The Maiden and the Serpent

by Hustlin Tom

Chapter 9

It was time. There was no delaying now. I gave each of my daughters the biggest hug I could. “I love you both very much. More than you will ever know.”

Dawn flicked her ear in confusion, “Mother, I don’t understand. You act like you’ll never see us again.”

I was absolutely distraught, but I couldn’t show it, not in front of them. I stood and allowed Ahmed to take my place. He ushered each of them to their pods, and they trustingly obeyed. I turned my back to them, and the tears began to flow. That’s when I saw the security alert on a nearby console: Subject 2396 had breached his pod and escaped. Containment efforts had failed. It was coming. Discord was coming. “Ahmed! We’re out of time!” I yelled.

“Oh shit.” he half hissed/half sputtered.

The girls gasped and looked over to me, “He just said a naughty word,” Dusk exclaimed.

Ahmed locked the door to her chamber, sealing her in. Frantically, Dawn looked around, at the cage, Ahmed, and me. I saw in her eyes that my betrayal of her trust was complete, “Mother, what’s happening?!”

“I’m sorry Dawn,” I said through tears, “Goodbye.”

Dawn’s chamber sealed, and Ahmed rushed over to the instrument panel. “We have to make up for what time we’ve lost. Beginning initial serum delivery.” Through the opaque glass we could see the bodies of the two fillies crumple to the floor as the sedative in the mutagenic compounds began. “Beginning primary tessaractal bombardment. Red, hold the meters steady. I need to prep something.” I took the console, while I saw Ahmed run for a small industrial refrigerator unit. I had to wipe the tears from my eyes to see the dials in front of me, and I yelled over my shoulder, “Ahmed, what are you doing?”

“Getting insurance! I don’t know if it’ll work or not, but our monster just might have a silver bullet. The shape lock compound worked on the Changelings, and I hope to hell it works on it as well. How’re we doing?”

I looked over to the two chambers, and already the changes were becoming evident. From the head of each of the fillies was rapidly growing a large horn. Not only that, but their entire physiological structure was quickly changing; their bodies were growing at an accelerated rate toward their peak condition. “Good! Injecting secondary solution now!”

Over the intercom a harsh mechanical voice spoke, “Warning, unlawful Quarantine Breach. Repeat, Quarantine Breach.”

“Damn it all, it’s here!” Ahmed shouted.

The second round of tessaractal irradiation began, and wings sprouted from behind the shoulder blades of the two ponies. They stood as tall as me now; they had grown so much in so little time. A light on the panel winked on, letting me know that all necessary programmed thought related to restoring the planet and creating a society had been relayed into Dawn and Dusk’s brains. I cued a microphone embedded in the console that would patch into each of their chambers, which would feed any last instructions I had for them to enact.

I took a ragged breath, steadied my voice, and spoke into the microphone, “This is your Mother. You are the only ones of your kind. You must stop the chaos being created by Discord, the spirit of disharmony. The surface above is dead, but you can bring new life to it, where others can live and be free from Discord’s tyranny. You are responsible for the Panrestoration. Live in peace with others, and know your Mother loves you.”

“Red, look out!”

I turned just in time to see the nightmare crimson cloud behind me holding a large novelty anvil over me. I leapt over the instrument panel just in time to avoid the anvil crushing me to death, and I hit the floor hard. The wind was knocked out of me; wheezing I turned to look behind me as the red cloud lazily approached me. “This will all be over soon, and then there will be no one to undo my glorious work.”

Discord produced a lion’s paw from out of its substance, and it brought it up to strike me down. Just as it began to swing its arm, there was a small popping sound followed by an audible hiss. Discord turned the back of its appendage, and out of the back of its hand was sticking a hypodermic dart, its contents fully dispensed into the flesh being created by the crimson cloud. “What,” the crimson cloud said, its fury steadily growing with every second. We both turned to see Ahmed, the dart gun still held aloft in his hands.

“What have you done,” the cloud roared, its outer surface boiling with palpable rage. “I used your silver bullet on you,” he calmly replied. The paw began to shake violently, and Discord held it up as if it had a face to look at the dart with. It screamed a primal, absolutely irrational wail, and it shot blood red lightning from its epicenter toward Ahmed. Before I could even shout ‘No’, Ahmed was gone; transformed into ruby colored dust. Even with his last few moments of existence, Ahmed fired off one more shot with the dart gun, and it struck home, directly in the bright fiery core of the ethereal beast.

The cloud began to pulsate less and less; its fire seemed to die with each passing moment and with each pulsation, body parts spontaneously generated from the cloud. A goat’s cloven hoof appeared, then an eagle’s talons, followed by a bat wing, and then a downy wing followed shortly afterward. A brown furred body sprouted forth and conjoined all the newly formed limbs in a haphazard manner, from its hind shot forth a salmon colored tail with a white tuft on the end, and then a goat’s head with two mismatched antlers sprang from the neck. Whatever it was, the transformation seemed to be complete, and the abomination that had been energy was now given flesh.

It looked itself all over, as if even it wasn’t sure what it had become. It looked to me with its mismatched eyes and it glared angrily; the face itself would have been comical if I had not witnessed its true form and demeanor not but a minute ago. “You have limited me; locked me to one particular form which I can never fully be rid of. Creative, I must admit, but infinity remains infinity no matter what you try to subtract from it, and my power is absolutely infinite!”

It was exactly at that point that the both of us heard a klaxon sound. I looked to the chambers behind me, as did Discord, and we saw that the lights on each of the test pod consoles changed from red to green. Green. That meant-

The test pod doors unsealed and slid open. At first, neither of us saw anything at all, the steam from the pods obscured everything. Then, they stepped out. No longer were they the small fillies I had once known. With each step they took forth from the pods, the more they seemed to me like angels taking the guise of equine form. My Dusk, her hair and tail looked like it had been painted by God Himself, as it swirled with microscopic stars from across the cosmos. And Dawn, her hair and tail, vibrant pink as ever, seemed to radiate and flow with light, as did the rest of her pure white body. Both of their eyes were aglow with pure power; glory and life seemed to flow from them.

Discord looked at each of them in turn with an almost incredulous look, as if he wasn’t quite sure of what to make of either of them. “Now, what exactly are these two,” he asked with legitimate curiosity in his voice. It was accomplished; Ahmed and I, we had succeeded. We had done it!

I turned to the chimera behind me, and my smile was one of furious success and joy, “They are your end, Discord.” I turned once again to my two girls, and I saw that as soon as I mentioned Discord’s name, their muscles tensed, and their eyes managed to glow even brighter.

Discord looked at the both of them, each ready to fight until the very end, and he gave a little smile, “Finally, someone interesting to play with!”