Read The Bridge: Sound of Thunder
 
“Why are you doing this?! Wh-What did we ever do to you!?”
 
Starlight screamed after another failed attempt at teleporting free, Battra’s seal and the aerenths grown into the floor around it containing and draining away the excess energy. Lea looked on at the desperate display and merely shrugged, almost in a bored manner. She stepped around the table to a tome resting on one of the surrounding tables, nonchalantly flipping through some pages.
 
“Nothing. You and your kind did nothing at all. Well, other than not let us finish off Xenilla and Destroyah. But, have you ever heard of the parable, ‘The Frog and The Scorpion’?”  
Too scared to reason, Starlight couldn’t nod or shake her head. Ignoring another escape attempt, Battra just continued.  
“In it, the scorpion stings a frog who promised to help it, just because that’s in its nature. Take me for example. My mother was born with the purpose to end all sentient life. My father, well he played a bit more hardball, he was tasked with ending the whole of the biosphere. I’m the heir to both legacies, so I guess one could call me the ultimate ‘scorpion’ to your ‘frog’.”
 
Levitating the book up with her, Lea smirked as a tired Starlight lay back wheezing for breath after another failed attempt. The unicorn flinched and froze as the changeling ran a hoof along her cheek and chin, tilting her head up to look her in the eye.  
“Just doing what’s in my nature. It’s nothing personal deary, least not with me….”
 
The sound of a door opening in the background caused the hellish kaiju to snicker.  
“Her on the other hand~…”
 
She pulled away, revealing a wide eyed and grinning Cadenza standing behind her and staring at Starlight Glimmer. Just seeing the alicorn was enough to cause her world to fly into even more mortal terror than it already had been.
 
“C-C-Cadenza!”
 
The alicorn slinked over to the duo and stood beside the changeling, looming over her captive whilst speaking in a taunting voice.  
“Weeell, weeell, well, Chrysalis’ darling little prodigy is awake. Say, Lea I believe I heard someone talking about her recently!”
 
Lea raised a curious eyebrow, tilting her head and addressing Cadenza in a friendly tone as she ran a hoof over Starlight’s quivering head and through her mane.  
“Oh, do tell? So far she hasn’t said anything of worth beyond exhausting herself trying to get out.”
 
“Yes, it was actually the good Duchess who told me during a cell visit. She told me how so very proud she was of little Starlight here, about how she’d found her calling helping others find their’s. She’d been researching the spell Sombra used to ascend that street trash of an usurper Trixie!”  
She spat with poison on her tongue, face momentarily convulsing to an enraged expression. She took in a deep breath and slowly let it out, settling back down to a disturbing calm.  
“She was planning to do it to our guest here as soon as she was able.”
 
Battra’s eyes lit up with a malign glee that instantly killed any hope or inspiration that was welling up in the flabbergasted Starlight’s mind.  
“So you’re saying we have a soon-to-be alicorn in our midst?! Oh why ever did she tell you this?”
 
Cadenza groaned, heading over to a crystalline work station while waving her hoof in a mocking, half hearted manner.  
“Oh probably just some heartfelt ploy for change, she’s been saying the same thing since Celestia and Luna got bastardized to their side. Something about not being the “only alicorn alone” or along those lines. Appeals to the heart always were her shtick, never did work on me though.”
 
“Why’s that?”
 
Cadenza rolled her eyes, outstretching and rolling her wings.  
“Because I’m a cold hearted wretch who causes hatred and grief.”
 
“Always wondered why I felt slightly more murderous around you…. Oh well, doesn’t change the fact we have a future queen in our midst! Soooo…”  
Battra trilled as she sat down next to Starlight, casually leaning on the table she was bound to and flipping through the pages of the tome to find the right one.  
“I shall grant her majesty a gift, knowledge.”
 
Starlight looked at the churning pages, needing only a few brief glances to see its pages were filled with spells Sombra and Chrysalis had banned long ago. It was one of Queen Celestia’s records of dark magic spells, an ancient one judging from the state of the book.  
“Knowledge of what…”
 
“Why, knowledge of how you are going to help these scorpions do as they do best, in the forms they do them best in of course… Permanently.”