Edited by:
PieisGood4U
BlazinBlade7
dialgex
fireshadow11
They really rescued this chapter. I'm not sure if I was just tired whilst writing or my hands decided to try and revolt against me but whatever the reason, the chapter was absolutely covered with errors. Thanks guys, you once again have saved me from looking like a completely incompetent writer.
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"Well, what do we have here?”
I froze and slowly turned around to face the owner of the rather coy voice. Swirling Rune was standing in the middle of the room, a smirk on her face and her horn glowing with magic. Apparently the necklace had some kind of magical alarm on it.
Sometimes I hate magic, especially my complete lack of it.
“Hey, I’m with technical support. This magical item appears to be malfunctioning so I have been sent out to fix it.”
“…You don’t honestly expect me to believe that do you?”
“If you have any further inquiries please contact our main office on hotline number 0800-eat-a-dick.”
Smooth, real smooth.
Her horn flared with a blue light that engulfed my torso, effectively trapping me in place. She appeared to be trying to maintain a calm demeanour but I could see the anger behind her flashing green eyes. She stalked slowly towards me, her rear swinging in an attempt at a confident strut that simply looked ridiculous on her podgy frame.
“You appear to be entirely at my mercy, whatever are we going to do with you?”
“Yup, that’s me. Defenceless, unarmed, without a plan or any backup. Care to let me go?”
“I think not, I think you need to be taught a…lesson” She practically purred the last word.
“Just a heads up, you should probably drop the whole evil seductress routine. It really doesn’t work without your little magical doohickey, in fact I think you just gave me a de-rection. So, well done on that at least.”
Her eyes flashed green again and I felt the force around my chest compress, squeezing me tight and straining my ribs. A gasp of air escaped from my throat as my lungs were slowly crushed. The necklace fell from my grip, only to be caught in a magical glow and levitated over to Swirling Runes.
“Thank you for reminding me of that. Wonderful little thing isn’t it? It makes any being attrected to your sex see you as the object of their ultimate desire, though I’m curious what an unusual creature like you would see. Sadly, I can’t claim full credit for it. The praise should go to a much more foolish mare.”
The crushing vice around my chest eased up slightly and I desperately dragged in as much air as I could to my oxygen-starved lungs. There was another flash of green fire, this time a in a circle on the floor next to Swirling Runes. When the fire had died down, sinking into the floor and not even leaving a mark behind, a figure was left lying there unconscious. A peach unicorn mare with a blue mane.
A second Swirling Runes.
The original Runes looked over to me, a smirk creasing her features.
“Confused? Allow me to explain, I am a superior being you see. A creature called a-”
“Changeling” I interrupted, not wanting her to go on a bragging streak.
“Yes, I see you have heard of our excellence. As should all of you lesser beings, you should know of us and fear us. You are nothing but prey before us, for we Changelings feast on-”
“Love” I cut her off again.
“Stop that! You're wrong anyway. I have found another source of food for the Changelings, far easier to obtain and with a near endless supply.” She paused and looked at me expectantly.
“…I’m not going to ask what it is. I refuse to cooperate with your monologue.”
“…Fine. It’s lust by the way. Poor naïve Swirling Runes here thought I was her best friend, her only friend. I’m beginning to see why the other ponies ostracised her. Only an idiot would be foolish enough to think a Changeling would make friends with such a pathetic creature as a pony. She made me this little necklace, quite the little smarty pants with her magic, that’s why I targeted her. She makes me the enchanted necklace that protects me from the guards' searches and in return I lock her in her basement to rot away. A nice little deal for everyone involved…except her of course.”
“Are you finished?” I asked, affecting a yawn.
“Impudent worm! You are entirely within my power! I could crush you like a bug!”
“Yeah yeah, big complex plans, world domination, you’ll never stop me. Next you’ll try the whole ‘Join me and we can rule the world together!’ line. Heard it all before, can you hurry this up? It’s just I’m thinking about getting a haircut and I’d like to book the appointment before I die of old age.”
“You have raised my ire, cur! Now quake before the glory of my true form!”
Emerald flames began to swirl around the villains hooves, slowly rising up her legs to cover her torso. Wherever the magical conflagration touched the image of Swirling Runes appeared to burn away to reveal a slimy black carapace. Holes appeared in its hooves and insect-like wings appeared on its back. Its main torso was covered in overlapping plates of chitin, forming a natural armour, which extended up to its head and around the jagged horn implanted there, looking almost like a helmet. It was much larger than the disguise that had previously contained it, standing around a foot and a half taller and much bulkier with muscle. It was very different from the Changelings in the show, and it looked far more dangerous. Perhaps some kind of elite? A forked tongue flickered out of its mouth, deftly avoiding the large fangs, to taste the air.
“I can taste your fear, you reek of it.” its voice had changed as well, now having a buzz behind it as if the throat used to form the words wasn’t meant for normal speech.
“Yup, I’m shaking in my little hoovsies. I’m plum terrified that you might rape me, that whole ‘feeds on lust’ didn’t do you many favours.”
The Changelings face, alien though it was, still twisted in disgust at this statement.
“As if I would lower myself to mate with one such as you. You filthy mammals are probably full of diseases.”
“Hey, I’ve always practiced safe sex! I’m completely clean, though I’m glad that this isn’t the rape train. Incidentally, just out of curiosity, what gender are you? It is really hard to tell”
“Isn’t it obvious? I am of the Changeling upper class, so clearly I am female.”
“Oh, of course, matriarchal society of bug creatures. Makes perfect sense. Sorry, I wasn’t insulting your figure or anything. I’m sure that you look very feminine…from the right angle…just not this angle, it’s just a bit hard to judge with the species difference and all.”
“Rambling fool! You shall die now and any evidence of my deeds will die with you. I, General Velvet shall triumph! Nothing can stop me from consuming all of the stallions' lust!”
“…There is so many things wrong with what you just said, not the least of which is that your name is Velvet, but I’m sure that I can point them out after I’ve escaped.”
“Escape?! There is no escape for you, you admitted it yourself. You have no plan, you have nothing!” With this exclamation, it began to tighten its grip upon my chest.
I struggled to the best of my abilities but the magical vice had me held tight, no amount of squirming could loosen its grip upon me. In desperation I flailed with all my limbs, the burning in my lungs causing me to go into a blind panic. My hooves slammed into the poorly maintained floor multiple times, the wooden boards jumping around with each hit. The strain on my lungs as they were starved of precious oxygen was unbearable now and I could feel my life slipping away. With what could very well be the last of my strength I slammed my hooves down once more, not expecting the effects such an action would have.
The floorboards beneath me, loosened from their poor maintenance as well as my struggling assault, shifted beneath my hooves. The board beneath my right hoof was forced violently down and, through the laws of leverage, the other end shot swiftly up.
Straight into Velvet’s chin.
The large changeling reeled back from the blow, her magic shutting off from the shock of the sudden attack. I collapsed to the floor, gulping in huge breaths whilst my hands scrabbled at my belt.
Come on! Come on! Where are they?
Velvet was recovering from the blow, shaking her head and wincing from the ringing that must be running through her skull. If she managed to fully focus her attention back on me then I wouldn’t stand a chance, her magic would crush me in a second. I continued to frantically search my belt for the object I needed.
Got it!
Velvet had managed to clear her hazy vision and focus on me again, her eyes burning with a green fire that matched the corona of energy that began to surround her horn. However, before she could fully bring her magic to bear against me I had acted, throwing the object from my belt directly at her. Two sandy white orbs, around the size of a marble, arced sedately through the air, two pairs of eyes tracking their movement. Their flight ended when they collided with Velvet’s face, immediately exploding outwards to fill the room with a thick smoke.
Smoke bombs, never leave home without them.
The moment the concealing smoke covered the room I dived forwards, barely managing to avoid the magical bolt of force that Velvet had shot blindly. Rolling back to my hooves, I rushed forward to the place where I had seen my target land, hoping that my changeling foe hadn’t had the presence of mind to snatch it up. I was fortunate, Velvet was too focused on trying to find and kill me to pay attention to the little things.
Like this magical necklace that I had just snatched off the ground.
I could see the silhouette of the large female changeling moving through my artificial fog, head moving around as she hunted for me. Perhaps now was a good chance to use one of my more exotic skills, as I wanted to taunt her but not give away my position. Lying down on the ground so that she wouldn’t see my silhouette, I began my trick.
“You’re not that smart are you?” My voice came from behind her, causing her to whirl around and fire of a bolt of magic, putting a large hole in one wall.
“Oh, so close and yet so very very far. Try again.” My voice was projected from her right, with similar results to the first trick.
“You’re not even trying. So disappointing.” From her left now, the infuriated Changeling firing off several bolts of green fire that ignited the curtains.
“You see, that’s gonna cost you your no claims bonus on your policy. Tell me, are you insured against magic-wielding idiots?” My taunting came from above this time, perhaps I was pushing it slightly but to my surprise the raging mare fell for it. Immediately blasting the roof above her, causing a small bit of debris to fall on top of her.
“You must be, if you live here then idiot insurance is practically a necessity.” This mocking caused the Changeling to give up on targeting me altogether. Instead she charged up a large glowing orb of green flame at the end of her horn and, in a burst, released it outwards in every direction.
For a moment it appeared to have worked. There was nothing but complete silence, no taunting voices of strange creatures. She had won! The Changeling victorious!
“Velvet is a stupid name.” I whispered, my voice coming from every direction and surrounding the stupefied villain. It was about time for me to leave, eventually she would figure out that she could just dispel the smoke and find me. Luckily she was either too enraged or just too stupid to figure that out for the moment so I had some time.
Ventriloquism is a really cool skill to have. Not always useful but it is great fun at parties.
I carefully slipped out the front door, not trusting the upstairs window as an escape route. I felt guilty about having to leave Swirling Runes behind, unconscious and helpless, but I wouldn’t be able to escape if I took her with me. I made a mental promise to come back for her later, once Velvet was sufficiently distracted.
After all, if there is a prison or treasure room in the entire universe that I can’t break into or out of, then it’s only a matter of time before I have to do one of them.
Or both.
Now that I think about it, my familiarity with prisons is a good indication that something in my life went very wrong.
I wonder if I should go into a careful analysis of my life, with long scientific words to describe my various issues, which might help me pinpoint my flaws and improve upon them…
The door that I had walked out of not two minutes ago blew open, flying completely off its hinges and landing in the street. Out of the now bare opening stepped Swirling Runes, or should I say General Velvet disguised as Swirling Runes. It had to be Velvet because of the terrifying rage burning in her eyes the moment she laid eyes upon me.
Looks like I’ll have to take a rain check on that psych evaluation.
I immediately set off sprinting down the street, heading towards the more populous area of town where she wouldn’t be able to kill me, at least not without hundreds of witnesses. Although my powerful bounds gave me a distinct advantage in the speed department it seemed that False Runes more than made up for it in the ‘determination to kill me’ department.
At least I should be able to reach a crowd before she reaches me, then I just have to tell the guards about her plan and she’ll be finished. My powerful stride ate up the distance quickly and I was quickly in the centre of town, now I just need to get some ponies to help me out with this crazy mare.
“Stop that freak! He’s working with the changelings!” I head Velvet cry out in Swirling Runes voice.
The moment this announcement was made all the ponies in the market square swung to look at me, determination and anger in their eyes.
Damn, that was surprisingly cunning of her.
I started running again, now followed by an entire crowd of ponies who were led by False Runes. They provided excellent motivation to escape, I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast. Our merry chase took us all around town, through side streets and around the market place a couple of times. I even passed two familiar figures in my escape.
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Iron stood at the forge, hammering on a piece of heated metal whilst Summer watched him work. She had got back from her meeting with the guard an hour ago and had insisted on watching him work on Ace’s gift. Iron, unfamiliar with females watching him work, had adopted a strategy that was shared by all males, regardless of species.
Just say ‘yes’ to everything.
“So the changeling threat is supposed to be a fairly minor affair here, shouldn’t be too much of a problem.” Summer stated.
“Aye”
“Hopefully it won’t delay my deployment…”
“Aye.”
It was at this point that a familiar, yet rather annoying, bipedal figure shot past.
“Hey Summer, hey Iron.” Ace said, his voice managing to stay behind after he had left. A moment later a huge mob of ponies galloped past, many of them shouting various threats at the figure they were pursuing.
“Iron?”
“Aye”
“Did Ace just sprint past?”
“Aye”
“Followed by what looked like a good portion of this town’s population, all of them looking very angry.”
“Aye.”
“Iron, I think we need to have a talk…about Ace.”
The huge minotaur sighed and put aside the piece of metal he had been forming, as well as the tools he was borrowing from the forge’s kindly owner. He then sat upon the anvil he had just been working upon, the huge block of metal sinking slightly under his weight, and prepared himself for a very long talk.
“Aye.”
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Evidently my ability to give large crowds of incompetent pursuers the slip are a bit rusty, must be all that fine living I’ve been doing. Oh well, if Velvet gets her way, which seems likely right now, I won’t be doing much more living, fine or otherwise.
The situation had gone from bad, being chased by a mob of irrationally angry ponies, to worse, being surrounded by said mob of ponies. The chase, having looped round the town a couple of times, had gained a lot of attention and thus, a lot more ponies had joined the chase, including several on-duty guards. I wasn’t sure if it was because of righteous anger, or curiosity or just that it looked like a lot of fun. Regardless of their reasoning, eventually they had got smart and, on my fifth circuit of market place, I found my way blocked by half of the crowd, who had split off so that they could corner me.
And so I found myself, edging as far back as I could before bumping into a stall filled with various musical instruments whilst a mob of ponies led by a disguised Changeling slowly stepped towards me. Their strong hooves and angry eyes promising a form of vigilante justice that I was unlikely to survive. Throughout the entire chase False Runes had been shouting various outrageous claims about me to whip up the anger of her followers, everything from me being the cause of drought and famine to me being the consort of Queen Chrysalis herself.
I found this last one to be slightly ridiculous but still well received by the ponies, who apparently loved a bit of drama in their chases.
I survive the horrible Diamond Dog mutant-thing but am about to get trampled by wide-eyed adorable ponies…
…I may be misinterpreting this but I think that counts as irony.