Chapter 12
Twilight and her hunters, combined with the Equestrian forces, had swept through the three hives they knew about and were preparing the massive glyph arrays that would become the arcane annihilation fields. Just as she finished her work, an Equestrian Scout rushed into the room. Vera immediately went to him to treat still bleeding wounds, Twilight nodded to him for him to report.
“There’s another hive, a tiny one… The changelings in there are… different. They don’t seem feral, Queen Twilight.” The scout reported, letting Vera work as his wings drooped at his sides.
“They attacked you?” Twilight asked, standing from where she was drawing the array. The man shook his head.
“No, they actually warned me not to come closer or they would… It’s the first time I’ve heard them more than hiss and scream…” The scout replied, shaking at the thought of so many ferals closing in on them not too long ago. Twilight peeled an organic bandage from her cheek, feeling that the cut under it had been properly healed thanks to the medical salve they could now properly produce.
“Set up a perimeter, I don’t want these arrays obstructed or we’ll all be vaporized when they go off. Wraiths on me.” The Queen said as she started walking towards the direction of this tiny hive. “If one of those royals resisted going feral then maybe she can be reasoned with. I will not damn the daughters for the sins of their mother.” She continued as her wraiths fell into step with her.
It wasn’t that far, the outer shell of this tiny hive was camouflaged to look like the stone is protruded from, but Twilight was able to find it well enough after asking the scout a few questions by proxy. It was starting to get dark, now, but she could still see the roiling mass of ebony chitin in the entryway. As they neared, the mass fanned out along the entrance to reveal that it was indeed a large group of changelings barring their way. They stood firm and proud, though, their cerulean eyes and steel hue to their chitin the only differences from them and Twilight’s own drones. She was suddenly glad that she hadn’t brought any standard drones directly to the battlefield, the Equestrians may mistake them for each other if they couldn’t see eyes or distinguish the tint.
“You are obviously not feral. Bring your queen to us and we may speak of what to do with you.” Twilight said with all the authority she could muster.
“To put faith in you, you must put faith in us. On our lives no harm will come to any of you.” One of the drones spoke. Twilight sized them up, there were easily one thousand drones here. None of them were warriors, though, and this was close enough to the other hives that the nearest annihilation field would reach. She simply nodded and started walking towards the entrance. The sea of chitin parted to let her and her guards pass, No further words were exchanged, and the only reason the Wraiths didn’t have their weapons pointed at the mass around them was because Twilight was calming them through the hive mind.
The small hive was really just one massive chamber linked to stone tunnels along the walls. There was a single throne, on which an almost clone of Crystarium sat. The young queen stood and walked to them, bending an arm over her abdomen and bowing respectfully.
“Thank you for showing us the mercy my mother does not deserve, Twilight Sparkle.” The queen said softly. Twilight froze, that voice was so familiar. It was also the first time a changeling had referred to her as such. She immediately started using scanning spell after scanning spell as the queen talked.
“Just as my brothers and sisters were going eral, I managed to claim this section of the hive mind as my own and sever what I could to save them. As soon as Mother’s influence vacated my mind, I was able to see how foolish she has been in this war. I have no terms for my surrender, do with me as you please.” The young queen explained. It was at about that point when Twilight realized something. Her scanning spells were on autopilot as she lost focus, rather focusing on a single thing in this queen’s aura. It was Love, though not just the emotion she sometimes felt in her brood. It was pure love, the kind she could feed from. And it was familiar as well.
It was the love of a mother, caring for her children. The queen was looking at the sea of chitin around them in a way she’d only thought she’d see herself or Chrysalis do. That’s when her scanning spells finished and she almost dropped to her knees. There was a reason that voice and this love felt familiar. This Queen wasn’t born normally, she was rebirthed. The queen looked a little confused at seeing Twilight’s eyes water up and her expression grew worried as the Lavender Queen shakily stepped forward with a hand outstretched.
She dared not swat it away or pull back from the touch as Twilight put a hand on her cheek. She was surprised when she felt the love flow into her, a love so familiar it was almost painful.
“Mother… I… I-I thought…” Twilight barely whispered out. It was at about that moment when the queen realized that the familiarity was actually painful, her head was splitting and her whole brood felt it apparently as they all sank to their knees holding their head to mirror their queen. Twilight recognized this and acted quickly.
“This is going to hurt. I put my trust in you, now you put your trust in me. When you feel the tug, follow it.” Twilight said quickly and closed her eyes, putting a finger to the middle of the queen’s forehead.
The queen barely heard her and didn’t respond, so Twilight hoped she understood as she formed the mental bridge. She closed her eyes as well and found herself in the forest of her mind. She looked out at the barren field that was Chrysalis’ sleeping forest, but slowly a third forest of Cerulean started forming to be perpendicular to their two lands. The queen was standing there, watching the beginning of a forest fire form in her mind in horror. Twilight put a hand on her shoulder.
“Let me in, and I can disperse the fires for you.” She said softly, conveying as much good will as she could in her tone. The queen just slowly nodded. Twilight concentrated and a strong wind started blowing. A storm of crimson and lavender leaves blew on a gale force wind into the new addition, clinging to the small meadow of saplings and young trees. Twilight took a deep breath and the new queen watching in morbid fascination as her leaves grew tinted with crimson or lavender and the winds blew the burning leaves around. She was horrified as the fires started spreading to Twilight’s forest, but was stunned as a large group of changelings were already there to snuff them out. Before long a few of them moved into the new forest and started doing the same. The queen slowly calmed down at that, and then remembered the whole reason this was happening.
Memories followed the pain. Her name was Dawn Sparkle, and this Lavender Queen holding her was her daughter.
“T-Twilight…? What have… What have I become?” She whispered out. She knew the answer, but she needed confirmation.
“You have become a Royal Changeling, sanctioned with her own space in my hive mind. You no longer belong to Crystarium’s brood, you are part of mine now.” Twilight said softly as she embraced her changed mother. It was at about that moment when Crystarium started explaining what she had done, so she listened in through her strategist.
“For all intents and purposes, Dawn Sparkle is dead. That was indeed her corpse that was buried. She was not killed immediately, though. She had been replaced and studied, her life force slowly extracted with her love until she was little more than a husk. We buried her body in the garden and used her life force in tandem with mine to create a Royal, this took many months to complete… I had hoped she would be able to produce love like her daughter, but she was only born a week ago. It was too early to tell.” Crystarium explained to Luna.
“Wait, she’s one of those Royals?! And you let her go Feral?!” The Princess exclaimed, resisting her very strong urges to strike the queen in front of her. Crystarium just stared at the ground. Her silence the answer.
“Dawn Sparkle is not Feral, she is of my brood now. Her love as a mother saved her mind and the minds of those she could snatch away from you. Princess, they’re coming out now. Tell your soldiers to stand down and watch for lavender eyes.” Twilight’s strategist said in her voice. The Princess turned to see that he was being possessed again. Crystarium looked up at that.
“Then… Then this wasn’t all for nothing…” She breathed. “I resign myself to whatever fate you wish of me, Queen Twilight… I trust you will take good care of my legacy…” The cerulean queen continued, her tone relieved. Twilight’s Strategist walked forward and stood right in front of the queen.
“As I said, no mercy will be shown. The gravity of your crimes have been lessened, though… I’ll have to think on your punishment, perhaps redemption will be possible one day…” The proxy said. The queen seemed surprised at that, as did Luna, as the strategist’s eyes returned to normal and he shook his head a bit.
“The reformed drones are a thousand strong, we merely ask they are allowed about your airships to rest before the journey home my Princess.” He continued in his own voice. Luna nodded.
“Of course. They will be watched, but they will also be fed and rested. We have plenty of surplus, we were expecting a siege.” The Lunar Princess replied. The strategist bowed and his eyes lost focus, the telltale sign of relaying large amounts of information through the hive mind. At the same time Luna summoned up runners and Valkyrie couriers to send word to the rest of the Flotilla, the two dozen airships were already getting back into formation as the tiny cloud of black rose form the hidden hive. The messages arrived in time, it seems, as the cloud was allowed close and on board the ships. The few dozen that came to the flagship nearly collapsed as they landed, a few actually did.
“When memories resurged in Dawn Sparkle, her mind threatened to tear itself apart just as Twilight’s did when she was first rebirthed. Queen Chrysalis did to her what Twilight now did to her own mother, she linked the forests of their minds to diffuse the fires and smother them. Dawn Sparkle recovered, but her brood took the brunt of it. They will need a few hours of rest and love feeding or they may still go feral.” The strategist explained when his eyes finally focused again. Luna nodded.
“We’ll call it their terms of surrender for the books.” She said, looking at the archivist who was now hiding behind a barrel on the deck. The young man just nodded his head, shakily retrieving his quill and scroll.
It wasn’t long until Twilight returned to the flagship as well, supporting the Crystarium look alike that was her mother. The two cerulean queens stared at each other, but it was Crystarium that broke eye contact first.
“Thank you, Princess Luna, for accommodating my… brood.” Dawn thanked Luna. It seemed like now that she had regained a chunk of her memories it was strange to say something like that so naturally.
“Of Course, Dawn Sparkle. We shall have to speak to my sister about it, but if you so choose we can have your noble status reinstated. Canterlot would most likely love to have you back.” Luna explained. She didn’t bother mentioning what possible troubles her new form would bring to that position, it went unspoken, but she still felt she had to offer.
“I appreciate it, Princess… I’m stuck between two worlds now, though… I’d like to explore this side of it a bit more. I will gladly return to Canterlot, though. I have no interest in building a new hive, Twilight and I have already decided to convert any of my brood who wish to live in Equestria into Harvesters.” Dawn replied. She looked to Crystarium again, who was sitting in a chair at the tactics table.
“All of my loyalties to you were severed when you severed yourself from us… You even stole me away from my family to turn me into some… abomination.” Dawn started, looking at herself. “I hope you’re happy with the results, because you’ll never have me again you foul creature.” She growled, pulling herself a little closer to Twilight. Crystarium’s expression soured even further as Twilight handed Dawn off to a medic.
“You took my mother away, but now you gave her back. I think I know what to do with you now. But first, you get to witness what your pride and lust for power brought you.” Twilight said when her mother was taken below decks. She pointed at the hives still barely visible, the only changelings left there were ferals. Twilight had collected as much of the dead as she could, and all of her own casualties, to be taken home and recycled properly. Her guardians were five dozen strong now, she was anxious to find more to help her mother.
“Your actions cost the loss of every single one of your brood, and nine hundred and fifty three of mine. Now you watch what happens next.” Twilight iterated as the arcane brand on her body started glowing softly. Three beams of energy shot into the air, ending about half a mile from the top of the tallest hive. The sound followed quickly, the distinct sound of a magical explosion. This wasn’t just pure destruction, though, as the beams started fanning out into cylinders and soon merged together to cover most of the mountain. The field changed colors a few times before stabilizing on a mix of red and green and slowly the hives began disintegrating. Slowly but surely, the shell of the hives were melted away to reveal the much softer material that burned even quicker. Within five minutes the mountain was nothing but a mess of hollowed out tunnels, free of any organic material whatsoever. There was no lychen, no moss, no organic cement, no changelings, nothing. It was dead quiet, the sound of buzzing that had permeated the mountainside since the brood went feral had ceased in its entirety. Crystarium wanted to be sick, but she couldn’t destroy what dignity she had left. So she stared, a stony grimace on her face.
“I’ve only seen an annihilation field once, I’ve never seen it tuned to a specific thing though…” One of the mages on the deck muttered to another. Similar mutterings were going on throughout the Flotilla as Luna ordered them all to return to Twilight’s Hive.
“Let’s get this place behind us, Twilight…” Luna said sourly as she turned to where the Queen was standing again, only to see her brands slowly fading as she slumped onto the deck due to magic exhaustion.
“She powered it herself?” Luna said, amazed, as she got over the shock and rushed over to make sure it wasn’t fatal. Her Wraiths were already there, Bie and Vera doing their jobs.
“Someone would have had to stay and activate them otherwise. Your mages only understood the arrays to the point where they could draw them, not operate it, and Mother didn’t want any heroes of us. She’ll life, she just needs to rest.” Bie explained. Luna sighed in relief and picked the queen up herself. The Wraiths seemed only slightly annoyed by it but didn’t protest.
“You’re free to watch over her in her sleep.” She said as they followed her below deck and to Luna’s quarters. She laid the queen down on the bed and sat down on the edge of it. The Wraiths weren’t going to crowd the entire room, so they fanned out leaving only Vera and Nila to keep watch over their queen.
“Do you know what she wants to do with Crystarium?” Luna asked Nila after a few minutes. Nila shook her head.
“She wasn’t sure last I checked.” The changeling replied. Luna nodded again and stood.
“I have to oversee our flight operations and send some letters. I trust her well being in your capable hands.” The Princess said with a small smile. The two nodded with smiles of their own, Vera was already doing a checkup to make sure she wasn’t being affected physically by the exhaustion.
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That was intense.
While what Crystarium did was horrible, it's also somewhat positive in the end - now Twilight won't have to see her mother die while she lives forever.
'going eral' - feral
'she'll life' - live
'mainly form' - from
When you started writing you wrote at such a breakneck pace I hadn't even finished processing a scene before you jumped into the next and your scene transitions were jarring at best. It's good to see you have learned to stop and really paint a scene before hopping to the next, you really have come a long way. You have a lot of unique ideas and though you have sloved down a little you should consider taking it a notch or two slower as you still have a lot of threads left untouched. One thing I must really say I enjoyed was your unique look on changelings (though I have seen that particular method of making Twilight a changeling before) and now quite priffeciant scene jumping as well as pacing I was particularly enthralled the last few chapters as you jumped from rising and falling action expertly, bravo. Also you really do need an editor or prevent reader as 90 % of your errors were very avoidable.
Huh. Well, I expected torture or something, not a rebirthing. Or well, as much as a rebirthing as you can do without the actual body to do that.
Which makes me really wonder how Twi will handle Crystarium now.
Also how will Twi's family and friends react? This will certainly make things interesting.
8042603 Everyone always say that and I always tell them the same thing, my inconsistent writing times/speeds makes it not work at all. I either write too fast for an editor to keep up or I take so long they get bored and leave. Believe me, I've tried. And I appreciate the comment, it's always nice to see confirmation that what I've been working towards improving is actually improving.
And as far as slowing down, my speed isn't something I decide. My free time and inspiration decide that. And the reason other things are being left untouched at the moment is because I spent quite a while trying to write multiple stories at once. It wound up turning into a four year hiatus so I'm trying to stick to one until I'm done with it, maybe they'll actually get completed this way lol.
8043985
Slow down as in your story silly goose. You run through the plot at a breakneck speed sometimes I know it's tempting to go from action scene to action scene to action scene but slowing down, providing some description and slowing the pace stops reader fatigue and makes sure those big climactic moments feel that much bigger. As for editors go just keep looking. I write alot of different genres so I'm always looking for someone willing to go outside of the comfort zone of my current editor and there is always someone willing.
8044011 I know my pacing is an issue the second I lose my initial roll, it's mostly attributed to the fact that most of my good ideas are always way ahead of where I'm currently at. All of my ideas for from the ashes aren't actually for from the ashes, they're for the sequel XD. So it's mainly me trying to get through the important parts before another 4 year hiatus happens.
8044138
Have a little confidence in yourself my friend. If you think another big hiatus is going to come than it will if you know your strong enough to stick with it than you will. :)
8050972 So wait, that is still there?
8050972
8051155 It's still there because every time I remember to hunt it down and fix it, I'm at work or in the middle of something and I forget by the time I can actually do it. I'm also lazy. That's probably the real reason. It's supposed to be Chrysalid, gdocs autocorrected me.
8052052 Ok, well now at least it's fixed. Autocorrect is annoying when not needed.
Can't wait for the next chapter.
That annihilation field...
Feral you mean?
8378791
more like 'eral eral'!! :P