//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 - Larva, Bunsen Burner // Story: A Journey Unthought Of: Revival of Chaos // by Hustlin Tom //------------------------------// Larva, Royal Candidate of the Changeling Hive, stirred as she began to awaken. She had failed her mission to kill Princess Luna. She had failed the Queen, and there was sure to be repercussions for her negligence. As the large Changeling opened her eyes, she had expected that she had been placed in some cold, dark dungeon in Canterlot from which she could easily escape. Instead, the room she found herself in was colored white and well lit. There was a door on the other side of the room that was sealed up by some kind of hatch. She got up and made her way over to the door with a nonchalant demeanor, as she believed it would be a simple latch mechanism that restrained the door and nothing more, which would be easy enough to bypass. She held her foreleg out and probed the bottom of the doorway for a hole to slide through; there wasn’t one. She reached out with both her forelegs and felt her substance all the way around the door frame; the door was pneumatically sealed. Her frustration growing rapidly, she transformed her right foreleg into a large sledge of hardened iron. She was going to force the door down, but before she could even begin her strike, she heard a deep tinny voice in her cell, “I would not advise that course of action.” Larva slowly craned her head all around her as she sought the source of the broadcast system through which her captor was speaking. “What sort of action would you advise?” she sarcastically replied to the disembodied voice. “Perhaps we could simply speak to each other, as one sapient being to another? As equals perhaps? I might even let you go if you talk.” Larva scornfully laughed, “Don’t patronize me, stallion. You are nowhere near my equal. None of your kind is.” “And just what makes you assume I am an equine, Changeling?” Larva was legitimately surprised that whoever this stallion was knew about her race. She of course did not allow herself to express this surprise externally, “Your vocal timbre and cadence matches that of any Canterloter I’ve met, Equestrian. If we’re in Canterlot still, of course you’d be a pony.” “What if you are not in Canterlot,” the voice continued, “What if you are hundreds of miles away from where you think you are, separated from your Hive and Queen? Do you think Queen Chrysalis will come looking for you?” Frustrated with this stallion’s string of hypotheticals, the volatile Changeling burst out, “Enough games! How do you know such things as our Queen’s name? Who are you?” The voice coldly responded in a calm, clinical manner, “I am he who fights monsters; it is my business to know my enemy’s secrets.” “Is that so, ‘He who fights monsters?’” Larva responded with evil glee, “You don’t know what kind of monster you are dealing with! I will break out of this prison, and I will eat the hearts of your loved ones. I will make you watch as I feast on their precious blood and love for you! You ponies are weak because of your emotions for each other, and your weakness is my strength! When I am finished dining on the flesh of everyone you ever loved, I will kill you in the slowest possible way.” For several moments, silence was the only response the Changeling received, and she was pleased if it meant she had intimidated her captor. The broadcast system filled with a garbled, deep rumbling noise which burst into a higher pitched sound. It was laughter. Larva could taste the emotion behind the outburst of laughter, but it wasn’t mania or nervousness like she had expected; the stallion legitimately believed her threat was funny. As he subsided, he returned to a steely calm tone of voice. “Tell me,” he asked, “If you were to engage an opponent who fed off of all positive emotion, and who could take the form of anyone they desired, how would you fight such a creature?” Larva remained silent, as she felt the tiniest drop of fear enter her mind. “In my opinion,” the voice continued on, “I would find a being that could no longer experience any positive emotion without it being tainted by their own perception of reality, and who had no one left in the world to care about. I would then send that being to fight those creatures, and I believe it would be very likely that he would win.” “You’re not like the others,” Larva said with a touch of genuine shock, “You’re not soft and weak like the others.” She whirled her head around as she still frantically looked for the source of the voice, and she angrily cried out, “You’re bluffing! You can’t lie to me! Changelings are the masters of deceit!” “Very well, Candidate,” the voice declared, “If you are indeed as great of a lie detector as you say you are, then tell me if this is a lie or not; you will not leave this chamber alive.” Larva scrutinized the statement with all of her empathic powers, as she tried devouring the emotions behind it like it was her first meal in weeks. She felt the icy numbness of fear grip the closest thing she had to a heart; there was no emotion behind the statement. She found no regret, pity, anger or hatred for her, or even self-deprecating disgust for having to take a life. The statement held nothing but one single elemental thing; truth. The stallion believed with all his heart that she was going to die in this chamber. “Fine,” Larva huffed in anger to mask her true thoughts, “What do you want?” “Information. I may even let you go, if I believe the intel is truly valuable.” The Changeling sighed in defeat, “Liar. What sort of information do you want?” “What were your Hive’s plans for Canterlot?” “The Queen was going to marry the Captain of the Guard in the stead of the Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. With the love she would receive from both her new food source and the adoration of the gathered crowds, we’d have enough food to last us for months.” “Is the Princess still alive?” “You don’t know?” Larva asked in surprise, “So I’m not really in Canterlot after all. Yes, she’s alive.” “Why?” the stallion asked, “Surely you must have known she could escape and thwart your plans by appearing at an inopportune time.” The Royal Candidate chuckled to herself, “You are deviously clever! It’s the conundrum of our race; if the being we take the guise of dies, then the two way connection between them and the one they love is broken, and we cannot feed off of their passion for each other any longer.” “Your scheme of taking the place of Princess Cadence would have only lasted you for so long,” the stallion bluntly said, “What was the plan for after you were discovered?” Larva did not speak. “Bear in mind that your chance of survival increases as you talk.” “We Changelings are a tough species,” Larva smirked, “How do I know that your threat to me is actually merited?” “I’ve dealt with your kind before. There was a Royal Candidate among them. I believe her name was Bruco?” Larva’s breath caught in her throat; Bruco had been one of the unaccounted for Candidates when the main host of the Changelings had broken out of Tartarus. “I was one member of a squad sent to investigate claims of metamorphs in a small town. We went, we sought them out, and we eliminated them. I thought fire would be effective in neutralizing your kind, since you have many insect-like attributes, but even that takes great time and effort. Your physiology requires a more subtle and creative means of ending your life quickly and efficiently.” A small hatch opened in the ceiling. Larva instinctively leapt up to try and slip into the hole and make her way out of the cell, but as she almost reached the hole, a small puff of orange gas blew into her face. She unintentionally breathed in the foreign substance, and it felt like fire in her lungs. She fell clumsily to the floor and began to cough violently. The pain traveled from her lungs to her thorax, where her stomach used to be. If she had still had a gastrointestinal tract, she would have been trying to throw up her guts. “That,” the voice said, “was a sample of one of my chemical blends called ‘The Marigold Option’.” Larva looked up to the area where the ceiling panel had been, which had now closed up, and her eyes were filled with bloody hatred. “That was only a six percent concentrate sample. A one-hundred percent dose will leave you to die a quick but painful death.” There was a pause before the stallion continued, “Now, I’m going to ask again: What was the plan for after you and your Hive were discovered?” “Even if I knew, it ultimately wouldn’t matter,” Larva spat on the floor, “The fact of the matter is that we are everywhere. You may find one of us, but there will be ten others whose disguise is still strong. The more you try to find us, the greater the paranoia of not being sure of who is who will drive you insane. Whatever happens from now on, I can trust in my Queen to make sure that you lose.” “You may have faith in your Queen,” the voice said over the broadcast system, “I have equal faith in myself that I will succeed. Perhaps we are more alike than you may think? We are two soldiers; one loyal to the crown, the other to the state. It is in your nature to transform and adapt, and in my own way I suppose I do as well. The difference between us is that you have lost your camaraderie by accident, while I must go and find my own way of stopping your kind now, since I am now without my organization.” The Changeling was quiet for a time as she listened to the monologue. After the voice had finished, she began to think deeply. “So,” Larva slowly spoke, “the game begins?” “I suppose it does,” the stallion replied. “Are you going to kill me now?” she asked. “Yes. I cannot contain you forever, and I cannot control you. Logic has determined that I must eliminate you.” “Are you sure you are truly equine?” the Changeling smiled wickedly, “Even among the Royal Guard, I haven’t seen somepony so comfortable with the thought of taking a life. Do you think that after so many years of fighting monsters, you might just have become one?” “I know I am a monster,” the voice said, “I just happen to be the monster that protects Equestrian soil. I will offer you this, though; if you wish, I will lace the air with a heavy sedative before killing you. Your body shouldn’t have time to become immune to it before you expire. It will not be comfortable, but it will at least be painless.” The Changeling shook her head, “No. When I go, I will face death with you hearing my every scream. I hope you remember what I look like when you close your eyes at night. Whenever you try to drift off to sleep, I hope my face haunts you forever.” “So be it,” Bunsen Burner intoned with finality, as he hit the switch to administer a full dose of Marigold Option. The orange cloud of death descended, and Larva’s fate was sealed.