Act I:
“The Shape of Things to Come”
Chapter Three:
"In Darkness Dwells"
Chrysalis, once mighty queen of the Changelings, and one of the last of her kind, lay on the cot in the corner of the dark, stingy cell, with only a small, faint shaft of light piercing through the dusty air to keep her company. Her emerald eyes stared at the wall across from her, carefully tracking the large cricket like insect skittering along the wall. She had been here for what seemed like an eternity, with the days always seeming to blend into each other, only being told apart by the amount of labor she was tasked with. Some days, the labor was as savage and backbreaking as being tasked with mining for the minerals that were later refined into starship fuel. Other days, it was as mind numbingly pedantic as hand assembling the thousand odd individual parts that made up a hoverbike. Usually, the only thing to interrupt her schedule of labor was random ‘disciplinary’ sessions, which usually left her entire body a hellish cauldron of searing pain.
Earlier that day was one such session. She had attempted to break free from her captors, but they had been quick to end any chances of escape. As of this moment, she could only just begin to feel the tips of her fingers, the pain having lessened slightly since that morning’s session. The sound of approaching footsteps caught her ears and her eyes swivelled towards the cell door, which was sealed with an airtight seal.
Through the opaque window, she could make out the eagle like heads of two Griffin guards, who were apparently conversing in their horrid and vile excuse of a language. The sound of a keypad being pressed, followed by a complicated series of locks tumbling announced the cell door being unlocked. Chrysalis’ eyes narrowed involuntarily as the scraping sound of the old door sliding along it’s track tore at her ears.
As always, the screeching sound of the door was an blinding explosion of light followed by the heavy, thumping footsteps of a Griffin guard. Chrysalis eyed him hatefully, cursing the clamp that they had hooked to her horn for disabling her magic entirely. The griffin’s face was covered by a helmet that obscured his features, making his identity unknown to her.
“Good morning…” she hissed towards the guard spitefully, as he came to a stop next to her cot, his bulky figure looming over her. She was swiftly greeted by a talon to the face, which she took without so much as making a sound. Instead, she simply eyed him with even more hatred, her jaw set tightly.
“yIHu'!” the griffin commanded, grabbing her by the tattered remains of her clothes and dragging her to her feet. Once on her feet, her hands were cuffed with incredibly tight handcuffs, and her legs soon received the same treatment, a length of chain connecting the handcuffs to the ankle cuffs. All the while, she stood silent, simply staring hatefully at the other guard in the doorway.
“vIH!” The first griffin barked, violently jabbing his elbow into her side, causing her to stumble forward slightly. A stab of pain shot up her leg as her ankle twisted oddly due to the shove, and an incredible explosion of pain tore up her leg. Gritting her teeth, she straightened out and began to walk forward slowly, wincing as her now injured leg screamed in protest. As she limped, the first griffin grabbed her arm tersely and proceeded to practically drag her towards the doorway, paying no heed to her growls of protest. As the pair reached the doorway, the other griffin, who hadn’t said a word, grabbed Chrysalis’ other arm just as violently, and the guards proceeded to drag her down the grimy hallway.
As she was dragged, Chrysalis’ eyes darted between the pair of griffins, the gears in her mind turning. This isn’t normal, she thought, noticing how the floor beneath her feet seemed to become slightly less filthy and the walls somewhat more well kept. She glanced up at the roof, attempting to decode the signs that passed by above in order to better discern where she was being taken.
Wherever it was, it seemed to require much less security than the other parts of the prison she had seen, as the number of guards noticeably decreased as they continued down the dark hallways. Chrysalis could feel an almost microscopic smile tug at the edge of her lips. She had an idea. It was a crazy one, but it was worth a shot. Taking a deep breath, Chrysalis threw herself against one of the guards, using her slightly taller size to her advantage. The guard, having certainly not expected this, was sent tumbling to the side, his head slamming into the metallic walls and slumping down to the floor.
Chrysalis meanwhile, ducked just as the other guard made a broad swing with his arm, truncheon in hand. However, instead of impacting Chrysalis’ head, as was normally intended, the guard was greeted by her horn piercing through his thick leather jacket and clean into his abdomen. Chrysalis yanked her horn out, and the guard toppled to the floor, a pool of blood quickly forming.
Without sparing a moment, Chrysalis leaned down and fished around for the keys she knew all guards carried.
“Ha!” she found the ring of keys, and violently yanked it off the dead guard’s body. The small chain that kept them attached to his belt snapped, sending little links of chain scattering along the floor. In the background, she could already hear the alarm screaming, alerting probably every guard within a three mile radius of her escape. Her eyes darted about, quickly looking for a hallway she could duck into in order to hide and focus on unlocking the chains around her legs and hands.
Of course, sitting in the middle of a hallway wasn’t exactly the best hiding place, especially when she loomed over the dead guard and the other unconscious one. She stood up and started to run as best she could towards the nearest hallway, hoping that it at least wasn’t currently occupied.
It was.
As she rounded the corner, she was greeted by a truncheon to the face. There was a painful flash of white as the truncheon hit her square in the face, and the pain in her muzzle meant that it was probably broken. She felt herself tumbling backwards, her vision flashing white as the back of her head impacted the unforgiving metal floor. She let out a cry of pain and anger and tried to get back up only to have a heavy boot kick her square in the chest, knocking all the air out of her and pinning her to the floor.
She looked up at her attacker hatefully, unable to speak due to the pain in her mouth and jaw. She could taste the blood in her mouth, it’s metallic taste only managing to make her hatred burn even hotter.
The griffin meanwhile, leaned down to grab her by her neck, lifting her up with one arm. Chrysalis felt any remaining air in her throat being squeezed out of her, and she gasped, the blood dripping from her nose burbling. Gritting her teeth, she spat a bloody wad of spit directly in the guard’s face, where it landed with a wet plop on his helmet. She swore she heard him sigh tiredly before he balled his talons into a fist and punched her square in the face, knocking her senseless.
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Chrysalis’ head felt like it were being crushed by a vice. As her vision slowly returned, she squinted, the sheer brightness of the white light directly in front of her blinding her.
“Oh there you are,” Came the somewhat accented voice of...someone. Chrysalis’ eyes darted about, searching for the source of the voice. She tried to move her arms and legs, but found that they were tied down securely.
“You’re late…” the voice admonished, and Chrysalis growled in anger at the sight of a rather thin griffin stepping into her line of sight. As with every griffin she had seen so far, this one wore a helmet. What was with these creatures and their obsession with helmets?
“I expected you five minutes ago. You can talk you know. I’d much rather prefer to have a good conversation companion than just another unwilling participant.” the thin griffin said. Chrysalis watched him hatefully as he came around to stand directly in front of her, looming in front of the light and casting a shadow over her.
“My they really did rough you up didn’t they?” It said, and Chrysalis could tell it was male, albeit a somewhat effet male. It spoke Basic perfectly, albeit with a slight Griffin accent. Chrysalis tensed up as the griffin reached into his white lab coat and pulled out a small cloth.
“Ach...look at what they’ve done to you...broken you’re beautiful noise...my poor baby…” it continued, and the tone in it’s voice only managed to set Chrysalis’ skin crawling.
“I’m not your baby…” she growled, her jaw still aching. The griffin chuckled and Chrysalis could practically hear the smile on his face.
“Oh that’s what every prisoner says,” he wiped some of the dried blood off her face. “Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘What does he want? Why is he being so nice to me? Surely he must have some ulterior motive.’” he paused, elegantly folding up the bloody napkin and putting it back in his lab coat pocket. “And you’d be right!” he chirped. “Can you guess what it is?”
Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. “If you intend for me to tell you anything, I would rather die.”
The griffin’s shoulders sagged. “Oh you’re no fun you know that? I really did wish you would talk,” he said, his voice sounding like a disappointed child. He started to walk around her again and once more disappeared out her line of sight, all the while continuing to talk.
“I mean, I really did wish I wouldn’t have to resort to using this...but you and I both know that a Changeling starship, especially one the size of yours, and with such advanced technology couldn’t have just randomly popped out of nowhere...it has to have some higher purpose than just sightseeing yes?” There was the sound of a container being opened and the griffin let out a sigh.
“Now, before I begin, I just want to say this: What I’m about to do might seem to be incredibly sadistic and hateful, but I swear that I feel no hatred at all towards you or your kind. In fact, if I were to be honest, this is me at my most masochistic, because I simply hate having to do this to a creature as beautiful as you.” As he said this he gently ran a talon along the side of her face, brushing some of her mane out of her eyes. Chrysalis felt her stomach twist at this and once more tried to break free. This provoked quite the reaction out of the griffin, as his gentle stroking turned into a violent, tearing slap as he pulled his claws along the side of her face. She cried out in pain as her skin was broken.
“Tisk, tisk, tisk…” he said, “Now don’t be so violent. Only makes this terrible job that much more difficult for me to bear,” the griffin said, wiping his blood stained claws on her face. Chrysalis simply hissed. The griffin ignored her, and she heard him pick something up. There was some more sounds, all sounding like various tools before she saw something drift into her line of sight.
“You see this?” the griffin asked, and Chrysalis felt her stomach once more twist like a pretzel at the sight before her. It was big, almost six inches long and had at least twelve little legs, all twitching spastically. It’s slug like body contorted and twisted in the pliers that held it aloft and in front of her face.
“Now this, this is a Centuarian Slug. You’re probably wondering what it does. Well, let me tell you,” he began, his voice sounding as if he was taking pleasure out of the very idea of exacting pain on her. “I’m going to take this, and place it in your mouth. It’s then going to crawl and burrow it’s way to the back of your skull and latch on to the base of your brain stem. Once there, it’s going to start secreting chemicals that will slowly break down your defenses, and allow you to be more honest and forthright with me,” the griffin said, his voice taking on an almost demented glee. “Now I know it’s a horrid creature, with all of it’s little wiggly legs twitching like that, and it’s probably the single most disgusting way for me to get this information, but I really have to be honest with you. The only reason I’m using this vile creature is because, well, you seem dead set in not cooperating and just admitting defeat and telling us why you were in Sector 79-11-30 on that day ten years ago. Now, if you’ll please, tell me why you were there.”
As he said this, Chrysalis felt his talons grip her jaw and pry it open, and the pliers started to drift closer and closer towards her mouth.
“Come now,” the griffin insisted, and Chrysalis could already feel the creatures legs skittering along the tip of her mouth. “Tell me what you know…”
“N-Never…” Chrysalis hissed in defiance. The griffin sighed.
“Oh very well…you leave me no choice.” And with that, he violently shoved the pliers into her mouth and Chrysalis let out a muffled scream as the slug slithered into her mouth and down her throat.