//------------------------------//
// Inevitable 
// Story: Night Wing 
// by Gravity012 
//------------------------------//

Lytra and I stood in the throne room entrance side by side. I had notified Luna and Celestia of my stay in the hive. Celestia had expressed slight concern, but accepted it. Luna had just fed Saphire and nodded to me as I talked to her. I had contacted them with a slightly more advanced version of scrying. I scried through a piece of blue steel, or one of my feathers they had, and they could see and talk to me. It wasn’t much harder than normal scrying, at least not to me. Luna had calmed down a lot in the past few days. I was hoping she was accepting Midnight’s death. Of course, when I told them about the imminent attack they were more than a little concerned. I managed to make them stop worrying about me, mainly by stressing the point that I couldn’t die.

As Celestia raised the sun over the horizon, a horn rang out. The sound was loud and long, and Lytra sighed as it faded away. “And so it begins.” Almost immediately the surrounding desert seemed to shift. It looked as though black dust was rising from the sand and forming a massive wall. As it drew closer I realized it was a massive swarm of changelings.

‘Oh. My. Gosh.’ An explosion slammed into our shield but it held strong. As the purple faded I could see the front of the swarm starting to spin clockwise. It extended out into a point, like a sideways tornado. Two more explosions impacted our shield before the funnel of changelings had almost reached us. ‘So, what’s the plan?’ I asked worriedly. They were almost at the shield.

A large horn appeared at Lytra’s side in a flash of light. She raised it to her lips and blew out a long sorrowful note. With a low buzzing thousands of changelings emerged from Lytra’s hive. They stopped just before crossing the shield, waiting for a signal. “Remember those castle defenses I mentioned?” Lytra almost seemed to smirk. Her horn lit and the walls of the throne room turned transparent. Then a low thrumming emanated from the castle spires. My feathers raised up as the air filled with static, and I smelled small amounts of ozone. The tips of the spires began to glow and, just as the first enemy touched the shield, an arc of lightning raced from the closest spire and impacted them. It chained out to at least twenty of the other Changelings. Then the main force hit the shield.

“Stay your ground!” Lytra called out as the shield constantly flashed purple. Lytra’s unmoving forces sat inches away from the enemy as the shield took the beating. The castle’s spires were shooting out constant streams of lightning, almost like Tesla coils.

‘If you told me you had a giant Tesla Coil for a castle, I would have come sooner.’ I winced a little as I watched a group of ten changelings explode. The electricity arcing from the spires, to the changelings, and then to the ground made quite a light show.

“I don’t know what a Tesla Coil is, but even I didn’t know about this. This castle is older than anyone can remember, as are most of the Changeling hives.” She smiled. “Even my mother didn’t know the power this place has.” An enraged shriek pierced through the air as a particularly large spot of the shield flashed purple. The castle was now completely surrounded by a black swarm and lightning was arcing in all directions. 

‘Will the shield hold?’ My eyes locked onto the brightest spot on the shield. I thought I saw a little green slip through for a second.

“Not long.” Lytra was looking at the same spot. Another shriek echoed through the desert. “Oh dear, we seem to have made her angry. I do hope she doesn’t pop a blood vessel and bleed out.” A smile grew on her face. “Ready yourselves!” The lines of changelings below us surrounded the weak spot on the shield. Green was leaking through it now, overtaking the purple. Slowly but surely a hole was forced open and a large angry Queen barged in. Lytra’s changelings moved to intercept her, but they were shot back by a blast of magic.

“HAHAHAHAHA!” Chrysalis laughed insanely as she charged up her horn and shot it toward one of the spires. A large beam of green met with a small shield of purple as Lytra’s horn glowed. Then Lytra disappeared in a flash. She reappeared in front of Chrysalis, wearing a snarl of rage.

“Turn away from here Chrysalis! There is no point to this battle!” Chrysalis just laughed in return to the attempted diplomacy.

“Of course there is! My swarm is hungry, and you have a massive store of love here in your hive! So I shall destroy you and you forces and ta-“ Chrysalis was interrupted by a beam of purple.

“Well, I tried! And who monologues during a battle?” Lytra laughed loudly as I swooped down from the throne room. “I’ll take the big brat, if you will deal with the smaller ones.” She zipped off toward were Chrysalis landed and disappeared into the dust cloud. Large green and purple energy balls started shooting out of said cloud soon after. I turned to the shield just as it gave way. The top opened up and the opening spread down the sides. The swarm outside poured over the lip like a wave of water, and they immediately started firing green energy at us. The shadow hive met them with blasts of purple energy and sharp black swords. I shot up to meet the wave head on as a black dome of magic formed in front of me. Crashing through the enemies frontline, I shattered my shield and shot the shards in every direction. Icicles formed on the nearby changelings and they fell from the sky as their wings froze. My feathers started leaking magic as I spun and threw them out in random directions. I was rewarded with many cries of pain as the feathers detonated in the air. A changeling flew at me with his horn lowered to spear me. I opened one portal in front of him, and another above the sharp spires of the castle. He didn’t even notice as he flew through the portal and speared himself on the spire. I flinched as lighting arced though a few changelings near me. 

A small group of changeling attempted to surround me, only to have themselves surrounded by a shield and crushed together. It sounded like I cracked a bunch of eggs as the shield was filled with a clear fluid I assumed was changeling blood. I dropped the shield and watched as the bodies impacted an angry green queen far below me. She flinched and then looked up to meet my gaze. My eyes met hers, and her mouth opened wide as if she yelled something. I couldn’t hear it due to all the buzzing wings around me, but I smiled and waved anyways. That seemed to make her angry, as she shot a beam of magic at me. I rolled my eyes as I opened a portal in front of me and another one behind her. She smacked into the castle wall as her own magic hit her. Looking over at our changelings, I could see we weren’t doing well. We were easily outnumbered ten to one. The only reason we were still alive was due to the now gone shield, and the lightning from the spires.

A large CRACK made me snap my head to the castle. Chrysalis stood on the ground, shooting energy into one of the spires. It let out loud cracks and groans as it slowly fell, the fractures letting out many arcs of lightning. Friend and foe were both fried as the tower slowly fell toward a lone figure on the ground. NO! The air raced by me as my wings snapped shut and I angled myself toward Lytra. She was lying still on the ground, the large spire falling towards her slowly. Time seemed to slow as the spire grew close and I realized something. I couldn’t make it and save both of us. But I didn’t need to. I hurtled toward Lytra as crazed laughter echoed on the wind. I impacted Lytras side just as the tower crashed down. She was flung away from the crash, but I had to take said tower straight to the face.





Chrysalis

I smiled widely as I saw the bird get crushed. Wonderful. One less problem for me to deal with. After a moment of searching, I found the doomed Queen lying not far from the wreckage. “Isn’t this wonderful?” I asked her as my hooves touched the ground. My front leg lifted and came down on her back one with a crunch.

“AAAH!” The weakling cried out in pain as her chitin was crushed to nothing.

“This is pitiful really. The ease with which I destroyed your whole army. Your castle lay in ruins, and you are broken before me.” I snorted. “I expected at least a small challenge, but this?” I grinned as I leaned in to look her in the eye. “This is just one name in the long list of Kingdoms I’ve conquered. Nothing special. Worthless really.” I lifted my leg and brought it down on her front one. Another crunch rang out as she screamed. “You should thank me. I’ll put the love you have stored to good use.” I stepped back and prepared to end her with a simple blast of magic, but something slammed into my back.





Night Wing

I glared at Chrysalis as snow and ice whirled around me. A trail of frost hung in the air behind her as she flew into the wall of the hive. I glanced down at Lytra before continuing after Chrysalis. I levitated her back to me and tossed her into the sky before shooting an icicle through the leg she was stomping on Lytra with.

“GAAAH!” Chrysalis hollered as she fell back down. Then several of her changeling grabbed her and took her away into the swarm. I tried to locate her, but I couldn’t see her through all the moving changelings. I huffed and turned back to where Lytra lay bleeding out.

“Did you get her?” Lytra struggled to talk as I lay beside her.

‘She is running for her life.’ I smiled sadly.

“Hah! Go-COUGH-Good. We fought valiantly. I am proud to have such a honorable death.” She shook as she was wracked with coughing. “Oh Night, It was fun while it lasted. But this was inevitable. All things die eventually, except maybe you.” Lytra smiled as her eyes slowly faded. “I have one last favor to ask of you Night. My dying wish.” With a flash of light, a purple stone appeared next to Lytra. It was about half the size of her head. “Take my child. Raise it somewhere safe. It will know when to hatch, and when it does I want you to cherish it for me. Give it what I won’t be able to.” Lytra floated the egg to me and I took it under my wing. “You are a good friend Night. There is no other I would rather die beside.”

The purple in her eyes faded completely to gray as her horn glowed one last time, and the only thing I heard was the swarm above continuing to buzz. Then a massive explosion reverberated through the castle and it collapsed, sending a fountain of pink into the sky. The pink fluid fell down and hit the ground all around the castle. It stayed for a few seconds before fading into nothing. A loud scream of rage was heard over the buzzing and I turned back to Lytra to see a final smile on her face. I shook my head and smiled. It seems you got the last laugh Lytra. I shouldn’t have expected anything else. I opened up a portal and stepped through, saying goodbye one last time.