Pennaprose stowed his transmitter away and fixed his eyes to the sky, waiting. "...Second Sun? Apt... considering these changelings are about to have just that..."
Lyra put a hoof on his shoulder. "Penni? What exactly are they doing?"
He smirked. "Keep your eyes trained to the sky, in the direction of the entrance. It's something they cooked up."
They all trained their eyes to the same patch of sky that Pennaprose was watching. As they watched, a small pinprick of light rose over the cliff in the distance.
"...What is that?" asked Fluttershy.
Twilight's ears perked up. "...I'd wager to guess that that is the 'Second Sun' you were talking about?"
"Yes. And our first, perhaps only, chance. When that thing lands..."
They watched form the alley as the fireball flew through the sky towards the entrance of the city. Already he could hear cries of shock...
It impacted the ground, sending a small shockwave throughout the city. He could hear a few windows crack, but it was quickly drowned out by the roar of a dragon. He saw a jet of flame fly upwards from the place of impact.
"Figures. She was told to raise hell, and she picks a dragon to do just that," remarked Pennaprose. "...C'mon, let's go inside. I can't sense any changelings on the ground floor..."
They ran full-tilt through the alley and into the doorway without further comment. The antechamber was large, centrally built and lined with branching paths. Pennaprose closed his eyes and sent out a magic pulse to determine the correct path.
It echoed from the one at 3 o'clock, revealing a staircase up. "...To the right," he said.
They made haste. He kept an eye trained to the ceiling; nothing except an elaborate chandelier hung from there, but something about the silence unnerved him. Dash spoke his concerns first.
"This is too easy..." she said. "Isn't this the Queen's palace? You'd think she'd have at least some guards stationed around to do their job."
"We can hope we're lucky, or that she's too confident," said Lyra. "In the brief time I was a changeling, I could hear her thoughts and plans; the magic was fresh and she was close enough, so I could still divine her motives and thoughts crystal clear then. It's a combination, I think."
"Excuse me?" asked Dash. "Gosthette said something about a hive-mind, but what is that?"
"It's a facet of changelingdom," answered Pennaprose. "The Queen and her subjects share a loose mental connection that allows them to gauge the status of one another. It's a kind of specialized telepathy."
"I'd like to study it one day," said Twilight wistfully. "Telepathy is a branch of magic that is very untested..."
They climbed the stairs, as silently but quickly as possible. "Anyway, she is both over-confident that we cannot beat her commanders... and that she didn't account for the fact that we might use the tunnels," whispered Lyra. "Our own luck, as I think an entire squadron or five used the tunnels just before us. I saw fresh hoofprints back in the tunnels."
Pennaprose let out another magical sonar wave, this time slowing down at the reception of a signal. "Hold... she didn't completely neglect to have guards. There are four ahead."
Dash dropped from the air, landing lightly on his back. "So what's the plan? Are we going to go just go in all hooves flying?"
"I'd thank you to get off my back..." said Pennaprose. "But no, the longer we can keep the element of surprise with us, the better..."
"Granny Pie's not here, though!" said Pinkie, unexpectedly loud. She received a silencing glare from the group. "Eheheh... sorry," she whispered.
The stairs let off on a landing, a door to the right exiting to a room that let them hide from any that may reside in it. Pennaprose held a hoof behind him and snuck carefully up to it...
He sent out another magic sonar wave, this one more focused. "...Four changelings. Two at the end of the hallway, two in the middle..." He switched to his hive-mind. "At attention, all of them vaktion leaders... I'm sensing Apparati II, IV, VII, and VIII."
"So it's four versus eight? I like those odds," said Dash quietly.
"It's not going to be that easy... Vaktion leaders are second in command after the true commanders," warned Pennaprose. "Don't drop your guard..."
Without warning, a siren blared in the halls. He sensed the guards ahead moving from their post towards them. "...Forget it! Full charge ahead, keep to pairs! We've been discovered!"
They rounded the corner as Dash let out a war cry. Lyra stuck close behind him as he readied an ice beam.
Twilight rushed in front of the pair of them, shooting magic beams indiscriminately. They grazed two of the guards, but neither slowed; Pennaprose drew Changeré and sidestepped around Twilight as they guards drew their own weapons and pounced.
Steel met steel with a resounding clang; he managed to block one of the guards while Lyra had drawn Djiingoh and covered the second one. "Lyra! Don't take any unnecessary risks, okay?" he asked, shooting his freshly charged ice beam at the changeling he intercepted, knocking him back and freezing him to the ceiling.
"You don't have to worry about me, Penni," she said, forcing the blade lock outwards and following up with a quick jab with the hilt to her attacker's temple. He stumbled backwards, eyes crossed. "I learned the blade the same way you did. Frankly, better than you did. So you don't go taking unnecessary risks."
Dash raced ahead and rolled to the side to avoid a jab from one of the guard's lance. She collided with him, sending both careening down the hall. Applejack dodged another guard's axe thanks to Rarity's magical interception and bucked him square in the jaw, sending him to join the changeling he froze to the ceiling. The pair of them hung, struggling as the fourth guard recovered from Lyra's hilt jab. He transformed into a tiger, snarling with his claws extended.
Pennaprose held his blade steady as he slid to the side of the hall, keeping the guard's attention. "Lyra, Twilight, I'll need to focus an ice beam to trap them all for sure. Cover me until then, please."
They stepped wordlessly in front of him as he charged another. I never could master rapid succession use of this power, Pennaprose thought to himself as chill energy gathered at his horn.
Twilight cast a few fireballs at the tiger, the heat of it melting the walls slightly. The guard did not flinch, instead electing to bring a single paw down, slicing through the flames and cooling it with chill energy. Lyra advanced with her sword held level, making quick stabs at the tiger to force him back. It snarled in annoyance, transforming once more into a bipedal middle-sized dragon and readied a blast of fire.
Pennaprose charged ahead and shot a readied ice beam with all he could muster, intercepting the fire blast and overpowering it; it froze the dragon-changeling to the back wall.
He let out an exhausted sigh. He had put a lot of force behind those two ice beams, to ensure that his targets didn't escape, but already he was feeling exhausted. He shook his head and readied a third one.
Dash flew backward, bruised and battered from her wresting match with the third guard. "You all right?" he asked.
"What, you're worried about me?" said Dash jokingly. "I'm not a flimsy piece of–hey, where's Fluttershy?"
"...Here!" came Fluttershy's voice form behind them. She was hiding in the stairwell. "I don't like fighting..."
"No matter..." said Twilight. "Just as long as you're safe and with us, that is fi—woah!"
Twilight ducked as an errant bolt of lightning shot across the room, almost hitting her. He turned to look at the caster; the guard's horn was crackling with energy and he was half-translucent. "A lightning bolt? No doubt a gift from the windingos," remarked Pennaprose.
"I will give you one last chance to surrender, intruder," warned the guard in a deep, yet wispy tone. "Master Krayka gave me my orders to defend this place, but he does not wish to see you dead. A little fried, perhaps... but not dead."
Dash snorted. "Please... I can take you on my own! A little thunder doesn't scare me!"
The guard responded by raising a fence made of electricity, blocking the only way up. "Then you shall not pass. Simple as that."
The other guard, the one stuck in the ceiling, dropped to the floor behind them. His form was nebulous, resonant with heat and dripping with lava; between the heat from him and the electric gate, he was beginning to loose focus on his charging ice spell.
Lyra stomped one hoof on the ground, putting herself between the lava guard and the rest. She raised Djiingoh reverently, whispering an unheard mantra to it.
The lava guard advanced, spraying flecks of lava on the walls and floor. As if possessed, Lyra glided forward, blade scraping the ground, and gave a single upward swipe with Djiingoh, underneath the assailant's guard.
A high-pitched whistling hit the air, and the lava suddenly hardened and turned to dust. The guard that was there had completely vanished.
The removal of the largest heat source heartened him, letting him regain his focus. He put his last scraps of remaining energy behind his ice beam, launching it with all his force at the electric barrier. It passed through with minimal resistance, nailing the last guard and driving him back. He held fast, but in the haze of energy, he could spot Pinkie; she snuck up behind the guard and swiped at his legs, sending him off balance and letting his beam send him into the wall to join the other changeling.
The barrier faded, and with it the heat to invite a silence once more. He paused, letting the recoil from his efforts wash over him. He dropped to the floor, exhausted.
"Penni! Oh Penni, are you all right?" asked Lyra, who was hovering over him, blade lowered.
He raised a hoof to his head, where the pain was greatest. "I need to rest a few minutes... Sorry, girls..."
"No, you get your rest," said Lyra. "You did most of the work in that fight."
"Three out of four incapacitated. Not bad," said Twilight. "Although... what about that lava guard? What happened?"
Pennaprose closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing. The pain in his forehead was subsiding slightly, but it was still white hot from his magic expenditure.
Lyra planted Djiingoh in the ground beside her. "Quitangu crafted this blade after studying windigos. It is named after the first windigo... because that is whom she wishes to see it slay one day, or so she says. It carries a material in the end of its edge that is fatal to them. A double-edged blade, should they have been wielding it..."
The heat suddenly dissipated from his forehead, but a painful stretching sensation replaced it. He grunted in pain, but it too disappeared as quickly as it came. Pinkie gasped and pointed to him, which caused the others to follow suit.
"Pennaprose, your horn! What happened?" asked Pinkie.
"...It's blackening..." said Lyra.
He glanced upwards; the tip of his horn was all that he could see, but it was pitch black.
"The conversion is accelerating," ascertained Lyra. "No doubt as a side affect of your recent spell casting. ...Don't fight anymore until after Aloysius can get you checked out."
"Lyra... how will I help, then? I can't let you all just defend me. I will not. Why else did I come along?"
"No. I will not see you suffer as a permanent changeling," said Lyra stubbornly. "I don't want you to suffer a worse sort of discrimination that I did."
He snorted impatiently. "Even so, we need every last bit of power to stop Chrysalis. Permanent changeling or not–" said Pennaprose as he tried to roll over onto his hooves. "–everypony will suffer the same discrimination if the changelings win. I can't just let you–"
"Stay by my side..." prompted Lyra, uprooting Djiingoh and sheathing it. "We will fight together with our blades against Chrysalis. That shouldn't speed up the process."
He looked down at his own blade, Changeré. "I'm not terribly confident in my swordplay... but I guess if we attack together..."
He got up, still a little exhausted from the fight. "Let's go. We can't waste much time while the others are outside, battling to buy us this opportunity."
They all nodded and proceeded up the hallway, climbing the next set of stairs.
As they ascended, the lights flickered and dimmed. Noises of concern were made, but they pressed onwards. The metal clicks of the bolts that held the stairs in place and the resounding noise of half a dozen hooves and two pairs of wings filled the silence. The floor below twisted in circles as they continued onwards.
As they reached the landing, the lights died out completely, plunging them into darkness. The hallway that stretched before them was foreboding; the emergency lights, flickering crimson. There was a single door on the left, spilling out a cold and lifeless blue light. He made a shushing movement, then snuck carefully towards the doorway.
He peered around the corner.