//------------------------------//
// CH 40 (best laid plans...) 
// Story: Accepting Change 
// by drFraud 
//------------------------------//

Spine

 

“Keratin!” I had zero interest in Chrysalis ending me today (or tomorrow for that matter) but if I had to shout at Keratin to move one more time I’m just tossing him out the nearest hole I find.

He was visibly shaken, and I could clearly see the thoughts swirling in his head with every step he made.

Chrysalis has permanently changed her status with this move for several lings, from a terrifying but relatively reasonable queen to a feared tyrant who you have to be wary of at every move because she just might kill you for scratching your neck wrongly.

Of course, I wasn’t dealing with it any better, but I have seen her swift degradation over the last few months so it was a bit easier for me. It didn’t fill me with confidence though.

‘And that’s not even accounting for knowing about the parasite in the first place…’

“Why… why-why-why-why…” I heard Keratin mumble under his breath while I led us into the dungeons.

I was about to open the wall into the prisoner's area when he cleared his throat.

“I wish to talk to you about what happened…”

I turned to him with wide eyes, “And you wish to discuss it here? In the open, do you want her to smite you?”

“But why would she just-”

“Keratin, the why doesn’t matter… at all. She did it, it’s not the first time nor the last, you will just have to accept that,” I ignited my horn and opened the wall leading into a fairly large room with several holes in the wall and two of their entrances covered in resin.

“But it does matter,” he jumped in front of me cutting me off his voice trembling, I frowned and stepped back, “Chrysalis never told any of us her full plan, she spoke up against this rebellion on several occasions and how they have to be stopped. And now, she just executes the one that acquired her two prisoners to interrogate despite the fact that he worked blindly.”

Circling around him while he talked, I used my magic to pull two resin pods out of the hole with the prisoners inside them. They were knocked out and podded, just as the procedure, and releasing them out to escape would be a non-issue for me, but how do I get them out without anyling raising the alarm?

“Will you please listen to me, Spine!” Keratin shouted and this time I looked at him, stomping my hooves in frustration.

“Keratin, nothing you say will change what happened.”

“It will get me answers!” His voice cracked with panic.

“Answers you will not believe in the first place!” I roared back at him gathering magic in my horn.

With a ‘crack’ the cocoons opened and with another flash the two lings started to stir groggily, their hooves wiggling about.

“Spine…” I could hear Keratin whisper taking slow steps back.

I worked quickly, rousing the two lings, and getting them to their hooves, while I tried to figure out how to get them out of here as soon as possible. The portal spell would be the swiftest, but at the present mana levels, I would be severely drained, leaving me open to whatever she would do to me.

“You are working with them…” I paid no attention to him.

“Stand up… hurry,” I nudged the two of them up with my nose. One of them didn’t recognize me at first but the other did, making sorting them out easier.

“Oh no…” I heard Keratin wheeze and when I turned to him I froze.

“Up… up-up-up-up-UP-UP!” Flaring my horn to maximum and opening several walls behind me I watched in horror as Keratin disappeared into a green portal and the wall behind him slowly opened.

Standing on the other side of the wall, and a disappointed look on her muzzle, was Chrysalis.

“I followed out of curiosity, my dear Spine,” She grinned wickedly, “I am glad you proved me right.”

I could hear the pounding of the hooves behind me, followed by a squeak of fear but I knew that if turned around to check I would be dead.

“She closed the wall,” came the fearful mutter behind me, and a quick ping told me they are both alive.

Taking two steps in and laughing menacingly, Chrysalis’s horn glowed brightly but she was just a moment too slow.

Closing my eyes after an immediate, terrifying plan went through my head, I fired a blinding ball of light at her eyes. It was unexpected and made the blast of magic aimed for my head miss but I still gasped in shock when the floor next to me exploded sending me flying.

Opening my wings before I hit anything made me slow down and stop after a buzz, and another un-aimed flash of my magic made her scream in fury. I heard two more grunts on my right and that told me where the two lings are and a quick ping confirmed their location.

Opening my eyes, I buzzed my wings propelling myself forward to the two lings scooping them both in my forelegs as best as I could, and, pushing my horn to its maximum, I opened a portal outside of the castle a few hooves in front of me. Excruciating pain flared through my entire head and along my back and I could feel something crack somewhere on me but it didn’t matter.

“SPINE!” I heard her scream and the ground behind me exploded with an electrical crackle pushing all three of us out of the portal to the other side.

I swore that the time slowed down to a crawl as I looked around me through the flying rubble; lings looking up at us with huge eyes and opened mouths, the two lings in my forelegs holding tightly, and a trickle of blood coming out of the mouth on the one in my right. I also spotted Mantis along with two more lings next to him.

I could see him mouthing something but nothing reached me and my sluggish body barely moved and then everything went to shit.

The portal absolutely exploded with power, and something struck me in the back making me lose the feeling in my hind legs and causing all three of us to spiral out of control smashing into one of the dome houses beneath us.

“Spine!” Came a cry from Mantis and then the ground trembled as a roar came out of nowhere.

Twisting my spinning head to look at the portal and trying to ignore my hurt… everything I saw Chrysalis flying towards me with her face contorted in rage and her horn and wings crackling with green energy.

‘Shit.’

 

Chrysalis?

I screamed in anger as I watched the parasite close in on Spine and his two charges without me being able to do much of anything beyond making her miss twice, only for the world to shift to the side and a scream of pain echoed around my inner sanctum.

Focusing on trying to find out what happened I was briefly overwhelmed by pain and I could see my body fly through three castle walls before embedding itself into one that didn’t crumble.

Chrysalis dug herself out with a grunt, landing on unsteady hooves, and shakily approached the holes she made. There was a figure standing there and I about cried with relief.

Standing at the entry hole my body made, tall and regal, was Patchwork.

‘He must have attacked when she was focused on Spine. Wait, when did he get here?’

There was a flash of turquoise fire and Chrysalis had to dodge to the side to avoid a streak of blue flying towards us but something else struck her making our whole world spin.

And another strike…

And a third.

Then Chrysalis shrieked and in a flash of green magic the area around us burst, launching debris everywhere and I heard a grunt to the left.

Both Chrysalis and I looked to a pile of rubble that shifted for a moment before Patchwork shook off the pieces of the enchanted stone that molded itself back into a wall between us.

“You…” Chrysalis hissed with venom and I could feel her horn thrum with power.

With a grunt of effort, a pulse of green magic washed over the floor and walls of the castle making everything start shifting and moving, and before I could even understand what was going on the entire section of the castle was fully opened to the sky.

Except there was no Patchwork, nor anyling else there. Just the open air and a large number of lings looking up at us with utter fear on their faces.

Chrysalis was breathing heavily, hatred bubbling up and making her body crackle with sickly green magic.

“You…” She snarled and I felt her use her senses to scan everyling within the area looking for Patchwork.

As she did that I saw the walls of the castle slowly closing back up and my lings fearfully backing away but Chrysalis didn’t pay attention to anything opting to fume and rage while she fruitlessly searched.

I was left there, in an unknown corridor of the castle, hope rising and I continued watching as my tormentor shook with barely restrained fury and a hint of fear.

 

Patchwork

In all my time in Equestria, in the entire history of ideas I’ve had over the years, this was the dumbest.

Galloping through the unknown corridors of the shifting castle, in an unknown direction I dived through any hole I could find in hopes it would all eventually lead me to the throne room.

I was never supposed to confront Chrysalis directly, I was never supposed to run through the castle (‘Jump over the guard, knock the other one back gently’), I was supposed to reach the Badlands, get to the castle (‘shove this one’), find Spine get him out and coordinate with his brother (‘knock this one back’) to set up the best-case victory scenario against Chrysalis. After that, we would get rid of the throne so that this place can work with more than just lackadaisical changeling magic.

‘Did I just circle around?’ Looking around I failed to notice anything that I would be able to use as a guide effectively convincing me that I was utterly lost.

‘How did I end up here?’ I scratched my head trying not to think about my rash decision to tackle Chrysalis out of the sky.

Sighing in exasperation I sent out a ping hoping to find someone friendly that would be able to help me. There were a few confused pings returning to me but they were then all drowned out by a roar of fury as the whole castle shook and a rage-fuelled ping found me.

“Why am I so stupid!” I shouted to the heaves making a mad dash out of my current location and through the first hole in the wall I found before Chrysalis reached me.

I tried to remember where the throne room was in the show but the only thing I could recall was that it was fairly high up, overlooking the Badlands and that it had a sort of window looking out (‘did it actually have a window? Question for later.’). With all those things in mind, I started climbing up through the hive.

The hive itself looked like a strange, organic beehive, with the feeling under my claws being something akin to firm rubber concrete. There were holes opening at random intervals and when some of the guards saw me when I was passing through they would either shout at me or just stare in confusion. I did have some of them follow after me but I managed to lose them.

Bursting into a massive room when a large hole in one of the walls opened I knocked out the two guards that immediately rushed me and only then did I notice that I actually found my target, the throne room.

It was a massive, circular room surrounded by deep alcoves and walls filled with holes, all black and green, and with a huge, elevated, spiky throne that stood a bit further from the center and closer to a thin resin window that took over a large section of the wall behind the throne.

Only then did I remember that in the original story there was no window… go figure.

“Patchwork!” I heard a shout from my right.

Turning my head towards the shout I saw Mantis and a skinny changeling with lime-green elytra run through a hole in the wall that closed behind them.

“Stupid buzzing idiot!” The other changeling marched straight into my face, “Do you have any fucking idea how many weeks of planning you ruined?”

“Scurry, relax, he saved your brother and we reached the throne room.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw another ling enter the room, and then immediately duck into one of the crevices.

“And I am grateful for that, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are now swimming in a dung pool up to our necks,” Scurry stomped his hoof looking at me.

“Whatever,” I waved him off, which only seem to piss him off even more, and approached the throne, “all we have to do is destroy the throne and we got one thing done at least.”

My ears perked when several hoofbeats reached us and I could see Mantis mouth ‘oh buzz’ before we were surrounded by at least twenty armored changeling guards.

I honestly thought our odds were good when a powerful ping reached me, and I could feel a pit grow in my stomach when not only did I recognize it, but it was getting closer.

“Guys…” I started turning around, “we need to sort the throne… oof!” I grunted being shoved back by a tall mass of chitin.

Chrysalis arrived, and the consequences of my actions finally caught up to me.