//------------------------------// // Chapter Eight: Eradication Evocation // Story: Heart of Magic // by TheCrimsonDM //------------------------------// Heart of Magic Chapter Eight: Eradication Evocation Written By TheCrimsonDM The ground cracked beneath Twilight’s hooves. Her mind raced for an answer, any answer as she desperately looked around. The once damp earth of the jungle floor had been burned away into glass. The few trees that still stood had become charred gravestones of a once lush environment. The rocky structures that were used by the changelings were cracked, filled with holes, and partially burned into glass. Each step of Twilight’s hooves came with a crunch that sent shivers running down her spine. It was supposed to just be a flyby but she couldn’t resist landing once she witnessed this shining green mess on the forest floor sticking out like a tumor. She approached the largest structure she could. There was the faint smell of something rotted, and her mind flashed back to a memory of the Diamond Dogs she’d encountered as a teen. She really didn’t want to look in there. Still she forced herself to take a peek inside and her heart stopped once she saw the mess. The first thing she saw were round black ovals that were cracked open with some kind of sickly goo running out of the sides, the good wasn’t wet, it was… rotten. Flies were swarming these round shapes feeding from the remains. In the corner lay a couple of bodies, changelings, black hard carapaces were torn to shreds with dry red stains covering the wounds. Even with the shell was mostly intact Twilight could tell from the hordes of ants crawling around the insides that most of the internal structure was long since rotted away. She took a step inside and the stench of the room hit her like a train. Her instinctual response was to use a magic spell to filter out the smell, but even that was only good enough to tone down the strength of the stench. She walked into the room. Parts of the floor were covered in glass, and the walls were scarred with holes and scorch marks. A battle took place in this room, and the losers were lying in the corner being hollowed out by bugs. Twilight approached one of the ovals that was missing its top. Her hoof stepped n the goo. Much to her surprise it was rock hard. It had dried out despite looking very wet. It was also crunchy. She felt her stomach twist as she stepped on the yellow substance. Inside the oval shape she saw it. A small changeling, its carapace wasn’t even done forming and the thing was albino in color with the body more resembling a larva then a pony. These were babies. Changeling babies! The eggs hadn’t been broken by the glass spell, at least not all of them, someone had come in and personally… Twilight’s stomach turned upside down and she rushed back out of the building. It was only by instinct alone that she remembered to let go of the spell around her head as she opened her mouth and watched her breakfast, plus alcohol leave her body as fast as it could. It took several minutes of vomiting, retching, and crying before Twilight was able to force herself to stop looking at the pool of contents she’d left behind and look up at the sky. Sure, she hated changelings, at least Chrysalis’s changelings. Heck if she was being very honest with herself she had a hard time with Thorax’s changelings too, her previous experience with battling them was too much to simply forget. Still she could never, ever see anyone being able to kill… babies. To slaughter unborn baby changelings. Is this why they were pressing so hard against the borders? Were they trying to escape a worse fate than death by a pony’s hoof? Was she instrumental in keeping these changelings here to be exterminated like… like insects? With horror rising in her mind Twilight realized that this was just one of the settlements, and a smaller one at that. With a flick of her magic Twilight lifted herself up into the air. She needed to reach therendezvous point and get more Intel form her scouts. Even in her darkest of imaginations, this was so much worse than she thought possible. *** Amber ran under a tree branch crashing through foliage as her mad dash continued. Behind her she heard trees bending and breaking as the immense weight of the giant slime pony behind her continued its charge. The only thoughts in her head included how to double back and check up on Fluttershy, and how to get rid of the behemoth behind her. The thing was as tall as some of the trees by now and it only seemed to be growing in size with every step. A ravine appeared in front of Amber and she skidded to a halt. She’d already reached a dead end and turned to face the beast. It was only thirty feet away and closing quick. Her hammer wouldn’t do much good against this thing and her magic was temperamental at best. Still what choice did she have at this point? Amber charged her horn up with what she hoped to be a quick spell. The beast closed in. Losing a powerful scream Amber charged forward to meet her foe. The slime pony lifted a tar like hoof and lowered it over Amber’s head. She closed her eyes and released the spell. The world turned hot, and a bright red flash consumed her vision and her world. The sides of her shoulders burned along with her tail and when she opened her eyes she realized she was standing a good forty feet behind the goo monster. The ground around her was on fire. Back where she had previously been, there was a small fire raging as well. A burning feeling filled her nose and she could taste copper already. “One spell and I already get a nose bleed,” Amber shook her head and looked back at the beast. The thing was looking around clearly confused she was no longer there. Well according to Aunt Fluttershy this creature needed to be put back in the hole it crawled out from. “HEY BIG BAD AND GOOEY! THIS WAY!” The thing looked at her and two sickly yellow eyes narrowed. She galloped ahead, heading back to where she’d left Fluttershy. The giant monster followed with earth shaking hoof steps. This creature was clearly out of her reach for now, but she recalled how calm Fluttershy had looked when she encountered it. It was almost as if the monster was no threat at all to her, and when she asked Amber to be the one to distract it, it had shocked Amber. She still didn’t feel like she was truly capable of dealing with such a threat on her own, but she was confident that with the help of Fluttershy she would take this creature out with hardly any challenge. In the distance Amber saw it; the large open field where the slime beast had come from. Strange old machines stood out in the field covered with weeds and rust. These machines, as far as she could tell looked almost like some kind of mining equipment, but there was no mine here. Just a really big, really deep hole filled with black goop. However, the one thing she wanted to find was not here. Fluttershy was missing. Amber screamed as she entered the field hoping that Fluttershy would hear her and come to her rescue. With a twenty foot tall monster hot on her trail she wasn’t going to be able to do much other than run and scream, and her legs were already burning form the exertion of running so hard. She slowed down when she neared the pit. The pit was probably the size of a small shed and had black tar rising to only a few inches away from the top. Who knows how deep it went, or what would even happen to anything that fell into it. The sight of a skeletal pony leg sticking out of the tar told Amber that she didn’t want to know. The earth quaking hooves behind Amber brought her to attention and made her skirt around the pool of black ink. Once on the other side she turned to see the monster still chasing, albeit a little slower now. It was watching the hole with great interest, and moving around it slowly. The thing could probably reach right over it and squish Amber but it was instead choosing to walk around it as if afraid. Amber used this as an opportunity to keep the monster away by having the pit between her and it, so far this was better at slowing down the monster than any of the trees around here had been. Why was the thing so scared of the pit though? And if it was so scared of it, shouldn’t she be too? Amber shook the thoughts from her head, the one thing she didn’t learn from Twilight was that sometimes thinking too much was a problem. There was a whistle in the air. A sound she hadn’t heard since the last time she saw Rainbow Dash performing a race. Of course Rainbow had moved too fast to even see her, a problem most ponies had with Rainbow’s personal racing career, but it was a familiar sound none the less. If Rainbow Dash was here, she would be saved. Amber looked to the skies but instead of a rainbow colored blur like she expected, she saw a pink one circling above them. Amber felt her ears fold back as the pink blur flew up above them, high above them and pierced a cloud popping it much like a bubble. “It can’t be.” Amber’s eyes widened as she saw the blur take a sharp turn and aim toward the ground. “No, only Rainbow can do that!” Amber turned and ran as fast as she could. The sound of the air being cut in half by the impossible speed of a pegasus turned into a loud ear piercing whistle. The monster looked up, too dumb to see its own death coming straight for it. Amber only managed to get a dozen or so feet away from the pool when she saw the world around her explode into a pink and yellow light. Her body was hit by a powerful invisible force and her hooves were lifted off the ground. Amber wanted to scream but the air was torn away from her lungs as she hit the ground rolling. She managed to catch it, just barely, but a mushroom cloud of pink and yellow energy erupted behind her from where the tar monster had once stood. Once Amber ceased rolling she pushed herself up and stared at the pool. It was now covered by a giant boulder. The monster itself was gone. The only thing that stood was Fluttershy, standing on the ground surrounded by scorch marks in the ground. Fluttershy offered a smile. “What was it I couldn’t do now?” Amber tried to cough out a response but it merely came out as a series of squeaks. Fluttershy shook her head. “Twilight was right to ask me to do this. You need some serious training if you can’t handle a slime monster like that. N-not that I’m judging you or anything… just that… I have a lot to teach you.” Amber sat up straight. “But… but… but…” Fluttershy smiled. “Come on, our chores have only just begun.” *** Twilight stood on the edge of the cliff staring out at the expansive jungle before her. She hardly noticed the sound of the ponies talking behind her. Instead her focus was on two things. One the largest settlement of Changelings, home to thousands of the species if not tens of thousands stood ahead of her. Where it would have once looked more like a massive hornet or termite nest, it now resembled a glass crater, miles long and miles deep. The tingle of magic energy coming from it was so strong that it radiated all the way to her position. It tasted of alicorn magic. There was no longer a need to check out the final location. It was gone. The other thing grabbing at her attention was the fact that from what she’d just been told from her scouts. Every single settlement was much like the first one she’d discovered. All the eggs destroyed, any and all life found exterminated. A shudder ran through Twilight’s entire body. She’d dealt with death before, but never before had it been on such a large scale. Never before had it been so cold and merciless. In fact she couldn’t recall a single instance in Equestrian history that held this much death save for one, the genocide of the gem eyed pegasi, but that was hundreds of years ago. Could anypony at home even comprehend this much death at once? Could she even comprehend it now? “Twilight,” Luna’s voice came out as a gentle breeze on a hot summer’s day. Twilight grabbed her flask and attempted to drink from it. The thing had run empty about five attempts ago, but the motion was familiar and made her feel slightly more at ease. “Yes?” “We should head back, I suspect this is all we can do here.” Twilight nodded. “I guess so.” “Twilight, this will all be alright.” Twilight glared forward and nearly shouted, “No, it won’t. If they can do this to the changelings, what can they do to us? What will happen to our children?” Luna placed a wing over Twilight’s back gently petting her. “I fear we already know what they’ll do to us, as they already have.” Twilight’s eyes burned as she stared forward, unable to look away from the sight. “I guess your right… but how in the world do I save us from this?” Luna’s voice came out quietly, so quiet that Twilight could barely even hear her. “Maybe we don’t win this time.”