CH 57 (comparison)
Patchwork
Finding Spine wasn’t difficult and after a refreshing two hours long nap I felt rested enough to deal with the Prince stuff.
Since I have spent more time around Chrysalis I learned from her just as much as I tried to teach her.
One of the more important things she taught me is how to feel for individual changelings and how to identify them through their cores; a trick that I sorely needed to master. Not that it was easy, it isn’t, but I can now accurately tell a stallion apart from mares without looking at them for a solid minute… or without them speaking.
The skill did not work well over long distances with pings, but within my sensory range (roughly a hundred meters) it worked just fine.
Not to say that Spine was easy to find, courtesy of one bored Queen.
Every time I sent a ping trying to pinpoint the changeling’s Captain she would send out a ping of her own on the same frequency blurring my senses. Even worse, the pings had a strange bubbly feeling making me giddy, which told me that she has quite a bit of fun messing with me. I guess it’s good practice in the end.
Fifteen minutes of messing around with Chrysalis later I found myself looking through a recently open hole behind the castle at the open space behind the structure.
Almost three months here in the Badlands and I have NEVER checked behind the castle itself.
The area behind the castle is flat, separated into seven sections and all… most of them are chock full of various equipment, like weights, ropes, and chains?, as well as a couple of mounds of rocks of varied sizes (the smallest one being about the size of a basketball by my estimate, and the largest about my height).
There is also a large section with three obstacle courses, an unobstructed track, and an area that I assumed is meant for sparring based on six dueling circles contained within it. All of it is eerily similar to the training area I used at the academy. Well, except for the ropes and chains… I wasn’t sure about those.
The well-equipped (but clearly worn) equipment area aside from the ling I am looking for is just finishing a lap along with six other changelings. They are all slowing down, but even with a decent distance between us, I could easily see the other five lings heaving while the captain is only slightly out of breath.
Just before I decided to jump out of the hole it closed and another opened a couple of meters down.
Briefly considering going to Chrysalis and asking her to teach me how to open holes in the castle I decided against it for now jumping through the newly opened hole.
Opening my wings I buzzed loudly before making my way over to Spine. It took almost thirty seconds to reach it, the training area is larger than it seemed from my previous location. It did give me some time to look around at changelings using all the equipment strewn about. I even saw the chains being used, which immediately reminded me of an exercise I used while I was in training to build neck muscles (we used a solid dumbbell, with a slightly longer handle, and a bite guard); the changeling is holding one end of the chain in his mouth and swings it from side to side in slow, wide, and deliberate motions. It made me wonder which method is superior.
Landing a couple of meters behind the five changelings I could just catch the last order to rest before the changelings tried to disperse, only to freeze when they saw me.
“Well, you heard the Captain lads, hop to it,” I pre-empted them before they could try to bow to me as well as throwing in a smile. With a quick nod and a salute they left and I looked at Spine, “You doin’ okay Cap?” I didn’t let my smile falter when I saw his hind legs shaking.
“I’m alright, sir. I’ve been lazy for long enough though, and I have to get back into shape,” He sat down and took a deep breath pushing it out in a puff of steam through his nose.
“No offense, Spine, but I would guess that you should have given your legs a bit more time to recover before you started doing laps with them,” I gave my wings a stretch with a light buzz before sitting down in front of him.
Spine looked at his legs, wiggled his hips to settle down more comfortably, and then looked up at me, “Could use a bit more exercise, sir. Speaking of exercise, when was the last time you sparred, Prince Patch?”
The question made me consider the line of thought that Captain Spine might be on and I couldn’t disagree with him. I need to keep my training up. I haven’t actually had time to do much on my own and without any equipment, but now that I know that there is something behind the castle I should get some use out of it.
“You know… Since my fight with Husk and the work that followed I barely had time to actually spar,” I raised my left claws and scratched at my chin thoughtfully.
“Ah,” Spine jumped up, “then you wouldn’t mind humoring an old soldier for a few minutes?” He took two steps towards the sparring field and waited for me to follow.
“I wouldn’t mind a scuffle, Captain, but I am not sure you… umm…”
“I am of no delusion I could fight you in a one-on-one combat, your Highness,” His canter is steady, but I couldn’t see anything in his gait that would serve as a warning. Maybe he is actually doing better than my initial observations, “I was hoping to get a better feel of what you can do, sir, and to give you a bit of a challenge if you are okay with it?”
“Sure… but I was thinking that would have our chat about the borders with Equestria first,” I frowned when his ears suddenly flattened themselves to his skull. I tried not to have any assumptions about it.
“I can assure you, sir, the situation is well in hoof,” He didn’t sound terse, but it still stung slightly. “I have lings patrolling the edges of our border at all times and if any pony tries to cross without a good reason they will be immediately podded and brought over for questioning.”
I could feel a slight panic start to settle in my gut for a moment before I squashed it flat with a deep breath.
“Spine, I do not mind you capturing ponies that have either attacked your lings or those that are trying to cause a mess but do not pod the ponies indiscriminately,” I kept my words even, making sure that nothing negative was given away from my voice. I wasn’t upset (yet), but I did not need to take out my annoyance on him given that he spent quite a bit of time out of commission.
“Sir,” He stopped mid-step to look up at me, “were you not to one ordering us to make sure that ponies did not do anything illegal on our lands?”
“I did not order…,” I am a prince, anything I say would sound like an order, I forgot, “All I said now is that we shouldn’t just pod them without a good reason. If they attack us on sight, sure, capture them and bring them over for questioning, but if they leave without causing problems then just take their name and their cutie mark,” I reasoned, “no need to burn bridges so soon.”
“Burn bridges?” He raised an eye ridge at me and I just shook my head. Shrugging he made his way past the sparring field and towards a group of four larger lings making use of the weight area.
I stayed back while Spine talked to his soldiers, taking some time to check over where I stand in terms of sparing again.
I did not feel as indestructible as I did months ago before Husk, but there is a lingering feeling that even without my shapeshifting abilities I would be able to kick ass. Thinking of shapeshifting, I ran a quick check over my resin levels feeling a slight annoyance that I am barely a third full. Should be more than enough, given my size, but if I knew what was coming I would have eaten something.
‘Note to self, keep yourself at least half full,’ My mind briefly flashed to that jar of resin in my room. Maybe I can do something with it, like take small chunks of it in a pendant or something similar.
Returning back to reality just as Spine approached me I noticed that now there are four larger changelings behind him, three stallions and one mare. Looking at them from left to right, I just barely managed to see their elytra; brown, golden yellow, bright orange and the mare’s cover is sky blue.
“Well, sir, still interested in that spar?” Spine asked trotting past me and moving over to the sparring circles.
“Against all four of them?” I gave the four in front of me a nod and a smile which got me four sharp salutes. They made their way to the grizzled captain and I followed behind them.
“One-on-one for now,” Spine shouted out. I heard a large gulp from the, now, far-right stallion with a brown elytra, “After that, we will see. I mean, you fought the false Queen alone, I’m fairly sure one changeling is not much of a challenge.”
“She also kicked my ass in the end,” I muttered to myself. I looked over the four changelings whose backs is turned to me and asked loud enough for all of them to hear, “So what’s up with all this size increase? I heard you guys are called ‘The Smashers’ or something similar.”
I did not want to make fun of the naming conventions, especially since I spent so much time with ponies (hearing a stallion say ‘cutie-mark’ still makes me want to giggle), but ‘The Smashers’ is not a name I can take seriously.
But since I have thrown myself into work for the last two weeks I barely had time to chat about the stuff beyond modernising the changeling society. Most of the basic laws I started adding once I took over from Husk have finally settled in (a system that doesn’t rely on a royals complete presence, worker rights, removing mandatory conscription, etc.) so that means I had barely enough time to look into other stuff. I’ll have to make a list of things that are finished and that still needs to be done at some point; it’ll hopefully help me focus on the right changes and improvements that will both shorten my time here and give Chrysalis an easier workload so she can enjoy herself a little bit and get the proper help that she needs.
“I thought you and Keratin talked about it already?” Spine finally stopped near the largest of six dueling circles.
“Other than the name of the group and that Husk kept them far away from anything, he couldn’t tell me any details. He simply didn’t know,” I sat down not far from him and shrugged afterward.
“The Guard Smashers was the epitome of what a normal changeling could reach in physical power,” I entered the ring while the changeling Captain explained. I walked over to the other end standing opposite of him with the castle to my left, “At least, that was the case when we had limited access to love compared to now.”
“So, I’m guessing you can make them larger?” The mare approached first stretching her neck as she made her way over. She stood about four meters away in front of me without any visible signs of worry.
“Not in size, no. No matter how much love is poured into them I doubt they could ever get larger… But carapace strength and thickness? Stronger muscles? More of them? Now that we have love to spare we could actually experiment and see where the limits of our kind lie.”
“So as long as it's voluntary, and no one gets hurt,” I nodded towards the mare in front of me and she moved.
Opening her elytra and buzzing loudly, she hurled forward in zigzag using her legs and her wings in a burst of speed I could only see in pegasi and griffins. Her bulk seems to be more than just for show. Still, I doubt she could hold that speed for long.
She jumped left to right while closing the short distance and before I knew it, a solid hook struck me to the left side of my muzzle waking me up from my daydream.
My face tingled from her strike but compared to Shield, Celestia, or Husk this barely even triggered my fighting senses. The sting did give me enough of a drive to jump back and avoid the follow-up with her right hoof.
Just as my legs touched the ground I used the same method she did to give myself an extra push. Unfortunately for her, I am larger and faster, smashing into her with my shoulder before she could recover from her miss. I could just barely spot the shock on her face from the corner of my eye before physics caught up with her, and her lungs emptied in an explosive wheeze.
As she landed a good three meters away in a painful roll I almost got caught by surprise as I noticed Spine nod to someone outside of my periphery. The loud buzz of wings is all the warning I got before one of the three stallions tried to clip my head from behind, and while I wasn’t exactly happy that they went for a sneak attack, I did manage to dodge by diving to the right making sure at the same time that my roll wasn’t ruined by my opened wings.
“What happened to the one-on-one?” I shouted midjump.
Coming out of my roll just in time to duck to the right again, I only managed to see a golden yellow flash pass me by before I focused on the still gasping mare, dashing at her. I rarely had a chance to practice combat against multiple opponents, but the theory was always a good fallback: keep an eye on all but focus on one. Shield Strike has thoroughly beaten the fear and worry over attacking a woman combatant out of me, but I still felt a small twinge at the back of my mind. This isn’t Shield or an alicorn, I had to be a bit more careful.
“Think of it as a challenge, my Prince,” I could hear the smile in his voice, but I did not want to lose my target so I just chose to scowl at a point above the mare.
Regardless of my thoughts, she is a skilled fighter as, by the time I got closer to her, she got her footing and lowered herself into an aggressive stance. Her wings are slightly opened and she is ready if still out of breath… or so she thought I guessed.
Tilting one of my ears back to make sure I’m not caught by surprise again from the stallion behind me, I ground to a halt right in front of the mare tilting myself to the left, catching her off guard just enough not to react when I raised my right claw and lifted her off the ground.
Slightly surprised at her weight I hold her awkwardly at the thickest part of her neck (slightly above her chest plate) giving her just enough time to realize her situation before I slammed her to the ground, back first, in a wide arc and emptying her lungs for the second time, followed by a direct punch to the chest. I didn’t hear any cracking from her plates, which lessened my worry about overdoing it, but only a little, as her mouth opened in a wordless yelp.
Leaving the poor mare painfully gasping for breath I quickly glanced at the captain, who gave another nod to the two remaining lings. I raised my head and looked behind my left shoulder just in time to see the stallion with brown elytra cautiously step forward and move over to his colleague who is scowling at me. I’m surprised I wasn’t double-teamed, but then they started whispering to each other and I took that as an incentive to get myself into the game, so to say.
“So…” I turned around to face the two lings leaving the mare under my claws to catch her breath. It’s a sparring match, not a fight, nor war, “Why so few of them? Why something like them in the first place? I got the feeling like you guys were lacking love in the first place.”
I glanced to my left at the blue-plated mare when she started moving to leave the ring once she got on her hooves, heaving the whole time. She could join back in, but so far, I have two targets to focus on.
There is a tone of regret in Spine’s voice when he spoke, “According to the old queen, they are failures.” The two stallions in front of me frowned angrily and separated to the left and right independently. I pulled back slightly so I could keep both of them in my sight, “She’s been trying, to my knowledge, to make some kind of changeling monstrosities for a long time now… Something about giants chitinous monsters that would tower over even her that she could use in a final assault on Equestria.”
Just as the captain stopped talking, the golden yellow stallion on my left sped up, dipping completely behind my field of vision which got me to immediately focus to my right at the brown ling, but I did not turn fully.
“I’ve been keeping them strictly underground, protecting the pods, away from… Husk. She never said it, but it was an unsaid warning that they would be killed on sight if she had to deal with them… Good fighters, loyal changelings, wasted,” Spine continued, his voice becoming more strained at the end, just as a buzzing coming from a similar direction behind me served as an alert to an incoming attack.
The brown ling in front of me moved for an attack at a decent gallop as well, and I opened my wings with a quick snap of my elytra, jumping forward towards him first (making him slow down and brace), then quickly changing direction and going for the golden plated ling.
The moment my second target slowed down, closing his gilded elytra to protect the wings, I dug my claws into the ground and swerved to the right with a loud buzz of my dual wings, refacing the brown-plated ling whose wide eyes spoke volumes of his surprise.
I did not have enough time to do anything fancy, my little move got both of the lings to come very close to me, or enough time to hold too much back, so I took a quick jump forward and threw a left hook at the head of the brown ling stallion knocking him to my right and, turning with the momentum, I barely managed to catch the golden ling missile to my chest with enough force to knock me on my back. I just managed to close my wings in time, with my elytra scraping the dust off the ground making it extra uncomfortable.
I received several solid strikes to the flexible abdominal plates from both sides by the ling on top of me, but other than making me heavily exhale (and slightly hurt), I did not hurt enough to worry too much. The changeling didn’t try to secure my arms opting to continue raining blows and if I let it go for much longer I would be in trouble.
I have little time before the other ling gets his bearings, and with the ling on top of me making himself a nuisance I needed to get myself into the fight properly.
I didn’t even try to grab at his forelegs (the flailing, striking limbs would make it hard as it is), so I just grabbed him by the shoulders and rolled us both to the right side just as the brown ling stood up and shook his head. He is about three meters away, giving me a few spare seconds.
The golden stallion underneath me did not slow down with his punches (which started to get to me) even with me straddling him, but two quick punches with my right arm, one to the head and another directly down to his chest, got him wheezing and trying to curl into himself.
A sharp whistle behind me got my ears to perk up, “Lupine!”
My eyes and head snapped up and I looked around me which cost me precious time I did not have.
Two loud, buzzing beats of wings coming from left and right put me on high alert as I tensed up and I grit my teeth. Lowering my eyes back down on the ling underneath me, I gave him one last punch to his ribs when he twisted to the side in an attempt to wiggle out from under me, and that was enough time for one of the to get right next to me.
The strike got me right between the ribs cracking two of the flexible plates, bruising my insides, and launching me off of the ling I was sitting on. I barely got to wheeze out the air from my lungs when something slammed into me from my left with enough force to bounce twice off the ground a fair distance away.
“You doing okay sir?” Spine shouted my way, and I wanted to answer him; but my ribs hurt, my head was swimming with every gasp, and boy oh boy am I seeing red.
‘Right, time to take this seriously,’ I snorted into the ground.
Standing up took a bit of effort, and a quick application of resin fixed the cracks (the damage was too extensive for a quick magic fix). I waved Spine off when I saw him take a step into the ring and I faced the trio in front of me with a stare.
The other two helped their downed friend up, and I had to give it to them… they knew how to take a hit. The golden one still had the grit to carry on.
The trio of golden, orange, and brown huddled for a moment while still keeping an eye on me and I took the time to calm down and get my breathing in order.
Still upset, but no longer pissed off enough to mangle them, I took one deep breath and lurched forward with both my wings and legs. I didn’t want to beat them to a pulp, but I’m still gonna bruise them something fierce.
The brown and the golden stallions moved left and right respectively while the orange one decided it was a good idea to charge me head-on. Big mistake.
Giving myself another burst of speed I quickly closed the gap between us and it really did not matter that he tried to go for my head with a jump, left foreleg curled up and ready for a punch.
Jumping along with him, I used my longer reach to grab his head, covering nearly his whole face with my frog, and shoving him down with nearly my full strength. I had to quickly let go as I did not want to rip his head off by accident. The painful yelp and the sound of grinding dirt told me everything I needed to know.
Forcing myself down with a quick burst of wings behind… Lupine, I quickly glanced around me before I was caught unawares.
Seeing their teammate eating dirt the other two beelined towards me and instead of moving to intercept either of them directly, I instead grabbed the orange ling under me by his left hind leg and tossed him as hard as I could at the golden ling in front of me before turning around and going after the brown one.
He, at the very least, was smart enough to slow down and prepare himself, but it ultimately did not matter.
My right haymaker missed when he jumped to his left, but I followed up by planting my arms into the dirt and pulling my hind legs towards myself in a wide arc, clipping his chin with the left hoof. Moving with the momentum, I spun around and chased my target down with a buzz of wings and claws tightened into a fist. I couldn’t knock him out, my own experience could attest to that, but three nearly unblocked punches and he is lying on the ground, groaning, and moaning.
With the loud sound of singular hoofbeats reaching my ears, I turned to see only one changeling galloping towards me. The golden one is the only one left and he crumpled like a sheet of paper after I jumped to the side and landed a powerful punch to the stomach lifting him off the ground before I let him drop. He should have given up, no point in risking permanent damage to prove a point.
Noticing that my own breathing is laboured I tried to steady it by taking large breaths through my nose and letting it out through my mouth.
'Stronger than normal changelings certainly, but not enough.'
It took me roughly five breaths until I could call myself calm, the three lings were still groaning by the time I straightened myself and walked over to Spine and a distinctly shivering changeling mare with wide eyes.
“So… ‘Bout that talk of the border,” Spine’s heavy sigh got me to grin. It’s nice to give other people headaches for a change.
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Unaware*
Spine and Patchwork deepening their friendship.
camo.fimfiction.net/AVRVz8mIR-ta4iadGf6pFDHTmguWqY-TVNkD0NQQls8?url=https%3A%2F%2Fderpicdn.net%2Fimg%2Fview%2F2018%2F9%2F4%2F1824315.png
Can be friendship laser Husk after Nightmaremoon?
camo.fimfiction.net/xzb_CPsKbTVn-ghk5o9SQLmSa5OhME7cvB_KZNaTXUs?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpre03.deviantart.net%2F3604%2Fth%2Fpre%2Fi%2F2012%2F041%2F4%2Fa%2Funlimited_friendship___by_shrubninja-d4pan89.jpg
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Actually, gonna be a bit pedantic here, but "unawares" is actually the proper usage, here. To be caught unaware of something is to be found to be ignorant of that something, whereas to be caught unawares of something is to be taken by surprise of that something.
Adjective vs adverb usage, basically.
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English is weird
Damn fine sparring. Patchwork still needs a lot of training against equal of superior opposition in combat.
great chapter
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Through thorough thought though it can be understood.
Yeah, despite the higher training of his opponents, our dude definitely shouldn't have used so much energy in that spar. More practice!
🎶 all of the failures have to fuel success in this bloody and visceral changeling game of chess, 🎶
🎶 and just because you've disappointed you'll pay the price 🎶
🎶 now accept your fate and die in the Changeling War Device! 🎶
Another great chapter thank you. This changelings might end up becoming Patchworks' new friends, at least I I think there to be a 30% chance of it happening that way
Thanks again for a wonderful chapter.
If that fourth Super changeling had been able to get in and keep up, the combat ratio wouldve almost doubled in the squads favour? But that would mean Patch wouldve had to crank up another level, causing excessive damage per hit, or aquiesce?
Soo, Changeling Space Marines?
img.ifunny.co/images/238584d8c3f875cf124af26ae57a285ddd394de8e1671a8b5ec225581134f28e_1.webp
Not for Patch. I’m sure he’ll find some good soldiers or even friends in them. Every battle hero needs a squad after all…
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Why do I always run into you? You’re everywhere!
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I was thinking something between an ODST and a Spartan.
Nice fight scene, I bet this squad will be very cool to have on standby for Patch.
11646065
I wouldn't say space marine level (not in most aspects at least) but close for a changeling.Didn't want to in too much detail st first, but fuck it, a bit of early 'reveal' never hurt anyone.
Think of it like this; as I have stated in previous chapters, changelings are like the middle ground between the main three pony races.
So even if you were to put a fully trained changeling and compared them to ponies of similar skill and experience you would still get that rough middle.
These guys, however, are skewing that ballance slightly over in certain aspects. Husk wanted monsters, something like a basketball compared to a baseball in size, but she got something better and never cared about it.
Like if you were to try and make a space marine with current technically; you would get a strong damn soldier, but not a space marine. Perspective, I guess.
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2:25
Oh the meeting should take place soon! Very excited for the international reaction and responses!!
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I mean, Patch could propably mess with their changeling cores and add some extra organs, like an adrenaline gland or something from marines themselves. I mean, he is a nerd and could easily improve those lings further into a fire team to be reconed with.
Looks like a changeling, taught to fight by pony's but deep down he's still human. With is come stubbornness, brutality, creativity, and the knowledge of a natural bipedal to know how to swing his body around like he's practicing gymnastics!
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Squad up.
"New agent is squaring off against Maine, Wyoming, and York on the training room floor. We're going to watch!" -Random Project Freelancer person
Same energy