//------------------------------// // Muzzle Control // Story: My Little Dynamite: Book Two // by Fuzzyfurvert //------------------------------// Her dreams—when they finally came to her—where broken, disjointed things full of nonsense and images too distorted to make any impression other than confusion. Flashes of sensation crashed against her unconscious mind, washing colors and scents through her mind, leaving her even more confused when she forced her eyes open in complete darkness. Fur tickled against her nostrils. The heady smells of sweat and mildew fighting each other for dominance as Cadance forced herself to lay still and keep her breathing steady. Her legs ached a little and she wanted to shift her weight off of them, but something felt off. The fire they had going in the caribou hut’s cooking pit was nothing but gently smoking coals now. Combined with the closed shutters warding off the midnight sun and unnatural storm outside, the interior of the hut was pitch black. Cadance parted her lips, breathing through her mouth to keep from sneezing. Her muzzle rested on Twilight’s back, one of her wings slung over Twilight’s dock. Spike’s breathing was the loudest noise she could hear. The wind outside seeming to have died down considerably. Something just felt wrong to her though. Something had woken her. Did Twilight shift? Did Spike start snoring? Cadance searched her vague memories of her broken dreamscape, looking for what may have triggered her waking. Nothing came through the haze to stick out as the culprit, and though Cadance trusted her senses, she hoped there was nothing to be concerned about. They needed the rest that the abandoned village at the gate provided them. She knew Twilight was still recovering from the changeling attack from last week, and the trek through the the tundra was rough on them all. That alone had nearly spelled the end for the kindly old sage, Zecora. Wait...where is Zecora? Cadance’s ears swiveled back and forth as she tried to pretend she was still asleep while also searching for any sounds other than the wind and her companions breathing. She could hear the hut around them shifting slightly. Wood scraping across wood. The dried thatch and moss cracking as the wind blew across them. Everything else was silent. Still. She licked her lips furtively. Her hull breacher was set on the wooden floor within easy reach, but there wasn’t a way she could grab it without revealing her consciousness. She could take it in her magical grip and attempt to shut down the aura’s faint traces, but that little trick took a huge amount of focus to pull off. Using it would leave her out of breath for a crucial couple of seconds and unable to defend herself from a magical attack. I bet Twily could do it without breaking a sweat. Cadance chewed her lip in thought. She could try to gently wake her guardian mage up, and trust that Twilight’s training would kick in, giving their small group two minds and a hell of magical leg up against...whatever might be out there. CREAK Cadance’s breath caught in her throat, her ears turning toward the door that lead towards the back of the massive caribou home. The sound didn’t repeat, but a tense minute later, she head another quiet murmur as somepony was moving slowly nearer to the door. Magic power flared through her horn, Cadance narrowing her eyes to focus on the door and her hull breacher at the same time. She put as much energy into it as she could, suppressing the natural glow and buzz of an active magical effect. A hoof’s reach away, the huge iron hand-cannon lifted its muzzle off the floor and the hammer eased back gently for the softest click possible. She had a horrible angle to aim from, but at this range, she just had to point it at the door way for the resulting spray to fill the entire entryway. If it didn’t outright stop whatever was on the other side of the door, the sound would be enough to rouse even Spike. No matter what came through, it was about to trot right into the mouth of Tartarus. The door eased open slowly. Cadance could hear her own blood pumping through the tiny capillaries in her ear leather. She could feel her heartbeat pounding through her horn at the effort of holding the gun still and cocked without the telltale blue glow of her magic aura. She was already feeling the strain. Come on...just a little more. Cadance started to squint. The instant she saw what was coming in, she would release the pressure she was applying to keep the hull breacher’s hammer cocked away from the frizzen. She’d have to shut her eyes to keep from getting flash-blinded at this angle. Hopefully the blast would give her the time to recover. In the dark, across the common room, the door swung fully open. Hold it steady. Remember your training, Cadance. Don’t shoot until you know what you’re shooting. Even in the relatively mild temperature the air had climbed to, she was already starting to sweat. She held the gun rock steady, however. Her firearms trainer, an old minotaur named Iron Bullet, would have been proud. A dark shape, darker than the surrounding shadows, tip-hoofed into the room with them. It was pony shaped and about her size. Cadance kept the gun up, willing herself to see through the darkness and identify the target. Just a little closer...please. “Oh, you’re awake?” The deep, rumbling bass voice sounded mildly incredulous. She groaned with a ragged throat. Her eyes stung when she forced them open, the orbs dry in their sockets now. Her tears were long spent, the moisture from them making her chitin raw where the metallic contraption her father had strapped her into held her head still. Chrysalis blinked the blurriness from her sight. Her father, Midnight Lord Sombra, leaned over the table she was bound too, his eyes on her lower body. She felt numb, with a few spots on her form screaming out in over-sensitive pain. “Spreaders.” Sombra’s horn lit up, levitating a large tool that looked like a reversed set of tongs above her. He turned the tool over in his magic grip, examining it for a moment. “Write down her reactions. It might be useful to me later on.” Chrysalis groaned again, gurgling on the liquids in her throat. It hurt to move her head even a little, but she shifted to see one of the crystalline pony statues lift a quill and pad of paper in its hooves. It glanced at her, its stone eyes meeting hers for a moment. The movement was miniscule, obviously unnecessary for the task her father commanded. Through the haze of discomfort she was in, that struck Chrysalis as odd. Hadn’t her father said something about the golems being tied to his will by that heart-shaped crystal he’d held so tenderly? Chrysalis grit her fangs, shoving away the pain and the sensations coming from her chest as the spreaders lowered beyond her view. Her father had said something about it while she’d been trying to escape these bindings, she was sure, but the words refused to come into focus. CRACK Chrysalis sucked in air through her teeth as a new, sharp pain shot through her. She felt her chitin moving, the plates pressing together and sliding over each other unnaturally. At the edge of her sight, the tips of the spreader’s handle pulled apart in her father’s horn glow. “Make sure you also make an accurate sketch of the connective tissue. I want the next subject to be as resistant as my dear daughter here.” Sombra smiled slightly, his eyes on his handiwork while his pulled another lantern close. “The embedded runes are doing their work well too…” Sombra faded out, murmuring to himself while his crystalline subordinate dutifully took notes. Chrysalis shook in place, fighting the pain her father caused. She wasn’t going to give the monster the satisfaction of getting a reaction out of her. The stinging in her eyes got worse as dry ducts tried to produce new tears. She squinted against it, and in her swimming vision, the note taking golem took on a ghostly familiar air. The way its brow was shaped. The way the mane hung. The hint of a scar—or maybe just a fracture in its crystalline structure—between the nostrils. The golem reminded her of a pony from her foalhood. “I-I...know...you.” Chrysalis forced the words out through her teeth, the shaking nearing spasm-levels as Sombra continued his work. For a second, those gem-like eyes moved. Locked with hers. The quill stopped in place. The nose twitched. Sombra looked up, turning his smoldering glare on the crystal pony. “I did not tell you to stop.” The quill started back up, the eyes glued back to the notepad. Chrysalis swallowed raggedly. “That...th-that’s Miss Copper...she w-worked in the laundry. Isn’t it?” Sombra didn’t look up, his attention back on the opening in her chest cavity. The tool pushed her chitin a little wider. “Not any more, I’m afraid.” Sombra hummed tunelessly to himself for a moment, locking the spreaders in place before adjusting the lighting. “Now let’s see what we’re working with here…” He reached out with a hoof and pulled a tray of smaller surgical tools closer. Sombra chewed on a lip thoughtfully, hoof hovering over the collection of scalpels and saws well within his daughter’s line of sight. If he was going to have to work on her while she was awake, he might as well get a full set of reactions out of her. He bit down a little harder to keep his lip from curling up when he heard her gasp and struggle feebly against the restraints. Sombra selected one of the longer blades and held it up to the light. “You know, I’m curious to see if the underlying connective tissue is like what I designed when we mimicked your shape changing ability on those ponies? I’ve always felt that if I wanted to master the process of creating a new changeling like I did crafting my crystal ponies, I’d need firsthoof experience with the base model. Now I finally get to test that hypothesis. Isn’t that grand, my dear?” “What’s th-this ‘we’ business?” Chrysalis coughed, looking back at the crystalline structure of Miss Copper’s muzzle and away from the glinting steel of the scalpel. “I wasn’t your partner in th-that. You u-used me.” “You were the vehicle of my will in the world while the Empire was away. You certainly were useful...when you weren’t head over hooves for that priestess.” Sombra sneered. “To think, my brilliant daughter Crystal, a mare-lover and a traitor to her own peoples.” “S-screw you.” Sombra turned his sneer into a mocking smile and flipped the scalpel over in his grip. “I love you too, sweetheart.” He made a show out of lowering the blade toward Chrysalis’ exposed tendons and musculature, drawing a whimper out of her. He positioned the scalpel to make the first incision when a shift ran through the crystal ponies around them, all of their eyes flicking to the same point beyond the castle walls. An instant later, the information reached him and he smiled genuinely. “Ah, just in time! Your sisters have arrived, dear.” Sombra set his tools aside and stood up so he could look Chrysalis in the eyes. “I knew sending out a recall to our little changelings as soon as seals were broken would be a good idea. More forces to grind the Sun priestess to paste, no matter what powers she dares bring to face me.” “You don’t g-get to harm a hair o-on her!” “Oh, I beg to differ. Be good for daddy while I address the troops and I might yet keep her alive long enough for you to say goodbye too.” Sombra turned away and started toward the door, calling back over his shoulder. “Keep recording her reactions while I’m away. This won’t take long.” Chrysalis sucked in a breath of air as soon as her father was out of the room, throwing all of her strength at the shackles that held her. Next to her, the mockery of a pony that used to be a simple servant in time lost to the ages, made a note of it. He’s going to hurt Celestia! That wretch! I will end him as soon as I can get out of here! The more she struggled, however, the stronger the enchanted restraints kept her in place. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t close the hole in her chest either. The same enchantment that kept her from shifting her way out of the bindings kept her from healing. I can’t let him get away with this...Celestia...I need you. Somewhere, her body found the moisture for a few tears. Visions of Celestia swam behind her eyes, memories of dozen of lives spent with the pony she loved. A pony her father was determined to destroy. In the thousand or so years of her life, she’d never determined if there really was a higher power than her love. But if there was some such deity out there, Chrysalis swore she’d not let her father succeed. The crystal pony next to Chrysalis watched the former princess twist in her binds. The quill in its hooves noted each move. It wrote down each pained cry and mumbled curse. It wrote down every time the changeling said ‘Celestia.’ As it copied the name down again for the dozenth time, its eyes looked up in time to see the chitinous plates held apart by the locked spreader start to shift and push through the metal and enchantments placed on it. Crystal eyes looked back at the face of the creature that it once called Her Majesty. It didn’t write down that last observation.