//------------------------------// // Ch.36 "Numerical Issues" // Story: Chrysalis Wins // by Arkolo //------------------------------// Chrysalis Wins Ch.36 “Numerical Issues” In Ponyville, just before dawn- Shade, Splotchy, Reaper, burned up Trixie, and Twilight were all in a mad dash towards Ponyville. Not far behind them was a horde of relentless changelings that surged forward under some manic motivation. All of them panted heavily as they were a good distance outside of Ponyville, and had to exert themselves greatly to stay ahead of the swarm of identical soldiers. Vanguard are not great runners compared to drones and sentinels, neither are unicorns inherently athletic as either pegasi or earth ponies. Especially fat ones. Splotchy quickly fell behind the others, since her weight was a large detriment to her speed. Shade noticed this and tried to encourage her to keep up. “Come one –pant- if we can get to a building –pant- right there!” The nearest building was a few hundred yards away, perhaps they could get behind it and survive the wave there. The heavy vanguard tried her hardest, and her strained puffy face conveyed how spent she already was, but the stampede behind them was almost on top of them. “Keep –pant- going! –pant- don’t slow –pant- for me…” She even tried to buzz her wings to hurry forward, but she had difficulty doing that. The air wouldn’t be a safe escape either at the moment, as many of the oncoming changelings were in the air too. Neither option really availed too much, as Splotchy tripped over a stone, and tumbled to a stop on the road. Before Shade could even try to drag her along with his dwindled magic reserve she was swallowed up in the horde behind them. It had only taken mere moments for her to disappear into the dark swam of hooves and wings, and now she was undoubtedly being trampled over and over. His eyes were drawn wide in shock, but all of them needed to keep going forward if they were to avoid the same fate. Shade hadn’t been so exhausted, so drained, and so despaired all in one moment for quite a long time. It was rather brutal combination he would prefer not to put himself under. Reaper faired the best out of all of them, her more slender build lent itself better to speed, and she was many body lengths ahead of Twilight and Shade. She was the first to make it to a sturdy structure, some ponies’ house, and dive behind it. Right after she secured her own position, she poked her head back out around the wall. The stampede was right on top of Shade’s and Twilight’s tails. Green magic flashed bright as Reaper pulled in the head vanguard and unicorn with her magic, and gave them the necessary boost to make it to the shelter, just in time. Not a moment after her fellows got behind the wall, the place was surrounded, pelted, and passed by hundreds of changelings in a crazed rush. All of them sat there and panted for several moments as the stampede continued to pass. “Where’s Sweet Fang?” Reaper managed to spit out the first question. “She… She fell.” Shade didn’t look at her in the eye as he replied, mere words felt like they took all energy that was left in him. He dropped Trixie down in the alley, no longer able to sustain his telekinetic grip on her. That fastest wave of changelings passed by, largely sentinels, and a few of the speediest drones, then most of the drones and some faster vanguard. Shade looked up from the ground towards to horde that flowed around them, like a river around a rock. Each vanguard he saw was Splicer, a vanguard he had seen in Canterlot not too long ago, a member of the swarm. Just what were hundreds of him doing here? The head vanguard strained himself to and do something about this madness. An authoritative glare shown around his eyes, and he shot out a mental command. STOP! All of the vanguards in the swarm immediately dropped their hooves to the ground and stopped. This caused quite a commotion, and dozens of changelings suddenly found themselves tripped up. A full third of the stampede had halted, and tripped up almost another third. “Shade! For the love of the royals, you’re here!” One “Splicer” eagerly jumped over several bodies in a desperate effort to make his way towards the alley. He rather carelessly stomped on faces, legs, backs, bellies, whatever was exposed, and caused a number of indignant barks of complaint. This “Splicer” stopped when he was close enough to talk. “Thank you for stopping that mess, well part of it anyway, all of them are so uncontrollably wild.” “Splicer? What in Tartarus is going on?” Shade thought he popped a blood vessel in his eye, the stress and effort it took to simply stay awake at this point nearly broke him, but this issue was desperate enough to call his attention anyway. Before “Splicer” could go on and try to explain any of what happened several other Splicers all jumped up and approached the head vanguard. Soon a whole chorus of them joined in. “I am Splicer!” “I’m Splicer! “No I am Splicer!” “He’s not Splicer, I am!” “Splicer is me!” “I’m Splicer!” “I’m Slicer!” “I’m Spicer!” “I am Spartacus!” Hundreds of vanguard approached Shade, and they all shouted, mostly, the same thing. Shade wore a gape of a frown, he didn’t know how to go about this, this total chaos. His head drooped, and his haunches slunk to the ground, his ears fell, and his strained eye lids strained. A curious thing happened next. The “Splicer” that initially approached Shade had rage written all over his face, apparently his frustration had capped too, and he decided to let it out, violently. “Splicer’s” horn charged and cackled, and then a bolt of green energy shot out and struck another Splicer in the barrel. “Splicer” had only intended for the shot of magical energy to knock out his closest competitor, but reaction was quite different than intended. The hit Splicer started to inflate uncontrollably, his eyes bugged out and body expanded into a large round balloon, every other Splicer there looked at the at the process in deadly silence. Eventually the balloonified changeling reached a critical point, and popped. The closest Splicers raised their hooves to shield their faces, as they expected a shower of goop and guts, but it never came. The rest of the Splicers that sat a little further away watched the balloon changeling pop, and after a shower of little sparkles, the body dissolved into a watery mist. The changelings below may not have been hit by goop and guts, but a they were pelted by small water droplets. Every Splicer copy slowly looked down from the spectacle, and their uniform lavender eyes all stared at the “Splicer” who started it. The original “Splicer” looked quite shocked at the reaction as well. A smile slowly crept over his face after that however, and he eyed the horde of copies before him. Now that the field was quiet with tension, “Splicer” addressed the head vanguard once more. “Help me get rid of them! They’re a bunch of disobedient copies of me, I shouldn’t have read the plaque next to that pool…” “Pool? Plaque? What?” “Just help me blast em!” This assertive, and apparently knowledgeable “Splicer” held some answers. Shade could question it later, after this mess was done. He tried to summon what magic he had left, but his horn only managed to cackle and fizzle ineffectively, he turned to the other vanguard in the alley behind him. “Reaper, Splicer will need your help, all these copy changelings are apparently susceptible to magic.” “What, just blast them?” “Yes, I need you to help because I can’t.” “-sigh- It’s never a simple night when you show up…” Reaper walked past Shade and ignited her horn, both she and “Splicer” turned on the wide eyed horde of identical vanguard, and they let loose. It only took another dozen or two spectacular changeling balloon pops for the horde of copies to realize their continued existence was in peril. As soon as this realization hit them, there was mass panic, and the hundreds of Splicers that remained started to scatter every which way. “I’m not Splicer!” -POP- “He’s Splicer, not me!” -POP- “No, I can’t be Splicer!” -POP- “Splicer’s over there!” -POP- “I said I’m Slicer!” -POP- “I said I’m Spicer!” -POP- “I am Spartacus!” -POP- Dozens were popped, but there were still dozens more. The excessive use of magic brought a heavy toll on both Reaper and “Splicer” and their horns steamed from the amount of energy they channeled. It was apparent that both vanguards would run out of energy before the clones could all be popped. Even Shade in his poor coherency could observe that. Twilight peeked around the alley, and watched the scene with a sort of morbid fascination. She yelped in surprise when she felt a hoof touch her shoulder, and noticed that the hoof was connected to Shade, he looked at her in the eyes, while he bit his lower lip. “They’re not going to be able to get rid of them all. We haven’t even started on the drones and sentinels… Twilight?” “Yes?” “I need your help.” “What?” “This place is your home, will you help defend it?” “Ofcourse, but I can’t with this.” She lifted a hoof to indicate the slime that covered her horn. Shade nodded, he knew at this point if he removed the slime that disabled her magic, there would be nothing he could do to prevent her escape after that. He was too exhausted to fight, or to cast most spells. Yet she, a magical prodigy, would be the best help for the situation at the moment. “One moment, I’ll get it off. Come closer.” “Ok.” Twilight scooted a little closer, and Shade started to smack his lips. The purple unicorn eyed him warily. “Can’t you just magic it off?” “I don’t have any magic left to use, I’ll have to remove it naturally.” “Naturally?” “Just tilt you head down.” “Um…” “How many ponies do you want trampled before we continue?” “Ug, just do it.” Twilight closed her eyes shut and tilted her head down, so that her horn was right under Shade’s muzzle, and he went to work right away. He nibbled at the semi-hard slime that coated the unicorn’s magical appendage, and soon he had large chunks of it torn off. Meanwhile the unicorn scrunched her face uncomfortably, and tried not to think about it, how a changeling now chewed away at her horn, with his large sharp changeling fangs. She grimaced, and closed her eyes even tighter. Now that most of the thick stuff was gone, Shade switched techniques and lathered up his purple tongue with a good amount of saliva. The rapid licks cleaned off all the crevices of Twilight’s horn caused her to shudder. His spit did it’s job, and dissolved the rest of the dark green slime, the unicorn’s magic tool was now free. Before Shade withdrew his head, and left Twilight to her own volitions, the last smidgen of his magic twinkled in his eyes briefly, and he coughed up a small clear dap of resin on his tongue. He applied the tiny clear dollop to the base of her horn, and then pulled himself away. He slumped backward against the alley wall, and sighed in utter exhaustion. “There, you’re free.” Twilight opened one eye and blinked several times, her muzzle was still severely scrunched in disgust, and slowly she raised a hoof to tap at her own horn. She felt that the lumpy texture was gone, and the surface was only slightly wet now. She let out a sigh herself, and experimentally ignited her horn, and sure enough, her purple glow lit up the alleyway. Shade coughed out one more line. “There, now go blast some changelings…” That got her to smile, and she started to walk out of the alley, and she made her way closer towards the center of Ponyville, where the drones and sentinels had surged. When Shade saw her tail disappear around the corner he fell over, and his eyes started to drift into nothingness. Before he could completely tune out the world and everything in it, he felt his body being lifted. A green aura of magic surrounded him, and he was dropped onto someling’s back. He heard Reapers voice address him. “Where did Twilight go?” Reaper heaved, apparently she was over exerted as well, but she had enough left in her to move him around. Shade’s legs flopped about as he rested on her back, he was limp as a rag doll, and she struggled to stay steady as she strode towards her home. “I let her go.” “You what?” “It’s fine though.” “What do you mean it’s fine? I saw what the queen did! I saw what happened because the other element mares escaped!” “Yes, but the others didn’t have a tracer on them, did they…” “A tracer? Oh! Oh, oh, oh. Well, yes, that would work.” In the distance both Shade a Reaper could hear the high pitched twang of magical bolts being fired, followed by loud pops and showers of water droplets. Apparently Twilight was on top of it. Reaper struggled with the last steps towards her door, her slender frame wasn’t built to hold up Shade’s weight very well, but she managed to get inside before both of them fell over. She panted heavily, and he wheezed uncomfortably. She was the first to get back on her hooves, and she lazily started to shove Shade along the floor, she no longer possessed the will or energy to pick him up magically or physically. If he was going to fall asleep, he would do it in her basement. She got him to the edge of the stairs, and took the time to set up her position. She bucked, and Shade grunted as he slid down the steps, and stopped at the bottom in a heap. He could barely groan in displeasure. Unfortunately Reaper had lost her balance when she kicked, and she fell down the stairs too. One somersault and a few bruises later, she was splayed out on the bottom of the stairs, on top of the head vanguard. He had grunted on impact, but otherwise hadn’t moved. She was too exhausted to bother as well, and the both of them fell asleep at the bottom of the stairs, just as the sun peeked above the horizon.