Not All Change Is Good
Rushing outside into the bright daylight of the Bad Lands, We were glad to see Pick and Soarin up and waiting for us. I tensed as I saw a fresh trail of blood down Soarin's leg, but as I looked up I realized it was only a minor wound that had been already cleaned and bandaged. Pick looked no worse for wear, so I relaxed a little. I turned slightly to stare into the tunnels in case the strange shape- shifting creatures decided to jump out and attack again.
"Thank goodness you both made it out of them creepy tunnels," Pick said with a hoof on his heart.
"We bailed from the entrance when some kind of hallucinations of ourselves tried to kill us while we were asleep," said Soarin as he probed his his wound with his hoof.
"They weren't hallucinations. They were some kind of different species of pony" I said as I looked back into the tunnel for any sign of movement.
"They had some kind of bug wings and eyes and stuff. We didn't get a good look, I only remember jolting awake when Soarin shouted and then fighting myself for my dagger" said Pick.
"It was terrifying.. If there are more of those bug-ponies and if they ever want to invade Equestria then I pity Celestia.." said Soarin.
I had a similar opinion. Luna shifted into a classic thinking pose. "What are you thinking?" I asked.
She looked back at the tunnels and then up at me and replied "It's what you told me before, and what Soarin just said. You say that the creature which took my form had made your skull burn, and it was like it was sifting through your memories about Canterlot and my sister. Then Soarin mentions how they could benefit from their unique power if they could only utilise it on a massive scale" she explained, laying out the quite obvious now.
"Sweet Celestia, they're going to invade Equestria!" exclaimed Pick.
Luna looked up at him, puzzled, and completely off topic asked "What do you mean sweet Celestia? What does my sister have to do with this"? "Princess, it's an expression that many ponies have adopted during the last thousand years, " I explained. "Maybe in time they'll adopt one about you as well."
"How ridiculous the modern world is," she chuckled before retuning to the matter at hoof. "Well it might not be the intention of those things to actually harm Equestria, they might be leaderless or there might only be a few of them, but we definitely know that they are intelligent, cunning, and can use weapons quite well. We need to do two things and they aren't going to be easy" she said, rubbing the back of her neck.
I expected her to tell us that we had to recruit some ancient cult, or blow up a factory or something, but instead it was quite simple and straightforward.
"We need to find the Magical Source, and we need to warn Canterlot. This will require access to the Royal Archives. This is why I now ask you, Captain Backwater to tell us how exactly to gain access to the archives." Luna said as her gaze shifted towards me.
Having the responsibility to form a plan dropped onto my shoulders was unexpected, but my training as a Captain prepared me to lead confidently as well as follow orders. "Well it isn't going to be a walk in the park, and when I say that I mean it'll be easier to to take down an Ursa Major than to try and break into those archives".
"Excuse me Captain" said Soarin, raising his hoof, "but I've been in Canterlot many times and I've seen many ponies go in and out of the archives all the time with only a guard there to check their ID. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to incapacitate them and break through the door." He said.
I shook my head and pointed out what was wrong with his plan. "Yes, that would usually be true, however when Canterlot has a stage three effect, which I'm positive Clearwater will have hyped up, then it will protect three main things; the Royal Family, the Royal Treasury and finally the Royal Archives which means more Guards, more thorough checks, and spells cast by Celestia and any unicorn guards with protection spell training." I explained, and this slightly killed the mood.
"But there must be some way that we can infiltrate Canterlot, some fail safe or security loop…anything?" Tried Luna desperately.
I again shook my head and instead asked her "What about magic? You have some of your magic back to some degree now. Could you do anything to make us invisible or teleport us or something?"
"Wait, you got your magic back?" asked Pick and Soarin simultaneously.
I ignored them and Luna replied to my question. "My magic is at the level of a basic Unicorn, and although I know and could try to maintain an illusion spell, which is one of my specialities in magic, I could not disarm any of these wards which could only be removed only by the magic of the highest Unicorn.
"Well what if we somehow didn't sneak in ourselves, but got somepony else to sneak in for us instead?" I suggested as a plan began to formulate in my head.
"You're saying that we could get another pony in to find what we need from the archives and plant the message?" asked Luna and I nodded.
"Wait, do you have contacts within Canterlot who could assist us?" asked Soarin.
I shook my head and replied "No, but I know somepony who does."
"Really? Are you going to be telling us who exactly it might be kind Captain?" asked a rather familiar and sinister voice.
We all spun around to look at what appeared to be a very tall and thin pony, about Celestia's height with indeed the look of part pony, part bug just like I'd seen in the cave. The only thing I noticed now in the light was her razor sharp fangs, slit-pupil eyes, and her twisted horn. Behind her was about twenty of her minions who looked almost exactly like her only smaller, with bug eyes and a cocky malevolent look on each of their faces.
Luna raised her Crossbow, Soaring reared on his hind legs and drew two throwing knives, and Pick and I drew our blades. I stood ready for battle, while Pick nervously tried to look at anywhere but the group which would be coming at us shortly after a typical evil monologue.
"You know Captain, it's a shame you aren't still in the guard, as my job would have been so much easier…However from the images in your mind I was able to see before you so rudely pushed me out were…interesting enough for me to make this work." She smiled with her fangs and Luna pushed forward and loudly asked "Who are you and what do you want with Canterlot?!"
There was a horribly typical villainous laugh on her part which made me want to instantly charge right then and there. She answered "I don't think you quite know what you're dealing with?"
"Please, enlighten us," said Luna evil bug pony responded with a bow and pleasantly replied "Very well. We are the Changelings, and I am their queen, Chrysalis. The devourer of Kingdoms and the destroyer of love." she announced spectacularly, but because we still had no idea what she was talking about it fell flat.
"Ok," she huffed with an annoyed look "Basically we can take on the form of any pony you've ever known and loved and use that love against you, so that when you submit we will drain the love out of you which will feed me and my armies for hundreds of years!"
"So if you can drain entire Empires and stuff, how come I ain't never heard of you?" spat Pick trying to sound brave.
"Well, once you are fully drained of love you'll be nothing but an empty shell which over time will starve to death." smiled Chrysalis.
We were beginning to realize the real danger we were in when Soarin yelled "You don't scare us you crazy bitch!"
Chrysalis smiled and asked "Ah yes, you were in the Captain's mind…tell me how do you like fighting you're fellow Wonderbolt's?" and before our eyes she flashed a bright and slightly green tinted light and suddenly there was a pony in a Wonderbolt uniform with bright orange and yellow hair and a witty smirk standing before us.
If I knew this pony then it must have been deep in my mind but the effect on Soarin was immediate.
He tensed up, and took a small step forward. "Spitfire?" he asked quietly.
I pulled him back and turned him towards me. "It's not her Soarin!" He snapped out of the slight daze and looked back saying "I'm still not afraid of you!"
Chrysalis laughed and looked to Luna. She gestured to her as if Luna was some kind of circus act and would do some backflips for her. "Whatever it is thou intend to show me it won't work on me." she said calmly, but with determination in her eyes. Before us, the form of the Wonderbolt Spitfire shifted into something I had feared would appear.
"Perhaps the vision of your ruler will be enough to make you tremble," laughed the voice of Celestia maniacally. Although I had assumed that Chrysalis couldn't read minds without actually coming into contact with ponies due to what she said about Soarin, she must have switched to something which she'd expect Luna to recognize which, unbeknownst to her, was actually Luna's older sister.
"Tell me, my little pony, why such a small and frail thing like yourself would be all the way out here in the Bad Lands with their fickle crossbow. Is it for the magical source? Or maybe you're just here to try and prove a point to somepony like me!" patronized Chrysalis, and despite the fact that Luna held strong she couldn't hold in a tear that fell down her cheek. The single tear tuned into many, and the cruel Queen laughed.
I was going to step forward and do my very best to chop off that whores head clean off when Pick decided to speak up again and shouted "Why don't you go back to your creepy cave and rot"! Despite his attempt at bravery, all it took from Chrysalis to make him fall back down on his hooves with a pitiful whinny was small stomp and an evil grin.
She chuckled, but then I looked right into her eyes, the eyes she'd stolen from my sovereign and explained to the others "She's just demoralizing us by showing us loved ones. I can tell you now, Chrysalis, that you're little tricks won't work on me"!
She seemed to smile at this and I took a step forward as if to say 'try me'.
She gladly accepted, saying "I love a little challenge. It's been too many years". She looked into my eyes, and asked "Its strange that you served for so long in the Guard but don't love your Princess, all I'm detecting is a cocky bravado." She laughed and shifted shape.
"I know you didn't see too far inside my head, I know that you can't manipulate me" I yelled but she'd already taken on a new form which despite my best efforts did widen my eyes.
"Well son, I had expected that you'd make me proud, but all you were was a disappointment… a mistake," said the form of my father.
I chuckled on through the image and said "My Father never expected anything of me. The only mistake was that I didn't leave home sooner."
Once more the form changed and now it was that of Luna. She begged "Please Captain, if you don't surrender now they'll kill me! You promised to protect me Captain, please!"
"Oh come on! Luna's standing right next to me" I scoffed. The image of Luna snarled, and concentrated. Chrysalis's must have been searching my memories for something to get a reaction from me, but I was sure she hadn't seen my last days in the guard.
Suddenly she grinned and began to change again and I coughed when the visage appeared. "Honey, you heard her. You need to stop this right now…for my sake." Said the pony who I dreaded most.
"Stop this.. Damnit fine!" I yelled as I looked away from my wife, but the cherry eyes and cherry coat which I had fallen in love with was irresistable to my eyes. It had been years since I 'd seen anything but dreams and memories of her, but her bright orange mane still shone like a daffodil and her face still radiated an arrogant life which I'd fallen in love with.
"Why can't you listen to your wife?" asked her lips but not her mind.
"Chrysalis stop this now!" I said as my eyes watered and although she had probably never seen what I'd done she made a fatal mistake.
"Or else what…you'll kill me? even you don't have the guts for that!"
That did it. I snapped, and screamed my rage to the sky before taking probably the largest bound ever and bringing my sword down in mid-air towards that whore bitch of a bug-Queen. Had one of the Queens guard's not been so alert then she would have been cut in half. Instead, however he threw himself into the arch of my sword and I felt the small resistance as I changed him into two bits of dead changeling.
Chrysalis instantly changed back into her true self with a look of shock on her face and stumbled back a few paces as I again swung my sword in anger. I roared as I cut through half the head of the changeling closest to me. "I'll kill you all if I have to!" I shouted.
The other eighteen Changelings made to attack but instantly three fell with a crossbow bolt in ones chest and two throwing knives in the necks of the others.
Three more Changelings fell thanks to the hooves of Luna and Soaring as I sliced the legs of another, before deflecting a black dagger aimed for my neck and cutting across the belly of the owner.
Pick stood there and looked as menacing as possible while Soarin charged in and stabbed a knife in the rib of the Changeling nearest to him.
It fell and he continued to the next aggressor while Luna charged her horn with magic and shot three bolts of thunderous blue energy at the group surrounding me. Four of them instantly fell asleep on their hooves, leaving the unfortunate remaining five to me.
I stabbed one through the neck and he gurgled as a spray of blood hit the eyes of his companion, blinding him and giving me time to slice a deep cross across his chest. The next Changeling looked worried but I helped ease the expression with a sharp stab in the chest, which by the feeling punctured through his heart. I then proceeded to decapitate the head of one of the last two, who had been trying to sneak up on me.
I saw Chrysalis about to slip back into the caves, but before she did I pushed down the last of her "soldiers" with a hoof and broke a
One of its legs with a buck of my back legs. It screamed as I reared and grabbed him by his horn.
I yelled "Chrysalis!" She turned around and looked at me in shock and fear. "If you ever touch Luna, come near Canterlot, or leave your filthy little caves agian, then I swear that this will happen to you!" I spat with as much malice as I could fit into my voice.
"Don't!" cried Luna as she realised what I was about to do and in my mind a voice told me to stop this as well. However another louder voice from somewhere deep inside screamed "DO IT!" So I did. The warmth of the Changeling's neck was quickly deposited all over my face, chest, and legs as my sword was drawn across his throat roughly. His eyes widened in panic as his green blood sprayed into the air and he began to choke as it filled his throat and airways.
All the time that I held the dying soldier I was looking at Chrysalis with a look of hatred on my face, and although she would escape I couldn't help but feel satisfaction as the spry of green blood ended and the creature drowned in its own blood.
Soarin knocked the other Changeling unconscious and stood up to look at the still convulsing bug-pony and I, with my sword held high and covered from head to hoof in its green slimy blood.
Pick was shaking despite having done nothing, and Luna was distressed. Soarin just looked away and as for me I simply stepped over the bodies of the dead and through all of their blood and asked "Why do you all seem so tense, we won!" To my surprise I didn't get a pat on the back for killing nine of these evil things, and when Luna stepped up to me I expected a hug or a shake of the hoof in appreciation but instead I received a painful surprise.
There was an audible smack as her hoof smacked into my face and my head was thrown to one side. I would have raised my sword out of instinct had I not been so completely surprised, and before I could start shouting for slapping me for no reason she began screaming at me.
"What is wrong with you! You're only supposed to kill your enemy if you really need to! You could have incapacitated him or at least killed him quickly but instead you basked in a fountain of his blood like a Champion from my time!"
"I…I don't understand" I mumbled, my anger and the pain on my cheek replaced with confusion. Although as my sense of reason began to return, i realized what a truly monstrous thing i'd done.
"He may not have been a pony but he was still very much a living thing and you should've respected that you old foal!" Luna screamed in anger as tears welled up in her eyes.
I didn't know what to do. I tried moving to comfort her but she put up her hoof and said "Don't… Just don't." So I didn't, instead I watched as Pick went over to her and have her a comforting hug as she cried into his shoulder. Now, as I saw and felt his judging eyes upon me she began crying into his shoulder as he caressed her hair. I began to feel extreme guilt for what I had done and I couldn't help but hang my head low in shame.
"Guys, I know this isn't the best of times but I think she said that she had armies in there, so we should probably get going," said Soarin with a level of urgency in his voice. I could only nod as I began walking towards him, away from the cave entrance. However, before I left, I turned and tore my robes from my body and flung them into the mass of unconscious and dead Changelings.
Although I was fairly clean once more my face, mane, and tail were still stained with blood that was already beginning to rot. Soarin retrieved his knives from the unmoving or whimpering bodies they were embedded in and I did the same with Luna's bolts.
I looked at the map and said ashamedly to Soarin "If we can get four hours away from here we'll be able to climb a smaller part of these mountains and by tomorrow be in the Haysead Swamps."
He nodded and thankfully began to lead the way. Away from the scene of a victorious, yet shameful battle and to a safer destination. Luna was still disgusted by my actions and the others were quite silent. None of the usual chatter or amusing jokes came from Pick or anypony else. Instead we just walked on in silence. For me, it was a blessing. It gave me time to reflect on my own thoughts.
REALLY big thanks to The Awes0me 0ne for Editing my terrible Engrish