//------------------------------//
// 14. Purge 
// Story: The Hero of Altomare 
// by Borsuq 
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	When Fluttershy had woken up to find herself trapped in a green cocoon the changelings made, she thought she couldn’t be more scared. She remembered seeing Princess Celestia trapped in one of these things during the wedding of Princess Cadance and Twilight’s brother, or rather, before it, and how helpless she looked. At least Fluttershy wasn’t hanging from a ceiling upside down, for which she was a bit relieved.
When she looked around to see what was beyond her prison, however, she had completely forgotten her momentary alleviation.
Everypony from Ponyville, everypony, was trapped just like her. All her friends, even Applejack, whom they must have tricked like her. Rainbow Dash had a number of bruises on her body, and Fluttershy quaked at the thought of how those bad changelings hurt her friend. Twilight was looking around like her, but her eyes weren’t focused and there were black burn marks around her horn.
But not even the sight of her friends trapped in the cocoons, even the signs of how maltreated they were, wasn’t as terrifying and heartbreaking to her as what came next.
Fluttershy recognized the Changeling Queen that impersonated Cadance at once; an easy feat, considering how different she was from the other changelings. She had her back turned to her, and it looked as if she was talking with somepony; about what, Fluttershy couldn’t tell. Her head was ringing a bit from whatever had knocked her out. But even so, when she looked more intensive in who was within the cocoon the Changeling Queen was talking to, there was no way she wouldn’t recognized her coltfriend.
The shy pegasus tried as hard as she could to focus, to hear what was happening, to somehow break free. Fluttershy vividly remembered pushing herself really hard when she had to help Rainbow Dash with the tornado. If she could have done it back then, surely she can do so now, right?
But no matter how hard she tried, her wings, her entire body, didn’t even want to budge.
She wanted to cry as she looked into Eon Guard’s eyes, feeling more hopeless than ever. She was such a useless pony! What did he even see in her?
Eon shook suddenly, as if he was in pain, and when Fluttershy glanced at the Changeling Queen, she saw that her horn was glowing with green light. As if feeling her eyes on her (and Fluttershy’s deep dislike of her) the Queen turned to gaze at the ponies, muttering something…
… and then began walking towards her.
“I wonder if having an object of your affection under my control will make you more eager to cooperate,” Fluttershy managed to hear her tell Eon as the Changeling Queen slowly approached her. Even if she wanted to, the pegasus wouldn’t be able to look away now, she was too afraid. “Now, dear, try to relax,” the Queen said once she was in front of her. “This will only sting… for a decade,” she chuckled as her horn began glowing with an eerie light.
Fluttershy stared at the light, expecting the worse; but something caused the Changeling Queen to turn around, and use the energy she stored to do something bad to her on another target.
Eon Guard.
How he managed to break free, Fluttershy didn’t know, but it was clear that he did it in an attempt to save her, for which he paid with pain. The cruel Queen used her magic to bring him back to her hooves, chuckling evilly.
“An impressive effort, but futile,” she said. “You will serve the Swarm well, once you’ve been… reformed.”
But Fluttershy wasn’t listening. She was too concentrated on Eon; she watched, teary eyed, as he tried to rise, shaking. He looked at her back, a single tear running down his muzzle, as he, too, must have realised what Fluttershy had:
It was hopeless.
Just like back in Canterlot, there were too many changelings, and their Queen was too powerful. And this time, there was no royal couple to save the day. This time…
Fluttershy blinked, wanting to chase away the tears that obscured her vision, but then stare with wide eyes at Eon, when what she thought was a hallucination didn’t disappeared.
His body shimmered with blue light.
 
 
Chrysalis took a cautious step back as the strange creature in front of him finally took his real shape. “Not that is going to help him in any way,” she thought, suspecting that like with her own race, he would turn out to be more powerful than when wearing a body of a pegasus. “He’s too wounded and drained of energy.”
Still, she was intrigued by his transformation. Unlike changelings’, whose shape-shifting process was accompanied by a burst of green flames, this creature’s body turned into a shimmering blue light, growing bigger and lifting itself from the ground. The whole transformation took less than a second, and now a being unlike anything she had ever seen floated in front of her.
He had an aerodynamic body. The lower half of his body was blue, matching the color his earlier coat had. His wings were big with simmed stiff. His hind legs turned into some fin-like paws, while his forelegs became clear paws and ended with three claws. The red triangular marking that was his cutie mark now adorned his chest. The upper-half of his body was light gray, just like his mane had been. It had the same triangular ears, and his face was blue with a light gray marking in the middle.
“What an interesting creature…” Chrysalis mused, not feeling threatened at all, despite its alien shape and increased size. His body still bore wounds from her attack and the torture she inflicted upon him.
The day was hers…
“Wait…” the changeling thought, noticing that there was a strange energy emanating from the center of his body.
And it was expanding rapidly.
 
 
“Eon Guard?” Fluttershy thought in daze. “You’re a…”
She trailed off in her head. What was he? The stallion she fell for just now suddenly became a strange floating creature, with wide wings, long head and front legs ending with claws.
The pegasus blinked when once again she thought she saw a light emanate from him, and as before, she wasn’t mistaken. A small point shone from within his chest with the same intensity as his eyes started, and grew rapidly, to the point of filling his whole body...
A wave of energy hit Fluttershy, not causing her any harm, but destroying the cocoon in which she was imprisoned.
She looked around, stunned. She wasn’t the only one that was now free. All around her ponies were as much as confused as her, shaking their heads. And the changelings…
Fluttershy gasped. Every one of them was pushed away, and more than a few of them laid on the ground, not better for the wear than Eon was-
“Eon!”
She turned her head sharply to her coltfriend as he gave out a cry unlike anything she had ever heard before. It was a strange noise, something between a scream of an eagle and a squeal of a dolphin, and it resonated within her soul. It was even more shocking to since it was the first time Fluttershy heard Eon make a sound other than subtle purring.
Eon was in bad shape. His body was still severely beaten, and was panting heavily.
“Looks like that blast used up most of your energy.”
Fluttershy’s eyes widened. The Changeling Queen still stood at the same distance from Eon as she had before, a green magical field she must have conjured up still visible.
“Pity, given your situation. You see, freeing them all upset me a bit,” she continued, pouting. A buzzing sound came from everywhere around; Fluttershy looked as more changelings appeared in the air, some helping their disoriented comrades while most of them circled around everypony. “So I hope you’re ready for more… pain...”
The Changeling Queen trailed off, most likely no less confused than Fluttershy to what was now happening to Eon Guard. Once again, his body shone, but this time the glow was of a yellow color, and didn’t… explode, or whatever it did before. Instead, it simply disappeared… leaving Eon’s body free of all his earlier wounds.
The one she thought to be a pegasus once again cried, the soul-touching voice resonating throughout Ponyville, as his wings moved him swiftly a bit higher, and he lounged at the Changeling Queen.
 
 
That bug-type managed to dodge his attack at the last moment. Latios wasn’t sure how exactly: one heartbeat she was there, her horn shining, the next one he flied through empty air. He did a half-barrel and turned around, spotting her. Chrysalis was looking at him with consternation from the other side of the Ponyville’s market, surrounded by the lesser… changelings, if he remembered what she called them correctly.
Despite his lack of experience with interacting with other creatures, he managed to guess that she must have used teleport to get away from him. “This might be more problematic than I thought…” Latios mused, thinking fast. That, and the thought of Fluttershy (even if now she didn’t like him anymore) in danger constant in his head, were the only things keeping him focused on the task, and not wondering how he managed to heal all his wounds so quickly. That was a new trick to him.
“At least I managed to get every pony free. Now they will be safe...” Latios trailed off when his eyes registered how many changelings surrounded the town’s citizens, planning to capture them again no doubt. “As if I would let you!”
He was about to charge at them, but Latios then noticed that there was a big number of those bug-types heading his way as well. Strangely, Chrysalis was not among them, but the Eon Dragon didn’t have time to ponder why she wasn’t attacking him.
Furrowing his brow, he concentrated.
 
 
Queen Chrysalis had no idea how this strange creature managed to heal himself so fast. It was a feat not even Celestia should be able to do, at least not so swiftly. And on top of that, he proved himself to possess a great strength and endurance, as well as speed and agility. Chrysalis had barely managed to teleport herself to a safe distance when he attacked her. She observed as the odd being twisted in the air effortlessly, searching for her, but when he did, he immediately turned his attention to the ponies her minions were about to attack.
“All those abilities, strength, speed… He would make a powerful pawn…” she mused. Sending a message to the Swarm, she commanded: “Capture him. And don’t let any of the ponies to escape.” she added. The last thing Chrysalis needed right now was word of what was happening here reaching Canterlot.
Two squadrons of her loyal soldiers charged at the creature, surrounding him before they moved for strike. By that point he had noticed them, and judging by his expression he wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. Chrysalis watched him carefully, eager to know what he was going to do next.
“Will he charge at them as he did me? Push them away with this energy blast?”
He flickered and disappeared.
“Or turn invisible.” she added, observing with an open mouth as her minions stopped, aghast, only to be knocked out of the sky one after another.
 
 
“Ugh, either that Queen spell hit me harder than I thought, or this day is getting weirder by the minute,” Twilight thought, massaging the base of her horn.
She felt as if somepony stick in a white-hot rod and then swirled it around her skull. Her short fight with the Changeling Queen left her weakened and disoriented, so she had missed most of what had happened when she was trapped inside of the cocoon. But Twilight did see Eon Guard transform into… some sort of a mix between a bird and a pony? And maybe dragon, judging by the front paws with claws… the unicorn was also fairly certain that it was thanks to him that they were now all free.
But she had certainly only imagined seeing Eon disappear, right?
Twilight shook her head, trying to focus. The changelings were all around them, planning to capture them again most likely. Everypony that could fight formed a circle around those not fit for battle, and despite her huge migraine, Twilight was certain she could be of use. She took the place next to Applejack and concentrated, wanting to blast the closest changeling with her magic…
The changeling fell on the ground in front of her, as if something shoved him violently.
And as Twilight glanced around, she saw that the same was happening to all the other changelings.
“I… think I need to lay down.”
 
 
A growl, not befitting a queen like her, escaped Chrysalis as she bore witness to the slaughter of her forces.
Somehow, that wretched creature turned invisible, and was now tackling down all of her minions, one by one or by twos. And he was doing it in a terrifying pace.
Chrysalis couldn’t blame her changelings for losing so quickly; how does one fight against something so fast and strong, that was also invisible?
But she wouldn’t be the Queen of the Changelings if she couldn’t adapt quickly to the situation. Chrysalis grinned as she found an answer to the question:
“By attacking in a way that he would have to take the hit.”
 
 
While compared to his sister, Latios know he would be considered an aggressive individual. Such was his nature; if he saw a threat to Latias, their garden, or their city, he would chase it away. But that didn’t mean that he liked resorting to violence. By far, Latios valued relaxing flights, swims and naps far more than fights. That’s why he preferred to end fights quickly, and was even willing to let those he perceived as a threat to leave unharmed after giving them a scare. However, thanks to those changelings, his boiling point was lower than ever.
Latios was on a rampage.
He had quickly dealt with those twenty-something bug-types surrounding him, bashing into them with such a force that they fell to the ground, unconscious. Then he moved on to the ones advancing on Ponyville’s ponies; their carapace was of no protection from his strikes, some of them dished out by his claws, in which he concentrated his strength, causing them to glow, although since his entire body was cloaked, nobody had seen it.
Latios didn’t know what caused him to act so violently; was it because they threatened the tranquility of this place, of the ponies he grew to like? Or was it because they made him reveal to Fluttershy what he truly was?
Regardless, he was quickly ending whatever plan Chrysalis had. From her swarm, already two thirds were down.
“Speaking of, where is she?” Latios wondered, as he looked back to the last place he saw her. Now that the ponies were relatively safe, he could deal with-
The green light of her horn was directed at Fluttershy.
“NO!!!”
 
 
As Chrysalis expected, the moment she had cast the spell, she heard the cry of the creature. In fact, she heard two cries in short succession: first was of outrage and worry, the second… of pain.
“EON!”
Oh, and the third one, but this one was of Fluttershy. She would have probably rushed over to his laying form if Chrysalis minions didn’t come between them.
“That’s what you get for being difficult, freak,” she chuckled evilly in her head as she regarded the huge burn mark that the chest of the now-visible blue creature bore, the effect of her magical missile he took while shielding Fluttershy. “So, your name is Eon, huh?”
“I’ll assume that a sufficient amount of pain has caused you to drop that invisibility spell, or whatever it was,” Chrysalis said out loud, her tone of voice regaining the confidence she had just lost ten minutes ago. “Truly, you have proved how pathetic love is. It something that should just be consumed and used, not something you should sacrifice yourself for,” she paused.
Eon, grunting from pain, rose into the air once more. He moved with great difficulty, and one of his paws clenched around his wound. Chrysalis didn’t want to make the same mistake again. This time, she would knock him out before he would get a chance to regenerate.
“But we can discuss this later,” she told him, once again concentrating her magic.
Eon should have passed out from pain, given his injury. He should be unable to free himself from the cocoon or move in it at all. To knock him out, Chrysalis needed to hit him with a strong blast, as powerful as she hit Celestia with. And while now she was no longer empowered by Shining Armor’s love for Cadance, she could still muster enough magic for such attack.
A second before she released the energy she gathered, Chrysalis watched as Eon lifted his head higher and opened his mouth. And then she saw something completely unexpected.
A ball of purple light formed in front of his muzzle, and shoot out a beam, not unlike a unicorn’s magic would, exactly when Chrysalis attacked. Their energies met halfway, colliding in the explosion of magic, momentarily covering Ponyville’s market in a cloud of dust.
 
 
Latios blinked, seeing what he had just done. “That was… Father’s…”
He stopped before he got swallowed in nostalgia. Their collided attacks had given him precious seconds. With everyone unable to see, the bug-types wouldn’t attack. And if they weren’t going to attack… Latios could concentrate properly.
Not so long ago, he had given everything; he focused all his power into one single devastating attack in order to protect the city of Altomare, despite knowing that with his body the way it was he would pay dearly for it. And while now he wasn’t nearly as badly hurt as was then, Latios did not have any problem with giving his all this time as well.
Energy began gathering inside of him, illuminating his body and becoming brighter with every second. By the time the dust had cleared, Latios shone with the intensity of the stars.
Looking into the opened and shocked eyes of Chrysalis, he released all this energy.
 
 
Chrysalis had seen and experienced many things since she became the Queen of the Changelings. She took great pride in her ability to learn from all of that, and adapt accordingly. Her newest plan to take over Canterlot was proof of that.
Then why was she losing in exactly the same way as before?
 
 
The light had faded slowly. Fluttershy, feeling it was safe to do so, opened her eyes. When she did, she looked in awe as all the changelings slowly disappeared over the horizon, thrown away by… Eon?
Her head turned to regard him, still in shock. At the same moment, Eon looked back, and in his eyes in turn she saw sadness.
Closing them, he once again disappeared.