Phoenix

Chapter 5

The black equinoid, about the same size as Princess Luna, laughed heartily as the disheveled Princess Mi Amore Cadenza stood in defiance, her horn lit up with her pink magic. Shining Armor standing by her side. Both Celestia and Luna suspended from cocoons. Chrysalis’, even in her weakened form had proven more then a match for both of them. They had underestimated her.

Her forked, green tongue slithered out of her mouth as she stared at the two.

“My dear, Princess Cadance, I am Queen Chrysalis, I consume love. What made you think your love magic would stop? It’s the equivalent of giving a pony dying of thirst water. Now watch, as I finally end you!” Chrysalis spat, her voice resounding with a shallow echo. Unnatural.

Cadance growled at the Changeling queen. She wasn’t going down without a fight. But something happened. The audience watched in shock as the changeling’s black body, with holes cutting straight through her chitinous legs, suddenly began reforming. Her scraggly mane and tail also reformed, no longer with jagged edges, it stood up, with a majesty rivaling that of the manes of the Two Sisters. Her torn and damaged insect wings were sheathed in green magic, reforming into fully healed and untorn wings.

“You magic did nothing but give me more strength! So I really must thank you, for healing me. As such, I will make your death quick and painless!” Chrysalis bellowed, her magic gathering at the tip of her jagged horn, A sickly green ray of magic cut through the air, but Shining Armor and Cadance, both in defiance, joined their own streams of magic to counter Chrysalis’.

The blue and pink rays of magic joined in union, meeting the green ray in mid air. The two streams fought over dominance.

“Not even the Two Sisters could stop me! What makes you think a unicorn whose been maintaining a shield for weeks and third rate alicorn has enough power to stop me!” Chrysalis pushed her magic harder. So did Cadance and Armor.

There was loud bang as both opponents lost control of their magic. Cadance was thrown clear, close to the exit of the chapel. Shining Armor was tossed to the side. Chrysalis suffered the least, being forced to step back. But she saw her chance, and shot another ray at the pink alicorn.

Cadance opened her eyes, concussed from the magical explosion. She realized at the last second the ray of magic coming her way, but she couldn’t move. The shock form the explosion had dazed her to the point of sluggishness. At least to the point that her muscles weren’t moving when her brain was screaming at them to move.

Chrysalis could feel her magic make a solid connection on Cadance, but could not see it due to the glare created from what was surely Cadance being vaporized.

She pushed more power into her magic, as she could still feel Cadance there. Chrysalis had to give it to the pink alicorn. She was a lot more durable then she had thought.

However, her ray was cut off, as something tore through her side. The pain was hot, as she stepped back and looked to the her side. There was a long cut, as green blood oozed out of the wound. She snarled and spoke.

“Who did th-” She was cut off as she looked up, towards where Cadance had been. The alicorn was still there, in the corner. But standing beside her was that annoying purple unicorn, Twilight Sparkle. But what was more pressing was a faceless biped drenched in sickly green liquid standing in front of the dazed alicorn, with its left foreleg raised, hoof out. In its right hand, a piece of metal in an odd shape held close to its flank, tucked in between its foreleg.

“Sorry for the wait,” The sound came from the unknown biped, as it raised its right hand with the strange object in it, pointing up, resting on its shoulder. It continued, point its forehoof at Twilight. “Twi and I had to stop by Starbucks for a latte run.”

The biped held its front hoof out to Twilight, for an apparent hoof shake, who looked at it hesitantly, given the fact it was currently soaked in the blood and gore of those insectoid ponies. The biped quickly dropped its hoof to its side and spoke to her for the first time.

“Sorry, I forget most people aren’t as comfortable about gore as I am. I’m Dante T. Jaeger. Phoenix Legion Marine Corps.” The biped spoke, as he moved towards an abandoned helmet. His deep voice making Twilight assume he was a male. The beard on his face also lended credence to her theory. But the relatively long mane of black hair on the top of his head confused her a bit.

He lifted the helmet up and inspected it. The purple unicorn watched as the his pasty white face looked at the helmet. But it wasn’t the very light color that drew Twilight’s attention. It was his eyes. Both different colors. He right blue, left green.

'Heterochromia.' Twilight thought to herself. An exceedingly rare genetic defect present in ponies. And apparently present in what ever species this biped belonged to.

“It’s, uh… nice to meet you… uh… Mr. Jaeger. I am Twilight Sparkle, student of Princess Celestia.”

The biped, identified as Dante, seemed to be happy about the state of the helmet he had picked up and slipped it over his head.

“No need for the “Mr.”, Twilight. I was never one for such formalities. Just call me Dante.” The bipeds voice filtered through the helmet.

“I hate to break up the Second Contact bonding, but there is a problem, Dante.” The disembodied female voice spoke.

“Roger that, Venus. Care to explain to us?” Dante asked.

“I assume there is currently an attempted coup taking place. These changelings do not appear to be friendly. The diarchy of this country would put us in a better position to gather resources to allow us to be rescued by the Imperium.” Venus clarified.

“So, basically, I got to stop a coup if I want to be rescued?” Dante questioned.

“It would be far easier to do the things we need to do if the government is willing to work with us, rather then having to carve our way through hordes of hostile forces. Allowing the government to fall would not stop you, merely make more work for you then otherwise intervening would.”

“Welp!” Dante began walking. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get going and save us some… what did you say the government was?” Dante asked.

Twilight answered this time.

“A diarchy. Princess Celestia is the Sovereign of the Sun and Day. Princess Luna is the Sovereign of the Moon and Night.”

Dante had stopped in front of a skeleton wearing armor, its helmet knocked off. Twilight was able to see the skull of the former being. Dante grabbed the item it had clutched in its forehooves and unceremoniously tore it from its grip. Not having any apparent care for respecting the dead. It dropped a rectangle that had been attached to it and then pulled a lever and peered into the item. It then released the lever, allowing it to slam closed and re-inserted the rectangle. Dante grabbed some more rectangles that were attached to the skeleton's armor and inserted them into a storage compartment that open up on his armor, below his flank.

“Alright, so what are we waiting for? Let’s go save us some ponies princesses! Twi, stay behind me!” Twilight would have normally corrected the strange beast who she barely knew, but given the situation of being besieged by hostile changelings, she let it pass. She fell in behind the alien biped who seemed to walk without a care in the world.

“Uh, Dante. Shouldn’t you be a bit more careful?” Indeed, Twilight thought, she had seen a few exercises of the Royal Guards doing movements for a possible invasion. And they moved slowly, cautiously and low to the ground. Whereas this odd alien, Dante, just strolled like it was a calm Sunday evening and not an invasion of Canterlot.

“What? For these bugs? Twi, did you just not watch me literally kick one’s head off? If I was fighting Reelkans, sure. I’d be moving a bit a more cautiously. These bugs can’t hurt me.”

And true to his word, he strolled around a corner without bothering to look if there were any Changelings.

Which there were. Four of them lined up and the blocking the door way. And they immediately began firing on him. Once more, the shots of magic thumped harmlessly into his armor. Twilight watched, hunkered down around the corner as the biped shouldered the strange object he had taken from the skeleton and fired.

Her ears rung from the sudden explosion The head belonging to the changeling second to the right exploded in a mess of gore, painting even more walls with its sickly green color. Twilight’s muzzle took on a green color, her stomach churning. She started regretting eating those hay sandwiches earlier today.

Dante fired the strange object once more, this time the changeling to the far right collapsed. At this point, Dante was now within a very close distance. The changeling to the far right buzzed its wings and took flight, charging at the armored biped.

Without hesitation, the biped drew its left foreleg back, and then pushed forward with it. Meeting the changelings face.

Twilight watched as the changeling’s body seemed to bloat and then explode, splattering the biped in even more green blood and gore. She struggled to swallow back more of the vomit that was building up in her throat.

Dante swung the strange object to the final changeling, who was now backed up against a wall. Despite it’s iris and pupil both being solid blue, the fear in its eyes were obvious.

Dante leveled the object at the changeling, now mere inches from its face.

“It’s your lucky day, but how your luck holds up depends on you. Stay here and don’t move ‘til we’re gone, you won’t die. Follow us and die. Understand?” Dante stated, his tone deadly serious, leaving no room for argument, as the lone survivor meekly shook its head in understanding.

“Good.” Dante’s tone changed, significantly more friendly now. “Come on, Twi, we’re going.” And with that, the drenched alien continued on his way.

Twilight rushed to catch up to him, passing the mortified changeling and falling in behind Dante.

“Uh… Dante, not that I’m sad you didn’t kill him, but why did you let that changeling live?”

Dante hummed in thought.

“You know Twi, you don’t have to hold it in.” Twilight cocked an eyebrow at this statement.

“What do you mean?”

“Vomiting. No one’s gonna think less of you for vomiting at the sight of brutal deaths. Most people can’t handle the sight of gore and vomit the first time they see it. Most people get sick the first time they kill someone. The vast majority of sapient species aren’t hardwired for it. It takes a bit of getting used to. The only weird thing is horses back home can’t vomit. Something to do with stopping them from puking when they run.”

Twilight furrowed his brow.

“I’ll remember that, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“Because, Sparkle, that’s for me to know and for you to wonder about. Are you military?”

Twilight sighed. She was grateful for the biped’s help, but he was already annoying her and testing her patience.

“Sorry for the wait!” Dante exclaimed. “Twi and I had to stop by Starbucks for a latte run.” Had his helmet been off, a smirk would have been visible to everyone. But as far as everyone else in the room could tell, he was faceless.

Chrysalis, however, was not finding the situation as funny.

“Who are you!” She roared, demanding the biped to identify.

The biped didn’t seem to be interested in the Changeling Queen, instead turning his head to face the pink and alicorn and purple unicorn.

“Oi, pinkie, you alright?” He asked Cadance. She struggled to her feet, steadying herself on Twilight.

“Uh, yeah, I think so. Thank you. Twilight, could you go check on Shining.”

Chrysalis was seething mad. This creature dared to interrupt to her plan, and then had the audacity to ignore her! Queen Chrysalis, ruler of the Changelings and soon to be Lord of Equestria.

“Do not! Ignore me!” She howled, anger evident in her voice. As she let off another beam of her magic, going straight for the alien.

Without saying a word, his head still turned to the two mares behind him, the creature silently swatted the ball of magic sent his way to the right, obliterating the wall. Sunlight streamed through the chapel that was now open to the outside.

Dante turned back to the Changeling Queen.

“Calm your tits, you stupid cunt. I’ll deal with you in a minute.” The biped spoke, not caring for any sort of formality.

Angered even further by the creature’s callous tone, Chrysalis readied another attack of her magic, even more powerful then the one she had sent before.

That was, before, a voice stopped her.

“Chrysalis, with all due respect, I would advise against that.” Celestia spoke from her cocoon.

Chrysalis looked to the entrapped alicorn, allowing the magic on her horn to die.

She buzzed her wings and flew up to the upside down alicorn.

“And why is that?” Chrysalis hissed, looking in the rather unimpressed alicorn’s eyes.

“Tell me, Chrysalis, you know who Dawn-Bringer is, right?” Celestia questioned.

Chrysalis laughed. Of course she knew who Dawn-Bringer was supposed to be.

“He’s an old unicorn legend. And old god. They said he was deity of all creation and is the reason for the existence of life on this rock. He was born out of nothingness and looked to the planet, he didn’t like its lifelessness and so gave it life. He created the sun and the moon and entrusted their power to you two.” Chrysalis spat.

Celestia took on a condescending smug.

“You know the legend of Dawn-Bringer. Very good, very few know it due to how old it is. It started out as an oral tradition, and as I’m sure you know, oral traditions have a funny way of getting messed up. They change depending on what is most convenient for the ponies in power. And in this case, the oral tradition seriously got messed up.”

Chrysalis’ eyes narrowed.

“What are you getting at, Sun? Does this even have any relevance to this… beast!” Chrysalis hissed, her forked tongue rolling out of her mouth.

Celestia cocked an eye brow and nodded in the general direction of the alien.

“Are you so dense you can’t get a hint? Why would I bring up Dawn-Bringer up if he had no relevance. I’ll explain it to you in simple terms for your tiny brain. That biped right there? He’s Dawn-Bringer.”

Chrysalis looked back at the biped, who now seemed to be patiently waiting for her to finish her conversation with the princess.

The Changeling broke out laughing.

“That thing is supposed to be Dawn-Bringer? Are you blind, Sun? You’ve been looking at yourself for far too long! First that’s not even a unicorn! It’s a… well, I don’t know specifically what it is, but it definitely isn’t a unicorn! And second, what creator would be so undignified as this one is! You!” Chrysalis pointed at the biped. “What is your name.”

Without hesitation he spoke.

“Dante T. Jaeger, Phoenix Legion Marine Corps.” Dante stated in a bored tone.

Chrysalis smirked and looked back to the Celestia. “See, he’s not even named Dawn-Bringer!”

Celestia locked eyes with the Changeling Queen, sighed and rolled her eyes.

“If my hoof was free, I’d slap my face.” The Princess of the Sun deadpanned, amazed at the Changeling’s stupidity.

“Oi! I hate to break up such and endearing moment of bonding between two chicks who are apparently interested in BDSM, but are we gonna fight or what?” Dante yelled to the Changeling Queen.

“Chrysalis, I’m telling you this as friendly advice, leave. To Dawn-Bringer, you are nothing more then a parasite that he will crush underfoot.” Celestia told her Chrysalis once more.

Chrysalis took her hoof and spun the cocoon Celestia was in.

“We’ll see about that, my dear Princess. My children!” Chrysalis bellowed.

“Dante, counts of creatures matching scanned and known changeling vitsigs incoming.” Venus informed her partner.

“Welp.” Dante stated. “You should have listened, Chryssi, Great White was right. Should have run when you had the chance.” Dante dropped the object he had been holding in his right hand.

“Maybe y’all’ll finally get the point if I stop using my rifle.”

Dozens of changelings began swarming into the chapel through the wall that Chrysalis had inadvertently obliterated. The bravest one charged staright at the biped. Who proceeded to catch it by the horn.

Grabbing roughly onto its front leg, Dante ripped the horn from the this changeling, throwing it against the wall, crushing the poor thing.

He threw the dismembered horn at another changeling, impaling it in the eye. The creature fell to the ground, dead.

Dante caught another changeling as it charged him, bringing it down onto his knee, crushing its torso. But a changeling latched onto his upper arm and began gnawing on the armor. Without hesitation, the biped slammed his occupied arm onto a pew, crushing the changeling and breaking through the wood of the pew.

But several more latched onto the biped in an attempt to bring him down. He kicked a nearby support pole, crushing several changelings and taking a chunk out of the marble.

A changeling latched onto his head, in another futile attempt to bring him down. Without hesitation, Dante slammed his armored head into the marble column, crushing the changeling’s lower half and leaving a vaguely face shaped hole in the material. He reached with his left arm to his right shoulder and ripped a changeling from it. Throwing it into the ground, it exploded in a fountain of gore, splattering several nearby cowering ponies in changeling blood. And unlike Twilight, they did not try to hold in their vomit.

“Stop killing my children!” Chrysalis screamed.

Twilight Et. Al, Cadance and Shining Armor could only look on in horror as the changeling massacre took place. Sure, he was without a doubt strong. As evidence by the damaged marble column and the dozens of changeling corpses killed with his bare hooves. But just how many changelings did Chrysalis have access to and how long could Dante keep fighting for?

Suddenly, Dante stopped. The changelings that had latched onto his body continued gnawing in a vain attempt to penetrate the alien armor.

“Tell me, bugs, do you feel more relaxed?” Dante questioned. Apparently to the changelings that were attacking him.

The ones that had latched onto him appeared to slow down. And the ones hovering in a horde in front of him also stopped, looking at each other.

“Because you should.” With that statement, Dante roared up in flames. As the horde of changelings also combusted.

What followed was some of the most horrific screaming the ponies had ever heard. As hundreds of changelings panicked from the extreme heat and began flying in an attempt to get away from the source of the flames. It didn’t take long for them to begin falling to the floor like flies.

The changelings that had latched onto Dante stood no chance, as they appeared to have been flash burned to death. The flames that had engulfed Dante soon died down as the rest of the Changelings were dying from the horrific burns they suffered.

Dante brushed the dead changelings off his body, making a sickening crunch sound, as Twilight finally lost it due to the sounds and smells. Her vomit splashed on the floor, as both Shining Armor and Cadance vomited as well. A mix of sympathy vomiting and also being sickened by the smells and sounds. In fact, the only people not vomiting in the room were Chrysalis, Celestia, Luna and Dante.

Chrysalis’ eyes narrowed at Dante, as he whistled.

“I hope you understand, Chryssi, this was neither my fault nor was it personal. I gave you a chance to escape. I’ll give you another chance. Leave.” Dante’s tone took on a far more serious tone then Chrysalis had heard it so far. “There’s been enough bloodshed and death today. I don’t really want to kill anyone else today, but I have no problem killing more if I have to. So here’s your chance. Leave now and you live. Stand and fight and I’ll kill you.” Chrysalis stared him in the eyes. Or, at least, where she thought his eye should be.

She snorted and began buzzing her wings to take off. A glint shone in her eye. Chrysalis assumed no one had seen the small tear escape.

Her voice began breaking.

“I’ll be back! And I’ll have my revenge! And you!” Chrysalis pointed to Dante. “Demon! I will make you pay a horrible price.”

Chrysalis shot off through the non-existent wall as dozens of swarms of changelings follow suit. They retreated through the sky at break-neck speed. Apparently wanting to put as much distance between them and the psycho biped.

Twilight looked at the unmoving biped. His once dull-grey armor was now a sickly green from the amount of blood on it. She was fairly certain there was not a single inch on it that wasn’t covered in blood.

She watched as Dante reached up to his helmet and lifted it off his head. Dropping the blood soaked thing to the floor.

He stroked his bloody hand through his mane, with no care to the fact that was wiping blood and guts into his hair.

Given the circumstances, Twilight couldn’t help but burst out laughing, as Dante followed this action up with a single sentence.

“Fuck, I need to shave.”

Author's Notes:

Poor changelings can't stop getting crushed by the weird alien.

In Dante's defense, however...

#changelingsfiredfirst

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