Blacklight: Dead Man Walking

by The Salesman

Under Attack

Chrysalis smiled, for all was going to plan. As she walked down the street in her disguise with two also disguised drones discretely flanking her all she could think about was how easy the ponies made her job for her. The Princess of the Night had decided to place the creature into a situation where it was easy enough to provoke a reaction in it and then had the courtesy to make herself incapable of stopping it. All it took was a spot of mind control upon a bar patron who was more than eager to get in a room alone with her and she had a ready way to trigger a reaction.

Granted, she did have to move her other plans forward in order to pull this off but it really didn’t matter. All of those were planned infiltrations were made completely irrelevant by the fact her plan did indeed a draw a reaction out of this ‘Deadman’ creature.

The severity of the action it took made her plan even easier. The fact that it took the incapacitated Princess of the Night with him as it fled after shattering a few of the stallion’s bones certainly drew the attention of the night guards rather well. After most of them went off into the city to find their princess a large portion of the day guard had to be woken up as well in order to cover their holes in the defences of the castle. Of course, this portion of the guard is rather poorly rested at this ungodly hour, and they are going to be no use. Even then, the night guards were even worse off than the day guards. Most of their number were scattered throughout the city looking for their precious princess and the accursed creature which had stolen her away.

She didn’t have to use her magic to know that the guard wasn’t going to find them. Chrysalis heard of the story of the alien mysteriously disappearing from its room before sunrise that she heard from her puppets in the castle. Try as they might, ponies were not built to be searching out renegade creatures in the night, especially ones that could apparently sense one’s presence without effort. She suppressed a small shudder as she and her two minions walked up the street towards upper Canterlot.

All that she had to do was wait for her drones to get in position outside of the disguise disrupting field and then she would begin a glorious assault on the castle once more. With the creature as well as half the leadership out of the way she could lay siege to the castle without much issue, beyond maybe the infernal pair which were her downfall last time.

She mused that this time she wouldn’t be so merciful, she was going to prioritize making sure that she personally tore both of their throats out. Cadenza broke easily enough the first time and that was merely after realizing that her love was being mind controlled. Chrysalis couldn’t imagine how badly she would snap after seeing the light fade from her husband’s eyes in front of her. Perhaps she would give Cadenza a few minutes of mourning so she could feed on her sadness.

She smiled at that thought as they approached the castle, guarded now by only a few of the attentive night guard.

Turning down the street directly before the final stretch, she mentally ordered the two drones to turn down the road opposite she was going down. She couldn’t have ponies thinking they were suspicious and she did hear the quiet flapping of the wings of a night guard pegasi just a few minutes earlier. Those wing-beats did stay close for an odd amount of time, certainly a cause for caution.

As she trotted down the street her eyes darted left and right before she flicked her ears, listening for out of place sounds which would indicate a watcher in the dark.

Hearing nothing, she turned and walked down into an alley before going up to a wall and standing perfectly still. Drawing up magic from deep inside, she began weaving a series of spells far too complex for a changeling lesser than herself to cast.

First, she shifted back into her original form before she began shape shifting again, albeit at a much more minor level. Her familiarity with her natural form made the spell far easier to cast than in an inferior form. She felt tiny crystalline structures grow from chitin as her hair bunched up and became a more solid mass, which the very same crystals then also grew over. Protective lens grew over her eyes before the very same crystals formed over the lenses. To counteract the refracted view that was a side-effect of this, she cast a quick spell to turn her vision back to normal, although with a bit more warping around the edges leading to the favourable side-effect of a larger field of view.

As the transformation spread to the rest of her body she continued to layer on more spells. Next up was a minor alteration to the composition of her muscles, increasing their density. It was then she put up protective wards and set them to trigger her shapeshifting in order to harden and increase their density of her carapace in a localized area if she were to be struck.

Finally, she cast the spell which would make this truly well and impossible for any pony to prepare for. The function of the crystals was revealed as her innovative cloaking spell was cast. It used the crystalline structures she created from her shapeshifting and another spell so that the crystals became a colour based off of what it detected on the opposite side of her body, even emitting light as needed, to make her nearly invisible.

Chrysalis felt pride as she felt her entire body fade away into the air. After her embarrassing defeat last time she took it upon herself to make find all the applications she could for her magic in combat. As she walked forward she was reminded of how the spell was not perfect, as with each step she took there was a brief period in which the displayed image did not quite matchup with the background. It was plenty sufficient for her purposes, she thought as she felt the telepathic sign that her army was ready, waiting disguised and hidden just outside of the dispelling field.

Aside from their main siege force heading for the castle they had two groups headed by changeling commanders ready to harass the guards out in the city trying to find the princess to make sure. They had to be sure that they couldn’t recuperate and mount a coordinated retaliation against her main army of changelings while they were making Canterlot castle theirs.

Perhaps if they got the siege over and done with quick enough they could capture most of the ponies in the city proper before they would be able to get away. The fact that none but the most observant ponies would be able to get even the slightest hint of the presence of her changelings until it was too late contributed quite a lot to that. It was highly unlikely that any of the ponies would notice her forces against the night sky and the only ones that could reliably do so were tangled up in a mess of their own.

Walking down the street and looking towards the castle, Chrysalis gave the signal to attack and she immediately felt her hive comply earnestly, taking to the sky outside of the city and into the air.

As she approached the corner she turned towards the castle and walked down the same road that she avoided earlier. Walking down the pathway at a slow pace to keep the flickering of her form to a minimum, she kept careful track of the progress of her minions, given that their approach was rapid.

Getting closer to the gate, she noticed two stallions there, both day guard cruelly awakened, were standing watch from behind the archway.

Slowing her pace even more to make herself almost invisible, Chrysalis walked right by the guards before looking back to them casting some of her magic from behind. It was certainly a good idea to cast from behind them, where they wouldn’t notice the dull green glow piercing the darkness. She smiled as she broke into the mind of the unsuspecting stallion without any major issue, followed by giving him a gentle suggestion; that he and his partner should both go for a nap, and that the best way to get that nap would be to be knocked out.

The controlled stallion turned in place towards the other while not saying anything, before he telekinetically raised his spear and smashed its shaft against the back of the other unicorn’s head.

The other pony stumbled and let out a gasp, but before he could do anything else the unicorn slammed him with the wooden section of the spear again, and this time he went down with a clunk of armour to the ground.

This time, it was the possessed unicorn’s turn to go down as he raised his spear high into the air before slamming the shaft into his jaw, going down to the ground in a crash with a stupid grin on his face.

This brought yet another smile to Chrysalis’ face as she used her own magic to levitate the two unconscious ponies off the path and into a shrub next to the gate before going on her way. She could certainly have a little fun in a city she was about to own.

Turning her head back, she continued to march forward into the city, her each step quiet against the smooth stones. As she continued her slow march to the castle, she felt that her changelings were approaching, they would be to her location soon enough, and they would have their feast after the castle had fallen.

Walking up to the main doors of the castle, she mused for a brief second that perhaps this would prove a double benefit. If the ponies thought that the creature was against them with her changelings, they could very likely convince it to come over to her side entirely.

She chuckled at that, flicking her ears once more to make sure there were no other sound aside from the approaching buzzing wings of her swarm and the breathing of the knocked out guards before magically pulling the large door open, her magical grip breaking the lock with a sharp crack followed by a continual high pitched tone nearly out of her range of hearing. A silent alarm, a clever way to alert the guards to stop a thief, but not a full fledged invasion force she thought as the buzzing sounds of her changelings’ wings approached most of them flying past her and into front gate while a few commando groups flew overhead towards their designated targets in the castle, which could be more easily be attacked through a few balcony doors conveniently left unlocked by her puppets earlier in the evening.

She wondered as she herself marched into the hall and made her way towards the throne room on foot if the guards would be even able to mount a proper resistance, most of the ones here were half asleep and none of them were expecting a great force.

It was then she felt the signal that first contact had been made, a small group of guards which didn’t even get a chance before they were rendered unconscious. As much as she hated ponies, she wasn’t about to kill every single one of them. She only had plans to execute the important ones and the ones that put up a large fight. After all, it would be a shame to waste all of that food, almost criminal really.

She sighed as she continued her march onwards, feeling a small amount of nostalgia for the time she had the rule of the city. While the time she had doing so was brief, it was enjoyable. While the city was under her rightful reign she had the most of the ponies she could capture put into cocoons or otherwise dealt with, and that was certainly a joy to do. She smiled at the memory of those lucky ponies who were still conscious struggling against the grips of the changelings who were shoving them into the pods for later feeding. The terror they felt was exquisite, completely delicious. She had planned on turning the dungeon into a center where they could tailor individual rooms to the pony within for maximum emotion absorption. One could learn quite a bit by drugging a pony up and mimicking one of their friends.

Alas, her plans were cut short by that meddlesome couple and Twilight Sparkle. She had to resist the urge to snarl at the mention of Twilight’s name.

She had foiled her plans, and she would have to be executed as soon as anyone found her, if she was here. She was too much of an annoyance to let live. However, he train of thought was cut off as she was informed of increased resistance being encountered, but not enough to disrupt their plans. However, she figured that if the trend of increased resistance continued they would have trouble with a few very defendable points.

Ahead she heard the sounds of either five or six ponies breathing rapidly, apparently quite stressed. It appeared that there were a few of them which were getting their act together, even if they weren’t doing it well.

“What exactly are we going to do?” she heard a stallion whose panic was thick in the air said. It sounded to her as if he was almost fresh out of training as well as rather tired. He was very much unlikely to be a threat.

“What we do,” responded a much calmer and more experienced sounding voice “Is to keep moving until we can reconnect with the rest of the group.”

As she approached the source of the voices, she made a decision to sidetrack herself a bit and find that ‘group’ they were talking about. If she could find that group, she could send forces to strike at it when they weren’t expecting it and take out a possible nodule of resistance -before it had a chance to form.

With a small smile on her invisible face, she stepped around the corner to a group of five rather stressed day guard walking through the hallway away from her position. Now was her chance to take out a few ponies as well as gain some intelligence on the positions of the guards.

Considering none were looking in her direction, she increased her trotting speed to close on them while she remained quiet. She ignored their conversation as she crept ever closer to the guards. When she was this close she could hear the tone of their breathing and distinguish between them. After a few seconds of them marching in silence, she figured out which one of them was the new blood, and made a note of who he was. She would make sure he survived what she was about to do.

She focused her magic, causing her horn to light up dully through the shroud of invisibility. Focusing her power on the pony at the back, he only had a brief moment to recognize that he was being held before she stopped him dead, lifting him into the air and forcing all air from his lungs with only a quiet wheeze.

With another not-so gentle squeeze, she completely closed the unicorn’s airway while at the same time she changed sprinted towards the group, closing the distance fast while swinging the now unconscious pony towards his fellows.The next pony in line had just enough time to turn around to check on the absence of hoofbeats behind him before the very fellow he was trying to check on smashed into his face, knocking him right out as well as bowling him into the next pony in the line.

Chrysalis carried on her charge as a living mirage as she leaped into the air and pounced on the pony in the center of the line, the experienced sounding one, as he spun around in response to two of his troops going down. He barely had a chance to raise his spear before she knocked it out of the way with an invisible hoof.

What she did next would live on in her memory for a while, for it was the first time she had used such an ability in combat against a guard.

With a smile she raised that same hoof and focused her transformative powers on her hoof, lengthening the tip of her own hoof into a sharp point.

Jabbing the point towards the pony, she was rewarded with the gurgle of blood being choked on as she pierced his neck through to the other side before withdrawing her now blood stained hoof and turning it back into its regular shape.

Looking towards the last two, one of which looked like he was just about ready to faint from fear. She smiled at the thought of the ‘gift’ she had for that pony before her horn flashed as she teleported behind them once again without them even giving them the pleasure of seeing her.

“What the buck was that?” the scared pony shouted as the other survivor was lifted into the air behind him followed by a sickening snap as the immobilized pony’s neck snapped.

Snapping back around as the corpse fell to the ground the scared pony whimpered out of what Chrysalis tasted was both terror and confusion.

Grabbing the pegasus in her magical grip much more gently than the rest, she pinned his wings to the pony’s side as she took a step forward and dissolved her cloak excluding the cloaking over her eyes. She chose instead to make that section of her body merely transparent. She couldn’t risk a random attack damaging her, after all.

She contorted her face into a look of false love and stepped towards the pony, who struggled against her magical grip but not doing much. She called a few of her stray drones to her, but she ordered them to stay out of sight for now. She had work to do.

Stepping even closer to the pony and resisting the urge to feed off of him right now, she leaned close to him with that same loving look on her face as he struggled more and more to get away. The rapid pace at which he was breathing and the cauldron of emotions in front of her was so very tempting.

“What’s wrong, love?” she asked, leaning in close enough for him to feel her breath… as well as close enough for her to make him a bit more susceptible to her lies. While she could just break the mind of the weak willed fool, it would render him useless for her current purposes.

The pony froze looking at her, his confusion now overpowering his fear as he stared at her. He must have been quite confused about his current situation.

“I understand that you are scared,” she said in a voice containing quite a bit of faked sadness “But you must understand, I came here for you. You are the greatest pony I have ever known of and I want you to be king rather than just a mere guard, destined to fight and die for some ruler that has never given you more than a passing glance.”

“But what-” the pony began, fear fading away slightly and his breathing slowing as she put her hoof on his muzzle, silencing him.

“Hush now, my love, although I’ve come to you after so terribly long we can’t be together for now. I worry about you getting hurt, my love,” she said and moved her hoof from his lips to his cheek and rubbed it gently, noting that although the small crystalline structures didn’t have much of a visual effect they made her chitin much more rough. He didn’t flinch nearly as much this time, instead staring her directly in her eyes as he began to fall for her lies with help from the spell.

“But when, then?” he asked, causing Chrysalis to twist her expression into one of happiness.

“After the battle, my love. They may hurt you or even kill you if they knew about this, so I need you to go and find where you were going. Tell them some drones wiped the rest of your squad out. Tell them you couldn’t see how many they numbered. Tell them you saw them perk up and look towards the south and all flee urgently,” she commanded, causing the stallion to dumbly nod in agreement with her as she continued to resist the urge to feed upon his misplaced emotions right then and there.

“Thank you, my love. My changelings will not hurt you, but stay safe regardless,” she said, leaning in and planting a deep kiss on the stallion while closing her eyes, simulating a kiss between two lovers which lasted for a few seconds before she broke it and opened her eyes, giving the stallion a smile as his breathing quickened once more.

“Now go,” she ordered sternly as she released him “Secure your right to be treated like the wonderful stallion you are.”

The pony started up at her in shock as she walked past him and back the way she came before she heard the sounds of his hooves on the ground as he rather calmly with only a slight note of faked panic ran away down the hall they were marching down before.

She dropped the act as soon as he was around the corner and mentally commanded the earlier called changelings to follow that pony from out of sight. She would find where any resistance was forming unless that pony was a lot smarter than he looked and she also got to test out her new shapeshifting. A very good situation indeed, she thought to herself as she disappeared once more as she reactivated her spell and continued on her path to the throne room as she did before. If there were anyone important taking charge of the situation, she would find them there.

At that she went back to plotting what she would do with the place after it belonged to her. The windows could certainly do with replacing, she would have to have them covered over when all resistance was squashed.

Author's Note:

It is time. Also, enjoy this quick update ladies and gents.

Comments

[Sorrowfulwinds]

Then Blackman shows up with guns and some poor janitor is cleaning changeling bits for the next week.

[Wolfkrone]

Loving it so far. Keep it up.

[EverdistantUtopia]

3844126
I don't really think he would need the guns to do that.

[Sorrowfulwinds]

3848699
But guns make everything 20% cooler.

[Fire Blitz]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi9NVzPpoz0