Treasure of the Temple of the Demon
"Are you sure this is the place?" A unicorn prospector asks her partner, a bulky earth pony.
"Ugh. Yes dear." He replies for the third time in the past half hour since they entered the structure, which was buried under a hundred years worth of rock-slides and dirt. "This is the Temple of the Demon. All of the stories point to this being where one of the greatest powers of the old world was hidden. And the black rock and various emeralds dotting the entrance confirmed it. Now would you give us a light dear?"
"Sure babe." She replies, her horn glowing bright pink, creating a small but intensely bright sphere of magic, illuminating the circular pathway. "So this was made a hundred years ago?"
"It was allegedly made over a millennium ago. Well before the founding of old Equestria. And there was something powerful enough to defeat the goddesses. If we sell that, we could earn hundreds of thousands of caps. We could buy our own private army. Heck, we could buy our own town."
"But first we need to find it. Who knows what traps may be in store for us."
"But I'm sure you can handle it big guy." She replies, nuzzling her mate.
"hehh hehh hehhh" The mare pants, having just avoided the twenty eighth deathtrap since entering the temple, and making it through alone. "Goddesses I hope Leather Bound is ok. That poison didn't seem like it would move to fast. Just a paralyzing agent combined with a mildly toxic poison and a magic nullifier, but still, that boulder could have taken his leg off, lucky its only broken."
Continuing on through the lower levels of the temple, the mare finds an ornate looking door, circles with massive emeralds, the doors made of shiny obsidian, somehow not shattered.
"This has to be it. The chamber holding the...oh what the hell did he call it?" She asks herself, muttering for a few minutes while trying to find a way to open the sealed door. "Ah screw this shit." She blatantly states before using her magic to shatter the door, resulting in a blast of century old air from before the great war.. "Damn that reeks."
Upon entering the new chamber, her hoof crushed an ancient skull to dust. Looking down, she notices the skeleton is equine, except for some holes in the legs. She relights the room with her magic, revealing a massive chamber, easily the size of New Appleloosa, with lanturns blazing to life in an emerald fire, showing the true size of the room. Stretching stories upward, the walls of the massive chamber held massive emerald ovals, which seemed to pulse with light. In the center of the room, a gigantic emerald , perfectly cut, stood as large as a house, radiating magical energy.
"There are enough gems here to make a fortune, and the power coming from that central one..." She mutters under her breath,slowly moving closer to the emerald in the center of the room, almost as if she were magnetized to it.
As she gets close enough to press her hoof against the massive gem, it flashes brightly, and a the gem shatters into a million shards, some cutting the mare. Where the gem was, now rests, what looks to be a false alicorn. "Whatever it is, it looks like that skeleton I nearly crushed entirely. I wonder if it is the weapon?" She mutters to herself, inching closer to inspect the collapsed figure, clearing the surrounding area of gem shards, while readying her magic pistol with telekinesis. Its eyes suddenly open to reveal a pair of emerald eyes that quickly dart around, taking in its surroundings, before focusing on the mare. The intensity of the stare causing her to flinch in fear.
"What are you? Are you ok? Do you need any help?"
"I do not require assistance from mere ponies." The creature replies, slowly and weakly standing up on its own, its voice, almost duel toned, as though two ponies were speaking at the same time. "Now tell my why you invade my shelter before I destroy you."
"M-m-my husband and I c-c-c-came here in s-s-search of a weapon." The prospector mare stutters in response.
"There is no weapon here pony. Only an army and its queen. Didn't your parents warn you about the dangers of the badlands? They are my kingdom, and this, is my castle." The creature taunts, rising up on its insect wings, its horn glowing with an emerald aura. "And you, will be my first meal."
With a flash of emerald magic, the mare is sent unconscious, and the creature devours the love she has for her husband. "It feels good to be back." She states, walking over the husk of a mare on her way out of the chamber.
"Honey, we need to get out of here, now." The prospector mare shouts to her husband.
"What's wrong babe?" He asks, struggling to remove his leg from the rubble, despite the poison in his veins.
"The weapon, well it wasn't a weapon. It was some kind of...demon creature."
"A what now?" He asks, finally pulling his leg free.
"It looked like a-a-a demonic goddess. Look, we just need to get out of here, but I'm glad you are better again." She replies, giving her mate a kiss. Then, with a darkening of both face and voice... "Otherwise I wouldn't have a meal to restore my power." Before the stallion can react, his essence is swallowed by the mare, whos magic drew it out in an emerald light, turning the stallion into a husk. "Oh it's good to be queen."
"Now this wont do. My castle in shambles, my children still in their cocoons, the stores of pure love have almost drained out. This needs a full makeover." The ancient queen says to herself, wandering the halls of her once majestic castle in the original wasteland. "Damn my legs are sore. I must have been cocooned for at least 2 decades."
As she continues to wander the long forsaken halls, she comes across various cracked cocoons, shattered armaments, and the occasional skeleton of one of her children, which she burns respectfully. She soon comes to the hive armory, where various weapons and armor designed to enhance a changelings natural armor and magic were held, in case the war came to them. Finding her custom suited armor, she dons it, giving a her natural exoskeleton more of an aggressive appearance, with three sharp claws extruding from each of her front hooves, a shell protecting her wings like a beetle, and a pair of horns in her helmet, which act as amplifiers to her magic, tripling its potency. The body of the armor covering her torso and neck in a flexible but resilient material that would be able to resist nearly any magic attack but only blunt physical damage and low caliber weapons.
"Feels bigger than I remember." She mutters to herself, using her magic to retrieve her weapons, a scythe that would require a non-magical equine two hooves to control, which has a pure black edge with an emerald eye towards the back, and a magic pistol, created using a changeling horn as a focus.
"Now I suppose my children have been asleep long enough. Time to wake up my boys." With that, the queen attempts to telleport back to the shelter room, but fails and only manages to teleport halfway there. "My magic must have been drained for longer than I thought." She mutters through panting. "I need to feed properly, after, I wake up my children."
With a deafening crash, the cocoons in the shelter room all shatter, followed by the thuds of several hundred changelings hitting the ground, either dead or very close to it. Silent tears coming from the queens closed eyes as she mourns her fallen children, while tending to the ones that survived.
"Feed my children, but only what you need. We are on rations for now."
From the back of the chamber, three changelings, much larger than the rest, slowly and weakly move toward the queen, bowing before her. They didn't have the normal spines that most changelings had. The middle one, who had a scar of his left eye, had a deep purple mane that flowed over his right eye. The left one, a bright green mane that was stiff and spiked, like a mohawk. The right one had a blood red mane that covered his head, leaving only his horn and muzzle visible.
"My queen." The all say at once, their horns touching the floor
"I'm glad you survived Daemos, Arkantos, and Thanatanos. It will be easier to survive while my lieutenants remain alive." She says with a sigh and a heavy heart. "First thing's first. We need to know what the state of things are. Arkantos, take the three changelings who are least affected by the cocoon stasis and get a general lookout of the outside world. Thanatanos, care to the injured and recovering. Make sure all of my living children stay that way. Daemos..."
"YES MOTHER?!?" He exclaims, sounding as though he lacked any sort sanity.
"Go check on my pets. I know they can last decades without a proper meal, but I would like to know that my beasts are still able to guard my domain. They did react best to your primal personality after all."
"Right away mother." They all reply, Daemos louder than the others.
"I swear if those ponies or zebras are to blame for the state of my hive, we will rebuild using the stones cut from their buildings with the labor of their nation. Whoah..." The queen says after her threat to the nations not listening as she is suddenly lightheaded. "I'm just gonna lay down and grab a short nap...then...I need...nyrAAAAAAaah...to feed..."
"Mother I have returned." The deep, calm voice of Arkantos resonates inside the chamber the queen fell asleep in. "The badlands, the tree's that did grow do not grow any longer. The once barren sky is overcast by thunderclouds. There are bones of both wild and civilized creatures dotting the area. What is most unsettling is that the natural...scent, that surrounded Equestria, was no longer there."
Her head shoots up in shock. "WHAT!?!"
"Yes mother. It smells heavily of fear and bloodlust. We also found warmagic residue between their border and here, and I would assume that there is more in the actual nation."
"How long have we been asleep..."
"OH MOTHER!!!" The insane voice of Daemos resonates throughout the chamber, giving most visible headaches.
"Yes Daemos?" Chrysalis asks, rather annoyed but still loving.
"They're all dead. Except for that one dragon egg that you injected with changeling blood. HE'S ALIVE AND HUNGRY!!!"
"What?" She asks with a mix of sadness and joy.
"Yeah. Little bugger nearly got my back legs."
"I'm not even going to bother asking how you got close enough or why you did. Just go feed him with the gemstone shards that came from our cocoons. That should satisfy him."
"Her." Daemos interjects.
"Her?"
"Didn't see anything remotely male on the beast. Not to mention it was quite shapely for a dragon! HAHAHAHAHAH!"
"Well then...I wonder if any male dragons have survived the Wonderbolts or the Talon bounties, or even the Zebra with their voodoo?" Chrysalis asks herself, ignoring the insanity that is Daemos.
"Who knows mother." Thanatanos replies, returning from the laid out bodies of the injured and recovering. "What I do know is that our stocks are dangerously low. Only five months remaining until hive extinction. For now however, all of your children will be back to working condition within a week. Able to defend the hive in three weeks tops."
"That's good to know. But I'm afraid to ask how many didn't make it."
"We lost three-hundred and forty-one members of the family to time. Only a hundred and fifty-six others survived."
Tears start to come from the queens eyes at the thought of her fallen children, silently weaping, for despite being a mother of hundreds of thousands, a mother cares for each of her children equally.
"We need to find a source of love soon. I don't want more of my children dying. I wonder if they have forgotten of me yet. The Changeling Queen as the Ponies know me. The Demon of Hearts as the Zebra named me. The Reaper of Love as the gryphons knew me. Thanatanos the Scythe, Arkantos the Slayer. You two are to go ahead of me. Disguise as common ponies, and search for a source of love. If anyone attacks you or captures you, dispose of them as you see fit. Ensure that you activate the Hive Mind at midnight each eve and report to me your findings. You two are my heralds. Ensure that the nation has not forgotten us."
"AND WHAT ABOUT ME MOTHER?!?" Daemos asks as insane as ever.
"Ensure that my pet is alive and well. Enter her mind and set a direct connection to the hive mind. That shouldn't be to hard for Daemos the Devil now should it?"
"NOT AT ALL!" He salutes sloppily.
"That's what I thought. Today marks the moment when THE HIVE BEGINS TO RISE AGAIN!"
Author's Note
Do forgive any minor errors and please inform me of the major ones. I wrote this up at 4 am after I had a good spot of inspiration. Also, the chaps will get steadily longer and longer as we go.
