//------------------------------// // Chapter 38. Before Royalty, and After // Story: H'ven Sent // by otherunicorn //------------------------------// There were no waiting rooms, holding cells, or any other form of delay. As soon as we were sealed into the inner ring of Central, we were marched briskly to our destination, through some impressive double doors that were more ornamental than designed for security, and into a comfortably large room that was rather well appointed, or once had been, before these glowing ponies had covered it with that green gunk. Judging from the height of the ceiling, this room was two levels high, the balcony surrounding us being on sublevel one. Had it remained in its original condition, I could have easily been convinced that this was indeed part of a palace, specifically, the throne room. Perhaps our mysterious winged unicorn leaders had once lived here. The current condition of the place strongly suggested those who lived here now were not the original rulers, but rather, usurpers. We were led to stand before a raised platform, Maisie to my left, Cacha to my right. Before us, standing on the platform, so we had to crane our necks to look at her, was an impressive unicorn, black with pale green hair and bright green eyes. To each side, and a pace back from her, stood slightly smaller versions of herself. Behind her was the nest of cushions that, presumably, served as her throne in place of the original. What was particularly interesting was that unlike every pony we had seen in this inner circle of Central, these three were not glowing. "I am Queen Iridescence," the pony said, "and these are my daughter, Princess Morphia, and granddaughter, Princess Lacewing." "Charmed, I'm sure," I mumbled, my sarcasm mode at a hundred percent. "Over four hundred years ago, my mother, Princess Moon Glow, went down to Hell, and found the habitat you foul creatures were hiding in, made sure it was locked so no pony could escape, then shut off its life support," the queen said. "That should have been the end of your kind, and yet you creatures have the audacity to persist." So that was what had happened to the previous inhabitants of Habitat Ten: victims of mistaken identity. "Yeah, sure," Maisie said. "The only way she could have got down there was if she was one of us, in which case she would not wish to kill us, would she?" "Your logic is flawed. Princess Moon Glow was a winged unicorn. All doors opened before her. Unfortunately, she is no longer with us, as she succumbed to illness not long after she returned." "No great loss," Cacha muttered. "Murderous bitch. Probably half froze to death, down below. By the way, you heartless bitch, we didn't live in that habitat. She murdered the wrong bloody species!" "An error I intend to correct, and that is where you come in," the queen said, totally unfazed by the revelation. "You are going to help us go down there, so we can eliminate your kind, once and for all." "Like that's going to happen," I spat. "Do you not realize that it is us who keep this place running? Without us, you will all die!" "We have survived without you aberrations for centuries, just as we have survived without the pegasi and unicorns. Ponies are nothing more to us than a source of food, and your type is a security risk, a threat that must be eliminated." The queen paused. "Why am I even talking to these creatures?" Ponies were a source of food? And the queen had just implied that she was not a pony herself. What were these creatures? Whatever they were, they had just seriously pissed me off. I was not anypony's... any creature's food... not until I was recycled, anyway. "There is no way we are going to help you," Cacha spat. "Believe me, you have no choice, as you will see." The queen laughed. With that, the queen and her daughters were engulfed in shimmering green flames of magic that appeared to rise from the floor, gradually consuming their form. (What was it with these ponies and green?) Instead of them burning away, it was as if they were merely wearing a disguise that was burning, and finally, after we had been buffeted and dazzled by the display, instead of three ponies, before us stood three creatures of a type that I did not recognize. While more-or-less pony shaped, they were mostly black, except for their carapace, which reflected light in reds, yellows and blues, which was surprising due to the mostly greenish hue of the light in this room. They had horns that had more in common with a gnarled, old tree than anything a unicorn would sport. On their backs they had transparent, lacy wings. Both these wings, and the lower legs of them were peppered with holes large enough to see through. So, were they some sort of oversized insect? While I did not recognize the species from their appearance, I had heard of the ability to change appearances, though. "Changelings," I said. "You know what they are, Aneki?" Maisie asked. "Changelings are mysterious bad guys that change their form in breezie tales." "Right, you are," Queen Iridescence said. "And the magic of changeling queens is powerful enough to not only take on your appearance, but to also take on your characteristics so perfectly that the scanners of Habitat Eleven cannot tell the difference. Not even your kind can discern us. What's more we can take your knowledge, so even your family will not be able to detect us!" Her voice had changed. Now, it sounded like she had two sets of vocal cords. With that, three beams of magic reached out, one from each of the three changelings on the platform, reaching for each of us. Instinctively, I tried to dodge, but that had no effect, the magic following me. It was more intrusive and more painful that anything Brainstorm had thrown at me, including that bloody weapon installing itself, now that was a thought... if I could hold out long enough to do anything; I could feel my concentration slipping away, the world becoming intangible. At this rate, I would be unconscious within moments. What was I thinking... about? That's right, the gun, that other thing that caused me lots of pain. Oh, there went my legs, crumpling up below me. Stop, stop, you bitch of a queen; this is agony. Can't move legs. Can't aim. How did I do it when I was walking? Turrets. Which side of me is upper most at the moment? Can barely see through the green fire and the blinding pain. Right shoulder is up, I think. Ouch. What was I doing? That looks like a nice, dark, comfortable place, away from all this distorted, green agony. Maybe I'll just go in there. Ah, so much better. NO! No one is going to make a copy of me. Must save the Hellites! Spell. Load some sort of spell. Can't concentrate. That one will do. Target... target that... BITCH. FIRE! ... What happened? I was in this nice, dark, comfortable place, anyway. Oh well, I tried... Noises gradually pierced my lack of consciousness, light filtering through my closed eyelids. I was alive. I was a Hellite called Aneki. Okay. I still seemed to have a functional brain, even if somewhat painful. I struggled to open my eyes, finding I was staring at a wall, one that was plain, boring cream in color, much like the rest of H'ven. "The queen has woken. Let the Princess know immediately," a weird, two toned voice said. Queen? What queen? My head was pounding as if it had been... well... thoroughly pounded. My thoughts were somewhat hard to gather, as the great thump, corresponding to my heartbeat, kept derailing my thought processes. Queen? Wasn't that a ruler? Why would I be anywhere near a ruler? That would mean I had gone to Central... oh, shit. I had gone to Central, hadn't I, guided along by lots of ponies pointing guns at me. What happened after that? That's right, the source of the brain-pounding pain was that queen changeling as she tried to suck my identity and knowledge from my head. My right shoulder felt a little uncomfortable, so I managed a somewhat painful glance at it, to find a dirty great turret-gun mounted there, bandaged at that! If that was there, I must have intended to shoot at the magic wielding bitch. Had I? Even if I had, if they were addressing her, the bitch must have survived. As much as I didn't like the idea of killing, this particular creature really did need to die. I lay there, feeling either unable or disinclined to move any further; I wasn't sure which. What was I going to do now? Was it too late to do anything? I closed my eyes again, letting out a sigh. "Your Majesty, can we help you sit?" one of those odd, dual voices asked from in front of me. Curious, I opened my eyes to find another type of these insectoid creatures standing near my bed. Unlike the queen, its eyes were pale blue, a slightly brighter area suggesting the direction in which it was looking. Like the queen, it had a carapace, although this time in dark blue, as well as the hole-riddled legs and wings. Its black horn was a larger, inverted version of the two white fangs protruding from its mouth. It seemed to be looking straight at me. "Your Majesty, would you like to sit? The Princess will be with you in a moment." "You can't be talking to me," I said. "I am talking to you, Your Majesty," the insectoid creature insisted. Good grief! Were these creatures mistaking me for their transformed queen? If so, what had happened to her? And what had happened to Cacha and Maisie? "Where am I?" "You are in the clinic. You were knocked unconscious. The Princess had us bring you here. Please sit, the Princess has arrived." "Oh, okay. Give me a hoof up, will you?" I asked, wriggling about a little so I could sit. "Wow, what a way to stage a coup!" one of those dual voices exclaimed. I looked at the speaker, and was surprised to find a miniature version of the queen. In pony terms, I would have estimated her to be twelve or thirteen years old, but as changeling queens were much taller than that, I really couldn't say how old she was. That she was talking about a coup suggested I had indeed blasted the real changeling queen. "So you are the changeling Princess, are you?" I asked. "Indeed I am. Princess Kakuun at your service. Until you pulled off that amazing coup, I was third in line to the throne. Now I have no idea where I stand. It's good to get a chance to speak to ponies from down below, but I never expected it to be as your subject, Your Majesty." "Why do you keep calling me that?" I asked. Clearly she was not under the impression that I was the original queen, transformed. "The former queen thought she was going to take over your levels, but instead, you took hers from her! Fantastic. I am truly impressed," the changeling Princess said. "That all seems a little too easy to me," I said. "Is this some sort of ruse to get info?" "Not at all. I don't want to end up like the former queen did," Kakuun said. "Do not assume that I will not try to regain my power one way or another, at some point in the future, preferably by negotiation, but for now there are matters the former queen would not consider, that I wish to address. Besides, I'm a child. I don't think I'm ready to rule yet, and as it was you who toppled the former regime, that makes you the new queen for now, like it or not." "You seem rather open minded," I said. "Maybe, or maybe my predecessors were simply closed minded. I read books from the archives. I learned things that worry me, yet when I tried to discuss it with them, they would not give me the time of day. You know things about this world that they won't hear about. There isn't nothing outside. Heaven has not been here forever, and that isn't even its real name. I want to know the truth." "So do I," I said, "but first, what became of my two companions?" "They are recovering in the next room. You have remarkable bodies. Everyone else in the throne room died." "Your mother died?" "Princess Lacewing, yes, she died," Kakuun confirmed. "Yet you let me live, despite being at your mercy?" "She had her good points. Occasionally she even showed me some affection, but mostly she was too busy trying to be royal, always hanging around with the other two. They told me I would join them when I was old enough, but until then, they had little time for me. So, yes, you killed all three older generations of my family, and yes, I will miss them a bit, but what good would me killing you over that be, if we all die in this giant ball because of it?" Okay, so this midget had some brains. Maybe we really could work out something between us. "Tell me, how many shots did I fire?" I asked, glancing at my right shoulder, where the turret gun was still clearly visible. "Just the one. It was more than enough. I have no idea how you managed to get a weapon that powerful past the guards. I would reprimand them if they weren't all dead. Are you up to walking yet, Your Majesty?" "Please, just call me Aneki, and yes, I think I can walk." I experimented with my limbs and found they were responsive enough, so I eased myself from the bed to the floor. "Queen Aneki, if you would follow me this way," Princess Kakuun said. "For Luna's sake, do I have to make it a royal command? Please, just call me Aneki," I said. "In that case, you will refer to me as Kakuun, and that is also a royal command... request?" "Okay, Kakuun, and I'd like to look in on the other two before we go." "As you wish." Kakuun led the way, frequently looking back to see how I was coping, as walking was something of a challenge with all of the aches and pains I was suffering. As it turned out, that first trip was not long, as she guided me into the next door along that corridor, where I found myself in another clinic ward, this one containing two beds, side by side. On each lay a well bandaged and unconscious Hellite, their facial armor deployed. I reached up and found my own had also activated. I remedied that, peeling it back to reveal my face. A few small pieces of rubble bounced to the floor as I did. Kakuun stared at me for a moment, then called for a nurse. Immediately one of those weird-eyed changelings buzzed out of the ward in which I had been. "Nurse, please fetch a wheelchair for our queen as it seems she is still finding walking painful. When you have done that, please see to her face. I shall return when you are done," Kakuun said. Kakuun, however, did not depart, instead waiting with me. "Those..." I said. "Drones. Most of the changeling population is made up of them. Most, as in everyone but me. We will now have to produce a new queen, as having just one leaves us vulnerable... oops." "Yes, oops, but I won't exterminate you while you prefer talking to killing. We may need each other to survive this place." "Thank you," Kakuun said. With my face now cleaned of dust and grime, and the scratches and abrasions attended to, we resumed our trip to wherever it was that Kakuun wished to take me. This time I was seated in a comfortable wheelchair, and a couple of the drones were sharing the task of pushing me. One would have been adequate, had they chosen to walk instead of hovering. As soon as we were out of the area of the clinic, the walls again became covered with the green resin. After several minutes of travel, cracks started appearing in the resin. From then on, the damage increased, until we were dodging chunks that had fallen from the ceiling, then from the walls, until it became such a mess, the wheelchair became impractical. "Sorry, Aneki, it is not far, but you will need to walk the rest of the way. The nurses can assist you," Kakuun said. "What caused all of this damage?" I asked. "Surely not..." "You? Yes, you caused this. The older resin has become brittle, and the concussion shattered it. Apart from the cannon that was found down below, I have never heard of such a powerful weapon before. Nor have I ever seen one that bleeds. Nothing in history suggested such a weapon existed. No hellspawn that has been captured ever bore one," Kakuun said. "Your two companions do not appear to be so equipped either." "Is that so?" I asked innocently, and left it at that. There was no point to revealing our strengths and weaknesses just yet. I didn't know if Kakuun's slip about the shortage of queens making them vulnerable had been deliberate or not. Had she done so to see if I would try to shoot her? For that matter, had they found some way to disable my weapon? Nothing felt particularly amiss, but then, I was aching too much to be certain. I must have shot something that exploded with some ferocity. "So where are we going?" "The throne room." As we walked along the corridor, the quality of the light changed. The green hue was gone, of course, with the resin having fallen from the ceiling and the lights mounted therein, but this was more than just that. There was a more intense light coming from the room at the end of this corridor. I recognized the magnificent doors through which we had passed on our first visit to the throne room, but this time they were somewhat broken, and resting against the walls of the corridor some distance from their frame. The debris on the floor was now somewhat soggy too. Was the water from fighting a fire? What the hell had I shot? "Dare I ask what exactly it was that I shot?" I asked. "The queen." "That makes sense. I was aiming for her. Did she explode or something?" "You will see... or not." Kakuun would not elaborate any further, leading me right into the former throne room, until I was standing where I had been on my previous visit. I was gobsmacked. The room had been utterly destroyed, its ornate fixtures, and the resin that had covered them, blown to splinters. The balconies had lost their balustrades, and their floors had collapsed in places. Kakuun pointed out the piles of debris from which my companions and I had been extracted, then the rather messy splatter marks on the left and right walls that indicated where Princess Morphia and Princess Lacewing had met their end. But, really, that was nothing, insignificant when compared with where Queen Iridescence had been standing, or where the ceiling behind her had been, or the equipment, including one of the water-filled spars of the Mane Way heating system, that occupied the space between the ceiling and where the floor of ground level had once been. Daylight, from the sky dome of the life support chamber itself, was coming in through this massive hole. "It is a good thing this throne room aligns with the northbound road of the Mane Way," Kakuun said, pointing through the hole at what was beyond it. In the distance, I could see a few buildings that had lost their overhanging rooms. Even further out were the remains of some bridges that spanned the gaps between taller buildings. I couldn't really see too far beyond that though, because a black circle was blocking my view. "Sweet Luna," I gasped. "What's that black thing out there, that stopped my shot?" "The sky." "What?" "You burnt a giant black patch on the sky." "What? Did I penetrate it?" I asked, thinking about the potential problems of having put a hole through the water jacket of the life support chamber, and perhaps even worse, the skin of Habitat Eleven itself. After all, the piece of the Mane Way that had passed over the throne room had not survived, and that was made of the same tough material as the Habitat Ten walls, and presumably the walls of Habitat Eleven as well. That we hadn't drowned when the Mane Way pipe was destroyed suggested it was compartmentalized with automatic valves that closed to prevent the flooding of the life support chamber. "No. Fortunately, your shot dissipated at that point." "Deaths?" "A few." "And the queen?" "Like everything between you and the sky dome, she was vaporized, and exploded," Kakuun said, seriously. "You are sure?" "I saw it happen, right up to the moment the place exploded. I have a monitor in my room that used to show what is going on in here. It was so I could watch any royal proceedings, and learn from them. Trust me, after watching this, I learned real good. With a gun that powerful, we couldn't risk trying to disable it, or even risk killing you, lest we accidentally trigger it." Feeling suddenly weak, I sat, right there on the soggy rubble, staring at the giant hole. It was big enough for the flying changeling drones to pass through, with room to spare. What spell had I loaded? Carefully, I withdrew the ammunition spell from the gun, then reabsorbed the turret itself, the bandages that had been on it falling limp. I looked over the ammunition spell, quite shocked by what I had found. It wasn't complete. All safety measures and limitations I usually programmed into them were missing, with the exception of the one that brought the spell to an end when it recognized the target had been destroyed, and that part was integral with the weapon itself. In my pain, I had been unable to find or load the correct spell. In effect, the queen's actions against me were what had caused the severity of my attack. It didn't leave me feeling any less bewildered, or guilty over the deaths of the innocent ponies caught in the blast. "So that's how you got the weapon past the guards," Kakuun said flatly. I just shrugged. What could I possibly say?