“... Nope, nothing seems to have changed,” Morning mutters. Ginny had just activated the Papa Tango for her- and she’d spent a few seconds in her Equestrian natural form, standing in a strange world of clouds. As soon as she’d gotten back, finding herself once again in her humanized ‘Ling form, she’d asked Ginny if it was done- then inspected herself… and looked up at them.
Harry, Hermione, and Silver all have confusing expressions on their faces, but the other three- Ariel is riding Ginny’s shoulder- don’t.
“So, ahh… Shall we go hunt that basilisk?” She rubs her hands together, flashing into her normal disguise halfway through. “That second in the clouds gave me an idea that should render any of our vulnerabilities moot.”
“Speak to me, Salazar Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts Four.” Ariel takes a deep breath, before looking at everyone else in the Chamber of Secrets with her. “Alright, it’s coming.” She glances around. “Wait, where’s Morning?”
Morning, standing casually on the dark ceiling, snickers silently. She’d entered the room last, shapeshifted into a dark-skinned, black-haired version of herself, and walked calmly up the wall. She knows some pegasi can walk on walls and ceilings- but only some. She’s reasonably certain that all three Alicorns of the party are capable of it. On the other hoof, every changeling can walk on walls and ceilings. Sure makes scaling mountains and chamber walls easy.
She sees the massive mouth opening- and leaps off the wall, shifting into a fly. She hasn’t told them that her transformations need not respect conservation of mass; let them think they’ll see her. She shifts back to her normal human form once inside the massive statue’s mouth- and instantly layers the basilisk over with Changeling goo. Specifically, the glue-like goo that any Changeling can form instantly from any part of their body.
Changelings almost never produce this kind of goo; it’s made directly from love, unlike the more biologically-formed goo that ‘Lings can spit. Add that it’s not cheap to make, and the love usually cannot be recovered from it later, and it would have been wastefully stupid for any ‘Ling to make it in Equestria without dire need.
Not so for her, here in Britain. Sure, it cost her a lot of love… but it hardly even touched her reserves, which topped off again in seconds.
She grins, and starts her task. Thankfully, she’d actually been trained to do this before the attack on Canterlot had started; any ‘Ling could expect to have this duty after a successful invasion, and Chrysalis didn’t want to have to wait days for it to be finished.
Mind, she’d been trained with the biologically-produced, spitten goo in mind, and she’s using the much easier to control love-based goo.
Finally, she lifts the enormous, finished pod- funny, she didn’t expect it to be that easy to lift- and carries it to the entrance of the mouth, before dropping it out and using a rope of more goo to lower it rapidly to the floor below, to startled and confused gasps from below.
Once it hits the ground, she swings out into plain view of them, sliding down her goo rope like a fire pole, to land on top of the massive pod before she simply dissolves the rope. That’s one benefit of using love-goo over bio-goo: The love goo can be simply dissolved, and will disappear tracelessly. The bio-goo has to be swept up and carried away.
“Did someone order a basilisk?” she asks, posing atop the pod.
Hidden Light- whose nametag reads Glowing Blue, Morning saw in Myrtle’s bathroom- stares at the pod, jaw articulating wordlessly up and down. She’s pretty sure the girl is trying to be fair, and so is shining her light only in front of her, where she could normally see. Ariel floats slowly to the floor, from where she’d been hovering in the air, staring slack-jawed. Ginny and Hermione are the same, though standing instead of flying. Silver nods slowly, stepping closer to scowl at the pod.
Harry nods slowly at it. “And that would be why it was taking so long,” he mutters.
Morning smiles, vaulting off the pod and sliding down the side of it with one hand, coming to a smooth landing in front of everyone. “There! How’d I do?”
Silver looks at her. “How’d you get up there?”
She grins. “I slipped in while you weren’t looking.”
“So what’s… that?” Harry asks, pointing at the pod.
Morning leans against it, grinning. “I podded it. Most changelings do that to ponies they don’t want messing with their plans, so I figured I didn’t want the basilisk messing with our plans.”
Hermione looks Morning. “Changelings are amazing, you know that?”
Morning snorts. “No, no we’re not. There’s just extenuating circumstances here that let me expend a lot more energy than I normally might be able to.”
Silver tilts her head. “What’s that?”
She grins. “Remember what I said about you being love geysers? That.” She taps the pod. “Most of the time, we use a biological goo. I had so much love, though, that I thought I’d use a more love-based goo. Which means, of course, that only a Changeling can set this thing free again.”
“... Wait a sec,” Glowing mutters. “That’s- That’s not true. We opened lots of pods.”
She shakes her head. “Not this kind of pod. Those things were made of that bio-goo. Pain to work with, limited durability, and hard to make in quantity, but virtually no love cost to make. This is made of love-goo, with none of those weaknesses- though it costs a lot of love to make. Virtually nothing compared to the ambient here, though…”
“... So, you’ve bottled up the basilisk,” Hermione mutters.
She nods. “I can let it loose again if you want to fight it,” she shrugs.
“Hang on,” Glowing mutters, grinning to herself and rubbing her chin. “What happens if we mail this to Chrysalis?”
Madam Pomfrey rises from her desk, bustling back out into the infirmary as soon as she hears something moving.
“Ahh, there you are,” she retorts, upon seeing Glowing Blue trotting in. A few other students walk in behind her- including, she notices, Morning Sun. And Ginny Weasley, with Ariel riding on her shoulder- and looking somehow stronger than ever. “What happened?”
“Well,” Glowing grins, looking back at the others for a second, before turning back to her. “I suppose it started when Hermione spawned the Muggleborn Lake in a wildly successful attempt to destroy a horcrux.”
Hermione covers her face with her hands. “Oh please,” she moans.
“Horcrux?” Madam Pomfrey asks. “Which one?”
“We figured out what horcrux Ariel used to be,” Ginny spouts. “A diary. Fun fact, turns out she was actually still bound to it somehow, even though it still had a mind of its own.” She shudders. “When she smote it, Ariel felt it- and gained all the memories left in it.”
Hermione groans, pressing her hands over her eyes.
Pomfrey puts a finger to her chin. “She also looks a lot stronger.”
Ginny blinks, looking at Ariel. “She does?”
Ariel blinks, looking down at her forehooves, then back up. “I do? How so?”
“Uh, then after that,” Glowing continues, “since the diary is what was opening the Chamber, we suddenly knew where it was. We discussed what I saw of the basilisk; turns out Morning here has dealt with them before, and so knows a counterspell that renders its gaze utterly harmless against you. So we ran her through the Papa Tango to finish the magic repairs Ginny started with the Whiskey Tango, then headed into the Chamber of Secrets and captured the thing. So by now, I’ve had a much busier day than I wanted to, and I’m going to have to write a rather lengthy report for Bonbon, but I’m also a little exhausted and very ready to get back to bed.” She clambers back into her bed. “By the way, how many days do I have before people start coming back from the holidays?”
Madam Pomfrey blinks. “Uhh…”
“Two,” Hermione states. “They return the day after tomorrow.”
“And all of that,” Morning sighs, “means that the attacks have been ended for good. The monster hasn’t been killed just yet- but it’s been completely immobilized, and in such manner that no one can let it free.”
“We wanted to see if Dumbledore wanted to be part of that,” Harry shrugs, before Madam Pomfrey has time to ask. “And when she says no one can free it, she means it.”
Hermione snorts. “Yeah, definitely. I mean, she did her thing to put it into some kind of very, very durable stasis pod, then Harry wrapped it in one of his patent-pending indestructible barriers.”
Harry looks at her. “Patent pending?”
She shrugs.
Madam Pomfrey shakes herself out. “So, the attacks have been ended? Permanently?”
Ariel nods. “Yeah.”
“And nobody was injured in the process?”
“Yeah.”
She lets out a relieved breath. “Alright. Now then, that counterspell. Does it work on people who have already been petrified?”
“Ahh… No. But there is a way to reverse the petrification.” She walks calmly up to the nearest bed, glancing briefly at the nametag, and puts her hand to Tree Hugger’s forehead. It takes her a second to channel the love properly- but within seconds, Tree Hugger collapses more fully onto the bed, and she withdraws her hand, looking up at Madam Pomfrey. “It’s not instant, unfortunately- just puts them on the path to self-recovery, mostly. She’ll wake up in a couple hours, then need another two or three hours after that to be fully healed.”