Chapter 45: Beasts Within, Beasts Without.
Team RWBY, JNPR, and TASS walked into the library, both Ruby and Sweetie Belle had brought their copies of the board game… There was a moment when they both started unpacking the board, then Sweetie glanced at Ruby, “Hey, we have two sets…”
“Yeah?” Ruby replied, “So?”
“So, how about we all play together?”
“But, they’re only four kingdoms…”
Sweetie glanced at her own cards, miniatures, and board, then smirked, “Not any more!” Ruby took a moment to process the idea in her head, then smirked… About five minutes later, and after much discussion with their teams, the two boards had been stuck together, and the eight players gathered around the table… Ruby was playing the kingdom of Vale, Weiss was Atlas, Yang was Mistral, Blake was Vacuo, meanwhile, Sweetie was playing the kingdom of Equestria, one she had apparently made up, and gathered up half of the cards and pieces from the Vale and Atlas sets. Diamond was playing the kingdom of Grimm and decided to challenge herself by not making allies and only using the cards and pieces related to the grimm. Apple Bloom was the kingdom of Chrysalis, again, another thing she came up with, with half the cards and pieces from Mistral, and the other half from Vacuo, lots of them related to spying and subterfuge, again challenging herself, playing something she wasn’t used to. Finally, Scootaloo was playing the White Fang and using only cards or pieces related to faunus, all gathered from different sets.
As was customary, Atlas went first.
Ozpin watched out the window in his office as a trio of atlesian battleships approached, all of them floated just beyond the window, hovering over the city, from beside him, Glynda muttered, “Well, Ironwood certainly likes bringing his work wherever he travels.”
“Running an academy and military makes him a busy man, but yes, those are a bit of an eyesore…”
The elevator dinged, and in stepped the general, a little tired looking, “Good morning, Professor…” The general sighed, “I had a bit of trouble while travelling here…”
Ozpin raised his eye, “I understand that travel between kingdoms has grown increasingly difficult, what kind of trouble?”
“Just four faunus women, I mistook them for White Fang at first, there was a bit of a mess, it’s all cleaned up now, but I have had a rough night…”
Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Spitfire, and Rarity were all dragged into a room, they were seated at a table with particularly fancy chairs, and all the ponies present could feel magical energy flowing through the table, chairs, walls, and a particularly notable machine on said table… A box, plastic, ceramic, and metal, studded with wires and dials and a display screen… A lie detector, Twilight realized, this room was remarkably similar to the interrogation rooms in the Canterlot dungeons, and while Unicorns were used for the lie-detecting, Twilight knew that these humans had only the vaguest understanding of their own magic… At least Applejack wasn’t here, but Twilight really hoped that Rainbow didn’t say anything stupid. The note Princess Celestia sent her a few days ago emphasized that she wanted Twilight and her party to stay inconspicuous until the planet had been identified and a portal set up… Well, there was still a chance she could salvage the situation…
As she sat down, Twilight reached out with her magic, suppressing the magical glow around her hand until it was nearly invisible while scanning the machine thoroughly… It wasn’t long until the general followed them in, but in that ten-minute wait she had a rudimentary understanding of how the mechanical lie-detector worked and felt she could mimic whatever signals she wanted… Hopefully.
“Let’s begin… Miss, Twilight Sparkle… Is that your real name…”
“Yes, it is… My full title is Princess Twilight Light Sparkle the first of Ponyville…” She wasn’t lying and didn’t need to tinker with the machine, this gave her a bit of time to see the thing in action, and she was suddenly a bit more confident that she could mimic that response should it prove necessary.
“Odd name, but you are an odd pack of faunus, you call yourself ‘Princess’ what does that entail…”
“I am the leader of my village, that is the title we use,” It was only a partial lie, Mayor Mare was the one in charge, but ever since she first set hoof in Ponyville, she certainly had some amount of political power, that was only bolstered by her ascension, she could tell the Mayor what to do if she wanted to. Clearly, the lie detector didn’t catch this, but she kept her magical grip on the device.
The general nodded and turned to Rainbow, “Your name?”
“Trainee-Private Rainbow Dash, sir!” Rainbow saluted, her training in the wonderbolts kicked in, this wasn’t the first time she was in trouble.
“Military?”
“Yes, Wonderbolts, eighth training wing.”
Ironwood nodded, “You aren’t Atlesian military, are these ‘Wonderbolts’ what you call your local militia.”
“Yes, sir.”
Twilight pressed her magic around the machine, Rainbow wasn’t good at lying, but the quick application of magic had simply made the device loop the last ten seconds of readings from the mare. Ironwood walked over to Rarity next, “And you?”
“Miss Rarity Crumbles Belle Von Canterbelle,”
“Long title.”
“My family are the direct descendants of Clover Belle, we are minor nobility.”
Ironwood nodded and continued over to Spitfire, “And finally, who are you…”
“Brigadier General Spitfire Flare Thundershrike, the CO of Trainee Rainbow Dash, Wonderbolts.”
Ironwood nodded. “So, where do you four come from.”
“Ponyville,” Rarity replied.
“Where is this Ponyville?”
Twilight squeezed down on her magic and made the device loop as she spoke, “It is to the south-west, past the ocean, it had been destroyed in a grimm attack…”
“And why did you come to Atlas?”
Rainbow began, “We’re looking for our friends and family.”
Ironwood nodded, pleased with the answer, and the readout from the lie detector… These faunus clearly weren’t working for Her, but, he still needed to figure some things out, so he turned and said, “Alright, now, tell me, all of you, what happened back in the tundra outside Mantle?”
“Those four came to Atlas looking for their friends and family and will be released into Vale tomorrow night after a bit of last-minute interrogation and once the damages they did to my ship have been repaired… That Rarity Belle has a fascinating semblance, she has been helping repair the damages.”
Ozpin raised an eyebrow at the name, “Interesting, one of the more notable students we’ve had this year is a girl by the name of Sweetie Crumbles Belle…”
“Sibling?”
“Most likely…”
Chrysalis led her swarm down the streets of the ruined mountain city, following where the highest concentration of the magical monsters was, letting her swarm feast on the beasts as they passed, she didn’t need that energy, she was going to eat whatever was creating these entities… She eventually found herself walking down some kind of underground railroad filled with ancient mining equipment… There was a strange glowing in the walls, channels of dust she realized, veins reaching through the earth, and several crystals were growing from these veins.
There were black pools on the ground, a viscous fluid, magically powerful… From one, a black arm reached from the smoking blackness and clawed its way to the surface. Chrysalis scoffed and rammed her sword down into the beast’s head, and it simply popped into non-existence… As Chrysalis’ sword fell into the black muck, it was seemingly dragged downward and she used a bit more power to hold it still as the muck bubbled and smoked around the crystalline blade, wrapping around it and seeming to seep into the crystal, it was only a few seconds before the entire puddle had vanished, absorbed by the blade… “Magic, concentrated, liquified, dark magic… Not too different than the pony’s Liquid Rainbow…”
She eyed another pool, “Drone, drink it,” She said, and one of her droned obeyed, dipping herself into the fluid, at which point it shot forth and dragged the creature down into the pool, where her chitin shell and horn changed to a bone-white, her eyes went a bright red, and a strange blackness overtook her flesh… She snarled as she thrashed in pain and came clawing to the surface. A second later, she was impaled on the end of Chrysalis’ sword… Instead of simply popping like the other creatures, black fluid flowed from the open wound and was sucked into the sword, drawing the alien magic from the drone’s flesh... Then, she was tossed to the ground, dead, “Scan her body for any remains of dark magic, if she is clean, toss her body back into the biomass pool…”
The changelings nodded and did their duty, Chrysalis opened her mouth and drew a tendril of magic from the pool. It was thick with magical power, and she could feel her reserve of energy fill, and continue to draw in more power, beyond what she once thought was possible… The pool drained and vanished, and Chrysalis could already feel herself stronger. She smirked, there were plenty of these pools, plenty of power for her hive, but the cave went deeper, there was more…
Magic grew heavy in the air, an eerie electrical feeling that flowed over the flesh of every changeling accompanying the queen. They passed through more monster-filled corridors, these ones looking like natural caves rather than the tunnels the builders of this ruin were constructing. Then, they opened up into a massive cavern… It was a huge underground lake, a pool of black magic, inside which was the shape of a deformed dragon made from stone… No, not made of stone, coated in stone, she realized as she felt the power radiating from the beast, the space bearly large enough to contain its bulk, and it was surrounded by a massive swarm of alien monsters.
Chrysalis’s horn glowed, she dare not use her sword here and risk wasting such magical power… The horde howled and ran toward her, a beam of acid-green magic met the approaching beasts and rendered them into smoke, at the same time, her changelings charged, gripping into the bears and wolves and sucking their power, causing the beasts to dissolve as they were consumed. It was a matter of minutes until the room was cleared, leaving just the dragon and the pool.
Chrysalis licked her lips with her serpentine tounge and approached the stone form of the dragon, lifting a rock from the wall and cutting it into a spike, she jabbed it into the rock and it split, showing black flesh and white scales beneath, Chrysalis opened her mouth and started to suck… The dragon’s power flowed into her, it quickly outdid the amount of energy she got from those magical pools, and grew exponentially, it was so much she felt the power mutating her body and she loved it, she continued to draw energy from the creature, that was now very much awake and howling in pain, unable to move as it was killed, its being syphoned off to fuel the queen’s growing power… Her eyes glowed a brilliant green and she felt her body grow larger, spikes of chitin jut off from her hide and wings extend, bigger and bigger, her body making room for all the new energy. Her horn extended and started to glow with a faint corona of energy.
“I can’t believe she won, again!” Yang shouted, walking into her room, a smirking Sweetie Belle looking at her with pride as she wandered off to her own dorm, nearly running right into the tall black-haired girl and her two companions, a blue-haired and pink-winged faunus that was cheerily bouncing along, and a shorter woman with brown hair and green eyes who was quietly smirking.
“You’re just mad because Mistral was the second kingdom to fall, but Vale got taken over by Chrysalis practically in the first turn!” Ruby replied.
Weiss was beaming with pride, “I can believe I almost won, and this is the first time I ever played…”
“Wow, Weiss smiling, that’s a first,” Yang muttered.
“How dare you!” Weiss replied, flipping to annoyance in a moment, Ruby was just laughing… Sitting on her bed, Blake smiled… For the first time in a very long time, she was happy, properly happy, and she wanted to stay happy for as long as possible… So she just sat there, watching her team, her friends, talking and laughing and being together, and she smiled too.
The White Fang scout walked past the abandoned buildings, uneasy like he was being watched… There weren’t many grimm around, which was more than just strange given where he was. He pressed his comms, “This is scout Baenar, this area is clear…” He said, suppressing the shaking in his voice, expecting an alpha beowolf or ursa major to come running down the street any minute now, but it was all silent, not a single noise to be heard, even the wind was dead. All dead, save for the eyes looking down on him from the ruined towers, a baleful green, waiting for the chance to strike… The last thing the other scouts heard of him was his sudden scream from the comms before it went dead, and the other masked faunus came rushing to his aid, amazed and relieved to see him unharmed, putting his mask back on, saying that he was surprised by a small beowolf and that he lost his weapon trying to fight it off… Little did the other scouts know that Baenar didn’t have green eyes.
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Yikes Chrissy is getting juiced on power. Also twilight could tell mayor mare what to do but twilight is too nice and humble to do that. It’s almost time for a reunion.
Well, Mayor Mare is the ruler of Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle just ruling a province that contained Ponyville and Everfree.
So, Zecora may disregard orders from Mare, but should obey Twilight's.
Nooooo, not Baenar. How will the plot continue.
So does Chrissy look the way she did in the finale, or is she getting an OC battle form?
Also: was that the dragon from Volume 3, or just one of it's kind?
10093618
Yes, that was the dragon, and yes, she is Ultimate Chrysalis now.