CRY HAVOC
“Sister! Is everything alright?”
“T-tia?” Luna turned her tear-stained face to meet Celestia and the six other ponies.
Celestia picked picked up her sister from the ground, looking her in the eyes. “What’s the matter? Have you found Fluttershy?”
“T-that’s just it,” Luna hiccuped. “I heard her not ten minutes ago, but when I l-looked around the garden… she was gone! captured by changelings!” She pointed at a small piece of hive material on the ground. “Barely even a trace left! Not even a chance of tracking her captors down, or even a single lead to find where she could possibly be!”
Suddenly Luna was enveloped in a hug. “Oh Luna, my dear sweet sister, I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner… We’ll be able to find them. Somepony must have noticed them, it’s impossible not to.”
Luna sniffled, comforted little by what she heard. “But how will I ever be able to pay my debt to her or her friends if they who wish to do them harm keep slipping by right under my nose…?”
“Luna, that wasn’t your fault, and neither is this, alright?”
Twilight was confused. “Debt?”
“Y-yes, my payment of my debt,” Luna explained. “T’would be most unjust to do nothing after you all rescued me from the darkness within my heart...”
“No Luna, You don’t have to repay us for saving you! Besides, we don’t have any time to deal with this, we’ve got a pony to rescue.”
Luna, being a princess, knew how to hide her real emotions, and quickly took action to regain a dignified look. “I disagree about it being necessary, but I do believe we must get searching.” She stood up, and the ponies began their search.
“Found them!” Pinkie jubilantly cried.
“...What?” Twilight asked.
“Over there!” Pinkie pointed somewhere outside the garden.
“Ah don’t see nothin’ but some darker colored ponies.” Applejack said.
“Of course not!”
“...Beg your pardon?” Rarity asked.
“Of course not!” Pinkie repeated.
“Darling, I knew what you said, but why?”
“Duh! Perception filter! They look uninteresting because they’re making themselves look uninteresting!”
“I--What?” Twilight stuttered.
“Hold on Twilight, Let’s give it a shot.” Celestia urged.
Twilight half heartedly agreed. “Right… Go ahead, Pinkie.”
“Oki doki loki, Look reeal closely...”
So they all did. Suddenly, changelings. It was like a blindfold was removed from their eyes, or a curtain was opened, no longer blocking the window to what was real.
“...Okay then, Let’s say hi.”
One by one, the snuck up, Celestia leading in front.
---
“AHH, GIRLS HELP!!” Twilight squealed before about half a dozen changelings proceeded to smother her in hard chitin The other ponies stared in absolute shock at how quickly Twilight was tackled to the ground. They could hear her screams of terror, her pleas for mercy, muffled from beneath the ruthless swarm, and when they finally struck, her...giggling?
“Hee hee hee-- no, stop! T-t-too much tickling--ahh ha ha ha hah!!” Poor Twilight writhed under the onslaught of changeling nymphs who were not soon intent on ceasing their tickling, nibbling or vicious belly rubs. Her panicked laughter brought tears down her cheeks in a perfect suffering that only a victim of tickle torture knew. Every little movement was met with retaliation of another barrage of tickles.
It took her several long seconds to remember she had a horn. A flash of magic (from the spots where there was an absence of changelings) and She had successfully left behind a pile of confused, still giggling nymphs. Fluttershy rushed over to Twilight’s side. “Twilight, are you alright?? That just looked awful!”
Twilight dusted herself off. “Got a bruised ego, but I think I’m fine. Anyway, I think we need to jump into full gallop before they figure out where I--meep!” Before she could finish her sentence, the changeling nymphs did indeed find her, and had taken another leap at her. With some quick thinking, Twilight created a shield to block them. With a series of thumpity bump sounds, the changelings bounced off the shield, and the two ponies under it were on the run.
Suddenly, Celestia and Luna were snagged up, along with the other five ponies, In Twilight’s magic, making a beeline for the other side of the field.
“Twi, what the hay are you doin’?!” Applejack yelped, trying to hold on to her hat.
“I have no idea!” Twilight yelled back, eventually letting go of her friends so they could run on their own. “If you’ve got an idea with how to get changeling foals off our tails, I’m all ears!”
“Nymphs!” Pinkie shouted
“Same thing!” Twilight yelled back in irritation.
“Well Shoot, Twilight! They’re children!” Applejack continued, running right along beside her. “And playful ones at that! We gotta tire them out before they tire us out!”
“You want me to play with them?!” Twilight yelled. “I’m not sure if you remember that there’s a bug pony queen on the loose, and I don’t have time for that!!”
“I didn’t say anythin’ about us playin’ with them! Just make a distraction!”
“I gooot iiiit!!” Pinkie sing-songed, suddenly taking a left turn, much to the confusion of the other ponies.
“Pinkie!” Rarity called. “Shouldn’t you be more worried about the changelings than running around--”
“Working on it! Look at all these cocoons!!”
Twilight growled in frustration. “Pinkie, we don’t have the time to let the class of ponies out of their cocoons when there’s a freaking changeling queen on the loose!!”
“Twilight, could you get over here and use your unicorn magic on them?”
“Pinkie, I just--uugh, fine...” With her horn magic, Twilight instantaneously teleported them all to the cocoons. Unfortunately, what was not noticed was that Chrysalis was still right there, faithfully guarding the cocoons to make sure her leverage was secure. The girls froze for a moment, sans Pinkie, who busied herself with knocking on a cocoon.
“Hello again,” Chrysalis said. “Trying to ruin my plans for country wide domination?”
The ponies gawked. “Man, she’s not even subtle anymore,” Rainbow said.
It was expected that Chrysalis would have been irritated or even angry at Rainbow’s quip, such being understood from the looks of shock from the ponies around her. They all understood that the one thing you don’t do is bug an evil changeling intent on conquering the world… for a third time.
Yet as they all watched and waited for the tragic moment when Rainbow became a skittles-smear on the freshly cut grass, the evil bug-pony queen simply smiled a sinister little smile, shaking her head and approaching Twilight. “It’s just never quite so easy as finding the ‘big bad’ and tripping them up during their little monologue, is it?” She reached with a hoof to touch Twilight’s chin. It was difficult for Celestia to not jump in front and push away Chrysalis herself. “Shame that life never works that way in the real world, you must be disappointed that I thought ahead of you.”
“Don’t touch me!” Twilight yelled, slapping the hoof away. “What the hay is your plan, anyway-- to use kids to capture our country??”
“Actually, yes!”
“...What?”
Chrysalis giggled. “Behind you.”
“No seriously, what’re you talking abou--AAHH!”
How very inconvenient it was that a little changeling decided to leap onto the back of her head and chew on her ear. Twilight’s initial reaction was to do the least productive thing for getting a changeling nymph off of her; which happened to be running in a straight line.
Twilight’s friends (and the princesses) tried desperately to catch up on poor Twilight, who was shrieking “Get it off!!” at the top of her lungs.
“Doggone it, if only I had my rope...” Applejack growled. “Whatever happened to other ponies helpin’ out and keeping these varmints under control?”
“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure we have magic!” Rainbow replied. “Princess, can’t you just grab that changeling from her head?!”
“Sorry, I’d rather not hurt anypony if I don’t have to!”
“But it’s a changeling!”
“IT’S A CHILD!!” They all shouted at once.
“Alright, fine!”
Celestia, of course, was trying to rectify the situation herself, along with keeping certain that she didn’t run out of breath from all this running. Sure, she could grab the changeling from her head, but what if when she pulled, The nymph still had a grip on Twilight’s ear? Sure they could regrow it, but losing an ear is quite painful, and it’s expensive to fix. The changeling could probably take a sudden drop onto the floor, but it’s in poor taste to be careless about any children at all.
Celestia tapered off to the side, looking behind her to see where she was in comparison with the nymphs, the queen, and the Chrysalises.(-) The changelings were close behind, Chrysalis still in the same spot, guarding the cocoons.
“Hey Princess!! I’m gonna try to crack one of these open!”
Oh, and Pinkie was there too. Celestia took to the skies, a few other changelings following along behind her. Her point of action was to attempt an aerial evasion, get the changelings off her tail, and eventually rescue the pony class from their fate. Speaking of “off her tail”...
“Ouch! Would you quit pulling so hard?!” Celestia scolded at a particularly mischievous nymph on said tail. Of course, she was entirely aware that this wouldn’t possibly work, but can you blame a pretty pony princess for trying?
“I’m sorry!” The nymph cried, spitting out the tail. “I was just playing, honest!”
“Just be careful next time, do you understand?”
“Yes, miss...” The nymph flew off, apparently to tell the others. Well, that went quite swimmingly, she thought. It appeared that her authoritative stance and statements managed to be effective with anyone, including children.
Wait, what? That shouldn’t have worked at all. They weren’t her subjects, for what reason would they answer to a random stranger like her? Especially since she dropped her connection with the sun, and now looked completely unrecognizable to what she was beforehand.
Celestia pushed that thought away for now, focusing on the task at hand: Rescue the ponies (and perhaps poor Twilight while she was at it). The princess took a dive to the right, turning towards the cocoons. The changelings followed suit, taking a harder turn to the right in hopes of cutting her off. A sound strategy, if she wasn’t at least twice as big as all of them. Swiftly she drove herself through the cloud of changelings like a wedge, pushing them aside and clearing the other end of the group. She was so close again, she could barely take it. Twilight could wait, she had a score to settle.
---
Twilight in the meantime continued running in one direction, Lepidos desperately clinging on behind. The purple pony was panicked, and so was the nymph. This was not a good combination in the slightest. “Slow down!!” She yelled. “I can’t hold on!!”
“Get it off me!!”
“Pegacorn, Please slow down!! I’m scared!!”
Unfortunately, the pegacorn was not willing to listen, such was her panic of having a changeling latched on to the back of her head. Twilight much prefered being stuck in the pile of changeling nymphs than the vicegrip on her head. She bucked, kicked and shook her head, along with flapping her wings to generate inertia. She knew this reaction was irrational, but Twilight was never the rational sort of pony anyway, at least in the sense of charting out a proper plan in the face of the unpredictable.
“PEGACORN, LOOK OUT!!”
The pegacorn didn’t open her eyes in time. Twilight had somehow turned herself around at some point during her full-bore-linear-panic and THWACK. Her sprint had came to an abrupt stop, sending searing pain across her face for a brief instant, before everything went black. Lepidos’ forward momentum stopped only briefly later when she bumped into the castle wall, rolling back to a stop. The nymph rubbed her head as the other ponies finally caught up with Twilight.
“Oh no!! Pegacorn, are you alright??” She rushed over to the pegacorn, who had a rather large bump on her head and tongue sticking out on one side. Lepidos tried to rouse the pegacorn by jostling her body, but it was of little use to wake her. Lepidos assumed the worst. “I...I killed her… Did I kill her??”
“No, you didn’t kill her, Lepidos, It’s okay!” Fluttershy said as a wing wrapped around her.
“I--huh?” Lepidos turned to see five ponies behind her, each with a varying look of concern or distrust
“She’ll be quite fine little one,” Luna said, joining the nymph with another wing. “it takes a lot more than that to injure a pony.”
Lepidos cringed. She knew these large pegacorns were liars. “Y-you’re just saying that to make me feel better...”
Luna sighed, tapping a hoof. “Applejack?”
“...Yeah?”
“Am I telling the truth?”
“Yep.”
Lepidos considered this. “...Okay.”
“I suppose we both can agree that this has gone too far?” Luna asked as she lifted Twilight’s limp body upon her back.
“...Yeah.”
Luna smiled. It was a warm, pleasant smile that made Lepidos feel happy and even loved. This was far different from what Mommy had taught her about big pegacorns like her. Of course, this could be an exception, not the rule, but Lepidos had a couple of doubts set into her mind from this. It made her conflicted.
Luna had paid no mind to this, simply turning around and gazing towards the gardens once more. “We should regroup with your...Siblings, correct?”
Lepidos nodded, still certain that the pony was lying.
“Yes, with your siblings, because unfortunately, I think playtime is over now, considering somepony got hurt.”
“Huh? But you said she was alright!”
“‘is’ and ‘will be’ are two very different things.” Of course; it’s in their nature to bend the truth, isn’t it? “Now come along, I’m sure your playmates want you back.”
“It’s a cult...”
Luna chuckled, leading her by a wing. “I know full well what a cult is, and a bunch of little children is hardly grounds for some name so negative as a--” Her words were cut off by a sudden explosion. Smoldering wreckage fell from the skies in flecks of dirt and ash. “What in the name of...”
Fluttershy clung tightly to the changeling nymph, who eagerly accepted the comfort, also startled by the loud explosion. “W-wh-what was that?!” Lepidos whimpered.
Luna scowled. “Oh Celestia, you foalish idiot… Why did you decide to do that?”
Rarity, who was only just now finished straightening out her hair, turned her head in confusion. “Beg your pardon princess… But what did she do?”
Luna pointed somewhere to the left of the gardens, where there was an extraordinarily large divot in the ground. uprooted trees were scattered nearby, flowers were crushed, and the grass further away from what was assumed to be the epicenter of an explosive blast was now a crispy brown color. And there in the center was the face of wrath itself, staring down a worried looking queen. Pinkie Pie was by no fault of her own on the wrong end of it.
“It appears that our princess of the day has let slip the dogs of war.” Rarity stated in shock.
“Dogs of war?” Rainbow asked.
“Never you mind that!” Luna shouted. “We need to get over there before Pinkie Pie gets hurt, or worse!”
Lepidos heard not even a single word of it. Her attention was focused on one thing, and one thing only. “...Mommy?”
The changeling nymph shot out from the wings of the pegasus and princess, doing only what she must for the sake of her family. A yellow hoof tried to pull her back, but it was too weak compared to her desperation.
“Lepidos, wait!!”
“Rainbow Dash, go after her, right now!”
Stats
Page generated in 0.043 seconds
Total duration
819 users online
1,274,003 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.®
So, ah, there appear to be an alignment problem somewhere in the middle of that.
5588422 Never mind, I got it.
I've completely lost any semblance of understanding what the heck is going on.
I think I'll store this store to be re-read later, when you finish your rewriting.
5590456 You can see it happening, though, can't you?
In fact... you can see nothing else... by my power that mental image shall be BURNED INTO YOUR VERY SOUL FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES!!! MUWAH HA HA HA!!
5593839 ...No. No, I don't.
Aand then that happened
Also, those nymphs.
5637748 Evidently better than this good sir.
And Zilferfloss! I expect more. He did a thing. Respect The Thing!
Why are the Princesses called pegacorns? The correct term is Alicorn.
learn some tact please