22: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Polybia’s biggest hive was by all accounts the most vulnerable, to the right tool. With the war paused for the time being, Polybia’s drones filled the skies and blanketed the ground. Her hundreds of thousands of eyes and ears were peeled for the one person Polybia expected to make a move: Chrysalis.
All throughout the deep tunnels beneath the jungle, Polybia had hundreds of drones listening for the sounds of digging. Too bad for her, the internal security was all focused on Grogar as Polybia herself carefully undid the wards keeping his power more or less in check.
Nestled within the massive prison, and close to the lowest point in the hive, hundreds of pods containing the civilized world’s worst criminals remained perpetually asleep in their pods. The room was dark, save for a scant few green glowing lichens and a drone or two keeping an eye on the rows upon rows of pods. The occupants of three of the newest set of pods began to stir. Within minutes, the light of magic lived for but a moment before dimming again. Yet the act of carving a section of the pod away was a success.
A unicorn mare, a scarred sphinx tom, and a crystal pony stallion dropped out of the pods. Green flames licked over them to reveal them to be Chrysalis’ changelings. Using a sound dampening spell, she gave the three spies a few precious moments to clear their lungs of the goo. Poor, poor, Polybia. You really should do more thorough inspections of your acquisitions.
When the trio of spies recovered enough strength, Chrysalis had one of their number snare the two caretakers in a very mild charm. Just strong enough to keep the two of them believing the three broken pods were normal, hardly worth informing Polybia about, yet soft enough to escape Polybia’s attention.
The other two spies ate as much of the pod goo as they could without getting bloated. It was a vile, tongue coating, yet nutritious meal. Something the infiltrators would not likely have access to again. Lastly, they fed vigorously upon the love of several captives, just to top things off.
Once they had their fill, the two drones took on the tan colored guise of the common drone among Polybia’s hive. I’ll have to time my distraction carefully. As addled as that harlot is, it won’t do to make a mistake.
As the two spies made their way to the tunnels, the dull sound of constant hoof beats on stone and soil echoed through the cylindrical passageway. Now, with Polybia so focused on Grogar and keeping the jungle from eating away at her swarm, this shouldn’t be too difficult.
High above that very hive, the Steamrunner lingered patiently in the night sky. The same could not be said for its crew. Upon the bridge, Captain Rorke managed to keep herself occupied by listening in on the hive mind and delegating mundane tasks of keeping the marines ready to deploy. Princess Luna however, was not so lucky. With no word on when or even if Chrysalis would strike, she couldn’t even bring herself to enter the dreamscape for an hour, lest she miss the critical window of action.
Presently, the princess was stepping onto the bridge right as the night shift was taking over. Rorke was about to step off and retire to her captain's quarters, which was little more than a small room directly adjacent to the lower level of the two-deck bridge.
Unlike the Deception and Long Shot before it, the Steamrunner had much more sophisticated fire control systems and a magic map that could display the marines’ location for the non-queens. Unfortunately, that also made the bridge’s lower level quite large, rivaling the carrier’s conning tower in size.
It was at the lower entryway in which Luna entered the command room. She found the primary changeling ground general, Commander Placeholder quietly speaking with Captain Sky Flurry of the Wonderbolts. Sky Flurry had bags under his eyes; his normally keen gaze reddened from subsisting on coffee for too long. The changeling commander fared little better. Captain Sky Flurry was perusing his notes and the placement of Polybia’s known forces on the map, while Placeholder was in the middle of leaving.
Both officers quickly bowed before Luna who was quick to wave off such formalities. “Bowing in the field is unnecessary, even if we are safe inside this ship.” The officers gave polite acknowledgement, allowing Luna to continue uninterrupted. “Any word from your queens?” she directed at Placeholder.
Placeholder gave a sympathetic head shake. “Only to keep watching for any signs that Grogar might be on the loose, or if chaos in general breaks out.”
Luna was no stranger to the old military adage of “hurry up and wait”. That still didn’t make the waiting part any less annoying. Not that she risked letting that show on her face. “Very well. Unless Chrysalis was somehow waiting for this exact opportunity, I believe we have a couple of days at the very least before said ‘general chaos’ occurs. Have the troops and gun crews rest while we can.
“Even if Polybia managed to somehow see us through the cloak, we can honestly say we’re keeping watch.”
“I will pass the word along, your highness,” Placeholder replied with a respectful nod.
Commander Flash inwardly grumbled at what he felt he needed to ask. “Princess, I hesitate to broach this idea, but what about the Discord option?”
Despite her usual collected manner, Luna couldn’t stop herself from staring at him for a moment out of stunned shock. Thankfully, she recovered quickly enough before embarrassment set in, only to take on a tone of pure mockery at the idea by giving a shuttering humorless laugh. “Let’s get one thing clear. He is not an option.” Luna was mentally brought back to a lengthy discussion with Cadence and Celestia. “After that debacle with Terek, that serpentine menace is lucky he’s not a statue again. Calling him in to do anything is just asking for the plan to fail. The last thing we need is another ancient being giving him a new reason to renege upon his supposed ‘reformation’.”
Placeholder inwardly chuckled at Luna’s fuming, though he dared not show it. "I have to agree. Best to leave him placated in the capable hooves of Dame Fluttershy.”
Commander Flash bowed in acknowledgement even as Luna kept muttering Discord’s name as a curse. "Of course, I simply believe in exploring all the options. Even the strange ones.”
Sneaking through Polybia’s hive was not overly difficult, but the sheer size of it made the effort time consuming. After a day of keeping a low profile, Chrysalis had completed a workable map of the hive. The prison, where her spies had emerged from, was in an isolated chamber on the far northern side that had only one tunnel leading to and from it. Beyond that, the primary drone cluster for those not currently needed served as one of many travel hubs.
Chrysalis found almost everything else to be typical of a hive, for the technologically challenged broods at least. Nothing was centralized. Drone sleeping chambers, food stores, not even the hatchery was in a single location. One thing was clear however, there were by far too many eggs in all of the separate hatcheries for any one queen to produce.
The other thing she had noticed were dozens of drones were crafting long sweeping runes all throughout the tunnels. Oddly, each drone was painting the runes by hoof rather than telekinesis. Must be the runes Little Mad Mare is planning to use to keep Grogar in check during the move.
With a sneer on her lips, Chrysalis carefully walked her puppet past one group of painters and dipped her hoof into the paint bucket. Acting as if the puppet was moving with the common track in the tunnel, she painted occasional errors into the arrays at what she surmised to be critical points.
That should put a wrinkle in things.
Chrysalis repeated this sabotage with all three spies, once she had finished covertly cleaning up the evidence of her method of entry. However, she was not here for sabotage, no, she was here to enact sweet delicious revenge for the death of her sister. Ruining the wards was just a bonus. Her efforts eventually brought one of her spies to a rather strange discovery. Along one of the thoroughfare was a small branching tunnel barely large enough for a drone to fit through with a wall of green wax blocking the path several meters inside.
With only passing drones running on autopilot nearby, and none of them being guards, Chrysalis slipped her spy into the tunnel with ease. Once out of sight, she probed for alarm wards with her magic with a feather’s touch to avoid notice. She found the expected alarm here and there, a few on the wax itself, along with an unexpected one embedded in the stone walls of the chamber beyond.
Yet above it all, there was a deep sensation of wrongness held just beyond the waxy barrier. It was as if sticky oil started to cling to her mana, causing even a queen’s mind to become sluggish and as cold as the frozen north. Chrysalis pulled her magic back as fast as the dark magic within allowed her. Once fully retracted, the sense of wrong evaporated. How interesting… That’s not the kind of ward Poly uses at all. Could it be something new to keep Grogar in check?
Chrysalis took several moments to ponder on her discovery. Her eyes narrowed with concern. She’s learning, I’ll give her that. I think I’ll need to make a distraction before enacting this little jailbreak.
With a bit more probing of the alarm spells, Chrysalis noticed something else about the wards, yet it was elusive, refusing to allow her to realize the exact nature of the protective spell. Could it be a forced teleportation trap? No, she’s never shown any skill with that. Unless she stole such an enchanted item from Equestria. How does one so addled keep thinking strategically?
Opting to leave the spy there, since none of the passing drones so much as glanced at the entry passage, Chrysalis turned her attention to the other two spies to find a usable diversion.
Meanwhile at Kreesus’ ruined mountain hive, Twilight Sparkle hovered over the smoldering wreckage of one of her biplanes that had crashed into Fluffy. With her sister awaiting back on the carrier to deal with the tender supply vessel that was arriving, Twilight was left to oversee the cleansing of dark magic. Yet she was hardly one to be content on overwatch during times like this, and was using her magic to remove the wreckage from Fluffy as delicately as she could.
While necessary, the task was ultimately a dull and tedious one. The corruption of the land and mountain crops was caught early so there was little here that could become a threat to them. As dangerous as it was, the corruption upon the jungle below was up until recently, partially held in check by the other queens. None of them could spare the time or resources for a full cleansing of each battlefield, so a scorched earth tactic had been adopted in Polybia’s wake. Now large stretches of the jungle were left as little more than blackened scars upon the land, rather than breeding grounds for necrotic-tainted abominations.
As for Twilight, she couldn’t help but to be torn about Fluffy. On one side, the living airship was the very symbol of the traitor queen, and she should feel nothing wrong for what had to be done. The leviathan was too heavily tainted to heal, and too alien for them to even try without the corruption spreading deep into its tissues. And yet she had spent many a night within the venerable creature, learning about the different hives, and was a marvelous place to learn more about alchemy. A place where she once had another queen as a friend and mentor.
Now though, Fluffy’s life hung by a thread, and there was nothing she could do but hope her children could help it pull through.
Aiming to distract herself she looked down to one of the purple medics weaving a basic mending spell over a gash. The medic was a bit more petite than her sisters, and wore the equestrian style white uniform.
<Any luck down there, Triage?>
The medic nearly jumped out of her skin at being directly addressed. Triage’s spell fizzled with a noticeable zap back on her horn. <Ah - um - No, my queen.> The gash in front of her widened to a full meter long, back where she started. <It’s like the flesh just doesn’t want to knit together again.>
What little hope Twilight had for Fluffy died on those words. There’s nothing else for it then. That’s the first signs of somepony turning undead. <You might as will pull back, Triage. You're not gonna do anymore good with that.>
A cold sweat ran down Twilight’s face at the prospect of an airship sized zombie with her children still searching within Fluffy. <Intel, please tell me you’ve at least seen a sign of Kreesus, dead or alive.>
Down within the damp fetidly hot innards of Fluffy, Intel was leading a small search party of three. With its life ebbing away, Fluffy’s interior was pitch black, save for the squad’s flashlights. <Not yet, Momma. But there’s something weird going on down here.>
“Look there it is again!” a voice called out to Intel’s left. She first turned to Thunderfury who was in turn pointing at… what could only be called a sphincter, opening up while the one behind them and a third to the right closed.
“I’m telling you, it’s gotta be Kreesus trying to direct us to her!” he half cheered. His surging good mood was not so much at the prospect of finding Kreesus alive, but in having an excuse to leave the damp slimy muck that was pooling in much of Fluffy’s passageways. It didn’t help that the muck was starting to ripen due to the spreading necrotic corruption. What made the situation even worse was the fact that many of the pools were deep enough to start soaking into their leg holes.
Ferrum remained outwardly silent about the whole affair, as he kept his sword at the ready. I really hope this slime isn’t flammable. “I still say that traitor would have contacted us verbally at least if she were still alive.”
Twilight Sparkle heard their grumblings through Intel’s ears, and ultimately shared her revulsion of the goo. I might have to redouble decontamination procedures when they get back. <I’ll leave it up to your discretion, Intel.>
A shivering wave of disgust rattled through Intel before she steeled her resolve. <We’ll keep going, my queen,> She used her magic to snag a soiled cloth from around her neck and tried to find a clean corner to wipe the sweat off her brow. “Come on you two, quit whining and let’s see just how much further this rabbit hole goes.”
Sloshing through the flooded passageways, Intel and her two squadmates dragged themselves through a wide path. With Fluffy so weak, the inner walls were starting to sag, held up only by bone.
The curved passage went on for a dozen meters, with any branching path being closed off by Fluffy itself. Finally, they arrived in a room not much taller than the passageway itself. Some of the fleshy walls had lost their color while other bits were already rotting. Yet the centerpiece of the chamber was quickly illuminated by the trio’s flashlights. With two thin sheathing slabs of muscle pulling away, the flashlights revealed a oblong grey object that easily dwarfed a minotaur.
Intel and the others, along with Twilight who was still watching through their eyes, were initially puzzled by the thing. “Is this what’s so important?” Ferrum half groaned. “I thought we were being lead to Kreesus.”
<Maybe you were,> Twilight replied as Thunderfury moved in to touch the thing. <We don’t know the extent of Kreesus’ alchemical prowess. This might be a rejuvenation pod or something along similar lines to that.>
“Or a giant egg,” Thunderfury pointed out.
Twilight subconsciously tensed at the mental image of having to pass an egg of that size. <I… I highly doubt it. As far as I know, no other hive has anypony but the queen laying eggs.>
Intel circled the monstrous thing and found a collection of muscles between the ‘egg’ and a large sphincter on the wall that could easily accommodate it. She noticed the slime from the other passageways was being pumped out by some lethargic organs on the sticky floor. Movement on the wall brought her attention back up to the sphincter which was trying to open, but could only manage to get halfway open. Curiosity struck her, and Intel shined her flashlight through the new hole to see it go on for several meters into darkness. However, more of the slime and obvious tears in the fleshy walls told Intel all she needed to know.
“If I didn't know better, I’d say Fluffy wants us to get this thing out of here, but it needs our help.”
“You mean Kreesus is telling us through Fluffy, right?” Thunderfury queried. “I mean, this thing’s supposed to have the intelligence of a brick.”
Ferrum propped himself up and did a probing tap on the egg. The shell, if that’s what it even was, was thick enough to not sound hollow. <What should we do, my queen?>
Twilight was silent for a few moments, just long enough for the drones to notice. <I think we should fulfill an old friend’s last request. We’ll take that thing out of there, then figure out what to do with it.>
Intel gave the obvious exit canal for the ‘egg’ a wary look as it repeatedly tried and failed to open wide enough to allow its passage. “You think Kreesus might actually be in there?”
<I don’t know, honestly. If she is, then Kreesus must be terribly injured if she can no longer communicate verbally. If she were close to death, that would explain why Polybia retreated so swiftly.>
Ferrum hefted his sword and took one long look at the egg canal. “Whelp, then it looks like we’re going to have to get a bit creative.”
If there was one thing Polybia had learned from Chrysalis’ constant infiltration, it was the art of the wallflower. The tunnels and branching rooms outwardly looked the same. There were never any guards to give away a tempting target for her trio of spies, and no one location that the hive spanning anti-magic wards were centered on.
It looks like I might have to get a bit more reckless to find-
“Mark my words, Polybia!” a familiar feminine voice cried out in unbridled rage, “if I don’t kill you, Grogar will!”
Chrysalis’ spy stopped walking and turned an ear towards an unassuming tunnel. Now that she looked at it, she noticed it was one of the few places that had no wards present. Or, at least, ones she could see with the naked eye. Was that Kreesus? Why would Polybia have bothered to capture her?
With only the passing drones to give Chrysalis no heed, she nevertheless crept slowly forward.
“Your mastery over self-alchemy is more impressive than I thought.” Chrysalis immediately identified the voice as Polybia’s. “I simply must make you an advisor once the process has advanced far enough.”
“You want my advice!?” Kreesus spat venomously. “Go hang yourself, preferably over a nest of Thunderbats.”
“Come now, Kreesus. Such crass behavior is unbecoming of a queen, especially one as honored as you.”
By now, Chrysalis had crept her way in to see what was going on, only to be hit by a wall of stench the likes of which she had never smelt on this earth. She had to cut off her sense of smell before her puppet started to gag and give itself away.
Once under control again, she spied that Kreesus was submerged in a green glowing pool up to her chin. One of Polybia’s puppets was knelt down in front of the pool with several wax bowls filled with more of the same liquid. Must be testing them for some new torture technique. I should take notes.
“I can wait until your mind is more pliable.” The puppet dipped another bowl into the pool before standing. It took three full bowls into its magic and prepared to leave. Had it not been for Polybia turning back towards Kreesus one last time, she might have spotted Chrysalis’ spy scurrying back into the main thoroughfare. “Instead of wasting time fighting it, try to imagine how beautiful you will become in just a few short months.”
Polybia departed the room with Kreesus giving a wordless cry of impotent rage. The puppet missed the spy entirely thanks to Chrysalis clinging to the ceiling. Chrysalis watched her go before slipping into Kreesus’ prison. She had the foresight to weave a low power sonic dampening field around the room. As she expected, Kreesus immediately started screaming at the spy, assuming Polybia was back to torment her some more. Chrysalis was quick to drop her disguise, silencing Kreesus who at the same time realized her shouting had been a silent one.
With Kreesus calmed down, Chrysalis released the field. “Why hello there, Kreesus. Are you taking one of those… oh what do the ponies call it? A spa bath?”
“How did you get - nevermind.” Kreesus struggled feebly in her restraints. “You have to get me out of this pool, now!”
“I don’t have to do anything, my dear Kreesus.” Chrysalis walked around the pool, and noticed there was a second exit with a much brighter light pouring out from it, along with the sound of hoof falls and buzzings wings. Assuming it was just another main tunnel, she didn’t let that distract her from Kreesus. “I am here to rid ourselves of that dogmatic zealot. Removing you from your little pond would arouse suspicion far too early. I’m sure you can keep your head above water for another day or so.”
“This is more than some petty torture,” Kreesus whisper-shouted with a hiss. “That monster is trying to awaken my Sa'rook Shol'va!”
If anything, Chrysalis gazed down at her with mounting disinterest. “Should I care for whatever that is?” She turned away to inspect both exits to make sure Polybia wasn’t returning.
“How do you not know what Sa'rook Shol'va is!?”
Chrysalis didn’t respond right away, mostly out of a habit for posturing than anything else. That gave her time for her eyes to be drawn to the other exit where she began moving towards. “Are you honestly going to pull a Twilight Sparkle on me? I don’t have time for your guessing games, so tell me now or you can just stay put until Polybia gets a wakeup call.”
Even in her position, Kreesus noticed where Chrysalis’ puppet was headed. “You want to know what’s in that room? That is Sa'rook Shol'va!”
Curiosity finally overcame caution, drawing Chrysalis towards the other room. “Quite the dramatic one aren’t you? But who am I to judge about drama,” she said with short chuckle to spite Kreesus with humor.
When Kreesus said nothing, hoping the lack of distractions would prod Chrysalis to leave. The tactic only served to amuse Chrysalis further. “Tell you what, my -” She made a show of snorting disdainfully. “My pungent ally. I’ll do this much for you.” Taking a second look at the bone dampening ring on Kreesus’ horn, Chrysalis undid the paltry wards keeping it in place, causing the bone to go brittle, crumbling into dust that fell into the pool. “There, now don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.” Chrysalis sneered at Kreesus who begrudgingly thanked her and got to work removing her restraints. “By the time I ‘go loud’ you should be able to free yourself. Try to not get captured again.”
With Kreesus firmly in her debt, Chrysalis returned her attention to the second exit. Slinking forward, she poked her head out to see she was actually situated high along the ceiling of a vast deep chamber.
It was well lit, allowing her an almost bird’s eye view of five elephant sized worm things roughly twenty five meters below. There was a choreography of drones moving to and fro between the five large worm-like things she couldn’t quite make out right away. Most of the drones were transporting either food, waste, or astonishing to Chrysalis, eggs. That alone was enough to ring alarm bells. It was like a machine, every other moment at least one egg was laid only for it to be carted off immediately.
She also noticed several drones seeming to be resting upon the worms themselves in an almost trance-like state. Yet it wasn’t until she made out a queen’s face on one of them that true horror gripped Chrysalis’ heart. “Vel’chu.” The word dredged up an age old horror Chrysalis scarcely believed existed anymore. “T-those are Vel’chu!” This is vile. How could she fall so far?
She was moments from turning back towards Kreesus when a terrible thought occurred to her. Polybia’s eliminated six queens now, including Kreesus. Could she have-?!
Fear surged through her as Chrysalis looked at each Vel’chu in turn until she saw the only green one in the mix. Through the constantly passing drones, Chrysalis saw Yeelindrus’ head at the front. Her entire body up to her neck had been consumed by the changes wrought upon her. Only two withering forelegs were all that remained of her body. Yeelindrus was awake, but docile, seemingly content to eat and drink with a vacant expression.
No. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t dare to that to her! Forgetting Kreesus entirely, Chrysalis flew down to her sister’s head, weaving a quick charm over the three drones stuffing her face with royal jelly. With the charm in place, she kicked the trio away and cupped her sister’s face with her forelegs. “Yee, Yee, speak to me, please!” Chrysalis tried gently slapping her sister’s cheek, and was rewarded by Yeelindrus simply trying, and failing, to push her away with weak legs to try and get back at the food. The drones however were stuck on a mental loop, spooning forth a swab of jelly into empty air repeatedly waiting for it to be eaten. “Yeelindrus!”
Chrysalis’ panic alerted Jstrul, who had had walked into her sister’s throne room with some food. With a barely acknowledged request, Chrysalis had a waiting drone dictate what was happening in excruciating detail, right down to the fate of their sister.
“She can’t hear you,” said a voice as haughty and superior as even the worst Canterlot noble. Chrysalis whirled around to see Polybia controlling five caretaker drones and two guards. “She saw the light not too long ago, and fully embraced the honor of being one of the Sa'rook Shol'va.”
Chrysalis and Jstrul were utterly dumbstruck by rage. Their sister, her sister was not even granted the painful death Chrysalis thought she had received. No, she had been turned into an abomination, something far worse. Chrysalis shook violently, both her real body and that of her puppets. Her magic rippled up and down her horn as her anger boiled the air around her. Polybia continued speaking as if she didn’t notice. Jstrul lost all sense of decorum and screamed so loud she burned her throat.
“I knew you’d find a way in, how could you not?” Polybia huffed almost as she were the one who should be indigent. “After all, that’s all you can do. You’re barely adequate on the battlefield, so here you are, a failure once more.”
It was only now that Polybia deigned to acknowledge the promise of murder in Chrysalis’ face. “Honestly you should be thanking me for what I’ve helped Little Yee Yee become-”
Polybia’s puppet suddenly found a spike of mana impaling its neck, courtesy of Chrysalis. Polybia took over the caretaker next to the dead one, and continued speaking even as the old puppet was keeling over, completely uncaring about it nor the spy’s smoking horn. “But I’m not blind to how the rest of you seem to be a bit… Repulsed-”
That caretaker became wreathed in flame as Chrysalis burned it to ash within seconds. Polybia’s eyes appeared on a third caretaker. “This is rather unlike you, Chrysalis. No taunting words? No quips? I’m rather disappointed. Perhaps Jstrul might be able to come up with a coherent word or two.”
Something loud cracked inside of Chrysalis’ spy. “I won’t let my sister live like this. Better she die here than-”
“Than live as my “slave”,” Polybia interrupted with a snort of dismissal. “If anything she was a guest of honor.” As if to mock her, Polybia shrugged uncaringly. “Go ahead and kill them all if you must. Your sister and the others have served their purpose. I suppose you’re saving me the trouble of shuffling them off to their places of honor in the Silver City.” Parts of Chrysalis’ spy was starting to balloon out as it forced the volatile concoction within to build to critical mass. “I already have more than enough drones and eggs in reserve to crush both you and your sister, and scurry Twilight’s little ship back home, forcing her to revoke my rogue status.”
The thorax on the spy was bulging out in all directions, straining the chitin closer and closer to the breaking point. Yet Chrysalis’ hateful sneer shifted to one of cold retribution. “If there’s anything I’m going to regret, Polybia it’s that I won’t be the one to rip your soul into so many mangled pieces that not even Tartarus will have anything to burn for all eternity.”
“Glad to see you’ve accepted your inevitable defeat,” Polybia stated factually.
It was getting difficult for the spy to speak as its lungs were getting crushed by the expanding reaction. “Oh no. My regret is that I probably won’t get to see Grogar do that for me.” Polybia’s smug expression didn’t waver. “After all, I’m sure he has much more experience with punishing the damned.”
A shadow of concern crossed Polybia’s features scant seconds before the spy finally burst. Once the putrid orange fluid was exposed to air, the entire chamber erupted in an inferno. Yeelindrus was consumed by the explosion in an instant. The other queens burned away within moments, barely any time to feel the scorching pain. All of the drones and eggs in the chamber were all caught in the flames, and were gone in seconds.
The shockwave blasted its way through the dozen exit tunnels, roasting everything for only a scant few meters. The initial blast was just enough to rock Kreesus’ prison with orange fire licking at the edges of the room, with a rush of searing air along with it. By now however, she had broken her shackles and barely dove for the dirt as the wash of heat roared in.
Kreesus’ mane was singed to the roots, but her scales protected her from the worst of the burns. Once the shockwaves had passed, and she brushed off some dust that had been shaken loose from the ceiling, Kreesus took stock of herself. She patted herself down with her hooves, and used her internal alchemy to check for any changes the pool might have wrought.
Desperation surged through her frantic search for any sign of it, but she didn’t get far before drones rushed into the room to fight the fires. Kreesus quickly noticed these drones were not puppets and was quick to leverage her psionic power to sever them from Polybia and bend them to her will.
“Never thought I’d have to restart a hive with someone else’s drones.” But first I have to get out of here before Polybia can figure out what just happened. Throwing on a disguise of a drone, a ruse made feeble by her much larger size, Kreesus enacted a rather hasty plan of escape. A plan that mostly revolved around the drones themselves carrying her around. Resisting the changes and the pool itself had sapped her of so much muscle strength that her brief burst of adrenaline from the fire was already petering out.
She slumped against the rocky ground, unable to get her hooves under her. Thankfully, her magic was still strong. With a drone pulling her onto its back, she directed her new royal guard onward. Ugh, chitin is so uncivilized.
Practically on the other side of the hive, the spy in front of what she believed to be Grogar’s prison had been joined by the third infiltrator. The pair had followed Chrysalis’ instructions on lining the inner walls with a barrier spell. The pair had barely finished when Chrysalis all but shoved her consciousness into the first spy, leaving the other to power the barrier. She glared at the prison wall with all her fury and charged her horn. Pulling deeply on the spy’s mana reserves, she ignored the alarm spells and fired a drilling torrent of magic. Nothing ran through Chrysalis’ mind save the raw hatred of being forced to kill her own sister. She bit her real lips, heedlessly shredding them with her teeth. In her private chamber, her magic ran rampant, cracking her prized ebony throne. Sharing Chrysalis’ demand for vengeance, Jstrul paced the throne room, absolutely furious she didn’t have a spy in the area, forcing her to seek retribution vicariously through her elder sister.
For the spy itself. As expected, noisy screeching alarms started blasting out of the prison, forcing Chrysalis to dim her ability to hear from the spy. The expected teleporter trap however, didn’t spring, allowing Chrysalis to focus more magic on pushing through the wall of wax.
She made it through in half a minute and leapt inside the lightless chamber beyond. Even for a changelings’ night vision, the room was impossibly dark, forcing Chrysalis to light it herself. Yet the room remained much darker than her light spell should have made it.
What could only be called a source of literal darkness pulled her eyes towards a single object wrapped in tarnished silver chains. It was a steel necklace that would hang low on a queen with bells the size of half a hoof attached along every part except where the necklace would rest on the back of the neck. In the back of her mind, she realized this was the source of wrongness in the room. “Bells!?” Chrysalis roared in blind fury. She cast her gaze around the rest of the cramped room to find no Grogar, no other exit, no nothing.
Jstrul stopped her pacing to cast her sister an angry glower. “Bells? Didn’t Queen Twilight’s little paper on Grogar say something about bells?”
Chrysalis’ cunning mind started churning again as she quickly recalled the report. “...Yes, yes it did! Good catch, sister.” Polybia’s guards were slowed in reaching the reliquary thanks to Chrysalis’ final infiltrator’s barrier, she had time to study the chains. They were blessed by holy magic from the Silver City, a fact that forced bitter laughter out of the sisters.
“I wonder if those chains would burn her on contact now,” Jstrul hissed. “But chains like that are weak to a proper hit.”
Taking her sister’s advice, Chrysalis had the spy turn about and bucked the lock keeping the chain in place. Scant moments later, the barrier to the reliquary was shattered by the combined weight of Polybia’s drones outside.
Chrysalis quickly yanked off the chains around the bells. With the restraining silver no longer in place, the bells pulsed with power and started to warp and fold in on itself. Seeing the distortion for a form of teleportation, Chrysalis’ last spy physically grabbed the bells and curled in over them and was dragged into the miniature portal along with them.
The bells and the spy materialized in front of the looming form of Grogar in a room barely forty meters below and thirty meters to the south of the breeding chamber. He was bound in wax with runed strips of silver inlaid paper and suspended off the ground by tethers to the walls and ceiling. A dozen changeling guards with silver arms and armor surrounded the demonic goat and were caught off guard by the appearance of the bells hovering a foot off the ground, and the completely mangled remains of a single black chitin drone. Grogar’s eyes went wide at the sudden appearance of his bells and a corpse he knew belonged to Chrysalis’ brood, but mentally recovered before Polybia could react. His eyes pulsed with red magic, causing a single bell to toll. The sound was gut jarringly deep, impossibly deep for such a small bell. The souls of the guards were pulled out of their bodies, appearing as pitifully small motes of silver light and were drained into the bells.
“Well then, I suppose negotiations are about to resume.” With another pulse from his red eyes, the bells rang again, the sound shattered his waxy cocoon like a heavy boot through thin ice. He rolled out of the the alcove and took to his hooves. The bells gently flew over to drape themselves over his neck. “Now then, where are you?”
Under normal circumstances, he would have to hunt for Polybia the hard way, cutting his way through the entire hive one room at a time. However, Polybia was marked by his magic. With his demonic sight, she glowed like the sun among the empty blackness of space. “Ahh, there you are.”
With a resonating ring of his bells, the earth itself was cracked and ruined as he forced the rock of his prison apart. The new hole was forty meters long, and aimed directly towards Polybia.
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Well, Grogar's escaped.
If shit does not hit the fan on every last damn front in the coming chapters, then I will be very disappointed.
...Fair enough. It seems you found a simple way to write Discord out of the story.
I hope she suffers.
Man, this is no longer a case of shit hitting the fan, this is a 21 shit-howitzer salute.
The enemy of my enemy is my... fiend?
Yoish! Super awesome chapter. I ruvs it!
It is getting interesting
me guess by the end of it all, only twilight, rainbow dash and Kreesus leave the jungle alive as queen all other queen will be dead
I would have to say that was an exciting chapter. But I have to say that Chrysalis is doing something that can affect all of them. I know she's doing this out of Revenge but the question is will Kroger get what he wants? A changeling Queen's body for him to control. Time will tell.
I do hope to see a new chapter sooner than later. Keep up the good work you're doing.
Dragonfox
When I first saw commander Placeholder's name, I thought it was an editing oops. It's rather amusing either way though...
Dat DBZ Abridged reference.
Run, run as fast as you can. You can't escape me because shit's hit the fan.
Oh this will be fun.
This was a good chapter. May I please have another?
7602695
static2.fjcdn.com/comments/Mesmus+rolled+a+random+image+posted+in+comment+6717780+at+_d095f85ebf56cfcc0f3c254d15cd7949.jpg
999 likes.
So, close, yet so far
I have made the 1,000th like. :3
Kreesus is going furry. Called it!
W00T! Like #1001!
...
Wait...
...
...
Why wasn't this already liked? I've been following this series since its first iteration...
7603561
She has scales, I believe. Instead of chitin.
7603911
Oh, that's right. My fault.
That's even better.
We have [Thunderfury, Blessed Ling of the Windseeker], and now Captain Placeholder.
This made my evening.
You know, if I know Discord, he most likely does not mind one bit to be "left out of the action". He's probably sitting in Fluttershy's cottage as we speak, watching the show through his magic.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/5/27/335036.gif
7604057
I don't play WoW, so I wasn't even aware of the unintentional reference. I was just raising an eyebrow at the name, expecting a story almost exactly like what you described.
7604106
Either that or borrowing Celestia's ethereal spy-screens.
And now the metal music begins!
I'm assuming Chrysalis's plan was to free Grogar, let him kill off Poly, and thus end her truce with Equestria and the pony hives so they can all focus fire on him.
Alternately, point Grogar at Equestria and the pony hives, then attempt to stab everyone in the back. But hopefully her more recent brand of motherhood is bringing her around enough to not do that.
Ahhhh this beyond "the shit has hit the fan" it is now well in to "oh f*ck Godzilla is in city" and he be right pissed off. Poly is going the wishing she stayed dead by time Groger gets done with round one of the game he is about to play with her.
7604261
I doubt it.
1: Chryssy already started negotiations with Grogar to get him as an ally.
2: Pitting him against Equestria would break her word betweens queens, done under parlay and under the rules of the sumit (when renegotiating due Poly going rogue). Something she would never do.
I am glad that the Queens poly had changed got there final rest and I hope Kreesus escapes. No one deserves that fate
And the author's note questions are actually answered for once.
Doesn't grantee said answers' accuracy, however.
Yep, everything is coming to a head, all the pieces are on place, everyone's poised for action. Hopefully Chrysalis will have the sense to warm everyone else at least.
Here's to hoping Grogar will be merciful and just take all the souls o Polybia's drones and go away!
Keep going! ;
Grogar kills Polybia, Twilight and Rainbow kill Gorgar, rest of the story finishes the Slice of Life sub-plots back in Equestria with the changeling princess, Velvet and AJ's parents.
Calling it.
Tirek
Huh, I don't think I noticed this in my notifications until just now. I guess that just means I don't have to wait as long for the next one.
Got an extra A here.
Should be 'do'.
7613085
What of the fate of Chrysalis' bloodline, the holdout PCE, and the anti-psykiers? There is literally still an entire nation of bigots bidding their time across the sea and it's not like Chrysalis is going to be any less treacherous. It is not out of malice that she is that way, but more "business as usual" with the instincts of an expansionist queen. Pair that also with the fact that Cadistia never TRULY forgave what's-her-name, just is bidding her time since her daughters needed her support.
7630275 Why do I detect another sequel?
Rourke (occurs twice)
Your Highness
Tirek
Welp
relegated
7603987
Ah, man! Somebody beat me to it!
that silly "commander Placeholder" gag reminds me of a one-line character named "plot devicevice" in the online comic "Sluggy Freelance".
And thus, the final battle of this war begins in earnest ... Dis gonna be gud
Category 1:
carefull, you're still talking about the pods, not the prisoners, you're talking about pods sleeping in pods ...
missing comma ... also, whatever you mean to say with 'shuttering' I'm fairly confident that that's not what you're saying ...
Tirek
the dozens of drones that
it was a marvelous place
missing comma
as if she were
were
buck
themselves
so then ... let the fun ...
Begin!
Chryssy is done giving any fucks, she wants that bitch DEAD.
Tirek
One mayor enemy will destroy the other, than one still remains...
Laughing again at the "relatable" ads
as I was reading a advertisment shown for Housekeeping job salaries.