That Changeling's a Bad OC!

by Raugos

Chapter 11

Blood pounded in Max’s skull.

The world had flipped over sideways, and she felt as if a mountain had kicked her in the gut and smashed her against a wall that looked suspiciously like the ground. Next, she heard a series of wet, meaty thumps, followed by gravity finally reasserting its dominance on her senses with the force of an anvil landing on her head.

Rocks, nails and splinters dug into her side as she lay on the ground.

Her jaws parted and her chest heaved, but no air came out when she tried to groan. Something felt a little off about her midsection, as if a weight, all the weight, had been lifted off her. It also felt chilly there, like having ice packs pressed against her skin, except that the sensation went more than a little beyond skin deep…

With her ears still ringing, she lifted her right leg to get a clear view of her belly, and immediately understood why her gut felt so hollow.

Is… is that my spine? Oh, sweet grubbing horse apples, I can see my spine!

The tattered strips of muscle around the smoking, gaping hole in her belly convulsed, apparently in an effort to make her throw up contents from a stomach that didn’t quite exist anymore. Dark blue fluid and meaty chunks lay splattered on the ground around her.

A bit of her here, a bit of her there, and a bit of her way, way over there…

Oddly enough, it didn’t hurt that much.

This can’t be happening. No way.

But then reality decided that it wanted to give her another loving buck in the ovipositor, by reminding her brain to catalogue the damage and fire her synapses accordingly.

Max loosed a silent scream when she felt agony driving itself into her head like a railroad spike, through her horn, down her spine, and right into her heart. It found her reservoir of love and didn’t so much siphon it as shatter its container and draw her energy away like an inexorable tide. The void in her howled and desperately clawed at the receding tide, twisting her gut and mind with primordial pangs of absolute, mind-flaying hunger.

But to no avail. Survival overpowered the void and took everything it needed, redirecting huge surges of energy to damaged tissue in order to power her natural magic, to regenerate instead of changing shape.

Fortunately, keeping her body in a state of flux during her rampage had diminished the presence of vital organs and sped up the process of replacing what she’d lost.

Max gurgled and shivered as oily, green fire washed over her ruptured belly and seared away irreparably damaged tissue whilst knitting new muscle and skin. Slowly, the gaping hole shrank and her belly refilled itself, like a fruit rotting in reverse.

All the while, she felt her reserves dwindling at a catastrophic rate, and she nearly emptied her bowels when she realised that she might not have enough to finish the process. She’d never completely emptied herself out before, but she’d heard stories of siblings turning into drooling, mindless drones for the rest of their lives…

Oh grub, please, I don’t wanna go that way… I swear, I’ll never hurt anypony or anyone or go on an adventure ever again!

“Horse apples, what does it take to kill one of these things?” somepony cried.

Max twisted her neck to cast a baleful glare at Wind Shear, who then darted off to fetch another weapon from one of her fellow cultists. A deep growl rumbled in her throat as Max flexed her claws in anticipation.

But just before her wound could finish closing, she spotted a purple glow in the distance, rising like a miniature sun from behind a mangled barricade of spikes. Despite her blurred vision, she had no doubt of the caster’s identity, made all the more certain by her inability to sense him with her mind.

Unfortunately, she could do no more than hiss impotently at him, and she took the full brunt of Galleon’s spell right on her horn.

She’d once stubbed her fetlock against some heavy furniture. It had resulted in a deep, dull and jarring sensation, which, while not quite as agonising as most types of pain, nevertheless felt inordinately debilitating for something so trivial and undamaging. Especially if she moved before it had subsided.

Taking an anti-changeling disruptor spell to the horn had similar results, except that it permeated her entire body and was an order of magnitude higher in intensity. It first travelled down her horn, down the full length of her spine and through to the very tip of every nerve like a jolt of lightning before spreading into her muscles like wildfire. She stiffened up when the pins and needles came, but the slightest twitch resulted in muscle cramps and seizures, which then led to a runaway chain reaction of involuntary twitching and gasping. It was an unholy amalgamation of ticklishness, numbness and agony, all in perfect balance with one another as they simultaneously inflicted themselves on her overloaded synapses, over and over again.

Her magic soon followed suit.

Like an overstrained braid of rubber bands, the complex field that maintained her monstrous form snapped and collapsed in a cascade of thaumic failures. Outwardly, she felt herself convulsing and flailing on the ground with enough force to spring her into the air several times, shrinking all the while, like a balloon whooshing and bouncing around until it reverted to a limp heap of rubber.

Max returned to her regular, post-upgrade size whilst in the middle of a flip and landed squarely on her back, grinding her wings into the dirt. The effects of the disruption had subsided, but she still felt like a thoroughly trampled piece of trash.

Ugh… Note to self: learn a counter-spell ASAP.

Dirt stung her eyes. Air wheezed out of her lungs.

Meanwhile, the chunks of her that had splattered all around the place were sizzling and dissolving into dark puddles that soon evaporated entirely, leaving only bluish-black stains on the ground.

Then, heavy hooves thudded nearby.

Groaning, Max rolled to get a better view and squinted at the two pegasi – a huge, red stallion and dusty brown mare – looming over her.

The moment she set her eyes upon Blizzard’s grim scowl and Wind Shear’s sadistic smile, Max knew she had lost. They both reared up on their hind legs and raised their spears for mortal thrusts, their gleaming tips aimed right at her eyes.

So much for Queen Maxilla…

And then Furlong landed alongside Wind Shear with a thump, bringing a third spear to bear.

“Say goodnight, sweetheart,” Wind Shear growled.

[Intervention imminent. Fly.]

What?

Then, Max noticed Furlong’s eyes. They were unfocused, twitching, as if looking at some eldritch horror from far, far away. Her jaw clenched, and a vein pulsed visibly on her neck as she held the spear to Max’s throat. A bead of sweat dripped from her shaved hairline and down the side of her temple, and then Max finally realised that Furlong wore no helmet or armour when she tasted panic and frustration bubbling from her.

Oh.

Before Blizzard and Wind Shear could thrust their spearheads into Max’s eyes, Furlong swung her spear below their shafts and deflected them upwards, stepping into their guard so that she could use the power of her hind legs for more leverage to overbalance them. She then took further advantage of their surprise by bringing up the butt end of her spear and smashing the shaft into their muzzles simultaneously, knocking their helmets askew and sending them stumbling backwards.

Max didn’t need telling twice.

Despite the screaming protests of her muscles, she rolled and somehow got all four legs under herself without collapsing, then leapt into the air with her wings abuzz. Her crumpled wings only provided enough lift and control for a wobbly flight barely a storey above ground, which ended the moment she saw incandescent bolts of purple magic lancing out from a cloud of pale grey smoke at ground level, deeper in the camp near the remains of the tents and workshops.

She dipped and hazarded a rapid dive, then turned her rough landing into a stumbling gait and ducked behind some smouldering debris for cover. Galleon’s spells had missed, but before she could formulate a plan, a concussive blast shattered her hiding spot and slammed her into the dirt with a shower of splinters.

Galleon stepped out of the smoke roughly fifteen paces away. His horn blazed with another charging spell, lending his green coat a bright sheen of health whilst his grey, ancient armour glowed with golden magic runes and gave him an air of supreme indomitability. For a moment, Max beheld the spectre of a far mightier unicorn standing in his place, with a halo around his head and the very power of the stars and sun in his eyes. Even the real afternoon sun in the cloudy sky above paled in comparison.

He came for her.

The Avatar of Extinction.

Max tried to rise, but her legs simply trembled and buckled under her weight.

How could she succeed where her ancestors failed?

The corona around the equine avatar’s horn crackled and hummed with purple lightning, but before it could discharge the spell and finish her off, a gold-and-grey blur of feathers and hair charged out of the shadows amongst the smouldering ruins of a workshop and cracked a long wooden pole against its helmet with a sonorous clang. Its spell shattered into a thousand sparks.

Max blinked, and immediately saw Galleon standing in the avatar’s place, reeling from the blow. He snarled and fired a rapid volley of smaller spells at Daring Do, but she easily kept apace of his impaired aim. Daring stood on her hind legs and used her tattered wings for balance whilst swinging and twirling her makeshift quarterstaff with her forelegs, like a diamond dog monk from the Far East. She kept advancing, beating against his barrier and keeping him in a constant state of retreat.

Meanwhile, Max heard a pained grunt from near the ruined barricades, and turned just in time to see Blizzard and Wind Shear wrestle Furlong into submission and conk her on the head. Once she’d gone out like a light, Blizzard and Wind Shear left her drooling on the ground and turned their murderous gazes unto Max. Between them, they probably had a couple of dozen bleeding scratches and cuts all over from Furlong’s wing-claws and fangs, and going by their clenched teeth and raised hackles, they almost resembled starving changelings.

Max grinned and shifted uncomfortably, flicking her eyes around in search of a potential escape route. She found none within easy reach. Galleon and Daring were locked in a duel and blocking the clearest path to the gates, whilst Blizzard and Wind Shear had her pretty much all to themselves in the impromptu arena surrounding the cage…

“I don’t suppose you’ll settle for a heartfelt apology from me?” she said, slowly backpedalling whilst they advanced on her. “You already blew me up once, so we’ll call it even!”

“Blowing up is too good for you.” Wind Shear spat a bloody tooth onto the ground. “We’re gonna take you apart, piece by piece, nice and slow. And then I’m gonna stick your parts to a board and frame it up for my bug collection.”

Blizzard flicked his eyes to her for a second. “You don’t have a bug collection.”

“I’m starting one right now!” Wind Shear snarled as she spread her wings and swept them back to power her lunge.

Max dodged to the side, then yelped when she found herself right in the path of Blizzard’s lumbering charge. She flitted into the air, but before she could gain proper altitude, he followed suit with a powerful leap and grabbed onto her hind legs. She buzzed her wings harder, but given their painfully crumpled state, they barely coped with the extra weight and gave out entirely when Wind Shear tackled her in mid-air.

All three of them crashed to the ground in a heap.

After a brief struggle, Wind Shear came out on top and straddled Max’s belly whilst she dug into her satchel and fished out a cherry bomb the size of an apple.

“Open wide – doctor’s orders!”

Max didn’t want to know where she intended to stuff that into, and she sure as heck didn’t want to explode twice. She batted at it, but Wind Shear kept it out of reach and rammed her elbow and shoulder into Max’s chest, expertly pinning both of her flailing forelegs in the process.

Grimacing, Max resorted to powering up her horn and zapped Wind Shear’s foreleg with a bolt of energy.

Wind Shear yelped, and the cherry bomb bounced off Max’s chest before merrily rolling off into the dust somewhere. She then took her turn yelping when Wind Shear gave her horn a painful swat that instantly disrupted the remaining charge in it. At the same time, Max felt Blizzard shift underneath her, right before a powerful leg hooked itself around her neck.

Max whipped her head back in an attempt to bash his muzzle and hopefully loosen his grip, but his head wasn’t directly behind hers, and she only ended up striking his muscled shoulder.

“Get her!” Blizzard growled, tightening his hold around Max’s throat. “Hurry!”

A choked cry escaped Max as Wind Shear drew a knife hidden in her wing.

Max thrashed, but Blizzard held her tight, and with Wind Shear’s weight pressed on her belly and chest, she barely had any leverage to use against them.

She needed air. Her vision swam with black spots.

Wind Shear raised the knife.

Hayseed, not like this!

And then Wind Shear screeched when a crate slammed into her side and threw her off Max, which subsequently freed her forelegs and allowed her to slam her elbow into the approximate location of Blizzard’s face. She heard a crunch, followed by a furious grunt. With a couple more blows to his ribs, she felt his grip loosen just enough for her to wriggle free.

The moment she’d thrown herself out of Blizzard’s reach, a beam of green magic with a fiery, yellow core lanced out from the cage off to her side, forcing him and Wind Shear to scramble for cover before it seared off their tails.

Ydrax’il strode out of the cage trailing smoke from his horn, surrounded by a ring of orbiting rocks, splinters and shrapnel. His crest and tail looked a little bruised and crumpled, but other than that, he exuded the calm confidence of a stalking predator as he regarded Blizzard and Wind Shear with cold, yellow eyes.

Wind Shear lunged for a discarded crossbow nearby, but Ydrax’il yanked it out of reach with telekinesis and tossed it out of sight. He then did the same with their spears and began pelting them with a barrage of stones and splinters, forcing them to duck behind a pile of ruined crates.

[Retrieve your companions,] he said whilst casually deflecting a wrench that Blizzard hurled at him. [We must be prepared to flee if we cannot subdue these fleshlings.]

[On it!]

Max took one last look at her assailants and saw Blizzard with a bloodied muzzle and Wind Shear with a crooked left wing, uttering curses as Ydrax’il forced them farther and farther away from her with a steady barrage of projectiles. He obviously couldn’t keep that up forever, so she whirled around and took a deep, steadying breath as she broke into a brisk trot towards Daring Do.

She stumbled a couple of times over debris and furrows that she’d left in the ground from her rampage, keenly aware of her aching muscles and critically low reserves. Incapacitated ponies stirred and twitched around her, mumbling and groaning to themselves.

If they didn’t end this quickly, they’d soon have to deal with more harassers taking potshots at them from the sidelines, and draining them a second round so soon carried the risk of permanent damage, which she didn’t want to have on her conscience. At least, not with Daring Do in the picture.

Dirt crunched beneath her hooves as she skidded to a halt and bumped against the remains of a barricade. Ignoring the bruises forming beneath her chitin, she peered over the splintered tops and winced when she saw Galleon ram into Daring’s shoulder with his full weight behind his armour. They slammed into a workbench with winded grunts, spilling tools onto the ground and scattering sawdust to the wind.

With a growl, Max heaved herself out of cover and began galloping across the forty or so paces separating her from Daring Do. But as the distance dwindled, she heard their exchanging words as readily as they traded blows in the midst of their brawl, and in spite of the urgency of the situation, she slowed down and kept a low profile, using whatever debris, equipment and furniture she came across along the way to conceal her approach.

“You side with such foul creatures. Why?” Galleon snarled as he bowled Daring over and pinned her to the ground. “Surely you see that these monsters will bring Equestria nothing but ruin!”

Daring responded by punching him repeatedly in the muzzle, but aside from grunting and recoiling slightly with each weighty blow, he didn’t flinch or let up.

Hayseed, since when is he that tough?

At first, Max suspected that he’d hopped himself up on something nasty, but he didn’t have bloodshot eyes, the jitters or any pulsing veins that might suggest consumption of Dragon’s Beard or Bloodweed. But then it occurred to her that some of the magical runes on his armour might confer more than just protection from psionics; he certainly didn’t look like the type who could otherwise go hoof to hoof with Daring Do on a physical level for very long.

“That’s rich. I’m not the one who devoted himself to a sinister voice in his head and then ticked it off when it didn’t validate your sense of entitlement,” said Daring when she realised that her blows weren’t having the desired effect.

“The situation has clearly changed,” he retorted, still keeping her pinned. “Perhaps we can come to an understanding. The safety of Equestria outweighs either of our affairs; help me destroy these monsters, and we will go our separate ways.”

I should do something, Max thought, but her breath hitched in her throat as she waited to hear Daring’s response.

“I’m not in the business of playing judge, jury and executioner.” Daring narrowed her eyes. “Until they actually try anything to deserve it, I’m not backstabbing anyone.”

“The Old World suffered under the likes of such predators. You would risk our return to squalor and misery for these cretins?”

Daring gritted her teeth and jerked in place, but after failing to dislodge him, she growled, “Times have changed. We have to be better than our enemies, or it will be the end of Harmony. And trust me on this; nopony wants that to happen.”

“Then you are either a fool, or your mind is more compromised than I could have imagined.” Galleon shook his head and sighed as his horn blazed to life. “I take no pleasure in this...”

“Me neither.”

Daring squirmed just enough to free a wing and then used it to fling dirt into his eyes. Galleon sputtered and raised a hoof to wipe his face, which gave her even more leverage to wriggle into position and kick him in his nether region. Dirt or no, his eyes opened up completely whilst his pupils shrank to pinpricks, and a high-pitched whine escaped him as he toppled over and curled up on the ground.

Freed of his weight, Daring rolled onto her hooves and made for a coil of rope lying atop a pile of tools and planks, but Galleon sprang back up with stunning speed and tackled her before she had even taken five steps.

Yeah, definitely time for me to do something.

Max bent her legs to spring into action, but froze when her ears twitched from hearing a hiss… a detestable, bowel-vacating hiss.

Whirling around, she saw a stick of dynamite arcing towards her from the left, flung from behind a table turned on its side. It only had a couple of inches left on the burning fuse, and was less than a metre away from bouncing against her muzzle.

“T’chaak!” she swore.

Almost instantly, the dynamite rebounded in mid-air as if struck by an invisible bat and sailed cleanly over the ruins of a workshop before exploding with enough force to rattle her teeth. At the same time, pain dug into her brain like a thirsty root, temporarily distorting her vision and hearing.

Psychic backlash – she was not in great condition to use telekinesis, but that still beat getting blown up. Again.

Then, Max clenched her teeth when she saw a pair of blue eyes topped with ashy-green hair slowly rise to peep over the table. Short Fuse.

“You!” With a snarl, she charged and leapt over the table, slamming into him before he could light another bomb. She pinned him to the ground and hissed with her teeth bared, savouring the surge of terror welling up in him.

“No, wait, stop!” he cried as he thrashed and squirmed beneath her, to no avail.

Max glared at him as she mentally listed her options for exacting revenge on him for personally blowing up her house and indirectly blowing her up. But then she saw his eyes flick to the side, to a cherry bomb casually rolling towards a stockpile of dynamite, fireworks and other assorted explosives less than five paces away from them. Its fuse was already sparkling.

Oh, grub!

She leapt off him and buzzed her crumpled wings frantically to gain altitude, corkscrewing haphazardly due to the uneven lift. She heard a thunderous cacophony of booms and crackles, then grunted when a wall of air smacked her in the back and sent her crashing to the ground.

After swallowing a bit of dirt, she staggered back onto all fours and gaped when she saw Short Fuse stumbling out of the circular blast zone, all covered in black soot with smoke coming out of his mane and ears. Splinters, nails and metal scraps lay strewn all around him, whilst a few crackers and fizzy candles popped and spun around, spewing smoke and jets of fire in every colour of the rainbow.

You’ve got to be kidding…

Short Fuse tottered about with unfocused eyes for several seconds before finally collapsing onto his back with a moan. When Max cautiously trudged over and towered over him, he blinked at her a couple of times and then winced when he coughed up a puff of smoke.

“How are you not dead?” she muttered.

A grin split his muzzle when he giggled. “Whoo! Let’s do that again!”

Max flicked her gaze to the cartoony cherry bomb on his flank.

Stupid ponies and their cheating cutie mark magic…

Shaking her head, Max hunched over him and growled, “I’m gonna devour your love now.”

His eyes rolled up into his head when struck with her mind-blanking spell. She then dug right in with her telepathy, using far more force than on anypony else previously. Beyond the roiling surface of his thoughts, she pushed past his short term memories and delved deeper into the recesses of his mind, until she found the aspects that formed the core of his personality.

Max siphoned away, basking in the warmest memories she could find, stretching from his foalhood to his latest opportunity to level anything remotely resembling a structure with the sheer power of his explosive accessories.

She was swaddled in thick blankets, held close to her mother who whispered sweet nothings into her ear.

She was crying in a field, holding out her sprained hoof to her father who hugged her tight and carried her home.

She was standing next to a black lake, gazing with wide eyes as hundreds of blazing lights streaked into the night sky and burst into dazzling showers of sparkles and stars in every colour of the rainbow.

She was sprawled on the ground, dizzy and covered in soot. She wanted to cry, but then she looked around and saw tiny, fizzing balls of red, green and blue fire bouncing around. Her homemade explodey-thingy worked! She felt something funny on her flank, and then gasped when she saw her cutie mark. She ran squealing to tell Ma and Pa.

She was standing behind a blast wall in the excavation zone, her trembling hooves on the plunger linked all the way to the charges. When the foremare gave her the order, she pressed down and watched. Time slowed as a ball of fire blossomed in the face of the cliff, spreading cracks filled with hot air and flames that gushed out in breath-taking plumes. The mountainside crumbled, roaring with the voice of a dragon, drawing fantastic patterns on its surface in the last moments of its existence before finally kicking up a mighty mushroom cloud. When the dust settled, she saw a gaping hole that led to treasures untold. The ground sparkled with gems of every size and colour.

When her incredulous critics stared at her, she grinned and said, “Hey look, I made a door! It only took me like, what, ten seconds!”

Max swam back to the surface and shuddered.

Short Fuse lay sprawled on the ground before her with a lopsided grin on his muzzle and his tongue sticking out from the corner of his mouth. His closed eyelids fluttered as he stirred, looking for all the world like a colt who’d completely knackered himself out from playtime.

Max then spotted a fizzy candle on the ground next to him, and promptly picked up with magic, set the fuse alight with a quick zap, and tossed it away. It sputtered at first, but then a jet of orange fire burst out of one end with a hiss and sent it spinning like a top, gradually shifting colour to yellow, green, teal, blue and purple before it finally popped and showered the ground with crackling sparkles.

She giggled.

Pretty!

And then Max flattened her ears and clapped a hoof over her mouth.

The heck was that?

Ydrax’il hadn’t mentioned absorbing personality quirks whilst digging into somepony else’s brain…

A gleeful chuckle worked its way up her throat, which she violently smothered whilst fighting off the urge to go pick up another loose cherry bomb. She then rounded on Short Fuse and raised her hoof, hoping that taking it out on him might clear her head, but one glance at his drowsy, peaceful face instantly killed any desire to dish out punishment.

She couldn’t stay mad at him, not for following his cutie mark and doing something he clearly enjoyed so much. Heck, in spite of herself, she had to admit that blowing stuff up and setting things on fire was a wicked lot of fun!

Max blinked a couple of times, then groaned as she rubbed her forehead.

Oh grub, this had better not be permanent…

Still, for better or worse, draining Short Fuse in that manner had replenished enough of her reserves to take the edge off her hunger. She didn’t have quite enough to throw spells all over the place anytime soon, but that was better than nothing.

After dropping Short Fuse and giving him a parting glance, she whirled around and cantered towards the middle of the camp, following a trail of wrecked furniture, tools and scorched tents left in Galleon’s and Daring’s wake. They’d fought all the way to where most of the tents had been erected in uniform rows, which unfortunately kept them hidden from her as much as they concealed her approach. It didn’t help that Daring still had her helmet, so Max couldn’t pinpoint her location.

Since she didn’t want to risk making herself a target by flying, she slowed down and stalked into the array of tents as silently as she could. She couldn’t hear them anymore, which suggested that they must’ve gotten separated and were quite likely waiting to ambush one another.

Her ears twitched when she heard the whining hiss of a powerful spell, followed by a series of pops and cracks as chips and splinters arced into the air. It came from up ahead, and when she got closer, she heard the clip clop of hooves and impatient breaths. After taking a moment to assess the risk, Max peered out from the cover of a scruffy tent.

“Give it up, Miss Do,” said Galleon as he marched towards a row of tents, his horn ablaze with magic. “You have fought admirably, but it really should be clear by now that you are outmatched. Cease this nonsense, and I’ll see to it that you are fed and your wounds tended to. Under lock and key, of course, but that’s still far better than what you’ll get if you continue interfering with my work.”

The glow on his horn intensified, and the hum rose to a high-pitched whine a second before he unleashed a searing beam of magic in a roughly ninety-degree arc towards his left that sliced three tents in a row, four deep, with enough thermal energy to overheat and explode the contents that lay within. Crockery, glass and bits of metal went flying in every direction.

One of the tents rustled.

“Tick-tock, Miss Do.” Galleon turned his eyes farther left to the next set of tents, which put him at right angles to Max’s position. Another spell hummed on his horn. “Is it guilt that compels you to fight for these monsters? They are beneath your conscience, and still you’ve bled for them; no one can ask for more. Surrender, let us deal with them swiftly, and you’ll live to play the hero another day.”

Again, no answer.

Another five or six tents on the left went up in smoke, and then Max heard the flutter of wings and hooves scuffling on dirt nearby.

Max’s eyes widened as Daring skidded to a halt beside her, and a pit opened in her stomach when she saw her sweat-soaked coat and the haphazard assortment of lacerations all over her chest, belly, cheeks and limbs. A dark streak of blood ran down her temple from somewhere beneath a sizable dent in her helmet. Her snout was swollen and bruised, and she seemed to have taken pains to avoid putting weight on her right foreleg. Her feathers were charred at the tips, and her tail hairs were half their original length and smouldering at the tips.

Then, she realised that Daring had incidentally circled all the way around to the same tent as her. And if they didn’t move soon, Galleon’s next arc would fry them.

“Can’t take him alone,” Daring whispered in between shallow breaths. “He’s almost like an alicorn in that armour.”

Galleon rattled on with his ultimatum, but Max tuned out his voice to focus on their predicament. They still had maybe ten seconds until he stopped talking.

The tents on their right had mostly collapsed and would provide poor cover. They could try running or flying, but neither of them looked in good shape for playing dodge ball, especially when said balls might literally be composed of fire or lightning.

She shook her head. No more running.

“First move is to get that helmet off,” she whispered.

Daring winced and blinked rapidly when a bead of sweat trickled into her eye. “He isn’t very accommodating right now. Ideas?”

“I’m bait,” she said with a giggle, then flattened her ears and grinned apologetically when Daring stared at her. “Sorry. Got a bit of Short Fuse stuck inside me.”

An eyebrow rose.

Max blinked. “That came out wrong…”

“Talk more later.” Daring gave her a push. “Get out and do your thing.”

They were out of time. Max shapeshifted into an injured duplicate of Daring Do, minus the helmet, hoping that the tent was thick enough to prevent Galleon from seeing the flash of green fire. Then, without waiting for Daring’s answer, she leapt out into the open.

She feigned stumbling when her hooves hit the ground and straightened up as she took a couple of slow steps towards Galleon, holding her tattered wings up in a non-threatening manner. He didn’t blast her immediately, but he continued holding the magical charge on his horn instead of dispersing it. A full twenty paces of cluttered dirt separated them, which gave him plenty of room to react if she decided to simply bull-rush him.

“Okay, fine. Let’s talk,” said Max.

“We sailed past diplomacy ages ago.” Galleon summoned forth a set of iron chains and slowly levitated them over to her with the shackles wide open. “Hooves out, and no sudden movements.”

Max held up a hoof to object, then hissed and grimaced as she dropped it to clutch at her ribs. “Horse apples, just wait a minute!”

The chains continued floating towards her whilst Galleon shook his head. “I know losing must not come easy to you, but this bravado is doing you no favours. You can barely stand.”

Max backpedalled and tripped over what looked like the mangled remains of wheelbarrow. She landed on her rump and half-heartedly attempted to scoot away, grunting and wincing all the while. At the last five paces, Galleon accelerated the shackles forward like lunging snakes and clamped them tightly around her fetlocks. Another length of chain went around her middle to pin her wings to her sides.

For an instant, Max felt as if she was back in the city, chained up and bleeding from a bolt embedded in her thigh, but she shoved that memory to the back of her mind and focused on the present.

She’d detected no magic on the chains, so she expected no surprises there. They were, however, exceedingly short and heavy; she wouldn’t manage anything faster or more graceful than a shuffle with them on.

Max squirmed in them for a couple of seconds, then slumped and glared at Galleon as he trotted over to her with a smirk on his muzzle. He’d finally seen fit to abort the destructive spell, too, so that’d give them precious fractions of a second when push came to shove.

That’s right, come closer…

Her pulse quickened. Was Daring Do still behind the tent at her back, or had she snuck off somewhere without either of them noticing? She had no way of signalling for help that wouldn’t also tip Galleon off.

He stopped just a couple of paces away and lifted her chin with magic. “So close, yet so far. Still, I am glad that you have chosen the only reasonable course of action. When this is over, I might even let you keep a souvenir for your efforts – something to remember me by, if nothing else.”

A fierce battle-cry pierced the air, drawing both of their gazes towards the clearing around the cage. They couldn’t see the combatants for all the tents and rubble in the way, but it had sounded like Blizzard. Ydrax’il was there, too, and still keeping pace in the heat of battle, if the series of whooshes, clangs and cracks of swung weapons and flying projectiles was any indication. She didn’t attempt to distract him with a query for his status.

Then, a grating crunch drew Max’s attention back to her immediate surroundings, and she turned just in time to see Galleon magically ramming another stake through a link of her chains, straight into the ground.

He smiled grimly when he met her eyes and waved a third stake at her. “Considering your misplaced faith in your companions, you’ll have to forgive me for not trusting you to stay put whilst we finish them off.”

All three stakes in total pinned her to the ground in different directions and angles from one another, drawing her chains tight so that she couldn’t throw her weight in any particular direction to loosen them up. The ground was also too hard and dry for her to use sheer strength, too.

“We’ll speak more on this in a minute.”

Galleon turned his back to her and began trotting briskly towards the commotion, but just as he passed the tent that had previously hidden her, he paused for a moment and stared at it with narrowed eyes. Then, his horn glowed, and he ripped the entire tent free of its anchors and flung it aside, exposing its contents.

His eyes widened as he beheld Daring Do crouching amongst the collection of pillows, tools and personal articles of the tent’s owner.

Daring grinned at him. “Hey.”

Galleon’s eyes flicked over to Max, his horn crackling with another spell, but it went out like a light when Daring lunged at him like a panther and tackled him to the ground.

In an instant, Max realised that she had seconds to act. She couldn’t break free of her bonds, but she could simply slip out of the shackles by making herself scrawny. Doing so took precious seconds and power from her diminished reserves whilst Daring wrestled with Galleon, but she eventually managed to wriggle free and join the fray.

She grabbed onto one of his flailing forelegs and attempted to pin him down, but he managed to yank her off balance entirely and pull her to the ground to join him and Daring in a tangled heap. They rolled and twisted over one another on the ground, kicking, punching and biting at whatever they could reach. Whenever he tried to get a spell off, Max or Daring would swat his horn to interrupt him. And when either of them tried to get a proper grip in order to find the straps and buckles to strip him of his armour, he never kept still enough for them to get any delicate work done.

Max gasped and wheezed when she took a couple of blows in the gut, then yelped when something hard struck her muzzle and cracked a fang.

Horse apples, Daring wasn’t kidding about that strength!

The sooner they got his helmet off, the sooner Max could directly incapacitate his mind.

Then, a thought occurred to her.

The ancient Equestrians made armour that was practically untouchable to telepathy and telekinesis, but presumably not magic, for their own convenience. She had both.

Wincing, Max drew upon her reserves and shapeshifted her horn back into place. She then grabbed Galleon’s helmet with her magic, but it somehow felt slippery and almost intangible, like trying to hold onto smoke with bare hooves. She increased her output and kept her magical field up for another couple of seconds whilst simultaneously trying to avoid getting kicked and elbowed, but it quickly became apparent that the ancient armour could distinguish between equine and foreign magic, and hers definitely fell in the latter category. His helmet only wobbled a little instead of flying off his head like she’d intended.

Galleon suddenly thrashed, and Max heard Daring’s sharp cry before he heaved and kicked her in the belly, hard enough to send her flying and crashing to the dirt a ways off. Then, quick as lightning, he brought his full weight and augmented strength down to bear on Max and pinned her limbs to the ground.

“You’ve been a thorn in my side for far too long, insect,” he growled.

Max squirmed and tried to throw him off, but to no avail. She felt like she had an anvil pressing down on her chest, driving out her breath inch by inch…

His purple eyes glowed almost as brightly as the menacing corona on his horn, and a mirthless smile curled his lips as he ground his hoof against her pinned foreleg, savouring her agonised gasp. “You should have stayed in your burrow and rotted in the dark, where your kind has always belonged.”

“Get away from her, you b—”

Galleon whipped his head around and fired a crackling bolt of magic at Daring, whose threatening words ended with a garbled cry when it struck her shoulder and left her convulsing on the ground. He then turned his gaze back to Max, readying another spell on his horn.

But before he could cast his spell, Max called upon the last of her reserves and shapeshifted her foreleg into a ribbon. Despite having his hoof still firmly pressed against it, the sudden shift in his balance startled him enough for her to yank it free, after which she whipped it up to his head and snaked it into his helmet from below, sliding up his neck, past his jaw and up to his temple.

Max then shifted her hoof into a crude hand with extremely dense clusters of neurons at the sucker-like fingertips, which she pressed to Galleon’s sweaty head at various points around his temple. She then swelled the rest of her leg back to its meatier dimensions so that she could make use of her muscles and hold it steady.

Galleon’s shout of disgust turned into a strangled cry, and his eyes rolled up into his head as Max began ploughing through the outer layers of his mind. His magic fizzled out, but she gritted her teeth and simply endured as he straddled her belly and pressed a left hoof to her throat and rained blow after blow to her skull with his right.

Despite direct contact allowing her access to his mind, the helmet still provided massive interference; traversing his mindscape felt like barrelling through a dark tunnel with hundreds of sticks poking at her from every direction whilst listening to a chorus of furious shouts through a broken radio, filled with static. His emotions also tasted like an assortment of sour and salty cereal mixed with sand and cardboard.

Still, she tore through his mental defences inch by inch until she finally got deep enough to freeze his motor functions.

Stop!

With a rasping sigh, Galleon finally relented.

He simply sat still on top of her, with a pained grimace etched onto his face. His left hoof remained firmly planted on her throat. Not enough to cut off her air entirely, but it still exerted enough pressure to throttle her intake. She could still feel herself weakening with every wheezy gasp.

Within the confines of his mind, though, he seethed and raged.

She didn’t have much time.

Max tried to remove his helmet with magic, but once again failed to do little more than rattle it. She had no free appendages to do it physically, and she probably didn’t have enough energy left to shapeshift her hand into something that could pry it off his head. Worse still, she couldn’t spare the concentration to drain him of love whilst simultaneously keeping him trapped in his mind like that – she couldn’t do both without utterly dominating him first.

Too much interference from his helmet and armour. She couldn’t overpower him.

Daring was still on the ground.

Max didn’t have the breath to cry for help, and she didn’t dare ping Ydrax’il for help. She needed every drop of willpower and concentration she had left to maintain her hold on Galleon.

Think, think, think!

They were locked in a stalemate, but it was gradually shifting back in Galleon’s favour. Max couldn’t get enough air, and each time he threw himself against the invisible chains she’d placed on his mind, she felt her already tenuous grip loosen just a little more…

Not enough power.

Not enough time.

Not enough air.

But just as her vision started blurring at the edges, inspiration struck for dealing with that last problem. If she couldn’t make him remove his hoof, she could bypass the need for an unobstructed throat entirely…

It only took a little of her reserves to shapeshift her innards to form a pair of spiracles at the sides of her chest. Max then greedily sucked in deep breaths, heedless of the raw chill of dry air directly flowing through the holes in her chitin and into her lungs. It felt gross and kind of disturbing, but so long as it soothed the burning sensation and cleared her head, she didn’t care. It bought her a little more time to think of a better solution.

Just then, a flash of teal light stung her eyes, and she blinked the stars out of them just in time to see Galleon’s helmet twisting and rocking to and fro, like a tight bottle cap being worked loose, until it finally got yanked off his head.

A teal glow faded from the helmet as somepony tossed it away.

Speckle?

No. Focus!

Removing Galleon’s helmet had purged some of the cloying, grainy interference from his mindscape, so it no longer felt like swimming through sandpaper. It gave her just enough clarity to penetrate the next level of his defences.

With a growl, Max clawed deeper into his mind and clamped down on every voluntary impulse he attempted to send to his muscles. His body armour still provided substantial interference, but it ultimately proved incapable of stopping her entirely. With a muffled groan, Galleon’s body slumped into a more relaxed state, save for intermittent twitching and clenching. His left foreleg even eased up a little on her throat, allowing her to properly breathe once more.

After testing her liberated airway, she discreetly shapeshifted a pair of chitinous sheaths to cover her spiracles and temporarily sealed them up. The last thing she needed was for Galleon to spot the holes and pack dirt into them, or worse, shoot lightning directly into her lungs; that would be an absolutely awful way to go.

[You… cannot win…]

Wait, what?

[Your kind will never defeat us... I will bury you here, if it’s the last thing I do…]

Max blinked. [Galleon?]

A mental snarl battered her mind just as he jerked a foreleg and punched her in the belly, driving her breath out in a wheezy cough. She ground her teeth and tightened her mental grip once more, ignoring the string of curses he fired upon her whilst she did so.

Since when was Galleon a telepath? Did he have that power all along? Or was he able to strike at her mind simply because she had direct, physical contact with his head? Had he somehow discovered a way to replicate telepathy with magic? His ping was weak and somewhat distorted, but definitely coherent…

Just then, a somewhat wobbly and disoriented Speckle stumbled into Galleon and blinked at Max whilst he leaned against his former leader for support. “Hey. What now?”

The mystery could wait.

“Armour off,” she growled. “Hurry!”

Galleon hadn’t given up yet, and keeping a firm lid on his thrashing mind still took a lot of her concentration and strength, despite the removal of his helmet. Speckle had merely bought her time, not total victory.

“Now!” she hissed.

“Okay, okay!” he murmured as he lowered his head to peer at the straps underneath Galleon’s armour.

But instead of getting to work, he kept squinting at them as if a collection of mere plates, straps and buckles constituted an intellectually challenging puzzle that required minutes of careful planning in advance of its disassembly. Either that, or he looked like somepony inordinately fascinated with the contents of Galleon’s armpits.

An insect-like buzz crept into her voice when she hissed at him again. “Sometime this year, please!”

Speckle blinked owlishly at her, then stuck his tongue out from one corner of his mouth as he turned his gaze back to Galleon’s armour. “I’ll… try. I’m still feeling woozy.”

“Suck it up, stallion. I can’t hold him forever!”

Speckle obliged, but he took forever fumbling with a single buckle. In the meantime, Galleon’s mind thrashed anew, and some of it actually spilled over into physical action when Max’s concentration slipped. She bit back a snarl when he jerked in place and stepped on her wing.

Just then, a mildly dazed Daring Do stepped into view, rubbing her forehead. She then blinked at Max and frowned at Speckle and Galleon. “You kids need a hoof?”

“Frigging hayseed, yes!” Max whispered hoarsely. She could already see sparks dancing on the tip of Galleon’s horn.

[Just a matter of time, foul abomination…]

Max tuned him out. Holding him still was hard enough without listening to the insults, though she couldn’t help hearing some of them anyway. She wondered what Queen Chrysalis would think about his insinuations about her parentage.

A couple of armour plates shifted out of formation as Daring and Speckle tugged their straps loose.

Max then yelped and jerked her head aside just in time to avoid a crackling bolt that arced from Galleon’s horn to scorch the ground. Meanwhile, his foreleg slowly rose into the air above her muzzle, quaking with clenched muscles and conflicting impulses as she desperately jammed his synapses with random noise.

One of his greaves popped off, accompanied with a satisfied grunt from Speckle.

A moan escaped Max’s throat as she scrunched her eyes shut. With each passing second, Galleon’s mental thrashing felt more and more like rubbing sand and glass into open wounds. She knew that he technically wasn’t damaging her, but that knowledge did little to dull the pain.

Worse still, exerting that much control on his recalcitrant mind made her head feel as if it had a snake slithering in through her ears and wrapping itself around her brain, squeezing harder and harder with every passing second whilst simultaneously upping the pressure until her skull felt ready to split. It throbbed like Tartarus, and she felt her control weakening with each horrid pulse…

A purple glow penetrated her eyelids, accompanied by an ominous crackle.

“Okay, that’s the last one!” Daring cried.

Metal clanged as heavy plates crashed to the ground around her. Some clipped her in the ribs and legs, but the pain proved inconsequential next to the sudden burst of clarity in her mind. A massive weight had lifted from her brain, and she felt as if she’d swum from the bottom of a salty mudflat into a freshwater river. She had work to do, and she could finish it now.

The last of Galleon’s mental defences crumbled as she threw the full force of her mind against it. Out in the physical world, she bucked him off, pounced on him, shapeshifted back into proper changeling form, and then held her open maw over his face as his horn fizzled out. Green, wispy magic leaked from his horn and flowed into her mouth, and she sucked in a greedy breath that filled the void in her chest with fleeting warmth. And this time, she took care not to meld with his personality whilst she fed.

More. Mine!

She dove in amongst his memories, ignoring his pained gasp, as she rummaged through them for the most succulent and exquisite to fill her belly. Most proved unattractive, especially the countless hours he’d spent in academia and in magical experimentation concerning ways to replicate telepathy – so that was how he had a rudimentary imitation of their power, and it explained his initial ability to hear Ydrax’il, too.

“—ey, maybe… —ould… take it easy.”

Eventually, she got tired of sifting through another speech at a cultist rally and simply devoured indiscriminately.

Something shook her shoulder.

“Max.”

For somepony so obsessed with power, Galleon seemed to have an awful lot of love. Not much family to speak of save for memories of his parents, too. But nevertheless, the void demanded, and Max devoured. She siphoned it off like a gaping hole at the bottom of a dam, heedless of his discomfort. He deserved it.

It tasted odd, though. Like overripe cherries on the verge of putrefaction. Filling, but somehow not very nourishing.

This isn’t love…

Wait. Am I eating… hayseed, is this what narcissism tastes like?

Galleon’s face contorted into a grimace, and he gasped for breath under her onslaught. He squirmed and thrashed, but she held him fast in both mind and body. Proper love and warmth lurked somewhere beneath that ego of his – she’d snagged some tasty morsels here and there, but she needed to push deeper.

She needed more of the good stuff.

“Max, that’s enough!”

She buzzed her wings threateningly. Get your own. This one’s mine!

Then, Max yelped when something smashed into her cheek with enough force to crick her neck. It neither toppled her nor severed the flow of emotions from Galleon, but it did help to dislodge the void’s hold on her, somewhat.

She glared at Daring – who’d raised her hoof for another punch – then bit back a snarl and shook her head as to clear the stars from her vision. “Horse apples, that was just… ouch. This really sucks.”

Daring frowned and drew her hoof farther back.

Max leaned away, holding her wings up in surrender whilst she gathered her wits. Then, after a couple of seconds of contemplating Galleon’s trembling form, she grimaced and nodded. “Right, sorry. Got a little carried away…”

The void howled its displeasure as she severed the connection, but she ground her teeth and forced herself to clamber off him and step a healthy distance away whilst she quelled the turmoil in her mind. Some of his memories had spilled over into her skull, flooding her thoughts with useless trivia.

“Huh. His real name’s Wrap Scallion…” she murmured.

Whilst Daring and Speckle looked at her with puzzled frowns, she gazed at Galleon’s stirring form whilst he lay belly up. Green coat, pale socks, and purple irises beneath his half-closed eyelids of the same hue as his magic…

Max grinned and sniggered. “Heh, come to think of it, he even looks like one!”

“Going… to… disembowel you,” Galleon murmured as he rolled onto his belly.

She sauntered closer and lowered her head to meet his eyes. “Yeah? You and what army?”

“Look out!”

Max grunted when Daring tackled her aside, just as a hulking pegasus slammed all four hooves into the ground where she’d stood. Despite missing his mark, Blizzard didn’t miss a beat and fluidly shifted forward to help a glassy-eyed Galleon onto his hooves. Meanwhile, Max, Daring and Speckle scrambled backwards to distance themselves from Furlong and Wind Shear, who swooped down and landed to make a defensive formation around their leader.

All three of them looked like they’d been keelhauled. Their coats were caked with dirt and drying blood, and their limbs were bruised and swollen all over the place. Furlong especially had an enormous lump on her head, and one of her fangs had cracked in half.

Max felt her ears flatten. If all three of them had come to Galleon’s rescue, then Ydrax’il…

[Suboptimal state. Insufficient to dominate them, but still combat-worthy.]

Max turned and sighed when Ydrax’il strode into view, dramatically clearing the space before him of all debris and smoke with an invisible, telekinetic shockwave. His wings hung in tatters; his tail and spinal crest had unnatural holes and rips going right down to the bone; and his chitin had cracked in several places around his chest and forelegs. Bluish ichor leaked from the worst of his injuries, and one of his ears looked like it had been sliced clean off. But despite all that, his posture remained stoic and menacing as he advanced, and his yellow eyes glowed with ominous power.

He’d fought all of them to a stalemate.

“Brother Galleon, we have to retreat,” said Blizzard as he checked him for injuries. “This isn’t a fight we can win right now.”

Galleon spat onto the ground and glared at Max. “You! You did this.”

“What am I, a sidekick?” Daring threw her hooves up into the air. “Come on, it’s not like she took on all of you by herself!”

“She kinda did at one point.” Wind Shear snorted, then levelled a contemptuous glare at Speckle and added, “Didn’t expect you to pick their side, though.”

Max heard Speckle gulp whilst he hid behind Daring Do, but at least he had the guts to retort, “They weren’t the ones who left me behind.”

Galleon didn’t seem to hear any of them. He had his eyes firmly glued to the disassembled suit of armour at his hooves, and his horn sputtered with feeble sparks as he attempted to lift the plates and straps with magic.

Several pieces wobbled up into the air, only to thump back to earth when Ydrax’il shot a screeching bolt of energy into the ground, spraying soil and sparks all over Galleon and his companions.

Whilst the lot of them sputtered and blinked dirt out of their eyes, Ydrax’il took a couple of steps forward with another crackling spell on his horn. “The next one strikes flesh. Leave, now.”

A second of pregnant silence passed between both parties as they sized each other up. Then, Blizzard broke it with a resigned huff before he grabbed Galleon and leapt into the air, defensively flanked by Wind Shear and Furlong.

“No, wait!” Galleon protested, reaching out with hooves to his precious armour; his sputtering magic no longer had the strength to snag it up and carry it along.

He rose higher into the sky, hanging limply beneath Blizzard like an oversized rat caught by an eagle. Growling, he then shook his hoof at Max and roared, “You’d best savour this victory, Maxilla, for it is fleeting and inconsequential. The time will come when I shall visit every horror and affliction upon you for bringing your detestable kind into our world. This I swear!”

Max stared with a somewhat loose jaw as all four of them shrank to specks in the sky, until they vanished into the clouds. Ydrax’il’s charging spell dissipated with a soft hiss.

Then, she gasped when somepony clapped her on the back.

“I think you’ve just made your first nemesis,” said Daring with a rueful grin. “Congrats!”

“Huh. Not sure it’s all it’s cracked up to be.” She flopped onto her back and groaned when her muscles cramped in protest. “Also, I need a vacation.”

Daring’s grin widened as she loomed over her. “I thought this was your vacation.”

Max snorted. “Yeah, careful what I wish for, huh?”

“Is… is it over?” asked Speckle.

An ominous air of expectancy stopped Max from answering. She cracked an eye open and saw Ydrax’il casually observing her, like a hatchery nurse waiting to see if a particularly dense grub could figure out which hole food was supposed to go into.

[What’re you looking at?] she groused.

He flicked his gaze to Daring and Speckle, then back to her.

Yeah, she didn’t need much brainpower to figure out what that meant.

Max turned and watched whilst Daring Do eyed a pile of ration packs scattered on the ground from the remains of a scorched tent, wholly oblivious to their silent conversation or Speckle’s question. She could taste their sweet relief and elation, and realised that Daring had either discarded or lost her helmet at some point in the scuffle. The void in her ached for a sip, and if she could drink them all in, harvest them to the very bones of their minds, then so much the better…

Nah. Buck that.

Out loud, she groaned and said, “Hayseed, it’d better be over. I feel like I’ve been blasted out of Canterlot all over again…”

“Hey, if you still have the energy to complain, I’d count your lucky stars and call it a pretty good adventure.” Daring trotted towards the scattered rations, scooped up an apple and took a crunchy bite out of it. “To the victors go the spoils!”

If Ydrax’il disapproved of her decision, he didn’t give any indication of it. No ping, no frown; nothing more than a parting glance her way before he stalked off with his eyes sweeping the ground, apparently in search of something.

“You okay?”

Max blinked and started when Speckle nudged her in the ribs. “Eh, what?”

“Are you okay?” he repeated.

She resisted the urge to snap, if only because she could taste genuine concern wafting from him. It wasn’t quite enough to suppress a snort, though. “Does it look like I’m okay?”

“Well, I guess not. I saw you take a real beating out there, including the part where you, you know…” He brought both front hooves together, then winced and flattened his ears when he forcefully pulled them apart. “Ouch. And eww… But then again, I wouldn’t know how badly a shapeshifter would be affected by that.”

“Yeah, well…” She waved a hoof vaguely in the air and let it flop back to the ground with a puff of dust. “I think I’m just going to lie here for a while.”

Just then, Daring swept aside a heap of tarp and hollered, “Hey kids, catch!”

Speckle yelped and brought up his magic just in time to stop an apple and a tin of biscuits from smacking into his muzzle. He stared for a couple of seconds, going back and forth between the provisions and the semi-razed camp as if considering the propriety of stuffing his face whilst ponies lay incapacitated around him.

His belly ended the silent debate with a deep growl.

After a sheepish chuckle, he bit into the apple and offered her the tin. She waved it aside.

He tilted his head. “Not hungry?”

Max groaned as she shifted to sit on her haunches. Her brain felt awfully heavy, as if it had sunken to the bottom of her skull, and it throbbed in tune to her heartbeat, on and off at seemingly random intervals. Psionic backlash from overuse had done a real number on her brain, and her other reservoirs hadn’t fared much better...

She then glanced at her stomach and rubbed it thoughtfully. A belch worked its way up her throat, stinging her nostrils with its acrid scent. Supping indiscriminately on Galleon’s narcissism might’ve been a mistake. She’d never had so much of something that could make her feel so paradoxically full and hungry at the same time. All fluff and no energy, it clogged her metaphorical insides, bloating her up to the point of vague, pervasive discomfort.

“Not for solid food…” she murmured.

Though some would probably help a bit.

Meanwhile, Daring had returned to them with a noticeable spring in her steps – excluding the limp in her right foreleg – chugging deeply from a dark glass bottle that reeked of fermentation. Upon seeing Max’s weary posture, she frowned and wiped her mouth with a wing before asking, “What’s that about solid food? You broke your teeth or something?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s not that. I think she just needs to feed on somepony’s emotions right now.” Speckle took another bite from the apple and hesitantly inched towards Max. “Do you need me to, umm…”

“No, no, I’m good,” she lied. “It’s not healthy for you to make another donation so soon after the last one. It’ll mess you up.”

Daring squinted at Max, from trebling hoof to quivering wing-tip and then shook her head. “Yeah, I’m not buying that. You’re starving, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, well—hey!” Max yelped when Daring sat next to her and pulled her close.

Daring then wrapped her in a bear-like hug and said, “Shut up and eat up.”

Any protest she tried to raise died in her throat.

Oof.

Daring’s approval and platonic affection certainly had a unique flavour that she couldn’t complain about. Max basked in it, swelled with its potency, and she felt flames dancing on her horn to burn away excess ego to make room for real nourishment.

The void egged her on, prodding and wheedling for her to really sink her teeth into Daring and drain her until all that remained was a mindless husk, but Max firmly slammed the lid on it and swept it to the back of her mind. No need to get greedy and ruin a good thing.

Especially this kind of thing.

Oh sweet horse apples, Daring Do is hugging me! DD fandom, eat your hearts out!

After a couple of seconds, Daring loosened up a bit and gave her a quizzical frown. “This is how it’s supposed to work, right? Otherwise I think I’ve just sent the shippers into a frenzy for no good reason.”

Max felt a grin coming on. “Wanna try a kiss and see what happens? It’s more filling, too.”

Daring rolled her eyes. “Don’t push your luck, kid.”

“Phew…” Speckle whispered to nopony in particular.

“Yeah, I’m good now. Ooh, that hit the spot.” Max pulled out of the hug and sighed when her restored magic flooded her bones, muscles and sinews with relief. She then saw the open tin of biscuits in Speckle’s hooves and casually popped a couple of them into her mouth. “Mm… these aren’t half bad, either.”

Daring stood up and groaned as she stretched and worked the kinks out of her limbs. “Okay, colts and fillies, break time’s over. We’ve got work to do.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Eh?”

“Somepony’s got to clean up after the party, and I don’t think Galleon’s coming back to see his followers home.” Daring swept a wing around, taking in the wrecked camp and the dozens of ponies lying about. A grin then split her muzzle when her eyes settled on Galleon’s discarded armour. “Besides, I think a little work making sure that everypony’s safe and sound will be worth the souvenirs.”

“Do we really have to?” Max threw a dirty look at the cultists. “In case you’ve forgotten, they were all trying to turn us into pincushions less than ten minutes ago.”

Daring gave her a look.

“Sheesh…” Max rolled her eyes and grumbled as she got onto all fours. “Fine, mom.”

“Hah! You wish I was your mom.”

Max didn’t dignify that with a response.

“She’s got a point, though.” Speckle shifted nervously. “What if they attack us when they wake up?”

Daring shrugged, then turned to further survey the camp. “Something tells me that they’re going to be a lot more cooperative without Galleon preaching nonsense in their ears. In any case, there’s always the option of tying up the feisty ones.”

“A task that you will undertake without my aid,” said Ydrax’il as he stalked back into their midst. “We have reached the surface, and the threat is neutralised. Our bargain is fulfilled.”

“You sure you don’t want to stay and give this friendship thing a try?” Daring waved a wing at the gate at the far end of the camp, which stood half-open with a view of the dark jungle beyond. Long shadows reached out from the treeline in the setting sun. “It’s safer if we stick together out here, at least until we get back to civilisation.”

He shook his head. “I have pending tasks that cannot wait.”

Daring’s eyes flicked to the sealed doorway. “Wait, you’re not going back down there, are you?”

“Something just depleted auxiliary power in this sector. The gates here will not open.”

Max gave him an apologetic wince. “That… that was my bad, I think. I accidentally connected to the neural network back there and retrieved some combat-related data.”

“Justified collateral.”

Daring tilted her head. “Okay, so what’s the big deal? How do you fit into all this?”

“We had other outposts and maintenance nodes in this region.” His rippling voice then shifted to a slightly deeper tone as he turned his gaze to the mountains southwest. “I must secure them against future incursions like this one.”

“Fair enough,” Daring conceded with a nod. “Since we can’t drag everypony around for an extended field trip, I guess that’s that.”

“Indubitably.”

Ydrax’il then turned to Max and levitated something small and round to her. She instinctively reached out to receive it, and the inscribed rune brightened to a green glow when it came into contact with her upturned hoof.

“Your inheritance,” he said whilst gesturing at the sealed gate. “Someday, you may wish to reclaim the rest of your heritage, preferably with an army at your back.”

Max saw that he had his own rune stone embedded in his foreleg, and instantly imagined finding him a hundred years or so later, locked away in another lab filled with alien machinery and grotesque experiments.

“Thanks,” she said. Then, on a whim, she bulled through some throbbing in her brain to float it a couple of inches above her hoof with telekinesis and added, “Gotta say, though… it feels like psionic power is the real inheritance. It’s a lot more useful than a key to someplace I don’t want to visit. No offence.”

“For now, perhaps.” He then gave her a piercing look. “Word of caution: your brain requires at least fifteen percent enrichment of grey matter in order to perform psionics more advanced than telepathy and telekinesis. Enriched grey matter rapidly deteriorates with use, doubly so when it originates from surgical infusion such as yours. Do not expect it to last much longer.”

Max frowned. “Okay, so how do I bring it back up to speed?”

Ydrax’il flicked his gaze over to Daring and Speckle, then back to Max.

“Here comes the catch…” Daring murmured.

“Without a functional cloning facility to supply tissue cultures for consumption, sapient organisms will be your only viable source of suitable grey matter.”

Daring’s pupils shrank, and her ears flattened. “Wait. Are you saying…”

Then, for the first time, Ydrax’il flashed them all a genuinely toothy grin that came with an unsettling twinkle of amusement in his yellow, slit-pupiled eyes. “Affirmative. We eat brains to fuel psionic activity. Up until the last generation, it was an essential part of our life cycle. Given our recent modifications, experimentation is required to determine new extent of its role.”

Silence reigned for about five or six seconds, until Speckle broke it with an audible gulp and began inching away from him and Max, pale as a sheet.

“Naturally, desire to maintain sociable ties with equines will severely inhibit options for developing your psionic prowess,” Ydrax’il continued, gesturing at Daring and Speckle whilst boring his eyes into Max’s. “A familiar conundrum.”

“Eh heh…” Max gave everypony an apologetic grin, then rounded on Ydrax’il with a glare and drawled, “Great… Way to make this super awkward. Did you really need to make this information public? I’ve got enough addictions to manage as it is!”

“Foregoing grey matter has no adverse effects other than diminished psychic ability. Besides, analysis of your life’s experience indicates that ponies appreciate honesty. You will benefit from this in the long term.”

“Yeah, we do.” Daring had tensed up considerably, and Max noticed that she had brought her mental guard up, too, when she narrowed her eyes at him. “But I’m more worried about what your angle is with everything here.”

Ydrax’il regarded them with what looked like an attempt at a reassuring smile – which practically screamed Scheming Dark Lord to Max more than anything. “Consider this peace offering: you know one of our weaknesses,” – he then tilted his horn towards Galleon’s dismantled armour – “and you have recovered thaumic artefacts that nullify our greatest advantage over you. When our kinds next meet, I hope it will be on more equitable terms.”

Daring raised a hoof to object, then slowly lowered it. “Can’t argue with that, I suppose…”

“Then we part ways.”

Despite looking like he’d experienced the business end of a morning star – what with ichor leaking out of cracks in his chitin and his shredded wings – Ydrax’il somehow managed a smooth, languid bow with noble poise and dignity. Then, he turned and stalked off towards the camp’s gate without another word, wending his way between and around the debris and unconscious ponies left in the wake of their skirmish. A stray cloud of smoke wafting on the breeze obscured his form for just a moment, flashed with yellow-green light, and then revealed empty space where he once walked.

Max heard neither the pounding of hooves nor the buzz of wings in the distance, and a quick scan with her mind found no trace of his physical or mental presence, either.

After glancing around for a couple of seconds, Daring pouted and clapped her hooves softly. “Okay, that’s actually pretty good. For a guy who’s been half-dead for centuries, he sure knows how to make an exit.”

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable knowing that he’s out there in the world,” Speckle murmured whilst he nervously munched on the rest of his salvaged biscuits. “I know he helped us, but maybe Galleon had a point. I can’t help feeling that we’re going to end up fighting him one day.”

“Well, you can bet I’m gonna be informing Princess Celestia about this development.” Daring squared her shoulders with a wince and sighed. “Besides, we’re in no shape to put him on probation, much less try him for crimes his civilisation committed against ponies long gone. We’ll have our hooves full just making sure everypony here makes it back to civilisation in one piece.”

“Speaking of which…” Max tilted her head to direct their gazes towards a splintered stick with a little, white rag tied to the end of it, feebly waving in the air. A dusty and battered earth pony stallion held that stick, peeping up from behind the half-collapsed wall of a workshop whilst two others huddled behind him.

“We surrender, Daring Do!” he called out with a quavering voice. “Please don’t let the monsters hurt us anymore! We just want to go home!”

“Home sounds real good right about now,” Daring said in an undertone. She then gave Max a pointed look and cocked an eyebrow. “Think you can keep it on a leash?”

Apprehension hung thick in the air, stirring her appetite, but with the recent boost from her idol, she didn’t have too much trouble burying it at the back of her mind and tuning it out. She could do this.

Max heaved a deep breath and set herself ablaze as she let it whoosh out. When the green flames died down, they left her standing as Sunny Spring, her old earth pony persona.

Feels like a lifetime since I last took this shape…

After walking in a small circle to test her balance, she trotted over to Speckle and extended a hoof. “Hey. Sorry about being a little rough with you back there. Think we could at least work together a little longer until we get home?” She then hazarded a rueful grin and added, “For what it’s worth, I promise to keep my hooves to myself the whole time, unless asked otherwise.”

He’d recoiled at first, but after getting an encouraging nod from Daring, he hesitantly inched his hoof forward, pausing just an inch away from hers. “No brain-eating?”

Max made a retching noise. “Please. I’m trying really hard to forget the idea.”

Speckle closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again, she tasted renewed determination and a small measure of astringent courage radiate from him as he nodded and bumped hooves with her. He then looked her in the eyes and said, “Yeah, I think I could work with that.”

Daring nodded in approval. “Awesome! Let’s get to work.”

* * * * *

Rounding up the remaining cultists and herding them into improvised, temporary shelters proved a lot easier than Max had anticipated. Most of them were too injured, tired or drained to care much about the fact that she was the one who’d terrorised them within the last couple of hours. Either that, or they were too bamboozled to connect the dots and figure out that she was simply in disguise.

A few of them did flee on sight and attempt to make a run for it into the jungle, but they didn’t get very far on account of their condition and had to be coaxed back into the safety of their camp. Speckle and a few other cultists were pretty helpful in that regard, and between the whole lot of them, they soon had everypony fed, stitched up and resting on ratty mattresses within a couple of hours, including three bound and gagged ponies who’d freaked out and created a hysterical ruckus when they got wind of Max’s presence.

Forty-six of them remained in total, roughly two thirds of Galleon’s original congregation.

Short Fuse wasn’t amongst them. Probably disappeared whilst they were busy fighting Galleon, but since he was a pegasus, Max didn’t think she’d have to worry too much about him finding his way home safely. The same went for those who’d already fled by sky wagon.

Once equine concerns were out of the way, Daring Do assigned Speckle and a few other half-groggy unicorns to work on jury-rigging the remaining pair of sky wagons to magically increase their lifting capacity, and to maybe extend that lift to two or three more carts. With Max and Daring as the only fliers left, they’d have to rely on magic to compensate and keep the rest of the caravan aloft.

Whilst Speckle and the others worked on reinforcing and enchanting their transports-to-be, Daring and Max went around cataloguing whatever interesting artefacts the cultists had uncovered in the ruins. The workshops and storage wagons had a few scraps and doodads that might’ve once been part of some ancient machinery or decorations, but none of them proved as interesting as Galleon’s armour and the helmet they already had. Ydrax’il hadn’t been lying about the loss of power, either, so that left one set of ancient armour locked away behind the stone door, and no amount of cursing on Daring’s part could get it to open. The neural network was dead silent, too.

“So… what’re you going to do with these?” asked Max as they headed back to the sky wagons, pushing a creaky wheelbarrow laden with Galleon’s armour, two helmets and ancient scrap. “Don’t tell me you’re sending them all to a museum.”

“You’ve read all my books. Shouldn’t you know by now?”

“Yeah, well, I’ve also learnt not to trust everything AK Yearling writes,” Max retorted. “You telling me you’ve never abused any magical stuff you’ve come across? Not even once?”

Daring gave her an indignant frown.

Max stared back.

After a moment of silence, Daring’s frown twisted into a grin. She then thoughtfully rubbed her chin with a primary feather whilst they slowed to a sedate stroll and said, “Well, I could tell you about that one time I got a little carried away with an ancient relic, but trust me, you wouldn’t want that because you’d never look at me the same way again.”

Max rolled her eyes. “Hey, I apparently eat brains now, so I’m not going to judge.”

“Well, okay. But I take no responsibility for what’s to come.” Daring surreptitiously scanned their surroundings, then leaned closer and said, “There was that one time I had the Black Sceptre of Dromedas in my possession…”

The Rod of Tyrants. Book Four.

An image of an obsidian sceptre embossed with chains, bones and gold trimmings, topped with a huge amethyst gemstone fashioned into the likeness of a screaming pony’s skull flashed in Max’s mind. Daring Do had braved an entire tomb’s worth of traps and beasties whilst being chased by grave robbers in order to pry the relic from the mummified hands of a long-dead minotaur king.

“Yeah, I know the one. You had it all to yourself when you were trapped in the exit cave and waiting for the tide to recede,” Max said, frowning as more of the written scenes came back to her. “But didn’t the book say it was not magical? How do you abuse something with no power?”

“We’ll get to that in a sec.” Daring waggled a feather at her. “You remember what else was in the cave?”

She racked her brain for a second, then shrugged and ventured a guess. “Bioluminescent fungus? That’s all I can remember.”

“Yup. The local folk call it Bull’s Cap.” A weak chuckle escaped Daring Do as she shook her head, gazing into the distance at some memory. “It turns out that bioluminescence isn’t the only thing special about it. The spores have another, umm… popular effect on ponies – one that wouldn’t get past a teen rating for the books.”

Max snorted. “Let me guess: you got hi—”

“No-no-no, the other popular kind of effect!”

After blinking for a couple of seconds and drawing blanks, Max had just opened her mouth to argue when it finally hit her. Raising an eyebrow, she peered at Daring and said, “Okay… I think I’ve figured out what that other thing is, but what does that have to do with—”

Daring held up both front hooves and mimed a rectangular frame at her. “Picture this: little old me trapped in a dim, dank cave, exhilarated and filled with a heck of a lot of pent-up energy from fighting bad guys and evading lethal traps, breathing in those spores all night with absolutely nothing else to do. And hey, I’ve got this little relic that happens to be conveniently shaped like a—”

“What?” Max thought she heard glass cracking inside her brain. She felt an eye twitch, and then glared at her and said, “Okay, you’re pulling my tail. There’s no way that one’s true!”

“You mean like how Daring Do can’t be real?” Daring's eyebrows waggled mercilessly. “Sure, that sceptre had no magic, but oh boy did it feel magical, if you know what I mea—”

“Aagh! T-M-I, T-M-I!” Max shrieked, flattening her ears.

Daring cackled like a bad Nightmare Moon play actor and elbowed Max in the ribs. “You know, I did try to warn you. This mare you idolise? She’s a degenerate.”

“Ugh, that was… just… eww.” Max covered her face with both hooves and moaned. “Guess that’s why they say ‘never meet your heroes.’”

“Hah! Look on the bright side; it’s that much easier for you to be a hero yourself.” Daring thumped her on the back and flashed a good-natured smile. Then, that smile gradually bent itself out of shape and turned into a thoughtful frown as she rubbed her chin and muttered, “A little too easy, actually. I’m almost getting the distinct impression that I’m being upstaged in my own story…”

“What, you mean like a bad O—”

Max’s voice petered out as she really considered the words on the tip of her tongue. Everything that had transpired since their descent into the Arthraki underworld raced through her mind with stark clarity, from taking a crossbow bolt in the thigh to rampaging through Galleon’s camp.

Oh. Oh, grub.

She abruptly slumped and sat on her haunches. “I’m a terrible OC.”

“What?”

Max did a thousand-yard stare as she considered the implications and how the fandom would react if AK Yearling wrote her into the series with strict adherence to reality. Then, a hysterical giggle escaped her throat when she looked at Daring with a stiff grin and said, “Think about it. I’m practically immortal, I have psychic superpowers, I can transform into an edgy, rampaging behemoth, and I got to steal the spotlight from you, the main character, several times already!”

Daring frowned. “Well, maybe a little, but—”

“Heck, I got to hang out with you as a plot-essential sidekick the entire time and even got hugs and stuff, which you can bet that ponies are going to overanalyse to death with social commentary. And shipping… all the shipping. This outcast changeling is totally Daring Do-approved, just like any amateur’s first fanfic protagonist!” Max threw her hooves up into the air. “If I was reading about me, I’d call me out for being a blatant self-insert for wish-fulfilment!”

“Hang on, don’t you thi—”

“Then Galleon declared me his nemesis instead of you, breaking a series-long tradition. Me being a nemesis implies I’m a recurring character, and when you mix that with everything about me before… you know what the fans are going to say?” She giggled hysterically again, then planted her face into the dirt and moaned. “Your fandom is going to have a civil war centred on my inclusion in the series! Ugh, I’ve spent ages getting on ponies’ nerves criticising their awful fanfic characters, and it’s just my luck that I’m now the living embodiment of awful character design. They’re going to say, ‘That changeling’s a bad OC! The series is ruined forever!’”

That last part almost came out as a shriek and drew a few curious eyes from ponies around the camp. Daring Do waved their concerns away with a wing, then cocked an eyebrow and stared at Max for a few more seconds whilst she hyperventilated.

“You know, I could just tone down your prominence in the final draft if it worries you that much,” she said with a wry grin. “It’s not like I’m on contract to write things exactly as they happen.”

Max took a deep breath to calm her nerves and sighed as she got back onto all fours. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m just being stupid…”

“To be fair, you’ve been through a lot in the past forty hours,” said Daring as they continued pushing the laden wheelbarrow back to the wagons.

Something continued niggling Max at the back of her mind, though, and it only took a moment of sedate trotting for her to pinpoint the issue. Doing so brought a frown to her face, and she wasted no time in giving Daring a pointed look. “Wait, you just spoke as if you’re the one writing the book…”

“Hmm? Oh, I meant that I’ve got a big say in what Yearling writes. After all, I’m her source of information,” Daring said without missing a beat.

“Huh. I see,” said Max, averting her eyes.

She saw, all right. That response felt a little too smooth and canned, like a long-rehearsed phrase. And it since it just so happened that Daring wasn’t wearing the helmet at the moment, Max had detected a distinct shift in her ambient emotions from sincere spontaneity to guardedness. Come to think of it, she hadn’t displayed any confusion regarding what an OC was, shipping practices, or Max’s prediction of the coming storm…

Max stole a glance at Daring, who’d already turned her eyes towards their destination.

She wasn’t wearing the helmet.

Maybe a quick look wouldn’t hurt…

Her brain throbbed in protest, but she ignored it as she probed Daring’s mental defences. It was mostly solid, in the sense that she didn’t have any stray emotions for psychics to pick up on. But Max had real telepathy in her arsenal, and she didn’t take long to find tiny gaps that she could slip through. After all, she only needed to peep and gather information, not dominate her will.

Time slowed as she parsed the intricacies of Daring’s mind with the precision and delicacy of a scalpel. If she did it right, Daring wouldn’t even notice.

Just a little deeper…

And… there. Nestled in the depths of Daring’s psyche, she found a tightly weaved web of secrets that echoed with adventure and intrigue. But when she gave one of the threads a metaphorical tug, the entire thing unravelled with alarming speed and ensnared her with a flood of information.

Oh. Oh, hayseed.

In that instant, Daring slammed her hooves into the ground and skidded to a halt. She then rounded on Max with a glare and snapped, “I felt that! Did you just poke around inside my head?”

Max jaw dropped. “Oh, grub. You’re not just real; you’re actually AK Yearling, too!”

Daring gave her an exasperated growl and stomped a hoof. “Damnation, Max, I didn’t think we’d need to set boundaries for this sort of thing! That was not cool.”

She knew she had to apologise, but her brain hadn’t yet finished processing everything that she had pinched from Daring’s mind. It encompassed a surprisingly organised set of mental notes for each and every adventure that had been novelised, including many that had been too short or insignificant to warrant much attention. The list went right from her very first book, up to the latest one that was in the final stages of editing and—

Max wilted as she beheld the details. Her ears went flat, and she wobbled on legs that felt like they had turned to jelly. “That can’t be right… I saw something about the Ahuizotl and the Sword of Aeons in there. But that happened three years ago, and you’ve already published Temple of Chicomoztoc, which you went to only after that!”

“I don’t write or publish everything in chronological order.”

Max whimpered.

“Let me guess…” Daring peered at her with half-lidded eyes and smirked. “You spoiled yourself some details of the next book, didn’t you?”

Max simply nodded, feeling her chest heave and spasm in fitful bursts.

“Hmph, serves you right,” Daring said with a flick of her tail. Then, upon noticing Max on the verge of exploding, she leaned closer and whispered, “Which part was it?”

“It was – the freaking – climax…” Max said through clenched teeth.

“Ooh, that’s rough. I mean, you still kind of deserve it, but… yeah.” With a sympathetic wince, Daring retreated several paces away from her and covered her ears. “Go right ahead and let it out.”

Max filled her lungs, turned her eyes skyward and then screamed with every fibre of her being. Her throat ached from the sheer force of it, but she didn’t care.

Stupid grub. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Eventually, she ran out of breath and sank onto her haunches, panting like she’d just run a marathon. Her scream still echoed in the distance, a haunting testament to her folly that the local primitives might even mistake for the anguish of an eldritch spirit.

Daring tentatively lifted her hooves from her ears and shook her head as she glanced around the camp. “Phew, that’s a good set of lungs you have there.”

“Yeah, go me.” Max hauled herself back onto all fours and sighed. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Heh. Won’t argue with that.”

Ponies gave them a very wide berth when they reached the gathering at the sky wagons, and it took a substantial bit of diplomacy and cajoling on Daring’s part to convince them that Max wasn’t about to go berserk again after a scream like that. Still, with some help from Speckle, they managed to convince almost everypony to cooperate in loading and boarding the carts and wagons for the flight home. Those too weary to help simply slept it off, whilst the more recalcitrant ones remained tied up next to the supplies.

Within about an hour, they had everyone and all the essentials in the wagons, all securely linked and lined up in the clearing outside the camp walls. Two sky wagons and three enchanted carts in total; the plan was to have each of them assigned to pull a wagon with carts attached, two attachments for Max and one for Daring on account of her damaged wings.

Given the absence of other flyers to contribute wingpower, they’d probably need to stop and rest frequently on the ground or on clouds as weather permitted, and the unicorns would have regular rotations recharging the spells for reducing drag and increasing lift on the carts and wagons. It was probably going to be a tiring, janky ride, but everypony reluctantly agreed that it was their best shot at reaching the nearest town before their scant supplies ran out. They simply couldn’t carry enough in flight, and nopony fancied another trek on land.

Max sat on a boulder out in the open, mentally tallying her magical reserves and weighing it against what she would need for the task at hoof. Meanwhile, Speckle assisted Daring Do with the ancient armour, as it wasn’t quite as easy to put on as they’d expected.

“Hold still, almost done… there!” said Speckle.

As soon as the last plate clanked into place, Max heard a gasp from Daring Do, and she turned to see her trembling in place as the magical runes pulsed with gold light. Her wings flared out as she gritted her teeth and scrunched her eyes shut, and the air practically tingled with latent magic as the armour’s enchantments went to work on its new wearer. Tattered and clipped feathers fell from her wings whilst new ones sprouted to replace them – not completely, as they didn’t mature all the way, but they certainly made her look at least somewhat flightworthy again.

Once the runes had dimmed and faded away, Daring opened her eyes and whistled as she flexed her restored wings. She then trotted in a small circle with renewed vigour in her steps, including her formerly limping right foreleg. “Wow, I guess ponies are right when they say things aren’t made like they used to. I feel like a million bits right now.”

Max shot her a grin. “Keeping it? I won’t say a word.”

“Don’t tempt me, you devious bug.” Daring pointed a feather at her with mock severity. “Despite what you’ve seen, I still have principles.”

“I’m just saying: if you ever decide to go rogue or become an anti-hero, come find me. I’ll still want to be your Number One sidekick-slash-minion,” Max retorted with a wink. “Your series could use the twist; it could lead to a heart-breaking redemption arc later on. Everypony will go nuts over it!”

“Not that anypony cares, but I think the world could do with fewer crazy ponies running around,” Speckle murmured as they trotted back to the makeshift caravan. He then shuddered and added, “I think I’ve gotten enough grey hairs just from one adventure with you ladies.”

After chuckling to herself, Daring stretched out her wings, draped them over their shoulders and gave them each a hearty shake. “Come on, pain and suffering builds character, and I’d say that you guys are all right in my book by now.”

Upon re-joining the others and completing a last-minute checklist, everypony got into their assigned stations. Each cart or wagon had at least two competent unicorns apiece for renewing flight enchantments, whilst the rest spread out as evenly as possible to keep the transports balanced and steady.

Ponies murmured amongst themselves as Max slipped loosely into her harness, which looked far too large for somepony of her current stature, let alone the fact that she still wore her wingless earth pony form. She could feel their watchful eyes on her back and taste their curiosity in the wind, tinged with a bit of apprehension.

Meanwhile, Daring had already finished getting harnessed up and hollered, “Okay, boys and girls, just a heads up. Since our resident changeling doesn’t have magical, strength-enhancing gear like yours truly, she’s going to transform into something appropriate for hauling our flanks back to civilisation. We’ve already established that Maxilla is on our side, so nopony panic, okay?”

More nervous murmuring.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Daring then turned to Max and gave her a feathers-up.

Here goes…

Max closed her eyes and shivered as green flames swallowed her body. The creaking and grinding of bones sounded unnaturally loud in her ears, as did her heart and lungs as her body expanded and stretched out in every direction. Her neck and tail elongated and grew muscular; new digits sprouted from the sides of her fetlocks and swelled into separate toes; bony protrusions burst from her back and branched out to form webbed wings; a pair of curved horns extended from her skull just above her ears; and her coat receded into her skin whilst brown scales erupted to replace them.

When she opened her eyes, she found just about everypony staring at her with wide eyes.

Max examined herself and flexed a clawed hand, then stretched her broad wings and admired the way the evening sun reflected off amber-like scales scattered amongst the duller, brown ones. Unlike some of the adolescents and juveniles she’d seen depicted in art or the lumbering beasts she’d occasionally watched from afar, she was a graceful yet powerful, perfectly-proportioned dragon, only downsized to roughly thrice the size of a pony so that she could fit snugly into the harness.

Oh yeah, now this is what shapeshifting is all about!

Unfortunately, a whiff of acrid-yellow fear soured the moment, and she had to pause and tamp down the growing urge to rip off the harness and sup on the feast before her. Thankfully, her belly didn’t growl, despite the void’s incessant clawing at her innards. Daring Do had trusted her thus far, and she had every intention of vindicating that trust whilst she still drew breath.

If Daring had noticed her little hitch, she gave no indication of it as she whistled in appreciation. “Not bad.”

Max smiled back, displaying a significant proportion of draconic teeth.

Shen then looked over her shoulder and saw Speckle peeping out from the wagon with a nervous grin, if a little pale. The others didn’t quite share his confidence, judging by their flattened ears and the way they all huddled together.

“Everypony ready?” she rumbled.

“A—all clear,” Speckle affirmed.

In response, Daring dug her hooves into the dirt and pawed at the ground. Then, upon finding suitable traction, she cried, “Hold on to your flanks, everypony. We’re going home!”

After a bit of a bumpy running start and an assortment of gasps and yelps from everypony on board, they leapt into the air and cleared the treetops, rising higher and higher until the clouds loomed above them like a purple-pink ceiling. Then, Daring Do whooped as they punched right through the clouds like a geyser. Max grinned at her and responded with an elated roar of her own, savouring the warm caress of the sun’s last rays. By then, even the most fretful amongst their passengers had set aside their misgivings when faced with the majestic sea of pinkish-orange fluff beneath them.

They were going home.

Author's Note:

I hope you like long chapters, 'cause this one got away from me again, and I couldn't find a neat spot for dividing it into two satisfying pieces.

Comments

[Secundum]

Huh. Sounded a bit like Galleon got possessed by the ancient Unicorn at one point there.

[The Faceless Maker]

Ah yes... That moment when you realize that you've become a bad OC. comedic brilliance right there

[Wolfcape]

Glad you didn't split it! What a way to end the adventure. Very, very well done; now just waiting for the conclusion/epilogue-ish part...I guess.
That changeling is a bad OC.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Now that's what I call a satisfying climax and denouement. There may yet be ripples from this adventure, but this chapter was still a gripping read. Especially Max's horrific realization and lament. Here's looking forward to whatever's left.

Otherwise I think I’ve just sent the shippers into a frenzy for no good reason.

(innocent whistling)

[Aurora Dimmet]

Whew, lads. We got to the title drop.

[Rathalos122]

I was trying to figure out a more eloquent way of saying this but : Your story is awesome.
Now that were moving towards the epilogue id like to ask if there will be further storys with Max?
Also will there be a meeting with the new hive? That could lead to some interessting reaction also considering she used bully thorax and Pharynx was the one who threw her out.

[EverfreeSparkle]

>New chapter
>16k words
I could kiss you, Raugos!

[Ocean Waves]

We got to see Max-zilla twice in one chapter!

[Spamotron]

Huh, if that armor boosts an ordinary pony to near alicorn levels I wonder how powerful an actual alicorn wearing it would be?

Or what it would do for a peak pony paragon like Rainbow Dash or Starlight Glimmer?

[EmberLight]

I wish I could favourite this more times!

[Tanis]

9039377
Indeed, and given this story is still marked incomplete, i have to wonder if there's one final conflict yet to play out...

Sort of like the final battle of Captain America: Winter Soldier. Making 'Insight' destroy itself was the primary victory for the protagonists overall; but the Cap still had to finish his fight with Bucky. With the primary threat to everyone else already crashing down around them; the ensuing one on one fight became very personal, and heart wrenching.

[Vinci The ClockWork Pony]

When her incredulous critics stared at her, she grinned and said, “Hey look, I made a door! It only took me like, what, ten seconds!”

Did you just...? Did you just quote Vinny from Atlantis: The Lost Empire?

I think I just fell in love.

[TheStratovarian]

Loved the drop, it was a dawning horror of 'the fans will eat me alive' and especially so if they get who is who.

It might be safer playing bear toss with harry than actually trying to keep on there.

But i rather liked that perhaps in the way we saw with our other 'friend' he likely picked up some of max's own traits for getting along, tempered by his practical outlook.

But I want to read the other, 'naoow!' hehe.

Minor misspelling of civilization at a point, with an s, other than z.

[Twilight_Shimmer]

What would happen if Daring Do, and Max appeared before Celestia to report on the adventure I wonder?

[TheClassyLeviathan]

When her incredulous critics stared at her, she grinned and said, “Hey look, I made a door! It only took me like, what, ten seconds!”

i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/017/204/CaptainAmerica1_zps8c295f96.JPG

[Keystroke Cascade]

9039669
The s instead of a z is correct spelling, just not American.

[Lasairfion]

Well, it felt like an ending; but I kind of hope we get more.

[Eroraf86]

Obligatory title-drop joke. Maxzilla is awesome. How did I forget to like and track this story? Remedied.

[LostArchivist]

Eh, needs more shipping to REALLY be a bad fanfic. :D (hint hint)

That was a fun chapter. Shame to see it ending... seemingly.
There'd better be more. Or a sequel! :D

[Raugos]

9039377 It's a little more of Max being delirious and seeing things, or the armour's enchantment that makes the wearer look intimidating.

9039464 *Ding!*

9039516 I currently have no solid plans for Max beyond this story, but there's definitely some fun to be had with other changelings and repercussions for her Bad OC-ness in the coming chapter(s).

9039557 We get peak-performance Mare-y Sue, that's what.

9039820 For now, I imagine that Max will probably want to stay the hell away from Celestia. Too many things could go wrong, even with Daring Do to vouch for her.

9039961 9040062 Worry not! We've still got a few things to tie up before we're done.

[Twilight_Shimmer]

9040467
What about reporting to Luna then?

[Raugos]

9040475 I think she'd want to avoid Equestrian authorities in general. If what Ydrax'il said to her is true, she's got a whole new generation of augmented changelings to think about.

She's gonna need a while to figure out how she wants to fit in the big picture, and revealing herself this early will limit her options later on.

[Twilight_Shimmer]

9040509
hmm good point. May be best for MAx to just keep traveling with Daring Do for now

[TheClassyLeviathan]

9039961
It does still say incomplete, so I'd count on it.

[ookacha]

When her incredulous critics stared at her, she grinned and said, “Hey look, I made a door! It only took me like, what, ten seconds!”

I hope no Nitroglycerine pony drinks any Milo

[lazyreader19]

Like? I love long chapters!

Also what a thrilling conclusion, and the title drop.

Also also, I need more Degenerate Do in my life

[Cerulean Blue]

That was incredible, and hopefully more to come!

[Gordon_Freemane]

9040509

she's got a whole new generation of augmented changelings to think about.

Oh yeah forgot she's basically a changeling queen now. When will we see Queen Maxilla's hive?

[Neece]

9040467
Shame you have no plans beyond this one, Max is too good of a character to let lie. Specially if she could go into more Adventures with her totally platonic and not in any way more than a friend Daring Do. No, I'm not a dirty, dirty shipper, what makes you say that?

Really though, I'd love to see more of those two in future stories too

[TartarusFire]

I have been waiting all these chapter for the title drop
It did not disappoint -- somehow not a bad OC for this story

[Ponygood11]

"They’re going to say, ‘That changeling’s a bad OC! The series is ruined forever!’”

Roooll credits. *ding*

[D48]

Amazing chapter as always, and I think the Speckle shipping is basically confirmed at this point considering his reaction to the brain eating bit. If he stuck around through that, he's not going anywhere any time soon. Granted there's still a lot of growing that has to happen with that relationship, but I'm fairly sure they'll be fine.

9040509
Who said Max is going to get a choice in the matter? Daring Do has to tell Celestia about this more or less immediately considering how big an impact it's going to have on Equestria, and the overgrown marshmallow is going to want to help Max sort things out because she's a sweety like that (and one of the very few beings capable of giving good advice on the subject). Sure it'll cause some panic when Daring Do shows up at wherever Max and Speckle are staying (maybe his parents since she doesn't really have a house any more and he was living with the cult) with Celestia in tow, but it'll be more along the lines of Max whimpering under the couch and the others coaxing her out than anything else.

[Raugos]

9043302

Who said Max is going to get a choice in the matter?

Well, it's not like they're going straight to Canterlot. There'll be plenty of time for them to split up along the way, and I think DD respects Max enough to give her the courtesy of a decent headstart if she really wants to strike out on her own.

[D48]

9043485
True, but I don't really see Max being willing to completely cut contact with Daring Do which means she's going to know where to find Max and Celestia's going to be able to use that information to visit as well. I will say that I don't see Celestia barging in unannounced, but I can definitely see her being outside (with no guards besides Daring Do) while Daring Do asks if she can come in. That makes it difficult for Max to completely say no, especially if Speckle answers the door because he'll definitely let Celestia into whatever front room they have, and makes it clear that Celestia just wants to talk. Sure Max will be a bundle of nerves which will be all kinds of funny, but Daring Do knows both of them well enough to know that it will work out fine so long as she can get them in the same room.

[Kamikaze_dalek]

At first, Max suspected that he’d hopped himself up on something nasty, but he didn’t have bloodshot eyes, the jitters or any pulsing veins that might suggest consumption of Dragon’s Beard or Bloodweed. But then it occurred to her that some of the magical runes on his armour might confer more than just protection from psionics; he certainly didn’t like the type who could otherwise go hoof to hoof with Daring Do on a physical level for very long.

Last sentence, change "like" to "look".

[Raugos]

9044932 Fixed. Thanks!

[djthomp]

Great action.

Loved the title drop and that dragon form at the end.

[Pseudonymous]

9043485
Max lived like an ordinary pony in Equestria for years before she was forced on this adventure against her will. While on this adventure she helped save Equestria TWICE, and didn't do anything worse than Twilight's want-it-need-it spell.
I think she's earned a pardon and citizenship.

[Raugos]

9046575
Oh, I have no doubt that Celestia would be quite happy to offer Max those things, at least to keep tabs on a potential threat, if not to make friends with a nascent species/nation.

The thing is that Max won't necessarily see it that way for now. She's been on the losing side of a failed invasion on top of growing up in a culture steeped in centuries of (headcanon) mistrust from ponies, and Ydrax'il (someone from a far harsher era) has filled her mind with predictions of how others would want to control or eliminate her simply for what she now represents.

Also, she's hasn't yet had a chance to witness ponies and changelings living and working together like Thorax has with the new school, so I think she can be forgiven for doubting the effectiveness of official integration.

[Pseudonymous]

9046608
Oh, of course. But won't Daring Do will reach out to the princesses on this adventure? I mean, unleashing the last of a race of pony-brain-eating ming-controlling eldritch horrors seems like something they should know about.
I expect Max would become a legal citizen without knowing it, and find out the next time she ran into Daring Do, or word would work it's way through to her new pony boyfriend.

[Raugos]

9047023
The way I see it, Daring's got her obligations to report what went down, and Max will want to keep a low profile despite reassurances that no harm will come to her. And they both respect each other enough to live and let live.

Max can always change her mind about hiding. The opposite is much harder to reverse.

[Timuri]

9041344
For bonus points, they could have AK Yearling being the 'writer' for the books about whatever name they go with for Maxilla, too. It wouldn't be the first time. It's mostly happened in television shows and comics rather than books, to my knowledge, but a character that's introduced as a seeming sidekick who turns out to be far more competent than initially thought getting their own spin-off line where they're the main protagonist is something that's far from unheard of. It's also excellent fodder for stories where one or the other runs into an unexpectedly dangerous opponent or situation so that they can call in some backup that is already well established, so it doesn't feel like a deus ex machina for sudden reinforcements to arrive like it does when those reinforcements come from someone that's not established.

In this case, it really doesn't hurt things any that even though Max enjoys being a fanfic author she was an elite infiltrator and skilled fighter before she ever met Daring, so her turning out to be very competent wouldn't come out of left field like it would if the story they go with tried to initially pass her off as some noncombatant.

[PonyDragon]

A bit of her here, a bit of her there, and a bit of her way, way over there…

Okay Max, break is over, now pull yourself together!

He came for her.
The Avatar of Extinction.

Who is the avatar? He or She?
(Okay, it's later cleared it's him. But from the ancient-ponies point of view it would be her in my opinion.)

“The situation has clearly changed,” he retorted, still keeping her pinned. “Perhaps we can come to an understanding. The safety of Equestria outweighs either of our affairs; help me destroy these monsters, and we will go our separate ways.”

Technically he is even right...

“How are you not dead?” she muttered.
A grin split his muzzle when he giggled. “Whoo! Let’s do that again!”
Max flicked her gaze to the cartoony cherry bomb on his flank.
Stupid ponies and their cheating cutie mark magic…

[nekoparalover]

bit of her here, a bit of her there, and a bit of her way, way over there

Would that but if her way over there be staining a wall😉

KUNG TH PANDA!

[gerandakis]

Okay, final chapter ... for now ...
excelent as usual and without a massive cliffhanger this time.

Quite a few things to point out this time, as si to be expected in a chapter that is both relatively new and relatively long:

lay splattered the ground

'on the ground'

to avoid putting as much weight on her right foreleg as possible

This sentence structure creates a wrong impression of what she's trying to achieve: as is it sounds like putting as much pressure on the leg as possible is what she wants to avoid, to say what I thinl you mean, namely that she is trying to avoid putting pressure on it at all where possible, move the 'as much' from where it is to between 'foreleg' and 'as possible'

Get out and do you thing

'your thing'

and temporairily seal them up

unless this is your stunted narration to express stress again, which it may well be, it should be 'sealed'.

You'd best saviour

'savour' assuming wou want to use british english, otherwise 'savor'. A saviour is something else entirely either way.

to determine new extent of its role

'the new extent'

wending

can technically work, but is very obscure, a more commonly understood alternative is 'weaving'

Bioluminescent fungus?

the plural of fungus is 'fungi'

Daring eyebrows waggled

'Daring's eyebrows'

oh boy

how does Daring Do know what a boy is, especially strange here as earlier in the same chapter 'oh colt' was used to substitute 'oh man'

stray emotions for psychics to pick up

really a matter of preference in the word choice, but if you want to highlight that she has more abilities availiable now, it would be better to use 'empath' as she is a full blown psychic now while previously empathy was really her only real psychic ability.

tiny gaps tht she could slip past

but why would she want to slip past the gaps? I think you mean 'slip through'

assigned pull a wagon

'to pull a wagon'

arent made like they used to

An issue I see many writers having: forgetting what sentence they're writing part way through writing it. In this case it seems you switched from 'arent made like they used to be' to 'don't make them like they used to' easy fix: just choose one

apiece

two words: 'a piece'

roughly thrice that of

'roughly thrice the size of' this only works when size has been used as an actual noun before, it doesn't work with it being apart of a verb like 'upsize' or 'downsize'

...

And there we go ... "Zhat. Vas. Everyzhing" ... Now to wait and see what awaits them back home ...

[Raugos]

9054647
Majority of them are fixed, saved for some of those in dialogue, as they sound like reasonably natural shortcuts or blunders in speech.

two words: 'a piece'

Apiece is an actual word, though. Pretty sure I didn't misuse it here.

Thanks for pointing out those errors!

[gerandakis]

9055585
My pleasure, looking forward to the next chapter. I'm very much glad that there is more of this story yet to come.

[Scyphi]

They’re going to say, ‘That changeling’s a bad OC! The series is ruined forever!’”

I had forgotten that Max hadn't yet figured out Daring and Yearling are one and the same. Sort of lost track of that in all the excitement, I guess.

I've got a nagging feeling we haven't seen the last of Galleon just yet...

9039861
Ditto!

[PonyDragon]

“What am I, a sidekick?” Daring threw her hooves up into the air.

Would be a nice change of pace, right?

“I think you’ve just made your first nemesis,” said Daring with a rueful grin. “Congrats!”

Silence reigned for about five or six seconds, until Speckle broke it with an audible gulp and began inching away from him and Max, pale as a sheet.

I can't judge him.

“Consider this peace offering: you know one of our weaknesses,” – he then tilted his horn towards Galleon’s dismantled armour – “and you have recovered thaumic artefacts that nullify our greatest advantage over you. When our kinds next meet, I hope it will be on more equitable terms.”

And now the big question: What will they do next?
I strongly recommend like telling the princesses about this. They would probably want to kow about this whole thing.

[xoid]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but while Ydrax’il said that she needed to eat brains he never said that they needed to be the brains of sapient beings. All she would need to do is breed something with a brain that ponies have no qualms with being eaten. Like, say, fish.