“Why do we always have sex before you do something dangerous?” Chrysalis asked as we started down the granite hallway. The massive doors had closed behind us before she spoke, not wishing to let her mother and sisters know. I wore a pensive look as I unslung my jury-rigged assault rifle, obviously lifted off a dead bandit from Cuatla. While I checked to see if the bastard offspring of roughly twelve different guns was in serviceable condition, I gave my response.
“Blame Bioware; bastards have me conditioned to believe wonderful things only happen if I'm either about to die, or it's required to save the world.” That was the absolute truth of the matter, considering the amount of time I'd spent on Mass Effect and Dragon Age before they just became awful to me. I pulled the slide back and chamber one of the surplus rounds as the changeling queen gave me a look that implied I was lacking in the mental department. It wasn't ten seconds before she playfully punched my hip, meaning we were back to the stressful situation of walking into the lion's den. In this case, the lion was a Bengal tiger with chainsaw teeth and a rocket-propelled lunge.
The corridor echoed with Chrysalis's steps, easily drowning out my near-silent footfalls. While the tunnel was meant to seem winding to the naked eye, the cacophonous noises issuing from my insectoid other half were those exclusively made within a straight, rectangular container. As we walked, I think both of us started to feel a near-suffocating pressure in the air, the environmental effect of supercharged psychic activity. In this sense, the Deceiver was a walking, thinking Brain Scorcher, though his off switch would be much harder to flip. Chrissy was accustomed to the constant interference, having been raised around the powerful source we were about to confront.
Static fizzed in my vision, my breath developed a slight quiver. My usually steady hands started shaking worse than after my one time rappelling and I flipped upside down, making any attempts at using my rifle effectively. Maybe the intention was to reduce any humans to a near invalid state, or maybe the jarring electricity was purely coincidental; it mattered very little to me either way. Through my shoes, I could feel heat radiating from the stone floor. I already knew there was magma under the hive, really a given with all the hot springs and saunas in Nova, but the molten rock couldn't have been more than twenty feet beneath us now.
The torches along the walls became less and less frequent as we walked, until there was enough space for darkness to hold over us for a few moments before we could see under the glow of the next. It was in one of those dusky areas that the floor developed a slight slope, forcing us further below Equus's surface. From that point, the lights were a thing of the past, leaving us with only the glow Chrysalis could make with her horn.
“I wish I'd brought a flare or two.” I didn't like the dark, especially when it involved me walking into a fight with my senses slowly being drowned out. The green of unfocused changeling magic illuminated the corridor almost as quickly as I had said those words.
“That better?” Chrissy gave me a smug look, understanding that I was pretty much helpless when it came to this shit. I waved at her dismissively, almost chuckling at her voice's ability to penetrate the ringing in my ears. The joy stopped almost immediately as the shadows cast by the insectoid mare's magic hit the barely raised portions along the walls around us. Geometric shapes, mathematical equations that lacked any symbols I was familiar with, and even runic script that nearly boggled my mind with its absurd amount of complexity.
“Any idea what this is?” I asked, amazed at the intricacy of the designs and how they were only raised perhaps a tenth of a millimeter, yet the shadows they made were incredibly visible. We didn't keep walking, but we slowed enough to get a good look at everything around us.
“Mother said the Deceiver only wrote a handful of things himself, preferring to speak and have others write; we must be close if he bothered making these.” So the guy was lazy with a pen, but felt the need to record these things for the sake of posterity? I, probably like you, thought that was something out of a horror movie and wanted nothing to do with this. The stone was dark, and had a faint glow from Chrysalis's magic, but a single flash of white to my side caught my attention. Before I could even think, I was emptying my magazine in that apparition’s direction. The gunfire was deafening in the enclosed space, but it made me feel safe; my favorite queen didn't quite share my feelings. A tiny explosion sounded as Chrissy ripped the weapon in my hands to pieces, shattering the metal as she went. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I thought I saw a ghost; it's gone now.” However, the thin barrier I had shot through was very much still there. Streams of smoky light filtered through the bullet holes, illuminated by a constant light source on the other side. No sooner did we realize we had reached our destination did a seam appear in the perfectly smooth surface. The stone gate slowly opened of its own accord, a massive room, with glass walls. I knew they were glass by the glowing magma behind them, which provided a surprisingly bright glow. There were a number of solid pillars, arranged evenly in a grid, probably capable of holding much more than the ceiling if needed, and that included the possibility many of them were redundant.
The towering rock formations were far from the most interesting thing I saw, no, that honor went to a shining object in the room's center. It was golden, and polished to an almost blinding level, though there was a vague shape that seemed to suck the light from around it. There would be no fear here, nothing out of the ordinary for neither Chrysalis nor myself. If the Deceiver uplifted Chrissy to her new position, then that would be the end and nothing more would come of this. On that coin's other face, if he harmed her in any way, then, god or not, he would not live to see another Grand Matron enter this grand hall. We shared a look, before nodding to each other and pressing onwards, to the golden throne.
Chrysalis knelt before the imprisoned immortal, doing her best to perform the ascension. A spark jumped from the tip of her horn to the Deceiver's bleached head, igniting them both for the briefest of moments. In that same moment, the my worst fears were realized. The rightful Grand Matron collapsed to the ground without a sound, any noise muffled by my rapidly narrowing sense. The static faded as I looked at the physical god, a rage I had never felt pounding in my head. My hand dove for my powersabre faster than I'd ever moved, activating the powerful weapon before it was even drawn.
Like a bull slammed into me, my body turned harshly into one of the granite pillars. My sword easily sliced through the stone, leaving a thin, even line carved in the tough stone. A strong boot threw me several feet. I rolled as I hit the ground, gritting my teeth as the injuries on my chest and stomach started to act up, but I easily saw the most horrifying sight of my life. The statue from my nightmares, the being who screeched and shouted enough to unnerve even me, now casually strolled towards me. As the god came near, I swung at his leg.
Twang
The powersabre vibrated as it rebounded off the advanced armor, a noticeable dent in the sword's cutting edge, and leaving a narrow, silvery gash on the Deceiver's leg. The suit he wore seemed to regenerate, or at least repair itself enough to hide the scratch. I jumped up and swung again, and received similar results as the original attack. The psychic's fist slammed into my stomach, right where Catach had stabbed me. I had only time to stare into the porcelain face I had grown to hate before trying my hand at assault once more. I used my little finger to set the power weapon to its highest setting, hoping the blue glow meant it would have enough energy to cut through the powerful armor.
The sword's halo flickered as it made contact with the god's suit, momentarily resetting. A weapon capable of cutting granite like butter and tearing tanks open like a pinata was laughably impotent against the alloy that comprised the Deceiver's armor. My soul started to hurt at the thought, but survival meant more to me than some Imperial technology. The hilt was still working, kinda, and it would likely make a passable knuckleduster. On a whim, I decked that motherfucker in the flat part of his mask where his mouth was supposed to be. The immortal just stood there, not attacking nor defending; he just took the blow without even the slightest movement.
An armored hand clasped around my throat, its powerful owner lifting me off the ground. Scared for my life, I could only look into the blank expanse of the Deceiver's helmet, choking down as much air as I could to maintain higher brain functions. What felt like a blanket wrapped around me, warming and stifling as any quilt from home, though it lacked even the slightest comforts. The world around me seemed to melt and shift, rapidly becoming an image of the Milky Way. Stars zoomed by me, bearing the faintest of images from a time I could not comprehend. Letters, symbols, even spoken words I had no reference for were blared into every sensory receptor my body possessed.
A spear of light pierced my lower back, not bringing pain as I expected, but a wealth of information and history. Humans, or something that bore an uncanny resemblance to us, stood in what resembled a debate hall. They were oddly beautiful, bearing appearances and voices that were pleasing to the sense. A single individual, a young man no older than me, stood in the center of the crowd, pleading his case in a language I could not understand. He had two bolt lodge in the left side of his forehead, telling me this was the Deceiver in his early days. Applause and nods of agreement met the young adult; I guess he got what he wanted.
Another spear lanced through my spine, just below my ribcage. This time, a middle-aged man stood over a console that made even my FTL gun look like the Apple II in comparison. He seemed angry, his hands on his head as he looked at his schematics again. A black suit of armor lay on the workbench before him, with the needed tools and equipment to either assemble or repair it strewn about the mesa. I could almost see an idea form in his head as he went back to work, a small smile on his face. I recognized a tubular device on a nearby shelf; it resembled a failed prototype of the same FTL gun that forced Jay and I to Equestria. Apparently great minds really do think alike.
A third spear stabbed through my neck at the shoulder, dumping something I never thought I would see. The Deceiver was in a jungle, his mask off as he looked around. He seemed lost and even a little scared by the prospects that ran through his mind. It seemed the immortal had ended up on Equus in a fashion not too dissimilar from the accident nearly a year ago. The cyborg looked a bit distraught, turning at even the slightest noise, though a very feminine scream brought him from his stupor of fear. Faster than any unmodified human, the Deceiver sprinted off into the dense flora, hoping to save one of his own. As I followed, being forced by the vision, a form I was intimately familiar with came into view.
A changeling, slightly smaller than the average queen, was being attacked by... something. It looked like a pony, but had two horns curving over its head. The freaky throwback rammed its head against the insectoid equine's relatively frail body. That was the last mistake the bicorn made before it was pulled by its tail and thrown through one of the nearby trees. In a moment that would change the course of the planet's history, the Deceiver extended an ebony glove to the equally dark mare.
Light blinded me, wrapping and morphing around my face and obscuring my view of the ancient history. As the visions ended, I felt the final spear slipped into the base of my skull. What this revealed was not a lesson it what was, but the final message the Deceiver had made for me, recorded perhaps thirty minutes ago.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
For Queen Chrysalis, time seemed to have skipped forward. On the throne she knelt before rested a desiccated corpse, older than anything she could imagine. On the floor next to the dead body was the Deceiver, though it was obviously not the same one she knew. The psychic field that negated her magic was amplified tenfold near the armored, unconscious man. Even the porcelain mask that was so common in depictions of the god could do nothing to obscure the identity of someone she had grown so fond of. The new Grand Matron would worry about the specifics, but something very important held her attention.
The glass on the far wall started to crack.