//------------------------------// // Chapter 52 // Story: "Little Pony" // by ButterscotchFTW //------------------------------// Time being frozen did not do any justice to the centipede-changeling hybrid thing. Even when I got closer to the changeling to get a better understanding of what exactly I was dealing with here, I just couldn't find it in myself to continued looking at it. I grimaced and looked past it, eyeing the mile long body and all of the very large and dangerous legs that were numbered in the thousands and wishing that in this moment I had a M2 flamethrower to eradicate this thing off the face of this planet. Nevertheless I could see that beyond all of gangly legs, there was a perfectly carved out tunnel that seemed to be where all of the other tunnels fed into. But the further I looked the more dark it got, so I shook my head and quickly distanced myself away from the changeling. I walked over to Spear Head and looked up at him, specifically his facial expression. It was a stark contrast to all the other Royal Guards that I saw back at the castle. This guy wasn't actually shitting himself at the sight of something that one would only dream of in their nightmares. That won him a few brownie points with me. "Alright.." I said to myself as I turned around to look at the living blockade that kept us from getting out of here. Nodding my head as a plan started forming. "Alright." I said in finality before I turned over to Spear Head and reach over to grab one of his hooves. I wrapped my own hooves around the much larger ones and spread my wings out, flapping them for a bit before I lifted myself into the air and started moving him and myself along. But note that since I wasn't a hummingbird and my wings weren't structured like theirs, it was more difficult. But I was lucky that freezing time meant that everything I touched and moved was essentially weightless. Though I did have to be wary as I dragged him along. I was covering enough ground to be almost past the normal changeling looking part of the hybrids body, but as I stopped and looked along the rest of the centipede half of it I worried over the possibility of my ability fizzling out on me in an inopportune time like it did in the past. I flew us over and through parts of the changelings body that curled over in on itself and that blocked the parts that I was currently flying us through. It was a good bit of that before I finally was able to get us clear and into a centered part of the tunnel. The other smaller and more narrow tunnels that fed into this one were all faintly glowing with the same bright green substance that lined a lot of this places wall. That wasn't important at the moment, what was finding out how we were going to get away from this beast when I restarted the flow of time. "Okay.." I let go of his hoof and made sure that he wasn't in any position to go flying when everything started up again. Then I flew back up and landed down on his back, leaning my body forwards and grabbing onto his neck I let out a small sigh and mentally prepared myself for what was most likely going to be another one of these chase scenes. "Stop.." A small but sharp feeling of pain hit me in the center of my forehead as all of the grey distorted and started funneling all of the color back into my vision. Then sound followed up by the movements of Spear Head fell back into normalcy. "---! huh?" Spear's voice was the first thing coherent thing I heard as he took a step back in surprise and quickly looked at his surroundings, before he immediately glanced around to look at me. His face was full of confusion and as he stared me in the eyes, but I was quick to shut down any sort of questions he had. "Forget that, run!" I said while pressing myself closer to him and readjusting my grip around his neck. The loud impact sound and the screeching that followed was quick to further my insistence to start running as his eyes looked past me and back over at where the changeling was quickly learning that we were in fact, not right where it wanted us to be! So he asked no further question and immediately started booking it in the opposite direction. As we were on the move, I took a quick look behind us. Immediately regretting that decision as I was able to see that the changeling had already flipped around and was crawling its way towards us at an alarming rate. I felt my own eyes widen in disbelief before I opened my eyes and urged Spear on. "You're going to have to go faster than this!" His breathing picked up and I was jostled forwards as the crashing of his hooves against the ground grew louder with every impact, and I felt my own heartbeat pick up as I turned my head and saw that the changeling was crawling all over the floor, the ceiling and the walls to try and get to us. The colors of the walls seemed to blend together with how fast we were going. "Hold on!" I heard his voice call out as he suddenly jerked to the side and we started running down another one intersecting tunnel. I heard the changeling let out a pained noise as it missed us and crashed into the floor. "Don't let go!" he yelled out once again as he sped up again. My grip on his hair was firm and my body was tensing up with every bump and twist that we took so that I wouldn't fall off of his back, I only snapped my head away from looking behind us when he leaped over something. My eyes widening for the umpteenth time today as I saw that the thing he leapt over was a big ass hole leading to a very black and abyss looking death. Looking forwards, I was treated to an even scarier sight, the ledge that would lead to another side of the ginormous hole was nowhere close to where he just jumped from. My heart momentarily stopped beating and I felt the magic words forming at the edge of my tongue until I suddenly felt Spears wings snap open and start flapping furiously. 'This asshole...' I let a curse slip in my head as I felt my heart start beating normally as he straightened us out and quickly flew us over to the opposite edge of the chasm. Princess Luna faltered in her stride. A certain intrusive thought overtaking her immediate thought process as she came to a complete stop, letting the captain of the WonderBolts unknowingly continue along without her for a few moments. Until she finally realized the fact that Luna stopped and turned on a dime, tilting her head in the alicorns directions. Glancing at her current expression with a concerned one of her own, she quickly trotted forwards and closed the distance between the two of them. Making her concern known as she called out her name. "Princess?" she tried. But as much as she tried waving her hooves in her face and flying up so that she could block her vision, it proved fruitless as Luna stared continuously in the direction that they were walking in, a hundred yard stare, if you would. Though that's the conclusion you would come up with when you're from an outsiders perspective, since if you were currently inside of the lunar diarchs mind, you would come to realize that there are multiple things that are trying to overload her brain. Though the main one that was proving to be much larger than the others was how exactly she and her sister were going to compensate for everything that'd happened. To her 'little ponies' and to the main little pony that has her guilt eating at her very core. The term little ponies to Luna was rather a subconscious form of logomania she had surrounding that word. Helping each and every guard that'd been affected by the changelings after the whole ordeal is over is going to be more difficult than her sister would love to admit to herself, since Luna was the more realistic of the two, her perception of things going as smoothly as the well loved and cherished being that is her sister going was indeed skewed. Not to mention the fact that they would actually have to find out where the blasted changelings were in the first place. The appearance of not one but two changeling queens, albeit one of them being egregiously familiar to the two sisters was bad in it of themselves because now they were certain that more than one of these changeling societies existed. But having Queen Chrysalis imprisoned in the dungeons was a small reprieve to everything. 'Thank my sister for her mental break' she said to herself in the midst of her own thoughts. Captain Spitfire on the other hand was busy trying every way that she could to try and pull the Princess out of her own mind, name calling wasn't working, neither was waving her hooves in front of her face, making her face form into a frown of her own as she landed back down on her hooves and looked straight up at the Lunar Princesses face. She thought about how exactly she was going to bring the Princess back for a few more moments. Looking down at the ground in contemplation before looking back up and raising a hoof, glancing at the metal shoes that she was wearing, a slight wince was drawn as she reared her hoof back and struck upwards. Letting a very muddled 'smack' echo through the very empty hallway. "Huh- Oh!" Princess Luna said as she suddenly was reigned back in, her head had moved to the side from the force of the slap given by the WonderBolt. Though it seemed as she seemingly ignored the fact and instead looked down to address the sheepishly grinning Spitfire. "Captain, my apologies.. I was distracted by some rather disheartening thoughts" she admitted with a frown of her own, her ears lowering slightly as she did so. "No.. it's all good, Princess" Spitfire responded in earnest. "I have a lot of things going on in my head as well, can't blame yourself for getting too deep into things" she admitted. Briefly letting a small grin grace her face before sighing and turning around, the gravity and overall tone of this situation had made it so difficult to try and joke around or make light of anything. "We thank you for your words, Captain" Princess Luna thanked with a small smile of her own. Letting a small sigh come from her lips before she motioned forwards once again "now let us not delay any further.. I fear Mrs. Snowdrift's temper will be the death of my sister and her guards." She said with slight disdain to her sister. Spitfire simply nodded and with that, the two of them continued down the hallway. "Ma'am I'm sorry, but I cannot let you into the room!" the guard refused once again. Even with his position of Hazel having him pressed onto the ground with her unnatural amount of strength, all of his attempts to get her off of him failed, and because of the shortage of guards due to the damn changelings. He was on his own with this crazy mare. He understood that all of this anger and outrage was more directed at the fact that her child was just kidnapped by the changelings, he was sympathetic in that aspect. But resorting to this was just insane! He struggled against her once more, but was immediately foiled as she simply increased the pressure of her hooves on his chestplate. "I'm not asking you to let me in the room, I'm demanding you to let me back in!" she once again repeated much to his disdain. "I told you I'm not to let you back in the ro-" his retort was cut off by the sound of Princess Luna interjecting her much louder voice into the conflict. "Please refrain from assaulting the guards, Mrs. Snowdrift" she said with a small sigh. The sound of her horn igniting and the appearance of a dark blue aura surrounding itself around the pink pegasus before lifting her up and off of the guard, then gently moving her back and setting her down on the ground. "P-princess!" the guard said in surprise as he fumbled around on the floor for a moment before shooting up onto his feet and stiffening into a salute. "At ease" she said in response to his salute. Not finding it really necessary with this day and age, the last war that Equestria was even a part of was the conflict between the minotaur's and one of the nameless kingdoms of old. Too far in the past for her to even remember their name. Nevertheless, she fixed her attention on the guard and dismissed him "Please go inform my sister that I will deal with Mr. SnowDrift" before turning around. He hesitated for a moment before nodding and turning to enter the room that was barred entrance to Hazel. "But Princess, I-" Hazels voice was silenced as Spitfire stepped around the Lunar Princess and walked over towards her. A small smile on her face as she came to a stop in front of her. The two of them looking at each other in a brief moment of silence before Hazel was quick to pull the other pony in a hug. To be continued.