Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Lister grinned as the armor was hoisted up for his inspection on the wings of changelings.
John freaked out. “Ooooh no, oh no oh no oh no, listen up bugs, you guys got the wrong-” He stopped suddenly when a hand clamped over his mouth.
Lister shushed his compatriot. “Shut up, dude, don’t mess this up!”
John jumped away and glared at Lister, muttering, “Well, what the fuck do we do? that uber cockroach is sending us to war!”
“Go with it.” Lister said reasonably.
Deadpan. “Wut...”
Lister sighed and continued in a far-too-logical way: “If they think we’re awesome warriors, they let us take armor and weapons and go out into the world...whichever world it is...but if they know that we’re really idiots? How long do you think we’ll last?”
John blinked. “You just made sense. Stop making sense.”
Lister just raised an eyebrow.
John sighed. “Fine, I see your point, but...how are we going to...an when they...or we...fuck!!”
Lister turned back to the grandest bug-thing, who perked up now that the humans were back to the world. “Ah, Warriors. Have you come to a decision?”
“We have a fucking choice...?” John muttered. Lister elbowed him in the ribs with a hiss, giving his recalcitrant friend some ‘moral support’. John jerked forward, into the spotlight. “Uh...” He looked about. Deer in headlights. His eyes finally settled on the big bug, to whom he bowed. “We have decided to hear you...Queen?...But first, are introductions not in order?”
The Queen sat up tall and proud as she exclaimed, “Indeed it is, bold one. I am Queen Chrysalis, ruler of the changelings! We rule these vast territories about you in safety and honest toil. I would hear you, but I fear I well know you already, FireStorm.”
“Ah, my Queen, you may think so, but allow me to introduce myself personally; I am John Thompson, and my compatriot here is...uh, Lister, if you will...?’
“Name’s Lister Reedeclythe, how ya doin’?”
John, Chrysalis, and a few dozen changelings deadpanned stared at Lister. He looked about him, “What?”
“Seriously?” John hissed, but he clammed up as the Queen overrode further jibing.
“It is well to meet you, proud Lister. I must ask again, will you take my...commission?”
Lister’s “Meh, sure.” was swept under John’s far louder, and saner, comment. Still playing the strange court game, he inquired, “Perhaps if you would set out the objectives, conditions and profits of these missions you’ve mentioned, we could better decide?”
Chrysalis’s lips twisted in an impatient sneer, but she hid it well. “Of course. It is simple really, I want you two to be my personal Changeling Hunters.”
*****
“So...So wait,” John exclaimed, halfway through Chrysalis’s long-winded and very boring speech, “I get you wanting us to go rescue captured ‘changelings’ who were lost during some battle, okay, but lets get one thing straight...You were fighting ponies?”
“Yes,” The Queen deadpanned.
“Rainbow-coloured, fuzzy, random-hat-wearing party-throwing ponies?”
“Do not be fooled!” Chrysalis intoned, “Their bright colours and happy visages are reserved only for their own kind: were they to see you, they would undoubtedly kill you!” She stood and began pacing to the edge of her dias, staring off into the distance dramatically.
As she took a deep breath to speak, Lister could be heard muttering “...end cutscene, end cutscene, for god’s sake it’s worse than CoD…”
The Queen continued regardless, “You see, it was many years ago when our kinds first met. We offered the ponies comfort in the world, and all we asked for in return, was love.”
“Aww, you scarey bugs just wanted to be loved? thats so sweet.” John quietly snided. Not quietly enough, though.
“Yes, sure. That’s what happened,” Chrysalis muttered hotly, “but they denied us, cast us out. We attempted to return to them in peace a few years ago, but...they decimated us in spiteful war. Now, all I wish is for my subjects to return to peace here at home. This, you can help me with. Every one of my people you return to me will be a step closer to you returning home.”
“But why would you need us, though?” John inquired, “I mean, surely you could have used your own followers who, you know, actually belong here.”
The tall bug-queen smirked. “That’s exactly why I needed you two. How will any pony react to something they’ve never seen?”
“...Probably badly…”
“So do you accept the commission?” Chrysalis asked, her impatience barely hidden now.
John hummed and hawed, trying to drag out the conversation.
But Lister was there, and he was a curious idiot with little to do. Fiddling hoy. “Hey, what’s this weird thing?” He pulled a large, obsidian bracelet with a large green gem set into it and began to inspect it, unknown to his present company.
“Ohhh, shiny!” He put on the bracelet. He waved it about, admiring the lowering sun glinting off the cold reflective surface. Then he frowned, stopping. The surface kept moving.
“Ah, fuck, gettitoff gettitoff!”
The strange object began to stretch and change shape, slowly consuming his arm and crawling up his limb. John cried a stream of profanities as he stared at the strange phenomenon. When it stopped, the dark sharp-edged device encased Lister’s entire forearm. John looked between his fellow human and now-clearly crazy bug Queen. “Um, Queen Chrysalis, I would just like to ask you what the actual FUCK is happening?”
The queen changeling rose tall, grinning. “So you’ve accepted then! You have taken the Shadow Brace, our gift to you, Lister, to help you in case of pony attack!”
“In case of...pony...attack…” John deadpanned incredulously.
“And John, your gift, to help save yourselves the pain of battle,” She levitated a strange glowing crystal at John’s face. To say he was surprised would be a vast understatement, but trying to swat the offending blue glowing thing away failed spectacularly. It was stuck to his hand.
He stared at it for a moment, then gave the weird queen a withering glare. “Okay, explain please, so I know what I’m freaking the fuck out about.”
Chrysalis was slowly losing her pose, but she held it a while longer. “A healing crystal, to revitalize and bolster your bodies in times of need. With these artifacts of Changeling Magic, you shall be well protected for your first, simple mission. Are you ready to go?”
John stood beside Lister, trying to pry the icy blue gem from his palm and trying to figure out why crazy shit was happening to them. Only the Queen wasn’t answering straight. “Wait, what does Lister’s do…?”
“Ahhhhh-!” Lister waved his arm around and ran in circles a bright fireball blazing on his arm like a demented Olympic torch.
Chrysalis’ visage dropped into a snarl as her horn glowed, “Does magic. Now go!”
John blinked. “Wha-”
And with a flash, they were gone.
*****
For the second time in as many hours, John found his face meeting the ground at rapid pace. He collapsed and rolled to the side, holding his assaulted nose. “God damnit!”
“At least the ground thinks you’re attractive.” Lister sneered from an equally high-impact area nearby. Both guys rolled raggedly to their feet, taking in their surroundings. Around them, beyond the fading flickering green embers of eldritch fires, rose soaring golden cliffs lit by the sinking sun, while ahead of them was a vast, sparse plain, and behind, a long winding valley.
Lister took it in in all it’s glory, and verbalized it in one succinct comment: “Dafuq are we?” He looked to John beside him, and pointed, “Dafuq is that?!” Then he looked down at himself, “DAFUQ IS THIS?!”
Lister also stood in shock, noticing the same thing his much louder compatriot did; they were wearing their armour. He looked John over critically, in his heavy dark leather and chainmail coat and armour, and couldn’t help but snark, “You look like a steampunk-goth reject, mate.”
John was well aware of this, but Lister was not immune himself. John pointed at the tight leather leggings the other human wore, “And what’re you, part of Robin Hood’s band of merry men?”
Lister built a scathing comment, but it died on his tongue as a polite cough sounded behind him. He turned to see a single prim-looking changeling standing beside a pile of odd goods. John raised an eyebrow, pointing at the assortment of items on the ground, “Dafuq are those?”
“That’s what I said!” Lister cried.
The changeling ignored him and nosed over a pair of scrolls. John grabbed one and unrolled it. “A map?”
The changeling nodded before nosing over a hinged case. Lister grabbed it and flicked it open. “A compass…” he muttered. The changeling nodded again. John got the message and began sorting through the gathered bundles and opened a few. Some were food, a few were fabric, blankets and the like. There was a medical kit, and also two heavy duty backpacks, roughly made but strong.
John didn’t notice the changeling shuffling away. He stood and called out, “Hey! Is this all we get? Where’s the magic phones an’ shit? We just go out and find more bug-things and bring them here, with this?!”
The changeling nodded.
“Can you little guys even talk?” Lister asked dully.
The changeling shot him a glance. “Yes.”
Both guys did a rapid double-take, but even as they did, the changeling was wrapped in green fire. When it dissipated, the creature was gone.
Lister looked at John. “I thought he was gonna come with us?”
John quirked a brow. “And I thought you’d blown him up. But either way, if we gotta do this, we gotta do it, right? Lets just...pack and get on with it, I wanna get back home before the next E3.”
As they both grumblingly set to packing, neither noticed a set of blue eyes observing them from a clifftop. The changeling slapped a forehoof to his forehead and sighed, “Queen Chrysalis’s ideas get crazier by the day…” He turned away from the hapless monkeys on the valley floor and flew his way back to the normality of the hive.
*****
“Are we there yet?”
“No.”
“How about now?’
“No…”
“And now?”
“Do you even know where we are going?!”
“...No. But are we there yet?”
John facepalmed. “No, Lister, we are not. Let’s just sit down and look at the map again.”
The two men dropped their heavy backpacks and John unrolled the map once again, along with the other scroll. The second page was the key to the numbered map. Hundreds of detailed references to the scattered settlements and features of the badlands they traveled were scattered across the page. Any part of the map could be cross-checked with its number for an in depth blurb on the zone. Every area except an ominously blank section at the top left-hand corner, labeled ‘Everfree’.
“Well, we should definitely avoid that.” John muttered.
“Yeah,” Lister droned, “Bug-Queenie had a serious ‘thar be monsters’ moment about that place. So...we goin’ where, exactly?’
John poked a finger at the map. “This town-place over here. And here,” He pulled out another sheet of paper containing a description of their mission, “is the pony - I’m never gonna get used to that - we are looking for, an...earth pony? Isn’t that kinda redundant? Anyway, cream coat, blue and pink hair or something like that. It should be two day’s travel that way.” He pointed to the west vaguely.
Lister followed the gesture and looked at the horizon. “So then…that smoke over there has nothing to with the town, right?”
“The...fuck…?” John glared at the smoke, daring it to contradict his awesome map reading skills. When it failed to dematerialize, he sighed. “Looks like we’re in the deep end-”
“Thats what she said.”
John gritted his teeth and forced on, “-so lets just...we’ll sleep the night, and get this over with tomorrow.” John slowly lowered himself to the ground. His leather clothing gave a terrible, unearthly squeak.
“This is NOT how I imagined getting sweaty in leather…” He grumbled.
“That’s what she sai-OW!” Lister’s face met with a boot. He rubbed his head as he glared at John, who was busy digging into his backpack. The irate idiot shuffled out his jeans and sneakers, abandoning his leggings as quickly as possible and pulling on his comfortable pants. With a sigh, he pulled off the heavy bronze shoulder plates of his armour, stripping down to just his shirt before collapsing into the dry grass.
“Thanks for the show…” Lister muttered from within his comfortably padded leather and chain coat.
“You’re disgusting.” John growled.
Lister chuckled lightly as he lay down in the drawing night. “I know dude, I know.”
Together, the two strange, oblivious and incredibly overwhelmed humans fell asleep, with probably the least climactic close to their first day in an alien world either could ever imagine.
Too bad the calm wouldn’t last.
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