Chained by Deceit, Freed by Love
Chapter 8-Chained by Deceit, Freed by Love
The six ponies in the room sat there in total shock at Celestia's reveal. Twilight was the first to recover.
“Princess?” she started, then closed her mouth.
Celestia had looked away from them after telling her secret. “I am sorry Twilight.”
“Don't be sorry for us!” Rainbow blurted out. “Be sorry for Shade! He's been living here his whole life not knowing anything! Then you call us here and tell us? Why didn't you tell him!” Rainbow suddenly flattened her ears, realizing that she had shouted at the princess. “Um.”
“Don't be sorry, Rainbow Dash.” Celestia said to Rainbow. “I deserve worse then that.”
“But what happened Princess?” Twilight said.
Celestia motioned for the six to come closer to her and she sat down. “When Shade was born, I didn't want either of us to be judged for what happened, especially Shade. I love everypony in Equestria, but I knew that I couldn't expect Shade to be accepted. So I decided to pretend that I found him in the Everfree Forest. I made him my assistant when he was old enough so that it wouldn't be suspicious that he was with me all the time.”
“But don't changelings feed on love?” Applejack pointed out. “How was he fed?”
“I think I know Applejack.” Twilight said. “If offered, and the changeling doesn't know about feeding, love can be offered to the changeling which it's body will automatically feed on.”
“Correct Twilight.” Celestia said. “I gave Shade as much love as I could every day. It kept him strong and helped him to grow up like any other pony. He also had an education so he wouldn't seem different. Perhaps you saw him a few times?” Twilight looked away, thinking.
Celestia continued. “I knew that as long as he didn't know who he was, Chrysalis would have a harder time finding him.”
“But Shade's your son.” Rarity spoke up. “He doesn't belong to that awful queen.”
“No, but she could tempt him by offering to teach him about what he is, something that I am unable to do.”
“But why is that?” Twilight asked.
“Luna and I do not know very much about changelings.” Celestia said. “We attempted to learn as much as we could after he was born and after the attack at your brother's wedding, but it doesn't compare to what a actual changeling can teach.”
“So you didn't know anything about him?” Twilight asked carefully.
“Not as much as we should have.” Celestia admitted.
“If you wanted to keep him safe, why did you send him to Ponyville?” Rainbow asked her.
“Luna had been spying on Chrysalis for sometime now.” Celestia said. “She found out that she had been getting closer to finding Shade. So we thought that sending him away would protect him.”
“Why does she want Shade so badly?” Twilight puzzled. “He's a changeling just like she is, right?”
Celestia shook her head. “No, Twilight. She wants Shade for two reasons. He is my son, and my weakness. Whether he tries to or not, Shade steals my energy.”
“So he weakens you?” Twilight asked.
Celestia nodded. “I can't help but love him. I believe that he feeds more from me because I gave birth to him, but I have no way of knowing for sure.”
“Who is his father?” Twilight said.
Celestia looked at Twilight for a bit, then started to answer. Suddenly in a burst of blue light, Luna appeared next to her sister, panting.
“Luna!” Celestia cried.
Luna waved here sister off. “No time sister! We have a problem. Chrysalis has captured Shade!”
All the ponies in the room gasped. “How?!” Celestia asked angrily.
“I was making another pass though Cloudsdale, when I sensed him below me. I left the city to see him being attacked by another changeling.” Luna looked at Rainbow. “Are you sensitive between your wings?”
“Well, yeah.” Rainbow said. “If I get hit there, I can't fly. Hurts really bad.”
Luna nodded. “Shade had taken your form. Unfortunately he was shot between the wings and fell. He protected himself with a spell but the other changeling reached him and teleported them away. I flew straight back here.”
Twilight could tell that Celestia was agitated by the news. She turned to them. “Are you all sure that you haven't seen Shade anywhere?” Everypony nodded, but Twilight saw that Fluttershy was acting even more nervous then usual. She quietly pulled Fluttershy behind the group to talk to her.
“Fluttershy. Did your cousin really buy you that necklace?” Twilight softly asked.
“No...but I can't tell you. I promised Twilight.” Fluttershy said, clearly conflicted.
“If it's something that will help Shade, please tell the princess. Shade will understand.”
“A-are you sure?” Fluttershy asked. “I don't want him to be angry.”
Twilight smiled and hugged Fluttershy. “He won't be.”
Fluttershy walked up to the princess and softly said, “Princess...I actually have seen Shade lately. He's been staying with me.”
“That's a start.” Celestia said. “Where has he gone when he was living with you?”
“Umm, he didn't know how to change his body until last night, so he mostly stuck around the house.” Fluttershy quietly said.
Celestia thought hard for a moment and then her eyes lit up. “Chrysalis wouldn't take him somewhere far away from ponies. Shade will die without emotions for too long because his body is still adjusting to his shifting and him being able to control when he feeds.” She looked at Twilight and Fluttershy. “I have an idea, but I need you two to trust me.”
“Hold on there. Why are you only sendin them?” Applejack spoke up.
“Yeah! We need to go with them!” Rainbow chimed in.
“I know you all want to help my little ponies, but this is something that Twilight and Fluttershy can easily accomplish.” Celestia said. “Twilight, Luna and I had planned in case something like this would happen. We cast a spell on Shade that will let us teleport to him. I would go myself but...”
“It's okay Princess.” Twilight said. “We can handle it.” Fluttershy nodded. Celestia and Luna exchanged looks and stood up in front of Twilight and Fluttershy. The rest of the ponies moved away from them.
“Twilight. When you find Shade you need to immediately bring him back. Chrysalis will most likely have starved him from emotions to weaken him. I can heal him.” Celestia said. As Twilight nodded Celestia and Luna created two swirling ribbons of magic and wrapped it around the unicorn and the pegasus. It covered them and in a flash of light....there were still standing there.
“Uhhhh...” Twilight started.
“Buck!” Celestia snapped. Everypony jumped at the princesses choice of words. “Luna! She must have disguised where she is!”
“Then I will fly over the city and cast my enchantment breaker.” Luna said, then rose up and left the castle.
“We don't have a lot of time, do we?” Twilight asked, clearly about to attempt to help Luna.
Celestia sighed, “No Twilight. We do not.”
. . .
“Uhhhh, what happened?” I said as everything slowly came back into focus. The first thing I noticed was that I was laying down and my legs were cold. Then I got a huge shock as I saw that I was trapped on a table! My legs were held fast by iron chains that wrapped around the table that I was on.
“No! Nonononono...” I instantly started struggling, but it was no use. I couldn't move. I thought about about shifting, but I abandoned that idea as I started to pass out again when I tried to shift into Twilight. “Okay, so that isn't going to work.” I thought. I was going to teleport out of the chains, but these chains must have a enchantment on them. I disappeared, the reappeared right back in the chains. “That won't work either!” I hissed. “All that did was help me use more energy.” I tried to relax and think. I looked down and saw that I was still wearing my promise necklace. I remembered that I had enchanted it with at least two enchantments. One of them was to turn the necklace invisible whenever I shifted into a form that wasn't my normal unicorn form or my changeling form. But for the life of me, I could NOT remember the second one.
“Great. Ummm, where am I?” I looked around. It looked like I was in a basement. So that meant that I should be in a city, right? “And if I am in a city, I should be able to draw some emotions. I casted out, but I didn't sense anything. “Guess I'm still recovering from that fall. Or I drained myself too much when I had been in the town eairler.” I said to myself.
“Aww you're awake!” A voice said from behind me. I turned and saw Misty walk up next to the table. “How are you feeling?” I glared at her. “That isn't a nice face.” she said.
“Does it look like I care?” I hissed. “Where am I? And why am I chained?!”
Misty looked at me. “Well, I think that my mom can explain it a little better then I can.”
“Your...mother?” I asked. Misty pointed behind me.
Then a grown-up female changeling walked in front of the table. “Hello Shade. I'm Chrysalis. You can call me Queen Chrysalis.”
“Yeah, excuse me if I don't!” I snapped.
Chrysalis smiled at me, like she knew something I didn't. I hated when ponies(or I guess changelings) did that. “Shade, I'm very glad that we met. You see, you have something that I need.”
“A better looking horn?” I said
Chrysalis took my horn and started to rub it, sending shivers though my body. “You do have a nice horn, even when you are in your changeling form. But that isn't what I need.” She pointed at my body. “I don't need any particular PART of you. I needed ALL of you.”
“For what?!” I snapped.
“I'll tell you when you wake up. It looks like it's time for you to take a little nap.” Chrysalis and Misty pointed their horns and me and covered me with a green mist. Immediately I was tired. As I fell asleep again, I thought I saw Chrysalis climbing onto the table on top of me.
But that was probably my imagination.
. . .
Twilight and her friends were restlessly pacing in Celestia's library. Twilight had disappeared in the rows of books. The rest of the ponies met up in the middle with Celestia. Twilight came out from a aisle and sat by her friends. “I don't know what to do Princess.”
Celestia was about to say something when Luna appeared by her. “It's complete sister! We need to send them now!” Luna anxiously said.
As Celestia nodded, Twilight and Fluttershy stood in front of her. “Twilight, do you remember the spell to return?” Twilight nodded.
“We can do this Princess. Let's go!” Twilight said. Fluttershy stood there quietly and nodded. Celestia and Luna nodded and created the magic ribbons again. This time though, when it covered the two ponies they were gone.”
“Princess? Where are they exactly?” Applejack asked.
“As close as we could send them to where Shade is.” Luna said. “Now it's up to them to return.”
. . .
I slowly opened my eyes again, but his time it was much more painful. My body was sore from the waist down, like I had been exercise. I felt even more drained also. I looked and saw Chrysalis sitting with her back to me. “I don't know what you did to me, but I'm going to get you for it.”
She turned and smiled. “Glad your awake. Now we can talk.”
“About?” I decided that if I acted passive about the situation, she would tell me what her plan was.
“Well.” She sat on the table and looked at me. “I was thinking that you might marry Misty.”
“Excuse me?” I said in shock.
“You two would have the cutest hatchlings!” she said. That statement hit me. Celestia had told me that she had found me as a baby. But I wasn't hatched, I was sure of that. So that meant that I was BORN.
“Well, we'll have time for that later.” Chrysalis said. “I bet you're wondering why your here. Well, Misty told me that you have some “interesting” control over your shifting and feeding.”
“So I feed on emotions. So do you.” I said.
Chrysalis smirked. “I think we both know what I mean. You don't just feed on love, you feed on all emotions. Well, I wanted to enlighten you on something.”
“I'm listening.” I said calmly.
“Most changelings can only feed if the emotion is given off from the creatures in the area. Specifically, if their showing love, it can be fed off. And that doesn't directly hurt that pony, most of the time. But you.” Her smile grew a little wider. “You can reach into a pony's soul and directly feed of their emotions.”
“What?!” I said.
“This directly affects that pony.” Chrysalis said. I thought for a moment. If a pony had no emotions then they would be nothing but a soulless doll, for lack of a better term. I had a bad feeling about what Chrysalis wanted me to do.
“See, when you take the emotions, you sort of hold them in your soul. Then, you can re-distribute them at will. So you can essentially control how a pony's entire characteristics would be like. That's why your here.” the changeling queen said.
“That's horrible!” I yelled. “I'm never going to mess with anypony's soul!” Chrysalis stood up.
“I'm sure that you'll think differently if a certain yellow and pink pegasus's life hung in the balance?” Chrysalis said. I narrowed my eyes.
“Don't even think about touching her.” I said in a soft, dangerous tone. Chrysalis just smiled and left the room.
. . .
I struggled and tried every spell I could think of to free myself. Nothing worked though. I would have stopped, except for the fact that now Fluttershy was in danger. I relaxed and tried to think. I needed a way to get any energy in general. Then I remembered. The other enchantment on the necklace was a oasis spell. The spell created so that any emotions that were around me that I didn't feed on were stored in the necklace so I could use it later. I cast out to sense it and found something amazing. I had cast the spell on the necklace after I had broken into that store. So when Fluttershy and I confessed our love for each other, her love had overflowed from me into the necklace, charging it for me.
I drew the energy into myself and immediately felt better. I concentrated hard then I felt my body shrink and slide out of the chains as I shifted into Sweetie Belle. I shifted back into my pony form and looked around the room. “Okay. Time to get OUT of here.” Suddenly in a flash of green light, Chrysalis and Misty appeared behind me.
“Hmm, we can't have you leaving just yet.” the changeling queen said. As she fired a magic rope at me, I flash teleported behind her. I levitated them both in the air and threw Chrysalis. She slammed into the wall and I slammed Misty on the table. I used my magic to manipulate the chains to chain her to the table. “You tricked me! You pretended to be my friend, but you only wanted to use me!”
“It wasn't going to be like that Shade!” she yelled. “I wanted you to be mine! But then you went and bonded with that pegasus!”
“Bonded?” I asked. A jolt of pain went though me as Chrysalis bucked me in the side, sending me into the wall with a thud.
Chrysalis freed Misty, who looked at me with rage in her eyes. This was not going to end well. She lifted me into the air and slammed me into the ground. Then she flung me into the wall. I fell to the ground and she jumped in the air and landed hard next to me. The shockwave flung me into the air. She yelled. “Maybe you'll think differently after this!” She shot about twelve lightning bolts at me and they slammed into me.
.
“AHHHH!!!” The pain was horrible. The lighting lanced though my whole body, burning the insides of it. Every part of my body was on fire. My head arched back and I felt magic shoot from from my horn sporadically. felt that I was going to die. Then it stopped, and then I was sent into a pile of cake mix boxes. I faintly heard Chrysalis say, “You need to be more careful. I don't want him dead.”
I was hurt, real bad. I knew that after Chrysalis was done talking to her daughter that I was going to be chained back to that table. Then I thought of a really stupid idea. I cast a spell that would remove my soul from it's body and leave my body where it was. The spell put my soul behind the two changelings.
“I hope I have enough energy for this.” I thought. Then in a burst of light I shifted into Princess Celestia. “Chrysalis!” I yelled.
“Celestia! How did you find us?!” She yelled. The changeling queen's eyes widened and her pupils dilated. I frightened her. Good.
“I have my ways.” I said, making myself look stern. “But that isn't your big problem.” I pointed at where my body was lying. “What have you done to him?”
“Well, I guess the same thing that'll have to happen to you!” Chrysalis said, suddenly getting a bolt of confidence. Wonderful. Misty and Chrysalis shot a twin bolt of green magic. I counteracted with a white bolt of my own. The drain on my energy was about automatic, but the rush of power was felt. I concentrated as hard as I could. Suddenly my magic grew, and I slammed my bolt into the two changelings, knocking them to the ground..
“Now.” I said. “I'm feeling merciful. Leave and take your daughter with you and do NOT return. Because if you do, you will be very sorry!”
Chrysalis put a hoof on Misty, who was unconscious. “Don't think that you've won Celestia. Because, we already have.” Suddenly, they were gone.
I magically teleported my body in front of me, then released the spell that separated my soul from my body. As I tried to stand I knew that I was drained. I wasn't just drained, I was dying. There was nopony around me to drain emotions from.
“I...I wasn't expecting....to die...like this.” I panted. I had shifted into my unicorn form upon reentering my body. I had a last ditch idea. I sparked my horn as much as I could and launched a blue flare. The flare crashed though the ceiling to explode in the sky. Completely drained, I fell to the ground. As everything darkened, I thought I saw a purple and yellow flash. I tried to force my eyes open again, but it was no use. I blacked out, maybe for the last time.
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The end is near......
nice job man
1462410 Thanks!
and cue awkward family reunion and distrust in maternal parent in...3...2...1
Yay, another chapter!
Interesting . . . not tremendously surprising, given the preceding, but still good. But now, time for criticism! This will be a long one, it looks like.
There's no apostrophe in the plural of "changeling."
First, it's always means it is. The possessive form of [colo=red]it does not have an apostrophe.
Also, Twilight's explanation is rather murky. I think I can puzzle out what she's saying, though: that if an infant changeling is offered love, its body will automatically feed on it, correct? I don't know why the qualifier of the changeling not knowing about feeding is there, though.
This seems a little clumsy to me. Also, it's not immediately clear whether Luna runs into the room or teleports in. I recommend rewording it thusly:
Minor nitpick here, but I think it would be better if Applejack, the Element of Honesty, were the one to notice that Fluttershy was hiding something. Twilight has been shown as a little oblivious socially, whereas AJ . . . well, there's a quote from Lord of the Rings that has made its way into my AJ headcannon: "The men of Rohan do not lie, and so we are not easily deceived." No biggie, just my opinion.
That's a lot of trapping.
I don't follow. A hatchling could be described as a baby, couldn't it? How can Shade possibly know that he was born, rather than hatched?
First, that should be a comma after "yelled," not a period.
Second, numbers should be written out, so "twelve" rather than "12."
Finally, how can Shade possibly count lightning bolts in this situation? I recommend it be "a flurry of lightning bolt" or "an absolute storm" or "what seemed like a hundred" or some other nebulous number.
Ever been shocked? I have. Electricity produces a very distinct and unpleasant sensation. This is an example of telling rather than showing. "The pain was horrible" is rather bland. What did it feel like? How did Shade's body react? Did his limbs twitch uncontrollably? Did his whole body spasm? Did he black out briefly? Details!
Wait; what? Since when is this a thing that can happen? This comes out of nowhere and, quite frankly, feels like a deus ex machina. You're going for a dramatic ending, I get that, but this, IMO, doesn't work.
How? How could Shade tell? Show us, don't just tell us.
Still good. You need practice, but the only way to get that is to keep writing, which I hope you do.
Your pacing is getting better, though still a little fast for my taste, but I really think you need to work on the "show, don't tell" rule. Instead of simply stating that something is, describe the symptoms. Don't say "she was scared," say "her legs trembled and her eyes were wide." Don't say "it hurt," say "his leg felt like it was on fire, and he prayed it would support his weight." See what I mean? It's more flavorful, more descriptive, and more fun to read.
So Chrysalis Raped him? this story is getting weirder and weirder.
1466351 I wonder....
1466298 I took your advice and did some editing. Thanks!
Dalmit! I was gonna stop here and read the rest later! But now after reading that ending I want to read more
1466351
Read Son of Change, the sequel's sequel.
Ok. You didn't let him,die.