The Man Who Might Be King

I... did not plan that out. Oh, it all went very well for about ten minutes. After that, though, I got bored. Then I left. I would have hoped I'd at least warrant a guard or something, but nope. So slipping past the non existent security detail was easy enough, but then I came across a foe far more dangerous: a monotonously designed castle.

It didn't help that I had absolutely no destination in mind. Worst case scenario I just ended back where I started, not withstanding the ever present possibility that I'd be killed on the spot. But really, that was equally likely it'd happen even if I did nothing, so who cares about that?

But fuck, these halls. I wasn't even on the ground floor. No, that would be way too easy. Instead, I was indeterminate levels up at an indeterminate location with guesswork as my only ally. I got to see lots of pony suits of armor though. They all had protrusions for horns, so I guess the other kinds were just meant to form corpse barricades to protect the masters, or something.

The only thing I was glad about was that I had managed to go down a few levels. I might still be a hundred floors up, but I could take pride in knowing I wasn't a hundred and two up. It didn't help.

As I proceeded with my excellent plan of entering rooms at random, I came across a promising candidate for going somewhere interesting. Sequestered in a corner, was an old, gnarled door with a bust up lock. Armed with the surety that this could only go to a good place, I rushed for it.

It paid off, instead of leading me to another level, this one came out into a big old cave. Aside from the bonus of knowing I was probably about as low as you can go, it was also fairly pretty. Lots of nice, fancy giant crystals were stuck into the walls and it even had some convenient train tracks laid out. Convenient in the sense that I could follow them, not that they actually had any method at all for letting me travel faster. But ignoring the slight possibility that all they led to was dead end, I followed them. That lasted for a good minute until it abruptly stopped in favor of a rickety wooden bridge that might have just seen better days.

With precious few beams to support it, and no rails whatsoever to stop anyone falling to their death, it was pretty much a death trap. But I didn't get to where I was today by stopping to think or questioning anything at all, so on I went. Avoiding the tightrope act, I crouched low and began to slowly inch myself over.

Each slow little push further across reminded me that the pit I was crossing seemed to be nearly bottomless. But that wasn't going to stop me. Instead, I slowly dragged myself across the damp, soft, and pliable wood. As little parts of it came off as I brushed against it, I moved just a little bit faster. But then, I felt a sting.

"Ah! Fucking splinter!" Before I even knew it, my hand coiled reflexively away from it's perilous grip on the wooden path. A thin and sparkling glint of blood followed in its wake. My other hand shot out to help pull out whatever offending lump of wood had stuck itself into me.

Unfortunately, my shitty balance meant I might have just been a bit too fast to keep up with. Swaying from side to side, I struggled to keep myself steady. The pain in my hand didn't help things, either. But I managed to blindly grope down and get a better hold of my lifeline. But, I might have just been a bit too forceful.

With the sickening sound of waterlogged wood bending, a lump of my bridge came away. Then, the entire section in front of me simply fell away, flying into the abyss below. It probably wasn't a good sign that I didn't hear it hit the bottom of that abyss.

But I wasn't going to be in the dark about it for long. Frantically trying to push myself back, I could see the world ahead of me slowly dip downward. Before I'd managed to make any progress back, the bridge had snapped and I went plummeting down.

I still couldn't see the bottom though, so my death was going to be a rather sudden thing. Not that seeing it coming really would have been that much better. But such things happen, and I calmly accepted my death as the faint buzzing of my demise came to me.

...And then I hit the ground, which was expected but bad. But I wasn't dead, which was good! It still hurt like fuck though, I think I sprained something while plummeting. Looking up, I saw another pony was looking down at me.

"You've got quite the set of lungs, human. If you couldn't keep it up so long I might not have found you," the pony said. This one was way freakier looking than the others. It had green hair and was black. The only black pony I had seen, actually. Unless Luna counted. Even then, this was definitely the heard of darkness pony. "Did Celestia bring you here to destroy us?"

"Probably. Can you tell me how to get out of here? I'm not too sure about where I am now," I said. Black pony smiled at that, and her horn lit up. In a flash, we left the cave behind. Did it without asking too, but my opinion just doesn't seem to matter anymore.

At least she was nice enough to dump is in the same city. Although whether that actually helped me was a bit up in the air. Although we'd been put into something of a shaded alley, I could get a much better look at black pony now. On top of being black, she had screwy holes in her legs. The pain that adhering to such strange tribal rules was probably horrific.

But it was time to abandon this ship before she started shouting in clicks. Probably be killed if she got seen anyway, so I could always take my chances with the mob if it came to it. It was much more likely they'd hate something slightly different more than they hated me.

"..Thanks then. Bye!" I said. Then I went further away into the dark alcoves of the alley. Far from being a dead end, it seemed to go on further than I could see. It seemed safe enough.

The clip clip of hooves behind me answered my secret fear. Turning back, I saw a pony following me. Some might say the other was gone, and this one had popped up out of nowhere. But I'm more rational than that, and could see it was clearly the power of Satan that allowed blackie to wear its victim's skin, or some shit.

Fearing that faith myself, I walked just a little faster. She, naturally, figured matching my pace would be great. As her foul green eyes glinted maliciously in the dark behind me, I prepared myself to burst into a run.

Then she teleported in front of me... because she could do that.

"Leave me alone, Buffalo!" I shouted. She blinked at me, before moving much more closely than I would have wanted her to. I could see massive fangs protruding from her mouth, no doubt used to tear into the flesh of her victims as she skinned them alive.

"My name is Chrysalis..." she said, her voice matching her foul and unnatural form. "I would have thought the harbinger would be more... refined, than you."

I didn't answer that, choosing instead to inch around her and toward what was probably freedom. She didn't really seem to be all there, so she just had a kind of blank stare while I slowly moved away. As I tiptoed to salvation, she figured out my game and used her devil powers to apparate in front of me again.

But her horn kept glowing, and then I found out why. Crashing to the ground, pain like no other went through my bones. I writhed in agony for what felt like years, before it ended. Then Chrysalis stuck her head down, and nuzzled me as she licked at my face, softening it up for removal. "You're exquisite."

Ah, she'd moved on to the standard package mixed with a bit of sadism for good measure. I have to admit, I was tempted for a second; she did have holes in her legs, after all. She didn't wait for my internal debate though, Chrysalis already had her hooves clawing at my pants. It was just luck that hooves were total shit at that.

Steeling myself, I began to gingerly inch her off me. Chrysalis didn't really resist as I rolled her off, which was great because she could have beaten me into the ground pretty easily. But she let a pitiful whining sound and tried to lean into my hand as she slid away. It would have been cute if she wasn't an oversized, kinda heavy changeling, and trying the whole rape thing.

"You just, ah, wait here. I'll be right back, eventually." I didn't really need to bother saying anything. Chrysalis was pretty out of it, just lying there in a big old goofy heap. But I guess that was her own business.

Turning away, I was greeted by some more of the black bastards. These ones were smaller, lacking useful things like hair and normal eyes. Assuming they were like ponies, Chrysalis was probably in charge. It would take tact to keep them from going nuts on me.

"I didn't do it," I flippantly said, already resuming my path past them and into what I suppose was the safety of whatever was ahead of me. It couldn't really get worse. Unless it was more of these guys, that would probably be worse.

As I passed, I heard them whisper to each other in rather accusing tones. It was like the poor bastards didn't often find their queen fucked up in an alley. Considering she brought me here, it could be a very common occurrence.

"Is she... full?" one whispered They didn't sound as evil as Chrysalis did. It was disappointing.

"It looks like we're done early. Ren, pick up the queen," one with silly horse armor said. Since he was giving orders I guess the armor let you be the leader. It didn't seem good for much else anyway, it didn't even cover half of him.

"Yes, sir," Ren said. She didn't have any armor, but did have hair. Lucky her. I couldn't see whether she had eyes like blue pits from here though, as I was standing behind her. I lied about leaving. It might have had something to do with there being a hell of a lot more of these guys around than I guessed. Turns out dark creatures and dark alleys blend together really well.

"She's pretty heavy. I don't think I can holder her much longer, sir!" Ren was visibly freaking out. In her defense she was pretty dedicated about holding her. I think that letting Chrysalis down gracefully would have been the lesser of two evils though. Of course, when she crashed into the ground the thump made it clear she was pretty heavy.

"You're meant to be a mage? Pathetic. This is what happens when conscription is brought in," the Commander said spitefully.

"I joined before that, Sir!" Ren chirped gleefully. She saluted with a little jump and her wings buzzed. The Commander didn't even look at her. It was all a bit sad. All in all, it was probably a shining example of why you don't give the nobility special privileges in the army. If it wasn't then I'll say it was because it was a great example even if it was a lie.

"Of course you did," he grumbled. Then his horn lit up in a shining and radiant aura. After about a second a rather strained look passed over him. Then he gasped out. "I could carry out queen to show you how inept you are. But It would be more appropriate for the rank and file to do it."

With a sweep of his head, a changeling came out of the crowd and came to stand near the queen. As his horn lit up, the commander slapped him. "No! More of you, forward. About five will do. Can't expect you to pack quite the same punch, after all."

My normal impulse would be to disbelieve him here. But since they all looked pretty different, maybe he was right. Either way, the peasants got the queen moving. A few more walked forward, and they went all shimmery before disappearing completely. I could hear buzzing, so I guess the easy route of teleportation was off the cards.

It only took a few seconds before they were all off. All except for Ren, who apparently got to do whatever the fuck she wanted. She was looking at me. It didn't take much of a leap for me to guess what she wanted.

"None of the others really noticed you, but I did," she said, approaching me slowly. Her wings buzzed apprehensively, and she sat a short distance away. "I've never seen anything like you. What are you?"

I could have answered her honestly, but I didn't really care. "No clue. So... I'm going to be going now."

"You don't know?" she seemed pretty puzzled by that, apparently giving it actual weight. Cocking her head, her eyes half closed as she hummed. Not an exceptionally clever girl. Once she snapped out of whatever existential crisis she thought I was having, she said something terrifying. "You want to leave? I can help!"

She did a little jump and giggled. Then her horn lit up in an all-encompassing glow of doom as she popped us both away in a flurry of light. Not a clever girl. Pretty enthusiastic though.