//------------------------------// // Misplaced Complacency // Story: Thirty Minute Ponies // by Arcainum //------------------------------// Prompt #42: A - What is the answer? / B - What is the question? Twilight’s legs ache. Every desperate step she takes as she runs is heavy, laboured. The floor of the hive is... strange. It looks like rock, but her hooves sink lightly into it at the slightest pressure. Her lungs burn as she stumbles across the uneven surface, sucking in rank, moist air. Her heart pounds in her chest, a constant pressure that threatens to overwhelm her at any moment. The glowing walls speak to her. “I told you you could never win, Twilight Sparkle. I told you my defeat at the castle was meaningless. We are legion, little pony, and you have been brought into our heart. Our beating, feasting, living heart.” Twilight skids around a corner, galloping into another passage that she does not recognise. The place is changing, she is sure of it. Since her escape from the egg chamber, she has been mapping her route mentally. That map is a twisted mess of overlapping caves, looping corridors that led only to themselves, and gaping entrances leading to useless dead ends. She hears the changelings in the distance, the sound of their approach from everywhere and nowhere at once. Skittering claws echo in the darkness, drowning out the wet pulse of the seeping ooze that layers almost every surface. Buzzing wings sing a wordless song of the hunt, accompanied by keening howls of hunger. The walls speak again. “How do you think you will escape, Twilight Sparkle? You could not even stop us taking you. We come within an inch of controlling your nation and you do not even think to screen for our disguises? Pathetic.” Even through the terror, Twilight grudgingly accepts. They had been aloof, stupid. Since Chrysalis and her minions had been blasted away by the love of her brother and his wife, Equestria had settled back into its routine far too easily. There had been no measures taken, no procedures instituted. They had simply patted each other on the back and moved on with their lives. And she had paid for it. A patch of slime gleams green and takes shape as Twilight passes it, black chitin swiping at her with cold precision. She cries out in surprise and leaps to the side, hooves scrabbling for purchase on the slippery, springy floor. The changeling’s claws catch only fur and she staggers away, breaking back into a gallop as soon as she can steady herself as the beast screeches behind her. The walls are laughing now. “You know nothing, Twilight Sparkle. You defeated us through providence and paranoia, nothing more. There are no friends to help you here, no bubble from the blue to blow us all away. The question is... What is it you truly understand about us?” Twilight thinks back to the changeling that had attacked her only seconds before. She had not known they could do that. She had not known anything. How they moved so fast, how they came from nowhere, how they... She fights back the rising bile even as she gasps for breaths that grow harsher every time. She had not known how they reproduced. A spark of light catches her eye, and she squints through the tears of pain that almost blind her. There. The exit. She has found it. The claws and wings and teeth of the changeling horde grow louder behind her and she forces herself to run faster, to use the energy she doesn’t have to throw herself towards the growing light of freedom. She is so close. She can see the sky. The walls laugh again, and more changelings burst from their vile coating, leaping at her claws outstretched. She grits her teeth and casts a spell she knows she cannot afford, teleporting precious metres closer to the exit. The entourage provided by the Princess should still be nearby. As soon as she is free, she can call for help, begin to defend herself against the chittering death behind her. She can feel the wind on her cheeks, and the light stings her eyes. At her feet, a rock becomes a foe, a hissing terror that grabs at her hooves. She is merely feet away now. She leaps, cresting the grasping changeling by inches. She sails clumsily through the air, her final exhausted effort propelling her heavily towards the blessed threshold. She hits the wall hard, cracking her horn and breaking her nose. She crashes to the floor in agony, vision blotting as the concussion takes hold. Blinking through the pain and confusion, she looks up blearily. The sky is gone, replaced by suppurating stone. She is alone in the dark, trapped where the very rock taunts her. The hive was mocking her, letting her think she had a chance. It is now that she realises that she never did. She hears the laughter, no longer all around but directly above her. She feels the long, steely limb on her neck, pinning her. She feels the hot breath of Chrysalis on her face, and hears her sibilant voice in her ear. “The answer, Twilight Sparkle... is ‘not enough.’” ~~~~~ Note: This one didn't get posted because I derped the submission so technically it shouldn't even be here but WHATEVER.