Episode 158: Beyond Hollow
At first there was only a still, sickening silence following Chrysalis’ invocation of her Zanpaktou’s name and release phrase, ”Indulge rapaciously; Devoradora.”
In her gut, Cadence felt a vacuum in that silence, as if the air, the very particles around Chrysalis’ humanoid body were bending towards the woman’s body. No, not just her body, but towards a singular point on her lower stomach. The form fitting, curvaceous white dress she wore began to burn from her body like cobwebs as poisonous green tongues of oozing heat and spirit aura rose from her body in an earthly tremor. Chrysalis’ breaths were coming quicker, and as more of her onyx black skin was exposed a sweat sheen glistened upon her. The bending of the very air around her cracked the ground in spider web patterns, while from her Zanpaktou’s blade a growing bubbling froth of liquid green spirit energy boiled like a toxic mass.
Finally as the last of her clothing burned from her, Chrysalis’ flesh started to become obscured instead by an aura of power so thick that it all but formed a new set of clothing all it’s own, yet in jagged, uneven patterns like the tunnels of an ant colony. Even the white tattooed ‘2’ denoting her Espada rank that was at the base of her throat was now covered by a choker of raw green energy that flickered at the edges.
Cadence’s eyes were drawn down towards Chrysalis’ stomach, where a small, empty hole of darkness existed right above where the woman’s womb would be. Yet there were two distinct differences between this Hollow hole and others. One was that a set of pulsating red markings wove out from the edges of the hole in sweeping patterns, like glowing blood veins. The other difference was the red gem floating in the hole’s center, an exact copy of a siren’s.
Pharynx, having some small difficulty breathing under the thick spiritual pressure building in the air, still managed to quip, “Huh, kinda figured you’d have a more dramatic transformation than just getting naked and wearing some glowing bits.”
Chrysalis’ laugh was unnaturally loud and resonant, yet still somehow intoxicating as drug-laced chocolate, “Wait for it. It takes a lady a minute to get ready for a night of festivities. There’s a reason I don’t do this for just anyone. It gets... messy.”
Cadence’s eyes remained locked on the gem that shone with a dull crimson light, “That’s a siren gem. Why do you have one?”
“Long story, but an associate of mine replicated them from the real deal. They’re still in a testing phase, and he should be making a better version once he’s done playing with Adagio,” Chrysalis laughed between making odd gurgling sounds as her flesh began to pulsate as if having worms digging underneath her skin, “Of course I suspect Adagio will play him instead, but that’s why I find her so much fun. Once I’m done here, I look forward to seeing what progress she’s made back home. At any rate, before we parted ways, my associate gave me this prototype with a few refinements over the old model. Same one he’s testing out himself, so it should work even with my Resurreccion. Guess we’re about to find out, aren’t we? What fun! I love surprises.”
“Uuhhh, shouldn’t we be trying to stop her?” asked Thorax of his companions, and Cadence couldn’t have been in more firm agreement. The horrible process that Chrysalis had triggered filled the Princess with a feverish sense of dread that made her ears ring. She could taste it in the distorted air, this power, this spiritual pressure, was not quite like what Chrysalis had exuded before.
Before, Chrysalis had been violent and murderous yes, but in a strangely playful and amiable manner.
Something about this new energy coming off of her felt like a pleasant mask melting off of the visage of something mad and monstrous, like watching a wax figurine distort until it looked like something utterly grotesque.
Cadence knew in the pit of her stomach that she didn’t want to see what was about to ‘emerge’ from the cocoon that had been the Chrysalis she’d been fighting up until that point.
“Hit her with everything!” she shouted, powering up her horn with teal eldritch light whilst also spinning up crystal wires from her wings.
“E-everything?” Thorax said, and Cadence roared a confirmation.
“Everything!”
With the city directly behind Chrysalis, Cadence had no desire to inflict more damage upon her nation or people, so the first thing she did was spear dozens of her crystal wires forward and tear them through the ground around Chrysalis, gripping the stone with their taut threads. She then hurled the chunk of street, along with Chrysalis, up into the air, after which she shot upwards herself, halberd of heart-shaped crystal blades leading her charge.
In a cleaving line she shattered through the chunk of stone with her halberd and cut into Chrysalis, who seemed to openly invite the attack with open arms. Cadence’s halberd met with shockingly harder flesh than before, still able to cut into the Espada’s Hierro, but to a much lesser degree than before. Still, the force of the blow rocketed Chrysalis skyward, and Cadence pulled back her wires and reshaped them, forming hundreds more to intertwine together until the wires took the shape of eight large replicas of her halberd. She then set the real halberd in between the eight copies, which spun around the halberd in a quickening circle which left traces of gathering arcs of magic.
She was not the master of High Magic that Celestia and Luna were, but Cadence did know one or two spells of that caliber.
”Sapphirus Gravis.” (Sapphire Grave)
A towering flood of sky blue crystal shot out from the circle of halberd copies, rising like a super-heated geyser going off. The geyser covered Chrysalis entirely and then solidified into an enormous chunk of crystal near half the size of the Empire’s own crystal tower. The hulk of uneven crystal trickled unstable arcs of magical energy, as was its intent. The spell was a form of crystal magic that entrapped a target in a coffin of solidified yet highly unstable magic that could then be triggered by an outside source while ensuring it’s target remained immobile. The High Magic even drew in power from other sources of nearby crystal... and since this was the Crystal Empire, spires of magic, like thousands of fireflies swarms, were rising from the city and entering the chunk of crystal.
“Thorax, Pharynx, hit it!” Cadence shouted, and her two changeling friends were quick on the uptake.
They both transformed in gouts of emerald flame into new shapes, Thorax favoring a giant, spike-tailed wyvern beast with alternating green and orange scales, while Pharynx grew into what looked like a brutish, thirty foot tall minotaur, like some primordial cousin to the modern species known today.
As Thorax blasted into the air, Pharynx used unbelievably corded muscles, thicker than boulders, to grip a chunk of street in front of him and rip it from the ground, lifting hundreds of tons of stone and dirt above his head.
Thorax’s wyvern form zipped past the crystal coffin and flicked his spiked tail over and over again. Pulsating orange light filled his wyvern tail with each swing, this particular variant of the creature having a magically explosive capability to fire destructive bards filled with a powerful chemical. Each barb was six feet long and fired with super sonic force, peppering the edifice with dozens of the bony projectiles that penetrated deeply as they burned with ready explosive force. At the same time Pharynx hurled his chunk of stone like a fastball pitcher, breaking the sound barrier with the force of his throw. The chunk of street impacted with the crystal hulk right atop Thorax’s spikes, driving them deep into the crystal while breaking through towards Chrysalis. There the barbs began to explode in a flood of bright orange detonations atop the Espada’s trapped body.
This served as more than enough trigger to also detonate the unstable magic energies gathering in the crystal itself, which shot out beams of light from every crack along its surface.
Just to be on the safe side, Cadence flew down towards the ground and generated a wide net of crystal wires, interlaced with shielding magic, to minimize the impact on the city before the entire crystal edifice lit up the sky in a colossal sphere of destructive sapphire energy.
Cadence waited for the force to subside before removing her barrier, and hovered in the air just as Thorax flew around to land not far from her, with Pharynx nearby. Still in his primordial minotaur shape, Pharynx put a hand up to shield his eyes and said, “Why do I got a bad feeling that didn’t do her in?”
“Oooh, I hate it when you jinx things, brother,” said Thorax, “Can’t we have a little... optimism...?”
His trailing sentence was due to a few drops of blood splattering onto his wyvern snout. Cadence frowned as she noticed more drops of ruby blood descending from the sky, and felt her stomach churn as a few drops quickly became a full on rainstorm of sanguine proportions.
Blood rained from on high, generated by a spreading crimson cloud in the sky that darkened all and cut off the light of the sun. And the force creating this cloud was a bubbling, floating mass of blood and viscera that swirled in the air where the explosion had been. Yet Cadence somehow knew the blood was not the result of her spell damaging Chrysalis, but rather the full release of this ‘Resurreccion’ that the Espada had activated. This was only confirmed as Chrysalis’ voice boomed down from the sky, a sky now crying a full on rain of red that started to paint all the Crystal Empire.
“I have to praise you. All of you. Princess Cadence, proving her title is so well deserved. Her noble husband, Shining Armor, living up to his name as he and his guards so gallantly battle my children. Thorax, Pharynx, you are so much better than what my counterpart deserves as offspring. Even the fervent prayers of this Empire’s citizens, fueling that magnificent tower and the heart that powers it, shine so brightly. HehehehHAHAHAHA! I love this. This feeling of passionate emotions. So much fear, hatred, hope, and love, all laid out before me in souls so beautiful it makes me salivate. What Hollow could resist this bountiful feast?”
The churning maelstrom of dense blood and flesh gathered into a tighter and tighter cluster, reforming into a new solid shape that was surrounded by a forking aura of wild green and crimson bolts of spiritual power. Limbs took form, black flesh still wet and slick with blood, whilst a body grew organ by organ and bone by bone around a framework of interlocking black and white chitin.
Cadence held back a gagging sensation, and resisted the push of cloying spiritual aura as Chrysalis’ transformation finally emerged in it’s proper completion in the sky above her. The Princess looked upon her enemy and did her level best to keep her courage, and found that she could, despite the gnawing realization that she may have underestimated this creature who wore the face of the Chrysalis she knew in Equestria... but was an altogether different kind of monster.
Before the fear could grip her too hard, she felt the calm breath of a warm breeze in her mind, and for a moment almost thought she heard the chuckle of a stallion’s encouraging tone.
”Be steady. You’re not done yet.”
Anteros? She still couldn’t tell if the old alicorn’s memories from the Relic ring had fully hit her yet. It felt less like another was invading her thoughts and more like she was just thinking to herself. She was just glad of the fact that she wasn’t having to fight a battle on two fronts, especially with what she now faced.
Chrysalis’ body was an unnatural amalgamation of various species of the insect and arachnid families, all blended into a singular coherent chimera with the woman’s “human” body acting as the still sickeningly attractive centerpiece. Her upper body was much the same, although she was all but nude save for the way chitinous white bands of bone shaped like insect legs wrapped around her chest and girded her loins, trailing a near transparent skirt of thin spidery silk. Her legs, however, grew and split past the thighs into a set of mantis-like scythe blades, each over six feet long before one counted the curves. From her back sprung a set of massively wide, faded white moth wings, and a second set of wings akin to a wasp’s. The moth wings were intershot with veins of red, pooling into a pair of baleful eye-like patterns that graced each wing, while the wasp wings were instead infused with glinting streaks of green energy that filled them with an almost electric crackle.
A wide and bulbous protrusion ran from her rear, expanding into what looked like the orb-shaped abdomen of a black widow spider, except that it was covered in sharp bands of bone that sported green tipped barbs, and sported not simply spinnerets but a huge and protruding wasp’s stinger that dripped red fluid. Furthermore, the orb pulsated strangely, lit from within with flashes of green light, and Cadence could make out the shapes of ovals within the bulky frame. Eggs?
Chrysalis’ face remained the same onyx carved statue of horrific beauty, but was somehow twistedly enhanced by a set of fang-like protrusions that framed her jawline. Her jagged white horn of bone was now joined by the wide sweep of a pair of green moth-like antennae that blended into her now longer and thicker head of turquoise hair. Her arms seemed longer, sheathed to the elbows in interwoven bands of white chitin. Her slim fingers bore obsidian claws, and they clutched a new weapon. It looked like a long pole of black iron, tipped at either end by a fan-like blade of darkened chitin. Cadence was not familiar with the design, but it reminded her of weapons she’d once seen depicted in hieroglyphics from one of the old history books she’d read as a foal. A... fan-axe? Palm-axe? Something like that, but two bladed instead of one.
And still set in Chrysalis’ Hollow hole above where her womb would be, the artificial siren gem glowed, and around the edges of the hole the unusual lines of bright red light shone with feverish energy.
“Eugh, didn’t think she could get any uglier,” said Pharynx, crossing his thick minotaur arms before eyeing a fallen pillar that he kicked up with a foot and hefted as a weapon, handling the near twenty foot long chunk of stone like a light club.
Thorax, still in the guise of a wyvern, gulped, “I’m glad you’re feeling so chipper, brother, but I am... starting to worry.”
“We’re not done yet,” Cadence told them, not taking her eyes off of Chrysalis as she readied her halberd, poising it in front of her in a glow of levitation magic, “There’s still a chance-”
“Hold that thought, Cadence dear.”
It was Chrysalis’ voice that cut through the air like a knife made of foghorns, followed by a pressure wave of spiritual energy that hit the entirety of the city all at once. It wasn’t even an attack, per se. It was simply Chrysalis pouring out her reiatsu without mitigation, without keeping it in check. It made the air, already filled with a bloody rain that was in essence a physical trace of her spirit energy, already feel more choking and unbreathable.
Then there was a horrendously loud, wet ripping noise. Cadence blinked in disgusted fascination as a hole tore itself open in Chrysalis’ spidery abdomen. Then, from that hole, blood welled like some terrible balloon.
“I want to show you why I value my children so much,” Chrysalis said, “Because for the longest time, I could not have any. All I could make were these... mindless creatures that exist only to feed. My ”Nacimiento Sanguinario.” (Sanguine Birth)
A jet torrent of blood red ruin shot forth from the hole that had opened within Chrysalis. It ripped into the ground with such speed and force that all the city trembled as the liquid stream punctured deep into the earthen foundations of the Crystal Empire. All the while Chrysalis’ spiritual pressure pressed down on all living souls within the city like a suffocating smoke.
Shining Armor, stronger and stouter than most, was able to still stand under the intense reiatsu, but many of his Crystal Guard were halted in the middle of their battle, some collapsing to their bellies while others barely remained standing while gasping for breath. Redheart’s Reigai felt the terrible reiatsu as well and felt her artificial body still break out in an all too realistic cold sweat as both she and Shining Armor looked skyward.
“What is that?” Shining Armor asked between dry mouthed heavy breaths.
“The Second Espada,” Redheart replied plainly, her own pale features now filled with a sickened and regretful shadow, “And she’s clearly going beyond what she was told to do by Starlight Glimmer. I’m so sorry.”
“Save it,” Shining Armor said, ironclad control entering his less than understanding tone, “You brought her here. You’re on her side.”
“Not for mindless slaughter,” Redheart replied, first glancing at the shaking ground, then towards the nearby Arrancar.
Chrysalis’ children had ceased to attack, and all looked up towards the sky where their “mother” was. Each Arrancar, be they male or female, no matter what traces of individuality had existed among them, all now wore identical expressions of rapturous joy as they raised their hands upward.
“Mother!” they chanted as one, “Mother calls!”
“Yes, my children!” Chrysalis’ voice echoed down in thunderous reply, “Your mother loves you all, and bids you give her space to play. It’d be no good to accidentally get caught in her playtime.”
It was as if the Arrancar were mere marionettes now, their actions all synched as one entity. Or rather, one will. Chrysalis’ absolute will coursed through each of her drone children’s veins and souls, her words, her intent, acting as absolute commands. As one the surviving Arrancar drones all vanished, using Sonido to vacate the area of combat with all speed. There was no voicing of disagreement or dissent, not even a fraction of hesitation. They obeyed their mother’s will instantly, and her will was that they not remain in the Crystal Empire to distract her as she went about her fun.
Shining Armor wore a tight lipped look as he said, “Why does them all leaving not make me feel better?”
“Because you’re not a fool,” Redheart replied, “You understand it’s only because she’s much worse. Please, I know you have no reason to trust me, or even like me, and I am not asking for that. Just allow me to help aid the wounded and get them somewhere safe before this city becomes a ruin.”
“I’m not about to let this city be ruined!” Shining Armor barked, but his eyes traced over his guardponies, seeing how many could barely stand under Chrysalis’ aura that covered all the city. With a reluctant grunt he eyed Redheart, “But I’m not a fool, like you said. Help the wounded. We’ll work out what to do about you and yours if we’re all still alive at the end of the day to worry about it.”
By the time he was done speaking the tremors in the ground had only gotten worse. Up in the air, hundreds of feet above the city, Cadence had a significantly better view of things and had a clearer set of magical senses that let her feel out the course of Chrysalis’ spirit energy. To her cold dread she felt rivers of Chrysalis’ power surging all through the underground around the city and beyond, the jets of blood spurting relentlessly from the Espada carving through the earth.
Within moments she saw geysers of blood breaking through the ground, both within the city, and for miles around in the area surrounding it. And as the blood did this, it changed, growing less liquid and more thick, like ruby syrup or sap. In seconds jagged spikes of crimson resin filled the city and surrounded it in a clawed grasp, as if the whole of the Empire had just been infected by the growths of a twisted beehive.
Then the resin spikes cracked in places, opening up like cocoon chambers. In bloody bursts of birthing liquids, new Hollows emerged in the dozens, perhaps hundreds. These things were not like the other Arrancar drones, who’s features were still largely human. These creatures instead were blood soaked things of dark nightmare, their chitinous skin covered in sharp protrusions of bone, their faces covered in masks of jagged edged white, covering all but too-wide mouths of gnashing fangs.
“Do you like them?”
Cadence was shaken from her morbid shock but Chrysalis was standing right next to her. With a rough shout, Cadence swung her halberd in an air splitting slice, it’s crystal edge aimed for Chrysalis’ neck.
Chrysalis caught the halberd’s blade with her left hand, using her index and middle finger to deftly halt the weapon in place amid a shockwave of force from stopping such a swift and brutal blow instantly. Chrysalis didn’t even blink and went on to say, “These were all I could make at first. From my blood. They’re not great conversationalists. They just hunger. Oh, I can command them, and they obey, but without my guidance they just seek the nearest souls and... well, follow nature’s course.”
The air filled with a nightmarish chorus of pitifully high pitched howls that made the hairs of Cadence’s fur prick up on end with a primal herd animal fear of predators seeking flesh.
The sanguine Hollow drones began to charge through the streets of the city in a mad tide, sniffing out the nearest sources of life. Which happened to be Shining Armor and the Crystal Guard. The howls had given the guardponies more than enough warning and motivation to overcome their fear and get their act together, but many were still struggling to even breath properly due to Chrysalis’ reiatsu.
Fortunately Shining Armor was still Twilight’s brother, and a smart pony in his own right. With swift barked commands he started gathering his troops up in a defensive formation in the central square. From there, he erected a focused dome of protective magic, which went up in a sparkling and translucent shell of pink and purple energy around the square where the bulk of his forces and the gathered wounded were situated. When the horde of drones found the barrier, they went at it like feral beasts, clawing and scraping with horrendous violence that made even the protected guard ponies flinch back at the ferocity of the creatures.
For each strike, the barrier shimmered with ripples of force.
Shining Armor’s barrier was potent and could hold for a time, but for groups of guards caught elsewhere in the city, they were not so fortunate. The speed of the slavering Hollow drones was such that when they stampeded through the city streets, a few smaller groups of guards who'd been outside the central square suddenly found themselves surrounded by a flashing mass of claws and teeth. Some managed to fire off explosive crystal bolts from crossbows or erect small protective magic domes, but none of these guards were Shining Armor, and their reactively weaker barriers were shredded in moments.
In seconds the high pitched screams of ponies serenaded the air, and Shining Armor felt his heart both turn cold with pain at knowing he was losing soldiers under his command whilst at the same time a fresh fire of rage built within him.
As the sky remained clouded in a shroud of red, and reishi fell in bloody droplets from Chrysalis’ released power, and the cries of the dying echoed loudly through the streets, the Crystal Empire looked like a city trapped in an apocalyptic nightmare.
And to this sight, Chrysalis sighed with a fond contentment, the siren gem in her body pulsating as it absorbed power from the slain. As this Hollow drones were extensions of herself, anything they killed transferred power, along with a heady dose of magic, right into her. Of course regular ponies from the Crystal Guard weren't exactly a power boost for one already near the apex of Hollow might, but Chrysalis was just glad to see Grogar's replica was working as intended. Turning to Cadence, she said, “Don’t misunderstand. I love my genuine children dearly, but sometimes I do miss the early days before I knew a mother’s sense of responsibility, where I could let my hair down like this. You understand of course, don’t you Princess, being a mother yourself?”
Cadence had not hovered there in idle shock as Chrysalis had talked casually while her monsters sought to enact large-scale slaughter. Anger, bright and hot, filled the Princess’ veins and pushed back the chill of fear in a melting tide. Beneath the visor of her helmet, her eyes shone through bright like twin dots of neon blue.
Wires exploded from her wings in a wild storm of snapping motions. The crystal wires wrapped themselves around Chrysalis’ throat, limbs, and wings in a tight squeeze of molecular thin sharpness that Cadence applied crushing force to. In the same instant she yanked her halberd backwards, pulling it free of Chrysalis’ grasp, and hefted it above her in her magical levitation grip. The heart-shaped blades of the halberd shifted, extending outward and growing serrated edges as the blade heads began to spin, faster and faster until the weapon had effectively turned itself into a circular saw.
Cadence brought the spinning weapon down in a howling arc, all the while Chrysalis looked on, unperturbed.
There was a gust of wind amid a series of tearing sounds as Chrysalis twitched her right hand that held her strange double-bladed polearm. Cadence didn’t catch the weapon’s movement, she simply felt her crystal wires snapping in clean cuts as if they were no more than strings being brushed aside.
Then the spinnerets on Chrysalis’ body shuddered, and in a subtle glint of green the air abruptly filled with strands of jade colored spider-silk. The strands coated Cadence’s halberd and stopped it’s motions dead, while Cadence herself felt the strands of web snaking around her body in tight motions that bound her in place.
“I’m trying to have a conversation here. The least you could do is respond,” Chrysalis said with an strange tick in her lips as she dragged Cadence closer to her face, where the Espada flicked her tongue out, not quite touching Cadence’s face, “I’m going through a lot of trouble to make this moment special for us. Don’t spoil it by disappointing me.”
“Nobody cares about what you want you deranged lunatic!”
This stemmed from Pharynx, who had been airlifted in his minotaur form by Thorax, who bore his brother up with incredibly swift speed in his wyvern body. Hurling Pharynx like a living ballistic missile, Thorax threw his brother at Chrysalis in a fastball pitch. Pharynx hefted the crystal pillar he’d grabbed earlier and brought it down like a sledgehammer as he smashed into Chrysalis. The pillar broke in half, shattering into shards, whilst Pharynx’s air tackle met with a discharge of emerald power that shot from one of Chrysalis’ wasp wings. The lance of forking energy struck Pharynx head on, causing him to convulse, and then lose his minotaur form and revert to his changeling shape. Chrysalis caught his falling body with more strands of green spider silk that held his smoking form in a tight net.
“Boys, I’m having girl time with my friend now,” Chrysalis said in an admonishing tone, “I’d appreciate it if you went to your rooms.”
“They’re not your children,” Cadence stated, wondering if Chrysalis was truly losing her mind? Did this Resurreccion form somehow warp the woman’s perceptions even further than they already were? Either way, she took advantage of Chrysalis’ attention being elsewhere to pour magical power out of her horn and channeled it into the spider webs wrapping her up.
Crystals sprang through the webs, running along them to coat both her and then Chrysalis in a layer of sparkling blue. The crystals even covered some of the web leading to Pharynx, and Cadence then triggered the crystals to shatter, freeing her and Pharynx while adjusting the shattering on Chrysalis to instead turn into a blanket of cutting shards to try and dice the Arrancar’s flesh.
While Cadence was free, and Pharynx was caught by his brother as he fell, the alicorn was disappointed to see her crystal shards didn’t even manage to scratch Chrysalis’ hardened flesh. The power coursing through the Arrancar now was such that Cadence suspected that nothing in her arsenal of spells or weapons could do much to actually hurt Chrysalis. Even slowing the monster down was questionable now.
And with Shining Armor and his ponies surrounded by those monstrosities down below slowly cracking through the barrier of magic protecting the Empire’s brave but outnumbered troops, time was short to come up with any kind of way out of this nightmare. Her husband and his guardponies were fighting back, firing blasts of magic and crossbow bolts through his shield to tear into the drones outside Shining Armor's barrier, assisted by Redheart generating waves of freezing snow with her Zanpaktou, but any of the drones that were destroyed seemed to be quickly replaced by more than sprung from the column spikes of resin that Chrysalis had created.
“Pharynx! Talk to me!” Thorax was shouting to his brother, and Pharynx let out a long groan and cough.
“Ugh, could you keep it down, doofus? Head is still ringing like crazy.”
“Oh thank goodness,” Thorax breathed, and as he and Cadence flew to get some distance from Chrysalis, who watched them with almost casual curiosity as they did so, he said to Cadence, “Umm, new plan? Any plan?”
“I’m thinking.” Cadence replied simply, then pulled herself into a hovering halt alongside Thorax as Chrysalis was suddenly in front of them, tapping her hip with the fingers of her free hand.
“Think faster, Cadence dear,” Chrysalis said, pointing down with her weapon, “Your people are not going to last long.”
“I know that, but Shining Armor won’t go down that quickly and neither will those that fight alongside him,” Cadence shot back, but Chrysalis shook her head.
“I wasn’t speaking of your boytoy and his silly little soldiers. I was talking about your people. The helpless civilians you evacuated into underground shelters. You know, those closed off, inescapable little boxes that just so happen to be so very easy for my children to burrow into?”
“What?” Cadence said breathlessly, and with a burst of magical senses focused upon the ground. She knew where all of the shelters were, built several hundred feet below the city surface. Each shelter was well stocked with food, water, and air recycling magic to keep the civilians evacuated there safe in case of a day like this.
It had not ever truly occurred to Cadence that such measures might not provide the best security in case of an enemy that could readily burrow underground. She felt the tendrils of Chrysalis’ hardened resin spikes that she’d sent tunneling through the earth, and realized that almost each of the underground shelters was compromised by one of them. Right at that moment, she could sense the presence of more of Chrysalis’ horrid clone Hollows as they emerged from those underground spikes to burrow the last few meters towards the shelters.
“You’d better do something fast, otherwise consider the bloodbath,” Chrysalis said, “Thousands of helpless ponies trapped in neat little slaughter pens. Why, I imagine in their panic they’ll trample themselves to death as much as my ‘children’ will tear into them. What will you do, Cadence? I want to see it. How you shine while pushed to utter desperation. Burn your soul brighter for me.”
Cadence’s response was as immediate as it was blinding.
Heedless of the personal danger of drawing upon more of the Crystal Heart’s power, she called forth a bright line of power that pulsated upward from the crystal tower’s base all the way to it’s pointed apex. From there it burned across the air in a faucet stream of solid blue light. Cadence was there to catch it, her four wings of metallic edges extending like opening flower petals to receive the light in a bright array. Cadence could feel the magic, in too great an abundance for even her body to properly handle, scalding her within her armor, but she didn’t care. She just needed a second to focus the power through her wings and then into her horn.
It then all fired at once in one crystal blue lance of power straight into Chrysalis, briefly illuminating the red hellscape the city had become in a painted layer of sky blue light.
It was impossible to see exactly what effect the beam had on Chrysalis, but the Espada was carried in a straight and slightly downward curved line to impact with the ground about halfway through the city. Collateral damage to empty buildings was not on Cadence’s mind as she kept the beam’s power going as it sliced through city, buildings, and then out into the countryside for a few miles before ending in a flash and cylindrical detonation that ripped skyward for hundreds of meters.
Gasping in pain and barely holding herself in the air, Cadence let go of the magic and nearly lost consciousness. She felt Thorax’s warm, scaly wyvern back float up under her as the transformed changeling king gave her a platform to stand on using his own body.
“Yikes Cadence, did you, um, overdo it?” Thorax asked cautiously, “I mean, you don’t look so good. Your armor is, err, cracking and kinda sparking?”
It was true. As she looked at herself, Cadence realized the armor from her Relic was now cracked in multiple places, and unstable sparks of energy ran over her body like a partially broken magi-tech device close to exploding. She hadn’t outright killed herself by drawing too much power from the Crystal Heart, but she’d definitely pushed her limit just then.
But she shook that thought off, gasping for more breath as she said, “No time to worry about me! We have to help the civilians!”
“Hey, relax!” Pharynx said, finally extricating himself from his brother’s protective talons, after which he flew up to join Cadence. She gave him a disbelieving look.
“Relax? You heard what she said! Those things are about to slaughter my people!”
“Did you forget?” Pharynx said, and Thorax looked over at her as well, his wyvern features managing a reassuring smile.
“We told Chrysalis already, the Crystal Empire is under changeling protection.”
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Within the well lit space of a vast underground bunker, hundreds of crystal ponies remained huddled close to friends and family as each stallion, mare, and foal fervently hoped for the safety and success of both their beloved Princess and their gallant countryponies fighting in the Crystal Guard. The stone walls were well lit with crystal lanterns that kept the bunkers bathed in bright light, and rows of sleeping cots and stacked crates of foodstuffs ensured each pony would be able to survive in this area for weeks. Each bunker was largely open, with side rooms for water storage, additional sleeping space, and emergency exits both in terms of escape tunnels and teleportation circles. Additional magic crystals running through the walls and ceiling acted as air purifiers and recyclers, so suffocation was not an issue.
What was an issue was that not long after numerous tremors had shaken the ponies within these bunkers, many of them noticed cracks running up and down the walls of their sanctuary. Not long after this, hardened spikes of blood red resin punctured through the stone walls, emerging like the claws of some gigantic beast.
Fearful ponies looked on in confusion, then outright fear as honeycomb-like portions of the spikes melted away in globs of crimson goo, and from within emerged spindly creatures covered in terrible, bladed limbs and bearing hissing faces filled with fangs.
As dozens of these monsters plopped into the bunker, ponies scrambled backwards, some ready to stampede towards emergency exits, even if no “all clear” signal had been given to indicate the surface was safe.
However, before panic could set in, crystal ponies emerged from the fearful crowd to form a line between their fellows and the terrible beasts stalking towards them. Confusion turned to surprise on many faces as some of these ponies were covered in emerald fire and took on the colorful forms of changelings loyal to King Thorax, bearing such bright and cheerful colorations that contrasted sharply with the obsidian creatures approaching them.
“Stay calm everypony!” many a changeling reassured the citizens of the Crystal Empire, “We won’t let any harm come to you, our neighbors and friends.”
In preparation to defend the Empire, Thorax had asked for volunteers to take up positions amid the citizenry, suspecting that any attack on the city might require protectors to stay close to the civilian population. His accurate guess had just ensured that every single bunker, when faced with Chrysalis’ Hollow drones, now had a defensive force of changelings present.
Despite their friendly and bright colored appearance, these changelings were still the same individuals who had survived many years under the rule of Equestria’s Chrysalis. While the vast majority took to their new lifestyle under King Thorax with a great deal of joy and open mindedness, they had not lost the skills of harsh survival and combat learned while under the rule of their former queen.
In a billowing line of emerald balls of fire, scores of changelings transformed themselves. Now facing Chrysalis’ drones was a charging formation of savage beasts ranging all across the spectrum of nature. Burly bears as big as wagons, or swift loping predatory cats, to mandible clacking scorpions and hulking spiders, a veritable bestiary horde met with the Hollow drones in a brutal clash of flaying.
The crystal ponies could only look on in mute awe as their previously unknown changeling allies tore into the Hollows, limbs and blood flying about like toy blocks kicked around by an irate toddler. While the fight was not one-sided, the Hollow drones retaliating with equal ferocious and single minded violence, the momentum was on the changeling’s side.
This was only added to when, emboldened by the sight of the changelings fighting for them, the most physically fit and courageous of the crystal ponies began to grab whatever bludgeoning objects they could, some tearing apart bed frames to make clubs, and joined the fray for survival.
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Cadence absorbed Thorax’s explanation with heavy breaths, then bowed her head in thanks, “I owe you and yours, Thorax. I pray it’ll be enough to keep our people safe, but whatever happens today, know I’ll never forget this.”
She cracked a weak smile, “Still, you could’ve told me earlier.”
“Eheh, was kinda a last minute thing,” Thorax said with clear embarrassment coloring his wyvern scales in a purple hue, “Pharynx’s idea, in fact.”
“Really?” Cadence said, casting a questioning look the brother’s way, to which Pharynx shrugged.
“What? Made sense to me, and didn’t think you needed being bothered about it when we weren’t even sure if an attack was coming,” he said, then turned a deep glower towards the city below, where there were still hundreds of drones assaulting the defensive barriers surrounding the Crystal Guard forces, “Enough chatter. We’d best get down there and start clearing out those mooks.”
Cadence fully agreed, wanting nothing more than to go to her husband’s side and protect him, along with all the other ponies still fighting to defend the city. But she knew better. She hadn’t, for an instant, let her focus slip nor her senses falter, and she knew that Chrysalis was nowhere near beaten.
“We can’t. She’s coming,” she said, eyes locked on the distant pillar of smoke where her charged up beam of magic had detonated well outside the city limits. The blast had created a crater several kilometers wide, as strong an attack as Cadence had ever personally put out, but she felt Chrysalis there. The Espada’s spiritual energy didn’t feel lessened. If anything it felt like it was still growing stronger.
Cadence saw a wave of air pressure billow out from the smoking crater, dispersing the smoke instantly as a streaking twin trail of red and green light rocketed towards the city. Chrysalis flew not towards them, but rather at an upward angle above the city, and Cadence heard the woman’s rich laughter scraping the air in an unnaturally loud echo.
“Well done, Cadence dear. I actually felt that last hit! Too bad it seems you needed to draw out so much of that crystal bauble’s energy to do it. If you could pull dance moves like that at will, I’d be ecstatic. Still, color me impressed! Impressed enough that I’m quite tempted to take you home with me. In fact...”
Her flight halted at a point about fifty or so meters above the crystal tower itself, and an intense stream of green energy from her wasp wings and ruby aura from her moth wings shimmered in the air around her. Soon everything, land and air both, were vibrating with her power.
“How about I just take the whole city, tower, Heart, Princess, and all?”
The rumbling intensified, and Thorax let out a blurted, “W-what is she doing?”
Then there was a cracking noise like a thousand avalanches all at once, and Cadence looked in blinking astonishment as she saw the landscape around the city start to split. For about a distance of several hundred meters in an uneven oval pattern the land was being torn open by arcs of red and green power that leapt through the landscape like giant fingers. After a few moments, to Cadence’s outright shock, she saw the land start to rise.
An unbelievable cacophony of tearing rock could be heard as the Crystal Empire and a good chunk of surrounding landscape was lifted into the sky in a grasp of interlocking spirit energy emanating from Chrysalis. Millions upon millions of tons of rock were hefted skyward through the shear force of directed spiritual power, rising slowly but steadily until the whole city dangled several hundred feet up like a flying island of rock. Fortunately the underground bunkers were contained deep enough in the rock that they were not in immediate danger, but Cadence immediately understood that if Chrysalis dropped the city, the resulting impact would likely crush everypony, be they in a bunker or on the surface.
“You’re insane!” Cadence shouted at Chrysalis, gathering magical power around her as she made a bee-line straight for the smiling Arrancar.
“By most definitions, yes,” Chrysalis agreed, unperturbed by Cadence’s headlong charge, “But I’ve never been one to let others opinions get me down. Positive self-image is very important to mental health.”
Ignoring Chrysalis’ ramblings, Cadence started to shift her course to perform a series of sharp angled maneuvers as she increased her speed, leaving numerous curved streaks of light in her path. She wanted to throw Chrysalis off, if only for a moment. The fact that her opponent was all but unscathed told Cadence that this wasn’t going to be won by brute force. At this juncture it didn’t matter how hard Cadence hit Chrysalis. Not if she didn’t find a weak point.
Her only thought was that she could see but one possible spot of weakness on Chrysalis’ body that might count... if only she could land a telling blow.
Her darting evasive pattern took her in a vaulting arc above Chrysalis, where Cadence sent out a new wave of crystal wires from her wings. Rather than attack Chrysalis directly with them, she spread the wires in a series of crossing patterns around the Espada. Cadence then channeled magic through the wires, a very simple spell that she cranked up to the highest possible magnitude while closing her eyes for a second.
Light coursed through the wires, acting like strings of blinding phosphorus. The resulting explosion of light drenched the sky and would have likely made anyone looking directly at it see nothing but white for at least a few seconds if not minutes.
To her satisfaction, Cadence heard Chrysalis let out a brief and perturbed noise, and hoping that meant the Arrancar had also been momentarily blinded, Cadence homed in on Chrysalis’ energy and cast forth her halberd, which she’d kept floating close to her until that point.
“Oh, that is a nice try,” Chrysalis said as she flung out a hand to catch the halberd, blinking her eyes to get her vision back. Only when she did see what she’d caught she saw it was indeed Cadence’s halberd... but just the shaft.
The crystal axe head of the halberd was no longer attached to the shaft, which Cadence had hurled specifically predicting that Chrysalis would catch it effortlessly just as she had before.
Meanwhile, under Cadence’s powerful telekinetic magic, the axe head, which had remained in it’s spinning saw configuration, came flying in from the side, having also been cloaked by a basic invisibility and silence spell that would have rendered it difficult to detect until the last second. Those spells had to fall away because Cadence was charging the axe head now with a powerful burst of raw magic energy that made the spinning blade crackle with a storm of teal light just as it cut across it’s target.
That target being Chrysalis’ Hollow hole and the siren gem hovering inside.
Chrysalis let out her first genuine grunt of discomfort the entire fight as her flash sparked upon the spinning crystal edge of the axe head. Her Hierro, much stronger in this form, prevented what would have been a bisecting blow on any normal creature of flesh and turned it into a shallow wound, but it was a wound upon a rather unique portion of a Hollow’s anatomy.
“Grrrgh!” Chrysalis pulled back from the sawing blade and with a fresh light of fury in her eyes brought her own double bladed polearm up and down. Black and green energy pulsed from her own weapon as she slammed it upon the crystal halberd’s axe head with punishing force, generating a burst of force that clapped the sky in a dome-like wave. There was a crunching sound as the halberd’s head shattered into crackling crystal chunks, it’s energy dispersed.
Breathing in a ragged breath, Chrysalis placed a hand to the shallow wound that left a cut across the edges of the Hollow hole in her stomach, and Cadence noted that the wound didn’t immediately close like all the others had. It still did start to heal, but the healing rate was much slower.
Of course she didn’t have much time to absorb that fact as Chrysalis’ body burned with a fresh aura of smoking green and red light that warped the air around her, and the Espada’s face showed a look of terrifying anger. No longer joking, casual, or friendly, the acidic look in Chrysalis’ eyes matched her voice, “Cadence... dear, that was uncalled for.”
Cadence didn’t see Chrysalis move. She just felt the rush of hot pain exploded through her as savage lines were cut across her body, ripping her armor like aluminum foil. The rain of attacks was delivered by both Chrysalis’ dual fan-axe and the curved mantis blades on her legs, ripping gouges off of Cadence’s armor as the Princess was unceremoniously air juggled like a flying pink pinball across the sky. This viscous combo ended with Chrysalis appearing behind the helplessly tumbling Cadence and turning with a massive backhand blow that cracked the sky with another shockwave and sent Cadence hurtling back the other way until she plummeted straight into the crystal tower.
Breaking through the wall in a burst of crystal shards, Cadence hit the floor and skidded until she slammed through a dining room table and crashed over the side of a small set of stairs to land in a bloody heap against the wall to what was probably a kitchen. This looked like one of the guard dining rooms in the palace tower, not that Cadence had much time to take in the surroundings as she tried to rise on shaking hooves, bleeding from a dozen rather severe injuries, her head ringing and her stomach nauseous.
Even her helmet was cracked, portions of the visor torn away so that Cadence’s left eye was exposed.
Before she could even get one or two breaths, she felt a voice of warning in her head. Anteros?
Shield, girl! Now!
She didn’t question the instinct, and threw up a magical barrier with what strength she had left.
It was just in time to protect her, at least in part, as the destructive force of a dark green Cero beam ripped through the crystal tower around her. The magical shield barely held, and turned to shards of magic light even as Cadence saw most of the floor she was on and the one above her had been torn to melting bits of crystal and broken shards by the blast.
“Now, allow me to explain something...”
Chrysalis floated down into the giant hole she’d punctured in the crystal tower, checking her stomach once again to make sure the wound Cadence had made was now fully closed, “I’m a tolerant woman, especially towards my friends. But let’s just say that trying to injure me there, that’s a ‘no-no’. Even Tirek knows better than that. Normally such an action would be grounds for an immediate eviscerating.”
Cadence tried to produce a new set of crystal wires to attack, hoping against hope she might be able to target that hole in Chrysalis’ stomach again, but before she’d even made a gesture she felt Chrysalis’ fist impacting her chest. Cadence was thrown into the wall, and then she felt thick strands of crimson webbing splattering around her until her whole body, wings and wall, were wrapped up tight against the wall. She then felt Chrysalis’ fingers dig around her neck, the Arrancar having unnaturally extended her arm, as if the joints from the elbow down were more like a growing spider’s leg than a human’s.
“Luckily for you, today has been such a nice day, I’m feeling forgiving. You didn’t know, after all, did you Cadence?” Chrysalis’ hand started to squeeze on Cadence’s throat, cutting off air, as the Espada’s eyes glowed with a crazed light, “Did you? Nobody will take away my children, understand? Not you, not Zero Division, not Tirek, not the Quincy, NO ONE! I’ll kill every last thing in this world and any other before I let that happen. Hah... but like I said, you didn’t know.”
Chrysalis released Cadence’s throat and the alicorn took in a gasp of breath. She was trying to conjure up enough magic to generate some crystals to possibly break the webs holding her in place, but her magic reserves were running low. Being inside the tower itself she could possibly pull in some more power from the Crystal Heart, but she’d put her body under so much strain already, she wasn’t sure she’d survive doing that again. And even if she did, Chrysalis had proven able to withstand such a shot normally.
The only chance seemed to lay in empowering herself for one last attack at the only spot Chrysalis appeared to be vulnerable, but the Espada would be wary now and Cadence wasn’t sure she’d be able to create another opening.
Retracting her arm back to normal size, Chrysalis approached Cadence with slow, deliberate steps, but just then from the hole outside, Thorax and Pharynx came leaping in. Thorax had returned to his normal form like his brother had, but both now once again bore the weaponry shaped from their own body with Pharynx’s arm scythes and Thorax’s barbed blade and shield.
“Get away from her!” Thorax demanded, but Chrysalis just rolled her eyes at the pair.
“I don’t appreciate the constant interruptions, boys. I’ve already satiated my curiosity about the two of you, and I’m more interested in Cadence for now.”
“Why?” Thorax asked, and although Pharynx gave his brother an odd look, Thorax just made a ‘shush’ gesture back. “I don’t understand why you’re so focused on Princess Cadence.”
It wasn’t that Thorax was all that genuinely curious. He was just able to tell that Cadence needed time, so he was buying it by what he hoped was playing to this Chrysalis’ desire to talk about herself. Every second the Arrancar talked was a second for the tables to be turned. It looked like his guess was accurate, for Chrysalis, while not taking her eyes off Cadence, did halt her menacing advance on the trapped Princess and licked her lips.
“It’s not complicated, my little Thorax. She claimed the title Princess of Love. I have a great deal of respect for the nature and power inherent in love. Out of this world’s Princesses, she interests me the most. I wanted to see how well she lived up to her chosen title, and if her soul was worth my time. As it turns out, it very much is. Which is why I decided I’d take her.”
“Take her...? For what?” Thorax prodded, trying not to sound too eager or nervous as he hoped to keep her talking.
“As a friend, obviously,” Chrysalis said, still somehow managing to take such an innocent phrase and twist it into something ominous. She then moved in a flicker of Sonido, suddenly right next to Cadence as she reached up and grasped the alicorn’s horn. Cadence suddenly felt a spike of pain through her skull as Chrysalis channeled spiritual energy into her horn, disrupting the magic that Cadence had been building up there.
Thorax and Pharynx moved to interfere, but then Chrysalis held the edge of her blade out in a sudden sweeping motion. A pure pressure wave of force demolished the floor in front of her and sent a blast out that knocked both Thorax and Pharynx off their hooves. Neither fell out of the hole in the tower’s wall, each using their individual weapons to plant in the floor and hold on, but it did keep them back for a moment as Chrysalis spoke.
“Now Cadence, no more magic, or I’ll break your horn off. As much fun as I’ve had, I think this has gone on long enough. Come along quietly and I won’t drop your city, but set it down nice and gently. I don’t really care about your Empire or your citizens, or even that hunk of a husband. I’m just here for you. Your soul.”
“W-what are you... planning?” Cadence said between pained breaths. She couldn’t channel magic without Chrysalis sensing it and likely following through on her threat to break Cadence’s horn, but she suspected Chrysalis didn’t know a unicorn or alicorn could still channel magic even without a horn. She was prepared to sacrifice herself, if that was what it took.
“People with souls like yours are rare and precious,” Chrysalis said simply, “Gaia Everfree, Luna, Starlight Glimmer, Adagio Dazzle... oh I meet so few who truly interest me, Cadence. So I go out of my way to play with them. My precious friends, whose hatred I cherish so. You, too, Cadence. I’ll take you home with me, gouge your beautiful soul until it has a hole in it just like mine. Then you’ll be Hollow, like me. But so much more, too. Beyond a Hollow, with all that magic and love curdled to hatred and power. Oh, I’m shivering just thinking about it!”
The thought of it made Cadence want to retch, filling her with oily slick fear. She couldn’t even imagine being what this Chrysalis was, or something even remotely resembling it. To be forcibly transformed into such a creature was a horrifying prospect that left her numb as she said in scathing words, “I’d never let that happen. I’d destroy myself, first.”
“Such a dramatic declaration. Such utter loathing in your voice. This is why I like you, Cadence. Broken and beaten bloody, you still burn with such passion. Too many souls lay limp and practically dead already, like little bland worms crawling through what they call ‘life’.”
Chrysalis laid a hand once more over her Hollow hole, where the red markings pulsated with an organic heartbeat around the place where her womb would be, “Once I’m complete, I can awaken both worlds from their dreary slumber. Passionate hatred, love, and desire will alight inside every empty soul to ignite an eternal orgy of life. A fitting new world for my children to thrive in, if they so choose. And my friends... once they learn to appreciate the gift I’m offering.
Her hand then shot out and rammed itself right into Cadence, who let out a choked gasp. However, no blood spilled out. In fact no wound was visible at all on Cadence’s web-wrapped body. Instead it was as if Chrysalis’ hand had sunk into the alicorn’s body like an ethereal specter, passing through flesh without ripping or tearing.
Which was exactly what had happened. Chrysalis was a Hollow, and was only physical out of concentration of her reishi particles and an active will to physically interact with matter. But as a spirit being she could also pass through solid matter at will, and in this case she had no interest in touching Cadence’s body, but her soul. Cadence felt Chrysalis’ hand grasping something deep within her core, felt the Hollow’s cold grasp on her very essence like frost-covered razors.
“Let’s just yank this soul of yours out of a body you’re not going to need anymore,” Chrysalis said as she started to pull back with her hand. Cadence literally felt her lifeforce slipping from her flesh, yet with a spark of unbreaking determination she struggled back. She focused her magic within herself, trying to reverse the pull, and for a second managed to forestall Chrysalis' grasp.
“Oh don’t be stubborn,” Chrysalis said, “You’ll just make it more painful for yourself, and there will be plenty of time for that later once you’re settled into a new Hollow spirit form.”
As this was happening, Thorax and Pharynx had both regained their footing from Chrysalis’ earlier blast and were preparing to charge in, but just then they both felt a presence pass between them with a flash of motion. Suddenly a new voice spoke, swift and with command.
“Bakudo Number Seventy Nine; Kuyo Shibari.” (Nine Sun Bind)
In a quick set of popping bursts of static noise, eight black spheres of spirit energy emerged in a circular formation around Chrysalis, the spheres outlined in steady auras of deep violet. A ninth sphere appeared last, right in the center of Chrysalis’ chest, which in turn outlined her body in a similar aura of binding violet light. She grunted, more in irritation than anything else, and although she largely ceased moving, she still managed to turn her head back towards the one who cast the Kido.
“Now what do you think you’re doing, Reigai? I’m rather in the middle of something, and get rather cross at interruptions.”
Standing between Thorax and Pharynx, having just Flash Stepped there, whilst holding her Zanpaktou out still in it’s released Shikai state of a flat rectangular blade bearing four diamond mirrors, stood Zecora. The Reigai wore a flat look of displeasure on her gray features, meeting Chrysalis’ angered eyes without blinking.
“You have gone well outside the bounds outlined by Starlight Glimmer for this operation, Chrysalis,” Zecora said, to which Chrysalis let out a short laugh.
“Nooooo, really!? Me? Go out of bounds!? Of Glim’s ‘outline’? Perish the thought. Do you have any further piercing observations to share?”
Zecora kept the hand that had cast her binding Kido up and aimed at Chrysalis, “You were expressly forbidden from unnecessary killing-”
“Technically I've barely killed anyone. My children cut down a few guards, but really this has been a mild day for me by comparison. I mean, not that I haven’t been trying to make this a proper ravaging of a major city, but credit where it’s due my new friend Cadence here has been rather good at protecting her citizens.”
“Monster,” Cadence breathed, and Chrysalis’ cheeks reddened.
“Public flattery? You do like me!”
“Enough,” Zecora snapped, advancing a step, “We’re finished with what we came here to do, which was not to indulge your appetite for mayhem. I have all the information on the Crystal Heart that we need.”
“Although not the artifact itself, I note,” Chrysalis said, to which Zecora’s eyes gained a harder glint in them.
“I’ve determined removing the genuine article would violate Starlight Gimmer’s instructions, as it is too vital a component of this nation’s function to be removed. The information my Zanpaktou has gleaned in examining it is sufficient for our needs and hence this operation is complete. Remove your hand from the Princess and withdraw with me at once.”
“Ah, but the problem with that is that I don’t want to, my bossy Reigai,” Chrysalis replied coolly, “I came here for Cadence, not Starlight Glimmer’s flimsy ‘operation’. Why should I deny myself my prize when she’s right here, literally in my grasp? Especially when all that’s left defending her are two weaker versions of my sons, and a cheap copy of one of the less impressive Captains of Soul Society?”
In a sudden gust, reiatsu started to hum within Zeora and clash in the air with Chrysalis’ own exceedingly potent aura. While it was clear that there was still a large gulf between the two, Chrysalis raised a brow upon noticing it wasn’t quite as vast a difference as she would have expected. Zecora’s lips twitched in a small smile.
“Starlight Glimmer gifted us Reigai with life and reiatsu, and not all of us were made equal. Starswirl was made weaker than his original due to his... unpredictable nature. Platinum’s was given equal power to her true self, perhaps to encourage cooperation between the two. I, on the other hand, was given greater reserves of power than my original, enhanced by Starlight’s own reiatsu that she poured into me. Even so, I’m aware my power is not enough to defeat you, Chrysalis, Second Espada, but I assure you that you’ve never faced Captain Zecora’s Bankai, let alone said Bankai empowered beyond its original state. You may well kill me, but I will still delay you long enough for, say, this world’s Celestia or Luna to arrive and make things complicated for you. If you force it, that is exactly what I will do, because Starlight Glimmer tasked me with ensuring you did not do too much damage to this nation. I regret I was unable to do more until this moment. Now release the Princess, set this city back to the ground where it belongs, and we shall withdraw from this place. Otherwise I will activate my Bankai here and now.”
Chrysalis made a stretching motion, and the dark spheres of Kido binding her shuddered. Like balloons popping one by one each sphere snapped apart as the Espada flexed her smothering aura of devilishly violent reiatsu. Zecora tensed, raising her Zanpaktou, but Chrysalis just laughed and pulled her hand free of Cadence’s body. She held the hand up, as if to show she hadn’t yanked the alicorn’s soul out, yet there was a trace of glittering blue light around her fist, which Chrysalis put to her lips and licked like someone taking frosting off a spoon.
“Relax, oh uptight Reigai. I only took a little taste of her soul...” Chrysalis said, and then leaned over to put her lips close to Cadence’s dazed head, whispering in the Princess’ ears with a flick of her tongue, “I could kill the good Captain and finish what we’ve started here, but she has reminded me that it’s better to let these things marinate. I give you the lives of your husband and people and the safety of your homeland, just because you gave me such a good time. But don’t forget, I’ve put my mark on you, and you and I will finish this another time soon. I do hope you look forward to it.”
Chrysalis patted Cadence’s cheek and started to walk away, but Cadence managed to clear her throat and say, “Wait... before you go...”
“Hmm?” Chrysalis looked over her shoulder at the mare, and Cadence had raised her head, fixing Chrysalis with the one eye she had that was exposed past her cracked helmet visor.
“I just want you to know... next time, I won’t let you walk away. Next time, that’s the day you end. I promise.”
The smile on Chrysalis’ face, spread wide from ear to ear, could not have been more genuine as she bowed her head in a tilt of acknowledgment to the Princess. “Good. Nurture that feeling. Let that rancor and hate make you even more beautiful, for that promised day. I do so hope you get to meet my friend Gaia. You two will have so much to talk about. Ah, the bliss of facing both of you at the same time...”
Chrysalis shuddered through her whole body, as if just thinking about the idea of Cadence and Gaia Everfree fighting her together was pleasurable thought all it’s own. She then walked on, sweeping past Zecora, Thorax, and Pharynx as if they weren’t even there any longer.
Pharynx looked like he was about to spit nails, his jaw set in a hard line of disgruntlement as he watched her walk past, after which he looked to his brother, “Are we seriously just going to let her walk away?”
Looking no more pleased with the situation than Pharynx did, but with a much more reserved and practical look of control on his face, Thorax shook his head and said in a quieter voice, “Let’s just count ourselves lucky she is, Pharynx.”
“Oh, by all means, feel free to take a final stab at me if you like,” said Chrysalis as she reached the edge of the hole she’d blown out of the crystal tower. She raised her arms and the flying island that the Crystal Empire had become began to lower slowly through the air, “Of course I might just lose my concentration and drop the city. Don’t suppose you boys have the strength to catch it if I do, hmm?’
Pharynx growled, and Thorax sighed and looked away. Both were aware there was nothing either of them could do to attack her. Cadence was the only one with even a remote chance, and that only if she drew upon the Crystal Heart’s full power, which would likely result in her own death. As long as Chrysalis was actually leaving of her own accord none of them were willing to risk the safety of the whole nation just to take one last swing at the Arrancar menace that had ravaged the city.
Zecora looked miserable past the attempt at a professional mask, her voice level but conveying a wealth of regret as she too turned to move towards the edge of the hole, although she paused to look back at the two changeling brothers and the still webbed up Cadence, “I...”
The Regai hesitated, finally bowing her head in shame, “I am sorry.”
With those inadequate words Zecora went silent once more and joined Chrysalis as the Espada finished lowering the Crystal Empire. For a wonder, Chrysalis was fairly gentle in setting several million tons of earth and city back down into the general location she’d torn it from through shear force of reiatsu. The landing still shook the whole city and created a clamorous crash of rock to assault everyone’s ears. Yet the city was now back in place, albeit still in shambles with many buildings ruined outright or at least partially damaged by the horrific battle.
In the city proper Shining Armor and his guardponies looked on in shocked silence as not only did their city cease flying through the sky and get set back to solid earth, but the frightful Hollow drones that had nearly broken through their magical barriers all ceased their attacks as once and then simply... melted. In disgusting fashion each mindless drone, as if by some unseen command, raised mouths to the sky and let out warbling howls as their bodies grew slick and translucent, then every single one dissolved into puddles of red ichor that itself soon evaporated. Even the giant spikes of crimson resent that had risen thorough the city began to crumble as Chrysalis withdrew her power back into herself.
Chrysalis remained in her transformed state, however, as if to taunt her foes before her departure, although once the drones were gone and the city back in place all she did was look over at Cadence one final time and blow the alicorn a kiss before she vanished with the speed of a Sonido.
Zecora, silent and grim, vanished with her using a Flash Step. She would appear only briefly above the city’s main square where Redheart had remained near Shining Armor, and upon a single knowing look shared between the two Reigai, Redheart herself gave Shining Armor an apologetic final look before joining her ‘Captain’ and disappearing via a Flash Step.
And just like that, the battle was over, the Crystal Empire “safe”. At least for that day. But none who remained had any delusion of victory. They had survived. Persevered under overwhelming circumstances. Yet as Cadence was torn free of the webs by Thorax’s and Pharynx’s helping hooves, the Princess had a look of haunted fierceness in her eyes. Something was changed inside her, and she couldn’t be certain at all if it was simply the anger and hate now boiling within, or if Chrysalis had truly left some kind of spiritual mark upon her when she’d tried to remove Cadence’s soul.
Regardless, she knew one thing for certain; she and this Chrysalis would meet again.
And it would be the end of one of them.