By the time Bellesmith hopped off the levitating bridge and onto the fractured temple, she had no chance to breathe with relief, on account of Elma's body twitching involuntarily.
The mare gasped, glancing over her shoulder at the changeling. "Elma? Elma, what's the matter?"
"It's her..." Elma squeaked in Eagle Eye's voice. The lavender coat started to fade, giving way to a black shell and smoldering green eyes. "I... I-I can feel her... oh good heavens, she's here!"
"Elma!" Belle winced. She glanced over at the procession of survivors hopping off the makeshift bridge and onto the platform. One by one, the ponies formed a dense cluster in the center of the temple. Trotting stealthily to the side, Belle knelt beside an overturned column and laid Elma onto the ground. "Pssst... Elma! Look at me!"
"I'm so sorry..." Elma bit her lip, her teeth forming and losing fangs in every other blink. "Please... d-don't devour me... I was so blind... I-I had no idea..."
"Elma. Please. You must maintain your shape." Belle winced. "I mean EE's shape! Focus on me! Focus on my voice!" She smiled reassuringly, caressing the shapeshifter's cheek.
The creature looked up, its face fluctuating to and from a lavender sheen. At last, Elma took on the form of a petite stallion. A solitary tear trickled down a fuzzy cheek.
"Now..." Belle leaned forward, her eyes set on Elma's. "Who is here?"
Elma gulped, ultimately stammering in Eagle Eye's voice. "Mother."
"Grrrkkk!" Rainbow Dash felt herself being lifted up, up, up into the hurricane winds. A solid cluster of changelings were gripping her every limb, floating her two dozen feet off the balcony's edge.
Down below, Pilate shook and struggled in the grip of several burly shape-shifters. With clenched teeth, he tilted his helm to the side. He sensed the Sword of Solstice's shape several feet away, wobbling along the balcony's edge. Try as he might, he couldn't get his limbs to budge a single inch under the pressure of the creatures tackling him, much less reach towards the glowing weapon. All he could do was tilt his head up at the sound of buzzing dragonfly wings.
Rainbow squinted through tearing eyes. She was being pivoted to face the upper rim of the balcony just above the overhang that led to the Urohringr barrier. Clinging to the roof's edge, several changelings scurried and clustered together. More and more arrived from the distant stretches of Stratopolis, all skittering on porous black hooves. At last, when there were over seventy of the obsidian wretches, they pressed against one another, forming a tight black ball of rattling carapaces and folded dragonfly wings.
Then, gradually, that ball took shape, its edges morphing out and turning into jagged edges and rough joints. Two points formed to the top left and the top right, followed by a spike of clumped bodies in the center. Last but not least, the lower half of the cluster of changelings dangled loosely from the top half, hanging off by a "hinge" of sorts. Then—with a cadence of cricketsong—the changelings all fluttered their wings in sequence. A line of flame wafted once, twice, three times over the entire cluster. At last, the collective black sheen of the multiple segmented bodies glossed over into the facade of one polished surface. A face had fully formed, complete with fangs, a drooping webbed mane, and a pair of piercing green eyes that burst open with dual pulses of blazing emerald.
And then that face spoke:
"Ohhhh, how I do love to make an entrance," the voice rang with a nauseating vibration that tickled the hurricane gales.
Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. She helplessly stared into the massive muzzle. "Chrysalis," she sneered.
"Austraeoh," the face of Chrysalis smiled. Tiny puffs of green flame flickered randomly across her visage, revealing the ghostly shadows of limbs, wings, and more limbs. Then all was clear once again. "You have proven most fortuitous. Misery has followed you east across the continents. And now, misery has followed you through ten thousand years of forsaken time. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed you were hatched instead of foaled."
"Too much of a coward to actually see me face to face?!" Rainbow snarled.
"But we have seen each other face to face," Chrysalis said, her massive face morphing through green flame to bear a hurt expression. "On the Lightning Bearer. You see, I had to know that you were something worth manipulating." A flicker of flame; a smug grin. "You did not disappoint."
"Don't drag me into your stupid puppet games!" Rainbow Dash spat. "You're responsible for the deaths of thousands of lives!"
"Tens of thousands, actually. Isn't that a lovely number? Sometimes I count it to myself while I fall into hibernation so I can wake up the next hatching season with a smile." A pair of fangs glimmered to life. "Every death... every wound... every horrible consequence of war that you deem abominable is simply a seed that'll grow for my hive's glorious harvest."
"Is that your friggin' plan?!" Rainbow Dash sputtered, struggling against the changelings holding her. All was futile. "Nnnngh... You're sowing misery all across the world so you can feed your children?!"
"It's about destiny, Rainbow Dash. As the Austraeoh, surely you've become well-acquainted with that. I have a destiny too." Chrysalis' eyes narrowed into glimmering slits. "But unlike yours, my future is comprehendable, for it is a goal I've set for myself and myself alone since long before your insipid nation was born. No stars foretold my journey. I'm not blindly led by deteriorating books and a scattering remnant of foolish zealots defending some indefinable cause."
"It's about Tchern, isn't it?!" Rainbow Dash frowned. "All of this is some pathetic attempt to impress your lame sister on the dark side of the world!"
"I will not have a pathetic mortal pawn like you insulting the legacy of my elder sister and Queen! She has sacrificed far too much and far too long to deserve that sort of abuse!" The flickering head leaned back, hissing with the assistance of dozens of dragonfly wings. "Tchern is righteous, but she is also stubborn. She doesn't realize that our combined strength alone is not enough to achieve victory in the Trinary War. That is why I've taken it upon myself to pursue this most glorious undertaking. By siphoning the dreadful emotions of the sunlit realm, I shall amass a well-fed army powerful enough to return full-force to the dark side. Once reunited with Tchern's hive, the Twin Queens shall be unstoppable. At last, after thousands of years of chaos, we will unite the fragments of Endrax and lay claim to the Sarcophagus of Ages. Both the Sarosian and Night Shard armies will be driven into ruin, and we will have our rightful claim to the powers of harmony and chaos that keep this plane adrift."
Rainbow Dash's pupils shrank. "The 'Sarcophagus of Ages...'" She blinked. "Wait, you mean the Midnight Armory?!" She frowned. "And just what in the buck happened to Endrax?!"
"She was nothing but a relic of the Age before the Sundering," Chrysalis said with a flickering smile. "Her vigil was over long before it began. The Three Armies overran her bastion eons ago. After all, we now live on the fragments of a broken world, and everything is dying. Including you, Austraeoh, the supposed spark that the empty runes of old claim will reunite the pieces of Urohringr." A thunderous cascade rolled through the air in the form of ghostly laughter. "A perfect epoch is perfect only once. There is nothing to restore, and yet there is everything to reinvent. I know this now, for one of the Sentinels from before the Sundering is now in my possession, and I have you to thank for that."
"What in the hay could you possibly accomplish with a floating death city full of zombies?!"
"I shall master its nagivation, and carry it on a path of destruction to the far reaches of the world, through the Grand Choke and beyond. The cursed infestation of the past shall pour forth from the heart of this Sentinel, waging misery across the continents. All the while, my beloved children will feed and grow strong, starting with the kingdom where I have now settled. It is a bountiful place, full of many souls ready to scream and sob. They shall serve as my springboard here, and when the rest of the sunlit world becomes covered in blight, my hive will have rejoined with Queen Tchern on the far side, initiating an Age of Glorious Night."
Rainbow Dash's muzzle hung open. "Val Roa," she murmured. "You're already in Val Roa as we speak..."
The Queen's eyes billowed with green flame. "And what a succulent sepulcher it will become..."
Weellllp...so much for Val Roa.
Wait...there's Sarosians in the dark side of the world?...Makes sense. Can't wait to see what happens when the gang eventually crosses paths with them.
...If everything isn't horribly fucked by the time they get there. Massive battles and Endrax being overrun a long time ago is not good.
Ring confirmed for ring.
...Well then.
Wait a minute. Would this make Chrysalis into a G4 version of Hydia? Suddenly things make slightly more sense.
So Stratopolis is just one of many flying fortresses that contain either more Smooze or more wretched abominations.
...
This isn't very uplifting.
Of course there's Sarosians. I'm guessing Bruce lives there too
I wonder what relation the fixed point flame points of the machine world have to this thing they call a Sentinal. Sort of like mass production machinery, and the Sentinals are guard or even repair bots, Interactions and control work both ways? If Stratopolis can be classed as compromised, it can be cleansed, or even recycled?
I am clearly badass!
Not looking so good...
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080427142720/halo/images/2/28/Delta_Halo.jpg
^
Stratopolis
In it contains the
FloodSmoozeAnd...what if the smooze is so strong that it eats even your empowered children? Can you even harm/kill it? Great plan...really...awesome...you idiot.
well
turtle land is screwed.......
on another note, we now know endrax is likely dead (or fled), tchern is clearly evil (there was doubt in the comments of previous chapters), and chrysalis is a bitch......
also, roarke, the buck are you?!
Roarke, now would be a great time to come in and nuke this meat puppet.
Well, damn... That's a lot of new lore to process.
So, apparently Endrax (that's one of the dragons, right? I get the names mixed up sometimes) is expired. Sarosians apparently live on the dark side of the world, which not only makes sense, but also makes me happy, because I loves me some batponies. There's also a contingent called the Night Shard (possibly some connection to Sombra [wasn't he mentioned in some previous bit of lore?], though it could very well be something we've never even encountered yet). And Stratopolis pre-dates the splitting of the Ring of Worlds (which I think we basically knew, but still: confirmed for confirmed).
Also, why would the changelings want to "claim" the Midnight Armory? What's in it for them? We know it has some connection to the Elements, but what else might it be capable of, that changeling queens would hanker for it?
Metatron - Decrepit Birth
We finally broke out of the downward spiral only to lose more ground. I feel like a trout.
Well the Dark Side of the world is already bucked up more then it already was apparently. This new info is pretty nice to know, gonna lead to a lot of neat things once we get to the Dark Side of the world.
So, uhh, did Ledo and Xona really go to war for that long and not start something like the Manhattan Project... so that we could, like, use nukes? Cuz those would be really helpful right about now.
like, a lot
4452339
On Sombra: I believe he was a brother to Chrysalis and Tchern. A Changeling King. Defeated.
The Changelings want claim on the Midnight Armory to control the remaking of the Elements. They can control the 'flying enforcement cities' by making many rainbows, maybe they think they can wield the Elements by the same mechanism: Becoming the Mane Six.
However, it's not apparently that easy or they would be on their way already. Maybe it requires a threshold of power they want to achieve in Val Roa and beyond the Grand Choke. Maybe to access the Armory, they need control over all the floating cities as well. The Smooze is probably a more recent creation for enforcement/security surrounding the Midnight Armory. Maybe deemed a weapon of last resort. Maybe something that just mutated after so long.
Endrax is key. Endrax is a key.
I'm sure Rainbow has a lot of questions regarding recent events to ask Luna on the next full moon. However, if that time coincides with their visit to Val Roa, it might be skipped. Val Roa is underground.
Concerning other mysteries:
I highly doubt Ebon is a Changeling. I also doubt he is just caught up in this mess.
4452617
Are you sure Sombra is defeated? As in, for good? Because he had also been beaten long ago in canon, only to return. I'd be surprised if he, or something related to him, doesn't come into play eventually.
Your theory on the changelings' interest in the Midnight Armory in interesting, though the only thing I'd ever think they'd want with the Elements would be to destroy them (which is entirely possible, given their whole obsession with proliferating hatred across the cosmos). But it also seems likely that the Armory offers them something even greater, though that's mostly a hunch.
And you may very well the right about Ebon. Even though a lot adds up to the conclusion that he's a changeling - if only circumstantially - it also seems that it would've come up before now. Though, him being a changeling and being uninvolved in the goings-on here aren't mutually exclusive. If he's a changeling, it seems likely that he's been out of the loop and all but forgotten by his kind for quite some time now.
Welp....wonder if one of the changelings is gonna take Dash's form and steal the sword now.
4452661
I'm not discounting a return of Sombra, but Chrysalis doesn't expect him to with her talk. As a free action...
True about Ebon. The points you have for that are his earliest memories of Props and being around her constantly even before Ledomare when Uncle Prowsy was interested in Zabadabuba(or something). Changelings getting info on those most likely to pierce the mysteries surrounding ancient cities and the like.
However, they just simply captured him, deposited him in with Aatxe, and sent a doppelganger into the surrounding area.
When thinking of what Ebon could be, I remember what Faith was to Buffy in Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. She was a living key. She just kinda appeared with on Buffy in on the secret that she wasn't supposed to be there. She was also pretty vanilla.
By the same token, Ebon is pretty vanilla(You could say the same for Zaid, but he does remember his past as much as it ties in with the story). I guess it would make more sense if he found himself on the wrong side of the world without much to contribute. I can see Zaid leaving at some point like Crimson or Tweak or the other character that went into real estate as long as he finds his grilled cheese.
As for him being a forgotten Changeling? Highly doubtful because he never really had enough to feed on, misery or otherwise. He would have to find a way to create something strong enough to sustain him being isolated like that. Seclorum's doppelganger and the others at the battlefield did because they had all that misery to feed on. I guess it's all up in the air for now.
4451844
Well, according to the Urohringr symbol, there is one Sentinel for each broken piece of the ring world.
I'm guessing she was Lasairfion.
I'm doubtful if Rainbow's friends will still be with her when, or if, she gets to the dark side of the world.
I wish this story could deal down the tragedy and doom a little...
Well, this is absolutely wonderful.
4452339 On the matter of the midnight Armory, I think everyone wants it. Since when was the last time an armory had only one weapon (i.e. the Elements). It's probably filled with weapons and armor that woukd help the changelings. I bet there's a Dark Sword over there that matches the Sword of Solstice.
Wait, holy crap I just realized something. The dark world and the light world are mirros of each other, right? And the Midnight Armory is in the exact middle of the plane, just like Canterlot. Canterlot is the center of the light world. It controls passage to the Sunlight Armory. I wonder where those Canterlot caves really end up...
"They're here. They've come."
Also: Umbriel. A ridiculously striking similarity that I have realized only now for some reason. And so it was Endrax that the Queen of Magic was weeping for, as suspected. The original purpose of the Sentinels remains unknown. Emergency repair stations? Oh, and Luna recruits her guards from the dark side of the world? There'll certainly be an explanation for that, lest there'd just be no way how she knew so little about it then.
In the meantime, Elma's over here like...
Is it just me or does this not sound right?
Sheesh, did these changelings invest in nanotechnology or sometaff?
Uh-oh, Dashie. You need to get your groove on and clean up the rest of that smooze. I don't have high hopes for the rest of the world if you don't.
So much exposition!
So Endrax is split into fragments. The Changelings want the Midnight Armoury. They will have the power to control light and dark. There are actually races living on the dark side.
-Spirit
Not all sentinels have snooze, I think that this was just a result of evil experiments that happened when the pegasi inhabited the sentinels. Maybe they were Sarasonians.
Endrax is in fragments? what?
4452617 speaking of aataxe, we haven't seen her in a while, have we?
Dash has her work cut out for her here. Here's to hoping the Val Roa arc will be awesome.
Well that revealed a lot and yet nothing.
Chrysalis went full matrix here.
Sorry Zaidy babe, but it looks like you've got yourself a regular infestation.
And oh my, that was some most glorious reveal! Look at that plot move along!
Oh yeah...
Can someone remind me what Endrax is/was?
6929454
She was a Divine Dragon. She went to the Dark Side of the world to wage a war against Chaos, but much like Nevlamas who went to help her was destroyed by the legions of chaos there. Apparently from what we gather here, her body wasn't just mutated like Nevlamas was. But rather shattered into shards.
7462432 Considering your comments so far, I don't think you're impressed by anything really.
Seriously dude, chill.
media.giphy.com/media/JwNPAckJDiPsI/giphy.gif
Oh god no!
Another self righteous asshole.. >_<
Yes Chryssie, please keep monologuing.
Chrysalis sure likes her monologues.
Okay, maybe I’m dumb for asking this, but who are the three armies in the Trinary War? I can’t remember.
And also, seems like Endrax is long gone, I wonder how long ago she was overrun? I really thought the final showdown would be against Endrax at the Midnight Armory.
That's quite the entrance alright.
I'm used to changeling abusing their have mind to swap with each other, bug never have I thought they'd mothball together to make a solid shape like this.
That's actually quite disgusting.
Aaaaany time you guys wanna use the sword of fire and Harmony to wreck this place, that would be a good!