//------------------------------//
// CH. 22 Compulsion 
// Story: The Last Changeling Queen 
// by Atuhor Name 
//------------------------------//


Compulsion




"...Look at him there, do walk closer and see what you have done,

How the blood from his wounds flows so easily in your mind when you, yes, you

Drive that evil spirit through his side..."

[Vinesauce] Vinny



    “Well, my little purple minx, I suppose it’s time to undo that compulsion on you and turn you against my daughter before the end.” Chrysalis purred.

    “Naudia wouldn’t do that!” Twilight shouted.

    “Wouldn’t she? I taught her every dirty trick she knows, I know every one of her subordinates.” Chrysalis retorted. “You can’t doubt the compulsion is there, your wards are all still up so this had to come from before they were put up in the first place.”

    “Everything fits together a bit too well...” Twilight murmured to herself.

    “Yes, the color, the motive, the-”

    Chrysalis was cut off as the doors to the throne room started glowing red hot and emitting a screech of heated expanding metal with nowhere to go. Then the door burst off it’s hinges and a burning nightmare kicked the metal doors to the side.

    Twilight recognized Naudia at once even with jets of flame streaming out of her carapace and the strange flowing streams of fire that seemed to hang in the air trailing her mouth.

    “Twilight!” Naudia shouted in relief, letting a puff of slow moving flame escape her mouth. Her voice was different though, rough, scratchy, as if her lungs were protesting against this treatment.

    The corrupted changelings that were guarding Twilight reacted instantly and rushed toward Naudia as one. As one they hissed and parts of their gelatinous bodies drizzled out of their mouths onto the ground. They had no ranged attack and neither did they have any fear. Truthfully they barely had thoughts of their own, they only bore the faces of fallen changelings.

    Naudia without hesitation or mercy burnt them all to a crisp.

    Those strange slow flames seemed to destroy corrupted changelings quite effectively. They floated forward burning, charring anything they touched, a fragile seeming bubble of flame slowly moving unimpeded through it’s surroundings.

    Before long Chrysalis was the only corrupted changeling left in the room.
    “More are on their way you know.” Chrysalis said.

    “Yes, but I am here now! This is where I will end this.” With that Nuadia inhaled attempting to tap into Twilight’s love.

    “Can you feel it Naudia? Nothing.”

    Naudia reached for Twilight’s love desperately but found nothing.

    “The connection has been severed. I win.” Chrysalis said, not even bothering to look back at Twilight.

    “I… I can still do this!” Naudia stumbled over her words. “Twilight I know what you might be feeling right now it wasn’t me, I didn’t put that spell on you!”

    Still nothing.

    “I can still beat you Nightmare, even like this!” Naudia shouted at Chrysalis.

    “There is no Nightmare. I have overpowered her. Only I am left.” Chrysalis shot back.

    Naudia realizing she had to pool her resources pulled in the bubbles of flame to her to shield herself. They did not burn like normal fire or go out like normal fire.

    Almost before she could the first attack from Chrysalis came. A ray of nightmares given form glowing with hatred tore at the flames with claws and bone. Naudia could not even bear to look at the beam for more than a second, but she had no such luxury as Chrysalis charged through her barrier horn first.

    In terms of sheer physical prowess Naudia was an exemplar, able to fight the dragons in the desert singlehandedly. Even still it took everything she had to dodge the feint from her mother and it had dispelled some of her flames in the process.

    “Only a matter of time now. Once your shields are gone what would you try then?” Chrysalis taunted with another burst of nightmares.

    Naudia backed up against the now closed throne room doors revealed her strategy.  As her mother charged again another bubble of consuming flame burnt a hole through the door and seared it’s mark along Chrysalis’ barrel. However she was made of tougher stuff than her subjects and that was all it could do.

    Even now all the bubbles of flame were making their way through the castle slowly and each one burned it’s way through the door one after another steadily.

    Naudia shaky though she was couldn’t resist a taunt of her own.

    “I’ve got more fight left in me than you’d expect Chrysalis.”

    With that steady flow of fire she managed to push Chrysalis away from the door and down the throne room. Her confidence swelled, and then she realized her mistake.

    Away from the door her flames were too predictable, too slow, she was on the defensive again. Naudia paid for that with a nasty scrape down one leg that dripped with changeling blood.

    Then they were rolling, grappling with one another snarling and biting. Nothing was held back, no method too brutal no attack was beneath them. That was how you survived in the badlands.

    Twilight’s parents could not take their eyes off of the scene in front of them even when a particularly nasty blow from Chrysalis’ sharpened stump of a horn screeched across Naudia’s steel hard changeling hide.

    Then unbeknownst to Chrysalis a little section of floor started to bulge out and glow behind her as one of the slow moving bubbles of flame finally began to work it’s way up through the stone floor.

    However Naudia was so focused on the back attack on Chrysalis that she was pinned down by Chrysalis and took a nasty wound to her chestplate denting it inward and putting nasty cracks all through the hardened skin.

    Naudia curled up on the ground, her lungs burning as she struggled to draw breath and Chrysalis started to get up off the helpless changeling queen.

    Then Naudia made her last gambit, using her last ounces of strength she kicked with all four hooves knocking Chrysalis directly into the flames behind her.

    Naudia collapsed, unable to so much as open her eyes and see what happened to her mother, she could only hear the flames crackling. She felt so tired.

    Then Chrysalis began to laugh and it sent a chill down Naudia’s spine.

    “You didn’t,” Chrysalis paused to wheeze a bit. “think that you were the only one with reinforcements did you?”

    Naudia forced her eyes to open to see that Chrysalis was unaffected by the flame, and the remains of a sacrificial corrupted changeling that shielded her burning away behind her.

    “Now I know what you’re thinking Naudia, that I wouldn’t kill my only daughter, that I need you… no horn means no eggs after all.” Naudia heard the sound of a corrupted changeling coming up from behind her. “But the truth is you already gave me what I needed.”

    A box came into view, the type of which Naudia recognized. After all she saw them all the time back at the hive.

    “How?” She managed to croak out. “Your horn...”

    “You gave it to me, I found this abandoned back at the hive, so I don’t need you anymore and I can erase your failure and raise a daughter fit to rule!”

    But Naudia couldn’t focus on that, she was too focused on something behind Chrysalis.


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    Twilight heard a voice a voice that shut down her mind. Suddenly Chrysalis’s voice was nothing more than a distant whisper, overwhelmed, drowned out.

    It sounded like somebody had taken another's words chopped them up and then sewn them back together. It wasn't like any sort of audio editing, no Twilight could tell the difference, nor was it like any synthetic voice she'd heard. The closest thing Twilight could think of would be a machines voice through a piece of meat, but even that failed to convey the overbearing wrongness.

    “Twist the knife, aim for the heart.”

    Twilight came up behind Chrysalis like a ghost, her expression frighteningly neutral, her hidden dagger held in her hoof with an expert’s grace. Her stance would have brought tears to any weapons-master in the nation but her expression was dead.

    Chrysalis didn’t even have time to shout out as Twilight sliced the blade across her throat. Before Chrysalis could even turn to face Twilight Naudia experienced the most coldly terrifying act of brutality she would ever witness.

    Using the momentum from the slice Twilight reversed her grip and slammed the blade back into Chrysalis’ barrel, once, twice and a third time. Naudia would remember Twilight’s expression in her nightmares for the rest of her life as the blade twisted around in the wound.

    As Chrysalis finally had time to right herself and face Twilight gurgling as changeling blood entered her throat. Twilight left her with a parting gift, using her magic to assist she slammed the blade into Chrysalis’ back halfway to the hilt.

    But Chrysalis was already moving away from her and the knife still stuck in her back she jumped back like a puppet on a Nightmare’s strings.

    Twilight’s horn was still glowing, and throughout it all she showed no emotion, looking at Chrysalis with an empty expression like she was just picking weeds.

    Chrysalis was about to try and say something to Twilight as Naudia finally figured out why Twilight’s horn was still glowing. A lump of stonework flew past her head gripped in a purple aura, directly at Chrysalis’ back.

    *SNAP* 

    A direct hit on the dagger and the stone rolled away alongside the hilt of the dagger.

    Nobody moved.

    Only after Chrysalis fell to the floor did the surreal nightmare of the last few seconds pass.

    Twilight landed seconds later out cold.

    For a few moments the only sound was Naudia’s ragged breathing.

    Then Nightmare itself woke up from Chrysalis's corpse as a starry mist and began to float up into the air. At first that seemed to be all there was to it then Naudia felt a sensation that she had only felt once before when she was inside of a magical vortex.

    She could only watch as nightmare after nightmare streamed past her. She could have swore she even spotted a few corrupted changelings caught in the maelstrom at first. Then there were more, as if Nightmare was pulling herself back together and taking the corrupted changelings along with her.

    It went on for seemingly an eternity for Naudia as the Nightmare grew more and more to fill up the great hall.

    When it did stop she could feel the Nightmare look down upon all of them and it was almost like she could read it’s mind, feel what it felt.

    It struck Chrysalis’s body with black lightning and then turned to her. Naudia could feel it’s nonexistent eyes on her too long for her liking, then to her utter surprise she felt her wounds closing up, her breathing eased as her dented in chestplate fused back together painfully and dented outward again.

    Then as if to say “I’ll be back” Nightmare gave her a kick in the stomach before vanishing into a portal to… somewhere.