To beat thy enemy...

After our abrupt and very unwelcomed arrival to the capital city, we followed Luna through the city. After making more blindingly confusing turns, we arrived on the main street of Canterlot. The shops ranged from cloth shops to coffee shops, but they all had a high class motif about them. Something was off about this place though, all the shops were closed and aside from the princess, a few guards, and ourselves, the street was empty.

“Alert status. Something’s off here…” I whispered to Nate, letting the throat mic do most of the work.

“No shit, what gave you that idea? The fact that our purple tag-a-long ditched us or the fact that there hasn’t been a single civilian here save those on the train?” He quipped back. I furrowed my brow at his sarcasm, he was right though, not a single civi is in this city so far…

“Something seems off about those I see too. They seem...Overconfident?” I said as I watched the guards walk with a pompous look on their face. Even the princess seemed too confident, swaying hips, long confident strides, not any sense of situational awareness…

“I think something big is happening...Either we still have time to figure out what it is, or we’re already a part of it.”

“What do you think we should do?” Nate asked as we turned another corner. The massive courtyard of the castle lay before us, and within it was a destroyed statue of Celestia. The doors opened with sickly green magic, letting us walk through. As we walked, I looked around and noticed all the guards had the same green aurad magic.

We walked through the slightly destroyed hallways, looking on in slight wonderment of the stained glass windows and exotic paintings...Or what was left of them.

“I need 360 coverage, safety off, be prepared for anything.” I said as simultaneous clicks echoed through the stone hallways. Luna’s ears swiveled to us before she turned to us.

“Please, leave all your weapons here, I will not have them in my home.” She said with a cold look on her face. I stared her down before something caught my eyes. Her eyes switched to a deep, sickly green for a second. At that point, I knew this wasn’t the pony she was claiming to be.

“Umbra, Get the rear! Flash out!” I yelled as I fumbled with the grenade on my webbing. The not-Luna was faster though, she shoot a large beam of magic at me. It hit me square in the chest and left me feeling...Empty. Not hungry or sad just...Empty of all emotion. I looked on with uncaring eyes as I saw Nate get torn to shreds. His blood spraying all over the walls, turning the bleak stone a bright red. An arm came flying towards me and rolled to a stop, palm up. I looked up and saw...Something through the window. From the distance it was at it was unknown to me. Then, I saw the smoke trail of a missile flying towards the castle walls. Doors got kicked in and squads of Military personnel swarmed the room killing everything in sight. Then the missile hit the wall…

Nate

I saw Mike get hit with...Something, it almost looked evil. Whatever it was took him out of the fight, he was still on the ground and crying. Black and green fire danced at the corner of his eyes as he lay there. I took one of my last equalizers, a stun grenade and dropped it at my feet.

The blast was enough to knock me back to Mike and thankfully, had the same effect on the...things. The blast must have destroyed whatever magic they were using because they were not the same as they were minutes prior. Their black, chitinous bodies were plastered with holes. They all had green, hole filled wings and broken horns adorning them. Their bug-like blue eyes were unfocused on the world.

Using this moment, I grabbed Mike’s drag handle and pulled him into the nearest room. I was not ready for what I saw inside the room…

“What the fuck…” I said to no one. The room was filled with green, semi transparent eggs. Inside the monument of eggs were ponies of all types. There had to be hundreds in this room!

“Nonono...God help me…” I heard Mike mumble from the floor. Checking on him, I saw the flames were getting darker. The green flame was turning a ghastly hue of orange. Having nothing to fix this, I grimaced at his luck and left to explore the room. The eggs seemed to be...Taking something from the ponies. There was some form of a vortex inside it that was pulsing. Glancing over the piles of ponies, I found two massive eggs in the corner. Inside were the two princesses in various states of shock. The vortex inside seemed to be pulsing faster than the others and was a deep green. Walking over to the eggs, I noticed how slimey they were.

“That’s...I...I wonder…” I said to myself as I got within arms reach to the eggs. I grabbed the knife on my arm and brought it to the egg. With a gooey, slimy squelch and a foul eldritch smell, the egg sliced open. It felt like I was cutting through bear hide and took a majority of my strength to open. Celestia fell to the floor with a meaty thump. I bent down to check on her, and sighed in relief when she was still breathing.

Celestia let out an exhausted, painful moan as she woke. She winced in pain and her hair became...well, hair.

“What...Huh...U-umbra?” She croaked out. I can’t imagine the amount of pain she’s in right now. Suddenly, as if a sheet was lifted, she gained enough energy to channel her magic. She wrapped me in telekinesis and hurled me at the wall. I hit hard enough to feel something pop uncomfortably in my back before falling to the stone floor.

Twenty minutes later

I awoke with a sharp but numbing pain in my lower back. Gasping for breath, I shot myself upwards. I took in my surroundings, I was still in the same room, Mike was beside me with far less evil looking flames around his eyes. The flames were still there but far less wicked. Celestia was...Beside her sister? I guess she broke her out of the egg. She noticed my movement and shot her gaze my way.

“Do NOT move, creature!” She shouted loud enough to shake the floor. I Sat and stared at her for a moment before gazing towards Mike.

“Fix him. I saved your life, fix him.” I said defiantly as I tried to move my legs. However, my legs wouldn’t move, toes wouldn’t wiggle, nothing would move! “Why can’t I move my legs!?” I shouted with a horrifying look about me.

“It appears you’ve broken your spine, creature.” She said smugly. It seemed...Odd, like she wasn’t entirely here.

“Celestia? Is something wrong?” I heard Luna quietly ask as she woke.

“No Lulu, nothing is wrong. Just return to your slumber.” She said aloofly. Luna didn’t fight it and cuddled tightly with her sister.

“Don’t go to sleep! Something is VERY wrong here!” I shouted, hopeful she would hear me. I couldn’t tell if she did by her actions or voice. Only by her ear flicking towards me, indicating that she heard me.

After a moment she rose to her hooves and looked my way.

“Umbra? Hamus? What’s going on here?” She asked carefully.

“I don’t know, Hamus has some weird flamey shit on his eyes. Your sister is being fucking weird, and these weird bug looking motherfuckers are shooting the place up!”

“Oh no...By the gods.” She said quietly. Her eyes were wide and her jaw tightly clenched. “Come here, quickly.” She demanded.

“I can’t, I can’t move my legs. You can thank your sister for that…” I said, pointedly glaring at Celestia. I felt a tingling over my body, finding the source to be Luna’s horn.

“It appears that a vertebrae is shattered. I could try and fix it, however it could fail and would cause a crippling pain for quite some time.” She said as she focused intently on me. I could feel her magic move to my lower back, right over my spine.

“Do it, without legs I’m useless.” I said as I grabbed a handful of blankets and shoved them into my mouth. “Hrrfm Uff!”

I was not prepared for the blinding pain I felt. I could feel every fragment, every nerve, every pop and crunch. I don’t know when I lost consciousness but when I awoke my throat was raw and the end of the blanket had flakes of blood on it.

I tried to move my legs and was met with success! Never had I been so happy to have a basic function back!

“I see it worked.” Luna said with a certain...Coldness to her voice. She was all business right now.

“Indeed. Here’s the plan, since your sister will likely kill me if I stay, I’ll go look for their leader. Kill them. And return here. I expect you to treat Hamus before I return or we may have problems. Understood?” I said sternly. She visually balked at the order, no doubt not used to receiving orders.

“No! You have no idea what you’re up against here! Changlings are extremely dangerous!” She stated, leaving no room for me to argue. “You will stay here until we figure out what is wrong with Celestia and your friend, then with consolidated forces, we will take back the castle.” I had to admit, it was a better plan than mine.

“Very well then. Take care of my friend first though, he can watch our backs while we deal with your sister.”

“And why would I treat your friend before my sister, who mind you is a ruler of this land?”

“Would you like some changlings to rush in and shoot us in the back? Or would you like someone that can watch the door to prevent it?” I said, making the only good answer very apparent. Luna seemed to shift about as she recognised her defeat.

“Very well, dark magic is powerful but not hard to get rid of.” She said as she focused on Mike, her brow furrowed and sweat started to drip from her as she reversed the spell. “This spell shouldn’t be this powerful! It’s almost like it’s still being fed!” She said as she pushed much more magic into Mike. With a gasp, her horn glowed brightly and a massive blue beam shot from her horn.

“AHHH! FUCK!” I heard Mike scream as the magic coursed through him. Luna swiftly cut the spell and everything was quiet.

Mike

I felt a searing pain in me when the missile hit the wall. It was the only feeling I could feel, pain. And this was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life.

“AHHH! FUCK!” I shouted as the blast echoed through the corridor. Everything went quiet as I lay there with a burning pain in my heart.

“Is...Is he alright?” I heard a small voice ask from...Somewhere. I opened my eyes to find Luna and Nate looking over me.

“Fucking hell, what’d that bitch do to me?” I asked with a chuckle.

“Which one?” I heard Nate ask with a laugh, breaking the tension. He let out a grunt as Luna put her hoof back down on the floor.

“Right, if thou art done insulting me, may we get this moving onwards?” The way she asked seemed...Old. Like old english from the Renaissance old. Pushing her weird speech out of my head, I looked to Nate…

“Get what moving?”

“We needed someone to cover the door while we figure out what’s wrong with Sunbutt over there. Congratulations, you just volunteered!” He said happily. I stared at him for a moment while my brain made sense of what just happened. With a sigh I pushed myself up and grabbed my rifle off my chest.

“Just hurry the fuck up. I want to kill whoever did this to me.” I said as I tried to remember what exactly happened. I remember walking behind Luna and then...Then... “You bitch!” I shouted as I raised my rifle to Luna’s head. She visibly balked at me and cowered. In the blink of an eye, Nate was in my face with my rifle towards the ground.

“Later! Stow that shit for later.” He said with the cold finality I’ve come to know. I let out a growl and snapped my rifle towards the door. “Let’s go.” He said as he walked toward Celestia. Luna followed him like a little dog, always on his heels. Once they reached the alabaster alicorn, Nate raised his rifle. I turned my head to watch the door, doing my best to ignore the scene behind me.

Nate

I raised my rifle, ever so slowly towards Celestia’s head. Luna snapped the coldest gaze I’ve ever seen towards me.

“What in all this land do you THINK you’re doing!?!” Her shout was loud enough to cause me to stumble backwards.

“Protecting MY ass incase little miss fire crotch over here decides to go Super Saiyan on me again!” I shouted back as I raised my rifle. As it crossed her head, I noticed something. A flicker of green, ever so slight. Narrowing my eyes at the disgusting color, I double checked my weapon is set to fire.

“Hey Luna, these...Changlings, can they copy memories?” I asked slowly, never breaking eye contact with Celestia.

“No, they’re cunning creatures but they aren’t omnipresent.” Just the response I was looking for…

“Celestia, what were me and Hamus doing when you first met us?” I asked slowly, I hear luna suck in a breath, and one flash of green later, I had my answer.

A thunderous explosion and a spray of black blood was all that could be told of the remains. The non-Celestia’s head has become little more than paste and a forgotten memory.

“H...How did you know…” I heard Luna choke out. I looked over at her and saw her on her haunches, eyes wide and tear-filled.

“It was the eyes, they flicker green every few seconds. I noticed it the entire time she looked at us.” I replied softly. I crouched down to Luna’s level and tilted her head towards me. “This...Wasn’t your sister. Which means she’s still alive somewhere in here. And we can find her. We only need one thing and we can go.” I said as comfortably to her as I could.

“W-what do you need?”

Looking back to Hamus, he gave me a reluctant nod.

“permission.”

Author's Note

Sorry for the very long hiatus on this chapter. I fell out of the fandom for...A while. I'm slowly working back in and am getting older interests back. I'm not going to guarantee when the next chapter will come out, if it will at all. Though I may be slowly getting interests back, it's still on the back-burner so to speak. I figured I'd wrap up what I had on this chapter to get something out to y'all. It isn't much, but it's better than nothing.

Sorry again, Y'all.

-DD