to prevent her subjects from thinking I am their princess," she explained in a simple way to make herself understood.

This confession shocked the young hybrid. "Did you really kill Nightmare Moon's sister?"

"Yes," Pepper replied nonchalantly.

Why?" My friend told me that everypony loved her!"

"What is the big deal?" Pepper said. You changelings also hunt ponies. You drain their hearts. Is that different?"

"We hunt for food, we don't kill!" the child took off. "Otherwise there would be no one left to feed on," she squealed.

Pepper wanted to explain her philosophy ...

... but Gamine interfered, "Move on. I wouldn't like to see her cry," she scolded.

"I am wasting precious time here. Oh, I know." She used her magic to return to her average unicorn form. "Would you like to go for a walk in the forest?"

"We did that yesterday. There were a lot of bat ponies by the tunnel," Aglowing said, a little sullen.

Pepper frowned, and turned to Chrysalis.

"When your friend is a queen, you can do a lot of things, so Aglowing and I spent an afternoon exploring the forest, and as she just said, we don't kill nice ponies like you, we just use them for food, after Chitin throws them away."

Pepper thought she understood what was being said there without the child's knowledge. "Since it took me hours to get here from Ponyville, where can I set up one of my markers to get here in a second if I ever felt the need again?" she asked while taking a quick look at the young hybrid.

"Out of my hive," Chrysalis commanded in an uncompromising tone.

Pepper looked around. The large rock formation nearby was to her liking. She went there and walked around it, followed by the curious child, who herself remained under the watchful eye of Chrysalis and Chitin. The unicorn stopped in front of it, at the opposite of the part facing the entrance to the hive.

"What's this marker you're talking about?"

"Do you know teleportation?"

"No." the child admitted.

"It is a long way from here to the throne room, is not it? I use magic so that I do not have to walk from here to there. It is as if I open a door and arrive the next second in the throne room. But this magic does not allow me to see where I am going, so I put a magic light to show me where my destination is."

"Tell me, how did you get to Equestria then?" Chrysalis asked.

"In the ruins of the two sisters' castle, not far from Ponyville, there was a mirror that was imbued with the same kind of magic. It was through it that I came. I had trouble at first with this imposed appearance, but as I was looking for my next hunting ground, I tried my luck. What came next, it seems you know it." With those words, Pepper turned to the rock, considering for a moment how she would proceed. She turned to the child. "Go to your mother. I will tell you when you can come and see."

Aglowing hesitated for a moment before she went nestling against a leg of Chrysalis, who for a moment was reassured to see her daughter away from Pepper.

The latter concentrated, her horn lighting up with a golden aura, a cavity dug into the stone in a crash of broken stones, deep and high enough to contain Pepper's true form. With the marker in place, Pepper resumed, placing four protective seals one on top of the other, making sure, as always, that no incident would occur during a warp. Pepper waved at the changelings. "The creation is complete and secured."

They approached out of curiosity, Aglowing arrived smiling, but when she saw the result, she was disappointed. "There's nothing there. It's just emptiness!"

"Of course it is. You can not see my markers with the naked eye. But no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to get in there."

Aglowing didn't want to question Pepper's words, but at the same time she found it hard to believe that it would be so difficult to enter this empty space. So she tried, but hit head first against a force field. "Ouch! What's that?" She frowned, and struck both front hooves on this invisible shield. "That's cheating!" she said as she turned to Pepper.

The unicorn smiled, leaning her neck towards the child. "This hole is here because I have placed my marker, now imagine if you were in it while I use the same magic to open the passage, what do you think would happen to you?"

Aglowing widened her eyes, she looked at how deep and high the hole was. She understood how dangerous it was for her and became frightened, taking a few steps back, before fleeing to take refuge on the back of her mother who was coming closer to observe.

"How flashy. You would make a killing in Las Pegasus. It's just an invisible shield tho," said the queen.

"More like a closed door, leaving me with two options. The first, I teleport to it. the second, I open a passageway to it." With those words, she used her magic on the marker to open a passage leading to Fluttershy's cottage, before passing through the portal. "Well, if that is all, I am off. I am starving," she said, waving with her left hoof.

"Pepper, wait!" Aglowing Shell almost shouted. "Are we friends?"

The mare stopped. She remained silent as she considered the question.

"Tell her yes," whispered Gamine.

"No." Pepper replied in a neutral tone. "But that does not make me your enemy. If you need my help, let your despair overwhelm you, like the night we met. I will come, I promise."

"Will we at least meet again?" asked the child, saddened.

"It is not among my habits to visit the same place twice. I am a monster like your mother, I go from one world to another, I kill someone, I leave."

"I'm a monster too. And I like you, I think."

Pepper used her magic, closed the gate without uttering a word.

Aglowing Shell didn’t take it well, tears coming to her eyes.

Chrysalis used telekinesis to grab her and console her. "Don't worry, she'll be back soon, she's just very hungry and you know how I am when I'm hungry."

The child squealed, squeezing out tears and closing her eyes tightly before nestling against her mother.