Treason
59 fell.
CT1 fought against the goo and cursed herself for not being able to break free. Was it so long ago that she had been part of the CSF? Had her ability diminished so far?
60 fell.
Slowly, cracks began to form around her ankles. The goo was weakening, but she knew it wasn't enough. She had to move faster.
61 fell.
"CT1, you've been feeding them too much love. That lasst one took me sseveral ssecondss to kill!"
62 fell.
"Or perhapss you have favoritess? That one wassn't even worth the effort of lifting my hoof... What about thiss one?"
63 fell.
"Damn you, Collector!" CT1 screamed. "I sswear on the Queen'ss name, you will die today!" She renewed her struggle with more vigor and urgency. If she couldn't break free...
"Ooo, thiss one lookss like a toughie." Collector paused just before 31. "Maybe I sshould releasse it into the hive and make chassing it a ssport? SSee how many of my droness it takess to bring it down. It iss the lasst one, and it'ss jusst boring when they can't fight back."
"If it'ss a fight you want, then fight me! Those convertss were just convertss. They didn't even pose a threat, and you butchered them like animalss!"
"Yess, that'ss true. Dieing by my hoof iss more than they desserved, but ssomepony had to do it. You ccertainly weren't going to." Collector looked back at 31. "Sstill, at leasst I get ssome pleassure watching you ssquirm. You alwayss had a ssoft sspot for lessser creaturess." With a swift, well trained motion, the Collector sank his fangs deep into 31's throat and held the convert there until it stopped thrashing. A moment later, 31 fell.
"Collector!" The goo restraining CT1 exploded as she tore her legs free. She was on him in a flash, baring her fangs and slamming him into the wall with her entire body. She held him pinned there, glaring into his eyes for several moments.
The Collector then smiled. "Hah. You've gotten ssoft, CT1." He suddenly spat, coating her entire face with the same goo that bound her ankles. "Far too ssoft. You should have killed me in that instant." She reeled backward, unable to breathe, and struggled to free herself. Finally, once she realized it was completely solid, she slammed her head against the ground and shattered the mask away, gasping for air. "The old you certainly would have. I'm ashamed to call you former CSF." She grimaced and lunged again with a barrage of punches and bucks, but he dodged her as though she were as inexperienced as a foal. "You're sslow." Another dodge. "You're weak." Another. "You're nothing but a sshell of who you were." He stopped her hoof mid-swing. "But I guesss that'ss what happenss when you deccide to play nanny for ten yearss."
He grabbed her hoof and whirled, slamming her into the stone wall before throwing her to the ground. Before she could fully stand back up, he darted forward and struck an uppercut in the jaw, knocking her several feet up. A leaping backflip kick sent her flying back. A charge from behind pounded her forward. As she fell, he slid underneath her and bucked her hard into the air. Then, surrounded by green flame, he arched around and struck her from above, launching her at the ground. She hit the cold stone with a powerful crash, but he continued the assault, blasting her with his magic until he landed with all fours directly on top of her.
"Tell me, CT1," he said as he leaned in close. "How doess it feel to know you wassted a decade of your life on thingss that were sslated to die anywayss?" He lifted his forehooves and began stomping hard, causing her to cry out with each blow. "To know. That in. The end. Everything. You. Did. Wass. For noth-" He suddenly paused and looked up toward the entrance. "Well now, iss that what I think it iss?" CT1 followed his line of sight and gasped. In the entryway stood a small changeling with one nearly solid leg, staring at the pair. "It iss! That'ss the convert I brought from Ponyville!" The Collector stomped one last time before hopping off and beckoning the convert. "Come here, you. I won't bite."
"6-64, run!" CT1 cried weakly.
"No no, 64, don't run. I jusst want to play, that'ss all." 64 just stood there, staring at him. "You ssimple-minded creaturess like gamess, don't you? I've got a great one! Do you know how to play dead?"
"Get out of here, 64!"
"SSilencce, trassh!" The Collector turned and struck CT1 again in the chest. "I didn't ssay you could sspeak!"
An instant later, a green streak of flame crashed into his side and sent him tumbling into the back wall. He shook his head and looked up to see the convert glaring at him from where he had been standing. "You jusst charged me..." Something like a small giggle left his throat. His mirth grew into a chuckle, then full blown laughter as he stood up. "You, a convert, jusst charged me!" A moment later, a green flame surrounded his body as he slammed into 64, sending her flying out the entryway and against the hall. "Well two can play that game, and believe me: I am infinitely more exxperiencced."
"Leave her alone, Collector!"
The Collector glanced down at CT1 with a dark sparkle in his eyes. "Leave her alone? After sshe attacked me? Oh no, my dear, sshe brought thiss on hersself." He watched as 64 stood back up and shook off, then ran down the hall. "Don't worry, CT1. I'll be back for your traitorouss head ssoon." He resealed her to the floor, then took off after the fleeing convert.
*****
Epona ran, ducking and dodging past working drones as she made her way through the corridors. A moment later, she felt the Collector's presence leave Cavern 0. 'It's working, Wisp. The Collector left CT1,' she thought as she glanced at her misty partner.
'Perfect. There's a room just up ahead where we can-' Epona suddenly slid to a halt just in front of a crossroad. 'What wrong, Epona?'
She looked down at the ground, confused. 'I lost him.'
'What do you mean, you lost him? You're a changeling! You have a direct connection to everypony here!'
'That's just it, though. His connection disappeared!' Epona replied as she looked around warily. 'There's no trace of him anywhere.'
A speck of green caught the corner of her eye from down a hall. She barely had time to raise her hooves in defense before it smashed into her and sent her flying into a nearby room. "Hello again, little convert. I hope you didn't think you could escape from me that easily." When she finally rolled back onto her hooves, she saw the Collector grinning at her from the entrance. "What a fitting placce for you to die, thiss little mock-up."
Epona looked around and found herself in a massive room, standing next to the gate leading into a nearly identical replica of Ponyville. In the center, she could see town hall. On the far side, there was the school and a faux Sweet Apples Acres. A fake treeline represented the Everfree and a torched building similar to Fluttershy's Cottage stood between it and the town. Even Sunset Manor had been constructed.
"Do you feel at home, little convert? This iss as closse to Ponyville as you will ever get." The Collector sealed up the entrance with goo and patted his work. "Thiss room blockss out the Hivemind, sso there won't be any interruptionss. I wonder... If you could talk, how would you choosse to die? Maybe I'll hang you from Town Hall. Burn you in the abandoned cottage. Or maybe I'll jusst have a little ssport with you in a friendly game of 'tag'. What do you think?"
"Ah think ya sshouldn't have ssealed that door." The convert held a hoof up to its face and pulled it completely off. A momentary burst of green light flooded the room, causing the Collector to hold up a hoof as a shield for his eyes. When he looked back, the intruder filly from earlier stood before him.
"You were 64?" He grimaced unpleasantly. "Is CT1 really sso weak that sshe can't even hold a thrall?"
"Is your team so weak they can't even hold an earth pony filly?" Epona returned as she drew her sword and shield.
"A quesstion I will bring up to them oncce you are dead." Collector spat a large wad of goo at her. She raised her shield in defense, but the force of the goo sent her sliding backward into the gate. The force of the Collector's following charge blasted her through the gate and several buildings. "I honesstly don't ssee what gave them sso much trouble."
A moment later, a claw connected to a long chain shot out from the shadows and latched on to him, forcefully dragging him chest-first through the wreckage. He crashed through walls and furniture until Epona suddenly came into view, wielding the chain-claw in one forehoof and swinging a massive skull-shaped hammer with the other. The hammer connected just as the claw let go, blasting him sideways into the next block of shops.
As Epona stepped out from the shadows, the building Collector crashed through exploded in all directions with him grinning in the middle. There wasn't even a scratch on his carapace. "Now that'ss more like it! I wass beginning to think thiss would be as boring as the other convertss."
'Be careful, Epona. Something about him is making me feel a bit strange,' Wisp whispered in her mind.
The Collector leapt upward and flew high into the air, spitting several great globs of goo at her. She popped a pegasus seed into her mouth and bolted down the road as the first ones fell. He pursued, spitting volley after volley along the street at her while she darted back and forth. She turned her head to get a bearing on where he was, then spun around and began firing gale seeds at him with her slingshot which, when struck by the goo, erupted into small cyclones and flung it in every direction.
The Collector paused his spitting to dodge several stray blobs that had backfired. He streaked in green fire across the sky, charging to and fro through the air as he avoided Epona's counter-attack, but the cyclones started erupting in pairs all around him, disrupting the calm air and created a varying current, making it difficult for him to maintain stable flight.
"Thiss iss growing tiressome. Iss thiss the exxtent of your sstrength?" He hissed angrily. With a quick charge in his horn, he sniped the incoming seeds from the air with green beams of magic. Epona kept firing as rapidly as she could, putting as much pressure on him as she could to force him to make a mistake and miss, but his aim proved true. Slowly, his beams grew closer as he took out the seeds faster than she could fire them. The cyclones drew nearer and nearer to her until she was forced to sprint into a building for cover.
Not that it was much help.
Collector seized the opening and charged straight through the wall, slamming Epona into the ground and grabbing her slingshot before taking her into the sky through the ceiling. When he was well above the town, he launched her upward and barraged her with charges from all sides. She twisted and flailed with each strike, trying to get a bead on where he would come from next, but that proved to be nearly impossible. He was just too fast in the air.
She took out a gale seed and crushed it between her hooves to form a cyclone around her just as he charged again, dragging him into its vortex and flinging both of them away from each other. The momentary respite allowed her to latch onto the roof of a house with her clawshot and speed back toward the ground. Rang 2 formed around her leg as she whirled and launched her boomerang at the airborne.
However, Collector's aerial ability was much greater than the changelings she had faced in the past. He was upright and stable quickly, and with a quick dodge and a deft hoof, he snatched the boomerang out of the air. "Toolss like thesse won't work. You'll have to do better!" He sank his fangs into the boomerang, and with two powerful bites, both it and the slingshot snapped into pieces.
"Hey!" Epona cried as she felt the pieces return to her, completely unusable. She didn't have long the worry about her broken equipment though, because less than a second later, Collector resumed shooting with his beams. She dove out of the way and ducked into buildings, but he simply blasted them until they either burned or otherwise destroyed away, forcing her to find new cover.
Then there came a building where she didn't reappear. He flew down and landed beside the building, inspecting the area for signs of life, but there was nothing left. Not a trace that she even existed. "Little convert, there'ss no way you were killed sso eassily. Where are you hiding...?" His senses told him she was gone, but his instincts screamed at him to get away from the area.
Too late.
The ground suddenly erupted from underneath him. A great claw slashed across his body as Epona rose up from the dirt, swinging wildly. She raked his body repeatedly, knocking him backward with every strike. Then she picked grabbed him by the throat and mashed him against the ground before tossing him into the air, forming her hammer in her hooves, and blasting him skyward.
But her assault didn't stop there. Before he had the chance to right himself, a hammer-propelled bomb smashed into his stomach, knocking the breath out of him, and detonated. An instant later, her chainclaw grabbed him by the head him and dragged violently back toward the ground.
He never reached it.
With another swing of her hammer, the Collector flew through house after house, breaking windows and woodwork on his high-speed journey. She chewed into another pegasus seed and sprinted beside him, slashing at him with her dagger as he continued to fly. Then she bolted in front of him, donned the metal boots Belmont had given her, raised her hooves high, and stomped down on his chest as hard as she could just as he flew within reach. The ground cracked under the force of her blow, jags and cracks forming as far as several yards away and spewing up a thick cloud of dust around the pair. She stood on top of him for several seconds, breathing heavily in the silence.
A deep, dark chuckle broke that silence. Epona suddenly flew backward, launched by a shockwave of magic. She doffed her boots and opened up her leaf, slowing her down and allowing her to land safely. When she looked back where she had come from, she saw a large black cloud.
"No way..."
"I have to thank you, convert. I haven't been forcced to actively usse thiss magic ssince your failure of a caretaker left the CSF." The black cloud rippled around the Collector and condensed. "For the firsst time in a long time, I can fully pussh to my limitss without holding back!"
Epona watched as the changeling mutated in front of her. His wings shrank inward and disappeared as the rest of his body stretched and contorted. His forelegs bulked out, and his forehooves flattened and split into five small appendages each. His hindlegs twisted backward until he could stand upright on them alone. They cracked and popped as they bent forward and flattened from the ankles while his hooves became similar, if much smaller, appendages. His chest grew wide, and his muzzle and horn shrank and disappeared into his head, leaving his head domed and egg-shaped.
"That wasn't changeling magic..."
'I knew there was something off about him!' Wisp exclaimed. 'That's a piece of me he's exploiting!'
Epona grimaced. "Ya mean he got a power boost like Ivory?"
"A power boosst? You could ssay that. I may not have magic in the traditional ssensse in thiss form, but..." The mist shot out at her from the Collector's arm, formed into an almost exact replica of her own clawshot. "I can change it to suit my needs." The claw reformed into his large hand, holding onto her with an iron grip. He picked her up with a single arm and pounded her repeatedly into the ground before throwing her down the street.
She hit the ground rolling until she made it back on her hooves with Snowshoe around her leg to slow her to a halt. However, she didn't even have time to stand straight before Collector was on her again with a powerful kick to the chest. She rocketed into the air, hurtling and flipping like a hoofball. Several nauseating seconds passed by the time she opened up her leaf to slow her flight, but that only served to let Collector tear through it with his mock clawshot. A moment later, she reached the ground again, aided by the clawshot's pull.
The ground shook as she struggled to her hooves. When she looked up, she saw the Collector dragging a large black hammer and slowly walking toward her. Her breathing was labored, and her body ached, but her determination didn't waver. She lifted a hoof and shot her clawshot directly for him. He sidestepped and caught the claw between his fingers, then yanked her forward and crushed the claw's head in his grip. As she flew, the broken clawshot vanished into her inventory to be replaced by her hammer held in both forehooves. The instant he came within reach, she swung with all her might.
The Collector merely held up a hand and caught the hammer by the head in his palm.
"What happened, convert? Where did your sstrength go?" he asked, grinning menacingly. He suddenly punched forward, butting Epona with the back of her hammer and causing her to lose her grip. He then took it between both hands and squeezed, mangling and deforming it to the point of uselessness. "You're finisshed, filly."
Epona huffed breathlessly and wiped her bloody nose. She drew her sword and shield, but Collector was upon her in an instant, breaking the little wooden shield with a single blow and swatting the sword out of her hoof. He picked her up by the throat and snarled. "I ssaid, you're finisshed!" He tossed her up and swung his hammer, smashing her high over the town from Town Hall all the way past the gate. She didn't even have the strength to flail as she spun toward what she knew would be her doom. She heard a small blast nearby and watched as the ground got closer with every turn.
Until something green streaked out and caught her, setting her down gently near the door.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing? Don't go getting yourself tossed around like that!" Epona cracked open her eyes to see a little grey filly staring hard at her.
"M-Mirrors...? You're okay?"
"I'm better than you, that's for sure," Mirrors chided. "You look like you got beat from one side of the arena to the other!"
"How did ya get free? How did ya find me? Ah thought ya were taken..."
"CT1." The masked filly pointed her nose toward the entrance, where CT1 was resealing the door. "She released from from her control poison and asked me to help you. Said you were fighting some super-powered changeling soldier." A black shadow barreled through the gate, splintering what was left of it and sprinting toward them. "I'm guessing that's what she was talking about?"
The Collector slid to a halt once he saw the two fillies together and CT1 behind them and grimaced. "Now I undersstand how it iss you esscaped." He turned his gaze toward the changeling. "CT1, I may have been willing to overlook the convertss being alive due to your love for them, but taking food away from the Hive iss treasson at the highesst level. Do you have a death wissh?"
"I do," CT1 replied as she finished sealing the door. She looked over her shoulder with unmitigated hatred in her eyes. "Yourss."
The Collector's laughter was dark and mirthless. "And who will be doing the killing?
Mirrors raised a hoof. "I'd be more than willing to kill you. Any objections?" she asked her companions.
"Not from me," CT1 replied.
"Perfect."
"You?" Collector scoffed. "You were defeated by CT1, and I defeated her in changeling form. You won't even be a challenge!"
Mirrors turned back toward CT1. "This guy's really full of himself, isn't he?"
CT1 nodded in response.
He grimaced again. "You will all die here, sstarting with you, intruder!" He sprinted forward with a roar and brought a large black fist down upon the grey filly. His fist crashed against her, but instead of pummeling her into the ground, he was stopped midstrike. "What?" When he looked down, it was not a filly beneath him...
"You're underestimating me." It was a wolf. A wolf with a large, scruffy orange arm extended from its neck, its palm beneath his hand. It suddenly shoved his fist up and out of the way, then formed its own fist and slammed him, sending him flying back into the town and scattering bits of gate and building as he landed. "I don't appreciate being underestimated."
Collector shoved away some debris that had made it on top of him and stood up. "Perhapss I wass too hassty in my asssesssment." A wide, dark grin spread across his face. "You may prove to be enjoyable."
The wolf mirrored that grin and charged in after him.
"Are ya sure, CT1? He's really strong. She may need help..."
"SShe will be fine until we can help her, but firsst I need to heal you. You are in no condition to fight." CT1 spat two large wads of goo into her hooves and began to work them into Epona's fur. Epona made to speak up again, but CT1's glare kept her silent. The filly sighed, knowing she could only watch and wait until CT1 was finished.
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When I read about Mirrors, I think about Twilight princess' Wolf Link and Midna mixed together.
3957979
Nice catch!
3990965
Will CT1 be important later? Yes.
4522427
That's what I was going for
4522608
Mmm...
...
That's great, then!
its unfortunate that this story is to be cancelled, as its really quite good and i was enjoying it. but if that is case, then y is it listed as 'incomplete'?
4551071
My internet derped when I hit the 'save changes' button. Thanks for pointing that out.
4553847 i am also curious as to how the story would have gone...u had most of it planned out and out lined...yes?
4553863
I'm gonna use a road map as a comparison for this.
On a macroscopic scale, yes. I knew the roads I would take, and where they would end up taking me. However, as for what happens upon reaching each destination, navigation gets a bit more tricky. There's a general direction I knew I needed to go in order to get to the next checkpoint, but sometimes there are jams that can't be avoided or detours that have to be addressed. What will it take to make my way to the front and keep going? Do I continue straight, or do I take a potentially more scenic route? Which way will be better for the journey as a whole?
I tend to make those decisions once I get there.