Godly

Godly
Chapter 7: Rise of the changeling kingdom Part 1

Grover's right hand latches onto the leader and pulls him towards us, but unlike the game where he would let go, he stuffs the pony into his chest cavity using it like a cage.

He then throws a large seed from his left hand which explodes on contact at the hooves of two of the ponies. Vines grow out and ensnare them in place, making them unable to move.

The other three spread their wings to take off but Grover releases green wisps of energy that fly into and affect all six of them, sapping their strength making them too tired and weak to fly.

I emerge from his leaves and toss a large seed as well, ensnaring two of them leaving the last one to try and run, only to trip over.

Chrysalis emerges and uses her magic to levitate the pony into the air and then looks at me with confusion.

"Carl? What is going on?" she asks me.

"They were going to report to the Princesses after discovering changeling tracks on the ground. I can't let them do that as it'll bring Celestia here with a possible army," I reply and pat Grover getting a pleased chuckle from him. "But thanks to Grover, we have some time to prepare."

"But what will we do? There's around five-thousand Equestrians in their guard... We only have five-hundred that can fight at best," she says getting worried for the safety of her Hive.

I smirk as I think of an idea. "Then I'll make an army," I reply getting her to look confused again. "First, let's get these guys into a holding cell, I'd like to have a word with this one," I tell her and pat the front of Grover's chest where the struggling pony is.

I change back into Khepri where Chrysalis takes the leader in her magic and Grover turns into a normal tree. We take all the ponies down below and place all but the leader into pods and place them into an induced dreamless sleep. I asked why dreamless and Chrysalis told me it's to prevent Luna from finding them, which makes sense.

We have the leader glued down to a chair with some changeling resin, the same stuff they cover their walls with, and I sit in front of him on my legs. Chrysalis is glaring at the pony while the pony is glaring right back.

"So... what brings you to this neck of the woods?" I ask him in a calm and friendly tone. He remains silent and hardens his glare. "Do you think that you're being defiant right now? I could literally look around in your head and just find the information myself... but that tends to leave the individual a vegetable incapable of coherent thought again," I tell him.

I dunno if I can actually do that, but he doesn't know.

That cracks his stoic mask, but remains silent. I decide to add nightmare fuel to the interrogation as fear can be a powerful self preservation instinct.

I change to the Hindu god, Bakasura, Devourer of Souls. I've only tried this god once in my sleep and I hate how my torso feels like a giant mouth with a bottomless pit inside and an insatiable hunger that can never be satisfied. The red tattered clothing I'm wearing is also made from the skin of humans which makes me VERY uncomfortable. My skin is a light blue and bone spikes are coming out of my shoulders.

His eyes widen in fear at my grotesque form as the teeth on my torso twitch and I hold the bone blade above my right wrist under his chin, the pointy tip piercing his skin slightly.

"I could always use a snack once you're brain dead," I tell him in a gravelly tone that sounds like I'm already chewing on something.

"What in Tartarus are you!?" he yells and tries to back away, only to find the chair won't even move.

Is that his herbivore instincts trying to get him to flee? I chuckle and let my mouth torso open and he gets a good look at the dripping cavity within. He can't help but dry-heave as he tries not to throw up.

"Me? Celestia already knows of me when she tried to kill me back at the Crystal Empire unprovoked," I tell him and to add to the creepy factor, my bottom jaw splits in the middle and my long tongue slithers out and I lick him from his jaw then across his cheek. "Hmmm, you need some seasoning before I even think of cooking you," I tell him and lick my lips. Though he actually tasted nasty with dried sweat and I'm sure I got fur in my mouth now.

I hear liquid spilling and I look down to see he pissed himself.

I quickly turn back into Khepri and sit back down in front of him.

"Though that doesn't have to happen. All you need to do is just tell us why you're here and what you were ordered to do," I tell him calmly like I didn't just scar him for life.

"W-W-We were told to i-investigate p-possible sightings of p-p-ponies living in the b-b-badlands and escort them to E-Equestria for t-their safety! N-N-Nothing should be able t-to grow or live out h-here!" he replies quickly in panic. "P-P-Please don't eat me! I have foals waiting back home!" he then says and breaks down crying.

Every changeling in the room just stares at the bawling pony and now I feel like shit scaring the crap out of him like I did.

I sigh and tap his thigh gently with a leg making him jump and look at me. "I'm not going to eat you, and I apologise for scaring you like I did. I just wanted to know what you would do to my home and friends living here. We'll let you go within a few days. You'll be asleep for the entire time and we'll even feed you a nice big meal before letting you go," I tell him making him go from a panicked mess to confused.

"What?" he asks dumbly.

"I had no intention of harming you. I just don't want your Princesses laying siege to my home, and letting you escape would most likely lead to that. I honestly should just keep you all here to protect my home, but your Princesses would get suspicious if you don't return. So as a show of good faith, we'll let you go home once my preparations are complete," I reply.

He still looks confused but before he can reply, a changeling sneaks up behind him and bites his neck lightly and injects him with venom. He yelps but then slurs as he passes out cold.

"Well, at least we have some information," I say getting Chrysalis to look at me.

"Never use that form again. I don't think I'm going to sleep well tonight after seeing that..." she tells me.

"Don't worry, even I hate being Bakasura. Just feels wrong and I'm constantly hungry as him," I reply and shiver at the memory.

She nodded in reply and looks to another changeling who looks greener than usual. "Take him to a pod and keep him sedated and nourished for three days along with the others," she tells him and he bows as he levitates the pony out of the room.

"Now then," I say getting their attention. "I need to make a keep and an army," I say and head back up to the surface.

Chrysalis and her guards follow me back up and I switch to Geb. I stomp forward and place my hands on the ground and focus my energy into the earth below me.

With a grunt I start shifting the stone below around the Hive's diameter and raise the stone up making a ten foot tall and three foot thick wall around the area while leaving four archways in each direction to build gates at. It takes about eight minutes to raise and nearly all of my energy to do.

"Start adding your resin to the wall to increase it's durability, if we get around six-hundred changelings on it it should be done within a day or two," I tell Chrysalis and sit down and rest to regain my energy. Raising that wall took more out of me than I thought.

"Alright..." she replies looking at the large area enclosed within the wall. I think we got at least a mile within the wall to build a keep and possibly a small town later.

Chrysalis heads back down and within a few minutes, changelings swarm out and get to work turning the wall black with their resin. After an hour with Chrysalis laying next to me as we discuss what the Keep is for, I feel better and start getting to work on building the keep.

'I can't just form a solid stone building like I did with the wall and the small hovel I made due to the Hive being right below us. I'll need to build it up piece by piece...' I change god to Janus and look to Chrysalis. "I will have to find a large source of stone and make a portal from there to here. We'll need to bring a lot of it back and turn them into bricks. We can then use more resin as mortar to bind the bricks together and build a keep," I say and I estimate it will take about four days to build a small basic keep with bare necessities.

"Why are you doing all this? We can just find a new place to live," she tells me with worry.

"And abandon all we've accomplished here? No, this is our home, your changelings live here and I've come to love this place and I won't surrender it to a paranoid, xenophobic horse who doesn't like anyone different!" I reply and create a portal in front of me to a point high above us in the sky.

I poke my head through and I have a nice view of the landscape. I spot what looks like a nice place at the base of a small mountain further into the Badlands and I pull my head back through. I close the portal and make a new one to the base of the mountain and float through.

Looking around, I see some nice looking grey stone along the side of the mountain and I call the changelings through.

It takes a few minutes to get one-hundred of them through and they begin cutting chunks out with their magic and levitating them through the large portal I'm keeping open, so I can't help with gathering or carrying it myself.

It takes about four hours to bring what I guess to be forty tons of stone through, even Chrysalis helped carry it through.

We take a break to get something to eat. Me from my veggie garden and the changelings from their love storage.

Once fed and rested, I change to Hercules and start laying the large heavy stone bricks into a square shape once the changelings roughly cut them to how I want them. I then start to stack the stone bricks into tidy groups since we won't be able to resin them today as the wall takes priority for now.

All in all, it takes the rest of the day carving up the stone into large bricks and the outline of the keep is completed. The entrance to the Hive will be in the back of the keep as we don't want any Equestrians getting inside. There will be a thick walled room for weapons and armour as well as a room for liquid love storage since the gel can also accelerate a changeling's natural healing due to it coming from Cupid's hearts.

The day draws to a close and the wall is about eighty percent covered in resin. I change back into Khepri and we all head down into the Hive to sleep, though some changelings remain up top as lookouts.

I'm about to open my room's door but Chrysalis uses her magic to close it.

"And where do you think you're going?" she asks me with a smile.

"To bed, we got a lot of work to do tomorrow," I reply.

"That we do, but you're coming to bed with me. You are my mate now are you not?" she tells me with an innocent smile.

I chuckle and rub the back of my head with my left front leg. "I guess so. I'm going to have to get used to that, been awhile since I last had a girlfriend," I reply. My last girlfriend was a gamer like me five years ago, but due to circumstances she had to move away with her parents and we had to break up. Damn near broke my heart, never could find another fun gamer girl to date after that. We kept in touch now and then but it just wasn't the same and we've slowly been talking less and less.

"Is your bed big enough to fit us both?" I ask her and gesture to my large body.

Her face goes blank telling me she forgot that little detail. I open my door and usher her inside. "Then we'll be using my bed," I tell her. Since I've become accustomed to being Khepri most of the time, I've had a bed of moss made big enough for me to lay on comfortably.

I yelp as Chrysalis levitates me easily and puts me down on my back on the bed. She flutters up and lays on top of me and carefully nuzzles my left cheek, making sure to avoid my spiky chin.

"Am I just your cuddle bug now?" I ask her, getting her to give me a mock glare.

"You know I hate that word," she tells me.

"And I used it in a non derogatory way. Back home, a cuddle bug is a way of saying someone who loves to cuddle," I reply and she huffs before leaning forward and gives me a timid kiss. Shame I can't manipulate my lips very well as Khepri.

"Well, I still don't like the word," she says and rests her head on my chest. I wrap my legs around her again getting her to smile and snuggle into me more. "It's been so long since I've had a willing mate," she says tiredly.

"Willing?" I ask in confusion.

"Only I can lay more changelings as my children have no reproductive organs. And since my mother died I had to keep our Hive alive, there's no 'male' changeling that can fertilise my eggs, I must lay with another race to reproduce. I can alter my eggs to accept their sperm and thus breed. My last willing mate was a crystal pony named Gem Cutter before we were chased away, he came with us and died of old age forty-eight years ago... He was the last one to breed with me and that's why there aren't any nymphs in the Hive," she tells me sadly.

"And if I wanted to breed now, I would have to snatch a male from somewhere and essentially force them to breed with me... and I hate the thought of doing so," she then says and goes quiet.

"I guess that doesn't matter anymore now does it?" I tell her and gently lift her head to look at me. "I might not be ready now, but let's give us some time to settle in together as a couple before thinking of... well... reproducing," I tell her getting a giggle from her.

"I can live with that for now. As long as you remain with us, I feel like we can get through anything," she says and sighs as she lays her head back down.

"Goodnight, Chryssi," I say as I gently massage her back with my legs getting a hum of content from her.

"Goodnight, my King," she replies.

The next day

I'm Hercules again as Chrysalis and I lift large bricks into place as changelings cough up their resin onto the bricks to glue them together. So far we're halfway done with the main outer wall, and soon we'll need wooden support beams and planks to get the flooring and ceiling made to get the second floor started.

"How many bricks we got left!?" I shout out as I place a brick into place.

"Twelve left!" a changeling replies.

"Guess we'll need to go get more. I need volunteers to bring back more stone!" I yell out and within seconds a hundred or so changelings gather around me.

I change into Janus again and open a portal to our new quarry and we all head through. Once they cut out more stone, I enlarge the portal and they start sending it through.

Once done, they cut the stone again into bricks and I begin my next task of making our army. I change god to Nu Wa, the Guardian of Heaven. I have long red hair and a jade coloured necklace. Instead of skin on my shoulders and hips, there are white reptilian scales, and on my forearms, chest, and abdomen, are white line patterns that resemble clouds.

Across my breasts is a long golden length of silk fabric leaving the underside of my breasts bare, it then wraps once across my stomach and then around my waist like a belt. On the belt part are four threads with blue and amber beads that attach to a jade plate on my left hip, which has a jade bottle connected to it by a bronze coloured strap.

On each upper arm I also have a length of golden silk wrapped around my biceps and drapes off for about a metre.

I shiver at the feeling of my legs merging into a white-silvery scaled snake tail with light grey under-scales and many fins along the spine of my tail. Five gems of amber, purple, yellow, blue, and green float around my left hand, each with a small swirl of energy in them.

"What are you doing?" Chrysalis asks me.

"Making our army," I reply and gather my energy and I raise my right hand. Three stone arms burst from the ground, followed by another three as three Chinese clay soldiers pull themselves out of the ground and stand in front of me.

Chrysalis gawks at them as they draw their stone swords and hold them to their chests. I smirk and order them to wait outside the wall. They march out and I begin making more, unlike the game these don't crumble after time passes but I've just found out I have a limit to how many I can create...

Standing outside the walls are exactly one-thousand clay soldiers standing vigil around the wall. Not as many as I was hoping I could make as when the one-thousandth was made I couldn't summon anymore. I even had to go far out of the area to make them and march them back as I was creating a large hole in the ground near the keep making them.

But at least when I changed back into Hercules, they remained animated, but they don't follow my orders and just stand there. So if we are attacked, I'll have to be Nu Wa, issue an order, then switch god.

"Even with your soldiers it won't be enough to match the Equestrians," Chrysalis says dejected.

"There are people who could help us," I tell her with hope.

"Who?" she asks me.

"Cadence and Amore. They wouldn't just sit by and let the Princesses attack us," I reply and change into Janus. "Stay here and help the others building the keep. I'll go have a word with Amore," I tell her, getting her to nod in reply and flutter off to help with the construction.

I look up and guess it's about six in the evening, so it must be early morning for the Empire right now. I then open a portal on the wall to Cadence's room and look inside. No one is here so I close the portal and open another on the Throne Room’s ceiling. I go wide eyed as both Equestrian Princesses are there talking to Amore while Cadence is talking to some maids. I grin and pick up a small rock and drop it on Celestia's head... hopefully, I had to close the portal before she could look up.

Looks like I'll have to wait a few hours for Cadence to go to her chambers. So I tell Chrysalis what happened and what I did making her giggle. For the next four hours I help with the keep and now it's ready for the second floor to be built, which means tomorrow I'm going to have to find a forest to cut down.

We head back down to my room and I try opening another portal to Cadence's room. I smile seeing her on her bed reading a book.

"Good afternoon, Cadence," I greet her making her yelp.

"Carl! How many times dost we have to tell thee not to do that!" she scolds me but smiles nonetheless.

"Sorry, my dear. But we actually have something important to discuss with you," I reply and let Chrysalis through first.

She walks up to Cadence and they both share a hug while I close the portal and change into Khepri before sitting beside the bed.

"Chryssi! Tis so good to see thee again. Now what's this important thing thou wishes to discuss?" she asks.

"The Princesses sent scouts to investigate rumours of ponies living in the Badlands... turns out someone mistook our Hive's forge smoke and the gardens as ponies settling down. We've detained the scouts but we'll eventually release them. In the meantime, we're building a keep above the hive. I've already got a ten foot tall wall up and we're almost halfway done with the keep. Our issue is that we don't have the forces to fight the Equestrians should they attack," I tell her with a sigh.

"I've made one thousand clay soldiers to defend us and we have about five-hundred drones, some armed with my new weapons and armour added to that... We were hoping that when the time comes, I can open a portal to hopefully get you and your mother to talk the Princesses down, or to help defend us if they refuse," I then add.

Cadence is just gawking at us with disbelief. "Our aunts wouldn't do such a thing... They've never attacked another nation without provocation, and even then they try to negotiate first," she replies.

"And you forget that it was them that chased us off. I wouldn't put it past them to attack us just to be rid of us," Chrysalis says with a frown.

"I hope we can settle this peacefully, because if I have to, I will use the sun to bombard their forces with solar flares, preventing Celestia from doing the same to us," I then say getting a worried look from Cadence.

"What if we just talk to them now? They're staying the night after our monthly get together," she says making me go wide eyed.

"They're still here!?" I ask her and get up quickly.

"Y-Yes, but they should be in bed now," she replies even more worried at my sudden movement.

"I want nothing to do with those alicorns," I tell her and calm myself down.

"My love, please settle down," Chrysalis says making Cadence gasp.

"Love?" she asks looking between us.

"I have taken Carl as my mate a few nights ago. But he insists on taking things slow for now," Chrysalis replies with a smile.

Cadence squeals and tackles Chrysalis in a hug which almost chokes her.

"Oh we art so happy thou hast found a mate again!" she continues to gush and smother Chrysalis.

My smile drops as I hear noise behind the bedroom door and I move myself in between the mares and the door.

The door is torn off its hinges as an angry looking Celestia and Luna glare inside and spot me. Amore is with them but looks both happy to see us and worried about the other alicorns. I just frown at them and spread my legs, ready to retaliate the moment they attack.

"Aunties!" Cadence yelps and lets go of Chrysalis.

"What is going on here!?" Celestia demands glaring at me and Chrysalis. "Why is there a changeling and... a beetle in here!?"

"At least you were polite about it. And I'm a scarab beetle to be specific," I mutter thinking she would just use insults.

"They're our friends, auntie," Cadence replies while using herself to shield Chrysalis.

"Friends? Thou art allowing a changeling to possibly drain thee?" Celestia asks her shocked.

"You know nothing about changelings do you?" I ask her in return.

She glares at me and I glare back. "Who or what art thou," she demands.

"Forgotten me already?" I ask and change to Hercules. "Is your hamster running yet?"

She goes wide eyed and Luna yelps before hiding behind Celestia.

"Seems you do remember me. Do you remember my name at least?" I ask and lean on my mace.

"Carl," Celestia says calmly. "What art thou doing with the changelings?" she asks me.

"Why do you care? You exiled them due to once again your paranoia. Did you even think of trying to learn about them?" I reply with a question of my own.

"We've learnt enough. We've seen one of their kind draining a pony till they died. I know they're a threat to our ponies if left unchecked," she tells me.

"Oh? I've been living with them for over four months, and I'm perfectly healthy and fine. I've even fed all of them without harm to myself," I tell her and Chrysalis walks beside me and glares at Celestia.

"Thou look familiar," Celestia says to Chrysalis.

"I would hope so. You injured my mother and chased us from the Crystal Empire, where my mother then died of starvation a few years later..." she replies with anger building in her tone and tears start forming in her eyes. "Do you know what it's like to have your mother dying in your hooves as she gives you the last of her energy before shrivelling into dust?" She then bares her fangs and her horn starts glowing.

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LIVE IN FEAR OF OTHERS FOR WHAT THEY MAY DO TO US BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPIDITY!?" she yells breathing heavily and barely containing her rage.

"We do not regret our actions, changeling. We will not allow thine kind to prey on our ponies again like the parasites thou are," Celestia says to her with a frown.

Chrysalis' left eye twitches before she snaps and fires a powerful blast of green magic at Celestia which surprisingly blasts her through the crystal wall behind her and knocking Luna away as Celestia hit her.

"FOR A HUNDRED YEARS WE'VE BARELY SURVIVED AND I HAD TO WATCH MY SIBLINGS AND CHILDREN DIE OVER AND OVER AGAIN!" She then screams in rage and fires another blast through the hole in the wall getting a scream of pain from Celestia as she's sent through another wall.

I quickly change to Janus and grab Chrysalis around her barrel before opening a portal below us to above my bed. We drop through and land on the bed as I close the portal where Chrysalis struggles against me.

"RELEASE ME! I'M GOING TO KILL HER!" she yells still enraged.

I change to Khepri and clamp all six legs around her to hold her still, she continues to struggle but eventually breaks down into tears and sobs on my chest.

"Damn that *sob* alicorn to Tartarus!" she yells and weakly thumps on my chest with her hooves.

I let her vent her anger and after a few minutes she's just laying on me quietly.

"It'll be fine, you gave her a good thrashing. But I feel we'll have to pick up our pace tomorrow," I tell her making her sigh and look into my eyes.

"Thank you... for stopping me. I know I wouldn't have stopped until I killed her..." she says and lightly nuzzles me.

"Any time, Chryssi," I reply and return her nuzzle. "Let's get some sleep," I tell her making her nod in reply.

She snuggles deeper into my chest and fitfully goes to sleep. I just stare at her sadly, I haven’t seen her lose her cool like that before.

After carefully wiping her tears away, I just hold her firmly and go to sleep myself.