Godly

Godly
Chapter 34: Making plans

After practicing with Horus' abilities, I wake up with a yawn and roll off the small and short bed face first lightly into the crystal floor.

"Thank god for the low gravity at the moment..." I mumble and slowly get up while rubbing my face.

I shuffle my way to the restroom connected to the left of the room and get my needs out of the way. They have functioning plumbing here, I'm gonna have to ask how they did it so I can get a system similar installed into the hive. Taking a shit into a resin bucket and dumping it out via a portal is not exactly pleasant. Though I can't blame the changelings for having no plumping as they don't need to use a toilet.

After I've done all I need to, I exit the room and into the hallway where I greet the guards and maids, who are still trying to get used to the low gravity. I feel my magic is back to full and head to the throne room while having a bit of fun with the gravity and jump down the stairs and slowly float down to the bottom.

Once I arrive, the guards nod to me and open the doors.

"Thanks," I say to them and walk in.

Amore is on her throne with Heart Shine standing next to her, along with the same officers and other important looking ponies. I also see Swift Quill to the side using a quill and inkwell to write something on a piece of parchment.

"Morning!" I call out, getting all of their attention.

"Ah, Carl! Good morning. Art thou feeling better now?" Amore asks me as I walk over to her.

"Much better, my magic is back to full and I'm ready to head back down. We need to find out where the Nightmare is right now and come up with a plan to contain and remove it from Celestia," I reply.

Amore nods and speaks up. "Yes, we have been speaking with Heart Shine and she is ready to return the Empire to Equus. We were just waiting for thou actually. Then we canst begin plans of freeing Celestia from the Nightmare," she says and gets up off her throne before turning to her guards. "Inform the populace that we art preparing to return to Equus!'' She commands them, getting salutes before they run off to do as ordered.

I clap my hands, getting their attention again, then change to Janus. "So then, let's see if I can get a portal working shall we?" I say to Heart Shine. "By the way, where are the elements?" I ask her as they're not spinning around her horn now.

She smiles and walks over to me. "They are currently helping to repair the damage done to me, and I am ready when you are," she tells me.

I start weaving a portal to Khepria in front of me but it's not getting out of the barrier. Heart Shine's horn glows and her magic reaches out to my portal and envelopes it. After a few seconds Khepria's keep comes into view.

"There, your portals are now attuned to the barrier's signature, allowing your portals to get through now," Heart Shine tells me and looks through the portal. "So this is your city you told me about?" she asks and giggles at the Changeling staring at her with wide eyes.

"Yup, now if you'll excuse me, I'll go through and warn everyone about the Empire coming down from the sky so they don't freak out... Not sure how Cadence will take that," I reply and float through the portal.

"Alright, I'll move the Empire over the Badlands and then slowly bring it down, should take about ten minutes to get there," Heart Shine says before I close the portal.

"Welcome back, Carl!" I hear Peachy call out as she hops past me with four pods of liquid love following her held by her magic.

"Good to be back!" I reply and change god to Ah Muzen Cab.

I frown as I can hear all of the Changelings voices and I concentrate on filtering out all but Chrysalis'. The longer I look the more I notice that there's a... signal or signature that's different to the majority of them all.

I can feel four different signals out of the thousands of others, so these must be the Queens. I also notice that I can't hear the drones anymore.

'Chryssi?' I call out to all four of the queens as I don't know and can't tell which is which yet.

'Carl!? Where have you been!? I have been worried all night when you didn't return!" Chrysalis yells at me, making me wince as it sounds like it's coming from every direction in my head.

'The Nightmare was sieging the Empire when I got there and I had to use up all of my mana just to help get them get away,' I reply and groan as rubbing my ears doesn't help reduce the mild ringing I can now hear.

'The Empire was attacked!?' she replies as I hear Shyla gasp and Dragana to growl angrily.

'They're safe now and on their way here, please find Luna and Cadence and send word out to not panic as the empire is coming down from the sky to land nearby,' I inform the Queens.

I hear Dragana choke as if she was drinking at the time before sputtering. 'The whole empire will fall from the sky!?' She asks in a shocked tone.

'I'll explain when we meet up,' I reply and head down into the Hive where I can feel the Queen’s location. Feels like they're in the Cafeteria.

After flying through the tunnels, I arrive at the Cafeteria and head inside to find Chrysalis, Shyla, Dragana, Luna, and Cadence all gathered around a table.

Chrysalis smiles at me and flies over the table and slams into me, almost knocking me over as she wraps all four of her legs around me.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" I say and I swing my arms around to keep my balance. But it was not to be and I fall onto my back. I cringe as my wings get trapped between me and the floor while Chrysalis nuzzles me.

I carefully sit up and sigh in relief. "I'm happy to see you too, but that hurt," I complain and flutter my wings.

She huffs and looks away. "Well if you didn't make me worry like that, then I wouldn't have to punish you," she replies before flying off me and back to her seat.

I roll my eyes and stand up before walking over and taking a seat next to Luna. "So, got a few things to tell you all..." I say and explain everything that happened at the Empire and that it's about to come back down any minute now.

So once all is said and done, we head up and watch the sky for the Empire with everyone else, including the Minotaurs and Zebras.

"I don't see anything..." Dragana says in a bored tone after three minutes of looking around.

I frown and was about to change to Janus just to make sure everything was alright before Shyla speaks up. "Is that it?" she asks and points up to our right.

We all turn to look and a bright rose coloured light is getting closer and closer until we could make out the shape of the Empire's dome. It's coming down south of Khepria a good twenty or so miles away.

"Brace for a possible quake!" I yell out and change to Geb, ready to reinforce the ground to prevent cave ins in the hives if need be.

Fortunately, the Empire slows down and gently lands with barely a tremor. Although, there's no way to reach the entrance as the rim looks a good seventy-ish feet above the ground.

"Well... That was, gentler than I thought it would be..." Chrysalis comments as Cadence decides to blast off towards the Empire from zero to sixty instantly.

I look to the others and sigh. "Well... Let's go see if they're all okay?" I suggest, as I change to Khepri and fly off up to the empire. Luna, and the Queens following behind me.

We fly through the barrier, making our way to the rose coloured crystal palace and land at the base. We see Cadence hugging her mother, trying not to cry.

Before we can say anything, she turns and hugs Heart Shine's construct. "Thank you... Thank you for protecting everypony!" she says as tears start flowing.

Heart Shine smiles as she hugs her back. "It's alright, and I didn't do it alone. If Pantheon didn't show up, then we would all be at the Nightmare's mercy," she replies.

Cadence sniffles and looks over to me, before quickly walking over and awkwardly hugging my head while avoiding my horns and spiky chin.

"Not once but twice thou hast saved our empire... Thank you," she tells me and sobs gently.

I lift my right front leg and gently pat her on the back. "It's alright, Cadence, everyone is safe. Now would be a good time to discuss what to do about the Nightmare while she's still in the north," I say and step back from her.

She sniffles one last time and wipes her eyes with a foreleg. "Thou art right... we need to stop her before she attacks anypony else..." she says with a frown and turns around, walks to Amore and stands beside her.

"I'll open a portal to let the Zebra's, Unari, and Minotaurs join us in the discussion. The Nightmare has put us in a very good spot as I can just portal back to the north and abduct her while her army is so far away... Let me check what she's doing quickly," I say and change to Janus.

I open a portal above where the Empire used to sit, and I spot the Nightmare still here and it looks like she's getting her army to dig up large amounts of crystals and ravage the crop fields left behind to feed her army.

"What is she doing?" I ask the others as they look through and Amore frowns.

"She’s stealing crystals from our mines to outfit her growing army," she says angrily as she watches the crop fields get scorched after they're harvested for everything growing on them.

"Hmm... Heart Shine, will the barrier weaken the Nightmare if she's inside it?" I ask her.

Heart Shine looks down to the Nightmare who is glaring at her army as she watches them haul crystal after crystal into wagons. Even ignoring those who collapse into the snow unmoving.

"It will take me a week to fully recover and repair the Heart, but I believe the barrier could weaken her power, though whether or not she stays in the barrier is another matter. I could prevent her from teleporting, but she could attack the heart in an attempt to destroy me and the barrier," she replies and snorts as we see the Nightmare whip a pony with a whip made of flames.

"So do we wait for Heart Shine to recover and use the barrier to weaken her, or go with the plan to dump her into a pool of liquid love to see if that harms her?" I ask everyone around me.

"Bringing her here would be too much of a risk," Amore says. "And by the time Heart Shine has recovered, the Nightmare would have returned from the north and start outfitting her army with the stolen crystals."

"So we should act now while her army is too far to attack us?" I ask, getting nods from everyone. "Okay, I'll get the leaders of our allies together and we'll quickly come up with a plan," I say and close the portal before opening another portal.

It takes a good hour but I manage to bring the High-Shamans of the Zebras, including grumpy Mianya.
Five of the Magai including Jurai of the Minotaurs as well as a new bull I've yet to meet named Swift Hoof who has light grey fur and blonde hair, white horns and blue eyes, he's also an air magai, and Stonehide is here as well.
And lastly Avir'ra and two of the other elders of the Unari.

We all stand in a circle with the Unari behind me where the Zebras are looking at them warily and I've changed to Kukulkan to translate for the Unari.

"How do you plan to attack this Nightmare?" Jurai asks, leaning on his cane as everyone looks at me.

I look at him and reply. "Our original plan was to portal her away from her army and dump her into a pool of liquid love to see if the Nightmare would be harmed to the point of fleeing Celestia's body. And if that doesn't work, to beat her into submission where we'll use the Elements of Harmony to try and forcefully remove the Nightmare from her."

"What if neither of those work?" High-Shaman Manata asks.

I frown and sigh as Luna won't like this. "Then the only thing I can think of is to make a portal into space and dump her ass up there. I don't think she'll have the magic or power to teleport back to the planet or even survive re-entry."

Luna glares at me for that suggestion. "Thou mean.. You mean to isolate my sister in the vast reaches of the stars without a way back!?" she says angrily.

"Unless anyone here has a better idea?" I ask.

They all frown but then Luna gasps. "Discord! His body is still in Canterlot! We can retrieve him and release him from his stone prison with the Elements! He can restrain or remove the Nightmare from Celestia!" Luna says with hope in her voice.

"That could work... Then here's what we’ll do. I'll open a portal to Canterlot where Everyone will siege it, restrain any mind controlled guards or civilians she left behind and bring them back here to see if we can free them of their mind control. While everyone does that, Luna, Cadence, Amore and I will find Discord and use the elements to free him. Once freed and everyone evacuated to Khepria or the Empire, we'll begin setting up our little arena to face the Nightmare in," I say, looking to all gathered.

They all start talking to each other while I translate for the Unari.

Jurai steps forward along with Banawey. "We agree to this plan, Pantheon." Jurai says as Banawey nods.

"Okay then. I'll make portals for your warriors to come through, we have to do this quickly as we don't know how long it'll take the Nightmare to mine those crystals and return to Canterlot," I say and after telling the Unari, change to Janus and open a portal to Wanori first.

After a long three to four hour process, over a thousand Zebra warriors armed with blunted spears, two-thousand Minotaur warriors with crude shields and stone hammers or wooden clubs, fifty Unari of various sizes, and over one-thousand changelings are all lined up in front of Khepria.

The Magai, High-Shamans, Unari Elders, the Changeling Queens minus Shyla, the Alicorns, and myself stand before all gathered.

"Do you all understand what we must do!?" Jurai yells out, his voice amplified thanks to Amore's magic.

A series of shouts and cheers call out from everyone as I translate for the Unari.

Cadence then speaks up, voice amplified. "Then we march to free the Equestrians and any other races that have fallen victim to the Nightmare that threatens us all!" she says as I tell Avir'ra what's about to happen and to get ready to move out.

I change to Janus and focus and concentrate as I'll need to make a massive portal to get everyone through.

"Minotaurs will go first! Set up a perimeter around the portal and get ready to defend it while everyone goes through! I'll be opening the portal right in the middle of Canterlot so expect resistance the moment we step through!" I call out and spread my arms wide.

The portal flares open a good five metres tall and wide, the Minotaurs give a war cry before holding up their shields and bulldozing their way through. Already the controlled ponies and gryphons on the other side attack, only to be knocked out and carefully put to the side near buildings as our forces continue to flood into the City.