Urohringr

by Imploding Colon


Destiny, Misery, and Your Mother

By the time Bellesmith hopped off the levitating bridge and onto the fractured temple, she had no chance to breathe with relief, on account of Elma's body twitching involuntarily.

The mare gasped, glancing over her shoulder at the changeling. "Elma? Elma, what's the matter?"

"It's her..." Elma squeaked in Eagle Eye's voice. The lavender coat started to fade, giving way to a black shell and smoldering green eyes. "I... I-I can feel her... oh good heavens, she's here!"

"Elma!" Belle winced. She glanced over at the procession of survivors hopping off the makeshift bridge and onto the platform. One by one, the ponies formed a dense cluster in the center of the temple. Trotting stealthily to the side, Belle knelt beside an overturned column and laid Elma onto the ground. "Pssst... Elma! Look at me!"

"I'm so sorry..." Elma bit her lip, her teeth forming and losing fangs in every other blink. "Please... d-don't devour me... I was so blind... I-I had no idea..."

"Elma. Please. You must maintain your shape." Belle winced. "I mean EE's shape! Focus on me! Focus on my voice!" She smiled reassuringly, caressing the shapeshifter's cheek.

The creature looked up, its face fluctuating to and from a lavender sheen. At last, Elma took on the form of a petite stallion. A solitary tear trickled down a fuzzy cheek.

"Now..." Belle leaned forward, her eyes set on Elma's. "Who is here?"

Elma gulped, ultimately stammering in Eagle Eye's voice. "Mother."


"Grrrkkk!" Rainbow Dash felt herself being lifted up, up, up into the hurricane winds. A solid cluster of changelings were gripping her every limb, floating her two dozen feet off the balcony's edge.

Down below, Pilate shook and struggled in the grip of several burly shape-shifters. With clenched teeth, he tilted his helm to the side. He sensed the Sword of Solstice's shape several feet away, wobbling along the balcony's edge. Try as he might, he couldn't get his limbs to budge a single inch under the pressure of the creatures tackling him, much less reach towards the glowing weapon. All he could do was tilt his head up at the sound of buzzing dragonfly wings.

Rainbow squinted through tearing eyes. She was being pivoted to face the upper rim of the balcony just above the overhang that led to the Urohringr barrier. Clinging to the roof's edge, several changelings scurried and clustered together. More and more arrived from the distant stretches of Stratopolis, all skittering on porous black hooves. At last, when there were over seventy of the obsidian wretches, they pressed against one another, forming a tight black ball of rattling carapaces and folded dragonfly wings.

Then, gradually, that ball took shape, its edges morphing out and turning into jagged edges and rough joints. Two points formed to the top left and the top right, followed by a spike of clumped bodies in the center. Last but not least, the lower half of the cluster of changelings dangled loosely from the top half, hanging off by a "hinge" of sorts. Then—with a cadence of cricketsong—the changelings all fluttered their wings in sequence. A line of flame wafted once, twice, three times over the entire cluster. At last, the collective black sheen of the multiple segmented bodies glossed over into the facade of one polished surface. A face had fully formed, complete with fangs, a drooping webbed mane, and a pair of piercing green eyes that burst open with dual pulses of blazing emerald.

And then that face spoke:

"Ohhhh, how I do love to make an entrance," the voice rang with a nauseating vibration that tickled the hurricane gales.

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. She helplessly stared into the massive muzzle. "Chrysalis," she sneered.

"Austraeoh," the face of Chrysalis smiled. Tiny puffs of green flame flickered randomly across her visage, revealing the ghostly shadows of limbs, wings, and more limbs. Then all was clear once again. "You have proven most fortuitous. Misery has followed you east across the continents. And now, misery has followed you through ten thousand years of forsaken time. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed you were hatched instead of foaled."

"Too much of a coward to actually see me face to face?!" Rainbow snarled.

"But we have seen each other face to face," Chrysalis said, her massive face morphing through green flame to bear a hurt expression. "On the Lightning Bearer. You see, I had to know that you were something worth manipulating." A flicker of flame; a smug grin. "You did not disappoint."

"Don't drag me into your stupid puppet games!" Rainbow Dash spat. "You're responsible for the deaths of thousands of lives!"

"Tens of thousands, actually. Isn't that a lovely number? Sometimes I count it to myself while I fall into hibernation so I can wake up the next hatching season with a smile." A pair of fangs glimmered to life. "Every death... every wound... every horrible consequence of war that you deem abominable is simply a seed that'll grow for my hive's glorious harvest."

"Is that your friggin' plan?!" Rainbow Dash sputtered, struggling against the changelings holding her. All was futile. "Nnnngh... You're sowing misery all across the world so you can feed your children?!"

"It's about destiny, Rainbow Dash. As the Austraeoh, surely you've become well-acquainted with that. I have a destiny too." Chrysalis' eyes narrowed into glimmering slits. "But unlike yours, my future is comprehendable, for it is a goal I've set for myself and myself alone since long before your insipid nation was born. No stars foretold my journey. I'm not blindly led by deteriorating books and a scattering remnant of foolish zealots defending some indefinable cause."

"It's about Tchern, isn't it?!" Rainbow Dash frowned. "All of this is some pathetic attempt to impress your lame sister on the dark side of the world!"

"I will not have a pathetic mortal pawn like you insulting the legacy of my elder sister and Queen! She has sacrificed far too much and far too long to deserve that sort of abuse!" The flickering head leaned back, hissing with the assistance of dozens of dragonfly wings. "Tchern is righteous, but she is also stubborn. She doesn't realize that our combined strength alone is not enough to achieve victory in the Trinary War. That is why I've taken it upon myself to pursue this most glorious undertaking. By siphoning the dreadful emotions of the sunlit realm, I shall amass a well-fed army powerful enough to return full-force to the dark side. Once reunited with Tchern's hive, the Twin Queens shall be unstoppable. At last, after thousands of years of chaos, we will unite the fragments of Endrax and lay claim to the Sarcophagus of Ages. Both the Sarosian and Night Shard armies will be driven into ruin, and we will have our rightful claim to the powers of harmony and chaos that keep this plane adrift."

Rainbow Dash's pupils shrank. "The 'Sarcophagus of Ages...'" She blinked. "Wait, you mean the Midnight Armory?!" She frowned. "And just what in the buck happened to Endrax?!"

"She was nothing but a relic of the Age before the Sundering," Chrysalis said with a flickering smile. "Her vigil was over long before it began. The Three Armies overran her bastion eons ago. After all, we now live on the fragments of a broken world, and everything is dying. Including you, Austraeoh, the supposed spark that the empty runes of old claim will reunite the pieces of Urohringr." A thunderous cascade rolled through the air in the form of ghostly laughter. "A perfect epoch is perfect only once. There is nothing to restore, and yet there is everything to reinvent. I know this now, for one of the Sentinels from before the Sundering is now in my possession, and I have you to thank for that."

"What in the hay could you possibly accomplish with a floating death city full of zombies?!"

"I shall master its nagivation, and carry it on a path of destruction to the far reaches of the world, through the Grand Choke and beyond. The cursed infestation of the past shall pour forth from the heart of this Sentinel, waging misery across the continents. All the while, my beloved children will feed and grow strong, starting with the kingdom where I have now settled. It is a bountiful place, full of many souls ready to scream and sob. They shall serve as my springboard here, and when the rest of the sunlit world becomes covered in blight, my hive will have rejoined with Queen Tchern on the far side, initiating an Age of Glorious Night."

Rainbow Dash's muzzle hung open. "Val Roa," she murmured. "You're already in Val Roa as we speak..."

The Queen's eyes billowed with green flame. "And what a succulent sepulcher it will become..."