//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10:  Mercy 
// Story: The Unseen 
// by Shadow Beast 
//------------------------------//

“How long has it been, ‘Verdugo?’” the voice asked her.  “A couple hundred years?”  Shadow smiled.

Verdugo shook her head.  “You're not the wretched queen.  That is impossible.  I killed you!  Your body turned to ash!”

Shadow shrugged.  “You destroyed my hive.  An amalgamation of all of my children, fused together to keep me around.  It was not my body and frankly I'm surprised you thought that I couldn't live without it.”

“No!  Your spellbook said that going into another’s mind kills that mind or you!  There's no way you have a body again!”

Shadow scoffed and rolled his eyes.  “I'm the .1%.  The master of that spell.  I know all the tricks of the trade!”

“But you rounded that up!  And I never put your consciousness into that spell!”

“Free will is a fickle concept, isn't it?”  Shadow chuckled.  “What made you keep listening to my meaningless rant?  What made you look for something useful in my heretical books?”  He paused but Verdugo refused to answer.  “Me.  I transferred myself into your head and worked my magic on your subconscious.  I jumped from iteration to iteration of your open minds and did all I could to find a friend.”  Shadow spread his forelegs out.  “Only took a couple hundred years to find a decent guy.”

Verdugo shook her head.  “He’s not even one that was subjected to that spell...”

Shadow gave a strong nod.  “True.  That is true.  I would have never met him if he hadn’t tried to heal Starch’s stab wound.”  The voice chuckled.  “I made sure his efforts succeeded.”

Verdugo looked at Starchy.  He shrugged back at her and shook his head.

“I cover my tracks with harmless amnesia and half-true memories,” Shadow explained.  “It was a huge risk to pull strings so close to Chrysalis just to get us onto your team...”  He looked back toward the Crystal Heart.  “But I think it payed off quite well!”

Verdugo stepped forward.  “I can’t listen to any more of this!” she snarled at him.  “I don’t know if you really are that queen I killed two hundred years ago or not... but if I killed you then, I can kill you now!”

“But you couldn’t kill me the other day,” Shadow said with his own voice.

“Yeah?”  Verdugo smirked.  “I wasn’t really trying.”

“And neither of us have tried to kill someone in over a thousand years,” the voice replied.  “So we apologize if we’re a little rusty...”  Shadow’s head began to shine brightly with a green aura too big for his horn.  “We want to take this moment before we restore harmony to the world to give you one last chance.  We would appreciate any help you could give us in our endeavor...”

“Shadow, if that is your name anymore...”

“It never was,” Shadow’s voice replied.  “But this will make up for that.”

“I just wanted you to know that I’m almost sorry I have to kill you now.”  Verdugo’s horn began to glow.

Verdugo charged him, her horn’s aura wrapping around her and turning her into a fireball.  She struck the changeling in the face with fire, and bounced back on all fours.

Shadow smiled back at her, still standing.  There was no sign of damage.  His horn glowed brighter.

He gave her a smirk.  “You’re gonna have to try harder than that!”

Shadow fired a large blast in her direction.  Verdugo dodged it easily enough.  She turned to her team.

“Come on, boys!  This voice has been tormenting you all too long!”

“Torment?!” the voice screeched, aghast.  “We did no such thing!  Any torment you felt was of your own doing...  It was your guilt.”  The horn fired another blast toward them.  

With how easily they were able to dodge it, Starchy almost wondered if the voice was holding back.  He shook the thought off, reciprocating the feeling could easily get him killed.  ...again.  

“Coming from the changeling that ate other changelings!” Verdugo screamed back at Shadow.  She shook her head.  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you did to the first executioner!”

“I was the first executioner!” Shadow’s voice screamed back.  “Back when we first began...  When we first met the ponies!”  He shook his head, the blinding lights in his eyes relenting as he closed them for a moment.  “They didn’t deserve what they got.”  His eyes opened.  Light coursed more furiously from them.  “They don’t deserve what they get!”  The horn’s power amplified.  “Our redemption will come with their freedom.”  His head shook under the weight of his horn’s power.  “Now get out of our way!”

A beam fired at the team.  They dodged it seamlessly, their instincts still on their side.  Starchy wondered if they would stay like that.  Fear not standing in their way, they charged toward the glowing changeling.  

Squee’s teeth dug into Shadow’s arm, splintering it.  Brucie’s horn went for the bleeding wound on Shadow’s stomach with his horn.  Starchy went for horn.  Verdugo flew high into the air and impacted Shadow’s spine with enough force to shatter a dragon’s.  He collapsed under her weight, Brucie’s horn ripping a fair chunk of his chest open in the process.  His horn broke off in Starchy’s grasp and half of his arm splintered off in Squee’s teeth.  

The broken changeling tried to get up but failed.  

“That’s what happens when you mess with the Royal Executioner!” Verdugo yelled at him.  

She turned and kicked his snout with enough force to put him on his back.  Blood poured from his chest, bathing the crystal ground below him in green.  His head was barely glowing anymore.  

“I’m sorry...” Shadow whimpered.  “I can’t...”

Verdugo crooked her head.  “Are you seriously still alive after all that?”

The changeling weakly shook his head.  Blue eyes opened enough to see the blood soaking their back.  “You...” the voice whimpered.  “You...”

“I what?”  She trotted toward the broken creature, ready to finish him off.

The broken snout smiled.  The eyes slowly turned from blue to green.  “Can’t stop this heart from beating...”  He reached his unbroken hoof toward the Crystal Heart.  

Verdugo moved to stomp the hoof into the ground, but the Heart pulsed with blinding light.  The changelings were blind.  The voice called out to them.

“You’re gonna have to try harder than that!”

The light faded.  Standing before them, on a clean crystal floor, was a changeling queen.

“As long as this heart is beating...”  The queen panted.  “Shadow or not, I will restore harmony!”  The breathing became less labored as a smile creased her snout.  “Executioner, you allowed Midnight to let go.  You killed him.”  She shook her head.  “But you can't kill me.”  She chuckled.  “He left me with a body, and enough power to end all of this misery.”  She reached out her hoof.  “I'm giving you one last chance to redeem yourself...”

Verdugo sneered at her.  “I just killed Shadow and you're trying to show mercy?”  She scoffed.  “Are you serious?”

“This world is filled with pain and death so long as you stand in my way,” the queen explained.  She shook her head.  “Midnight and Dreary couldn't be saved, but I'm not willing to let any more needlessly fall!”

Verdugo shook her head.  “How many times do I need to kill you?”

The queen smiled.  “You can't.”

Verdugo charged the queen, horn first.  She stabbed her horn into the queen’s chest before twisting it around to leap on her back and snap the spine.

The queen’s saddle was firm under her weight.  She bucked Verdugo off with a smile.  The executioner couldn't see a scratch or even a drop of blood on the queen’s front.

“Just give up.  You can't hurt me!”

Verdugo turned to her team.  Starchy looked back at her with fear shaking him.  He could remember it again, a time before he was a changeling.  A time when he was just a pony child without a care in the world.

“Don't let her intimidate you!” Verdugo screamed at them.

“Don't you get it?” the queen asked her.  “You put me in their heads when they were nothing more than frightened ponies...  So I kept a copy of what they held onto.”  She smiled at the changelings.  “They’re not scared of me.  They're scared of letting go!”

“If you couldn't remember those things without her...” Verdugo continued to scream at her team.  “Then... Then it could be a lie!  She's just manipulating you!”

“Vertigo,” the queen called out.

Verdugo turned, glaring at the queen.  “What did you just call me?”

“That's your name, isn't it?”

She shook her head.  “I am Verdugo.  Chrysalis has exalted me!”

The queen shrugged.  “Hardly.”  She stepped forward.  “She's just using you.  She hates you as much as she hates me!”

Verdugo shook her head.  “No.  I am the Royal Executioner!”

“You are a slave.”

“I command respect!”

“...of lesser slaves.”

Verdugo pointed at her.  “You are a cannibal and a deceiver!”

The queen smiled.  “You don't get fed enough, respected enough, or appreciated enough.”  She reached a hoof out.  “Let's stop this silly fight...”  She scanned the others.  “None of them want any part of this.”

Verdugo batted the hoof away.  “You are a monster!”

“You cannot judge me, executioner.”  She shook her head.  “Chrysalis didn't call you the Royal Judge!”  

“I know that you have to die.”  Verdugo’s horn began to glow again.  “And that's good enough for me!”

Verdugo lashed out at the queen, striking her legs with hooves and blasting her face with a beam strong enough to stun a dragon.

The queen’s bluish mane shook off the frazzle.  She smiled back.  “We've been over this!”  She chuckled.  “You can't hurt me!”

Verdugo’s magic wrapped around the queen's throat.  She tightened it with her full force.  She didn't stop.  She twisted her grip around with a flick of her horn, snapping the already collapsed windpipe of anyone she had ever used this on before.  

But nothing snapped.

“What happened to you, Verdugo?” the queen asked, defying the green aura around her neck.  “Why do you insist on becoming nothing more than a pawn...”

“If you're not going to die, just kill me!” Verdugo demanded.  “I would rather die loyal to the Queen than watch this world fall to a freak like you!”

The queen frowned.  “You chose this life.”  She shook her head.  “Why?”

Verdugo turned from the queen and trotted to Squee.  She prodded and poked his side over and over, but the changeling refused to budge.  She moved to smack him upside the head, but he ducked out of the way, backing away from her.  

The queen crooked her head.  “Are you still upset over your eye?” 

Verdugo’s one eye caught her two as a bolt of deadly magic flew into the queen’s chest.  She winced for a moment, but stood straight up, shrugging off the blow.  

“You haven’t even asked my name...”

“Monsters like you don’t deserve names!” Verdugo snarled.  

The queen shrugged.  “You know, Chrysalis named me once, long ago.”  She chuckled.  “I lost it in the transfer between minds.”  She shook her head.  “I don’t even remember what my own hive called me!  It’s on the tip of my tongue but I cannot remember it.”

Verdugo couldn’t hold back her smile.  “You couldn’t remember your own name?”

“There are far more important things in this world than names...  Protection.”

Verdugo’s smile faded as her head crooked.  “Protection from what?”

The queen gave her a patient smile.  “Your name.  One that doesn’t shroud the best thing about you, but accentuates it!”

“What?”

The queen looked from one changeling to the next.  “Humility.  Loyalty.  Mercy.”

“What are you talking about?!”

“There is still hope for you, even if you don’t want to believe it.  A great force has shaped the destiny of this world, and your Queen has defied it.”  She stepped toward Verdugo.  “But none of you are too late...”

The Royal Executioner shook her head.  “What ‘great force?’”  She stepped forward.  “Is this how you knew when the Empire would rise?”

The queen nodded.  “It is the very heart that beats within your soured shell...  It is Harmony that guides me.”  

Verdugo scoffed.  “You’re not talking about those useless trinkets we found in that old castle, are you?”  She smiled.  “We destroyed those a long time ago...”

The queen smiled back.  “I know.  They mean nothing now.”  She turned toward the Crystal Heart.  “When one means to an end is destroyed, another takes its place.”  She turned her shining eyes back to Verdugo.  “Such is the matter of Destiny.”  

Verdugo chuckled.  “You’re not comparing yourself to the Elements of Harmony, are you?”  She laughed.  “You’re nothing but a heartless wretch!  You ate other changelings!  Practically bathed in their blood!  How can a monster like you possibly compare yourself to anything ‘good’ when you’re worse than us!”

“You thought I was worth listening to then, when it cost an eye...  But not here where it redeems your soul?!”

“You were lying then, and you're lying now!” Verdugo snapped.  “If you weren't freaking impossible to kill...”

She smiled.  “And you are?”  She chuckled.  “Oh, Protection, you have no idea how invulnerable you really are.”

“Oh, I know!” she boasted with a smile.  “It's my troops that I'm worried about... My friends!”

“So much so that you gave your own eye.”  She smiled and turned to the Heart.  “Only for him to give you it back with interest!”  

“You brought us here!” she growled.  “How dare you talk about his death when you're what caused it!”

The queen took a step back.  “And if he hadn't died...”  She gestured to the Crystal Heart.  “Sombra would have taken this.”  She gestured to everything around her.  “And nothing would have survived!  Is that what you'd rather have?  Nothing?!”  She stepped forward.  “I've already helped you all on your first steps toward Redemption.”

“We want no part in your schemes!” Verdugo snarled.  She looked at the Heart.  “And I think I've figured you out!”  

Verdugo charged past the queen, focusing on the Heart.  A magical barrier caught her strike and bounced her onto her back.

The queen looked down at her.  “I'm sorry, but if any harm came to the Heart, this entire Empire could very well vanish again.”  She shook her head.  “The world needs this place to heal; I can't let it fall into the Queen’s hooves!”

Verdugo shook her head and galloped to Starchy.  “I can't do this on my own!”  

She waved her hoof in front of his face.  Starchy was lost in the realization that his life was a shell, a lie that hid his best memories.

“Starchy!” she called out to him.

“They can't come to terms with their past unless you help them through it,” the queen warned.  “It's too good for them to let go.”  She looked at Verdugo.  “A shame you had no cherished memories of your past...”

Verdugo ignored her.  “Starchy, listen to me!”  She grabbed his head with her hooves.  “She's lying to you.  Sure, these are your best memories but they sure as heck don't mean anything now!”  She forced a smile.  “The best you is the you here and now!  You have to know that!  You're best memories are pointless if you don't try to make even better ones each and every day!”

She's right.  Let these inspire you to do the right thing.  Look at me.

Starchy blinked a couple times.  He looked at Verdugo.  “You're right.”  He turned toward the queen and grinned.  “Let's take this jerk down!”  Starchy galloped to Brucie.  “Come on, man!  Wake up!  Quit living in the past!”

Brucie shook himself out of it.  He turned to Verdugo and smiled.  He looked up at the queen.  “Time to end this.”

They both galloped to Squee.  Squee’s eyes darted back and forth between them and the queen.  He opened his mouth to speak.

Blood poured out.

Squee collapsed, melting into a large puddle of his own liquified insides.

Verdugo glared at the queen.  “Wretch!” she shouted in pure rage.  

“I'm sorry, but I have to draw the line!”  Her horn flared up.  “Take one more step and Mercy will go next!”  

Verdugo stepped forward.  “Who the heck is--”

Starchy collapsed the same way.

“Stop it!” Verdugo demanded.

“You had your chance!” the queen scolded.  Her horn flared up again.  “Leave this place or Humility will fall!”

Verdugo’s snout clenched in rage.  She charged the queen, hearing Brucie try to scream behind her.  She charged her magic around herself to become a comet.  She flew right through the queen, forcing her to use more of her magic to heal herself.

Verdugo smiled as she pierced the weakened force field around the Heart.  She pulled the artifact from its hold on the tower.  She could feel the Heart pulsating in her hooves with pure power.  She turned back toward the queen and smiled.

The queen shook her head.  “Don't do this!”  

Verdugo put all of her strength back into the Crystal Heart, slamming it to the ground.

It shattered like glass.

The winds picked up as dark clouds began to storm through the colored sky..  The power faded from the queen’s eyes and horn.  Snow fell in a flurry.  

The two changelings stood in a falling Empire in the middle of a frozen wasteland.  The queen stumbled.  

“Hope...  There is no hope...”  The queen’s form was blowing away with the wind as specks of dust flew from her horn, casting a large shadow behind her.  “You...  You destroyed it.”

Verdugo galloped toward the queen, her horn aglow with rage and purpose.  

The queen put a weak hoof up.  “You can't kill me three times, executioner.  I can't take three deaths.”

Verdugo’s horn blew a large hole through the queen’s chest.  There was no blood.

“In the forest is a great tree...”  The queen tried to steady herself.  “You should visit it with your friends.”  She looked up from her wound, staring with a painful smile at Verdugo.  “See it with your own two eyes!”

Verdugo blasted the queen’s face off with another powerful spell.  The rest of her body crumpled up into a lifeless heap. Verdugo closed her eye and shook her head.  

A hoof touched her shoulder.

Verdugo’s horn lit up and she barely stopped herself in time.  Starchy looked back at her, alive and well.  Brucie and Squee were back, too.  They looked at her, shocked.

Verdugo shook her head.  “How many times am I going to lose you three today?” 

They remained silent.  Brucie smiled.

Verdugo crooked her head.  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

The others smiled too.  “How are you looking at us like that?” Brucie asked.

Verdugo blinked her eyes a couple times.  “Like what?”

They blinked back at her.  Slowly it dawned on her.  Her hoof immediately felt her face to make sure.

Her missing eye was back.  She squealed in pure joy. 

“My eye!  How did--”

“I don't get it either,” a familiar voice called out from where the queen had stood.

The squad turned to find Dreary standing in the snow, shaking but smiling.  

He shrugged.  “But I don't think it matters.”

“How?” Verdugo mouthed.  

Squee almost tackled Dreary to the ground.  “Sweet Chrysalis, you made it!  You're alive!”

Dreary shrugged again.  “I don't think it was Her doing...”

“Then what did this?” Starchy asked.

“She did,” he said calmly without gesturing to anything.  “That wretched queen.  Despite all we did to her, all she could feel was a need to give us life.”  He looked back to where the Crystal Heart once floated.  “Without the Heart, she didn't have enough to keep us all alive, so she cut herself off to save us.  Heal us.”

Starchy’s eyes grew wide.  “Are you saying she might have been telling the truth?” 

Verdugo shrugged.  “All I know is that Chrysalis is going to be pissed without an Empire to feed Her.”

“Mission failed?” Squee asked.

“If it was that simple, I'd have lost my job ages ago.”  Verdugo chuckled.  “Nothing a little lying can't get us out of!”

She put her right hoof up to Starchy’s face.  He instinctively bit down.  She ripped it from his mouth and patted his head.  “That little voice should be gone now, too.  So we can start working on that better generation.”

“How do we even do that?” Starchy asked.

Verdugo patted his head again before taking to the wintery sky.

“Come along.  I'll explain it on the way!”


End