Thread 53: Stories 16-30

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>77
"32"
~~~~

Looking at a horde of flying creatures should, by all rights, have worried them.

>Oh, bother. And here I thought coming in from above would conceal it.

"Sorry, brother, but it seems dear 88 has retained a bit of the old infiltrator mentality."

77 shrugged, the wrinkled changeling looking unworried before pulling out his knife.

"Now, come. You're not really that foolish, are you?"

>What is wrong with my knife?

"Engaging aerial opponents in close quarters? Dumb. Engaging infected aerial opponents in close quarters? Dumber. Doing all that while we are changelings? You have reached the pinnacle of stupidity."

>I am taking them off guard.

"HAH!"

>And regardless, I am trying not to make a scene.

"They are charging us, I would think the scene was made."

>...Point. How would you suggest we go about it?

"Well, the tactics of those of classic literature would use deception and turn them against one another, pitting friend against friend in a sea of tightly interwoven plots, so many brilliant authors embodied this, my favored being dear Amblexander Drussage, who with his Lord Of Mount..."

>...

"...I miss Twenty Nine sometimes, he'd already be debating the author's merit with me."

>Sorry?

"No no, can't help how you are."

>Well... I'm not one for overly complex plots, so my suggestion is to charge a beam and start shooting lasers?

"You cad, you cut off my speech. I was leading to that."

>I won't cut you off next time.

"Considerate. Now, without further adieu... would you like the eighty on the left, or the ninety on the right?"

>The left.

"..."

>What? Save the machismo for softer times.

"Perhaps you are wiser than I gave credit... INTO THE DARKNESS!"

Green magic lit up the dark sky.

Come hell itself, they were going to reach her.

And hell itself may yet come....
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

>AJ
"Chitania"
~~~~

>Guess they finally noticed us.

The wave that approached them might as well have been a tsunami for how thick it was.

A solid wall, wider than the castle, of nothing but the infected. All of them shrieking and wailing as they charged.

"And this is the best it can send? It must be fairly desperate."

>Gettin' cocky didn't work so well the last time.

"You be silent or get off my head."

>Seein' as Ah'm the one chargin' ya' right now, don't think ya' actually want that.

The changeling grunted, locking her head low as she started to pick up speed.

"Fine. I'll just shut you up by showing you how a real Queen uses power. Take notes."

>Ah' already have. First one here in bright bold letters, 'don't breath fire'.

"...I regret this."

>Ah' tell mah'self that everyday.

"Oh? Does it get any better?"

>Nah...

There was something shooting through her as the Titan suddenly reached top speed, a weird tingling right down to the very bottom of her legs, a strange taste in her mouth and a weird tingling in her head.

Against the horde, they clashed.

And battered them all away.

>...But sometimes it ain't so bad..
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

>Fleetfoot
"Soarin"
~~~

>HOLY FUCK!

"...Yeah, I'm with you here, holy fuck."

>THAT APPLEASS JUST CHARGED THROUGH A GIANT WALL OF MONSTERS ON A DINOSAUR CHANGELING!

"Why does everyone keep saying that? Does nobody actually know what a dinosaur is? It's not that. They do not look like that."

>Fine, you describe that thing better!

"Dragon changeling."

>...Huh.

"Right? She has wings, impenetrable hide, loves to fight, and she can even breath fire!"

>...Huuuuhhh... kind of seeing your point here.

"See? Dinosaur doesn't make sense in this context, they can't fly."

>Well, some could.

"Not the big ones."

>...Point. Okay, well, APPLEASS JUST PUNCHED THROUGH A CROWD OF MONSTERS ON A DRAGON CHANGELING!

"...Do you think she's, like, actually half dragon? Like her mom just sauntered up to a dragon and went 'how you doin'?"

>What would her mom even look like?

"I'm picturing a buff, older looking Chrysalis."

>...*shudder*... t-the horrorrrr...

"Weird thing? Wouldn't she have to go after, like, a teenager or something for 'accommodation'?"

>*BLLLLEGGHHH!*... Okay, she's ruined for me. I will never be able to look at that changeling ever again without seeing a buff cougar version of Chrysalis. If you don't mind, I'm going back to thinking about if Spitfire and Shining Armor got it on. That makes me vomit way less.

"...Probably topped too-"

>ENOUGH!
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"You're going to have to do more."

The very walls throbbed in tune with the soundless voice ringing in her head, the very room itself seeming to respond to her. Yet, never did she fear.

"It will not stop them. You need more time."

Behind her, the orb hummed away, power convalescing through every particle that swirled within it. It had taken on an unearthly glow, a dank light in the darkness of the living hall.

"If you wish to stop the Titan, you will have to do something different."

The red muscle like material throbbed, listening to her very mind, uncaring as to the words she spoke.

"She is tall... you are larger."

She tilted her eyes down, looking upon the beast that even now neared her location.

"They are small... but you should know."

The spores were moving before she spoke, her thoughts already telling it everything it needed to know the instant it had crossed her mind.

"Many small things... can be very powerful. She is one... you are many."

It did not leave her, it never truly did, but she felt its influence grow soft. It was already off, ready to carry out the ideas it had spawned from her suggestions.

That settled, she turned her head to the sky, where arcs of green lanced through the air, taking out its many winged limbs with ease.

"It won't work."

She spoke only to herself, knowing that It had no care for these matters. Those two up above meant nothing to It but two more bodies to spread to, nothing more.

She supposed... to her it was the same. They were nothing, not really. They only sought the body of the one who had died in the river, nothing more. They would not matter in the long run, soon, they would join her in this state. They would be as she is now.

At the end.

It was only a matter of time.

Soon, the orb would do its work, and nothing would matter, nothing, no struggle, would bear fruit. All would fall as one, in one final swing of the reapers blade.

They would all understand, at last.

It was pointless.

As pointless as trying to make it through Its defenses.

It was pointless. The minute they touched the cap, it would s̹̞̦̮̟͝ͅp̻͞r̴͓̖͇e̺̬͇͕a̫̦̭͇̭d̵͈̘ to them. It would take them, as it did her.

There was nothing they could do to stop it.

She knew, with perfect clarity, how this was going to end. There was nothing now they could do to surprise her.

This was the-

BOOOOOM!

"...What?"

She had planned for many, many things.

Expected many outcomes.

Seen many eventualities coming.

...But this one took her off guard.

"Who are-"

{EXT-ER-MIN-ATE! EXT-ER-MIN-ATE!}

She had little time to process the metal thing that had drilled right through the cap of her mushroom tower, precious little more to understand what that shifting of metal upon its back meant before twin Gatling guns spun away and a hailstorm of bullets rained upon her.

She crossed her forelegs before her, but it proved pointless. Its spores reacted without her knowing, sweeping up like a cresting wave before her and blocking every shot.

{EXT-ER-MIN-ATE! EXT-ER-MIN-ATE!}

He shot forward on twin rockets, buzz saws popping out from hidden compartments and whirling away in the blink of an eye before carving up swaths of the red material, tearing it to shreds like a piece of cloth.

Purely on instinct, she leapt backwards, red hair like protrusions coming off her scalp flowing with a non-existant wind as she dodged away from the swinging blades. All through the room, she dodged away, with the flying machine inching ever closer to her as it chased her down.

For the briefest of moments, she felt a sense of Deja vü, a recollection of dancing just like this in the time long past.

However, she could not recall a time when the walls shot out long strands of red to her non-existent call, wrapping around the machine in every direction and holding it in place.

Alas, she found she could not s̴̛̛p҉reá͢͡d͏ to it.

Little matter. If it could not be spread to, it was useless. It was simply something she needed to destroy.

"I do not know what you are, and it does not matter. You are in Its-"

A flash of electricity lit up the room, and the spores holding it in place caught fire.

Likewise, she too felt the arc of energy lance into her, but something about the power sent off warning bells in her mind. There was something more to this thing-

{EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!}

A metal weight shoved down on her, pinning her to the floor. In the next second, a gun was in her face.

{RETURN TEN!}

But it did not fire.

{...RETURN TEN!}

She blinked in confusion, unsure what the robot meant.

"...I do not understand."

Flashes went off in his optics, pictures flickering past clear enough for her to see.

A changeling.

He meant a changeling.

...One she had spread to.

{RETURN! TEN!}

The gun began to whirl, the sound of metal scraping together filling her ears.

{RETURN! TEN!}

"...It's too late."

A row of bullets went off beside her head, tearing up the fleshy floor below.

{RETURN! TEN!}

"..."

She took a deep, empty breath.

And placed her hooves upon his.

"You fool."

The gun went off, right in her face.

And left not so much as a single mark, the spores having formed before her and blocked every shot.

"...You poor fool. She is at the end. Like all things will. It's pointless."

With one swift movement, she kicked her hind leg upwards, and sent him clear to the ceiling.

She was back on her hooves before he had even begun his descent, more of the red spores forming around her foreleg just before she slung it into his side. Metal bent and twisted, chunks ripping off with the blow as he was cast aside, landing hard on what only appeared a soft surface.

Even now, he still tried to point his weapons at her.

{R-RETURN TEN! RETURN-}

Her hind leg slammed down, shattering the guns upon his back. A swift kick likewise broke through the saw blades he tried to bring to bear, and one final swing of her foreleg carved his right foreleg clean off with a blade forged of red spores stronger than steel.

Even still, he did not stop. Trying to turn his rockets to face her.

{R-R-RETURN-}

A single strand was all it took to end that, and rip it clean from his back.

{R-R-R-R-R-R-RETURN... R-R-R... RETURN... TEN!}

Even as he struggled beneath her, she felt nothing.

Not even a lick of surprise when she saw the dim glow inside the hollow cavity of his chest, and understood why his power felt so familiar. She admitted, she had felt something akin to the ghost of a feeling fighting like this again... but it was gone.

"...It's all pointless..."

{R-R-R-R*BZZT*ERROR!*BZTT*R-R-R-R*BZZT*SYSTEMSCRITICAL*BZZT*R-R-R-R-R-R-...*BZZZZT*.... r-r...}

His optics flickered, barely holding on.

{...Return... Ten...}

"All pointless."

She hefted a bladed foreleg above her head, and prepared to prove it.

"All pointless."

"Oh, I don't know about that."

She whirled, no longer caring for the downed machine.

"That poor fellow certainly offered us a fine tunnel."

"Indeed, I have no idea how we would have made it in without him."

"Perfect distraction that we didn't plan."

"But you know Infiltrators, we make use of any opportunity."

They were inside.

The two of them... they had used the opening the machine provided, and they were inside.

"I wish you had not blown our cover, brother."

"Sorry, Ten loves that thing so, I couldn't help but distract her from destroying it completely. Force of habit."

Those two.

Those two...

"Hello, Eighty Eight."

Both Seventy Seven and Thirty Two moved forwards, poised and ready to fight.

"We need to have a talk."

And yet, inside, she still felt... hollow.

"...It doesn't matter."

"Oh? Well, if it doesn't matter, then why not give us a fight?"

"...Okay."

She reared back, foreleg bending out in an unnatural way, twin swirls of red forming along her hooves.

"It won't matter, in time."

"Well..."

They both crouched, and prepared to jump.

"We'll have to see about that."

For a while, they stood perfectly still, waiting for the other to make the first move.

A single drop of red hit the floor, broken free from where the robot had drilled in, and they knew.

In the blink of an eye, the battle was on.

So focused on their charge... none saw the tiny red light, blinking away within the optics of the broken and battered machine.

{...Tell... it... like... it... is...}

Nothing mattered.

"Let's settle this."

But each other
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>Dash
"Rarity"
'Pinkie'
[Vekir]
~~~

>...This was messed up.

"And now I will never eat again. Ever. I will never ever even think of food in a positive context."

'You know what? I'm done. I am so done. I cannot make a joke about this.'

The thing that used to be their friend shrieked, and wiggled some more.

Fortunately, she could not escape the splattered bonds of blue and yellow goo.

[HA HA! Vekir is fortunate City of White has so many things we have in caves! We did not know you had Glorps goo! How did you milk it? It bites!]

>That's just honey.

[And the SnickerSpitters eyes, Vekir is in awe! She can never hold one long enough to pluck them!]

'Just a blueberry, Vekir.'

[And do not even get Vekir started on-]

"VEKIR!"

[...]

"Darling, we appreciate what you did, really. However, while we understand it was necessary for you to shove all of that into your mouth and projectile vomit this horrifying concoction all over her, we would rather not dwell on it. Or think about it. Or acknowledge it happened."

[But Vekir has praise for so many more ingredients!]

>Look, just... Pinkie? Give her candy, it will make her stop.

'Huh... I would, but all of my pockets are empty.'

>...
"..."
'...'
[...YOU CAN PROVE NOTHING!]

>...
"..."
'...'
[...*munchmunch*... nuffing...]
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>Scootaloo
"Rumble"
'Various'
~~~~~

Why was there a filing cabinet in the bathroom? Normally, there would be some complaints of "The wonderbolt training HQ is a mess", but currently?

Not a single one of the dozen or so inside said bathroom cared one little bit.

>Alright, stallions! We're in a tough spot here, not going to lie!

"If by tough spot you mean 'trapped with no way out', then you are totally accurate. Otherwise you are underselling it."

>Stow that talk, soldier! We need to think up a plan, get out there and fight back!

"...Oh, okay, you're crazy then?"

>Determined, SOLIDER!

"One, not soldiers. Even if we were Wonderbolts, we still wouldn't be soldiers, I don't think we're actually an airforce."

'What? Of course we are!'

'Are we?'

'We have to be!'

'I don't think we are. You never see them do airforce stuff.'

>They fought a dragon once!

"By showing off at it. And losing. Because there were only three of them."

>...

'Oh, crap, they are the airforce, aren't they?'

>RAINBOW DASH IS FIXING THEM!

'Oh, okay, where are they now?'

>...S-saving Equestria?

'...'

>...STALLIONS! We need to go save the world!

'We could do that, OR... we could play cards and hope this all blows over?'

>...
'...'
"...So, plans, Scoots?'"

'BETRAYAL!'

"I suck at cards."
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>PD
"Fizzle"
'Flash'
~~~~

'...Why.'

"I DIDN'T KNOW!"

'Why would you do this.'

"I DIDN'T KNOW!"

'Of all the things you could do...'

"I DIDN'T KNOOOOWWWWWW!"

>Well, Mr Fizzle, it turns out there are a great many things you do not know. For instance, do you know what a bullet in your gallbladder feels like?

"I DIDN'T KNOOWWWWWWW!"

>Well, now you're going to.

*CHU-CHICK!*

"FLASH HELP!"

'Hey, don't involve me in this... even I know not to eat a mare's butterscotch ice cream in a time of crises.'

*BLAM!*
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>AJ
"Chitania"
~~~~

They were so close.

So close they could taste it.

Mere feet away now from that massive stalk that held up that monument to the invasion they suffered under.

They charged full on ahead, through the masses of bodies, through the endless sea of ponies and other creatures turned against them. The wall was nothing to the beast Applejack rode upon, little more than a swarm of ants against a massive heel. Soon, they would collide with the base, and bring that entire thing down. If nothing else, they would stop whatever it had planned. If nothing else, this.

So close now.

So close.

>LOOK OUT!

She felt it, rather than saw it. A disturbance in the ground below, something moving like a snake beneath the earth.

It split the street they stood upon in twain, ripped apart like nothing in the face of the giant red branch like creation.

Chitania found herself struck by the thing, a massive roll of fungus like plant with a circumference every bit as large as her own barrel like body. It lanced her side hard.

But she held.

She stood her ground against it, stopping it cold before her horn lashed out, cutting breaking through it more than cutting it. It shattered when it fell to the ground, as if it merely was an illusion cast upon her and the one who rode her.

But when yet another burst from the ground and struck her in the temple, she knew it could be nothing like that.

"...Well, that's not good."

They rose in a multitude, breaking free from the earth and sprouting like trees, massive versions of the hardened growths that protruded from the things many victims. As one, they danced, swirling around her in perfect unison.

"Please, is this supposed to scare-"

From every conceivable angle, it came. Nothing less than a total barrage of magic, an endless stream of beams firing upon her as if reality itself had seen fit to spite her.

Applejack screamed as more than a few hit her, caught up in the explosions caused by the attacks.

They swarmed around her, ponies carried on faux wings, just as Spike had been. Unicorns firing lances of magic from their horns in perfect, deadly unison. Every single unicorn in the largest concentration of them on the planet, and many more besides, descended upon them.

They were without mercy.

They were without pause.

And they had only just begun.

"Damn it!"

She had taken every blast thus far without so much as a flinch. But when... 'that' pony joined into the battle, at last she felt it.

Luna's beams at last gave her pause.

She covered her power source as best she could, weathering the blasts that would have decimated mountains.

"There's too many of them!"

Her words rang true as yet more converged, firing in time with the blades of red that slid through the streets, battering her body in tune with the beams.

>D-dang it... DANG IT!

There was little they could do besides lash out at whomever closed in on them. It wasn't enough, it would never be enough.

And it knew this.

At last, the beast had paused.

The thing within each and every one of the creatures who had attacked felt pleased with itself, if it could comprehend such. The Original's idea had worked. Many was the key to the puzzle, just as she said.

Now, it merely needed time.

Time to gather.

Time... to finally end this.

And it had all the time in the world.
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NC

>???
_____

As it turned out, even with being near-invincible, that didn’t grant 56 the ability to suddenly be able to withstand tons of castle collapsing around and upon him.

He was buried in rubble, limbs pinned and unable to move, paralyzed with fear.

Being trapped under blown apart pieces of wall wasn’t what scared the youngling. He’d been encased lots of times in his life, some he could remember and some he could only recall in vague snippets….

What caused the love to freeze in his veins were those screams…

Her screams… filled with agony, twisted with rage…

It wasn’t a question of how he knew those depraved shrieks belonged to her, no... it was knowing that she was even capable of such terrifying sounds.

And then his brain clicked.

She’d fallen.

...His moon had fallen.

>No...

With that grisly realization came the feeling of being unplugged, almost like everything within him was rushing out at a nauseating speed, leaving him hollow.

Once more, his brain clicked, grief spurring him into a higher thought process.

Her magic… the precious bit she’d given him, he now knew it served as more than just a sort of hooves-free protection. It also doubled as a beacon, a guide to let her know where he was.

Even while absent from him, she’d never truly left his side….

>Haaa… haaaaAAAAAAAA!

His yell of frustration was nowhere near the ferocity of the one he cared for, and it was soundly muffled by the piece of support beam smashed into his muzzle. The urge to strike out at something—anything—was both a surprisingly new and futile effort, given he was starting to lose feeling in his trapped legs.

And then silence.

Oddly, he couldn’t hear anything. None of the far-off growls of infected skulking what remained of the ruined castle, none of the panicked cries of soldiers and castle help, nothing.

Not a sound.

>…

And then, for the last time, his brain gave another click.

56 gasped, inhaling so hard he sucked in a few pebbles.

>OH CRAP THIS IS GONNA HU—

A piercingly cold explosion of magic blasted rubble away in a 360-radius.

And 56 along with it.

Finally free, his body flipped over and over as he traveled on a wave of debris, carried through a gaping hole in the eastern wall that oversaw the garden, which had been reduced to nothing more than a trampled wasteland devoid of any of its former glory and elegance.

A small black shape hit the ground with all the force of a meteorite, bouncing and rolling to a halt.

He would have preferred to just lay there until whatever was happening passed… but that wasn’t an option.

Not when it concerned her.

He climbed up on shaky legs, adamantly staring at the charred remains of the grass before slowly, very slowly, lifting his gaze.

What he saw standing there, leering out of the hole he’d been blown through, did not surprise him.

Seeing her covered in those horrid, pulsing spores barely caused him to so much as twitch.

He didn’t know where this calming sensation trickling down his spine was coming from but seeing his beloved Moons in such a state… he only heaved a tired sigh.

Because that was not his Moons.

Not anymore.

What he stared at was little more than a vessel for those spores, a convenient mode of transportation to spread even further.

And of course she’d find him. Her magic still resided within him.

>Heh… hahaha… you… you might have all those spores on ya, but guess what?

It was that same protective magic that acted as a bond between the two, that now drew the infected alicorn to him, a double-edged blade if ever there was one.

>Moons still has a bigger plot than you… Luna.

Luckily, it was that same protective magic that, upon sensing the impending danger aiming itself at the youngling, began to manifest itself in the form of wriggling black tendrils rising up ominously from the ground around his hooves.

>I’m guessin’ you wanna play a game of grab-plot, right? Well, fair warnin’, I’m darned good at it!

“SCREEEEEEEE!”
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>Actarius
"JJ"
'Random Changelings'
~~~

>...This is so bad...

They watched in horror as the Titan was barraged, blasted from every angle, unable to fight back even a little.

Even Chitania... even she could not win.

"...Whelp! We're screwed!"

As one the others joined him in his cries.

Well, in a sense.

'I think you mean THEY'RE screwed!'

'Yeah, as in, the ponies in Canterlot, not us.'

'We, however, can fly.'

'I'm liking flying.'

Aghast, Actarius turned to them.

>Y-you can't be serious!

'Sorry, buddy. Not our fault you weren't born with wings.'

'We could carry him.'

'Ehhhhhh...'

'Hey, he got you a chair.'

'That chair is now charcoal, so any debts are meaningless.'

'Point.'

>That's not the point!

'It is. I just said point.'

>No, I mean... are you really just going to run?

"Why not!?"

Angrily, his friend marched in front of him, poking him in the chest.

"Why should we help Canterlot!? They've been nothing but assholes to us since we've got here! They've done nothing but harass us and treat us like monsters! What, are we supposed to be thankful for that ballroom, enough to risk our lives!? Oh, good gracious yes! We should clearly put our faces to the grinder for the privilege of being surrounded by a bunch of assholes who hate us and make that fact very well known!"

He flinched openly at the words, shying away from his touch.

>They're not all bad, come on, you know you're generalizing.

"Fine! You're fine, whatever, Suckerpunch is fine, whatever, but everyone else who likes us is from a whole other country! Well... screw them! They want to treat us like crap, deny us stuff we could have had SINCE WE GOT HERE, and then completely deny any hope of actually doing something with our lives and getting a job, and then turn around in a time of crises and expect us to risk everything for them!? I'm sick of it! I'm sick of ponies throwing stuff at me when I try to juggle on the streets, I'm sick of being told I can't wait tables because I'll scare the customers, I'm sick of all of it, Acty! I'm sick of it..."

His head lowered, defeated.

"I don't want to die for them."

Pleadingly, he looked back up to the stallion.

"You can come with us. Nobody treats you nice here either, you get it. You can just... we'll still hang out and be friends, and really, who are you leaving behind? Someone who leaves you out on the street? A bunch of ponies that won't hire you because... me? Come on... we can leave. Just fly away, find a spot they can't reach, and wait for Twilight to fix it. Or not fix it, it doesn't matter. Just... no more of this? What do you say?"

He was desperate. Hopeful. Everything laid bare in those eyes.

Which made it hurt all the more when Actarius looked away.

>...You're scared.

He turned to them, the entire hive.

>You're all scared... and I understand. This thing... it's winning, it's taking over everyone, and it might just take everything. You don't want to fight it because you don't want to lose what you have...

He looked to his hooves, still covered in the soot of the remains of their stuff.

>...Because you have so little left.

His hooves stamped down, and he stood tall, but did not look to them.

>But there is one thing you guys have. There is one thing they can't take away from you!

He pointed to his chest, square in his heart, still not looking to them.

>You are NOT monsters! You have a heart, you understand fear, you understand pain, you understand worry. You are not creatures who lie in wait in the dark. You are not soulless creatures. And despite how we act sometimes...

He turned pointed outwards, to where the screams continued.

>Neither are they! I can't apologize for them, I have no right to do that, I have no say in that. But that doesn't matter. How they acted doesn't matter. Because they're hurting, they're falling, they're.... losing. And you know, as well as I do, that they do not deserve to hurt like this. I'm not asking you to protect them for them... I'm asking you to help for YOU. To remember that no matter what you look like... you're not monsters. You're good. I've learned that if nothing else from my time from you all. You. Are. Good.

He began to march forwards, determined.

>If you don't want to fight, I will understand, and I will never blame you. This is something that terrifies me to my very bones. I feel weak, helpless and I know it will easily kill me... but I'm still going to fight. I'm going to save who I can. Because deep down, I'm like you. No matter how I look... there's something good inside, and I just need to let it out, so all can see... Now..

He pumped his hoof up.

>WHO'S WIT-

A subtle tapping on his shoulder stopped him.

>...

"... They, uh... they left when you looked away. I think they were offended you thought they were scared.

>...Oh... so-

"Didn't hear a thing."

>...Huh...

He looked up to the hive in the air, and shrugged.

>Mission accomplished?

"I uh..."

Nervously, Jugglejack rubbed his hoof to his leg.

"I thought it was a nice speech, really... inspiring... but you really should make eye contact."

>Yeah, you know, have stage fright, but thanks. Was it really good?

He nodded.

They sat there after that, in a long, awkward pause.

"...Want to get on my back?"

He looked to the changeling, and genuinely smiled.

>Wouldn't have it any other way.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The darkness did not leave after she opened her eyes.

Her lights in her lab had been blown out, shattered by the power that had knocked her for a loop. Her legs were shaky, unsteady as she slowly hefted herself up.

“C-Chrysalis?”

She coughed, a stark pain in her chest from where she had been hit flaring up.

“Are you there? Chrysalis?”

From the inky blackness two feet in front of her, a dim green glow ignited, barely illuminating the ebony face before her.

“Chrysalis?”

“I'm done waiting.”

Even with so little light, she could see the expression on the Queen's face.

And it brought her nothing but worry.

“What... what are you talking about? Are you... are you okay?”

“Fix it.”

“Chrysalis, I can't just-”

A powerful hoof struck her across the cheek, sending her flying through rows of her equipment before a painful stop against a smooth, glass-like surface.

“FIX IT!”

That same hoof closed in on her throat, holding her in place against the material. From the other side of the clear frame, she could feel the creature within clawing at her head, the warmth of his breath apparent of the back of her head.

“I-I CAN'T! Stop this!”

She let out a malicious hiss, thoughtfully tilting her head to the side.

“Oh, you can. You just need the right motivation...”

She pressed harder. The glass did not crack, but she felt it strain beneath her.

“Now, you are going to start thinking in that little egghead of yours, and you are going to figure something out. You are going to find out how to safely take it allllll away, we are going to protect my hive, and then we are going to go down, save Forty Two and Seven, get Cadence and Eighteen to the portal, and then we are going to fix this, all go home, and we're all getting cake. You are going to do this now...”

Still, the material behind her would not crack.

Not just yet.

Not before the wild, mad eyes could narrow in on her face, so close she could see the veins in those crazed orbs that bore right into her very soul. Even from here, she could see they were unnatural. If she looked close enough, she could see flickers of magic arc across her skin.

“Or I am going to feed you to that thing, and force you to think up a way out the hard way.”

Her twisted black horn sparked with emerald magic, bathing her twitching snarl in an eerie light.

Despite this... Twilight felt little fear.

“No, you won't. We both know you won't.”

Softly, a lavender hoof pressed against the obsidian one.

“You don't want to hurt me.”

“Oh, I will, and I will savor every moment.”

“You won't.”

Her words were sure, too sure. The Queen forced a harsh, bleating laugh, her voice cracking vocally with it.

“Do you really think I care about if you get infected or not? It's all the same result to me. If this will save my hive, save my subjects, I'm more than willing to risk your life.”

“Chrysalis.”

She cut off anymore speech by thrusting her hoof forwards once more, ceasing her air supply.

“Figure. Something. Out. NOW.”

Slowly, she relented, just enough for her to breath, but not enough for her to feel at ease.

“I... I can't. You know I can't. I know you're just trying to help, that you think somewhere in your head this will work, but you can't force blood from a st-”

She felt herself hurled through the air once more, splitting a metal table in half.

“YOU USELESS THING! I don't want your psychoanalysis! I don't want your excuses! I want you to fix this! Now! Fix it! Change it back! Save my hive, now! Change it now, or I will-”

Something smashed into her face, a glass vial full of... something. Some kind of chemical.

The spark that landed on her face two seconds later told her this chemical was quite explosive.

Angrily, Twilight held up yet more vials, threateningly waving them above her head.

“ARE YOU DONE!? Are you ready to calm down already and stop-”

Her horn illuminated the room just in time to see a blur of a smoking body charge her, a mere second before it hit its mark, breaking through desks and filing cabinets as she was shoved across the room.

“FIX IT!”

Twilight's magic was all that prevented her from a painful collision against the wall. A quick teleport was all that prevented her from having her throat crushed in again.

A scream of rage was all the warning Chrysalis would get before an explosion of magic from above sent her skidding along the floor.

“ENNNOOOOOUGGGHHH!:

In an instant, her eyes glowed white with power, and every single item in the room converged on the downed Queen.

The collision was booming, the mixture of metal and glass deafening.

Followed by silence.

“...”

“...Fix it...”

Her voice still held so much rage, so much insanity.

So much, it seemed to seep into Twilight herself.

“...W-whyyyy? Why do you want me to fix anything?”

The Alicorn's voice began to crack as she advanced on the piles of destroyed remains, teeth grinding together and tears beginning to form in her eyes. The pain of her failures clouded her, made her seethe with rage, and just the sight of her only intensified it.

“This is what you wanted, right!? This is what you said had to happen! No matter what went wrong, you said, you had to survive! Do you remember that, Chrysalis? When you said that to me? Be it over the bodies of your broken enemies or when the sun itself burns out, you would be the last one standing. Well, congratulations! You and I will be the last ones left! We're going to be all that remains as the world becomes a giant plant. Congratulations, congratulations! You survived! You made it out alive while nobody else did! This is what you wanted, right!? THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED!”

Green magic began to flicker within the confines of the rubble, the telltale flames of her transformation magic.

“Stop it.”

More went off like a siren light, barely illuminating the cold, stern face beneath.

“I've had enough!”

She stomped forwards purposefully, until she was only a few inches away from the Queen.

“I've had enough of your planning, your scheming! I've had enough of you plotting and trying to do everything on your own so you could have all the power in the situation! You're too obsessed with the idea of anyone else having a say in this you just horde it all! Kept every plan close to your chest! We could have worked together, we could have gotten everyone to safety, everyone! Your subjects, mine, EVERYONE! But no! You had to make sure yours were on top first and everything else secondary! You tried to turn this event to grant you more power! This all failed, and you deserved to have it fail! You deserved it!”

The hiss turned into a low growl, the flares of her magic going off at an increasingly rapid rate.

“Get out.”

Her eyes once again went white with power, vaporizing anything around the Queen and leaving her bare against the corner of the lab, tucked as far back as she could go.

“Stop it.”

But even still, the fires continued. Consuming her, covering her face and leaving nothing but a stoic, blank glare upon the Queen, a glare so unnatural looking it may as well have been a puppet.

“Stop hiding behind your powers like you always do!”

The fire was all but a consistent flow now, nothing but wash after wash of green flames.

“STOP IT!”

Her magic reached out, trying to telekinetically grab hold of her. When she found her powers batted away by the Changeling's own, she lost what little patience she still had left.

“STOP IT I SAID!”

And struck her as hard as she could across her cheek.

“CHRYSALIS I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF... o-of...”

The blow had done as intended. The veil Chrysalis had repeatedly cast over herself could hold no longer, and she was revealed.

No...

Exposed.

“Are you...”

Crying.

There were honest, true tears falling from her eyes.

The face free of any magic looked away, hiding herself behind a webbed, sickly green wave of hair. But it was too late. She had seen it. She had seen her face.

She had seen it all.

“It wasn't supposed to be like this.”

Her voice had lost its smooth, easy tone, replaced instead with a desperate, hollow rasp.

“N-not him... not him...”

Shaken, the lavender hooves pulled away, too stunned to hold on any longer.

“Chrysalis...”

“Not yet.”

“You-”

“I knew he was going to die someday.”

She watched as the lavender eyes went wide, and a snarl curled the corner of her lips.

“What, did you think I was an idiot? That I wouldn't put it together? How's he supposed to ascend? Kill you? Celestia? Please, he doesn't have it in him. Applejack could literally do most of the work carving out her own chest and he'd just start stitching it right back up before she bled on the carpet.”

So many things Twilight wanted to say. Frozen words on her tongue, the truth of it all, but something kept them stilled.

“And even if Celestia could just... wave her horn suddenly alicorn, just use some magic and transform him, clearly she can't, or she would have by now. Right? How many times does he have to risk everything for her... and he's a prince too, right? So it's not like she would be ascending him to a new status, nothing like that... but he's still wingless, still having to struggle to keep up with their power, putting his life on the line for them... or he was, at least.”

Another shudder wracked her ebony frame, from the very tips of her hooves to the top of her horn.

“I knew that someday, I was going to watch him die. It comes with the territory, just a part of being eternal like myself. Sure, I assumed it would be when he was old and grey, barely able to walk, a shell of what he was now. But no matter how it came, it was going to come, someday. I knew it was. But...”

“You still weren't ready.”

“I should have been.”

“You weren't.”

“I knew it was going to happen.”

“...It didn't matter.”

“...N-not him... not like this. Not now.”

She stumbled to stand, long legs barely able to support her as she carried herself over to the containment field.

“I thought... even if every other plan went wrong, not him. Not his. So long as he was still around, I could have...”

Her head fell forwards, horn tapping against the barrier. The creature beyond started snarling, clawing desperately at her from behind the separator.

“Not like this.”

Behind her, Twilight at last could look at her no more, and her eyes fell to the floor.

“...I'm sorry. I failed you, and them, and everyone. I failed us all. I can't cure it. I know now, I might find a way to stop it... but I can't cure it.”

The Queen nodded, knowing that she could delude herself no longer. No amount of force would change what had happened.

“My hive is going to die, and there's nothing I can do. I can't save them...”

“That... might not be true.”

The changeling's ears peaked as the pony walked up next to her, joining her in looking though the clear faux-glass.

“...Chrysalis, I think... I think I know a way to kill them.”

Suddenly, nothing else in the world mattered but looking to her, and listening with everything she had.

“It's a simple spell, you know. I used it back... wow, back in Ponyville. On the parasprites. All I would need to do is make the spores think they are low on magic. It would keep draining itself, every spore, until it was completely burned away... but they wouldn't survive. Not a one of them. To have so much done to your body so quickly... no one would be able to survive that, not even... not even Princess Celestia. This would kill her, all of them. Nothing could come back from this. The spores would wither away and die... and most Equestria with it.”

Her heart sank with every word, a weight pressing down on her and making it impossible to stand.

“I know that realistically, this is the very best I can do. I'm out of ideas, out of magic, out of spells and chemicals and just... everything. I can't beat this, Chrysalis, no matter how hard I've tried, I just can't fix it, most likely never... for sure not before whoever is still alive is taken. This would save the most I could.”

Tears that she had thought dried returned, in force.

“But I can't do it.”

And Chrysalis got to see them all, as she looked to her, pleading, desperate.

“I don't have it in me to do this, Chrysalis. I'm not even going to pretend I could go through with it. I'd never, in a million years, be able to do this... But you can.”

She gestured outwards, towards where her door had once been and the world beyond.

“Most of your subjects weren't infected when we last saw. If you did this now, you could likely save most of them. And with that... you would finally have an edge on us, wouldn't you? You'd be the most powerful being in all the world. If you wanted to take power, absolute power, right now... you could.”

Her horn started to flicker, a tiny dot of lilac magic atop the very tip.

“I can't do it, I don't even know if I'll ever sleep again just for thinking it, but you can. My world is about to be completely taken over. All we've done, every pony I swore to protect, is about to fall. As it stands... I can only save a few. Some of my friends aren't infected, some of the others are still breathing. They're counting on me.”

Her head tilted forward, the tiny dot of light casting a shadow over her face.

“But I can't do it.”

The Queen at last moved, approaching her with an almost frightened pace.

“You can finally have Canterlot, Chrysalis, just like you wanted... but I can't save him.”

The tall one violently flinched, her face melting away from it's curious ideals to a look of destruction.

“I can't save my big brother. I can't save my little brother. I can't save my mentor, my friends...”

Tears openly fell to the floor, not so much as a drop hidden.

“I can't save any of them.... and I can't do what needs to be done either.”

So many things flickered behind the eyes of the Changeling Queen, so many thoughts it would be impossible to count those that occurred in the span of a second. All the while, she stared, openly stared at that light.

“So please... save who you can. It's all I can ask.”

Her eyes narrowed on that tiny light, that teensy bundle of magic that promised her the safety of a select few, of a world where she could never be opposed, a world she could control...

Slowly, she bent her horn forwards, and their very tips touched. In an instant, Twilight's horn was bathed in that green fire, and she felt it.

Her mind exploded as magic coursed through it, breaking right through any barriers she had thrown up. Her mind was pulled, pushed and thrown about, images and sounds blaring within it like a siren. Her head threw back in a scream as the magic painfully worked within her mind.

At last, mercifully, it left her, and she fell to a crumpled heap on the ground.

But, to her surprise, nothing from her mind had been taken.

No, just the opposite...

“T-these are...”

She now saw them. All of them. Could recall any of them with perfect clarity, and knew exactly how they worked.

“You wanted to know more about just what Changeling Queens were capable of? Well... there they are. Every one of them. Every power I know. Every single ability I learned from the other Queens. The entirety of my species powerset, Twilight. The every power ever held by a Queen, is now yours to know. All I've learned, all I've deduced, all I've manged to luck my way into, all I know. Every. One.”

A shaking, unsteady hoof propped her up, eyes still free of any illusions looking into Twilight's own, pleading.

“Use them.”

It was barely above a whisper, but she heard it.

“Save them. All of them...”

She heard every word.

“Save him...”

“Chrysalis...”

Her face was flat, expressionless save for her eyes wide as saucers, the dead look matching the tone in her voice as she spoke her final words.

“...It's time to end this...”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Being dead has done a lot of things to their sister, the two changelings admitted.

However, one thing it has not, is dulled her skills.

She was a blur of red and black as she charged them, running with only her hind legs, both forelegs jutted out in an unnatural, disturbing angle as they hung limp on her sides. Her spine bent in ways it should never go as she effortlessly jumped into the air and spun, a flickers of knives going out in every direction. Dodging may as well have been a dream.

Not that they needed to.

The one eyed Changeling skidded in front of his brother, blade already out and flashing in the light as it became little more than a blur, knocking away every blade that came their way. The instant the rain ceased, he hit the ground, just in time for his brother to fire a beam of mossy green above his head.

She floated out of the beam's reach, her wings unmoving as she floated about. Her spine bent once more, angling around the power as it lanced chunks from the wall above.

“This is pointless.”

She fell to the floor as light as air, dashing forwards and easily taking Seventy Seven off his hooves with one forwards strike. From behind her brother, Thirty Two leapt up, diving forwards and finally landing a beam to her chest.

She was unmoved.

“I told you... pointless. It's already over.”

An outstretched hoof helped the cyclopian changeling to stand, and they both smirked.

“Really now?”

A bout of confusion overtook her.

Just before a wave of flames from a planted bomb did so far more effectively.

“I feel like we're just getting started.”

~~~~~

“Do something!”

Applejack had no idea what the Titan thought she should do, but whatever it was, it was unlikely to happen.

They couldn't so much as breath without another wash of magic shooting across them, exploding in perfect unison on her back, head and limbs. Not a single shot missed.

Maybe, if she had been in her prime, Chitania surmised it would be nothing more than child's play to rush past the beams, but in regards to how battered and bruised she was after her run-in with the dragon... every beam stung far, far more than it should have.

“D-dang it... not like this... we can't end it like this!”

SCREEE!

The sound of shriek of pain was like music to her ears.

She never thought she'd think that one...

“BRING IT OOONNNNN!”

The creatures squealed in surprise at what they saw. Their own swarm suddenly found itself at the mercy of another swarm altogether.

Nearly a hundred black dots flew through the air, beams of green arcing through the sky and firing upon those that had pinned the two royals down. With little choice, the creatures turned their attention away from the massive target, and engaged the swarm in a battle.

“Let's clear the way, Lings!”

Like fireflies swirling though the night, the titanic changeling found herself surrounded, dots of emerald and obsidian swirling around her and blocking the shots, and retaliating with their own.

Well, emerald, obsidian, and one very out of place smudge of white.

“I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS WORKED!”

The princess couldn't help but smile as she watched the white stallion fly by, clinging tightly to the back of a very familiar changeling as he did so.

“WOOOOOO! THIS IS AWESOME!”

At last, they could breath again.

“If you are done gawking...”

They could run again.

“We have a tower to smash!”

They flittered about her as she raced forwards, dive-bombing and swooping past in the aerial battle. Once again, they felt emboldened to continue on.

Still... she noticed there was less black then when they had arrived.

“Save the world, princess...”

As she focused more on the battles around her, she understood why.

“Do it for us.”

They were falling.

“Stop it.”

The Titan's angry voice pulled her back to earth, away from the battle they raced from at a brisk speed.

“Look ahead. Keep looking ahead.”

Reluctantly, she did so. Straight ahead, straight to their goal.

… And not to the sounds of the falling they left behind.

~~~~~

Seventy Seven let out a cry of pain as a whip of crimson lanced across the side of his head, his magic just barely keeping the spores from sinking into his skin as he was knocked away.

That done, the sole female turned to the one still standing, regarding him with an almost bored gaze.

“Aren't you enthralled to see I still live, sister? I have quite the tale of my adventures.”

Uncaring, she unleashed another barrage of spikes, ones he only barely dodged by a rush of fire, and a change of his body into that of a ferret like creature.

“You, better than any of them, should understand.”

She floated towards him as fast as lightning, hind hoof striking him in the chest and propelling him to the back wall of the cavern, magic he had cast dispelling the instant his back hit.

“Your actions, your sacrifices, were pointless.”

He chuckled darkly, shaking off the bruise on his chest.

“Really? From where I'm standing, my brother made it out and found himself a whole life. The morlocks below have tasted civilization, I myself have recently caught up on my reading, and my sister is now a mere three feet in front of me. All in all, I like to think my sacrifice bore fruit.”

Her eyes flickered, something passing by in her mind, but it left her soon enough.

“It won't matter when the s͡ṕr͡èąd finishes. It will all have been for nothing.”

“Then I suppose we had better win, should we not?”

“What does it matter if you win today? You'll die later, all the same.”

He laughed again, a bright, full laugh.

“Oh, to think I was not so different so long ago. It feels like just yesterday I was asking her to end my life.”

He stood up, smirking proudly.

“But ahhh... so much has changed. What does it matter when I die? What fills those moments in between, that is what makes life worth fighting for!”

He dashed forwards, fully intending to prove it.

She hesitated for just a moment.

A moment that passed all too quickly.

~~~~~

“LOOK OUT!”

Their run stopped dead as the ground before them suddenly exploded upwards, pillars of red branches rising from the earth like hellish trees. The colossal changeling just barely stopped in time before colliding, leaping away from a sudden growth shooting out from the living things.

“You have got to be kidding me!”

They turned back, but never got the chance to run around it. An entire mob of the infected raced towards them, threatening to swarm them in an instant.

“Fire sounds good about now.”

Her horn blazed, licks of green flames upon them.

“ARE YA' CRAZY!?”

And then immediately died out when struck.

“How're they gonna come back from being burned ta' crisp?!”

“Well, do you have any idea-”

Screeches filled their ears, and they felt a multitude heat brush by their face repeatedly a mere millisecond before a wash of flame touched their backs, explosion after explosion ringing in their ears.

“I'M STILL MAD AT YOU!”

She landed in front of them on unsteady, wobbling rockets that broke off the instant she landed. Undeterred, she aimed her weapon at the advancing crowd, and let off another blast.

Flippantly, the Titan scoffed at the tiny pink filly.

“Too bad, little one, I-”

“NOT YOU!”

Honestly confused, she looked backwards, though unable to see the embarrassed princess.

“...She's madder at you than me?”

“Long story.”

“Not nearly long enough for this to make sense.”

“ARE YOU GUYS RUNNING OR NOT!?”

“How are we supposed to when... oh, I see.”

Where her missiles had landed, now was covered in cracks all along the sides, and waves of ice from detonated liquid nitrogen.

“That will work.”

The rockets did the work, weakening the wall enough for the Titan to barrel through it, shattering the red plates like nothing. Another obstacle down, the princess couldn't help but cheer as she looked back to the filly growing smaller in the distance.

“WOO HOO! Thanks, Diamond Tiara, Ah'...”

Her mouth went dry as she watched them all converge on her. No more did she fire upon them.

“It's all on you now... Princess Applejack.”

“DIAMOND TIARA!”

She gave one last, cocky smirk.

And then swung the now empty TBDRLIATU right into the nearest creature's head.

“Come on! You think I'm done because I'm out of weapons!? I'm DIAMOND TIARA, YOU IDIOT!”

The swarm surrounded her, and Applejack could see her no more.

“No...”

“Worry about her later! We've got more incoming!”

She turned her attention back to the things in front of her, a hint of moisture at the corner of her eyes.

“...Bring it.”

~~~~~~~~~

“Do you understand it now?”

She had stopped attacking them, now content to merely watch as they flew around the room, nimbly dodging as spine after spine exploded from the walls, sickeningly red webs trying to catch them like flies.

“It is everywhere. It has consumed so much of the world. What little remains... will fall. It is unstoppable.”

The two went back to back, firing off a blast that knocked away the mass that struck out at them.

“We'll stop it. It is only a plant, it can be defeated, and it will.”

“Sciderella thought the same thing... when she died. She understood, at the end, the truth. Fighting was pointless. Death was the only answer. She thought it was the only way to stop the S̀p̸r͢e͜ád... she was wrong. Just like you are wrong now.”

They looked to each other, realization crossing their faces.

“This... is what caused her madness?”

“She was the very first. The true original. But it does not matter, all will have their minds taken, in time.”

A brief pause, before the one eyed changeling realized something.

“But... she didn't. If what you say is true, then how could Sciderella fight back? How could she have stopped this so very long ago?”

Again, Eighty Eight hesitated.

Again, it only lasted an instant.

“She only delayed it... as you delay the end now. Fighting cannot stop what is to come. No matter how you struggle against the waves, sooner or later... everyone sinks.”

She shot forwards, clashing her red blades against his bone knife once more, a strange determination in her eyes.

“I will prove it.”

~~~~~~~

“Are you kidding me!?”

They had expected the mushroom to fight back in many ways.

Suddenly opening up a gaping hole in the length of the stalk and firing balls of spiked spores was not one of them.

Chitania, despite her size, was not slow. Despite her mass, she was quite ample at dodging.

But nothing could dodge all of that.

“Okay! Plans!”

A wall of red suddenly consumed her vision, and the way was clear once more.

Tepidly, the Titan's eyes rolled up.

“...Okay, that was a pretty good plan.”

“Wasn't me.”

“Then who-”

A streak of silver darted beneath them, blocking the mob that had been racing towards them while the gargantuan changeling had stalled. Amidst the smoke and swinging machinery, the princess could just barely hear the voices down below.

“Well good day to you, princess Applejack!”

“Fine evening tonight, isn't it?”

“No better time than to show off our super-mob-buster-boaster-blaster!”

“Indubitably, brother!”

There was little question of why the pair of scamming ponies were out and about, but the once exiled prince supplied the answer anyway.

“I let them out, I hope it's not too presumptuous of me.”

Fortunately, he could barely be heard over the roar of the other stallion with him, who was clinging to fearful life on the bucking and rolling machine.

“I HATE THIS THING SO MUCH!”

“Well... shoot. How'd ya' block those things?”

“Oh, that wasn't us, that was-”

A streak of red suddenly floated in front of their vision, flames shooting out and consuming another barrage that had been fired while they were looking away.

“Hi Misses Princess Applejack! Hi you!”

The Titan scoffed at the tiny burning changeling hovering in front of them, offended.

“Do you not know who I am!?”

“Nope! Never got the name!... When you punched me.”

“...Fair enough.”

Any further conversation was cut off when the stalk before them suddenly opened wide, and something much larger fired out.

“Don't worry! I'll clear the way! DA DA DADAAAA!”

“DON'T YOU IDIOT!”

But it was too late.

He charged right into it.
Collided with the spiked spore much larger than himself
Shoved it right back in the hole.
And detonated it all.
They did not see so much as a flicker of light after that.

“...Danged idiot...”

Respectfully, Blueblood bowed his head.

“Poor fellow.”

The only one uncaring was the Titan herself.

“Well, what do you know. He did clear the way.”

With a roar, she charged once more.

“LET'S MAKE USE OF IT!”

They raced forwards, leaving the foursome behind.

“...So, our dear former employer, do you want the bad news or the bad news?”

“...”

“The bad news is that there is a mob of creatures.”

“The other bad news is, uh-”

The machine suddenly went prone, falling apart.

“That.”

There was no time for a final comment before the masses descended upon them, just as Blueblood always feared they would to him.

So little time... they couldn't even question the sound of screeching metal nearing them.

~~~~

The strain on him was massive, her strength far beyond what it should have been. With that red blade locked against his knife, he could practically feel his spine cracking beneath the pressure as she shoved down, but he, and his knife, held strong.

“Sister... don't you recognize it?”

He twisted his blade, letting her see the flat of it clearly.

“Don't you remember this? This... this is your blade. This is what you gave to me, to protect me. You told me to fight on with this, to use this to protect myself. You wished me safe back then, even if you were not there... have you really changed so much?”

Her eyes, and the force she pressed down upon him, waved as she looked to the blade, eyes losing much of the determination they held.

“...It is nothing but a hunk of bone. The remains of another creature who wished to fight on, just as you do now. How are you any different from it? How is your fate any different from it?”

“Because I still live!”

He finally found the strength to shove her away, smoothly moving back into a poised stance.

“I still live! Don't you understand!? Don't you see what is right before you!? I still live, I still breath... and so do you. You are alive, sister!”

Her head tilted, eyes still hollow and empty.

“No... It merely moves me. It merely needed me, for the s͜pr҉èad͘. There is nothing left now.”

He lashed out, blade aiming right for her side.

“Lies! You are standing before me, you are breathing in front of me! My sister still lives, no matter what you may tell yourself!”

“It doesn't matter!”

Her voice cracked ever so slightly. A massive bundle formed on her right foreleg, reshaping until it resembled a crude club. She swung down hard, aiming right for his head.

Only to be caught by the burly arms of a diamond dog.

“You are wrong!”

Her hind leg bent in an impossible angle, lashing out and landing right in Thirty Two's chin and knocking him back into his fellow changeling.

Without pause, she was upon them, kicking, striking, and flailing about as she beat the life from the both of them.

“It doesn't matter! Don't you see it doesn't matter!? The Eighty Eight you know died. She gave up and drowned. She took the smart way out... I'm not her anymore.”

With that she chucked both of them into the wall, perfectly synced with the living surroundings opening up, and swallowing them both.

“...If only you could hear how you sounded right now.”

Twin eruption of emerald freed them, leaving them to fall to the ground, free of all spores.

Shakily, Thirty Two stood up, and continued.

“She died? You're not her? I see, so surely you must be some other changeling with her body, memories and mind. One does not cease to be who they were simply because things have changed. We are the products of our history, we are what the past has become, not what the future has made us. You will always be Eighty Eight, no matter what you do, where you have gone or where you will go. You could change your name to Blueberry, move to a new town, travel to a new world entirely, it wouldn't matter. You are Eighty Eight. You are the friend we lived with, laughed with, sister to us. Nothing can change what you were, only what you will become.”

She hissed, glaring at the pair.

“Your sister drowned.”

The weathered soldier stood as well, moving in sync with his brother as they neared one another.

“You are hiding behind the excuses, letting what tragedy befell you define you. You are so desperate to stay down you cannot see how much you wish to rise again!”

They stood together once more, brothers side by side.

“Stop letting this thing control you! Fight it, not us!”

Looking upon them, she something bubble in her a little more.

“It's pointless! Fighting is pointless! It didn't matter in the end! Fourteen! Forty Five! Fifty! Twenty One! Ninety Three! Seventy One! Sixty Eight! Forty Four! They all fought! They all struggled! It didn't matter to any of them!”

“You're wrong. Their fight kept us going. Their fight lived on, in us. We would not be standing here, all three of us, had they not been with us. They fought and died. We fought and lived.”

Her eyes narrowed into a glare, at last a true emotion on her face.

“They didn't matter in the end.”

“They mattered to us... just like you do.”

“Why won't you give up?”

In shame, Seventy Seven's eyes flickered away.

“I did, once before... and I lost something irreplaceable.”

Sadly, he looked back into her eyes, hauntings long past resurfacing within their depths.

“If I had been stronger, if I had held on... if I had dragged you with me as I sought the sun... none of this would have happened. This? All of this...”

He gestured around the room, and to extension Equestria itself.

“This is my failure, my shame. I have caused more pain to those I love than could ever be forgiven.”

His body shuddered as he looked back to her once more, the knife he had clutched in his hoof shaking in his grasp.

“I cannot make up for what I have done. I cannot take it back, Eighty Eight. I cannot go back and put the air into your lungs. I cannot give you the time spent in the thrall of this thing. I cannot give you back what has been taken from you...”

Desperately, pleadingly, he reached out to her.

“But I can give you so much more.”

Her eyes went wide, the second time true emotion had shown, and she stepped back, ever so slightly.

“I have been granted a chance I have not earned. I have been given a boon I do not deserve. I failed, so very long ago, and it should have been the end of it. But it was not. I will never know why I was granted this grace, to see you alive once more... but I will not let it go to waste. I will fight for you, until the last drop of blood drips from by chitin. I will hunt you, to the very ends of the earth and into the stars beyond. I will save you... or I will give my life, my very soul, away in the attempt. You are coming home with me, Sister, and we will stand in the light... or I will fall with you, and take away your loneliness in the darkness.”

For the first time since her resurrection, possibly for the very first time in her entire life, Eighty Eight felt pause. A genuine feeling rushing through her she could not understand.

And it gave birth to something else.

“It doesn't matter in the end! Don't you understand!? No matter how you fight, how long or short you live, it can be taken from you in any moment! Snuffed out as easily as THIS!”

Her hoof had cocked back before they had even seen it twitch.
A mass of spores larger than herself had formed around it before they could blink.
It shot forward and unleashed a blade as long as the room before they even knew it had happened.

“Your life is nothing to the world.”

Shakily, a hoof reached up, and touched the side of the elongated blade.

The one right next to his head, missed by a mere few inches.

She had missed.

Softly, he spoke to her.

“... but it is everything to me.”

And that feeling could no longer be contained.

“I don't want to live again just to die all over again someday!”

The corners of Thirty Two's lips curled ever so slightly.

“Finally, you speak sense. That fear is one I know quite well, sister, and likely one we all share. We all die, in time. All things eventually come to an end. But you see, Eighty Eight, the difference is... what we choose to do with the time we live. You have been granted a chance, a chance to find meaning before we finally fall.”

“I don't want it.”

He nodded, unbothered by her hollow, empty tone.

“I understand. Better than most, I do. Giving up is the easy part, I'm afraid. Deciding you wish to go out in a blaze of glory, or simply letting go, it does not matter. It is far easier to lie on the ground and die than to walk to a glass of water, after all. Finding meaning to live is harder. Your entire purpose for life can be stripped away in an instant, you realize that all the time you spent was nothing but a fool chasing demons forged in the mind, and nothing else.”

Bitterly, she looked up to him.

“Then why keep fighting?”

“Another thing I have come to understand better than most. There will always be a purpose, sister. Even if we make mistakes and chase the wrong ones, we can change, we can find another, we can seek the truth. We can find a way to truly make this world better, if only we seek it. We, of all species, should know the real truth. That even if something looks, sounds and seems like the truth, there is always the threat of deception beneath it. Our illusions were our life... but perhaps it is time to cast them aside. Perhaps, they were never meant to be. We are made to change, we are designed to seek love. No matter how you change, that part of you will always remain.”

The spores upon her back flittered, suddenly feeling unsure upon her back.

“Why? What difference does it make if I die now, or die in my bed many years from now? It's all
the same... it's all the same.”

Seventy Seven, this time, stepped forward.

“Eighty Eight... something I've discovered since I found the light. Seldom times, we get to choose how we die. Very rarely are we granted the choice of when our end comes. And yet, if it comes one day suddenly, while fighting for your life, or slowly as you drift off, surrounded by your loved ones... how we die, is nothing. How we live until that point, defines us. You can end your life right here, that is a choice you have been granted... but you can also choose to fight on, to struggle, to claw at the monsters at your door and hope that one day you get to see the light once more. You have two choices, sister. One is easier, I will not lie. But the other... what it grants to you, even if it may only come in brief moments, is worth fighting for.”

Again, they stepped forward.

She stepped back.

And for a moment, everything was still.

~~~~~~

“Do they really think a few of these things will stop me?”

There was only a few dozen of the fliers before them, blocking their way, but something felt off.

“It must be growing desperate!”

“Or it ain't what it looks like.”

“Please, what else could they-”

That's when they exploded.

Not physically, with flames and fire and the like, but instead with bright, glowing flashes.

“MY EYES!”

The Titan stumbled, nearly falling to the ground as the pain seared into her. The flashes had been no mere blinding lights, they had flickered in many sickening colors, rapidly enough to make her nauseous.

Her, and the orange mare on her head.

“If you hurl up there, I willHRRK!”

She choked when she tried to open her eyes, another barrage assaulting her vision in an instant.

She flailed wildly, not so much as brushing them with her attacks as they continued, more agony with every time she even tried to open her eyes.

“Someone make it stop!”

They heard something crash, and another shriek of pain, and thankfully it did.

“Hurry up, AJ! Can't that thing go any faster!?”

Her smile almost split her face when her aerial ace of a friend soared by, batting away an entire row of the things and stopping them from even going off. From atop her back, her pink party pony pal fired her cannon, taking out any from the sky that Dash missed before shooting past their field of view.

“Yeah! Guess its your turn to finally save the world!”

Trailing behind them was the fashionista herself, firing off comically small, yet strangely effective beams in her wake.

“Darling, be careful... BUT GIVE THAT THING WHAT FOR!”

With the way clear, she gave one last encouraging tap to the base of the Titan's head, and the two could at last reach the their full speed.

“It's all on you, Applejack! GO GET 'EM!”

The base of the stalk grew larger in their sight, and nothing would stop them now.

Nothing.

~~~~~~~~~

“Sister... fight with us. End this. Stop this.”

Their voices would not leave her head, ringing every bit as loudly as the constant call to s͜pr҉èad͘.

“We can finally be together again.”

It pulled at her in every direction. The anger that they think she would ever want to be with them again. The disgust that they would not leave her be. The pity at their inability to see how pointless this all was... and a feeling a fear.

Real fear.

At the thought of having to breath again.

In desperation, she looked away. She sought answers. Denials to their calls.

By sheer chance... she found it.

“...It won't matter in the end.”

They both paused, stricken that she had slipped back after they moved so close.

“Do you see? This is the end. Of you, them... everyone. This... this makes it all pointless.”

She gestured to the side, to the orb they had all been so careful to avoid in their battles.

“This orb is the culmination of its s͜pr҉èad͘. The final call. In it are enough condensed spores to spread across the entire planet.”

Wearily, they glanced at each other before turning back to it, suddenly unsure.

“It just requires time... to gather the power.”

“Oh?”

A beam of green cut through the air, aiming right for the orb in the blink of an eye.

Even faster, a wall of spores rose, and it was blocked.

“Do you really think we will let it go off!?”

The determination in his voice was sure, so very confident, she could not help but waver.

“You will be stopped.”

“Even if we are... do you really think you can stop that?”

He gestured down below, seemingly at a random point on the floor, but she knew better. With a wave, the floor shifted, becoming clearer as the spores moved aside.

There they were still on their way. They had not been stopped. It had been throwing everything at them, she knew It had, so much It had only barely focused on her.

"Even if you could them... there will be more. It will be too late. You are out of time."

They were right.

"No."

They were going to stop it.

There was no way to get enough power to it in time.

There was no way to defeat the Titan when it arrived.

There simply was no way to give it enough magic.

"Sister... it is time to come home. It is time to learn to live again, learn again... love again. It is time.”

“Love....”

That word... it rolled around in her mouth like a delicious treat. It made her heart beat, and her eyes go wide.

“Love...”

For the first time, the very first time since her infection, since she had heard the call to spread...

She reached out to It, and not the other way around.

“The orb requires power, enough to spread it everywhere...”

And It listened to her.

“They'll stop it before it finishes!”

“...You might be right...”

It was in her mind now, reading her with perfect clarity, understanding all that she knew.

“We don't have enough power.”

And for a rare moment, It felt joy.

“But we are changelings... and changelings know what real power is.”

The city, in unison, let out a wail.

And began to wither.

“What have you done!?”

From their clear vantage point, they could see the many fliers dropping to earth like rocks, the many roving mobs collapsing like wind up soldiers tipped on their sides, every being great and small brought low.

Behind her, the orb burned with power.

No...

“Love...”

They gasped as they sensed it, their biology allowing them to feel the rush of magic traveling under their hooves and towards the orb. But not just any magic.

Love magic.

“You... none of them will survive!”

She tilted her head, eyes becoming dull once more.

“They are useless now, they are no longer needed... for the sp҉r̴e͡a͜d. They don't matter... none of them matter anymore. It's won. And you have lost.”

They gave one last, reckless cry, and they charged.

“It's all pointless in the end.”

~~~~~

“...Well, that's not good.”

Only one thing could give the Titan pause. All around, those who had attacked them, the mobs upon mobs in the sky and on the ground stalled, sputtering out as if they were all machines who had suddenly lost power. They wilted like dried plants, falling helplessly to the ground all around them. All who had stood in their way, gone.

And the Princess knew exactly why.

“T-they're... dying.”

Her chest sapped her, draining the life from her body, taking everything that made her... her.

“THEY'RE DYING!

She sensed it, even as her body struggled to fight back and hold on to the magic in her own heart. She could feel, rather than see, where it was taking it.

“S-somethin's... somethin' up there...”

She gasped, a sudden memory flashing through her eyes.

“The bomb... that's what she was thinkin'!”

“What!?”

She tapped her on the head impatiently, pointing straight on in the direction she charged.

“We gotta get ta' the top, NOW!”

“I'm running as fast as I can!”

“Well, it ain't good enough! Either you get up there now...”

Her head fearfully tilted up, looking on in horror as to what she felt gathering atop the thing.

“Or Equestria dies.”

~~~~~

“What is going on!?”

They did not know how long they had been traveling through the winding halls of the plant. They did not know if they even rose upwards, or if they had been going in circles. They just did not know.

But the two white royalty of this world did know one thing.

They knew what love magic felt like.

And this thing... as plain as day in the cells on the walls, was doing exactly that. They looked on in abject horror at what they saw. Love, pure love, being sapped up along the cells.

“Celestia, do... do you feel that?”

The white princess did not need to answer him. From the sheer amount she sensed traveling within, it could only mean one thing.

“It must be exhausting the love... from all of Canterlot!”

Terror gripped them as the implications sunk in.

“Perhaps... they will recover from this like it does wounds?”

Sadly, he shook his head.

“Celestia, I know this magic, my wife is the authority on this magic, and you can't... you can't just repair what this does to your heart. You can't just fix some cells, or heal some tears... being drained of this is your very life. It saps out your will to keep your heart beating. If this keeps up... they can't come back from this.”

His shield laden hoof idly trailed the walls as his mind spun, flinching as his magic felt the aftereffects of the mind boggling amount trailing through the walls. It was just like a changeling...

“...This thing controls minds, right? So... there must be a way to control its mind right back.”

She joined him, horn flickering with magic as she looked it over.

“Shining, there is no way either of us could overpower this. If it's capable of this on such a level-”

“No, not overpower... trick it.”

“It will realize there is nothing going to it in an instant, we cannot prevent it from realizing it is not absorbing magic.”

“No... but maybe there's a way to trick it as to where that magic comes from.”

Slowly, her head turned until she looked down upon him with stern, unforgiving eyes.

“...Shining.”

“If we can just re-route it to here-”

“SHINING ARMOR!”

He paused the magic he had been building within his horn, openly wincing at her strident tone.

“...No.”

He sighed, unable to look at her as he continued his work.

“Celestia... back at the wedding, when Chrysalis drained me, it was even more than you, even stronger than you are. Since then... I feel like it's only grown, gotten stronger. I have so much more now in my life, so many others... Maybe I don't have as much as every other pony in all of Canterlot, but you saw them. They're not conscious, they're not feeling, or thinking, or even living. Maybe I have just enough to fool it.”

Roughly, she hooked her hoof onto his shoulder, forcibly spinning him around despite his protests and forcing him to look her in the eye once more.

“Shining Armor... you do not have as much love in your heart as most of Canterlot. You simply cannot.”

He shrugged her off, turning back to the wall.

“I have to try. If it isn't enough... then we're no worse off than we were before.”

“Except you will be dead.”

Her words were cold, final, unmerciful.

“... Celestia, you-”

As was the push that shoved him off to the side and away from the wall.

Just in time for her to step forwards, and cast her own spell.

“NO! What are you doing!?”

The wall came alive, a murky fungus reaching out, and beginning to wrap itself around her.

“Did you really think I would not?”

His horn flared as he tried to cast it away from her, to free her before it could completely take hold.

“Celestia, they need you to-”

“Stop.”

The commanding, authoritative voice brokered no argument. Her face, stone cold and unmoving as she allowed it to travel over her some more, speaking again even as it continued to spread.

“...I have seen many things in my life. I have seen ponies rise and fall by the thousands. So many lives I knew personally, met with, fought with, learned with, laughed with... lived with. I have seen empires rise, and a few did fall. I have seen many ponies come and go in my life... and I loved them all.”

Her stare had not softened, even as the flecks of red began to cross her face.

“Do you really think, throughout all that, that you would surpass me?”

For a moment, he wilted underneath her gaze, suddenly feeling very small.

One glance at the thing reaching across her... and that all went away.

“...Yes. I am better suited for this.”

He marched up to her, standing tall and unmoving beneath her sharp glare. She could not move him, not anymore.

“Your bravado is meaningless. I will not be pushed aside in their time of danger. I will not stand and wait as their love is threatened. I am Princess Celestia, Ruler of Equestria, riser of the sun. These are the subjects who's lives were trusted to me, and I will repay that trust with all I have. I will give my everything for those I have sworn to protect...”

A shield formed around him, stopping him still in his tracks.

“And I will do it alone-NO!”

In the blink of an eye, he teleported away just before she could cast him aside as intended. He vanished, and in the next second he returned.

At her side.

Now being consumed, like she was.

“You fool! You blasted, stupid fool! You have a family to return to! A kingdom! So much life left to live! What of your home, Shining Armor!? What of your home!?”

He strained visibly as it spread across him, his horn already working its magic to fool the plant, just as Celestia's did.

“Home... is with those I love. Many of them are here... that is reason enough.”

The very room itself moved upon them, rising up like a mist and leaving swaths of red on their skin. The princess looked to him with sad, regretful eyes, jaw clenched as she watched him be taken over.

“... I did not want this.”

He forced a smile. A lopsided, uneven smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“We are the rulers of these lands, Celestia. If it falls... at least let us be the first. We each thought we might be enough... together, maybe...”

She felt the first tingles as her love was sapped, and soon he felt it as well.

“Do we have enough for everyone?”

Their magic did its work, and what had merely been a trickle now changed. Like floodgates being thrown open.

“...We're about to find out.”

They both went ridged as it extracted from them without mercy, ripping the the magic from them in obscene waves.

“S-Shining...”

Her hoof hooked around his as the pain jolted through her body, the very love from her heart being torn away.

He was the first to start to scream in pain, the drain too much for his body to bare.

She joined him soon after.

And yet... it worked.

The thing leeched only from them. Only them.

Their subjects, for the moment, were safe.

“W-we have to hold on...”

His hoof tightened against hers, and his pain clenched eyes locked with her own.

“For them... we have to hold on...”

For how long, they did not know.

But for now... they held on.

Together.

~~~~~~~

“Sister! Stop this now!”

They had become frantic now, repeatedly charging her in a frenzy, desperate to reach the orb.

Every time, she appeared before them in a blur, so quickly they would swear it was magic, and beat them away.

“You can live again! We can all live again! Please, help us stop this!”

She shook her head, no longer fighting off the influence crawling at her mind.

“I don't want to live like that again.”

“But do you want to die like that all over? Alone, again.”

She paused, but not long enough for them to find an opening.

“I... I never have to be alone. If you all joined me-”

The soldier snarled, diving at her ferociously before being cast aside.

“We would never. If we let ourselves be consumed, we will be nothing more than puppets, Eighty Eight. No mind to speak to you, no heart for you to reach.”

Perhaps it was her recent connection with It, perhaps it was the fact it listened to her at last, but a strange thought crossed her mind in that instant. A strange, yet wondrous, thought.

“Maybe... maybe it would let you keep your minds too!”

She couldn't keep the excitement from her voice. The mere thought that at last, they would see fighting did not matter, and they could all be together. They could be as one. They could be like her.

“We would fight it.”

“You don't have to!”

Thirty Two growled, charging her in the form of a minotaur before being stopped dead, and flung through the air by her far too powerful hooves. He did not stay down, or silent, for more than a second.

“Yes, I do. I have spent my life under the heel of higher powers and have had my fill, thank you. I would sooner fight until I am battering this thing with my skeleton than serve under it.”

They both charged her in unison, and both were blocked by one of her hooves. Effortlessly, she held them back, and her eyes trailed around the room.

“Maybe... it won't make you.”

They stilled.

Curious, they stilled as her eyes grew wider, and for the first time...

She had the barest ghosts of a smile upon her face.

~~~~~

All still conscious watched as the Titanic Queen met the base of the stalk, never once slowing in her mad charge.

Not even when she effortlessly reared back, and ran right up along the side, a complete vertical shift without so much as a slowing of her step. Straight up the stalk, she charged.

Even as the floor beneath her sprang to life, and tried to slow her gait.

Through the protrusions that exploded from the ground, uncaring as to how it battered her as she broke through.

Onwards, upwards, she charged.

~~~~~

She had turned away from her brothers, now looking around the room as if she sought something beyond the walls.

“What will you do when the spread is finished? When you have the world... what next?”

Both of the other changelings paused, curious as, for the first time, she seemed to honestly speak to the thing, and question it.

S͜pr͘e̸a̢d͝.͝

She flinched. It sounded almost... blunt with that. As if that explained everything.

“No, I mean when there is nothing left to spread to, not now.”

Sp̧re̸a҉d.

She gestured outwards, all around her.

“But... but you'll have the world! After this, there will be nothing more to spread to! You will have it all! You cannot spread when everything is yours!”

Sp̨re͢ad̸.҉

Her mind began to dance with her own thoughts, a rare thing in Its presence. Thoughts of all living forever, never fearing death, spread to from far and wide.

“Maybe... maybe we could all live together! At last, no more divides between us! If you grant them their minds-”

S҉PR͏E͘AD̶

It showed her. It did not speak to her, but a simple image instead.

The clearest picture she had ever seen... of the night sky.

“The stars?”

Her head throbbed some more as she felt it reaching up, higher and higher until it left this world.

S̢̢͠P̕Ŗ̕Ę̕ÀD̡͢

“You want to reach out... to other worlds?”

Again in her mind it flashed, world upon world consumed, covered upon every patch of dirt or water in the ever expanding red.

So many worlds.

All taken.

“But... we can live together.”

She felt her spine bend as it pulled her, her mind aflame once more.

S̶P̧RE̸AD̨

In desperation, she turned to her brothers, just those two, just them.

“N-no... let me keep them. Just them! They're enough, enough I won't be alone! Let me-AH!”

S̵͡P҉̨R͞҉E͏̵̷̶̸Á̛̕͜͢D̨̢̀͝͠

The words again resonated in her skull, ethereal nails digging in deep to the soft membrane of her mind. It seemed almost angry at the idea, as if she violated who it was as a being by merely suggesting anything but as it planned.

“I don't want this! I want us all to be together in the s͏p̛rea̛d! We can all join together!”

It showed her the two that stood before her, infected, mindless, spread to and consumed, as if this answered all questions, as if this showed her the light. This was as it should be, it thought.

“I don't want to be alone again!”

It didn't understand, she realized. It couldn't. It didn't matter to it what would be most beneficial, what would help others, even what would hurt others. It didn't matter.

It wanted to spread, and that was it. That's all it thought. It couldn't understand anything else. It did not want to understand anything else.

This was its everything.

To it... she truly was nothing.

“NO!”

The real versions of her brothers before her flickered in and out, replaced with the infected illusions in her mind.

“Fight with us.”

“Fight for your soul.”

At the first hints of rebellion crossing her mind, it responded in kind. Brutal, unforgiving kind. She screamed again as it bore into her memories, bringing to the surface with perfect clarity the one she feared most of all.

“You are stronger than you believed, sister.”

“You can continue on, if only you try.”

She was under water again, liquid filling her lungs, drowning her, leaving her weak and desolate. All the while it taunted her, offering her peace, release, safety.

“Save, if nothing else, that part of you. Bodies can be broken, minds changed and altered, but this part of you cannot. Live on, sister. For nothing else in this world than that, live on.”

She hit the bottom of the river, just like last time. Just like last time, it was nothing but cold, and dark.

“It won't matter.”

She knew she should not be able to speak, that she should be choking to death on the water that filled her lungs, but it let her. It let her have this, as she felt the desire to struggle that had slowly been building fall away.

“It always matters.”

She heard his voice now, distorted, warped beyond imagining. The weight of the water was as enveloping as the inky blackness and cold that held her down. Even with the crushing pain upon her chest, she still spoke.

"It's won. It was always going to win. The orb... it will cover this world, every inch, it will poison the air from every end of this world, and it will spread. In the middle of the snow, under the sea, atop the highest mountain, all will be the same to it, nothing will escape, there will be nowhere to run.”

Her head rolled to the side. There it was, glowing softly in the water next to her. The orb that even now sapped Equestria dry. No doubt, most had died already, unable to function without the love in their hearts.

“We will stop it.”

“You can't.”

“Believe in us.”

“It's more powerful than anyone!”

“Believe in this world, in those who will fight to live on!”

“IT IS USELESS!”

With a hum that sounded like a chime from a deathly bell, the orb stopped throbbing, stopped pulsating.

“We shall stop it.”

“YOU CAN'T!”

Time was up, they all knew.

With an eruption so loud and powerful it would put the mightiest volcano to shame, the orb fired upwards, straight upwards into the sky.

“You are wrong... and they shall prove it.”

“Even if you don't believe in yourself, or us...”

The water suddenly flung away as if cast by a hurricane of wind, ripping the obsidian liquid from her eyes. A massive thing rushed past their field of view, a wall of black there and gone in the blink of an eye.

“Believe in that.”

Above them, Chitania rose higher and higher, chasing it down with every hum of her wings.

“Can't ya' go any faster!?”

“No! I clearly can't, or-”

“LOOK OUT!”

The entirety of the structure warped, the capped head of the mushroom splitting open down the center and revealing rows of growing, living tendrils of teeth. The massive maw let out a booming bellow, and shot upwards, the sound of a foghorn chasing them down.

She could never hope to outrun it as the massive jaws clamped down on her legs, stopping her flight dead cold.

The orb rose higher into the distance, and with it, the hearts of those down below sank.

“....Well!?”

Applejack found herself plucked free from the massive head, curled into a hook of one of the Titan's many leg holes.

“GO GET THAT THING!”

She cocked back... and chucked the princess with everything she had.

“Heh...”

As she saw the orange dot grow smaller and smaller, the Titan couldn't help but grin, just before turning her attention to the foolish thing that thought it could hold her.

“And here I thought she'd scream.”

It was no longer holding her down, no longer forcing her to remember that memory anymore. She could stand again and look, just as they could, as she ascended, eyes locked in on the princess as she traveled into the sky. Within her mind, she felt the command ringing true.

“I can stop her.”

All it would take, she knew, and It knew, was a single shot into the sky. One well placed beam, and all of this hope falls away. One shot, and It would win. One shot, and they would see how meaningless it all was.

...But she couldn't.

She couldn't do it.

And the reasons why... hurt.

“I... I want her to win.”

Breathless, the changeling spoke more to herself than the two that listened with rapt attention.

“If she fails... I'll be alone again.”

She reached up, as if she could pluck the rising orb from the sky.

“I want... I want you to win...”

She reached higher, yet had never felt further down.

“...I want to live.”

All around her, the tendrils exploded from the surrounding room, wrapping around her angrily.

“I WANT TO LIVE I WANT TO LIVE I WANT TO LIVE!”

“SISTER!”

Both charged, hacking away at the things that consumed her before their eyes, lasers blasting and knives swinging in anger. All through this, she felt it within her mind, screeching, painfully renting across the top of her scalp. It forced her limbs to freeze, taking direct control of her body.

“STOP IT! I DON'T WANT TO DIE AGAIN! I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE! I WANT MY HIVE BACK! I WANT MY LIFE BACK! I'M NOT READY!”

The tendrils closed around her, completely covering her every inch.

“I'M NOT READY TO DIE!”

Two hooves closed around hers, and the world went black.

Above them all... Applejack still rose.

Her face was screwed into a bundle of determination as she shot straight up like an arrow fired into the sky. Wings and legs hugged close, unmoving as the wind rushed past her at top speeds. Soon, she felt even that grow thin, her breath short as she reached higher and higher, clear beyond any clouds, and soon beyond even the very sky itself.

“Ah'm not a flier, ya' know...”

She spoke to no one but herself, knowing that even if someone had been right next to her, they would not have heard.

But that didn't matter.

Nothing mattered as she shot right past the orb, beyond the thing that pulsated with power, which threatened to blow at any moment.

Nothing mattered when she spun to face it and let out an untrained burst of magic, wings flaring outwards when she stopped her dead in her tracks.

Nothing mattered as the ball of light approached her.

Nothing mattered...

“But there's a couple things Ah' know how ta' do.”

But saving them.

“AH' AM GREAT AT HOLDIN' STUFF TOGETHER!!”

It clashed against her open hooves, power rolling off it in waves as it struggled to push her back. Just as before, her magic went wild, firing off behind her in unsteady, uneven bursts as she poured everything she had into it. It pulsated, threatening to explode at any moment, desperate to unleash its payload and consume the world.

But she would not let it.

With a combination of magic, sheer force of will and good old earth pony muscle, she held the orb together, kept every spore in place as the momentum it pressed against her weakened with every second.

“AND EVEN BETTER AT FALLIN'!”

With one final, unsteady push, the magic from the orb at her hooftips faltered, and their descent began at last.

She fell.

From the night sky up above, she fell.

The world below her was bathed in red as the heat surrounded her, a crimson cloak that seared her forelegs and face, that burned her hat away in a sea of fire and charred her hair. It burned. Oh, it burned.

But she held it together.

Both herself... and the orb.

She watched as that heat and fire consumed it, burning it away into nothing. Every spore ablaze as she fell.

When she finally saw cloud cover, it was nothing but smoking remains in her hooves.

Finally, she could let the tension in her hooves release, and she felt at peace.

The world was nothing but a blur to her, falling too fast to recover. She did not know the full capabilities of what she could survive, of course... but she knew this would be too much. She couldn't survive this.

“...That's fine...”

Tiny droplets went above her as she smiled, ripped from her eyes by the galeforce wind of the fall.

“They're worth it.”

She felt her back touch a flat surface, and then there was noise. Loud, crunching, earth destroying noise.

… A lot of that.

A whole lot of that.

Far too much considering her back was still on that flat surface...

“Oh no you don't!”

Her eyes fluttered open, a mixture of dryness from the wind and pain keeping her from focusing immediately.

When she could, she at last understood.

The row of destroyed streets told her everything.

That and the massive, angry eye looking right at her.

“You're not getting out of this that easy! You're the only one who knows about our deal! Nobody else would believe me!”

She groaned, flopping back on the top of the titanic hoof she rested upon.

“Figured.”

“Did you stop that thing?”

She brought up her hooves to her face.

Her charred, badly burned hooves.

“Yeah... guess Ah' did.”

“Good job. Now... let's see about taking it down-”

The orange mare suddenly threw her head back in a scream writing in pain atop Chitania's hoof.

“...Well, that's not good.”

The scream intensified, charred hoof raking across her chest agains the throbbing, infected area.

“I-it's mad! Ah' think we really made it mad!”

“I know mad, how mad are we talking?”

A deafening, ear splitting roar rocked all of Canterlot, shattering whatever windows were nearby and crumbling several buildings.

“I-it ain't playin' around no more. It's gonna wreck this whole dang city and then just make another one... it ain't gonna stop.”

Behind them, the entire structure warped, tendrils peeling free from the trunk and whipping out like tentacles. That same gaping, twisted maw opening wide and releasing blobs of coagulated spores upon the ground as it turned to face them. Against all logic, it roared.

“...Eh.”

Flippantly, the Titan replaced the princess back on her head, and rose up to her full height.

“I can take that thing.”

Applejack didn't have it in her to tell her what she thought of her odds.

“Grant me what power you can, I'm taking this thing down.”

Even in the face of all of this, in the face of the searing pain going across her chest... Applejack laughed.

“An here Ah' was worried Ah' was gonna have ta' make another deal with ya'.”

“No... this ones on the house.”

The thing swung its massive tendrils, shattering the ground and honing in on the pair.

“Good... well, it ain't gonna break itself!”

She reared back, her magic once more connecting to the Titan's horn.

“LET'S RIDE-”

The world went silent for the pair as two balls of light suddenly flew past them, stopping their prepared charge in an instant.

Twin orbs of power, one green, one violet, rocketed past the flailing limbs, and just above the gaping mouth.

They hovered there, side by side, slowly dispelling their magic away. Soon, they were revealed.

The Princess... and the Queen.

“TWILIGHT!”

Nothing in this world made Applejack happier than that sight, that glorious, beautiful sight of her best friend, hovering in the air above it, a look of pure assurance on her face.

“Are you ready, Chrysalis?”

“As I'll ever be.”

“Can you handle this?”

“Can you?”

“...Let's go.”

They both shot down, tearing apart the thing as it tried to consume them, magic flaring out as they shot down like meteors into the depths of the plant.

“Be careful!”

Twilight's horn intensified, the shield covering them both growing brighter the deeper they went.

“If any of these ones touch you, this plan won't work! If we get infected now, it's all over!”

“Then keep your shield strong.”

Into the heart of the thing they went, down within the well worn battleground that remained of the changelings battle.

In the center of the room, they found it.

Two figures reaching with a single hoof into the mass of swirling tendrils, eyes narrowed in concentration as they held on for all they were worth. The spores were infecting them, burning into their chitin, but still they gripped tight, horns glowing in unison in a desperate attempt to hold it back, just a little longer. Just to hold on a little longer.

“There.”

Twin magic grabbed hold of both figures, and with one yank were pulled away.

A third breached the writhing mass, gasping for air as she too was ripped free from the living tissue of crimson and green, both of her hooves still hooked into the holes of the two that had never let go. When she finally fell free, her hooves suddenly felt empty, void of what should be there. The two who had remained with her fell away, writing in pain as the spores at last did its work upon them.

She hacked for air, splatters of red pouring out from her mouth from where it had sunken into her lungs.

“This is it... this is the highest concentration of the spores, the most potent ones, all right here, in... her. Inside of her.”

She still held onto them as she watched the spores finish off her brothers, take them over completely before her very eyes.

“N-no...”

“Who is she?”

Eighty Eight's head snapped up, fire in her eyes as she looked upon the one she remembered from so very long ago. Her Queen, her ruler, that which commanded her on a whim.

“Not a clue.”

...And she still made her blood boil.

“We'll figure that out later. For now... let's do this.”

Twin statuesque hooves shot out, grabbing hold of her roughly before she could respond. As expected, her spores reacted, serving their intended desire to spread.

“Yes... come to momma.”

She felt another pair of hooves behind her shove against her back, pushing her further into the hold of the Queen.

Twin lights glowed faintly atop their horns, and suddenly Eighty Eight found herself feeling... drained.

So very drained.

“N-no... n-n-noo... I want... I want to live.”

She cried as she feebly tried to pry the Queen's hooves from her shoulders, struggled even when she felt it pressing down.

“I want to live... I WANT TO LIVE!”

“That's it!”

Mercifully, both pulled away, leaving her feeling empty, hollow inside.

“This should be enough! Come on, we've got to get out of here before this thing makes us too weak to fight off the others!”

The Queen gave a stern nod, looking up from the pools of red that inched across her hooves, sinking into her chitin and replacing it at a rapid pace.

Both shot into the sky, out of the throbbing, living room, and up into freedom.

Every single pony, or changeling, or other species, gasped in shock at what they saw.

Their Queen, or Princess...

Being consumed.

The red spreading over every inch, down their stomaches, along their legs, across their backs, and up their necks.

Ś̡́͝p̢̨̢̛͝r̵̷e͏͏̸ą̵d̷̡̡͝!̴̛͡͠

“H-heh... so, that's what you... sound like...”

The Queen chuckled as she felt it prod at the corners of her mind, trying to worm its way into her very being as it crawled along the bottom of her chin.

“You want it, don't you?”

Her horn and Twilight's started to flicker as it reached it's apex, spreading from the bottom of their chins and up the side of their faces.

“You want our power?”

She grinned. Even as she was finally totally, utterly consumed, she was grinning maliciously.

“...You don't know what power is.”

At last, it covered all of her face, and touched the very bases of those two horns.

“Let us show you.”

A wash of green fire covered the Queen in tandem with a wash of violet magic coming from the princess. Before the spores could react, the two powers connected, and mixed. Without a chance for it to understand what was happening, a spell was cast.

For the first time, and the last time, in its long, long, long existence.... the thing that would later be classified as “Cordyceps” knew fear.

Just as it controlled the minds of so many others, so too did she now control it. A magic reaching out to every spore it had placed within every living thing across the entire continent. A signal, just as it had sent time and time again to move their bodies to its whim, raced across the cells. She was commanding it, a simple command, yet so powerful.

Just as it had used the powers of the changeling to repair and warp the bodies of those it had infected, of those it had controlled and turned to its desires, so too did she use that very magic. Just as it had, they changed.

To its horror, they changed.

It was a simple command, 'use this magic'.

No matter how it fought, how it struggled, it could not stop its many limbs from carrying out the command, weak and useless as it forced the spores it had so pridefully wielded to dance to its tune. As one, in perfect unison, they used that magic.

The first part, a recollection of what they last remembered themselves looking like.

The second part, to change into that form.

The third part... to change.

Not to change as it had commanded them, not to twist their bodies into newer forms, no... to change their very blood.

An ability it knew only about in memory, one of the many thoughts from the many minds it controlled.

DNA transformation.

Had it the mouth, it would have shrieked in horror as it felt the change. Its spores, the new cells it had created, were being taken over, replaced by magic as they changed in tune to what the body had been. It was being corrupted, its very cells turned against it and make an enemy to its cause. They did not spread. They did not take. They gave. Its spores gave until the bodies it had worked so hard for were taken from it, torn from its grasp and given back. Their minds now no longer clouded by its cells. Their bodies no longer pulled by its strings.

This monster had stopped the spread.

And she did not stop there.

The spores unattached to cells or living things found themselves with a similar command, to change. To use the magic in this exact way to fit these exact commands.

But there was nothing.

There was emptiness.

The spores reached out and sought anything that could fulfill the command, anything to sate the burning desire she forced upon it, but found nothing. They reached, and reached, and reached, but could never touch that which they so desired. They exhausted all of their power as they extended their very being to nothing, like a creature dying in the desert who forever looked, but never found water.

One by one, every tiny cell began to wither.

Every one.

Every spore, every drop of red, found itself sinking away to a dull grey.

It wasn't just exhausting the magic they held. It was draining everything from them, until they were little more than dust. Nothing remained, no cells, not even a single cusp of cytoplasm, it was all gone.

As its many limbs were severed away, they moved again, breathed again, thought again, lived again.

She had changed it.

She had changed it all.

The monster had left nothing.

One by one, the lights of what could only be called a primitive version of a 'mind' went out. Like stars being snuffed from the sky. All it knew, all the memories it could call upon or the creatures it could command to fight, disappeared into the darkness like they had never been.

Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.

They were all gone.

It could no longer feel them.

It could no longer sense them.

They were gone.

Where one it had stood within a crowded room, now held only two.

The monsters.

Two monsters.

One like the original.

One like the one who had allowed the spread.

Two parts of what had given it the world.

And now they took it all away.

… and they smiled...

The pair smiled as the last vestiges of its mind left it. As the darkness finally came for it as well. The last light of what had once been millions. They smiled as it dimmed away.

As the last thoughts went out, it began to wonder.

It no longer felt fear.

It no longer fought.

There was nothing but that desire to spread, a desire it could no longer accomplish. It was nothing. Only the most basic remnants of a mind, everything it had taken from the others long gone.

Its mind chanted wordlessly as it ceased to be.

S̷̸̨͟p̵̴̶r̸͞҉e͟͡͡a̸̴̢d̵

S͘p̸̴r҉e̴ad̡͞

S̀p̸r͢e͜ád

Sp̡read͘

Spread.

…

The pony and the changeling felt nothing after that.

At long last, the spores that had covered their every inch fell away, nothing but weightless, grey ash.

It was gone.

“...We did it.”

The last vestiges of their magic bled away, both of them now looking shriveled and tired, appearing to be mere shells scarcely filled. But even as they struggled to fly, strained to stay within the air on what would normally be an effortless flight, they smiled.

It mattered not that they were bereft of a single spark of power between them, that with all they had they could not possibly so much as light a match.

The fact they were barely holding onto consciousness was nothing to them now.

For they had won.

Tears of joy openly poured from Twilight's eyes as she looked upon the world. Upon the thousands shaking free of the ash, all that remained of what had once clouded their minds and warped them beyond all recognition. They were free. From every corner of the world, they were free.

“We did it!”

As one, they let out a cheer.

“We did it!”

“WE DID IT!”

“WE DID IT!”

“WE DID... OH SHIT!”

Beneath them, the massive structure had turned to grey, every spore that had formed the titanic structure now nothing more than that same weightless, powder like remains of the dead.

Unable to support its massive weight, it started to crumble.

Those down below joined in their scream of terror, unable to so much as breath with the sight of the gargantuan structure beginning to tilt ominously.

“OH SHUT UP!”

A massive black shape crashed into the very bottom of the tower, chitinous hooves wrapping around its frame.

“S-see!? It's not... grn... it's not that h-heavy!”

Everyone watched with bated breath as Chitania struggled, Applejack no longer atop her head. Her entire frame shook as she held it aloft, no longer tilting in any direction.

And then, it started to crack. Massive hairline fractures breaking all along its gray walls as it started to crumble.

“FINE, WANT TO BE LIKE THAT!?”

Her gargantuan hoof swung backwards, behind her head.

“THEN I'LL JUST BREAK YOU SMALLER!”

Her hoof rocketed forwards so fast any who blinked would have missed it entirely. It connected, strong and true, it connected.

“...This is the dumbest thing I've ever done.”

And sank her right into the shoulder of the surprisingly malleable material.

Gaping fissures opened up from the hole she had rent, stretching out over her trapped foreleg and up tot the very top of the stalk. As the little hold of the once proud mushroom deteriorated, only one voice could be heard over the roar.

“EVERYONE GET AWAY FROM THIS THING, NOW!”

Applejack's warning came just before the massive head fell down.

Somehow, above the roar of the destruction overtaking it all... they heard it.

A call that reached out over all of Canterlot.

Just before it crumbled and fell upon them all.

“I WANT TO LIVE!”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dark.
Cold.
Consumed on all sides.

She knew this feeling.

This feeling was like an old friend.

...And yet, even as it covered her from every inch, she did not feel it again.

The water had been replaced with dust and ash, leaving her every bit as unable to breath, but she did not feel as she did when she had died.

There was something else there.

As she looked to her two brothers, each clutching her tightly, something else took over.

“...I want to live...”

It was quiet at first.

It did not stay that way.

“...I want to live...”

Her horn flared. She had such precious little magic, so little she barely felt alive.

“...I want to live...”

But nonetheless, she felt alive.

“...I want to live!”

She fired again, and again, pulling the two limp changelings with her as she fought against the weight holding her down.

“I want to live!”

She went up, up, so far up, yet never seemed to find the end.

“I WANT TO LIVE!”

A barrier blocked her, solid and strong.

“I WANT TO LIVE!”

She fired upon it with all the strength she had, the blast blowing backwards into her face.

It did not break.

“...I want to live...”

Neither did she.

“I WANT TO LIVE!”

She hammered against it with everything she had, not so much as cracking it.

“I WANT TO LIVE!”

Air grew short, and her head became light.

“I WANT TO LIVE!”

But still, she fought on.

“I WANT TO LIVE!”

That's when she heard the first crack.

A crack not caused by her.

“I WANT TO LIVE!”

Something... gripped her. A grip of something far larger than her own grabbing hold of her.

“I WANT TO LIVE!”

She was pulled up, up, through every barrier. She fought with the grip, helping it as it pulled her along.

“I WANT TO LIIIIIVVVVEEEE!”

And at last, she saw the sun.

Only for a moment.... before the darkness claimed her.

“...i want to live...”

And live, she knew... she would.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

>PD
"Flash"
'Fizzle'

>Huh.

"What?"

>I don't know why, but I distinctly heard a cash register go off.

"That's weird."

'The paaaain...'

>SILENCE, ICE CREAM THIEF!

BLAM!

'AAAAIIIIEEEE!'
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

>AJ
"Guard"
'???'
~~~~

>KEEP DIGGIN' ALREADY!

As it turns out, when something as large as a city, even a giant pile of mostly ash, falls down upon it, it causes some problems.

For instance, burying a very large number of the population beneath its mass.

Further worrying, most of those who had been infected were drained before the sudden stop, and were not healed before it met its end. As such, the number of ponies who could actually dig was surprisingly low.

"We're working as fast as we can, Majesty!"

The ash was not hard to clear, since it was so light it mostly disintegrated when they touched it. The real problem was discerning the clumps of it from clumps of living creatures.

It was going to take some time, they knew, and Applejack knew she was already running on empty. Free from the spores, she may be, but the pain falling away did nothing to turn back the clock and restore her stamina.

They had won.

She was happy they had won.

...But there was always a mess to clean up after these things.

>KEEP DIGGIN'!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________