Running. Guards were sent flying aside, and any that came to investigate the screaming of either the guards or the source of the guards’ screaming was sent flying as well if they were in the way, but their presence or attacks were otherwise ignored.
One. One pony was being sought, with all the desperation, panic, and hatred that one eldritch abomination could muster. A fate of untold horror awaited them if they were found.
Fear. The target felt the hatred as though it were a mist in the air, feeling it grow ever-thicker as the hunter drew closer and closer in its search, led by the unseen hand of Fate herself.
Haste. Doors were smashed open and less-elegant ones had their doorframes wrecked as well as one desperate pair of eyes scanned each room, ignoring anything that wasn’t its target.
Magic. Six separate sources of different-yet-similar types of magic, all in a single iron box and held cleverly above the doorway with a persistent levitation spell; they must not fall into the creature’s hands at any cost.
Fire. Wisps of green fire had already begun to cling to the seeker; though the banishing spell targeted a particular type creature it was not quite as effective on that creature’s magic, a feature that the seeker ever-so-wished had been a fluke and that this single spell would be delayed or would fail altogether.
Shock. The right room had been found, its occupant having refused to leave the castle and abandon their subjects.
Air. Claws, teeth, and muscle ripped through the air towards their target as a mighty beast leapt, filled with rage.
Glow.
Flash.
Silence.
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There was a heavy thud and a wide but short cloud of dust as it hit the ground in a familiar place. There was a sound… it couldn’t make it out through the ringing in its ears. There were shapes as well… as much a mystery to it as the sound thanks to the flash.
Yet… the shapes were not a mystery. Its mind had blanked out for but a few seconds before what had happened came back to it, as it lay there on the waxen floor. Memories of a hunt… memories of prey… memories of what could have been vengeance on at least the single foe that was the greatest threat to its ensuing happiness thanks to what they knew.
Its vision began to clear, but it closed its eyes. Its hearing cleared, and it was able to make out mass cheering of familiar voices. It put its hands on the floor on each side of itself and very slowly rose off of the ground. As it got one foot upright beneath itself, it raised a claw to its nose and sniffed… it did not smell of blood.
It stayed in its kneeling position as the cheering slowly came to a halt. There was suddenly dead silence… the surrounding crowd had not stopped cheering for lack of breath. There wasn’t so much as a whisper for several moments, and then it heard a few hoofsteps indicate the approach of someone. A familiar, beloved voice followed.
“Devourer…” the voice said softly. “Are… are you o—“
“GRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—“
The monumental bellow interrupted the voice mid-sentence as the Devourer raised its head and let out a roar that was more of a bestial shriek than a scream. The noise seemed to rip through the air as though the creature itself were standing and flailing its claws, and the floor shook violently. There were inaudible cries of fear from more than one observer as the shaking in the floor extended past the bounds of the crowd and into the walls, and then into the surrounding rooms, and then into the rest of the entire hive.
Traps that were stored safely out of public traffic-ways went off from being jarred violently, flames spewing from changeling fire traps and spears launching from their spring-loaded chambers. The gate made of twisted metal that hung over the main ground entrance to the hive dropped out of the hooks that held it in place and landed with a loud clang that was completely unheard in the squall of noise. Walls that had unseen cracks in them crumbled instantly as though having been hit with a wrecking ball coming from the direction of the source of the sound.
The noise continued; the Devourer did not stop. Queen Chrysalis screamed for it to stop, but even her voice did not reach its ears through its own rage. It slowly rose and stood on its other foot as changelings that were too close passed out and those farther out had either fled or were stunned. It rose to its full height over the course of ten seconds of continual screaming, neither pitch nor tone changing as its rage released itself from the creature’s throat in one hatred-filled cry of pain, sorrow, and frustration.
Chrysalis saw it open its eyes, though she could tell that it saw nothing. Standing at its full nine-foot height, it towered over even her and she felt threatened for her life. It slowly began to raise its arms as Chrysalis tried to concentrate through the immense noise. She cringed as magic began to gather in the tip of her horn, the process slowed to a crawl through both lack of concentration and hesitation. The changeling stunning spell completed itself, changeling magic being one of the very few types of magic that it did not naturally resist. She readied the spell for firing and then called out one final plea:
“Devourer! You must stop or I will have to—“
*BOOM*
The Devourer brought both of its arms down on the ground in front of it in a godly display of anger and power. The force of the blow knocked away everything nearby, including the unconscious changelings and Chrysalis herself; her spell fired off into the air, dissipating on the ceiling harmlessly. When the dust cleared, Chrysalis stood and looked to the Devourer.
It still stood in the same place it had been teleported in at. It seemed to have stopped screaming, and was now on its elbows and knees; its arms had embedded themselves deep into the ground and would require some prying to get loose if it had used up all of its strength. If they had been on any floor of the hive other than the ground floor, the blow very well may have collapsed the entire place.
As the ringing in her ears began to die down, Chrysalis heard a few sounds; thankfully, changeling bodies were resilient and her ears were recovering quickly from the scream without lasting damage. Whimpering of her swarmlings as they crawled away from the scene was one sound. Cracking, possibly from a room in a far corner of the hive as it collapsed. A swarmling somewhere else in the hive was both crying and screaming. And… there a dripping noise.
She carefully took a few steps closer. She could see its chest heaving so heavily that its flesh was clearly visible between the plates at each breath’s peak. The dripping sound was a purple liquid coming from its eyes and several points on its body, all of which were visible when it took a breath. Chrysalis had seen this liquid once before, when she was very young.
It was in the first days that she was being allowed to wander the hive on her own (with guards of course, as she had not mastered her defensive magic yet). She had wandered into the Devourer’s den out of curiosity, since she did not share the instinctual fear of it that her swarmlings did. The den, much to her surprise, did not smell any different than the rest of the hive, and even looked like it had been taking pieces of discarded walls and embedding them into the walls of the den instead of eating them, making it look similar to the hive as well. She had wandered all the way to the middle of the den in wonder at rocky surface beyond the hive pieces, having never been out of the hive before. So entranced by the dull-grey surface as opposed to the white or green hues she was used to, that she nearly bumped into the Devourer.
She was startled, but calmed herself as she realized that it was asleep and had not woken up at her touch. It seemed to be rhythmically shuddering as it slumbered, and released a small noise from time to time that was similar to the ones her mother made whenever a swarmling died. It was leaking this same purple liquid through some points on its armor, but it was turned to the wall and she hadn’t seen its eyes. A few seconds later, her guards convinced her to leave it alone and leave the den.
Now she understood.
“………Devourer………” Chrysalis said carefully as she got near.
The Devourer remained in silence. It did not seem like it was going to scream again.
“Devourer……………” She said again, having lost what it was that she was going to say. A soft voice reached her ears.
“I… I failed.”
“Devourer, I…”
“I failed. I failed you, and the swarm. I failed your cause, and I failed the memory of every member of the swarm that ever existed. I… I failed…”
“You didn’t fail us, Devourer.”
“But I did. I had the chance, your majesty! I had the chance! I had the chance to destroy them! I… I could have done it! I could have killed the prisoners, or-or I could have eaten the artifacts! I could have collapsed the castle, or I could have—“
“No.”
The Devourer stumbled over its words and grew quiet. It raised its head to its queen and made bleary eye contact, the purple liquid having clouded over its eyes.
“Devourer… you did not fail us.”
“But I—“
“You did NOT fail us. Devourer… my mother taught me something.”
The Devourer remained in silence.
“My mother taught me that… things will happen. Some we can influence, and some we cannot. The banishing spell will keep us out of Equestria, possibly for long after I have passed away and you will be serving my daughter. We cannot penetrate it with our bodies, and only harmless magic seems to be capable of penetrating it: we cannot launch fire mortars into its boundaries. If we are to ever exact revenge on Equestria… Fate will allow us to do so. We will perhaps cross paths with Celestia outside of Equestria. Maybe the banishing spell will dissipate for no reason much earlier than expected. Hell, a meteor may hit Canterlot too fast for the princesses to react.”
Chrysalis smiled, and she could have sworn she caught a brief flicker of a grin in the Devourer’s expression.
“Devourer, if you did not exact the entirety of our revenge on them, then it was unavoidable. We will get our revenge with time… maybe not soon, but I guarantee we will. This world will exist for a long enough time, a time long enough that we cannot NOT get revenge at some point or another. Now…”
She nodded and the Devourer wrenched its arms free of the ground before slowly standing, shaky on its legs.
“Tell me of what you DID do…!” Chrysalis said as she turned and walked away. “I imagine that even without bringing back the Elements of Harmony or killing one of the princesses, you certainly left your mark!”
The Devourer wiped its snout and sniffed before catching up and walking closely behind her to help gather the scattered changelings.
“Well……… there is a rather nasty set of tunnels all through the walls that might be filled with vermin soon…”
Chrysalis laughed and shook her head.
“And there were many delicious things they had. Art, tables, I ate a portion of the library… and of course I went through the trouble of eating every single one of their—“
And so the beast told of the exploits it performed in Castle Canterlot.
A beast once crushed beneath the force a floating castle, cracking its shell and forevermore allowing it to squeeze into passages thinner than it should.
A beast that was a victim of a transfiguration spell of intent to turn it into a harmless cloud, which backfired and instead gave it the ability to turn into mist and back at will.
A beast once captured and pierced from many angles at once in what were perceived to be weak spots, forevermore causing it to leak blood through the holes in its eyes and body when it could hold its tears no more.
A beast given immunity to most magic and unending hunger by the forces that made it.
A beast that screamed its own vocal chords to shreds at its creator in an expression of the sheer amount of fury it had had at being created in such a way and then at having been subsequently shunned by its father.
A beast whose hide and shell were permanently stained ashen from its original white after having been hit with a fireball larger than the wizard who conjured it could handle.
A beast whose very existence struck fear and uneasiness into those that witnessed its grim shape, whether they knew why or not.
A beast shunned and abhorred by virtually every race created by any force other than chaos itself.
A best shunned and abhorred by every race but one.
A beast with a swarm and a queen.
A beast with a family.
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“…Luna?”
Celestia walked into the bedroom. Luna had been pacing in there ever since the Devourer’s disappearance, and rather than come out to eat dinner she had sent one of the guards she ordered to stay outside her door to bring her food from the table. This had gone on for the past few hours, after everypony had recovered from the Devourer’s final assault.
Luna looked up at her sister from her pacing, almost seeming to be startled for a second. She nodded to acknowledge her sister, remaining unusually silent and continuing to walk around.
“Luna…” Celestia continued. “…ever since it proclaimed its threat towards you in the throne room, you refused to tell us what it was. I can understand why you wouldn’t tell us then, but…”
Celestia looked around the room awkwardly. Asking this question felt incredibly strange for some reason.
“…what was it that it didn’t want you to tell us?” She finished after a moment.
Luna stopped pacing and stood in silence for another moment before looking back to her sister. Her gaze was one of a pony unsure of how to handle a conflict.
“…Luna?” Celestia said again, more worried than before.
Luna sighed before answering. “Sister… you know I would never do something to intentionally harm somepony that didn’t deserve it. I am not cruel like I was when I… I am not cruel like in the time of Nightmare Moon,” she said.
“Yes. I am your sister after all, Luna.” Celestia said with a small smile, happy to have at least gotten her speaking again.
Luna turned to face her sister entirely. “Sister… I feel like…” She trailed off. Another moment of silence before she continued. “I… I do not believe that you, nor I, nor anypony here in Equestria would gain from knowing what I know about the creature.”
It was Celestia’s turn to go silent for a moment. This was turning out to be a conversation with plenty of time between sentences.
“…very well, Luna,” Celestia replied. Luna smiled before answering.
“So… how have things in the castle been after… it left?”
“Well, we never found the informant. Nopony is missing, not after Gold Hoof and Brass Shield brought the prisoners and the Elements back safely, so they can’t have fled the castle or have been killed by the creature. I can’t believe Gold and Brass turned down the promotion Shining Armor offered them…”
“They turned down the promotion?”
“Yes… said something about how the personal guards of us princesses tend to go missing more often in situations like this. They were content to remain the door guards for the throne room. Shining Armor did not argue with them, as he was eager to return to Cadence; he has already left for the crystal kingdom, and I assume this ordeal made him long for her presence more than usual, ”
“…I see.”
The conversation briefly returned to its initial nature as Celestia paused again.
“You know, Luna… there are a lot of things I don’t understand about the… recent events. It disturbs me some… what the creature was capable of, how it was immune to magic, what Discord’s involvement in all of this was, and just how suddenly it all ended.”
“I know, sister. There are things that even I did not find out.”
“Yes, well……… are you sure you can’t tell me anything?”
“I am sure.”
Celestia turned to the doorway. “Alright. Let’s go get you something decent to eat, I imagine the food you had the guards bring you got cold before it reached your room.”
Luna chuckled as she moved to follow her sister. “Quite.”
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I cannot BELIEVE that cretin!
Shows up one day, out of the bright Equestrian blue, and asks a favor of me! Of ME!
I didn’t owe him anything, but he promised a chance that I would escape for helping him!
And then what happens? He TELEPORTS OUT! He completely abandoned the deal!
That crybaby just up and RAN away! Just like that!
He even managed to free me a bit right at the beginning, I assume to get me to do his task and to get my hopes up.
I can’t believe I actually had FAITH in him!
“Oh Discord, I’m sorry but I can’t go into Canterlot. Could you use your telepathy and send a message somewhere?”
“Oh Discord, please oh please do this for me! Get the press riled up about what I’m doing here so ponies down in Canterlot know! It’ll give Celestia a HUGE headache, I promise!”
………….
Okay, so that last one I did sort of willingly. But still, my point stands.
He’s out gallivanting around his hive, presumably using his near-omnipotence to impress all the females of that accursed species, and I’m still HERE.
Trapped in stone.
In this INFERNAL GARDEN.
………
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……………………………….
*sigh*, what I wouldn’t give just to turn the dirt in this hedge circle into chewed bubble gum.