Brave to the Soul

by Allen H

Chapter Six- Knock Knock, anybody home!

Senka traveled along a rather trail-blazed path while she walked towards her destination. The wonky makeshift path seemed to have been used sparingly by the forest’s predators and prey, as many animal tracks could be seen if inspected closer. Many of the bolder beasts of the Everfree Forest stalked the demented lamb while she skipped and hopped forward. They only followed her though, they didn’t dare attack her as the atmosphere around her seemed to be absorbing all emotion around her.

The dark little lamb had begun to like the look of the forest as she walked through it. The gnarled branches, the ever gloomy darkness that filled it, and the simple presence of the wild nature of the forest. It amused her greatly. She would stay to just bask in it, but she first had to deal with the emotional aroma that pulled at her, tugged her to keep moving forward.

The grass covered ground began to fade into patches of coarse blades of green as Senka closed onto the structure she had been walked towards. The trees were also thinning out as she approached the colossal black rocked structure.

Beside the gaping hole that leads into its interior, Senka spied two insectoid looking ponies. When she started to approach them, they took up a defensive stance, eyeing her with their glowing green eyes.

“I’m sorry, but could you kind souls directed me to the Wizard of Oz,” Senka said as innocently as she could.

“Huh? What?” the two insectoid ponies replied in unison.

As the two guards looked at each other in confusion on what Senka said, and probably trying figuring out what she was, she brought out a large wooden mallet as dark energy shaped into it. The two looked at Senka with fear as they saw her lifted the large blunt weapon.

“Well, it’s been smashing to meet you, but I must move along now,” she said as she smashed both of them into their sides with her mallet, causing them to to fly several feet away. Some of their limbs must be broken now, but they'll live.

As the dark lamb Senka strolled into the gaping opening, she could help but giggle as the emotion that filled this place poured out.

“Let the feasting begin!”

--------

A rather panicked changeling came storming in to the royal chambers of the changeling hive. He panted heavily as he stopped in front of a black decorated throne, itss strange design clashing with the one sitting in it.

“What do you want?” The changeling that was lying on the throne demanded angrily, leering at him as she waited for a response.

The changeling bowed respectfully before he spoke. “T-there is an intruder in the west entrance my queen...and we are having a great trouble disposing it.” He lowered himself even more before the changeling on the throne, the queen of the changelings, Queen Chrysalis. “The guards respectfully ask if you may be able to assist them....”

Queen Chrysalis glared at the changeling, who compared to her was small. She looked to not want to get up and leave her throne, but her domain was being threatened.

With a bitter sigh, Queen Chrysalis moved off her throne. “Take me to the entrance, Worm.” The changeling complied to his queen’s command, and led her down the dark tunnel he came from.

Queen Chrysalis was rather frustrated and angry that her subjects couldn’t handle one lone intruder. “What sort of creature is it that the guards were so weak to not fend it off, and you better have some sort of explanation worm.” She said it so loud that it echoed and traveled down the many dark twisted corridors of the hive, leaving many unsuspecting changelings on their posts in fright of their queen’s furious voice.

Ever since the failed attempt to take over Canterlot a month ago, Queen Chrysalis had become easy to anger. She had injured many of her changeling subjects over simple mistakes, such as when one had not come back with enough food, Chrysalis had thrown the changeling across the royal chamber, causing it to crash hard into the wall and leave a crater. That changeling had been lucky, as it had only sustained a few broken and fractured limbs. The one event that has caused Queen Chrysalis’s subjects to greatly fear her though, had been when her ever growing hostility had killed one of her changelings, when she had used her magic to rip the changeling apart.

“Get one of the captains of the guards; I demand to know why a single intruder cannot be defeated by the hundreds of changelings in this hive.” Queen Chrysalis marched down the ashen main hallway to the eastern hive entrance,as sounds of pain, agony and heavy impacts on a hard surface drifted from the direction.

The currently nicknamed changeling “Worm” fidgeted as he walked beside Queen Chrysalis. “Captain Carcass is just ahead my Queen; he has been trying to keep the intruder from getting any deeper into the hive.” Worm tried to keep his posture low so that his Queen wouldn’t keep too much attention on him. “But as I had addressed to you, we are havin-

“Silence, you will only speak when I have allowed it.” Queen Chrysalis snapped at the small changeling as she gave it a look in distaste. “Now take me to Captain Carcass now.”

“Y-yes my Queen.” Worm fidgeting increased even further as he felt the aura of aggression increase about her as he walked beside her.

While Worm and his Queen continued their way to the eastern entrance of the hive, a thought was seeping about his mind. How could their loving Queen become such a hostile creature? The defeat at Canterlot had been embarrassing, but it hadn’t been the changelings fault or Queen Chrysalis’.

Worm had been close to Queen Chrysalis since that day they were sent scattered throughout the sky by that couple’s spell. He had watched her sink into a pit of despair and anguish, but since Worm was only a messenger and nothing of higher status, all he could do was hope to deliver some happy news from another’s report on the inner and outside works. He knew though, that in the past week nothing other than her anger had kept her will to live strong, but he wished that he knew what was fueling her wrath. Had Queen Chrysalis blamed her own people for their failure?

“Captain Carcass is just over there my Queen.” Worm said as he pointed to a doorway that looked to have been carved out of the black stone of the hive’s structure. Its short and jagged manner was almost too small for the Queen to enter.

“Ah, my Queen is here, I was worried that you might not come,” a rather smug changeling called out to Queen Chrysalis. The adorn armor he was wearing reflected the pale green light of the glowing crystals in the room.

“You’re captain Carcass, I presume?” Chrysalis gave the small armored changeling a blank stare.

“Yes, my Queen.” Carcass bowed to Queen Chrysalis before he continued. “We have been able to keep the intruder from proceeding any further.”

“Pray tell, why haven’t you been able to rid the hive of this intruder?” Queen Chrysalis demanded, raising her stature to intimidate the captain. This made him back away from his Queen.

“W-we don’t k-know, none our attempts seem to harm it or chase it off…and we have never seen anything like it before.” The once brave Captain of the guard was now cowering at her hooves, fearing he might be punished…or even worse. “Its shadow cloaked claws have already killed a dozen armed guards, and magic seemed to have little to no effect.” An impact on the hard rock surface of a wall in the hallway could be heard in the small side chamber. “And we haven’t been able to use any other forms of attack successfully.”

Right now, even though Captain Carcass was afraid of his Queen’s wrath for not being able to perform his duties well, he was more terrified of what might happen if this invader was able to reach the living sections of the Hive. The thing seemed to have a rather large appetite for violence. he could only imagine what it would do with the civilians in the hive, as it had played about with the guards it had killed before ending their lives.

“You pathetic weaklings,” she sneered at the captain. “Even if is something that is unknown and changeling magic has been useless, you still should have been able to overpower it with numbers.” Carcass would have told her that he had already tried the tactic of power with numbers, but her hostile stare had kept him quiet.

“Now, I will judge this intruder myself, and question him why it had dared attack my kingdom.” Queen Chrysalis finished, as she marched out the chambers small opening, leaving both Captain Carcass and Worm looking pale, worrying for their Queen’s safety.

They would have stopped Queen Chrysalis from doing this action, but her stubborn hostility would have more likely backfired onto them. She had always had a bit of a self-centered personality even before the Canterlot invasion, but her non-thought-out action could just claim her life this time.

“Captain Carcass, please go with Queen Chrysalis. she hasn’t been herself for the past month, and I fear something disastrous will happen with the intruder.” Carcass eyed the messenger changeling Worm, but agreed to his request as he nodded to him, and walked out of the chamber to join his queen at her side. Worm followed too, but at a farther distance.

--------

Chrysalis approached the end of the eastern hive entrance. Before her was a wall of rocks being kept up by the green magic of several changelings. They seemed to be struggling to keep the wall stable, as evident loud pounding sounds could be heard from its other side while something put pressure on it. Chips of rock flew off the wall with every impact from whatever was attacking it from the other side.

“Who dares intrude onto the domain of the changelings?” Queen Chrysalis called through the stone barrier. The pounding stopped immediately after Queen Chrysalis spoke. A sound of light scratching replaced the hammering sound.

“Little pig, little pig let me come in, or I’ll huff, and I’ll puff and blow your house in,” a young female voice said, giving off a small giggle after spouting off the gibberish.

“You dare call me a pig?!” Queen Chrysalis replied in a fit of rage. “You.” She pointed to a changeling that was holding up a small section of the stone wall. “Remove your spell so I can see this arrogant monster.”

The small patch of rocks that were part of the wall crumbled away as the magic that feed to them stopped. The hole that was created was only big enough for a normal changeling to stick its head in. Queen Chrysalis was about to peek in to judge the creature, when she saw a face appear in it.

“There you are my pretty,” it said while it grinned, displaying a mouth full of sharp black teeth, and piercing glowing red eyes.

Queen Chrysalis wasn’t sure why, but her emotions were ebbing away as she stared at the creature’s face. She could feel a weakening overcome her slowly as her rage faded.

Captain Carcass, who had been behind her since she ordered the hole, could see something was happening between the two, and he didn’t like it. “Cover the hole back up, NOW!” Carcass shouted to the changeling who had been the one covering it.

“No,” Chrysalis said calmly, startling all the changelings, as her anger was not present at all in her tone.

Captain Carcass was worried; he feared that the thing just beyond the wall was affecting his Queen’s mind. He’d hate to disobey an order from her because of the wrath she had shown to previous changelings that had done so, but he would rather risk it than see what might happen if she had further contact with the thing looking through the wall.

“No, close the hole, for Chrysalis’ sake!” Captain Carcass barked off to the same changeling he had told to seal the hole. The changeling hesitated at the captain's order. It looked at Queen Chrysalis to see if she protested, but her eyes didn’t leave dark being’s glowing eyes.

“Oh good sir,” Carcass heard the being say, “All I want is her anger and sorrow.”

Captain Carcass stared at the thing’s face. “All you want is her ang- you know what, I don’t care. You’re harming our queen.” He told the changeling once more to block the hole. This time the changeling did as he was told immediately.

“Oh come on!” a muffled voice of protest came through the rocks as the hole was covered once again. “I didn’t hurt her...much.”

“After what you did to my guards, and whatever you did to my queen, you're lucky I don’t collapse the tunnel on you.” Captain Carcass replied angrily, his words reverberated off the rocks.

Looking at his queen before him, he saw that she was staring lazily at the wall. Her eyes seemed to glazed with the absence of emotion

“What in creation did that thing do to you?”

--------

Senka was disappointed with these weird insectoid ponies. The emotional sent that lured her in, she found to of have a rather bland taste, It lacked passion. she had been hoping that her first meal, from being separate from Bo, would have been satisfying.

standing in the dank tunnel entrance, she turned away from the wall of rock. Senka footsteps echoed in the enclosed tunnels, as her hard hooves crushed small pebbles on the ground as the slowly walked to dark wall to her right. she was feeling tired after all she had done in this one day, and thought she might as well rest while she waited for the insectoid ponies to remove the barrier again. She was really wondering why she didn’t just leave, even now that the one thing that drew her here had no hold on her anymore. Perhaps she just didn’t have any better place to go to.

Finding a smooth place to rest her head on the rocky tunnel wall, Senka closed her illuminating eyes as she thought, ”I wonder what my goody two-shoes sister is up to?”

Comments

[loststone]

Yay update!

[Allen H]

1024864
It's good to know one of my few readers was happy with the new chapter.
Was it any good? I had a feeling people would hate it if i didn't add in a scene with Senka fighting the changeling's in the tunnel entrance.

[shirotora]

yay. Changelings rock.

[ultra8]

So she's an emotion vampire/leech as well as a major bruiser. She reminds me of this character from an old anime that was an evil magical reflection of the heroine, just without the crazy stalker ex-girlfriend vibe.

[Emperor of Jurai]

Keep up the good work though I like the Bo parts more.......then again Bo is one of my favorites so I am bias as hell in that regard. Either way good chapter and don't stop making more.