A Lost Soul Returns: The King of Monsters

by Dark Star the Crazed

Of Changelings, Children and Grundles.

Some of the best lessons are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future. ~ Dale Turner.

Crystal Empire, one week later.

Twilight smiled as she watched her daughter, Ana, her nieces, Dream and Skyla, and her nephew, Vul Deif, run down the halls of the Crystal Empire's palace. The Transylmaneian queen had just laid her foals down for a nap when a scream rang throughout the castle. Cadence... Why is it that whenever the royal family gathers, something bad happens? After making sure Dawn and Dusk were still asleep, she still couldn't get over how cute they were when they hugged each other in their sleep, she ran out of the room toward the source of the scream, Cadence and Shining Armor's room.

When she arrived she saw the Equestrian and Crystal royal families surrounding her husband, or more accurately, the changeling her husband was protecting from Shining Armor. "Fang! Move or I'll blast the changeling and you!"

"Shining calm down! I know that Chrysalis nearly ruined your wedding, but that's no reason to attack every changeling you see!" The white unicorn blinked and looked at his sister, shocked that she was protecting a changeling. "What's going on? Why are you here, and undisguised at that?"

"I'm sorry! Please don't hurt me! We came north with our queen in order to start a new hive! We had just passed the Empire when this..... Thing with pale green, leathery skin wearing a black hat and coat attacked us! It grabbed one of the nymphs and ran towards the empire! Please, we aren't anything like those of Hive Chrysalis!"

Shining Armor snorted in disbelief. "Likely story!"

"... Did the creature have glowing yellow eyes?" The ponies, excluding Twilight, went silent and looked at Fang with a raised brow, confused as to why the creatures eye color mattered. Fang lowered his head and looked the changeling in the eyes. "Answer me!" The changeling merely gave a frightened nod. The black alicorn's eyes shot to his wife. "There's a grundle on the loose!"

Twilight went wide eyed. "I left Dawn and Dusk alone!" The lavender mare was gone before anyone could blink.

Fang looked at the rest of his family in panic. "Everyone, find your children, now!" The entirety of the royal family separated to go looked for their children, except Celestia, who sat down, never taking her eyes off the changeling.

"So... Will we be meeting this Queen of yours, Mister...? I apologize, I didn't catch your name..."

"Oh, um... Ledtat, my name is Ledtat, and..." The changeling went silent for a second, and Celestia began looking him up and down, unlike the changelings that had invaded Canterlot, his chitin was sky blue and he had green eyes, with pupils, unlike the mindless drones Chrysalis had used. The changeling suddenly snorted, breaking her out of her thoughts. "Queen Plexi agrees to meet you and the other royals on two conditions. The first being that her subjects, the nymph and I, are returned unharmed. The second is that we meet on neutral ground, Transylmaneia, in three months."

Celestia raised an eyebrow. "How is the kingdom ruled by my big brother and former student neutral ground? And why three months?"

"It will take three months to make our new hive stable, it doesn't matter if Cadenza and Armor don't want us here, the tundra around the Crystal Empire belongs to no one, so we can settle anywhere as long as it is at least twenty five miles away from the Empire... And Transylmaneia is neutral ground because they, unlike you, Shining Armor and Princess Cadenza, have decided not to preform a Great Purge." Celestia frowned at that statement.

"We had to do what was best for Equestria... Besides, we haven't killed any of the changelings we've found..." The changeling gave a snort.

"No Celestia, you haven't, at least not on purpose..." Celestia's heart stopped beating for a second as she looked the changeling in the eyes. She couldn't help but let her worry show.

"What do you mean by that?"

Twilight and Fang's guest room.

A black cloaked pony with clawed hooves looked at the two sleeping foals and gave a dark chuckle before reaching for them. Before it could reach them however, Twilight appeared in a flash of light, startling the grundle. "Get away from my foals!" Before the grundle had a chance to react Twilight had tackled it and sent it to the floor, unfortunately she knocked off it's cloak, causing it to cover her eyes long enough for the grundle to escape. Once she got the cloak off her face she felt it getting tugged at from below. Looking down she saw a very small changeling, only about Dawn's size.

After checking on her foals and seeing that not only were they unharmed, but still sleeping as well, Twilight pulled the tiny changeling out from under the foals' crib. "Hey there, are you ok little one?" The tiny changeling nodded, before squeaking in fear as the grundle approached Twilight from behind and reclaimed it's cloak before running out of the room.

Twilight sat there for a second before closing the door, locking it and casting fifteen different wards. As soon as she was finished she a tiny yawn from inside the crib. Looking at the crib she saw her twin foals, who were wearing woolen pajamas had woken up, soon she heard their stomach's growling, levitated them out of the crib and lay down on her side before putting them down in front of her teats and covering them with a wing, blocking the changeling nymph's view of them. Her foals almost immediately started suckling, causing her to give a happy sigh and nuzzle them. 'I should probably tell the others that I found the nymph...'

The lavender mare glanced up and saw that nymph had somehow, in the span of 30 seconds, obtained a miniature Crystal Heart and was chewing on it, possibly thinking that it radiated love like the real thing. She had to admit, it was cute.

West Wing of the Palace.

"If that thing even breaths on any of those foals, let alone my daughter, I will slowly pull out its teeth and make it swallow them. Then I'm going to get a potato peeler and take its skin before covering its body in salt and lemon juice. The grundle will scream in pain, there will be blood and it shall be glorious!" Luna watched in concern as her eldest brother talked to himself, his last sentence making her think that he may be on the edge of a psychopathic break.

"Fang, I know you're worried about the children, especially Ana, but you need to calm down. We'll-" Luna suddenly found herself under the harsh glare of her eldest brother. As soon as she noticed the glare she felt the area get much hotter, and she was pretty sure that she saw the crystal underneath her brother's hooves was starting to melt.

"Calm down? Calm Down!? No Luna, I will not calm down! I hate grundles more than anything else in any plane of existence and I will hunt them to extinction! You don't know what they really do! They don't just corrupt children, they damn their souls! I can't, I won't, let another child be harmed by a grundle due to my hesitation! I watched helplessly as the Puppeteer stole the souls of thirty seven children before turning them into grundles! And I'll be damned if I ever let it happen again! I nearly killed myself because I couldn't help those children!"

A deep laugh sounded from opposite end of the hall that the two dark colored alicorns had entered from. The two alicorns looked down the hall and saw the grundle, walking toward them. "Well, well, well, would you look at that! The King of Monsters remembers Puppet! Puppet feels so honored! Puppet wonders if-" The grundle didn't get a chance to finish his sentence before he was bowled over by an enraged black alicorn.

"You damned the souls of thirty seven children! And you probably damned more after that! Why!? Why would you do something like that!?" The grundle just smiled in response.

"Puppet didn't damn them, Puppet saved them, the world is cold and cruel. That's why Puppet took their souls... He took them to his realm, where they get to play forever and ever... You know Puppet did the right thing, that's why you didn't stop Puppet..." Fang let loose a roar of rage and reared up before bringing his front hooves down on the grundle's head, only to hear splintering wood. Fang hadn't killed anyone, he had destroyed a magical puppet.

Fortunately, Cadence, Shining Armor and Sunset had already found the children in the palace's garden, on the far side of the East Wing, and led them back to Fang and Twilight's room. Fang and Luna also returned to the room. Afterward, much to Shining Armor's annoyance, the ponies returned the nymph to the older changeling and let them leave. By that time the children had already fallen asleep.

Grand hall, one hour later.

After a quick explanation about grundles and why Fang hated them so much, Luna started to feel as if the grundles were not from Equestria. "So, big brother, you and Twilight explained what they are, but where did they come from?"

After a few moments of silence Fang answered. "The Element's ancestors were not the only beings that followed Soul and I back through the mirror... A grundle did as well... In fact, I think that over time all magical creatures from that world eventually came here... The reason that there was no magic when Twilight and Sunset were there is because most of the magic in the mirror world has, for lack of a better word, died. Are there any questions?" None of the ponies responded. After a few more hours the ponies all went to bed, getting their rest for their trips back home and their business tomorrow.

Meanwhile in Baltimare.

A grundle walks down the deserted streets of the city towards the docks, followed by an army of dirty malnourished and injured fillies and colts. As soon as they reached the docks a portal opened and the small army of ponies walked in and the portal vanished. Tomorrow the news would state that all the orphaned children of Baltimare had disappeared.

In order to learn the important lessons in life, one must each day surmount a fear. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Author's Note:

It has been a long time, and I have no excuse I'm going to try and start writing at 1 chapter ever week again!

Comments

[Kamen rider yokai]

Well dark good to see your back and how are the war scenes for my dark chaos war story coming along? So far I'm agreeing that grundles are something to hate. If soul and Trixie have a kid they are going to be setting up defences to stop the puppet master. Good thing about shades is that their affinity to shadows and darkness make them near impossible to corrupt and steal their souls. As shown with soul that shades with souls would be destroyed unlike those without. Has to do with the fact few like soul, nox, and soul's late mother have actual DNA while the rest were having their shadows mimic DNA.

[Night-Moon-12]

Well... Fang's losing his 'happy camper' mood, to the actions of a grundle *What is that?* I think of Fang losing his sanity over the foals he couldn't protect.
But this chapter is awesome, I love it, & keep up the geat work
Night

[The A I]

Maybe use a lot of magic to puranently seal off the grundles world?
(Or, for no apparent reason, destroy them with an army of robots. Because why not?)

[Dark Star the Crazed]

5969376
Fang could seal off the Grundles world, but that would mean trapping the souls of innumerable children in there as well.

[The A I]

5969478 hmmmmm...
how about... a magic-nuclear missile?
teleport the children out, ant seal off the world, after filling with hydras?

[treegrowth]

5993327 that defiantly needs some

[Primordial Deomontus]

Haven't even read it yet and I'm interested. Nice description.

[Zeheal]

Finally.... Worth the wait

[Fireeaters]

I'm going to put this into my 'read later' bin to, well, read later. I'd read it now, but that description sounds a bit Gary Stu like. I'm Just giving this a chance because of that delicious word count.

[treegrowth]

7110631 why thank you.

[Patata1312]

This story is incredible!!! I love it
Are you going to continue it?

[Ratmandango]

morepls

[Honeybee47]

when will the next chapter be out?

[Viper5012]

This story is surprisingly hard to follow.
You jump scenes a bit too drastically for me and the pacing is a bit fast. Other than that though, it's a decent story.

[ABunchOfArrows]

8064579
Yup, agreed there.

[rainsparkle]

I look foreward to the next installment.

[Raven dove]

Hey you still alive

[Edguy0009]

9307081
Poke the OP with a stick and find out.

[timebrony]

9599083
it was shielded and it is safe

[Raven dove]

9599087
Pokes the OP with a stick

[Edguy0009]

9600329
*repeatably fires GDI Ion Cannons and Heavy Turbolasers at ship*