//------------------------------// // Chapter 21: The monsters in the pit // Story: Itinerant Kingdom // by Istaran //------------------------------// I sat in the bottom of the pit, looking sadly into Cherry Blossom's eyes. It wasn't right what our captors had done to her, starting from the simple fact of abducting such a sweet innocent little filly. It wasn't right that they had tried to use her to extract her fear into crystals, and even less right that they had slain her and thrown her into this pit for merely having faith in me. She swore I would come to rescue them. That belief had been the armor on her heart, but it was pierced easily enough by their blades. But that wasn't the worst of it, at least not in my eyes. "This feels very wrong," she said, echoing my thoughts. Her voice was soft and sounded a bit pained to me. I knew she couldn't feel physical pain though. But that was far from the most painful kind of pain. "I know. It is. I'm sorry, Cherry Blossom. I wish I had known sooner, maybe I could have prevented this," I said, gesturing to her mangled form. "I forgive you. Really. I'll get used to this, as hard as that sounds," she placed a hoof on my leg, giving a reassuring rub. "And.. I know it makes it harder for me right now.. but I want to thank you for bringing back my memory. As much as you could, anyways. Here. I made this for you. It's not as nice as the one I gave you before, but it's all I had on hoof. And I think it will work well for your next big appearance." A pair of longer, adult hooves, bone covered in the remnants of skin, reached up from behind me and planted a circlet on my head, this one made of bone fragments woven together. My ears splayed as the crown made physical the weight I was already struggling under. But I didn't have time to mope. The last thing I wanted was to wait long enough for the monsters above to give Cherry Blossom more, fresh material to work with. "How is the integration coming along? I've never tried anything this big or.. crazy before." "Good, I think. Here.. take flight, and I'll show you what I can do," she suggested. I spread my wings and pulled myself airborne, giving a good five meters below me before settling into a hover. The changelings had already moved another five meters up, and burrowed into the walls, making little alcoves for themselves to stay out of her way. Below me, the entire floor of the pit began to churn. The bones and rotting flesh of a hundred slain ponies moved together as a writhing mass, with Cherry Blossom's top half sticking out like I tiny shrunken head on a massive, impossible body. Limbs made of dead limbs chained together lifted up from the mass and stabbed into the sides of the pit, digging in deeply enough to anchor themselves and pull the entire mass up. After several minutes she reached my level, and I gently alighted upon her massive, horrifying body. "Are you ready for the climb?" I asked. [Yes,] she thought back to me. [Now we really should be stop using our outside voices. Once we get closer to the top the guards might hear us. It will be hard enough keeping my movements quiet enough for them not to hear us.] I nodded my agreement. [Changelings, on your feet! We climb to victory!] The changelings who had been thrown in the pit with me were fully healed by now, and even looking a fair bit healthier from their generous feeding. I still didn't know how Stud Muffin had managed to generate so much love, but I wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste. Cherry Blossom's new form was massive and strong and perhaps more importantly terrifying. And as dead flesh layered over fractal spiders, she didn't have a heart that could be affected by the enemy's magic. But she was also unwieldy, lacked any kind of combat training, and would be readily impeded by the terrain. Her primary role in the battle to come was mostly distraction, a threat that could be avoided easily enough but not ignored. null was set to be our MVP, once he was ready to move into position. He was currently preparing himself for his violent debut. Oak Breaker's kick had left me with black crystals embedded in my guts. They were horrid things, and I was eager to have them dissolved, but I needed them for now. As he and his associates had demonstrated, the crystals affected those who had some in their flesh differently than those who did not. As long as they were in there, the crystals didn't make me afraid, they sapped the fear out of me. They made me reckless, made me take risks I would normally avoid.. like, say, animating the corpse of a poor, sweet, innocent filly and having her absorb all the other dead flesh into a giant abomination. And while I was feeling guilty about that, it took a bit of conscious effort to hold on to that feeling. The dark crystals seemed to want to banish that away from me, along with all other sense of morality. The anger, though. The anger I held onto. The anger I nursed, carefully crafting it into a cold, hard edge in my heart. I wouldn't let it flare up like it had in Oak Breaker. No. Raging anger led to rash mistakes. Like embedding dark crystals into your enemy and granting them protection from your own weapons. The rest of our number were still vulnerable, and couldn't bring themselves to approach the crystals. That included the flight of drones that would be supporting me. They would have to wield horn magic from the air above the pit and support us from a range, but it would have to be enough. Wind Chaser and Midnight Oil also had their horns, the binding rings placed on them already rendered useless. We had planned as far as we could, but I didn't know very well what else our enemy could do, and I knew that no plan survives contact with the enemy. So we climbed, as quietly as we could, and braced ourselves for the chaos of combat. There was a light knocking on the door of the room at the inn, rousing Stud Muffin and the pair of changelings from their rest. While none of them had been asleep, they had simply been resting after a rather active night. "One second!" Stud called out as he quickly made himself as presentable as he could, and Dill and Mirage took on suitable disguises. He opened the door, seeing nopony at first until he glanced down and spotted the little Prince climbing out of his abandoned basket. "null is needed elsewhere," the foal explained, shaking himself free of the crumb-lined blanket. "So I need one or both of you to be my fake-parents and drop me off at school." Seeing them clearly, the appointed guardians could see that they had adjusted their disguise to be somewhat less conspicuous: a pink unicorn colt, with neither wings nor white fur nor any visible filly-bits. It was obviously a compromise, if not necessarily a well thought out one. "Do you even need to go to school?" Mirage asked. "I mean.. can't we teach you everything you need to know through the, you know." [Kingsblood,] she added mentally. "Oh, you can and have taught me a lot, but I have things I need other ponies to learn," he countered. [We are going to do some science!] Gabriella informed them. [We are going to try singing!] she continued with ominous cheerfulness. "Don't look at me. I have to go to work," Dill said, excusing himself to head back to the restaurant to start cleaning and preparing. "I shall need some sort of Muffin-themed pseudonym," Alex pondered aloud. "Ah, yes, Gabriella, I suppose it is the only reasonable choice. We shall be playing 'Strawberry Muffin' for this next act!" Stud grabbed the Prince's neck by the scruff with his teeth, and set them on his back, heading off toward the schoolhouse. Mirage followed after, commenting mentally [Oh! I'll be Blueberry!] [Dang! I wanted to be Blueberry,] Stud countered. [But you're already Stud Muffin!] Mirage said, slipping up by his side to nibble his ear. After the night they had just shared, he was a lot more comfortable with that name than ever before. The trouble with standing guard over an old abandoned well in the middle of the woods was that there wasn't a proper outhouse nearby. When it came time to do your business, you had to excuse yourself from your shift-mate's, presence and try to find a spot where there was enough trees between you and everypony else to give some semblance of privacy. But even then there's nothing to keep somepony from stumbling on you in an awkward moment. Or worse yet, nothing to keep a perfectly identical mare from slipping up next to you silently, grabbing you by horn and jaw, and snapping your neck before you can even cry out. Juju Bee thought about this angrily as her body slumped to the ground. The severed spine didn't allow her to do much else but think in her final moments as the assassin walked off in her form. This wasn't what she had signed up for! They were supposed to be the badponies! Sure, maybe the guards might catch them someday and beat them up, maybe even lock them up someplace unpleasant like Tarturus, but guard ponies don't snap a girl's neck and leave her to die in a puddle of their own mess. As 'Juju Bee' walked up to the well, her pegasus partner flitted down from the trees. "What's the password?" he asked lazily. "Come on, Leaf Blower, do we have to do this every time?" she said, like she did every time. "Ugh.. alright. 'The canary sings sweetly in the trees! HONK HONK HONK!' Seriously, can we get a less lame password?" The green pegasus laughed at her, like he did every time. "This one's great," he said, smirking. He turned his back on her to look out into the woods, scanning the perimeter. Almost instantly, her hoof was around his neck in a choke hold, keeping him from crying out. The other hoof came down with a strike that would make an earth pony envious, ending his struggle instantly. Moments later a dead body dropped down into the well. But despite appearances to the contrary, it wasn't Leaf Blower. Nor was it lying still. It was null, and he was quickly upon the guards at the bottom, starting with the unicorns. They tried overwhelming him with fear as they had the other changelings, but there was nothing their for their magic to affect. It was just a thin veneer of dead flesh stretched over a fearless, remorseless, deadly machine. At this point he wasn't even serving as an avatar; the AI had a simple set of objectives and was given full discretion as to how to achieve them. Four of the six guards were down before they were able to mount an effective counter attack. An earth pony, channeling dark power into his muscles, landed a powerful blow on the dead changeling from behind, sending him flying with the sound of hoof on metal. The thin layer of copper coating that separated his machinery from his flesh was exposed in a couple of hoofmarks, but the enemy didn't have time to process its' significance. An enemy pegasus quickly conjured a small storm cloud, launching a bolt of lightning at the intruder, only for the electricity to channel harmlessly through him and into the ground beneath. null jumped to the ceiling, snapping off a stalactite and hurling it through the earth pony's chest. "I surrender, I surrender!" the pegasus cried as null stalked toward him. The pony dropped to his knees, lowering his head, begging for mercy. "Swear your loyalty to the Itinerant King, and you can live," null offered. "I swear, I swear!" the pegasus complied. null picked him up by the neck, standing on his hind legs as he quickly approached a wall. "I swear!!" the pegasus screamed in objection. "But you don't really mean it," null stated before slamming the pony against the wall, knocking him unconscious. The incursion was loud enough and long enough that the guards at the ring had been able to rouse the rest of their group and return with reinforcements, waiting in ambush around the mouth where null would have to enter the larger cavern. The pieces were all in position.