Chapter 39

Unfortunately, their combined schedules meant Jeremy had to wait until the next day’s dinner to bring it up again. As he laid out the plates, Luna picked up on his unusually somber mood.

“Alright, so I’m sure you’ve guessed we have a problem,” he began as he sat down. He briefly explained the events and history Chrysalis had told him of, and was surprised to see Luna glaring at her in outrage.

“We just spoke with the FBI to prevent this sort of occurrence – the least thou could do was mention it!” she accused Chrysalis, who glared right back.

“For you to do what? Track him down? Kill him? Because that’s the only way he’s going to be silent for certain.” Luna fell silent at this.

Jeremy glanced between the two. “We can’t modify his memory or something?” he asked after a pause. Luna shook her head.

“If his contention is such that he still remembers after all this time, it is likely he would suffer permanent brain damage by attempting to forget such a span of time in his life.”

To be fair, Jeremy would have almost preferred the brain damage for how much he already hated this figure – but he still had an inclination that there might be a more humane option.

“Well, it’s not like we can bring in the elements of Harmony - last I checked, those were still in the Tree, and besides, if Nightmare Moon survived her harmonization, who knows what it’ll do to this guy…” Jeremy pondered aloud.

“Would it be possible to convince him to submit peacefully?” Luna curiously asked. Jeremy thought for all of half a second before shaking his head.

“Even if we reached some kind of agreement, there’s nothing holding him back from lying or double-crossing us – and God forbid we agree to any of his terms.” Chrysalis solemnly nodded. Unable to resolve the conundrum, Jeremy frustratedly finished his food and packed up, departing for the computer.

To his dismay, he found yet another email from the nameless rapist – this one with the threat to kill himself if he didn’t get a response. Jeremy sighed – did he really want to indulge this? He thought of what to do – any response would provoke the guy, it seemed. What he needed was something that confused the sender so much that they wouldn’t know how to respond. What would Discord do? Jeremy pondered. An idea came to him, and he pressed the “Reply” button, and without typing a thing, clicked “Send”. The email system asked him if he had meant to do this, and he clicked “Yes”. Chrysalis walked up, and he quickly explained to her what he had done.

“…Interesting…” Chrysalis noted.

“He wanted a response, and he got one,” Jeremy remarked, a smile tugging at the corner of his face.

With that, they went to bed, Jeremy sleeping with Chrysalis this time. He had gotten used to the cocoon, and while it was still a very odd sensation compared to sleeping in a bed, he had long since adjusted and even grew to enjoy the feeling of weightlessness.

As Jeremy dreamt, his subconscious was plagued by images of the other guy – his appearance kept changing, but in the logic-defying nature of dreams, Jeremy always recognized him. His dreaming mind got the idea that if he could kill the other guy in the dream, they might never wake up, and he was about to do so when Luna came up behind him and tapped him on the waist. The dream instantly vanished, and Jeremy looked around, realizing what he was doing.

“…That was dumb,” he commented.

Luna sighed. “Didst thou really think that would work?” Jeremy shrugged.

“Kind of? It wasn’t like I was sober enough to realize how stupid that was,” he replied.

They spent some time in the dream world, discussing various things as the scenery shifted to memories around them. Finally, as the scene shifted to the Equestrian moon, Luna got up, motioning for him to follow. Curiously, Jeremy walked behind her as she approached what appeared to be a bright green hole in their reality – it gave off a soft light, and Luna examined it carefully with a practiced eye.

“We wondered what that feeling was – Chrysalis’ mind has sensed our dream.” Jeremy looked at it.

“She can do that?” he asked in consternation.

Luna lightly chuckled. “All magic users can do at least some dreamwalking – exceptionally powerful ones such as alicorns and fully-loved changeling queens can reach out with their minds and interconnect with other dreams directly, though only true dreamwalkers, such as ourselves and awakened dreamers, can enter these gateways.” She stepped through, instantly disappearing, and after some hesitation, Jeremy followed.

They emerged in Chrysalis’ hive, but it looked different: Chrysalis herself was in her room, and a cluster of changelings was around her – including, Jeremy noticed, a human that wasn’t him. He had brown eyes, and long, curly hair - Jeremy would have suspected he were a hippie except for the time period. Lying on her back, Chrysalis groaned in pain as the various changelings applied differently colored liquids from their fangs.

“Follow my advice and you won’t even have to do this anymore,” the human mentioned as casually as though Chrysalis wasn’t dying in front of him.

“Is that…?” Jeremy asked, pointing. Luna nodded.

“That would appear to be the one. Remember, this is only a dream – attempting to harm him would do nothing.”

Jeremy nodded, and continued to watch, feeling oddly out of place. Was this what Luna did all the time – simply watched dreams from the sidelines, intervening when necessary?

The memory shifted, and this time Chrysalis, who was looking significantly better but not quite healed, was traipsing through the forest along with the human, who was looking at her every few seconds nervously.

“So… Ethan, was it? You said the portal was closed,” Chrysalis mentioned.

“Yeah, it was right here, I’m sure of it,” the man grumbled as he surveyed a tree.

Personally, Jeremy didn’t know how he could tell, as it was exactly the same as every other tree in the forest – but then again, maybe he was missing something. Chrysalis grinned, and her horn lit up green. The familiar green portal opened, and another house was visible through it.

“I may not have much power, but I certainly have enough to open a simple gateway,” she boasted. The male gazed openmouthed. “Now, remember our part of the deal, human,” Chrysalis intoned forcefully, and the male raised his hands in mock surrender.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I can get you everything you need,” he answered. “If I’m not back in a week, come find me.”

Chrysalis watched him step through the portal, smirking to herself.

Once more, the scene changed, as instantly as though it were simply a movie. This time, the portal had been relocated to inside the hive, and Chrysalis was smugly conversing with the other human – Ethan, Jeremy reminded himself. He listened in.

“You mean the whole time, you wanted to mate with Princess Celestia? That’s what you wanted out of this? And now that you’ve realized that she would never submit to such dark intent – a fact readily obvious to everyone with brain cells, you want me to take her place?” Chrysalis inquired mockingly.

“It’s always been a dream of mine, and you owe me,” he threateningly stated.

Chrysalis looked at him in surprise, and began to laugh. Her laugh filled the chamber, until Jeremy realized it was being echoed by the thousands of changelings who were already surrounding the defenseless human.

“You are living on my whim, human,” Chrysalis spat, advancing toward him as he backed up towards the wall the portal was next to. Jeremy watched with interest as the crowd of changelings came closer and closer towards where he and Luna were hiding, only to pass right through them. “You’re lucky I let you live long enough to give me your blueprints. If I weren’t so amused by your pathetic attempt at satisfying your equally pathetic desires, I would have ripped out your throat for daring to speak to me that way.” The changelings stirred, hissing slightly and narrowing their eyes at the human figure in the center.

Ethan shifted uncomfortably. “What… what are you going to do?” he asked, his voice having lost its earlier bravado.

Chrysalis pretended to consider, before giving a single hiss. The changelings surrounding Ethan opened a path from him to the portal, and he stared around in shock. “Well,” Chrysalis continued, the look on her face expressing her absolute control over him, “I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll allow you to live another day – I have more important things to do than dispose of your corpse. But if you don’t leave fast… I may just change my mind,” she threatened, wings spreading out and fangs bared in an impressive display. Without a moment’s hesitation, Ethan fled the hive, to the hissed laughter of the surrounding crowd of changelings.

“We think now would be a good time to interrupt,” Luna mentioned as she trotted up to Chrysalis and tapped her on the shoulder.

All the other changelings instantly disappeared, and Chrysalis looked around in shock. “I-  what?” she asked, her voice having notably changed back to the more demure and polite voice she had adopted recently.

“We and Jeremy would like to speak with thee, and – Jeremy?” she called over in his direction.

“Yeah, what?” Jeremy asked, jogging over as he looked around at the hive.

“…Nothing,” Luna commented after a while. She turned back to Chrysalis. “It seems this human was intimidated easily – perhaps the same tactic would work twice?” Chrysalis huffed, taking a seat in the memory-projection of the main cavern.

“As much as I appreciate your interrupting this travesty, we could just as easily discuss this in the real world.”

Luna nodded wisely. “We could, but then both of thou would be still half-asleep and only partially lucid,” she reminded Chrysalis. “This way, we can discuss it at length – time is very subjective in dreams.” Jeremy nodded – this made sense.

After an indeterminate amount of time later, they were still at a standstill. Chrysalis had quickly rejected any notion of intimidation, as “she wasn’t about to go back to that”. Grudgingly, Luna had accepted this line of reasoning, and the three were now firmly planted on square 1.

“Ugh – at this point I’m tempted to just turn the guy over to the FBI – why can’t they deal with him? He’s a threat to national security, or something, right?” Jeremy frustratedly remarked. Luna looked at him in delight.

“Of course! They have many more resources than us – and they can detain him and figure out what to do!” Chrysalis looked at the two of them for a moment, then shrugged and nodded.

“Whatever floats your boat. The last time I checked on a map, he was somewhere in the state of Florida – although he could have moved,” she noted.

“Well, that solves that, I guess…” Jeremy remarked uncertainly – he had meant the idea of involving the FBI as a joke, but he could see it being taken seriously.

For a while, Chrysalis too wanted to discuss her day with him.

“Weren’t you just complaining about how my dreams are boring?” Jeremy taunted. She looked at him with a slight glare.

“We never talk anymore – you’re always at school,” she grumbled. Jeremy laughed, and with a nod of his head, gestured for her to continue her train of thought.

This was interrupted quickly, however, by Luna staring at him.

“…What?” Jeremy finally asked during a pause in the conversation.

“Thou art… fading,” she commented.

Jeremy looked down to find that every few seconds (as far as the concept of ‘seconds’ went here), his body would fade and turn translucent.

“Okay, what does that mean?” he asked.

“It would usually mean that thou art waking up, but what-?” Luna began, but was unable to finish her sentence before the world around Jeremy went black.

Jeremy sat up in shock as he woke up – an incredibly loud crack had just sounded right outside his house. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d say that was… gunfire! Resolving to save his conversation with Luna and Chrysalis for later, he hurriedly pulled on his suit, taking out the assault rifle.

As he headed out into the night, the clock on the oven told him it was approximately 2 A.M. He was amazed that neither Luna or Chrysalis had woken up – the gunshots repeated once every few minutes, as though whoever it was had been target practicing. Heading out the door, he kept to the shadows, hoping he wouldn’t be seen. He followed the sound of the gunshots until he reached a street the same as any others, devoid of all activity. Sighing with irritation, Jeremy was about to go back and wake up Luna for help when he found himself locked into an iron embrace, and a cloth pressed to his nose and mouth. Jeremy accidentally inhaled in shock, and the sweet smell changed to a very rotten one. Why had he forgotten his helmet? Why hadn’t he woken up Luna beforehand for assistance? Why… Before he could finish this latest thought, he passed into dreamless unconsciousness.

Waking up, Jeremy’s first thought was that he had a hell of a headache. His second thought was to vaguely wonder where he was, and why he was in the back of a car seat. Too out of it to process these thoughts, he slipped away from reality again.

The second time he woke up, the headache was even worse, and he was smelling something awful. A blurry object was taken away from his face, and he groaned as he tried to remember what had happened.

“Oh, God… where am I?” he mumbled.

“Safe,” a clipped voice answered. Why did Jeremy remember that voice? Everything was so confusing… Wait… the hive. Chrysalis… where was Chrysalis? She had been talking to… Jeremy’s eyes flew wide open as the truth hit him.

“Who are you?” he asked, hoping the answer wasn’t what he thought it was.

“Name’s Ethan,” the other guy grumbled, coming into view. “Not that it matters, because you and I aren’t going to know each other for much longer.” As casually as though he were flicking a light switch, he pulled out a pistol from a jacket pocket, and it occurred to Jeremy how very haggard Ethan looked: Specifically, as though he had been up for the entire night – perhaps more than one.

Aiming the gun at his face, Ethan spoke carefully, as though he had rehearsed this moment.

“Now. The longer you talk, the longer you live – and since that plagiarized suit of yours prevents me from hurting you anywhere but the head, first slip-up means death.” Jeremy mutely nodded.

“First question: How did you seduce Chrysalis?” Ethan asked.

“I… solved the problem of feeding her hive, and then we got to know each other as friends,” Jeremy hazily replied.

Ethan nodded as if this made sense to him. “Alright, next question: What do I have to do to steal Princess Celestia from you?” Jeremy looked up at him sharply, and Ethan waved the gun in his face.

“No lying or stalling, now. Remember, I can kill you just like that.” A thin bead of sweat made its way down Jeremy’s face.

“You… what? I don’t know how you would do that, I’m no miracle worker!” Jeremy protested.

“Shut up!” Ethan yelled, causing the pressure in Jeremy’s skull to spike to unbearable levels. Finally, his head couldn’t take it anymore, and he gratefully accepted oblivion.

Next Chapter: Chapter 40 Estimated time remaining: 5 Hours, 39 Minutes