How Love Works

by HypernovaBolts11

Chapter VI - Battles

Everything felt numb, everything except for the one thing that hurt. Everything felt sideways, a bit too far to the right, and about two centimeters too tall. I'd lost my hearing a while ago, for the sound of pain overpowered everything else, and my entire face and chest had gone numb from crying.

I picked up my crown, and placed it on my head. I lit up my horn, and my sword flared to life, burning anything solid that touched it. I lined up the tip of the sword with the silver star on my family tree, and drove it forward, sinking the beam of white light into the stone.

I grit my teeth, and rotated the hilt clockwise, a full revolution, then back one eleventh of a turn. I turned it back to the full circle, then back two elevenths. I turned it back one, and forward two, like it was bounding down a flight of stairs wrapped around a cylinder.

This was a special spell my parents had told me only to use if there was no other option. It was supposed to be activated with the entire population in the castle, hiding from the sandstorm in the event of the city walls collapsing. Now, I was using it to isolate one individual from all the rest.

When it came back to its original position, I yanked the sword back, and shouted as bolts of white magic burst free of the wall, most of them burning my chitin on contact, some barely missing and leaving singes behind. The burnt chitin turned grey after a few moments, then white once it was zapped again.

The castle was rocked by a tremor, then another, twice as strong. In an ovoid shape, a shield glowing bright white enveloped the castle. The spell dug into the ground, and anyone at the bottom had several seconds to get away before the castle began to move.

The castle rose into the air, bringing the many tunnels of the dungeon up with it. It looked somewhat like a great, black tree was being uprooted, and the sand below ground level fell away, leaving the tunnels exposed to the air. It kept flying upwards, accelerating in such a way that everything inside felt three times as heavy. It came to a sudden stop when it'd flown higher than the top of the city wall.

The bolts of magic stopped coming, leaving all of my once black chitin a milky white color. I had fallen over under the energy being delivered to me combined with my experienced gain in weight, and now pushed a hoof under myself, trying to stand up. I rose on shaky legs, and picked up my sword. I looked around, my joints stiff like an overcooked slice of toast.

Chrysalis was standing across the room from me, with a large hole in her chest, no wings, and a wire connecting her ears to a music player strapped to her chest. "You know, I've found that music can be quite powerful, if you know how to use it," she said, unplugging her earbuds and reaching for the player.

I hissed at her, and said, "Where'd you get that gap?"

She paused and looked down at the hole in her chest. "Your father managed to poke me with his kabob skewer before I could kill him," she said. She hadn't looked up, big mistake. "Your parents refused to give up. Even when I had your mother's throat pinned down, he managed to take even more from me."

When she looked up, I had already made it halfway across the room, and was unsheathing my sword. The beam of white light flared to life, and was swinging from my left to my right in front of me. She tapped the music player's play button, and smiled, "Let's see how you play."

Just when my sword should have removed her head from her neck, she blurred and reappeared behind me. She said in time with the music, "My return is a mystery." She vanished and struck the back of my neck with her hoof before adding, "Thought you had control of me." She sat luxuriously upon my mother's throne. "I'm offended that you're so surprised."

I ran forward, and tried to slice her down the middle, but found myself pinned against the throne. She added, "That first defeat was a practice round, but I pulled myself off the ground, and I've already planned your demise." She tried to smash my skull in with her hoof, but I was too fast.

It was then that I realized how such an old changeling could move so fast. The music, the music was giving her power. I was suddenly very glad that I knew this song. "I won't stop fighting 'cause I'm not done yet," I sang. I darted behind the old changeling, and slashed at her midsection, but she pinned me down, and tried to choke me under her hoof.

I bashed my head forward, slamming my helmet against her hoof, forcing her to withdraw it. With more room to breathe, I jumped, turned around, and —thankful for my father's clinging ability— ran up the wall. I shouted, "You're gonna regret. This time I won't let you forget." I silently hoped that my father had been lying, and willed the castle to move in a very specific way.

The castle began to rotate. The player sang in place of us both, as we were busy trying to figure out how to balance on the floor, which was then the wall, "You're not gonna get away this time. I'll strike when you're blind. You'll awake just to find you are mine."

I lunged forward, and swung at her. "You thought you won, thought the battle was over. But I," I shouted.

"I," she responded, skillfully ducking under my sword, and kicked my front legs out from under me.

"I," I called as the wall we stood on moved to the side, and we had to stand on the ceiling. I clung to the surface, getting my footing first, and ran up the decreasingly steep slope. I swung my sword at the still confused queen.

"I'm just getting stronger," she added. She stepped backwards.

"Enjoy your freedom, it won't last much longer 'cause I," I said. I ran forward, swinging at her again.

"I," she declared, backing out of the way, but not without half of her mane being burned off.

"I," I called. I thrust my sword forward, successfully slicing off a chunk of her tail, which had been pointed towards me in her retreat.

"I keep getting stronger," Chrysalis sang, having run forward until she'd realized that the next wall was a series of open windows, and turned around. She found herself facing the tip of my sword.

The player pitched in, "When the sky turns to grey, when the light fades away."

A smile appeared on my grandmother's lips, and she sang, "You will say I just keep getting stronger." She ducked out of my sword's way, and pulled my front hoof forward, throwing me out of the window.

Reflex saved my backside, and my wings pumped into a blur of cobalt blue. I stayed just outside of the window, and swung the sword at her from outside, singing, "You can try to prepare, or attack if you dare."

She launched herself out of the window, her tail being completely removed by the sword, and grabbed my leg before she could fall away. "I don't care 'cause I'm just getting stronger," she shouted.

I pumped my wings harder for a moment, then swung at her with my sword, trying to make her drop to her death, as she had no wings. We both got dragged down by her weight and my lack of compensation for it.

"I, I, I, I'm just getting stronger!" the player shouted as I folded my wings against my sides, and dropped both of us through another window on a different part of the castle. "I, I, I, I'm just getting stronger!"

I landed on my back, a bit stunned, and fell back onto the floor as it became the floor again. I groaned as I stood up, and froze when I found my own sword pointed at my throat.

"I, I, I, I'm just getting stronger!" Chrysalis sang, and grinned at me.

I willed the castle to save me, not considering how terribly simple and unspecific that command was.

A chunk of the floor shot up from below Chrysalis's stomach, and an adjacent part of the ceiling moved down. The two pieces of stone held the changeling queen still, unable to break her armor, but well able to keep her there.

"I, I, I, I'm just getting stronger!" I replied, and swiped the sword from my grandmother. I stepped behind her, and cut at the base of her hind leg, attempting to sever it and prevent her from moving so quickly.

The stone retracted, and she fell to the ground, out of the blade's way. She jumped up, and grabbed me in her magic, pinning my legs against the wall with neon green shackles. "I am the nightmare that replays in your head. I am the shadow lurking under your bed," she said, stepping towards me.

I maintained a straight face, and lifted the sword behind her neck without looking at it. "And when I lose it's never really the end. You should have known if have a plan for revenge," I said, and shoved the sword forward.

She stepped to the side, and the sword dug itself into the wall, just barely missing my hindquarters. She pulled the sword out of the wall, and said, "And I won't stop fighting 'cause I'm not done yet."

I grit my teeth as the castle's rotation slowed to a halt, and it remained fixed, with the floor as the floor. The wall behind me slid upwards, lifting me out of the sword's way. The sword cut through her magical binding on my left hind leg, and the rest shattered. "You're gonna regret. This time I won't let you forget," I said, and gripped the sword as well as her.

We both held the sword's hilt for a moment, trying to point it at one another to deliver the killing blow. Neither of us dared to blink or miss a note of the song, for if we did, the other would have its power, and we'd lose. "You're not, gonna get away this time. I'll strike when you're blind. You'll awake, just to find you are mine," we both growled.

In an instant, I jumped aside, and let her have the sword. She swung down, and blinked long enough for me to swipe the blade back. She grabbed a metal sword from the wall —we must have landed in the armory— and held it up just in time to block my attack.

"You thought you won, thought the battle was over, but I," I said, applying more pressure to the sword, knowing that, if I did this for long enough, mine would melt through her makeshift defense.

"I!" she shouted, and pushed back up against the sword.

"I," I replied, able to smell the vaporized metal from her sword.

"I'm just getting stronger," she sang, and stepped forward, pressing her nose against mine.

I backed up a bit, and ran into a wall. I shouted, "Enjoy your freedom, it won't last much longer 'cause I."

"I," she declared.

"I," I added, pressing my sword harder against hers.

"I keep getting stronger!" she shouted, and stepped to the side just as the last of her sword melted and snapped. She grabbed a spear from the wall, and thrust it forward, only for me to cut its head off, and then slice it into sections as the splinters continued their journey. She hurled more spears at me, all of which I sliced out of the air, only to have to deal with another volley of them.

After a few seconds of this, Chrysalis grabbed three swords, and charged straight at me, lining up the tips of the swords into a cone in front of her.

We both shouted, "When the sky turns to grey, when the light fades away, you will say I just keep getting stronger. Stronger every day, stronger every day!"

I pointed my sword at the center of her conic battering ram, and finally, after so many years, did what none of my family had. I killed Queen Chrysalis.

---

The castle shuddered, trembling violently as the spell placed upon it broke. It creaked and groaned as its buttresses and window frames succumbed to gravity again, and the bubble of magic flowed down to create a heat shield. It fell, slowly at first, and then accelerated, the ground getting ever closer as it fell.

The white magic pushed against the air, forming a white bowl shape of air, which then stretched into a cone as the castle broke the sound barrier. The air screamed in protest, and when the castle finally slowed down, it hovered just a centimeter off the ground, and the sonic boom caught up with it, shattering windows in the nearby homes.

Waiting below was the whole city, all gathered around the crater where the castle had once rested, awaiting the return of their city's most grand structure. A few on the west side gasped, and whispers spread about that the queen was dead.

The castle shook once more, and vibrated to shake away the sand, and it sank into the pit of sand it had once occupied. It settled down, and an orange changeling presented to the purples a head, long dead, of Queen Chrysalis.

The purples stepped up to the castle doors, and told all to remain outside until they could figure out what had happened. One citizen pushed her way through though, not that anyone in their right mind would've tried to stop her. They all knew that she was in charge now, even if all was well, she was the princess.

Ladybug Spring flew through the many halls, beating her wings rapidly, and hurried on by fear.

When she zipped to the end of another hallway, she glanced through the door on the left, and darted inside. She looked over the body, and at the small machine to her right, which had been crushed under my hoof in a moment of spite. She placed a hoof against my stomach, and looked down at the three swords on the floor.

Queen Chrysalis had managed to take me with her. That was how this story ends, and that is how I died.

Hey, where are you going?

I told you that this story was over, not that my story was over.

Like I said, my family has a reputation for surviving things that no one should.

Author's Note:

The song used is Getting Stronger, and it's just incredible.

Comments

[MMImortal]

First, I guess this is how you describe a boss fight in a book, I am used only to seeing those type of final fights ( see as in on a screen ) so lets just say it was quit " difficult " for me to follow, but after the 3th run I realized how well you've shaped it around. gj as in GREAT job
Second, The " I " thing made me practically double read on every 3th sentence in this chapter. XD