Episode 229: Fusion's Fury

It wasn’t that Chrysalis was unnerved. She didn’t get unnerved by much of anything. Usually. The instances where her near infinite well of personal confidence became challenged were so few she wouldn’t even need one hand to count them all. It wasn’t that she thought herself invincible. The old guard like Tirek, Scorpan, and Sombra were all more powerful than she, and the Zero Division stood even above them. She was certainly a big fish in her pond, however, and she knew her own capabilities well. She knew her confidence was a well-grounded and justifiable thing, even when faced against opponents of equal stature.

She also didn’t believe she had underestimated the Equestrians. In fact the cautious nature of her assault upon Equestria, ensuring her horde struck multiple cities to spread Equestria’s defenders thin before moving in on her intended target, was done because she knew that were the alicorn Princesses and their allies able to concentrate their might on one focal point, Chrysalis and her horde would likely come out the losers in such a head on collision. Magic may have been different than reiryuku, but when one boiled it down to the basics, energy was energy, and there were plenty of Equestrians who could tap into their world’s energy to an extent that readily rivaled their Earth counterparts.

Granted, she hadn’t run into any who were on the Zero Division’s level, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist, or at least had at one point or another. Her interest in history could be measured in wads of spit, but she suspected this world had its own long history that had its share of secrets and hidden powers. The existence of the Relics alone was proof of that.

And a part of her believed she was looking at the result of such a secret right now in the fused changeling hovering before her. The existence of the changelings was itself an oddity in Equestria, their origins an unknown seemingly even to them.

So no, it wasn’t nervousness, per se, that made the Second Espada’s heart race faster, sweat breaking out on her brow. It was a heady, prickling feeling akin to what an adrenaline junkie might feel the moment they jumped from an airplane, a bit unsure if they remembered to put on their parachute. Excitement mixed with acknowledgment of mortality.

This fusion, this Pharax, exuded energy enough to be a genuine threat. Chrysalis felt as giddily standing on edge as she did when facing Captains Celestia and Luna. She wasn’t some honor obsessed warrior in search of a worthy foe, but she did love it when she was up against someone who might be able to kill her, especially if she dropped her guard.

“Beautiful...” she breathed, spinning her Zanpaktou happily in her right hand, and held out her left in a clawed position, sparks of green power dancing between her fingers, “Please tell me you can hold this form for a decent length of time? It’s terrible when I get this excited for something and it turns out to be a quickshot-”

The funny thing was, she did see the attack coming. Pharax’s form rippled like water, red and blue light coursing over him like flaming oil. His speed was impressive, closely matching hers, which was why she was able to see it, react to it with some level of precision. But even so the way his right forehoof transmuted into a dark gray length of spiked adamantine metal attached to a segmented limb that extended near instantly still broke past her Zanpaktou and collided with her jaw with an shockwave impact that rattled her teeth. He’d propelled himself forward with the punch, his wings transmuting as well, becoming large, silver scaled lengths of dragonwing, yet layered with conical openings that jetted crimson energy that shot him forward at speed rivaling a Flash Step.

The changes weren’t done, his left hindleg transforming into a long, curved stinger tail of dark red chitin, venom dripping from the tip that swiped around and sought to gut her as she reeled back from the punch.

She shifted her hips and spun with the punch, using the spin to turn aside the stinger, catching it with her left hand. Even as she brought down her Zanpaktou to sever the stinger, the limb changed again, becoming a liquid mass of jelly that sting her hand fiercely even past her Hierro! Hissing in pleasure at the pain, Chrysalis yanked her hand back and twisted herself around into an air cracking roundhouse kick at Pharax’s head. His adamantine limb changed shape in an instant, becoming a blocky wedge of thicker metal that took her kick and absorbed the shattering blow with the steadfastness of a mountain.

It seemed to her like his body, any part of it, could change in less than a millisecond. With a grin splitting her face so wide it seemed to defy the limits of her own lips, she gripped her Zanpaktou in both hands and launched herself into a buzzsawing spin, her whole body alight with an aura of humming jade spiritual pressure. Pharax used his now massive right limb of chunky adamantine to take the sawing blow, and they both crashed to the ground, ripping it apart as she drove him back.

But then the wings on his back changed again, transforming into a pair of giant, thickly muscled arms, pebbled gray like they were more rock than flesh, four fingered with huge digging claws. These limbs grounded him in the earth and Chrysalis’ forward momentum halted, even as her Zanpaktou finally cut into the adamantine limb, drawing streams of mercury-like blood. Pharax made no sound, however, as he shot his left forelimb forward, and in an instant it flashed into a mass of spearing, blue tentacles covered in hooked barbs. Chrysalis felt her lower abdomen and right thigh pierced by these as she was ripped to the side and spun around to be smashed into the ground.

Growling in equal parts enjoyment and increased strain, she pointed a finger on her left hand at the mass of tendrils and fired a focused green Cero, thinner and more compact than a normal beam and used it like a laser scalpel that sheared through the limbs... and a good portion of the surrounding landscape. Pharax used his giant back limbs to throw himself into the air to avoid the thin beam, and changed those limbs back to those oddly silver, draconic wings that shot jets of power. He propelled down at her, his left forelimb bleeding from the severed tentacles, but it changed regardless and became a humongous maw without a head, like some primordial insect’s spreading jaws.

A fast jet of neon green mucus shot out, swifter than lightning, and Chrysalis used her Zanpaktou like a pole to propel herself up and away from it, her form blurring in mid-air as Pharax redirected the stream to try and catch her. Wherever the mucus landed, solid material disintegrated faster than any acid had a right to melt. For a few heartbeats Chrysalis could only flicker and feint with Sonido, dodging the bending and splattering stream. She wondered idly if she was bathed in it fully, would it be strong enough to melt her away entirely? A few stray drops did hit her skin, and the pain was a gorgeous agony. She was quite impressed that he was keeping up with her like this, and wondered how he was doing so without the use of any high-speed movement techniques? From what she could tell it was mostly raw speed born from those draconic silver wings with the jet vents, but surely there was more to it? Perhaps he'd used his changeling magic to alter his internal body chemistry to have more powerful adrenaline and neural reaction times? That seemed the most likely explanation, but given the fact he was matching her physically in terms of strength, she also had to just admit that when it came to magic it was probably pointless to speculate too much on how it directly affected biological limits.

Hahah, how exhilarating. If I hadn’t used up so much of my stamina fighting Zecora’s Reigai, this might be going differently. He’s able to match me right now because I’m just a tad too worn out. It's slowing my Sonido, and my regeneration, just enough to make this deliciously dangerous.

Just this brief exchange was enough for Chrysalis to get a grasp on Pharax and his power. The most dangerous thing about it was the way his body became a near infinite arsenal of altered shapes, any part of it capable of becoming something else. He didn’t need to keep his shape whole, any limb might serve as a means of deadly offense or hardened defense with a mere thought. She suspected that it was also the combined minds of the two brothers, Thorax and Pharynx together, that added to this. There was no apparent dissonance in Pharax’s actions that she could see. No argument between different minds controlling the same body. No, Pharax fought seamlessly, transitioning from one attack and transformation to the next without hesitation.

It gave her very little wiggle room to work with. She wasn’t even inclined to start bantering like she normally would to get a rise out of her opponent. This Pharax wasn’t going to have any of it.

Even the momentary split second she’d taken to think was enough opening for him to press his attack with a ruthless and relentless efficiency that Chrysalis could only admire. After she’d dodged most of the slick storm of acidic goo, he was already in her face, his body transforming in flashes of blue and red flame almost to the limit of what her senses could track. And here, she learned he wasn’t limited to altering parts of his body, but capable of growing entirely additional limbs and proportions.

For a few startling seconds, it was as if the air and ground were exploding across a several kilometer stretch. Chrysalis and Pharax’s forms were nearly invisible glints of motion as ground cracked from clashes and the air howled from concussive impacts. A legion of limbs of every description were blooming from Pharax’s body like a constantly moving avalanche, the jet-like dragon wings on his back multiplying along with his striking limbs to increase his speed and force. Chrysalis’ arms began to go numb from how fast and swiftly she was forced to parry with her Zanpaktou against insectile talons, slashing feline or canid claws, snapping reptilian fangs, or massive blunt fists and clubbing extremities, all colored metallic gray with the hardness of adamantine yet striking with all the furious speed that made the collection of limbs look like a multitude of hundreds.

Blood was flowing between the two, now. Chrysalis struck back as fast as Pharax was, willingly taking blows upon her body for each opening to cut at the fused changeling’s hardened body. Sometimes her blade scraped off the adamantine hide of scales or fur or whatever part of his body happened to be transforming at that instant, and other times she managed to draw a trickle of mercury bright blood. Her emerald eyes narrowed as she focused upon the wounds, even as her own body accumulated more ragged cuts and abrasions amid the flurry of violence.

He’s only using that adamantine mineral for his body. It must be the best substance for hardness and flexibility that exists in this world, otherwise he’d be trying different metals along with all these limbs. My Zanpaktou can still penetrate with a hard enough slice, my reiatsu hasn’t dropped enough for him to be able to ignore it. If I use Resurreccion, I can overwhelm even this form, impressive as it may be...

But much like her fight with Zecora’s Reigai, she didn’t want to break it out just yet. For one, Thorax and Pharynx were fully aware of her Resurreccion, having witnessed its power back in the Crystal Empire. Yet they still challenged her head on with this fusion. That either meant they still had a trump card up their sleeves, or they were playing for time in the hopes of wearing her out further, or indeed even forcing her to use Resurreccion so that the explosive release of energy might draw the attention of help from the rest of Equestria.

Regardless, Chrysalis knew she was on a timer. Even without Resurreccion she was throwing around enough power that the Princesses might have noticed. If she wanted to kill her counterpart tonight, she couldn’t afford to indulge herself on another opponent, even if she was genuinely enjoying this unexpectedly potent resistance from the changelings.

As she formed her plan on how to deal with Pharax, he had not let up for one instant, and once more Chrysalis’ momentary microsecond of thought gave him an opening. Amid the waves of blurring strikes, half of the limbs suddenly transmuted into nearly identical adamantine manacles. A changeling was far from limited to copying biological forms, after all, and Chrysalis had to grudgingly admire that Pharax had likely only been using biological forms up until now to draw her in and then take her off guard for just this very moment. Thick chains and manacles bound her body tightly in a thick mass, trapping her sword arm and legs, and clamping even around most of her head. She still had one eye unobstructed, and was able to see him using the right side of his body to take all of its many limbs and reshape them into one giant hammer that dwarfed a spire of the changeling Hive. Yet the hammer mixed biological elements of the jet vents from the dragon wings on his back, and with such godly thrust the jets blasted crimson power to drive the hammer right into her bound body.

Then he did it again. She’d been blasted away by the force of the blow, but the chains held and retracted, drawing her body back faster than a bungee cord.

Chrysalis felt tremendous impacts wrack her body as Pharax repelated hammered her over and over again in short order, each blow sending a crack like thunder through the air as she was sent reeling away, only to be instantly drawn back by the chains to be smashed once more. She felt the cracking of her bones like loving bursts of heat inside her, and neither wanted to nor tried to suppress her groans of equal pain and enjoyment.

Apparently, more than any banter she could have tried, her honest reactions to getting pummeled actually got a rise out of Pharax as his resonant, mixed voice of two tones growled, “Stop that! Stop enjoying this, you wretched creature!”

Chrysalis could only gurgle out a blood soaked chuckle at that, “Poor boy... aren’t you enjoying this...? Overpowering the evil monster you hate so much? Giving me what I ‘deserve’? Hahaha...enjoy it, please, it makes it all more fun for me...”

The look of utter disgust on his face was all the distraction she needed for her own counterattack. A flash of emerald flash was followed by something dark and slithering shooting out from the chains wrapping her body, a twisting spear of adamantine that pierced the chain links and then stabbed into Pharax’s body just left of the collarbone near his shoulder. He gasped in pain, silvery blood shooting from the wound as the extremity piercing him whipped his body down hard and caused him to lose focus on his chains.

Chrysalis was able to burst out of them with that moment of loosening, and swiftly used a Sonido enhanced speed kick to Pharax’s side to finish sending him crashing to the ground. He hit hard, adding to the collection of craters already decorating the landscape near the embattled Hive. Injured, but far from done, Pharax threw rocks and dirt off of himself and reared up, throwing an angered gaze upward, wondering how Chrysalis had struck him. His eyes widened a bit at what he saw.

Chrysalis was open mouth smiling, her tongue extended out to a bizarre length, its form gray and metallic like the adamantine she’d transmuted it into. She’d figured adamantine could pierce adamantine, and Pharax, sharp as he may have been, had forgotten that in this world of Equestria, Chrysalis herself was also a changeling.

And her own son, Thorax, had inherited his own rather long tongue from her, after all.

“You have no idea how much I want to keep dancing with you, but I do have an appointment to keep,” she said, getting ready to make her exit while she could, but before she had the chance, she felt a familiar reiatsu flare up behind her and turned. She used her tongue like a massively long whip, slashing it through a pink beam of Hollow power, splitting the Cero that had been aimed at her back.

Ocellus, her body ragged with streaks of blood and burns from the damage she’d taken earlier, still managed to crack her own grin as she stood with one palm extended and her ring blade held at the ready to her side, “Don’t go so soon, mother. I may be an adult now, but that doesn’t mean you get to cut family time short.”

Pharax used this moment to reform the wings upon his back and spiral up into the air to get on Chrysalis’ height, his body still glowing potently with its mixed red and blue aua. He brushed at the wound in his collarbone dismissively, “And a bug bite like this isn’t close to putting me down, either.”

Chrysalis’ own wounds, which were now a multitude of their own, were closing up. But she could tell the regeneration wasn’t happening as fast as before. She wasn’t at her limit, but short of using Resurreccion, she was getting close to how far she could push herself in her base form without risking critical damage, especially if either Pharax or Ocellus targeted her Hollow hole, the seat of any Hollow’s power, and in her case the seat of something far more precious.

Yet she couldn’t just disengage easily, not with Ocellus back in the fray. She’d need to generate a sufficient opening to get past this pair, which might prove difficult given her daughter was canny to most of Chrysalis’ Hollow abilities, and Pharax could keep pace with her physically. Chrysalis did not let this discourage her, indeed feeling a thriving sense of growing pleasure at the challenge, even if she was increasingly frustrated knowing her true quarry lay so close, yet so annoyingly out of reach for the moment.

But that only meant she’d savor the kill, and the maiming leading up to said kill, all the more when she finally got her hands on her counterpart. For now, she had to dance the dance in front of her.

More to keep Ocellus occupied than anything else, Chrysalis ran a sharp fingered hand over her neck and let out an arterial spray of blood, channeling her Hollow spirit energy into it. The blood stream convulsed and throbbed like a living growth of tissue, bursting into multiple, dripping red drone forms. Not as many as she’d created to fight Zecora’s Regai, but a decent score or so to rush Ocellus with the mindless, screaming quality of these murderous creations’ usual style.

As Ocellus started to lay in to the blood drones with her ring blade, cutting a decent swath but one that would take a minute or two of her daughter’s time, Chrysalis turned to Pharax as her throat closed up. His look of disgust had only increased at the display, and he was already charging her, although rather than come at her headlong the draconic jet-wings on his back flared with pin-point motions of vector thrust that hurled him at several fast ninety degree angles that left him at first coming from her right, then abruptly shifting to streak in from the left.

It was a good feint, but it demonstrated that he wasn’t as used to high-speed combat as she was. His speed certainly could keep up with hers, as he’d been amply demonstrating so far, but Chrysalis had been using Sonido against Soul Reaper Shunpo and Quincy Hirenkyaku for centuries. After already skirmishing with Pharax for a bit, she was getting used to his pattern, his tempo. And now she had a fair notion of how to use his momentum against him.

He’d transformed again, merging his two front legs together into an impressive spike of hardened adamantine that looked very much like a jagged piece of sea coral made of metal. Each sharp prong of the coral shuddered as if alive, slamming forward as if the main spike had a cavalcade of sub-spikes extending and curving from it as if trying to embrace Chrysalis and shove her onto the main growth.

Her form blurred, back stepping with small, focused bursts of Sonido, twisting her Zanpaktou to the right at first to catch the tip of the spike. On impact she felt her muscles shake and strain, and she let the momentum of Pharax’s thrust carry her backwards and add to her spin. The sub-spikes stabbed into her, but she let them tear her flesh as she used another short burst of Sonido to slip forward, reversing her course as she kept her blade locked on the main spike, pushing it further past her while her body completed its spin. Pharax, having put his full speed and strength into the blow, barely had time to react, having felt his strike impact and felt his secondary spikes tear into her and believing he’d struck a telling blow.

The problem with high-speed combat is that if you weren’t careful, you could easily overcommit to a motion. Strictly speaking this was true of all combat, but the problem magnified greatly when you were dealing with speeds not readily comprehensible to biological brains. Just how fast can a mind react when something goes wrong at a speed faster than the electrical impulses of a mind’s neurons? To handle that kind of faster-than-thought fighting you needed the instincts and sense of spiritual energies only long, long experience provided.

Pharax was keeping up because he had two minds seamlessly melded together to add to his reflexes, but he’d overcommitted on this attack, believing (technically correctly) that Chrysalis' body was slowing down. Now he found her spinning right past his deflected spike, body torn up but moving faster than he’d expected, and felt the sharp bite of pain across his right side. Her Zanpaktou was out of position to strike, but her left arm had grown sharp claws from a bit of changeling transmutation and she’d raked them right across his body as she flashed past.

Pharax bit back a grunt of pain, feeling blood trickle down his side, but he didn’t let the wound slow him as he burst upwards into the sky. He dropped the large lance-like spike form and transformed again, this time shifting more of his body altogether. He elongated, his body becoming for a moment like a river and red and blue flames as everything expanded and grew. He kept the prominent set of jet fueled, silver dragon wings that had been serving him so well so far, as it was from a unique ancestor of modern Equestrian dragons that had such wings that could allow insanely fast flight. The rest of his body, however, became a taut length of serpentine gold, growing sharp, segmented plates of armor that covered a body some hundred and twenty feet long, ending in a head more like a lion than a serpent, surrounded by a flowing mane of gold flames. This wasn’t one creature, but an amalgamation of several. The hard gold scales were from a Aurumtoise, said to be one of the most invulnerable creatures in the world due to its energy resistant scales that could turn aside even powerful spells. The serpent body was that of a northern Tundra Wyrm, supposedly strong enough to use its coils to break even dragon bones. The head was that of a Testarosa, a rare elemental creature from deep in the ground, near the hot center of the world.

He whipped the tail of his amalgam form with a crack louder than thunder, nearly managing to tag Chrysalis as she flitted away. His eyes tracked her as best he could, flying on serpentine motions, the dragon wings flaring as he chased her. She flung back her palm and disgorged a flurry of buzzing Bala bullets, and although their impacts were hard upon his scales, the resilience of the Arumtoise held up and only a scale or two were knocked free by the barrage as he chased her across the sky. They passed over the Hive, and both Chrysalis and Pharax could catch a glimpse of the action down on its roof.

The Hive was a shining, ice blue fortress now, Chrysalis mostly recognizing the pagoda styled palace rising from the roof of the changelings’ Hive. She noted it was different from what she’d heard of, concerning Platinum’s Bankai, the uneven spires of the Hive having merged with the ice of the pagoda, and the pagoda itself having acquired walls that were themselves jagged and now like partially organic resin merged with ice. Strange as that was, Chrysalis was more focused on the fact that Platinum seemed to be managing to hold at bay over a hundred of her Arrancar children... well, not alone, Platinum’s whelp was with her. Chrysalis couldn’t quite grasp what Ocellus saw in the boy, but loyalty was at least clearly one of his traits, for he could be seen fighting back to back with his mother against Chrysalis’ horde.

How long the pair could hold out was questionable. Platinum was strong enough as far as Soul Reaper Captains went, but not their best, and even a Captain at the top of their game could be overwhelmed with numbers. Platinum and her son would fall soon enough, and likely the hundred or more Arrancar were, if anything, being bogged down by how many of them there were who couldn’t call get at the pair all at once.

Which meant the horde could probably spare a few... a plan formed in Chrysalis’ mind.

About in time for Pharax to catch up with her, some two hundred feet above the Hive and half a kilometer north east of it as Chrysalis led him to some less destroyed patch of ground. She saw him actively try to avoid overcommiting his momentum again as he used his wings to jet forth energies that controlled his dive at her as he whipped his tail around again in a fast, blurring pattern of strikes. She could feel the power in each of those tail strikes, but understood that wasn’t the real danger, it was getting caught by the serpent’s coils.

He was trying to bind her again.

Well, why not let him?

She pretended to dodge several times, and even retaliated with her Zanpaktou, managing to scrape off a few more scales, which were not as hard as the adamantine against physical attacks but rather well suited to brushing off her spirit energy based Bala. She imagined the gold scales might even deflect a full powered Cero. Her sword strike still drew blood, but had left her close enough for the serpent tail to coil around her, Pharax giving a feral grin of satisfaction as he wrapped her up with his body and began to squeeze.

He wasn’t done with just that, gold flames billowing in a growing mass within the lion-like maw of the Testarosa head he now wore. In a focused spew of incinerating heat, he shot those flames down into the coils around Chrysalis, the gold scales of his own form protecting him from the heat that could vaporize stone instantly. Surely if he turned her into nothing more than a few motes of ash, then no regeneration, however powerful, could reconstitute her. Even with the energy resistant scales, he felt parts of his coils burning, but kept his grip tight regardless, convinced of the need to finish this and give this monster no chance to escape.

But something was definitely wrong. Pharax sensed nothing within his coils, although he was certain he’d seen her become gripped by them! Even if she’d changed shape into something smaller, he would have seen the tell-tale flash of green flame that accompanied a changeling altering their shape. He uncoiled just enough to see through his flames to tell if there was a body there being incinerated, and by the time he realize she had indeed somehow slipped free, he was already feeling a slicing pain across his back!

Several of the dragon wings he’d placed there had been severed and a silver line cut across his back, spilling mercury blood. He roared and spun around, jetting gold flames in a wide arc. Chrysalis, her sword dripping blood, slipped away from the flames, vanishing and appearing a few hundred feet higher, and he pursued, bellowing, “How did you escape that!?”

“An easy trick when one fights at these speeds, let me show you,” she chortled, and seemed to halt in mid-air. Confused but persistent, Pharax blasted her with flames, only to notice her form seem to melt away like mist, followed a moment later by a emerald flare as the real Chrysalis, some several dozen feet to the right of that spot, fired a Cero that blasted into the side of his body. His scales dispersed much of the impact and he coiled his body up, glaring at the two spots where she’d been, noticing now the subtle flickers in his own magic senses that indicated the shifts in her spirit energy.

“A free lesson,” Chrysalis said with mocking consideration, “Don’t be taken in by afterimages. Most who reach our levels of speed aren’t fooled by them, so they’re not so often used, but you’re still lacking polish, my powerful morsel.”

There was a metallic whistle, and Chrysalis spun to receive upon her Zanpaktou a clash of Ocellus’ ring blade, “Honey, mommy was lecturing.”

“I noticed,” Ocellus replied with a cheeky wink, arms straining on the handle of her weapon, “That’s why I tried slashing you in the back.”

With that, the four vines on her own back shot out and around, while Ocellus kept the pressure on with her ring blade to try and keep Chrysalis’ sword bound in place as the smaller rings upon her vines struck from behind. Chrysalis used the open palm of her free hand to bat the smaller ring blades aside, despite taking a few cuts on her hand for the effort. At the same time, Pharax used the moment to soar upwards as fast as he could, somewhat slowed by the wounds on his back but manage to plow right into Chrysalis and grip her in the sharp jaws of his Testarosa head.

“Not an afterimage now, are you!?” he growled, charging up a throat full of pure gold flame that he planned to vomit right onto the woman clenched between his massive teeth.

Spewing up a bit of blood, Chrysalis wheezed out a laugh, “No, but is it wise to cover your face in my blood?”

She was bleeding all over his rather large, lion shaped face, some of it even going down his throat as his flames billowed up in a growing storm of heat. Pharax saw all of that blood bubble upwards and pulsate, and having seen the ugly crimson drones that burst forth from them to briefly scuffle with Ocellus before she cut her way through them, he reflexively spat Chrysalis out of his mouth. He still fired his flames, but at the same moment a swath of the blood drones were now ripping themselves into existence from Chrysalis’ spilled blood and they piled upon his face. Their claws scraped at him, even as gold flames melted them. Their howls filled the air, knowing neither fear or pain as they clawed and cut while simultaneously turning to charred ash.

Pharax returned to his original form, although only long enough to transmute his limbs into a series of adamantine talons that he used to rapidly rip apart the last few blood drones. His body flickered for a moment, a haze of blue and red energy wavering over his form that for an instant showed two shapes instead of one, but then he was back to a solid state.

Chrysalis, taking a moment to let her slowed regeneration catch up with all of her wounds, noted this. His fusion looked like it was getting gradually less stable, especially as the damage on him piled up. She wasn’t the only one on a time limit, it seemed.

As they squared off, Ocellus joined Pharax at his side, licking her lips, “You’re not looking well, mother. Getting tired?”

Chrysalis ran a bloodied hand through her long, silken green hair, coating the strands red, “Well it has been a marathon of a night thus far. But this is a good ache. A passionate exchange of blood and pain is something to savor, if only I didn’t have other priorities tonight.”

“You’re not getting one step inside my Hive,” Pharax declared pointedly, and Chrysalis saw the aura of furious blue and intermixed red grow around himself as he gathered his changeling magic for something... big. One got a sense of these things, and while magic itself remained an unfamiliar kind of energy, Chrysalis could tell that Pharax was preparing some kind of final gambit, focusing his power for a large attack. Judging from the way his form also flickered again with a momentary dual silhouette, using this much magic was also adding to the unstable nature of his fusion.

Chances were whatever he was about to do might end his fusion, but was also intended to end her. Given her drained state, he may well be making a well informed gamble.

“Can you keep her pinned down for a bit?” Pharax whispered to Ocellus, who gave a solid nod and rather than reply verbally, she twirled her ring blade, coiled her legs under her, and launched herself headlong at Chrysalis.

Chrysalis tried to keep an eye on what Pharax was doing, which appeared to be slowly descended towards the ground once more. Their fight had drifted northward of the hive, so he was descending onto relatively untouched ground. Then, Chrysalis had to focus her attention on her daughter, who had placed her ring blade over her own body like a large, deadly sharp hula-hoop. Both the primary ring blade and the blades upon her vines spun together in a complex flurry that actually took a good deal of Chrysalis’ attention to evade or parry.

Which was the point, of course. Chrysalis was tempted to indulge her daughter’s dance, for it was an impressive combo of attacks, but she no longer had the luxury of enjoying the moment. She had more than enough blood exposed on her body that licking up some of it was no matter at all as she spun and dodged, ducked, and twisted aside Ocellus’ spinning blades. She then spat a glob of that blood out, investing a potent spark of Hollow power into it as blue and green energy collected and combined within the blood.

Less a Gran Rey Cero and more a Gran Rey Mine, the unstable blob of blood and Hollow energy detonated right in front of Ocellus, bursting with a wide sphere of sky shaking force that sent the girl hurtling away like a smoking ember, three of our four vine ring blades shattered and a her face bloodied. To her daughter’s credit, she wasn’t unconscious, and with one eye still open and focused on Chrysalis, she held out a hand towards her mother as she fell.

“Semillas De Sangre Excavadas.” (Burrowing Blood Seeds)

Chrysalis felt pain ripple through her arms and legs as suddenly red, thorny vines burst from her flesh and wrapped around her body! For an instant she was surprised, but then realized that these vines must be from seeds Ocellus had planted in her much earlier in the fight. Those petal-like energy projections Ocellus had unleashed had hit the exact spots the vines now grew from. Chrysalis had known about that particular attack, but not this vine growth ability. Apparently her daughter had kept at least one power a secret, even from her.

The vines had some real bite to them, too, and while if she’d been in top form Chrysalis could have more readily broken free of them, right now they were holding her fast. She’d still be able to shred them in due time, even as the sharp thorns, much larger than normal ones, were cutting into her. Time wasn’t on her side, however, signified by the explosive flash of deep ruby and bright azure energies that stemmed from where Pharax had landed. These red and blue auras grew into intertwined gouts of transforming flame that was magnitudes lager than any previous change, and a truly towering shape took form on the Badlands, causing even Chrysalis to give a wide look of impressed surprise.

The beast that Pharax had taken the shape of stood well over a hundred meters in height, built on a powerful two-legged frame of hardened, saurian might. Its outer skin was a dark bluish gray, shot through with streaks of lighter blue around the powerfully wide chest. Its back and impressive long and thick tail were marked by distinctive spines of pale, pearl colored bone that pulsated with an inner azure light, largest in the middle of the back, but still growing impressively nearly to the crest of the beast’s head, somewhere between the features of a primordial dinosaur or some ancient, blunt featured dragon. Powerfully muscled foreclaws flexed, and pure blue eyes flickered with inner energies as Pharax gave off a trumpeting roar that, in another world and in another time, may have sounded familiar to those who were fans of the ‘kaiju’ genre of films.

This beast was not identical to that certain famed kaiju of another realm, but by whatever twist of fates may have had it, in this Equestria there may have been some manner of primal beast in eons long gone that held a dimensional kinship with a certain ‘king’ of monsters. Regardless of the reasons, buried deep in the changelings’ own record of beings they could shape themselves into was this beast. Yet taking its form would have been impossible for even a powerful changeling, only the fused state that Pharax was in made this incredible feat possible. Doing so was costing him dearly in energy drain. He was almost assuredly going to lose his fusion within a much shorter time frame, now.

So he intended to make the most of it.

Pharax didn’t lose a second, focusing on the bound Chrysalis. The spines upon his massive back began to pulsate with even greater streams of flaring blue light, energy pooling across his now gargantuan body. He opened titanic jaws, azure flame gathering in rawest form as the light grew brighter and brighter.

Chrysalis, feeling precisely how potent this oncoming attack was going to be, didn’t sit idle. Despite being constrained by the cutting vines, she was far from helpless. Her own reiatsu flared up, flowing in green waves around her. This was both in preparation for her counter-move, but also a call, a precisely fixed burst of spiritual pressure her children could not ignore. Even if any of them wanted to ignore her command, it wasn’t actually possible for those except her true born like Ocellus.

Upon the roof of the changeling Hive, where Platinum and Pipsqueak remained in deadly, pitched defensive battle, suddenly nearly half the Arrancar they were fighting just vanished as they used Sonido to the utmost of their own speed to disengage and rush to their progenitor’s side. As this happened, Chrysalis opened her own mouth wide, wider than was naturally possible. She was a changeling in this world, and changeling’s fed their power with love, and regardless of her monstrous nature, it hardly altered the fact her children loved her with utter devotion.

Swift streams of green light flowed from her children, who were appearing around her by the dozens. This energy coiled into her mouth, and she combined it with her own Hollow reishi, which grew into a pulsating, enlarged sphere of green and blue that began to warp the air around her. The sky and ground both seemed to shake under the intense pressure built both from Chrysalis’ charging energies and the increasingly bright hum of Pharax’s own power.

Both unleashed their respective furies simultaneously.

From Pharax’s titan-form a solid, wide, incomprehensibly bright beam or magic and primal atomic flame shot forth that trailed waves of steam as it flash fried every inch of moisture from the air as it moved. From Chrysalis, a jagged green and blue bolt of a Gran Rey Cero, empowered by the consumed love of her children, bent and twisted space as it flew down to meet its counterpart.

The two attacks met nearly in the middle, and only clashed for a handful of eyeblinks before becoming a singularity of explosive power that detonated with a force surpassing even a nuclear weapon. Had Pharax not been shielding the Hive with his own body, the resulting concussive wave of force might have torn the Hive itself down, although the fact that Platinum’s Bankai was merged with the Hive down to the foundations also contributed greatly to keeping the structure safely intact as the rest of the Badlands shook with an earthquake more intense than any natural one it had experienced.

If no one had noticed the battle at the Hive by now, the flash on the horizon that could be seen from practically Appleoosa would have clued most folks in.

Pharax’s body had taken the brunt of the shockwave, which was painful but the form he had taken was the kind that could tank nukes with general ease. This had been an explosion stronger than that, admittedly, but still not enough to do more than rattle and bruise the towering saurian titan. Far more concerning than any damage inflicted was the fact that Pharax could feel the strain of the magic fusing him together flagging, the seamless blend of his two minds starting to fray.

As for Chrysalis, she nor the fifty or so children that had come to her side had gotten out of the explosion unscathed. The vines had been burned from her flesh, but then a good chunk of her body had also gotten the brunt of intense burns. At least ten of her Arrancar drones had been killed outright, but they had used their own bodies to shield their brothers and sisters, sparring the rest to survive with painful but non-fatal burns.

“That was... rather painful...” Chrysalis admitted, her flesh still smoking as it struggled to repair itself, “I rather think you might have actually succeeded in killing me had I not such a devoted family. Good work, children. Extra souls to whoever lives through the night.”

Almost heedless of their fallen, the drones all smiled and gave off joyful cheers. Chrysalis raised a charred finger that was very slowly healing with wet, crunching noises, “First, do assist your poor old mother with getting into that Hive.”

Pharax’s own growl rumbled through the air. He wasn’t about to risk the Hive on another clash of energies like that. He felt bad enough risking it the first time, not sure if Ocellus had survived that massive explosion, nor entirely sure if Starlight and Trixie had been out of the radius. But at this point he was getting desperate. It was taking all of his mental focus and willpower to hold his fusion together along with this giant form. And he needed to push it even harder, now. From the titan’s broad, spiked back, a flare of crimson and blue flames formed new wings, enormous version of the silver dragon wings that jetted red flares of power for flight.

Making something this huge and heavy fly was no small feat, but Pharax did it anyway, making huge piles of dust billow up in a sandstorm as with huge rocket boots of power he forced his bulk into the air and flew right for Chrysalis and her formation of Arrancar.

They descended to meet him, but at the same time Pharax noticed something that made his large, blue eyes widen. The Arrancar around Chrysalis were transforming. Not into Resurreccion, for all of them had already done that. No, they were flaring with green bursts of changeling transmutation. And by the time they were done it was not one, by over forty duplications of Chrysalis’ form and face, complete with identical wounds, that were flying towards him!

Pharax snarled and struck out with his powerfully huge talons as he crashed into the swarm, swatting at them. Despite his size he used the jetting wings upon his back to roll and give his strikes speed. He felt one ‘Chrysalis’ get torn right in half, and smashed another it a broken burst of blood. He continued his momentum with a spin that made his long, mountainous tail swing with a wave of force, scattering half a dozen more that were too slow to get out of the way.

All laughing, the flock of ‘Chrysalis’ duplicates began to swarm around him, firing barrages of Cero beams upon his bulky body. The beams couldn’t really be avoided at this size, but most splashed upon his thick frame with minimal damage. None of Chrysalis Arrancar drones packed the kind of punch with their spiritual pressure to do more than scratch him, although enough scratches would add up, given time. He took a second to ignore the flurry of beams exploding over him as he tried to find the real Chrysalis. Surely if she hit him with a Cero it would hit much harder than the others... So where was she!?

That’s when it occurred to him that she wasn’t with the swarm. She’d kept going, while he’d been distracted by all of the faces that looked like her! He turned towards the Hive, but to his dismay he couldn’t see her. If she’d gone for the Hive, she’d likely have used Sonido to do it fast while he’d had his eyes on all of her duplicates!

With a feral roar of rage, Pharax let his body descend back to the ground, using the jets of power from his wings to soften his landing so he didn’t destroy more of the Badlands. The other Arrancar, all still wearing Chrysalis’ form, were laughing as they continued to pound him with Ceros, and with a deep snarl like a breaking glacier, he began to charge another atomic breath...

Which was precisely when his anger and frustration at having lost Chrysalis finally became the last nail in the coffin of his concentration. He just fired one more blast of blue atomic death, managing to incinerate one Arrancar that was too slow to evade, but then his body flickered with multiple waves of unstable blue and green flame. With a guttural roar of denial, his shape changed, growing smaller and smaller until Pharax was back to his original size and form. Then, even that couldn’t maintain itself and the two brothers split apart in a single flash of light, both stumbling back away from each other.

“Arrgh, dammit all!” Pharynx shouted, breathing hard, his body sporting many of the same wounds sustained as Pharax, “We let her get away! Quick, Thorax, we got to fuse again!”

Thorax, sucking in panting breaths, no less wounded than his brother, for they shared the damage Pharax had taken, looked up with a woeful shake of his head, “C-can’t... not without rest. We’ve nearly used everything up.”

Despite wanting to spit denial at his brother, Pharynx knew that Thorax was right. Even if they tried to fuse once more, they didn’t have enough magic left to make it stick for more than a second or two. If they had an opportunity to consume some love, perhaps, but any changelings who could offer some up were fully engaged in deadly combat within the Hive.

“Then, we fight our way to the Hive, and do what we can to hold out until help arrives,” Pharynx said, “Somepony in Equestria had to have seen that explosion and figured out we’re in trouble.”

Thorax nodded, and gulped, for by now the two brothers were being quickly surrounded as Arrancar after Arrancar from the surviving group that had been swarming their fused form now began to appear around them. Almost all of these Hollows were in Resurreccion form, circling the brothers with a menagerie of different forms ranging from muscle swollen brutes to sharp, insectile shapes, no two quite alike but all a much larger threat now that Pharynx and Thorax were no longer fused and exhausted.

“This... doesn’t look good, does it, brother?” Thorax said, slowly putting his back to Pharynx as the pair faced the salivating Arrancar who were slowly edging towards them, as if they were a pack of wolves savoring the moment before pouncing. Pharynx, for his part, managed a cynical attempt at a smirk, using some of his limited remaining magic to shift his right foreleg into a scythe-like blade arm.

“Sure doesn’t. You gonna let that make you back down, King of the Changelings?”

Thorax took a deep breath, and drew himself up to his full height after taking a deep breath. Changeling flames washed over him as he formed his body to have big, mole-like talons. Neither of them had enough magic left to do bigger or fancier transformations, so they’d have to fight conservatively for now, until their magic had a chance to recover. Assuming they lived that long.

“Not as long as there’s a Hive left to save.”

A male Arrancar who’s back had sprouted bone white beetle wings and had thick armored gauntlets on his elongated arms that sported a pair of long, almost drill-like spikes came at them first. The Arrancar came at Thorax from the left after leaping up in a blur of Sonido, Thorax only barely following the motion because he’d transformed his own adrenal glands into a much stronger version that helped his reflexes even without a huge amount of magic left to tap into. He had to cross his thick mole talons in front of him to block the hefty blow of the Arrancar’s drill arms, which indeed showed their nature by spinning up upon impact. Thorax was driven back, but then spat a glob of resin right into the Arrancar’s face, momentarily blinding them. He ducked down, ignoring the burning pain from a drill scraping his back, then he racked his talons over the Arrancar’s chest. The Hierro was much harder to penetrate without being fused, and he knocked the Arrancar aside with a light bleeding wound, but not enough to drop him.

Pharynx was doing his best to fend off a pair of female Arrancar whose forms shared similar if not identical transformations that gave them serrated pincer arms of slightly different lengths and thickness, but clearly let them work well together as a team as they tried to slice Pharynx apart. The canny and capable changeling warrior kept his own right foreleg shifted into a scythe blade while he shifted his left into a broader, thicker length of sharp chitin like a mix between a sword and a shield. Taking advantage of the Arrancar’s overconfident strikes, he patiently parried until openings presented themselves to strike back hard, cutting one’s arm off that left her backpedaling with a shriek, while the other took a deep gash across her face.

But this early success for both brothers was short lived, as Thorax was struck from behind with a Bala fired from the surrounding crowd, and Pharynx found himself getting targeted by a swiftly fired Cero that his blade-shield barely managed to stave off just before shattering and leaving his own arm a bloody mess.

Seeing both of them staggered, the Arrancar advanced, only to be all knocked back by an expanding wave of teal light as a thick bubble of defensive magic snapped into being around the changeling brothers.

“Geeze, this isn’t really going our way, is it?” said a sweating Starlight Glimmer, her horn lit up bright as she maintained the barrier around herself, Thorax, Pharynx, and also Trixie, who had been teleported in alongside Starlight just in the nick of time.

Both mares were dirt covered and a tad singed, Trixie still trying to extinguish a burning strand of silver mane, “Seriously! I thought we were going to die in that explosion! Why didn’t you warn us you were going to do something crazy like turn into a gigantic Changelingzilla and blow up half the Badlands!?”

“Um, sorry about that,” Thorax replied, showing an embarrassed blanche as he rubbed the back of his head, “We were kinda out of options. I’m glad you’re both alright.”

Looking at the surrounding cluster of Arrancar who were poking at her magic barrier, some of them already charging up Ceros with baleful red glows, Starlight let out a shaky laugh, “Alright is a very relative term right now. A new plan would not go unappreciated, if anypony or changeling has one!”

“Teleport us into the Hive,” Thorax said, just as the first Cero struck Starlight’s barrier. The solid bubble of thick teal energy held, even as a second, then a third Cero splashed destructive crimson light over it. But there was clear strain on Starlight’s face as she kept her magic pouring into the barrier.

“I can get us into the courtyard, it’s the spot I’m most familiar with. But I don’t know how Platinum’s Bankai has changed the interior, so it's a bit risky if we end up stuck in an ice wall or something.”

“Or teleport into somepony, with all the fighting going on in there,” Trixie said with a shudder. More Ceros blasted into Starlight’s shield, the smallest of cracks starting to form under the growing barrage.

“Better than staying here,” Pharynx pointed out, “But if you can just get us onto the roof, we’ll link up with Platinum and deal with the enemy up top. Then, if we’re lucky, we can sweep down from there and help our forces route these bastards. If we find their damn Espada in the process, all the better.”

“Assuming she doesn’t kill our Chrysalis before then...” Thorax pointed out, his tone subdued, quiet, as if he couldn’t decide still if that was an outcome he’d welcome or regret. Pharynx, far more pragmatic, just shrugged his shoulders, clearly not invested in the matter the same way his brother was.

“Whatever happens with her, happens. I just want to save our people.”

Thorax didn’t gainsay his brother, only closed his eyes for a moment and then looked to Starlight, “The roof, then. Preferably before your barrier gets blasted apart.”

By now there were spiderwebs of cracks forming all over the hefty bubble of protective magic. Starlight Glimmer was strong, probably the strongest unicorn in Equestria, but as she’d explained to Thorax before, she didn’t specialize in barriers the way Shining Armor did. A now continuous series of explosions from rapid Cero impacts from nearly thirty Arrancar in Resurreccion form would overwhelm her defenses in another minute or two. Fortunately one thing Starlight did specialize in was casting multiple spells simultaneously, usually a difficult task for a unicorn.

She wove strands of magic around herself and her companions, and with a bright teal poof of light, they vanished.

The fact that things had been easy, relatively speaking, once she was out of her cell had done absolutely nothing to make Chrysalis feel at ease. In fact the turmoil, anxiously boiling inside her heart, only got worse. Retrieving her Bakkoto and the gold colored torc with a jade stone set it that was in theory supposed to be her Relic had been straightforward enough. They’d been kept in a sealed storage room a short hallway down from the dungeon cells. While the resin door had been solid, it had also been left unguarded by the attack taking place on the Hive. Chrysalis had expert knowledge of her own Hive, however, and while the dungeon cells had no designed weakness for they were meant to hold troublesome prisoners, a storage room like this had a door designed with a specific weak point so it could be readily broken open in an emergency.

Apparently Thorax hadn’t removed said weakness, and so within a few minutes Chrysalis had tapped the resin door in a very specific spot, causing it to crack in half, and went inside the storage room. A minute later she emerged with the black, sharp angled gauntlet of her Bakkoto on her right foreleg, and the unusually pliant Relic torc attached to her neck.

She had expected to feel a sense of triumph or at least excitement upon getting her Relic back. It was the whole reason she came here! The promise of power, a new road to get back all she deserved, including revenge.

The rumbling shakes of her Hive’s walls, and the distant echoes of screams that were filtering down through the dark corridors, stole the expected satisfaction she thought she’d feel. Only a cold anxiety and clammy, crawling sense of approaching doom filled her as she swiftly made her way down the winding corridors. She paused only long enough to extend one of her Bakkoto’s linked whip blades. Very carefully she used the edge to slice off the anti-magic resin coating her horn. She winced a bit as a nearby quake from an explosion somewhere in the Hive made her nick her horn slightly, but fortunately not too deep. With the horn free, she sighed only briefly and used her magic to change her form, taking on the shape of a dull silver-gray, elderly looking changeling female. She had a vague recollection of seeing a changeling that looked like this when exploring the Hive earlier, so it ought to serve as a disguise, at least until she got out of here. She could even disguise her Bakkoto, since the weapon adopted her changeling ability to morph, so it now looked like a simple onyx bracelet. She couldn't disguise the Relic in the same manner, but there was nothing for it but to hope that most changelings in the Hive wouldn't know what it was or recognize it.

She had to rely a bit on her own budding spiritual senses to work out where to go. Back when she was Queen of this Hive she’d never really put any thought to concepts like ‘evacuation’, so wasn’t certain where the bulk of her changelings might be going to escape the Hive. She could tell from the tremors of combat and roars of pain and anger that echoed from above that the fighting itself was taking place a level or two above the main floor. Once she found a winding stairwell up a floor, she noticed as well that the walls were... covered in ice?

“Platinum...” she breathed, and against her own will her legs seemed to halt in place for a moment, reluctant to take the next step on her escape.

But she had to escape. Platinum had made her choice to stay and fight, as insane and foolish as that was! Chrysalis was under no obligation to stay behind and join her... ally on a suicide mission. Yet it was annoyingly difficult to make her legs start to move again. She quickly noted much of the main floor and the Hive above were thickly coated in ice, and her dull but still functional senses could actually feel Platinum’s... what was it called again, reiatsu?

Well, she’s alive, at least. Maybe she’ll have the sense to run away before my psychotic counterpart turns their attention to her.

Chrysalis intended the thought as a hard dismissal, but somehow it came across as something closer to a hope, which was even more uncomfortable. She hurried her steps, trying to follow where she sensed a collection of several hundred spirit pressures that clearly weren’t in combat. She had to cross the main courtyard to reach a main concourse tunnel that she knew would lead to several larger civilian living chambers, with large water wells beyond that. Chrysalis figured that must be where the Hive’s population that weren’t fighting would be gathering to evacuate.

The sounds of combat were much louder, here, and Chrysalis sucked in a breath as she saw that the courtyard was partially destroyed, with thick chunks of rubble laying strewn about with a number of bodies. Both changelings and Arrancar were laying splayed out, almost all in varying states of demise ranging from impalement, partially melted, burned, or outright torn apart by explosive force.

It was an arresting sight, even for Chrysalis. The objective of her previous conquests as Queen was to acquire live victims for herself and her Hive to feed upon, preferably in a clandestine fashion that wouldn’t draw too much attention. Large scale, outright violence and slaughter was not her modus operandi. The only times she even had her changelings engage in open combat in the past was when she felt she and her Hive held an overwhelming advantage, like the disastrous attempt to invade Canterlot.

As such, for all her posturing, she’d rarely ever seen so many violently torn corpses, and it left her momentarily speechless, at least before an overhanging walkway to her right exploded in a burst of resin and ice chunks, forcing her to duck.

A twelve foot tall polar bear that was bleeding from a broken bone spike in its shoulder was roaring as it bore down an Arrancar who looked more like a spine covered, humanoid mosquito than a person. The bear's jaws were savaging the Arrancar’s right arm, while the Arrancar was trying to stab spines on his left arm into the bear’s thick furred flesh. The pair impacted the ground no more than twenty feet in front of Chrysalis, and she was left starring as, from the blasted hole in the walkway above, more changelings and Arrancar came spilling out from a fierce melee that had been taking place in the corridors beyond in the upper level.

Fear and confusion washed through her for a moment, but then the bear changeling, throwing the Arrancar hard into a cafe shop across the way of the courtyard, spotted her and gasped past bloodied jaws, “What’re you doing here!? It’s not safe! Civilians need to get to the water storage tunnels for evacuation! Hurry!”

A blast like a red bullet struck the bear and it howled in pain as a chunk of shoulder was blasted off, and the Arrancar mosquito came flying out on blurring wings, only to get smashed in the side by a spray of thick green poison from another changeling who’d taken the form of some kind of reptilian, frilled creature. Chrysalis began to scramble along the wall to the left, flinging herself to the ground as another Arrancar, flying around with buzzing wasp wings fired a thin Cero beam down, trying to strike the poison spitter.

Chrysalis crawled along the wall as the fight in the courtyard only grew, and while she was terrified and doing her best to get her legs under her to gallop for the larger archway that’d lead down to the civilian corridors, she couldn’t help but keep watching the unfolding battle.

It was hard to make out details, so much was happening so fast, explosions, energy beams, flames and acid flying back and forth. Claws and fangs were clashing with blades or forged bone weaponry from Arrancar, and blood was flowing from both sides. Chrysalis couldn’t even find the changeling in the shape of a polar bear amid the mad melee any longer. Even so, she couldn’t fully tear her eyes away. Blood was flowing from both sides, changelings dying two or three to one for each Arrancar brought down, but... but the ferocity of them! She could see the frosty blue glow of ice coating many of them, empowering them, and made the connection that somehow Platinum’s power was assisting her Hive, but that felt almost immaterial compared to the utter fierce determination of the changelings that refused to back down against the invaders, no matter how deadly.

Chrysalis had never seen her offspring fight like this. Never. Not even close. It was like looking at an entirely new people, people whose eyes gleamed bright with an inner light that refused to die even as their bodies did. And Chrysalis, still attuned to the emotion that she most desired to feed upon, couldn’t ignore what that light was.

Love. These changelings were fighting and dying with the light of fierce burning love burning in their hearts. Love for their fellow changelings, and for their home. A love that empowered them even more, perhaps, than Platinum’s shared spirit energy. A love that Chrysalis could practically taste on her tongue and marvel at, because she’d never felt a love like it, least of all flowing freely like an endless well from the very hearts of those she’d dismissed as weak fools.

It hurt. It hurt too much. She fled from it, her hooves running swifter from the truth than she ever could have run due to a sense of self-preservation. Some insane part of her mind even suggested the wild notion that she didn't have to run. She could stay and reveal herself, fight alongside her brave (Brave!? No, they were insane, they had to be insane!) children, but that voice was drowned out by fear.

Before she knew it she’d left the bloody battle and those brilliantly bright hearts fighting to protect their homes and loved ones behind. She didn’t even notice that there was a very uncharacteristic wetness in her eyes as she fled.

Author's Note

Not a lot to say for this chapter, as it was mainly just a fun to write fight between Pharax and Chrysalis in which I get to play with the idea of what a high powered changeling might be able to do in combat. Damn near had Chrysalis, too, if not for the pesky power of love (which sometimes works against our heroes, funnily enough).

At any rate, I do hope you folks enjoyed the chapter, and as always thank you all for reading. I appreciate any and call comments, questions, or critiques. 'Till next time.