//------------------------------// // Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones... // Story: My Little Behemoth: Friendship is more than Food // by Kishin //------------------------------// Cyr dizzily woke up to a sensation, according to his reawakened imagination, as something similar to as if his exoskeleton had been crushed inwards to a pulp, and was greeted by the sight of the ground, mud and leaves coursing around his body. He then realized that he was being roughly dragged across the forest floor. And he couldn't help but notice how oddly proportional his body was to his surroundings, almost as if he had gotten... ...Smaller. More miniscule than his original size, but his hooves, compared to the trees and leaves, were around the size and width of any normal pony's or Changeling's. Don't tell me...she actually did it. But the Changelings dragging him through the forest floor, as he correctly remembered, were far larger than him in comparison. They had three horns, the main horn where it's normal position would be on any magical creature or unicorn, the base of the head, but the other two rested on the paramount of their snouts, like those of a rhinoceros...if rhinos even had an absurd number of three horns. That's just Mother Nature's sign that you were trying to compensate for something. Cyr, though he couldn't see clearly through the moonlight-tinged night, could feel a sudden acceleration forward into the air, then the downward push of gravity, and the sudden taste of dirt and manure in his mouth that combined with a taste of copper and the sensory information of his body hitting the ground. A shockwave shuddered through his body, shaking the meat and squishy organs beneath his exoskeleton. Through the darkness was a deep whisper. "My liege. He's arrived." "Excellent." That voice. A memory pounced through Cyr's mind of a sickening, emerald green light. He felt the ground shudder around him with heavy thuds. Many of them. Cyr figured his former Queen's subjects wre bowing. There's...more than two. No need to panic. Cyr rose his face from the dirt, and met the face of his Hive's Birth Mother. No need to panic at all. "Good to see that you still retained much of your respect," Queen Chrysalis darkly chuckled with amusement, gesturing at Cyr's splayed position from being thrown on the ground. Respect my- "None of it was intentional, traitor," Cyr attempted to rumble rebellously. His voice, even its deep, grizzly tone that could patronize an Ursa Minor, was reduced to nothing but its original self. Its original, annoyingly high-pitched, multi-voiced self. His Queen chuckled, "What an adoring manner to speak to your superior, not to mention your dear Hive Mother-" "You're not my Hive Mother! Flux was, and you had her killed!" Cyr screamed. One of the Changelings next to him rose, and smashed a holed-hoof down on Cyr's diminutive mass. He still managed to choke out, "I would rather kill myself than be a part of your...spawn!" "You dare talk to our Queen in such a tone, you insolent worm?" The Changeling above pressed harder into the soft dirt, leaving Cyr's shape indented in the forest floor. The Queen of Changelings rose a hoof in hesitancy, and continued, "Don't bother. He's too deluded to see the truth." "You lie!" "No, I believe I've done the best I could for our Hive. Would you like to know what our dearest Flux was trying to do? Hide. Let her Changelings subsist on the ebb and flow of nature! Maybe even consider a treaty with the Royal Sisters, as if we had wronged them in the past, when they were the ones that wronged us! The Changeling race never recovered from the Diaspora! We can never trust the Ponies ever again. And what was Flux going to do?" Cyr felt the pressure forcing his organs up into his head recede. Chrysalis screeched with a whispered rage, "She was going to repeat our dour history. No, we've waited for the Ponies to tolerate our existence. We've waited far too long. Canterlot was just the beginning. The ponies, they are fools if they think I would even consider using the Soldier Reserves, or only striking at a single location." "And it starts with you, Changeling. You have the essence of lunar magic expelling from you. A certain alicorn must have tried to de-evolve you," Chrysalis chuckled condescendingly. Cyr was going to respond, but he could feel the hoof pressing him down as soon as he opened his chops, so he could only eek it out through an interrupted whisper. "You've become indoctrinated by the ponies. You've been duped into believing in their righteousness. Their own sort of morality. I'm willing to look past your betrayal-" Cyr coughed, "You betrayed us all first." "Silence!" commanded Chrysalis. She lifted Cyr magically and pounded him into the dirt. Cyr noted that he was no longer oppressed by the Soldier's hoof after the magically-induced beating. "As I was saying, I'm willing to forgive your past transgressions-" You threatened my friends and my caste to join your cause, you cow! "-and rejoin our side. And maybe I shall spare your friends..." Luna's words echoed through Cyr's skull, 'You will have to hold out for as long as you can.' At first, a vision played in Cyr's head of a glorious last stand, of him tearing his former kin limb from limb, and charging at his Queen where he would dodge her blows and provide enough of a distraction for the Princesses to arrive. He would make her eat her words. But that wouldn't work. Cyr no longer had the advantage in size or power. He would have to rely on nothing but his former stature, and his quick wits. He took in a quick view of his new location. They were in a clearing of the Everfree, and Cyr deduced they were in or near the cliff of some sort of precipice. Chrysalis's "super-villain" speech was echoing and bouncing along the darkness-veiled walls near Cyr. He proceeded to sight at Chyrsalis's posture. Lanky, relaxed, and she even had her wings extended. If, per say, someling pushed her off a cliff, but after they clipped or injured her wings, wouldn't that just mean there would be one less megalomaniacal Changeling Queen to deal with? Cyr decided to maybe just preoccupy Chrysalis. She's bloodthirsty enough to accept the suffering of anything, right? This is going to hurt Cyr finally responded, "I'll join you..." "Excellent, my subject. You've seen the error of your ways, and we shall conquer the Po-" Cyr interrupted, "..when I see you burning in Tartarus with me!" He was no longer restrained, and the comment threw off Chrysalis's magical concentration long enough for him to sprint straight in the Queen's direction. He was nearing her. The bewildered, surprised look on her countenance pleased Cyr. Cyr was almost there- Something solid collided with Cyr, sending a massive kick of inertia into his body. It was the hoof of one of the Changelings, and they were far from approving of Cyr's action. Chrysalis composed herself, "Ah, I forgot to mention. State your salutation, and goodbyes, to your successors: The Praetorians. And I do believe it was quite insulting of you to turn down our offer. I almost was about to tell you where I imprisoned Flux..." Wait...what? "Oh well, too late for regret now. Praetorians, it seems our trust was misplaced. End this sordid affair." Chrysalis turned and began to trot away, as her personal guard began to surround Cyr. This time, his size helped him. He was quicker in movement, and he found himself having his wings again! Oh, how he missed having them! He quickly evaded the blows and charges supplied by their hooves and horns, succeeding each other with an uneven rhythm of screeching wind friction. His wings allowed him to give him extra agility and speed, so as long as he kept a distance, he should have been fine. If only it could have stayed that way. Yet, the vicious Praetorians adapted to Cyr's strategy. They encircled him, and using their advantage of stamina and height, they leapt and pounced, covering all exits for Cyr, keeping him within the closing walls of their bodies, until a massive CRUNCH was heard. Two Praetorians, one from behind and another in front of Cyr, met in a collision between their horns...and Cyr's quick-beating chest. In the moment of it all, Cyr slowly peered down. The sliding sound of the horns escaping from the wound horrified Cyr. Massive spurts of arterial blood and fluid from his open circulatory system rapidly cleared out from his body and onto the ground below. There was a clear hole through the chitin of his chest, and in the still pumping organ behind his natural armor. The little black, nine-chamber heart of Cyr was slowing in beat, stained in the teal fluorescent blood of Changelings. Cyr fell to his hind-hooves, the feeling in all of his limbs growing numb and deadened. The Praetorians, knowing that no Changeling could ever survive such a wound, withdrew from the scene with no pity for the degraded, mangled traitor, preparing themselves mentally for the start of the next invasion...in Ponyville. And only one thought occurred to them: Violent retribution to the town responsible for housing the six villainesses of the Changeling world. The Elements of Harmony. Cyr barely noticed Queen Chrysalis trotting back to him, and with much concentration of hearing her words through the sound of the beating cries of his dying heart, heard, "Good night, sweet subject of mine." She mocks me. She plans to murder me. Tie up loose ends. She'll desecrate the town, ruin my friends. She knows where Flux is... A quiet exhale escaped Cyr's chops, with Chrysalis beckoning closer with a victorious smile reaching its full potential in size, "If I die...we'll die together." Cyr gathered all of the love from the memories of his friends and family, of all the good times and the bad, and resupplied his muscles with enough energy to quickly push his body of its hooves and launch himself horn-first directly at Chrysalis's wings. The horn, with its velocity, pierced the thin membrane of her wings, and the sudden force and momentum that Cyr's body supplied brutally positioned her to teeter near the cliff of the crevice. Chrysalis helplessly flung her wings in the air and flapped them to their maximum speed, needing them to help regain her balance. Cyr saw her action that would make his dying act quite moot, and inter-placed his hooves between hers. Chrysalis, her ego briefly reaching the heavens, now fell like her overconfidence as she discovered horrifically that she can make a mistake like any other mortal can. Gravity pushed the pair down, and Cyr, accompanied by the fearful screams of his former Changeling Queen, thought he saw a fleeting image up in the sky. A brief sight of an alicorn's shadow outlined by the moon. He couldn't concern himself with the view any longer, as he and Chrysalis reached the bottom of the precipice with a jarring crack.