Part 2: Eye of the Maelstrom
As it turned out, James had been lying. Badly. Sarah felt like she was being suffocated and dissolved at once, but without the control of her own body to stop breathing and let herself die. Each “breath” of the awful liquid only made her change faster and more deeply. She wavered on the edge of consciousness, almost but not quite in pain.
Eventually it stopped hurting, and she could think again. Sarah already knew what to expect, but it was still more than a little jarring. Her trousers now hung in tatters, the shirt of her uniform now clinging around her forelegs like something she might’ve seen on a dolphin at a water show. If she had been rich enough to go to theme parks, which she never was.
She was still breathing, though she realized with a slight shiver of shock that she wasn’t using her throat anymore, but the slits along her neck. There were several finned ridges around her body, including the place where her wings had been. Best part of this whole alien nightmare, gone. I better get those back or I’m gonna be pissed at you, Discord.
James was staring at her again, a little too close and too deeply for comfort. I know that fucking look. Back off. Though there was another part of her that wouldn’t have minded being with someone who was constantly near the edge of ego collapse. Maybe if you looked a little more like Melody. “Did it scramble your brain?” he asked. His voice sounded a bit squashed, much deeper and longer than normal, but somehow that felt natural here. It was what her ears were expecting. At least we can talk.
And another of her senses was still working. His words were like the sharpest, highest-pitched sounds in the air, briefly filling the space around her and highlighting the narrowing cylinder of this passage, with an unimaginable gulf of liquid further on.
“No.” She pushed away from him in the water, and found that her sense of how to swim from when she’d been human didn’t steer her completely wrong. She didn’t have any of the same limbs, but staying still in the water used the same principles. Not that this is really water. God, I don’t even want to know. “I’m just processing, that’s all. Figuring out where everything is.” She glanced down where her shorts had been, then blushed. That was where everything was. Instead of being tucked away where she didn’t have to think about it. I need a onesie for this tail.
She turned away from her companion before he could lose his jaw staring at her, pointing down. “Don’t really have a choice about this now, do we? Into the depths we go.”
“I guess you don’t need me to point out how monumentally stupid this is,” James said, but from the sound of it he was following. “For all we know, this hole is Sanctuary’s master toilet, and now we’re swimming into it. Maybe this goes to the sewage plant.”
“I don’t think we’re breathing sewage,” Sarah retorted, without looking back. She wasn’t the only one whose biology had been rearranged. The less she saw, the better. “Whatever this is, it’s deliberate. There’s a system in place for biosleeves like ours to travel down here. Think about how complicated this transformation had to be. Why the hell would you go to all the trouble to design that, then put it into the intake for a death-machine? Waste of resources.”
“I guess that makes sense,” he said, not sounding the least bit like he believed it. “What’s the point of winning allies who have to live in green soup though? Even if our city didn’t get completely destroyed just now… are we gonna invite the slimebassador to visit? How are we supposed to do anything without Forerunner’s authority?”
She stopped swimming. Modesty forgotten, Sarah snapped back up with a few quick strokes of her blue tail, slamming into James and holding him against the wall with her forelegs. He went completely limp against her, not resisting even though he was longer and sturdier than she was. “Hey, how about shut up for a second. You didn’t have to come with me. You could’ve stayed up there in your damn little bedroom and wasted your days. Whatever exploit you were using not to get recycled sounds pretty fucking great, but that isn’t me and it isn’t open to you either anymore. You’re here, so grow some fucking balls and stop whining.”
Whatever he’d been about to say, James only looked frightened. His tail twisted under him, as though he were thinking about running away but wasn’t quite sure yet. And where would he run?
“I don’t know much more than you,” Sarah continued, letting go of him. “You want to know what I know? There’s some kind of civil war shit brewing down there. If we stop it, we keep these people alive and they can join Othar. Maybe they’re sick of living in the fucking sewers of Sanctuary and they’d like to see the sun a little more. Maybe they don’t want to live with primitives. Whatever, we’re their guys. Sanctuary is big and advanced, so… I figure when we need Forerunner’s input, things will work themselves out. We have Alicorns. Aren’t they supposed to be powerful or some shit?
“If the other generations are powerful, then what the hell happened to Othar?”
“No idea.” She yanked on his foreleg, tugging him until he was facing downward. “Just a little further, there’s some kind of… entrance. I can feel the current moving through it. Odds are good that it goes to our destination. Meet some new aliens, prevent a civil war… isn’t that why you joined the Pioneering Society?”
James actually laughed, though there was little humor in his voice. More like resignation. But he didn’t fight her, and that was something. “I guess you could tell me about what you know. Who are the changelings?”
Olivia woke up.
Some part of her hadn’t thought she would—at least not in the world of the living as she understood it. Being dead was a state whose context had changed a great deal in the last few months. But it still wasn’t something inviting. Except that death would’ve meant she didn’t have to keep fighting whatever those creatures had been. No more hunting slavers, no struggling to survive. She could go back into retirement and make it stick this time.
Maybe another version of Olivia would’ve done that. A version that hadn’t ventured into the void to patrol the outskirts of civilization. In the end though, that same desire drew her back. She had friends to protect, a civilization to save. We won the last war with Harmony. Maybe this is the one where it takes back what we claimed.
Fire burned in her lungs as she sat up, a gentle throbbing that quickly spread through every soft tissue. That was the drugs then, the cocktail of blood thinners and thought-enhancers that kept her functional at otherwise incapacitating pressures. Except for her foreleg.
Olivia’s eyes shot open, and she took in the scene around her in a single sweeping glance. A tiny, cramped medical bay, with a single articulating arm on the ceiling and barely enough space for two cots. Still on the Wing of Midnight. But there was something that wasn’t still on—her right leg.
The limb was no longer olive-green, but simple white, with articulations down its length in roughly similar places to those on her other leg. The graft itself was rapid and clumsy, the kind that would’ve had all sorts of ugly scars if her fur didn’t grow back. Fascinated, Olivia turned the hoof to face her, and touched the edge with her still-natural leg. That one was thickly bandaged, but no more. At least I didn’t lose them both.
“I didn’t have anything better for you,” Forerunner’s voice spoke from the wall. “I only stocked parts for emergencies. We can grow a proper replacement when this is over. Replace the whole leg.”
“I want some fucking morphine,” Olivia croaked, slumping back down onto the cot and closing her eyes. “And something for my head.”
The lights went back down, changing to a dull red except around the “open door” button. The throbbing in Olivia’s head subsided a little, particularly when she was on her back.
“No morphine,” Forerunner said. “You suffered a minor stroke during our acceleration. I’ve repaired the damage as best I can, but you’ll have a strict regimen of medication and a scan every hour for the next three days.”
That explains my head. There were reasons that those with serious injuries weren’t fighter pilots. The body often didn’t respond well to being crushed.
“I notice we’re still alive,” Olivia croaked after a minute of silence. “Where are we? Docked with the Emperor’s Soul?”
“No. I found somewhere for us to hide for the time being. It’s nowhere near danger.”
That’s fucking vague. Olivia grumbled. “And what’s the plan? When are we getting our people back?”
Forerunner sounded slightly frustrated. “None has yet been determined. I have proposed several, but our governor is unhappy with all of them. She has been waiting for you to recover to make a decision.”
Now that she’s over her head, my replacement wants my advice. Wants someone else to feel guilty when this goes wrong. “Tell her to figure it out herself. I’m not in charge anymore.”
“Very well,” Forerunner said. He said nothing else.
Olivia almost thought she might get away with it, until the door slid open with a rush of compressed gas. Lucky Break stood in the doorway.
She looked much the same as Olivia felt. She wore an unzipped acceleration suit, with her mane and tail a tangled mess. The smell of sweat and desperation filled the medical bay thick enough that Olivia almost started to gag.
“Hey, Major.” She stood right in the doorway, where the light of full day would blast in from around her. She practically seemed to glow. “Glad to see you’re alright.”
Olivia grunted, holding up her cheap military prosthetic. “What’s left of me, you mean.”
Lucky nodded grimly. “I’m sorry about this, Olivia,” Lucky said. And she sounded sincere.
But Olivia wasn’t going to let her. “No.” She stared down at her hooves—the one broken, the other wrapped in bandages. She could almost see her hands there. Soaked in blood all over again.
The alicorn in front of her vanished. The air cracked, and mist poured into a spot only inches away from the cot. There was a crack loud enough to bring back Olivia’s headache, and Lucky Break was standing inches away from her.
“I didn’t come here to ask, Major Fischer.” Her horn was glowing as violet as her eyes. “I’m Colonial Governor. You know what that office entails.” Her horn flashed, and at once all the screens in the room came on. Displays meant to show medical readouts now showed images of Othar from above, from several different angles. The picture was the same on all of them.
It looked as though the entire island had been torn out of the ocean, and a perfectly round section of something new had been deposited in its place. A strange landscape of fibrous trees with glowing blue leaves, of little geysers that bubbled with something cold, and water frozen where it touched the shore.
Lucky leaned close to the nearest screen, tapping it with her hoof. It zoomed in on a specific chunk of field. Olivia could make out the unmistakable shape of an Othar modular corridor emerging from within, with bits of metal and cable snapped as if by the hand of God. “This is what we’re up against, Major. Othar has been completely destroyed.”
Olivia tried to look away—but every wall just showed the destruction from another angle. Everything they had worked to protect—the war they’d fought and won with Celestia—had been lost in a day to a threat they didn’t even know.
She closed her eyes, settling her back against the cot. “We’re the strangers here,” Olivia said. “Whatever’s doing that, let the Equestrians handle it. This is their world.”
“They had someone for that, Major. We killed her. Now the carrier that is continuing eastward towards Equestria. There are fifty million people living there.” She settled something onto Olivia’s lap. It was Qingzhi’s gun, with a few new scratches from the beating it had taken during her battle. But otherwise, it looked intact.
Olivia shoved the gun back towards Lucky, glowering. “I won’t do it, Governor. I’ve spilled enough blood.” She sniffed—were those tears? Why was she crying? “I killed two people to get your fucking mom back in one piece. Probably twice as many of those damn dragon things, maybe more. I can’t keep doing this! So you can go ahead and do whatever’s in your power thanks to being Governor. You want to fucking discipline me, banish me, whatever the hell you want. Kill me, whatever. I almost ate a gun a few times, wouldn’t be that different if someone else pulled the trigger.”
Lucky was silent for several seconds. She was still younger than Olivia—yet being an alicorn made her look so much more mature. That longer horn, thinner features. Like she always knew something she never saw fit to share. Not like Melody, whose pregnancy made her look more maternal and kind than harsh and demanding.
“I already know what your punishment is,” Lucky said, once Olivia’s breathing had calmed down. “I’ll tell you everything. If you won’t help, I’ll make sure you keep learning about everything.” She leaned closer, eyes growing more intense. For an instant, Olivia imagined she saw Princess Luna in those violet eyes, the way she’d looked when she saw into Olivia’s soul. “You’re not a monster, Major.”
“Oh?” Olivia snatched the gun off her lap in a motion that took less than a second, bracing it between her leg and the wall and aiming it squarely at Lucky. “Maybe I am! Maybe I’ll pull the trigger!”
Lucky shrugged. “I don’t think so. You don’t kill because you want to. You don’t kill because you enjoy it. Look at you, Olivia. You’re crying. You’re not going to kill me.”
The gun slid down from her hoof, clattering to the floor. Olivia stared sideways at her hoof as though she’d been burned—but Lucky hadn’t done any magic.
“Lightning Dust’s suit has cameras all over it,” Lucky went on. “I saw you didn’t want to fight. I saw you do what you had to when every other option failed.”
The screens all cleared, replaced with their ordinary medical readouts. Lucky levitated the gun gently back onto the cot between them, pointed at the wall. “You want to save people. Well, I’ve got a ship full of people who need saving. Forerunner’s plans all seem great to me, but what the hell do I know about that? I got practically my whole fucking crew killed when we took out Celestia. I don’t want to do that again.” She stuck out a hoof towards Olivia. “Come on, Major. I’m not asking you to pull the trigger again if you really don’t want to. Just help me make sense of this. If you don’t, I’ll only have Forerunner’s ideas to go on. He’s great, but he’s also an inhuman intelligence who fundamentally fails to understand us. He threw generations of us into the grinder because he thought that would lead him to a swifter victory. He’d have done that for a thousand more if he had to.” She leaned in close, voice getting desperate. “Most of him was in Othar. 92%, to be precise. Maybe 8% of him is still worth 200% of us, but I’m not so sure. It’ll take him a long time to heal. I need someone intact. Someone who’s fought wars like this before.”
Olivia sighed. She looked back at the gun, at its three empty cylinders. There were still three bullets left in there. She had plenty more—in Othar. Along with so much else that was ash. She held up her prosthetic. “I’m not intact either.”
Lucky actually laughed. Not for very long. “Why don’t you join us in ops. You can catch up, and weigh in on where we should go.”
“I don’t know why you would need me,” Olivia said. Though her resistance was crumbling. She could feel it. “I’m not… I’m not a general. This smells like it’s going to be a real war. The largest operation I ever led had two ships and fifty marines. Why would you need me when you could have Qingzhi?”
“I do have Qingzhi,” Lucky agreed. “But all he knows about Equestria comes from videos and reports. You’ve been in the trenches with us. You’ve died with us. I want you at the table, Olivia, that’s all. Is that so much to ask?”
Olivia took back the gun.
Sarah didn’t even want to think about how fast they were moving. The bones of Sanctuary zipped past with such incredible speed that she could barely even see them—yet their little patch of liquid felt almost still by comparison. She could see the outside world blurring past, but her own little slice of it was calm and still.
And a good thing too. She had no doubt that if they had just been put into a tube and accelerated, that eventually she would’ve bumped against a wall. Moving this fast, she had no doubt that she’d be smeared into red stardust on the very first strike.
James sure did push his luck, though. He was doing the SeaWorld equivalent of pacing back and forth, going from agitated to staring at her and back to agitated. “How far away do you think it’s taking us?”
“Dunno,” Sarah answered. “We’re a billion light years from Earth. What else matters?”
“Not a billion. Fifty thousand. And that’s not what I mean. That place is gone forever. Even if Earth is still around—even if Martin’s right and it’s a fucking party around the sun, who cares? It’s been ages. I’m sure it took more than fifty thousand years to get out this far. It’ll take at least that long to get back. This is our home.” He looked down at his tail, flicking it in agitation. “A world where we seem to be going for maximum coverage of mythical creatures. I’m at six, how many spots do you have on your bingo card?”
Sarah grunted. “I’m running at… oh, look here. It says: James should shut the fuck up. Funny.” She’d been hoping the sound of transport would make it impossible for them to communicate. No such luck.
Are we slowing down? Sarah swam to the edge, where the flow of fluid towards the center of their pocket grew so fast that she couldn’t escape it. She could still see through it fine, though her echolocation was utterly blinded by the confusing wash of liquid in all directions.
Yes, that was it. The walls seemed to be moving slower now, at least based on where the edge of James’s light managed to cut through the turbid flow. We’ve been in here for at least an hour. There can’t be much ring left.
A few seconds later and she could feel the pressure up against her, though how she wasn’t just slammed backwards or crushed against it Sarah couldn’t have said. Their invisible capsule of liquid shrunk a little, and she was briefly jolted into a curve. A few seconds with the walls terrifyingly close, until they abruptly came to a stop.
The room was tiny compared to the vast passages they’d been traversing before, maybe twenty meters across and five meters high. They’d come in from “above,” though with no clear sense of gravity Sarah couldn’t be certain of which ways were actually up and down at this point.
At least until the liquid started draining. She heard the rush from below them, and darted down towards the fine mesh of holes.
“That doesn’t seem good,” James said, swimming rapidly up. But not fast enough to make it to the shaft before it sealed closed over their heads.
“Sarah, that’s air out there!” he said, voice quavering. Barely loud enough for it to carry over the drain. “We can’t breathe that anymore Sarah! What should we do?”
The cylinder was already half-dry. “Uh…” She settled against the bottom, trying to relax. “Trust this place not to suffocate us, I guess. We changed when we jumped in the water, maybe now is where we change back.”
James swam up against the water level, as though by pushing against the surface he could somehow keep it from draining. But the fluid was low enough now that it had started to swirl, carrying Sarah along with it in a gentle circle around the edge of the round room. She didn’t fight it, just twisted her fins every few seconds to stop from getting dragged along the metal.
James smacked into her from above as the water got low. She felt one of her fins emerge into the black air, and felt it burn as the air touched against it. James flopped and panicked beside her, making a complete ass of himself and hitting her with his dumb tail at least once.
Then the liquid was gone, and Sarah’s gills stopped working. She couldn’t help it—she flopped around too, gasping and coughing. Lungfulls of something green oozed out of her mouth with each hacking cough, spreading pain through her throat and head as she did so.
Time became meaningless.
Then she woke up.
Immediately Sarah glanced down at herself, afraid she might’ve transformed into some still-greater horror. Maybe this time she would be floating through ethane gas as some kind of hideous blimp-creature.
But no, as it turned out. She was just herself again, a blue-gray bat with half her clothes missing and a pair of tight saddlebags. The stupid cutie mark was back, her wings were back. Everything was as it should be.
She squeaked quietly to herself, illuminating the space around her. The same cylindrical room, except that there was an opening at the end. She could feel warmth coming from within, and smell something pungent. Aromatic, like sage mixed with mortar oil. There were sounds too. Not quite voices, but similar.
I sure hope Discord gave you the implant too, James. Or this is about to be a short trip for you.
There was a stallion unconscious on the ground beside her, moaning faintly in discomfort. “You haven’t had a bad trip,” Sarah said, rising to her hooves and shaking herself out.
It wasn’t a question.
“A bad… I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He rolled onto his back, showing off entirely too much for Sarah’s liking.
“Forget it,” she said, turning away. “We lived. That’s step one. Now we’re ready for step two. Prevent and/or survive a civil war. Make friends with the locals. Get some help for Othar.”
“For the smoking crater of Othar,” James muttered, before rolling back onto his hooves and rising shakily. However much the person might be weaker than she was, his body would be as sturdy as hers.
“It’s so dark,” he muttered, and she could make out a slight twinge of fear to it. “I think my horn is shot from glowing all the way here.” It sparked violet a few times, before going right back out again. “Yeah. I think I pulled a horn muscle. Let me… get my surface…”
She clicked a few more times, less consciously. She could feel James reaching to the side to undo the saddlebags and start rummaging around inside them. His sounds helped highlight everything she couldn’t feel with her own.
Then he stopped, turning to stare at her. “What’s that noise? What are you doing?”
She blushed, ears flattening. Then she realized he was blind. “Well, I’m a bat. I think it might be some kind of… echolocation?”
“Damn, you can do that?” He sounded envious. “Maybe I got the short end of the genetic lottery with magic after all.”
She kept clicking. It was high-pitched, and not quite as loud as whispering. Unless she wanted it to carry further away. “Well, I might have to guide you until you get your horn working again. But since we’re meeting a local contact, not lighting the place up unnaturally might be a good idea.”
“I’ve got the computation surface here, one more second…”
Their bags were dry, even through to their contents. Though as Sarah looked, she could see that the little tablet computer wasn’t going to be lighting up again. The screen was caved in along the front, its flat face a spider’s web of discolored lines. It didn’t so much as flash when he pressed the activation.
“Well shit,” he said, dropping the broken computer at his hooves. “We’re screwed now.”
“Eh. We weren’t going to be able to use our own hardware to call home anyway, even if it did work. We’re inside something made of metal and rock and bazillions of kilometers away from home. No satellite is going to get to us down here.”
James grunted his disagreement, though he didn’t actually say anything. At least not until he’d fastened the saddlebags closed again. “I think… I think I need help putting them on,” he finally said. “The straps are small enough that I can barely grab them with these boxing glove limbs. But now I can’t even see what I’m grabbing. Does your echolocation show you small details like that?”
Sarah resisted the temptation to make a joke about his anatomy, but didn’t quite manage to suppress a giggle. “Sure, I’ll take care of it. Hold still.”
She made her way over, then slid the saddlebags back into place. It was almost as good as being able to see. Perhaps the information she was getting was a little out of date. When he moved, his limbs were always just slightly different to her ears than she could feel. But it was close. Close enough that she could almost ignore the blackness in front of her eyes.
I’m down here so deep that if I fail or get lost I might never see anything bright ever again.
But she couldn’t let herself think about that. Failure wasn’t an option for her—it almost never had been. Death waited on the other end of a mistake—death in a lonely prison, death by an angry john, death by starvation, death when her neuroimprint got deleted for good.
It’s not hard to walk the edge. I can do it a little longer.
“I guess you should stay close to me,” Sarah said, though her reluctance was obvious. “There might be drops to worry about, or dangerous machines, or God knows what else.” She stretched out a wing, so that it touched his shoulder. “There. You follow my wing. If I stop, you stop. Get it?”
“Yeah,” he grunted in obvious annoyance. “I get it.”
There was a steep slope just outside, and immediately Sarah could feel something growing on the metal. If she could see, it might’ve looked like a curtain of moss and creeping feelers, reaching towards the open doorway. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel them pulse slightly against her sound. As though they were alive, and knew what she was doing.
Nothing I can do about that, really. Please don’t kill us.
The corridor narrowed up ahead, so that it was just barely far enough across for a pony. Sarah did fine, but James had to stoop again. Larger ponies like Melody wouldn’t have stood a chance of fitting in here.
“So what the hell is going on?” James asked, after they’d been walking for maybe five minutes. “We’re walking on something soft. Are we climbing a hill in an invisible forest?”
“No.” Sarah frowned to herself, thinking of how she would answer. “This is… looks like some kind of accessway. Maybe whatever passes for a maintenance corridor on Sanctuary.”
James looked away from her. She saw a few faint sparks from his horn again, so bright against the void around them that she was almost blinded. “Warn me when you’re going to do that!” she squeaked. Then a little more quietly. “And maybe don’t until we figure out what’s going on. I know changelings don’t use light—maybe they’ll be so sensitive to it that they all fly down here and murder us.”
“Sure.” At least he had the grace to sound embarrassed. “Sorry about that. I thought… but I guess not.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t give him a chance to continue.
It looked like their endless captivity in hallways was about to end—up ahead was an empty space large enough that their voices weren’t echoing back. There were plenty of other sounds returning from within—though she couldn’t really place any of them.
“I don’t understand why anyone would want a species that lives in the dark,” James went on. “It’s not like we’re constrained. They could put up lights if they wanted. This isn’t some hyperdense atmosphere, or… I dunno. Whatever conditions would call for a species that didn’t see. I’m sure they’re out there, but the maintenance on their own ring doesn’t count.”
Sarah glared at him for a few seconds, but it didn’t do anything. He just kept on talking. “Power saving isn’t an issue. They have enough energy for a fake sun. A few LEDs tucked away down here is nothing compared to that. Guess it could be behavioral manipulation. Maybe they don’t want anyone to live down here, and so they just make it as hard as possible. Though… there’s atmosphere. That means they spent effort.”
Sarah stopped walking at the doorway, hissing at him under her breath. “Quiet for a second. I’m trying to see.” She squeaked again, as loudly as she dared. The ground extended as far as her sound would go, almost perfectly flat. Massive pillars broke the space almost like the trunks of gigantic trees, except that they had fleshy trunks and no leaves she could hear.
She couldn’t hear the ceiling, or any walls. As far as she could tell, this space went on forever.
But there was one sound she hadn’t been expecting. A pony-sized figure, hiding behind one of the nearer trunks. Whatever it was, it had sensed them, because it was moving now. Crouched low near the stalk, though not hiding exactly. It wasn’t completely behind the trunk.
They’re all blind down here. Everything probably works different.
“Hello?” Sarah called, even surprising herself. “D-Discord sent us. We’re the ones you were waiting for.”
That did it. The figure darted out from where it was concealed, running straight at them. Sarah squeaked in surprise, and she could see a little more of the stranger. She was about the same shape as a pony, except that she didn’t have a soft coat to ease her edges. She was made of something hard, with fins on her head and back. The shape was feminine, or at least what passed for it with ponies.
Not the same species, but not that different either. Discord was worried over nothing. If we got along with ponies, these aliens can’t be much harder. It’s just a different color body paint and some different stuff on their faces, that’s all.
The shape barreled right up to her, and suddenly Sarah could smell something. A complex combination of aromas, none of which she could easily describe. She felt something from her tail—entirely without thinking, she’d made her own smells. A little like the one she was smelling, but with some subtle differences.
The stranger stopped whatever she’d been about to do, apparently satisfied. “That is incredible,” said a voice—a voice that was strangely compressed, with a subtle vibrato. “He said he could bring ponies to help. I knew what you say about him on the surface, but I didn’t believe… you’re actually here. And safe. You aren’t going to draw the hive down on us.”
She turned slightly, facing James now. The alien smell got stronger again. Somehow Sarah knew it wasn’t a question for her, and so she didn’t repeat the strange experience from before. Her tail still felt a little damp near the base, and wrung out. Like eating lots of sour candy in a short time might feel for her mouth.
James’s scent didn’t change. Just the subtle background that told Sarah ‘healthy male’ every time she inhaled. Mixed with the stale battery acid of whatever they had swam through.
“We’re here for… diplomacy or something?” James said. “Maybe you can… take us to your leader? I think that’s the sort of thing we’re supposed to say.”
Their strange companion let out a trilling sound, like a hive of bees might make if you tossed it into a river. “You still smell so… you’re wrong, whoever you are. He didn’t fix you. Only one is… this is bad.” She sounded to Sarah like she was deciding between tearing out James’s throat or running away.
But neither won, and she just made her annoyed sound again. “Follow me, visitors. I was…” She straightened. “…prepared for this. We will fill the shape needed of us.”
“What did she say?” James sounded pained, confused. “That isn’t… I thought I knew Eoch.”
Sarah didn’t get a chance to respond. Their guide had started running. So suddenly that Sarah was almost left behind. “Come on!” she shouted to James. “Follow me as close as you can! It’s flat here, no rocks to trip on… but you might run into a weird… tree-thing… if you get too far away.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice concerned. “What the hell is she saying?”
“Come on!” the voice called again from up ahead. “We don’t have much time! If they haven’t smelled him already, they will soon…”
They couldn’t go as fast as their guide obviously wanted, but Sarah did her best to keep up without losing James in the process. What is your game, Discord? You didn’t just send him to get killed. We’re immortal, you even said so. It seems like an awful lot of trouble to just make him or me upset…
At least they didn’t have far to go. The bizarre leafless forest wasn’t as flat as it appeared near the entrance. A little further on, and Sarah could hear gigantic, slimy features up ahead—so large she almost couldn’t imagine them. Mountains of something slimy and gelatinous, stuck fast by the power of whatever the treelike things were. And stuck into the side of one of them was a door.
“Quick, in here!” their guide urged, holding the trapdoor open with one hoof. A surprisingly intricate bit of steel for a world devoid of light.
Except that it wasn’t. There was a faint glow coming from in the burrow, a soft blue that was so distant she couldn’t see its source. But considering the depths they’d been trapped in until now, she’d take it. “We don’t even know your name!” Sarah squeaked, stopping by the door and waiting for James to catch up. From the look of it he’d tripped more than once, or maybe smacked his head into something. But he made it, and he hurried through the doorway first.
Sarah followed behind him, feeling a growing sense of dread. She hadn’t actually seen any evidence that they were being followed yet. Was the danger a ruse of some kind? This creature didn’t sound like she was conning them, but she also didn’t sound like anyone Sarah had ever known. It was possible that alien voices could hide things that a human tongue could not.
And sweet lord, that smell. Whatever their guide had dug her shelter into, Sarah had no trouble figuring out why there wasn’t much competition for the space. Not rot, exactly. More like an old junkyard, burning tires and old oil and sulfur. Sarah prodded one of the walls with a nervous hoof, and found it wasn’t sticky. Like a mountain of asphalt long dried, with just a slight give to it.
“We don’t even know your name,” she repeated, stopping right on the other side. The tunnel was low, requiring poor James to crawl to stop his horn from scraping on the ceiling. Their guide was a smaller species than ponies, though probably not by that much.
The creature smacked the door shut, then rotated a complex locking mechanism, extending heavy beams from the center so they sunk into the slime. Then she spun. “Inside. Better to see, particularly for ponies. I know you’re nervous about feeling your way.”
“Sure.”
Sarah moved to the side, just barely large enough near the front for two of them. “Lead the way.”
It wasn’t really leading. James was in front. But at least this way the changeling wouldn’t be able to get away if she wanted to lead them into danger.
Their guide didn’t object, sliding past Sarah with no regard for personal space. Her ears hadn’t lied to her—the creature was smooth to the touch, with joints in unexpected places and a segmented body like an insect. But no sooner had she started moving than she was already past her, and they were crawling down into the depths.
It wasn’t a long trip. Maybe twenty meters down, and it opened into a single room living space—more like a shelter than a home. There was a pile of bedding in one corner, and a makeshift table and low seats apparently carved right from whatever they were climbing through. A truly ancient metal crate, overflowing with rust and with several bolts missing.
The center of the room was occupied with a pot full of earth, and a few little mushrooms glowed faintly there.
“We made it,” the changeling said, settling back on her haunches and looking relieved. “There’s no way they’ll find you in here. Once we have to leave…” But she left whatever came after unsaid.
She was surprisingly pretty. Not like some parasitic black bug, as Sarah had imagined her—more like a dragonfly. Delicate, transparent wings that fractured into different blues. Bug-like eyes, and a soft pastel shell whose real color she couldn’t be sure of in the blue glow. “I’m Ocellus,” she said. “Welcome to my family’s kingdom.”
So I've got a really fun piece of fanart to share after this chapter, but it's not the kind you're probably expecting. Cloud Hop composed this awesome song inspired by this story, and I thought more people should get a chance to check it out.
Stats
Page generated in 0.024 seconds
Total duration
962 users online
56,180 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
didnt expect ocellus
wonder how shes doing in this universe
8975852
She's living in a makeshift hovel in the bowels of the earth where there's no light and she's constantly in fear of being discovered and killed. So probably not the best.
So glad to see that song finally done. Its sounds fantastic!
That is not a conventional weapon. The trees with the blue leaves make me think of Poison Joke. Is the carrier armed with some kind of mass transformation ray? At least now the Storm King can't grab tech for himself, assuming he's particularly interested in any.
8975852
Um... I don't recognise that name. Is she from another story? Does this fall under the category of 'Stuff I should know already' or not?
I don't blame him--sea ponies are hot.
8976162
considering shes a canon character it probably falls under 'Stuff I should know already'
8976162
Ocellus is a changeling from Thorax's colony introduced in the season 8 premiere.
8976162
You watch any of Season 8 yet? Ocellus is the Changeling that's part of Twilight's school.
8976162
Ocellus is a canon character from Season 8. I’m guessing that you haven’t watched any of season 8 yet, then.
8976162
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/9/9b/Ocellus_ID_S8E1.png
Are blood thinners good idea for someone who was pretty seriously wounded, just had surgery and currently has bursted blood vessel inside her brain?
Dang, Othar is in bad shape.
Is it time to consider whether or not that might have been a mistake? Assassinating someone who is both a head of state as well as some variety of demigod may have unforeseen consequences, who could have guessed.
Ooooo, Ocellus, I like it. And that (probably) tells us which faction Discord sent help to.
Well. Crap. I don't know where the Storm King got such big guns, but this just got a lot harder and more complicated. They need Olivia. Heck, they need every edge they can get.
And then there's how Celestia's death will factor into this conflict. Assuming this is the first time the Storm King is making a move on Equestria—seems to be the case given Tempest—then there may only be three alicorns in Canterlot at the moment. Celestia isn't there to point Twilight towards Novo. Twilight herself might face some trauma triggers if she sees alicorns getting petrified. And that's assuming there aren't any other surprises in store...
As for Ocellus, l don't even know where to begin in that speculation. Fascinating stuff. Eagerly looking forward to more.
8976017
It definitely appears to be terraforming technology, though the low temperatures make it seem more like they remade the biome to better fit the yeti soldiers' home.
8977675
Why does it matter? Seemingly Alicorns are fucking useless anyway. I don't see what Celestia would be good for other than cannon fodder like the rest of them.
8979138
I though everyone could become an Alicorn now?
If there's one thing equestria won't be in short supply it's princesses.
Iceing the island is interesting. And scary.
James is going to be trouble. Hopefully not too much that it messes up her mission. :-/
technicolor deers
Okay... this is starting to get confusing. I was under the impression that several years had passed by since Lightning Dust got booted from the Wonderbolts. Add to the fact that
Daughter of C'ThulhuFlurry Heart is in her mid to late teens, apparently, and this seems to take place maybe 15-18 years after Season 7.5. (the movie) So why only now is the Storm King attacking? Also, did Twilight never set up her school? The Hippogryphs? Too many questions!Wait where did he hear that word
Fuck.
Cutie!
9194358
AU tag, my dude. If you paid attention you'd know that most of the show happened differently than the whitewashed stuff we got. This entire fic is in an alternate reality to the show.
I mean, the person inside is kind of based on the same imprint
Cyber replacement?
What the hell
Oh, oof. So while he made an off-site "forerunner probe" backup, their own Forerunner instance's data was still housed in Othar. I guess it's safest if the backup probe doesn't have traceable communications to the city.
Eh? She said before that after firing the gun once, she still had six bullets...
Ha.
Oh? I thought they said the image of Earth they got was eight thousand years out of date. Shouldn't it be eight thousand light years then?
Okay, let's see... unicorns, pegasi, dragons, griffins, minotaurs... dunno if alicorns really count; they're just a combination of the first two. So what else is there that they have already met?
Oof. I'm sure Forerunner informed you of the scale of this thing.
Heh. I guess if the 'water' was a transformation potion, there's no reason to assume the same can't be done wit the 'air' down here
Ha.
Then you shouldn't have used it all the time, dumbass
Ha, small details.
Knowing Forerunner's pragmatism, all he'd do is reassign her to a more suitable default role, though. As he did with this individual instance
Hmm. All very good points, actually. Nice to see that same analytical mind we've seen on Lucky bubble back up in this instance.
I'm assuming Sarah is here for her quick talking, and James is here for his ability to look into the future, which is something Sarah doesn't seem to bother with very much.
An industrial area, I'm guessing. Yea, the ring is bound to have that.
Odd that a species communicating with smells would take residence in an area with olfactory pollution though.
Ha. Try not to flirt with her too fast, Sarah
Oooh. Ocellus!
